Wind rapped against the bedroom window. Ivan Korske stared beyond his reflection, into the shadowy woods that surrounded the family's farmhouse. November, and its chilly prelude to winter, had long arrived. Ivan stretched a thermal shirt over his back, then pulled long johns up his thighs. A plastic rubber suit top that crinkled when he slipped it over his head came next. Sweat pants and a sweatshirt followed.

Downstairs, a grandfather clock chimed eleven. Ivan vaguely noticed, reaching for a pair of weathered running shoes from the floor of his closet. While most high school seniors spent Sunday night on the phone piecing together memories of the weekend's parties, Ivan prepared for his evening run.

Every night, regardless of how tired or hungry he was, Ivan ran. When his running shoes were soaked from rain, he ran. When his fingers were numb from the cold, he ran. The night his mother died last April, he ran.

The final judgment of his high school wrestling career hinged on whether he stood victorious in Jadwin Gymnasium, site of the New Jersey State Championships, the second Saturday of March. Each run, Ivan was certain, brought him that much closer to the dream of being a state champ and a chance to get away--far away--from Lennings.

Ivan sat at the end of his bed in the sparsely furnished room, dog-tired from an afternoon of splitting logs behind the shed out back. There was a dresser and bookshelf, a wooden chair to his left, and the red and white of a small Polish flag coloring what were otherwise four bare walls. Ivan leaned over to tie the laces of his running shoes, then looked up at the photograph of his mother as a teenager in the old country;a sturdy young woman with soft, rounded cheeks and bright hazel eyes. Ivan was proud to have the same. The silver frame glinted from his meticulous care, even under the dim light of the bedroom lamp.

Ivan imagined his mother sitting beside him, as she often had the last months she was alive. "Too many chores for you," she would say. "Your father forgets you are almost seventeen. I will speak with him. I know you have other interests..." She would smile and give a knowing nod toward the house across the street. "Even besides this wrestling sport."

Alone, in the chill of his bedroom, Ivan closed his eyes. He could hear her words, soothing and familiar, and see her face, robust and healthy, as they once were. He remained that way for some time.

"Ivan." His father’s voice bellowed from the first floor. “Are you running now?”

Ivan held back the sadness and hardened his face with unflinching resolve, the same glare he gave opponents before a match. "I'm going."

"Now?"

"Yeah, Papa, now."

He grabbed his jacket from his chair, walked out of the bedroom and down the stairs, its floorboards creaking and the radiator clanking from the rush of hot water through the metal piping. The scent of chimney embers lingered. At the bottom of the staircase, Ivan zipped his jacket and stepped out the front door.

It was a clear night. A crescent moon hung just above the tree line. Ivan looked across the street at the Peterson's house. In a second-floor corner window, he saw Shelley's silhouette, head propped on an elbow at her desk. Finishing her homework, he knew. Ivan breathed in deeply. Cold wind pressed against his body and slipped beneath his clothing. He felt alive, intensely aware of every inch of his skin, nostrils, and the full expansion of his lungs.

This is gonna be a good run.

With a shiver, Ivan started down Farmingdale Road. His running shoes bounced off the pavement edged by fields of withered grass, beyond which miles of woodlands passed in darkness. Ivan traveled back in time, as he did during every evening run.

... Lennings' first freshman varsity starter--108-lb weight class. Going against the captain from Westfield--fourth in the state the year before. Everyone talking about me. Lots of Articles. Always spelling my name wrong... Scared to death in the locker room before the match...

Forgetting what the hell to do for the fifty-four seconds it took the guy to toss me all over the mat. Struggling to get off my back, while he squeezed the half. So tight my lungs couldn't expand. Can't breathe! Can't breathe! Panic scrambling my head until, finally, giving in. Letting my shoulder blades touch the mat. The referee calling the pin, ending the nightmare.

I gave up.

Quit.

Never again.

