Petey is far from convinced, but nothing can be said to change that. His father’s mentality is about as far from that of an athlete as one can get living in a country where the Super Bowl is a national holiday. Petey’s abilities remain a total mystery to him, and he can only smile and celebrate that for which he has no feel.
“Jeezus,” Johnny Rivers says as he and Petey push through the exit of Cineplex 3 at the Northtown Mall on the outskirts of Silver Creek, “get me away from this popcorn. I swear to God I didn’t even see the second half of that worthless flick. My taste buds swelled up so big they blocked my eyesight.”
“Me, too,” says Petey. “I hate when I have to drop weight. From now on I’m telling Coach I only wrestle up. Even if it means the rest of my life on JV. If I get any hungrier, my stomach will swell up like a basketball and flies will come to crawl on my eyeballs.”
“Man,” Johnny says, “no flies better crawl on my eyeballs, I’ll pick ’em off and eat ’em. Next year I’m getting on that exchange program to Japan. Those guys wrestle with their stomachs. I saw this guy on ESPN last week, his gut was bigger than me. Man, think of it. We could be puttin’ down ten pounds of burgers right now, for training.”
“Listen, man, we’re way too close to the Food Circus to be talking about this. We need to go in another direction. Where to?”
Johnny’s head whips to the right, and he comes to point like the finest of bird dogs. “My God, I’m in lust,” he says, ignoring Petey’s question and nodding ahead. “Look at that. Just look at that. We don’t get to the big city enough. If we had more women like that in our lives, we wouldn’t be forced to subliminate our sexual desires rolling around on a Styrofoam mat with stinking, sweaty bodies of our same sex.”
“What?”
“Look.” He nods again at the two girls ahead no more than twenty-five yards, staring into the window of an exclusive women’s clothing store. They talk and laugh easily, and the larger of the two has been cloned from Johnny’s Advanced Math Fantasies—necessary daydreams that got him through algebra and geometry in his first two years of high school and that are now saving his life in precalculus. She is tall and dark, with nearly jet black hair, and eyes so green he could mow them.
“I’ve gotta talk to that girl,” he says. “I’ve gotta. God makes you suffer, Petey. He really does. He calls you mysteriously to the mall to a movie I could have written—and I can barely write my name—directs you to the seats nearest in the house to the popcorn machine, knowing—because God knows all, right?—that if you eat, you die at the hands of a subhuman small-town wrestling coach with a gut the size of a small prairie dog community. The fat kid next to you stuffs enough malted milk balls and licorice whips into his mouth to make Willie Wonka blanch, and you want to kill him, but you know if you do, you’ll eat his stuff to mark your conquest and weigh in a pound over come Friday night. In other words, God creates for you hell on earth. And just when you’re about to pack your stuff and move to western Montana or northern Idaho to join a devil cult just to get even, the Lord our God reveals his plan to you. You are Job, really, and He is about to reward you for your patience, with”—and Johnny points to the strong, dark, leggy beauty in front of them—“her.”
“Oh, no, you don’t, Johnny Rivers,” Petey protests. “You know what happens when I try to talk to girls I don’t know. I can’t talk to girls I do know. Oh, no, you don’t. We go over there, you tell one of those stupid jokes you make up all the time, like ‘We do not know For Whom the Tells Bowl,’ and embarrass us both so bad we ought to shoot ourselves in the head on the spot, but you’re too thickheaded to be embarrassed, so you tell another one. Then you start talking to the girl you like, which is the one I’d like, too, if I could untie the knot in my tongue, and I’m stuck with the other one, who would rather be talking to you anyway because I’m a squirrelly geek, which is why I can’t talk in the first place.”
Johnny shakes his head. “You can’t be a winner with that kind of attitude. Look, the girl with her is cute. In fact, she’s a fox. We can’t lose on this one, Peter, my boy. This is God’s plan.”
“I don’t believe in God anymore,” Petey says. “Not after right this minute. For one thing, if God would reveal a plan to Johnny Rivers, there’s something wrong with Him, like probably the real God’s on vacation and some warped kind of angel who was supposed to go straight to hell but slipped through anyway has snuck into the control room and—”
“No time for biblical theories right now,” Johnny says, elbowing him. “They’re getting away.”
