One Shot Away Read online

  ONE SHOT AWAY

  A WRESTLING STORY

  T. GLEN COUGHLIN

  Dedication

  For my son, Tom, my wrestler and inspiration,

  for my daughter, Jacqueline, who shared my passion,

  and for those who give it their all

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Part One

  Trevor

  Jimmy

  Diggy

  Diggy

  Diggy

  Trevor

  Jimmy

  Jimmy

  Trevor

  Jimmy

  Diggy

  Diggy

  Diggy

  Trevor

  Trevor

  Diggy

  Diggy

  Diggy

  Trevor

  Diggy

  Diggy

  Part Two

  Trevor

  Diggy

  Diggy

  Jimmy

  Trevor

  Jimmy

  Trevor

  Jimmy

  Diggy

  Jimmy

  Diggy

  Jimmy

  Jimmy

  Trevor

  Trevor

  Diggy

  Part Three

  Diggy

  Diggy

  Jimmy

  Diggy

  Diggy

  Diggy

  Trevor

  Trevor

  Diggy

  Diggy

  Trevor

  Jimmy

  Part Four

  Trevor

  Jimmy

  Jimmy

  Diggy

  Jimmy

  About the Author

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  PART ONE

  Trevor

  TREVOR CROW RUNS UNDER LOW CLOUDS ON A RAIN-SLICKED road past houses already strung and lit for Christmas. He cuts through the iron Civil War cannons next to the VFW Hall, past a slab of limestone that marks Molly Pitcher’s grave, past the shoe repairman’s window with its giant-sized boot, past the travel agency store window with posters of families at the beach. He stops at the police station, gasping for breath.

  He clicks off the stopwatch at thirty-two minutes. He has completed four 8-minute miles around his neighborhood. His dad would be pleased. If only Trevor had listened to him last year, maybe he would have made the varsity squad.

  He peers down the long driveway between the police station and the post office at a sign that says IMPOUND LOT. His father’s truck is being stored there. Their landlord, Harry London, plans to sell it for partial payment for three months’ back rent. Trevor told his mother he wanted it. But she said she couldn’t look at it.

  Trevor jogs up the driveway. A cyclone fence surrounds the impound area. He rattles the fence and waits for a guard dog to leap from the darkness. Nothing. The gates are secured with a bulky lock and a battered chain. He crosses to the corner of the fence and hoists himself over. He scurries onto the top of a van that looks like it has had a run-in with a tree, then hops to the ground.

  His dad’s truck is jammed against the back fence. He tugs the passenger door. The cold metal creaks open. He slips in on the stiff seats, trying not to look at the windshield, at the spot where his father was watching the road when the truck in front of him hit a pothole, launching a two-inch copper pipe, twelve feet long. He imagines the vibrating pipe, working free, then blasting off like a wayward missile, smashing through the windshield.

  His dad’s chest took the full impact, cracking ribs, crushing his heart, which couldn’t pump, or do anything except leak all over his blue flannel work shirt that he liked to wear on Fridays because it put him in a good mood. A birthday gift from Trevor, a thirty-dollar shirt on sale at Macy’s.

  In the truck’s dim interior, Trevor touches the tan bench seat that is dark with stains. It’s dried, caked blood. His father’s blood! Panic swells in his chest. Then terror overtakes him like a wave knocking him down at the beach. He covers his face. His cheeks are wet and he is coughing. He tries not to look at the windshield. His mother was right. They shouldn’t sit behind this steering wheel where his father’s blood spilled.

  He hurries from the truck.

  In the yard, he lifts a cement block and heaves it onto the windshield. It fractures the glass into tiny cubes and rests there like a giant, legless, gray spider in a web. He finds a fence post and beats the truck, beats it until there isn’t a smooth side. The sound reverberates off the police station. London won’t make a profit from this sale.

  A dog barks in the distance. Lights snap on in the station. Two men walk to a rear-door landing. Trevor beats the truck again and again. No one cares about the wrecks in this lot, or the blood on the seats, or that his family’s name was misspelled in the newspaper, “Joseph Craw Dies in a Freak Turnpike Mishap,” or the fact his father died for no reason except that some lazy jerkoff forgot to properly secure his plumbing supplies.