To Ivan's right, Sycamore Creek snaked its way through the woods before emptying into a pond, a stone's throw wide, where he and the Scott brothers, Josh and Timmy, played ice hockey as kids. Six years ago, the township's new irrigation system began siphoning off water for a nearby corn farm, leaving the pond a bed of damp silt. Not that it mattered to Ivan. Shortly after, the Scotts moved away. He never heard from them again. No letters or postcards, no phone calls. They were just gone. To somewhere in Minnesota was all he knew.

A car came up behind him--illuminating the road ahead, stretching his shadow--then passed by, leaving the crimson of its tail lights and the hum of its engine to fade into the night.

And his wrestling memories, still raw years later, continued.

... first sophomore region champ at Lennings. Dreams of going farther. Riding a nine-match winning streak--all by pins. Quarterfinals of the states--122 lbs. Whipped by some guy from Newton. Hit a switch, and hit it hard. But the guy steps across and catches me. On my back. Fighting to get out. Then finally do. I score a reversal, later a takedown, but nothing else.

Time runs out. The humiliation of getting beat 11-4. Walking off the mat, the crowd staring at me like I'm some loser. No escape. Freezing-cold nights running. Drilling moves for hours and hours and hours. Thousands of push-ups. Thousands of sit-ups.

But I lost.

Losing tastes like crap.

Passing Wellington Farms, Ivan counted 564 steps along the length of the wooden fence. The night before it had been 573. He had logged so many miles on the road he could run, eyes-closed, and avoid all the potholes and broken pavement. Sweat coated his body, while heat trapped within the layers of his clothing insulated him from the cold. Ahead, a row of street lamps shined on Main Street.

The center of town was desolate. Ivan passed Mr. Johnston's Florist Shop, a fixture in town for decades; Burley's Automotive; and the Starlite Deli. In the deli's front window a poster read, Ivan--Bring Home The State Championship! A little farther, Ivan passed Hometown Hardware, then, at the corner, a neon sign blinked above Evergreen Tavern. The gravel parking lot was nearly full. Drinking away the last hours before another dreary week of life began, Ivan figured. He crossed the intersection and, soon, the center of Lennings was behind him. All Ivan could hear was the beat of his running shoes on the pavement and his steady, comfortable breathing.

... junior year, undefeated after twenty-four matches--fifteen by pins. Named one of the top 129-pounders by the Star Ledger. Gonna be Lennings' first state champ. Everyone says so.

Too many newspaper articles. Too many interviews. Too many people wanting me. Too many distractions. Semi-finals of the states, against last year's champ, from Highland Regional. So damn close...

Got caught in the first period, but came back in the third. Time running out. Needing a two-point reversal. Sat out, then hit the switch. Leaning back hard against the guy. He's gonna collapse. Ten seconds left...

Nine...

Eight...

Seven...

Six...

Five...

Four...

The buzzer goes off as the guy collapses.

No, there's three seconds left! How'd the buzzer go off too soon? They said the timekeeper made a mistake. That's it. End of discussion.

The timekeeper screwed up.

Lost in the state semi-finals.

Lost 8-7.

Miles later, Ivan turned off Vernon Avenue and started up the hill past the Wallen's house. His thighs stiffened, then burned, but he kept pumping. His heart hammered his rib cage. Ivan kept pushing, pushing beyond the pain, beyond any normal threshold, until he was overcome with numbness, still moving, still breathing furiously, but no longer feeling the impact of his feet against the road.

Finally, the hill crested and Ivan was back home. Chilled air rushed in and out of his lungs while baking heat in his body dizzied his thoughts. Ivan staggered a few yards, then stopped at the stone wall that surrounded his house, and bent over. A swell of nausea rose from his gut. His diaphragm jerked tight, and he vomited.

Good run. Damn good run.

A wisp of steam rose from the liquid. Ivan moved farther along the wall, then down the driveway. He glanced back at Shelley's window--a light was still on--then braced again. His stomach jerked a second time. He wiped vomit from his nose, spit the rest from his mouth, and continued around the house.