In spite of Petey’s continued protests, they follow the girls down the long corridor between small shops and around the corner toward the Northtown Mall Food Circus.
Petey’s heels dig in. “This part of God’s plan, too?” Petey says in the face of a dozen neon signs flashing the names of a dozen eateries, featuring pizza to tacos to fried chicken to Greek sandwiches on pita bread. Saliva pours onto his tongue like a river. “Johnny, don’t do it. They’re going toward the food.”
“Be calm,” Johnny says. “This is a test to prove our love.”
“I’m not in love,” Petey said. “I’m hungry. Don’t you see, if I spend ten more seconds within a hundred yards of Pizza Hut, I’ll kick out their window and eat raw dough. Don’t do this to me, Johnny. There is no good to come of this. I’m starving myself to wrestle Chris Byers. Chris Byers, Johnny. Chris Byers, who, along with everything else, is strong as a bull. Chris Byers has to gain weight to wrestle one-nineteen. While my taste buds are cannibalizing each other to stay alive, Chris Byers is probably locked inside a Burger King somewhere, trying to make weight. I came to the movies with you today to try to forget my pain, Johnny, not double it. I’m giving you one chance to save our friendship. Don’t follow those girls into the food section of this mall. I’m drawing the line here, Rivers. Don’t take one more step.”
“I’m doing this for you, Petey,” Johnny says, shaking his head again and locking his fingers around Petey’s elbow. “This is the kind of challenge that spiritually prepares you to take on a wrestler with the unique capabilities of Chris Byers. I’m as hungry as you are, and I can take it.”
“Yeah, but you’re after something a lot more spiritual than food.”
Johnny stops, Petey’s elbow still locked in his grip, and stares through the window of Taco Tango, where his eyes meet the gaze of the girl of his dreams. In a final, futile effort, Petey says, “Don’t do this,” but there is nothing left of his resolve.
At the counter Johnny orders an extra large Taco Tango Mango Shake with three cups. Petey’s tongue cramps into a tube, and spittle runs off his chin like a high African waterfall. “What are you doing? Get that thing away from me. I swear, I’ll knock it over. I will.”
“They won’t let us sit here if we don’t order. Relax, Pete. Sometimes there are dues to pay.”
Petey’s voice rises to that preadolescent pitch it always hits when he feels his life spinning out of control. “Dues are what Boy Scouts pay,” he eeps. “My mom and dad pay dues at their club so they can go there and keep the likes of your mom and dad out.” He stares at the shake as if it is the poison capsule he is supposed to bite before he steps onto the mat in two weeks with Chris Byers. That is not dues. That is cool, milky, sugary death.
“You worry too much,” Johnny says back. “Look, I wasn’t going to show you this little trick unless you needed it, but—”
“What trick?”
“Watch.” Johnny pulls hard on the straw until his cheeks puff up like a blowfish. He sloshes it around for thirty seconds or more, his facial expressions mimicking one in the throes of the final stages of the most sensual of pleasures, before spitting it into an empty container, then quickly washes his mouth out with water and spits again. He hands the shake to Petey. “It’s expensive, given zero nutritional value,” he says, “but it works.”
“Wrestlers, huh?” the dark-haired girl with the enchanting green eyes says, indicating only minimal intere
st. “Where do you wrestle?”
“Coho.”
“Oh,” says her blond, brown-eyed friend, “I know where that is. It’s a little Podunk town east of here.” She catches herself. “I mean, it’s a little place, right? Just a few thousand people.” Petey notices Johnny was right. She is a fox, almost as pretty as her dark-haired friend. If he doesn’t have to talk, this might not be so bad. He hopes the girls didn’t see him and Johnny spitting their milk shake into empty containers. It couldn’t have been a pretty sight, nor would it be considered all that intelligent.
“Yeah,” he says. “It’s pretty small. Good town, though. You ever been there? It’s a good town. I guess I said that. Only has a few thousand people. Oh, I guess you said that….”
“My friend’s mother dropped him on his head when he was born,” Johnny says. “Anyway, like I was saying, we’re wrestlers. Got a good chance to win regionals this year. Maybe even state.”