  The men jog toward the lot. “Hey, you, just stay where you are,” one yells.

  Trevor drops the post. He scales the fence on the other side of the yard. He scrambles over, head first, then swings his legs to the ground at the last second.

  Trevor slips into his house, closes the door, and touches his father’s bare coat hook. The feeling of emptiness rocks him. His world is permanently tilted. Nothing is the same without his father. He wipes his forehead on his sleeve. He’s coated with sweat.

  “Trevor, is that you?”

  His serious expression and intense black eyes reflect in the hall mirror. His cheeks are hollow. His hair is thick and past his shoulders. His complexion is marked with acne. He looks like his father, like an Indian. He doesn’t look like other kids in Molly Pitcher. He’s been called a half-breed, Tonto, Chief Sitting Bullshit, Indian Boy, Injun Joe, Geroni-ho-mo. His father told him to be proud. “You are a member of an elite breed. You can trace your blood directly back to the tribe,” he said. But Trevor doesn’t feel proud. At school, he walks, hood up, eyes to the ground, hiding himself, hiding the color of his skin and, most of all, his nose, wide and flared, like an outgrowth of his skull, more than a nose. Last season, Diggy Masters, a guy who rides Trevor endlessly, joked that if Trevor ran into a wall with a boner, he’d break his nose first. Trevor just stared at him. No comeback, nothing.

  “Trevor, don’t be rude, we have company.”

  He hangs up his hoodie.

  Harry London is in Trevor’s dad’s chair at the kitchen table. No one has sat there since the accident. Why is London here? Could the police have already called his mother? Could London and his mother know about the truck?

  “How you doing, Trevor?” Harry London shifts his weight forward. His chair creeks. He’s big and bulky as a bear. His black mustache hides most of his smile. Trevor’s sure London has his eye on his mother. She’s Italian, strong and square-shouldered, with large, dark eyes. She doesn’t have to put on fancy clothes or use expensive creams. Tonight, she’s wearing sneakers and a blue housedress with the hem falling down in the back. The collar is visibly frayed, but it doesn’t matter.

  Trevor ignores London and looks at his mother for some explanation.

  “You didn’t get hurt, did you?” She always asks this.

  “I was jogging.” He keeps his hands in his sweatpants pockets and watches their faces.

  “You look upset about something,” says his mother. “You did get hurt, didn’t you?”

  “No, I’m fine, just tired.” They don’t know anything. He releases a breath.

  “Trevor’s been working extra hard. He’s trying to make the varsity wrestling team,” she says. “He has to beat the top wrestl
er.”

  “He’s not the top wrestler, we’re just in the same weight class,” explains Trevor.

  “As long as you don’t get hurt,” she says.

  She’s not the greatest listener. His father was the listener. Camille’s the doer, always hustling. She’s sold Mary Kay Cosmetics, Tupperware, opened a kiosk at the mall pushing men’s ties and costume jewelry, and distributed food samples at an outlet store.

  Camille nudges Trevor over and opens the oven door. She pokes muffins with a toothpick. “Wrestling is so brutal. It was my husband’s idea. Joe wrestled in high school. I can’t watch it.”

  “It wasn’t all his idea,” says Trevor. “And he didn’t wrestle for his high school. He wrestled for the reservation. They had their own team.”

  “I said he wrestled in high school, not for the high school. But my point was, your father did it and loved it and now he has you doing it.” She closes the oven and drops the toothpick into the garbage. “I think it’s dangerous, all that physical contact.”

  “No, Mom, it’s not dangerous. Skydiving and bungee jumping are dangerous. Wrestling is a sport.”

  London is listening and nodding as if he understands everything; it’s pissing Trevor off.

  “I’ve made your mother a proposition.” London keeps his eyes on her. “I’m buying a motel. I want her to work for me. You both could live there.”

  “Live there?” asks Trevor.

  “It’s a business venture, a risk, and I need someone dependable.”