The back door slapped against its wooden frame. Ivan's father stood in the kitchen with a Daily Record in his hand. He was old, silver-haired long ago, but still a bull of a man. Ivan stepped inside, sat on the floor, and began untying his running shoes. His father unfolded the newspaper, nodded, and tapped a page. "This article is about you." He set his glasses and began reading, "The township of Lennings..."

"Papa, not now."

"You will listen," his father said. He again looked down at the newspaper. "The town of Lennings is nearly invisible on a map of western New Jersey. Hidden on the southern shore of Round Valley Reservoir, fifteen miles from the Pennsylvania border, it is a world away from the bright lights of Philadelphia and New York City. A blue-collar community with small-town ideals, Lennings is again buzzing with excitement for one of its own, Ivan Korske, the odds-on favorite to win the 135-pound state title." Then his father said with a firm nod, "Very nice."

Ivan said nothing. He pulled off his running shoes, tossing them to the corner, then stripped to his underwear. His sleeved shirt and long johns fell to the floor with a wet slap. Sweat glistened on his skin.

"It says teams start practice tomorrow," his father said. “But not Lennings?”

"Remember the tradition"

His father did not.

"That stupid-ass tradition," Ivan muttered, “where we start practicing a few days after everyone else—as a handicap to our opponents." He rolled his eyes. "Someone forgot to remind us we’ve had four straight losing seasons."

His father sat down heavy in the chair, as if he, too, was very tired. "Are you ready?"

“Ready?” Ivan said, annoyed. “Yeah, I’ll be fine.”

“Good,” his father said, “very good.” He then went on, “The coach from Bloomsburg telephoned earlier."

Ivan looked up for a moment, then away.

“He wished you good luck for the season,” his father said. “He would like us to drive out for a visit. We will take a campus tour. Before Christmas, perhaps. I think this would be a very good university for you.”

A drop of sweat gathered at the end of Ivan's nose, quivered, then dropped to the kitchen floor. "I'm gonna shower," he said, bending down to gather the wet clothing in his arms. Without another word he slipped into the dark of the dining room and climbed the stairs to his bedroom.

His heart pounding, Bobby Zane stood. The thirty-second rest between round-robin shots was hardly enough time to sit down and get up again, let alone catch his breath. But Bobby understood no amount of weightlifting or miles of running would have prepared him enough for the first practice of the season. He slipped the plastic headgear over his head, shifting the halo and ear pieces into place, then snapped the chin strap secure. Sweat ran down his cheeks. A drenched long-sleeved shirt clung to his body like a second skin.

“Time!” Coach Dean Messina’s voice boomed from the front of the Millburn High practice room. “Look up front!”

Bobby and his teammates turned toward their coach, the most celebrated wrestler in school history, a two-time New Jersey state champion whose wrestling legend crossed county lines as far north as Sussex and as far south as Cape May.

“You guys are not executing on your feet," Coach Messina said. He cleared space on the mat. "There are four parts to a single-leg. Stance. Set up. Drop step. Finish."

Coach Messina recoiled in a powerful stance, then lunged forward with his left leg, down to his left knee for a split second, sweeping his right leg under his body and forward along the mat. In an instant, he was back on his feet with the lower leg of an imaginary opponent secure, in a perfect position to finish off the two-point takedown. "Any questions?"

There were none. Or perhaps, Bobby thought, no one dared ask.

“Another set of round-robins, new partners,” Coach Messina said. “Seventy-five percent for right now. I want you guys working technique. Perfect technique, understand?”

Wrestlers crisscrossed the mat, motioning for partners. Bobby pointed to Kenny Jones, a returning starter at 135-pounds, whose blond hair and freckled skin seemed better suited to a beach than a wrestling room. But Kenny was a talented wrestler who rarely put himself in vulnerable positions on the mat. More than anyone else on the team, he pushed Bobby hard during practice. Bobby liked that.