“That right?” says the dark-haired girl, seemingly taking Petey’s measure. “You guys both varsity?”
Petey, hoping to head off any talk of his upcoming match with Chris Byers, breaks in. “Johnny is. He’s undefeated since about halfway through our freshman year. Placed at state last year. Probably’ll win it this year.”
The girls look Johnny over with scarcely more interest than before. “What about you?” the blond asks. “You varsity?”
“Naw….”
“Yeah,” Johnny says. “He’s varsity. At least some of the time. He’s wrestling varsity at one-nineteen in two weeks.”
Petey grits his teeth, closing his eyes.
“Really?” the blond says.
“Yeah.” Johnny misses Petey’s telegraphic pleas, continuing. “A tough one. Wrestling Chris Byers.”
The blond flashes a look of recognition to her friend. “Really? I hear she’s pretty good.”
“She hasn’t met up with the likes of Peter Shropshrire,” Johnny says. “My friend here gives no quarter on account of sex. Mark my words, he is going to tear her a new one.”
Petey’s head is about to sink below table level as the blond gazes at him with some concern. “I’ll bet that’s tough,” she says with what seems like genuine regard. “Do the rest of the guys give you as hard a time as your friend?”
Petey grimaces and rolls his eyes.
“But I’m also giving him pointers,” Johnny says. “Working him on a double-breasted twisting takedown. If he does it right, he’ll end up on the bottom.”
Blood floods into Petey’s head as the dark-haired girl nearly spits her Coke across the table, choking, then laughing out loud.
Johnny knows his wit has struck pay dirt. As he has always believed, the really classy girls revel in off-color humor. He presses on. “Yeah. I already told him, if she’s good, relax and enjoy it. If not, carry her all three rounds. Get the win and the goodies.”
The girls look at each other and laugh again, shaking their heads, and Petey begins inching back to an upright position. Maybe Johnny was right….
“Could get his varsity letter on the same night he loses his virginity,” Johnny says.
“Yeah,” Petey says, getting in the swing, “I—”
The roundhouse right knocks Johnny cleanly onto the cold tile floor, and in a second the dark-haired girl’s knee indents his chest. She grips both his cheeks between her fingers and pinches so hard he thinks she’s leaving fingerprints. “I think we forgot to introduce ourselves,” she says between clenched teeth. “This is my younger sister, Cindy. Cindy Byers. My name is Chris. Very pleased to meet you…Johnny, wasn’t it?”
Johnny can only nod.
Chris Byers bounces up nearly as quickly as she took him down and turns to Petey. “And you, you little geek. In two weeks I’m going to kick your ass.”
“Did you talk about this with your coach?” Granddad asks, pouring himself another cup of hot coffee and dropping to the wooden chair across the table from Petey. He is a large, thick man with a snow white beard and matching hair as thick as the day he turned twenty: Petey’s mother’s father. He is pushing seventy, which is, as he likes to remind folks, the same age as that actor fella when he started two terms as president of the U.S.A.
“It wouldn’t make any difference,” Petey says. “He’d just say, ‘You volunteered, young buckaroo. Don’t wanna go back on your word, do ya?’ Then he’d spit a big ol’ glob of brown stuff into that cup and proceed to tell me about all the times he volunteered for dangerous missions in Korea. Then all the guys would be pissed at me because it’d be my fault we had to listen to war stories. Most of ’em would rather run stairs than listen to those stupid stories.”
“Too bad,” Granddad says. “I was in Korea. It deserves better than that.” He scratches his thick whiskers and gazes out the kitchen window into the backyard and to the forest beyond. Granddad is the problem solver of the family. Mom and Dad are good for support and for backing you when you step over the line, which seems a common occurrence for Petey, but you just can’t beat Granddad for good old common sense. “What kind of friend is this Johnny Rivers anyway?” he says finally. “Way you tell this story, it don’t seem like he’s helped you out much.” He unfastens the bib on his overalls and reaches down inside to scratch.