  “Where are you going to live?”

  “Oh, I’ll keep my house. I’d just work there.”

  Trevor turns to his mother.

  “We were only talking about it.” She brushes stray hairs from her face like she always does when she’s put on the spot. “It’s totally up in the air,” she says.

  “I’m not moving,” says Trevor.

  “Harry, let me talk to him,” says Camille in a hushed voice.

  “I’m right here,” says Trevor. “I’m not ten years old.”

  “Hey.” London smiles. “I’m excited about maybe making a little money, that’s all.”

  Trevor holds an impatient stare at his mother. His father is buried in the cold ground and here’s Harry London sitting comfortably in his chair. It doesn’t seem possible.

  Jimmy

  IF ANYTHING HAPPENS, IF ANYONE PULLS UP ON US, TAKE OFF running. You run and you run until you can’t run no more. You got that?” Jimmy’s father swings his blond hair off his forehead. His mouth is tight over his squared-off jaw.

  “What about you?” asks Jimmy.

  His laugh breaks into a pack-a-day hack. “I’ll have the load in the back, I wouldn’t get far. I’ll talk my way out, somehow.”

  What could his father say at one in the morning with his truck stacked full of fresh lumber?

  They hit a watery pothole, sending the truck lurching forward. Jimmy’s knees bang on the dash. At six-foot-one, he is lanky and lean, with broad shoulders.

  Pops accelerates. “You know where you are, right?”

  Jimmy stares at the dark stretches of rolling hills. His narrow face, gold crew cut, and blue eyes reflect back at him in the glass. “At the old horse farms?”

  “So, if you have to run, you take Iron Ore Road. Stay low. If a car comes by, duck behind a tree. I’ll meet you at the church on Molly Pitcher Road.”

  “Which one, the one we don’t go to, or the one we never went to?”

  “Just be on your toes.” Pops enters a driveway, passes a gate, and stops the truck.

  A stooped-over man shuffles toward them carrying a flashlight.

  “What about this guy?” asks Jimmy.

  “He’s okay.”

  “Define okay.”

  “He’s okay,” snaps Pops.

  The man flashes the light in the truck’s passenger window. Jimmy shields his eyes with his hand. Embroidered above the man’s breast pocket are the words “Ever Vigilant Guard Patrol.”

  Pops gets out and crosses in front of the truck’s headlights. Jimmy cranks down his window. Past a rectangular work trailer and mounds of sand and gravel, a white sign reads HORSEMAN’S ESTATES. COUNTRY LIVING IN A SUBURBAN SETTING. OPENING SOON.

  Jimmy’s palms are sweating, yet he’s ice-cold. He just wants it to be over. He doesn’t want to be here, and Pops knows this. It’s Jimmy’s senior-year season. The only one that really counts. He’s ranked the best 160-pounder in the county. The favorite to win the New Jersey States. But he hasn’t won anything yet.

  “It’s stacked a half mile on the right,” says the guard. “Take the exit after the dirt road, that’ll lead you right back to town.”

  Pops removes a wad of bills from his shirt pocket and hands it to the guard.

  Jimmy’s risking it all because his uncle Johnny is stinking drunk. Jimmy is the “stand-in” and it makes him hate his father, because maybe the truth is, Pops is a selfish prick who doesn’t really care about him. Pops could be destroying his senior-year season, a wrestling scholarship, his way out of Molly Pitcher, New Jersey. Jimmy also hates himself for climbing into the truck tonight. But Pops, he’s so good at getting over on everyone.

  Pops gets back in and drives with the lights off. “Tonight’s my only chance at the load,” he says. “Tomorrow morning, the carpenters will be pulling the pile apart.”

  “And what do they do when it’s not there,” scoffs Jimmy.

  “I’m just saying it’s tonight or never. You can’t leave lumber sitting for too long. It warps.”

  “Yeah, right, and this is just an educational father and son outing.”

  “Whoa, what’s with the attitude?” Pops drives slowly around new cement curbs. “Everything’s going fine. I’m more scared when I look in the mirror.” He tries to laugh but coughs again. He’s a smoker, something else Jimmy would never do.