“You and me,” Bobby said.

Kenny nodded.

Bobby then gestured to Anthony Molinaro, hunched over at the side of the mat. "You, me, and Kenny. I'm A."

“B,” said Kenny.

Anthony nodded, wearily. "Guess I'm C."

“A and B on your feet!” Coach Messina barked. “Everybody else off the mat.”

Bobby faced Kenny and shook his hand--a ritual indicating each was ready--then crouched in his stance. Kenny did the same. At the whistle, Bobby shuffled laterally, head up, elbows in tight, hands out in front. An opening for the takedown was a sliver wide, but that was all he needed. He attacked, dropstepping across the mat, his hands clasping behind Kenny's right knee and pulling it tight to his chest. Before Kenny could react, Bobby stepped up.

“Run the pike,” Anthony said.

But for Bobby, finishing off a single-leg takedown was as automatic as breathing. He dropped his head from Kenny's chest to his thigh and stepped back with his left leg, pulling his teammate to the mat and covering on top.

Kenny slapped the mat. "Damn it!"

Bobby offered a hand, but Kenny pushed at it, stood up, and turned away for a moment, straightening his headgear and tugging at a knee pad. When he turned back, Bobby could tell he was pissed. He extended his hand. "Ya cool?"

Kenny shook it. "Yeah, sure."

Immediately, Kenny shot a single deep, catching Bobby flat-footed. But Bobby recovered with a heavy sprawl, leaning every bit of his weight on his teammate, driving his head to the mat and spinning hard. Kenny hung on until the whistle sounded. The two wrestlers slumped against each other.

“Didn't know we were goin’ all-out, state-finals, hundred-and-twenty percent,” Anthony said, putting on his headgear.

“Me... neither...” Kenny said, between breaths.

Bobby said nothing. He wanted to stay out on the mat for every shot. No pain, no gain. Still, he was feeling the pain, the exhaustion that sucked every bit of strength out of him, until even lifting himself up off the mat was a struggle.

“B and C on your feet,” Coach Messina said.

While Kenny and Anthony squared off for the next thirty-second shot, Bobby sat against the wall, gazing beyond the condensation on the windows catching the last moments of fading daylight. He ignored the brutal heat that rose off his back and the choking humidity that thickened the air.

Things--bad things, sad things--filled his head, and in a weaker moment he might have let them bother him. But this was his senior year and nothing was going to distract him during wrestling practice, nothing was going to derail his season.

He stared around the room, feeling little pity for the new wrestlers as they stumbled their way through drills, complaining too much, talking too often, naïve to the grueling months that lay ahead. No need to straighten their asses now, he thought. In another week or two--if they hadn't already quit--they'd be as dead serious as the veteran wrestlers who would fill Millburn's varsity lineup.

Conference champs again, the Millburn Item had predicted. County champs, too, Bobby was sure.

Still, that wouldn't be good enough, he had decided months ago. An entire wall of the Millburn gymnasium was dedicated to the wrestling program, honoring the school's finest teams, with their captains' names stenciled in fiery-red letters: Dean Messina, Bill Miron, Buzz Wagenseller, John Serruto, Mark Serruto, Mike Kaufman, Paul Finn. They were names that drew wide eyes and reverent words from all Millburn wrestlers who followed.

That's what Bobby wanted. He wanted his name to stand as prominently as these others, so that in five or ten years some Millburn wrestler might look up at the board and say, "Bobby Zane, yeah, I heard about him. One of the best captains the school's ever had."

The thirty-second shot ended. Bobby's heart was still racing, sweat still flowing. He stood and took in a deep breath, waiting for Kenny and Anthony to separate, so he could step in.