Petey looks out through the window to those same woods, where he shot his first and only squirrel when he was fourteen. Granddad taught him to shoot the .22 and even sprang for the license and his first box of ammo. What Petey didn’t count on was running over to gather the furry trophy only to discover the triumphant moment turn hideous as he stared into the dead animal’s eyes. “Shootin’ things ain’t for everybody,” Granddad said when Petey returned in tears, and helped with a proper burial.
“Johnny’s okay,” Petey says finally. “He just doesn’t know about humiliation. Probably because it’s never happened to him.” He smiles. “Or he didn’t recognize it when it did.”
Granddad offers Petey more coffee, which he accepts. It is black and bitter and tastes like a boiled stick; but his stomach has begun to consume its own lining, and it is the nearest thing to food that won’t add weight. He needs to drop one more pound before this week’s JV match. “You know,” Granddad says, pushing his wire-rimmed glasses back up on his nose, “you’re the one puts the value on your friendship.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just that sometimes a guy like Johnny Rivers needs to know he can’t do any old damn thing at your expense.”
“Johnny’s got lots of friends,” Petey says. “He doesn’t need me.”
“Does he like you?”
“I think so. I mean…”
“Well, if he likes you, what I said is true. If he don’t like you, you’re wastin’ your time hangin’ out with him. But that’s for future reference. Seems like right now the problem you got is with this Chris Byers girl.”
Petey winces, remembering. “Yeah.”
“I got a rule,” Granddad says. “When there’s a problem, don’t do me much good takin’ it to anybody but who it’s with.”
“What do you mean?”
“You got a problem with Chris Byers, take it to Chris Byers.”
Granddad easily dodges the spray of coffee Petey chokes on. “What do you think it’s like for her?” he continues. “Bein’ a wrestler and all, if she’s pretty as you say?”
Petey stares again out at the forest. He can’t imagine. “I don’t know, Granddad.”
“That’s right. You don’t know. An’ when you don’t know, it’s ’cause information’s missin’. You think she don’t take hard a time bein’ a girl wrestler as you do wrestlin’ a girl?”
“Yeah, but it’s her choice.”
“But you don’t know why she made it. You want to maybe give yourself a chance to miss out on two weeks of pure anxiety hell, you drive over to Silver Creek and talk to her. And leave Johnny Rivers at home.”
In his wildest imaginings Petey Shropshrire can’t see himself pulling up in front of Chris Byers’s hou
se, placing his finger on the doorbell, and finding the strength to push it.
“Hi,” Petey chokes, then grimaces. “Remember me?”
“Not like you’re going to remember me,” Chris Byers says, standing in cutoff jeans and a loose white sleeveless blouse, one hand on her front door. Her look says she’s ready to give it a hard shove and jam Petey Shropshrire’s nose an inch or so into his face. “What do you want?”
Petey’s mouth opens, but only air escapes, followed by a high-pitched eep.
“Who is it, dear?” A woman’s voice from deep inside the house.
“Just a boy,” Chris calls back, emphasizing boy. She turns again to Petey. “Did you come here just to chirp at me?”
Petey opens his mouth again to speak; but his tongue and cheeks burn like the driest of hot desert sands, and his throat closes over his larynx like a noose. The door slams, and he’s staring into fresh white paint. He breathes deep. It was a fifty-mile drive over broken snow floor conditions.
Well, he tried.
What will he tell Granddad?
He walks to the edge of the porch, ready to retreat down the freshly shoveled steps to his waiting Dodge Dart, then stutter-steps back toward the door. Granddad was right, if he leaves now, he may well die within the next two weeks simply by using up a lifetime of heartbeats. He has to try….
He approaches the door; forcing out of his mind how pretty she is, he raises his hand to knock. What if her dad is home? What if he comes out? This guy botherin’ you, sweetie? Boy, you better git on down them stairs the way you came….
Halfway down the walk he remembers it’s only four in the afternoon and edges back to the top of the porch. Her dad will be at work. It’s now or never. Three times more he stutter-steps toward the door; three times he turns back. Anyone watching surely believes he didn’t get his money’s worth from his dance lessons. The boogeymen of indecision have blockaded his synapse paths, and finally, in hopeless frustration, he plops helplessly onto the top step, drops his chin in his hands, and waits for his head to clear.