  At a curve in the road, a doe leaps and bolts into the darkness, its white tail flashing side to side in the moonlight.

  “You’re a good son. I’m proud of you. I think of you first, even before your mother and brother. Did you know that?”

  “If you’re so proud of me, then what am I doing in this truck?”

  “It’s one small favor, and do you think I’m doing this for me? I told you, I got bills.”

  Jimmy’s heard this before. With Pops, it’s always, “all I need is this one small favor.” Tonight, at Jimmy’s bedside, Pops said it was “this one small favor” or foreclosure on the house. “You want us living in a homeless shelter?” he asked. “You want that on you?”

  Pops must know that everything Jimmy’s worked for is on the line. Pops is practically the leader of the “Varsity Dads,” a clique of fathers who sit shoulder to shoulder at the wrestling matches and keep the Minute Men Wrestling website updated and the Asbury Park Press informed of wins and losses.

  Up until tonight, Pops kept Jimmy away from his “side business.” Jimmy glances over at his father and doesn’t see the handsome face that cheers him at his wrestling matches. This man scares him with his hair hanging over his forehead and his hands tense on the steering wheel.

  The road becomes bumpier. Pops’s cigarette bounces in his lips. He backs the truck to a dark pile, then shuts off the engine.

  The November night is chilly and damp. Jimmy steps across the soft, raw earth, gouged from toppled trees and machines. The smell of the old horse farm fills his nostrils. Stars splash the sky. Jimmy chooses a bright one and wishes, “Get us home safe.”

  Pops slits a tarp with a razor knife. The ties snap like stretched rubber bands. “You see, this isn’t going to be difficult.”

  “Pops, that’s not the point. I shouldn’t be here. Period.”

  “You think you’re too good for it?”

  “I know I’m too good for it.”

  “You’re going to learn family comes first. I’m going to be paying the mortgage this month, and your mother, you, and your brother are going to have a roof over your heads.”

  T
hey lift the boards four at a time and slide them into the truck bed. Mostly two-by-sixes, over sixteen feet long, heavy and awkward. Dew seeps through Jimmy’s Nikes. The work numbs him to what he’s doing. He tells himself that soon he’ll be back in bed, warm, protected.

  Pops turns left after the nursery on Wright Street. Ahead, a police car is parked on the side of the road. The officer has the interior dome light on and is reading something. Jimmy’s stomach levitates into his throat. “Pops, that’s a cop.”

  “Relax.”

  “What if he stops us?”

  “He won’t.”

  “But what if he does? Do I jump and run?”

  “No, act normal. I’ll talk us out of this. Just remember, we’re going to a job site. We’ve got to be there at dawn.” When they pass the police car, its headlights snap on and it pulls onto the road. “We’re doing a job in Bergen County,” says Pops, making it up, “building a deck, and we left early because the truck is loaded and we’ve got a long, slow ride. You got that?” The police car’s headlights reflect in the rearview mirror. “You got that?”

  “Got what?” Jimmy wants to run. He would feel better running than sitting in the truck waiting to get arrested.

  “The story!”

  “I’m going to be sick.” His voice is high and cracks. He feels panic from his balls all the way to his throat.

  “Get a hold of yourself.” Pops’s eyes dart from the rearview mirror to the road. The police car speeds up. It’s directly behind them. The emergency lights flash on.

  “He’s pulling us over!” Jimmy unlocks his door.

  “Just calm down.”

  “Should I run?”

  “I’ll handle it.” Pops pulls the truck over in front of an abandoned vegetable stand stacked with wooden boxes. Gravel crunches under the tires. “Jimmy, keep your mouth shut, you understand?” He stamps his cigarette in the overflowing ashtray. “Sit back and listen. You might learn something.”

  The policeman stands to the rear of the truck cab, shining his flashlight into the driver-side window. “License and registration.”

  “What’s the matter, officer?” Pops fumbles through his wallet. Jimmy grips the door handle; one flick and he’s sprinting.