The round-robins continued past five o'clock. Bobby's lungs ached, his muscles quivered. Coach Messina had drawn a threshold of exhaustion for each wrestler to cross; Bobby knew he was approaching his own. He saw his teammates looking forlornly at the clock, and even caught himself glancing over once. Then, annoyed with himself, he thought, keep pushing...

“Come on, Millburn!” Coach Messina's voice rocked the room.

The wrestling stopped.

“You’re tired, I know. You’re sucking wind, I know.” Coach Messina walked among the wrestlers. “Fear is creeping in. Fear of trying new moves when you're tired. Fear of taking chances. Fear of pushing yourself to that very edge. Some of you feel like puking, I’ll bet. Arms are dead, legs wobbly, lungs burning. What’re you going to do when you start cutting weight? When you haven’t had anything to eat in forty-eight hours? When you need to drop that last half-pound and still practice hard? How’re you going to stop that fear?

“I see you looking at the clock. Wondering if practice is ever going to end. Push yourselves! Leave everything on the mat! Break that fear today, so we won't have to worry about it tomorrow. Or next week. Or the rest of the season!”

Coach Messina circled the room. "This is Millburn wrestling, don't forget that. Since 1965, there hasn't been a more respected program in all of New Jersey. Only a few--the chosen--ever get the privilege of wearing a Millburn varsity singlet." He let that idea sink in. "Each of you has a chance to be part of that elite group."

They were the words Bobby waited to hear each season. Ever since he was third-string on the Millburn Midget team nine years earlier, he had dreamed of a spot on the varsity team. In that time, wrestling had slowly, but unquestioningly, become a part of him. He had, at first, tasted it. Then chewed and swallowed it. Until it was inside him and a part of him. To the point where he never questioned tearing his body down practice after practice, or dehydrating himself so he had too little saliva to wet his mouth, or losing so much weight his rib cage cut sharp ridges across his torso.

It was what a wrestler did.

After a final stare, Coach Messina said, "Grab a partner for double-legs."

Bobby and Kenny paired off again, alternating takedowns. Afterward, came fifteen minutes of stairwell sprints, then push-ups, sit-ups, and leg lifts, until--finally--three hours after practice had started, Coach Messina put down his whistle. "Everybody up front."

Bobby sat with his teammates in a semicircle in front of their coach. He had given everything physically. Salty sweat touched the corner of his mouth; some blood, as well. His lips curled into a faint grin. He had stomped all over that threshold.

"Sit up, or sit on your knees," Coach Messina said. "Never crawl, never lie down. Never show you're tired. Not in this room."

He pointed to a stack of papers by the door. "Schedules, grab one before you leave. It's pretty simple. A match against Morris Catholic in mid-December, the Hunterdon Central Tournament during Christmas break, then matches every Wednesday and Saturday until the district tournament. That's it, that's the season. Of course, there is a notable stop along the way." Coach Messina gestured to Bobby. "February 10th."

Bobby nodded. "Rampart High."

"They’re back on the schedule," Coach Messina said. "They’ll probably be undefeated."

"So will we," Bobby said.

Then Coach Messina, an intense man, turned more severe. "During the regular season, we compete as a team. But starting with the districts, you wrestle for your own glory." His voice was unyielding. "Each one of you should be thinking about being a state champ. It's not beyond anyone's ability. It takes a season of absolute dedication. But it starts with a dream. If you can't dream of being a state champ, you won't be a state champ."

He held his stare. The room remained pin-drop silent.

"Jumping jacks, then roll up the mats." Coach Messina gave Bobby and Kenny a quick nod. "Captains up front."

Bobby and Kenny faced the other wrestlers. On Bobby's command the team shouted the count. "One! Two! Three!..." At fifty, he and his teammates collected their clothing, kneepads, headgear, and schedules, and dragged themselves down the hall, past the empty classrooms and administrative offices, to the locker room near the gymnasium.

No one spoke.

The season had begun.

Copyright © 2005 by Alfred C. Martino. Published by Harcourt, Inc. and reproduced with permission. All rights reserved.