A Never-Ending Show — Bring It: Chapter 21

Even though it was the last match of the round, the tournament was suspended until the medical team left the mat. The officials asked everyone except for the emergency personnel to leave the mat and return to their seats. In passing, I heard Pam’s voice calling out to me.

“Let her through,” I requested.

“They’re taking him to the hospital. He’s on oxygen,” she revealed.

“Is he breathing?”

“I don’t know. I think so. They were still working on him.”

“Were they still administering CPR?” Jason asked.

“No, I don’t think so. They had a mask on him, though,” she said.

“It’s not your fault,” Coach Friske said as he corralled my shoulders.

“No, it’s not,” Coach Ellis confirmed, then he turned and quietly asked Pam to go back to her team. In doing so, he reached, prepared to push her away. Protesting immediately, I seized his arm just above the wrist. “No!” I glared at him. “Nobody touches her.”

“It’s okay,” Pam stepped back, away from my head coach but closer to me. “Brent, it’s fine, really.” She took my face between her two hands and smiled, drawing my eyes to look into hers. “It’s okay. We’ll talk later. After the tournament, after you win, we’ll talk, okay?”

Feeling detached from my nodding head, I barely registered her smile. I wasn’t completely there. Somehow, somewhere in the process I lost control and was floating, merely observing. Passively, I watched as Pam hurried back to her team.

Coach Friske ushered me to my seat and sat on the vacancy beside me. “It looked worse than it was.”

Staring straight ahead, I’m not sure I could have responded, only that I didn’t.

“It looked pretty bad, but they had the mask on him so he must have been breathing,” Jason said as he took the chair on the other side of me.

“He’s breathing,” I said, finally finding words. “And he had a pulse.”

“Everyone responded quickly. I think you and Jason responding like you did help a lot,” Coach Ellis said as he stood in front of me.

“It felt like everything was in slow motion. Like it was taking forever.” I responded.

“The paramedics were there in less than a minute, probably more like thirty seconds,” Jason said.

“How? How did it happen?”

“I’m not sure,” Coach Ellis looked at me. “That hold you used is a little unusual, especially on a heavyweight Mark’s size. I’m not sure where you learned it.” He paused looking at Coach Friske.

“Not from me. Must have seen someone do it.”

“Having all his weight forced down on his chest and neck, cut off his circulation and his breathing. It only takes a few seconds to render someone unconscious,” I explained.

“I’m sure he’s never had anyone lift him like that.” Coach Friske said. “To be honest. I’m not sure how you did it.”

“My inexperience, again.”

“This is nothing you did wrong, Brent. Don’t blame yourself. It was an accident.”

“There are no accidents.”

“Okay, there was a reason for what happened, but you didn’t foresee it,” Coach Friske said.

“He resisted the hold and-”

“That’s part of the sport, Brent.”

“What if he dies?”

“He won’t. Just - he stopped breathing for a few moments. They’re going to make sure there is nothing else wrong.”

With the mat cleared, the announcements were made that the arena would be cleared and readmission for the finals and consolation matches would begin in about an hour. Of course, the announcement did not apply to any of the teams, but it seemed a good time for me to go for a walk.

* * *

Ralph took his place on the mat, but I wasn’t paying a lot of attention. I left that for the rest of the team as everyone else was avoiding me, afraid of saying the wrong thing.

There was a coldness about it, recommencing the tournament after Mark’s injury. Even after an hour's break, it felt disrespectful. A lyric played in my head, from a concert Bart and I attended in the same arena, a line from Emerson, Lake, and Palmer’s Karn Evil 9 — First Impression, Part 2. This was becoming a never-ending show.

Engaging in self-pity was pointless. Still, I was concerned. I was going to be respectful. I put someone’s life in danger for the sake of winning. If he survived, that didn’t change the fact that I had almost killed him and may have paralyzed him.

Somehow, I needed to refocus, not that I wanted to. As far as I was concerned, I’d forfeit the match to Mike. Wrestling felt wrong to me. It should be the furthest thing from my mind. Except my team counted on me to rebound. I depended on them throughout the season. It happened so often that maybe they didn’t appreciate it anymore, and I didn’t acknowledge them when I should have. But that was the essence of belonging to a team.

A celebration erupted around Ralph as he returned triumphantly. I started to get up, but by the time I was standing Ralph had already reached me. Hugging him, I lifted him off his feet.

When we separated, he looked at me, “Are you with us, now?”

I nodded.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, Ralph. We’re all one — right?”

“Tommy’s gonna need us with him. You gotta be there, too.”

“I know. I’m sorry about…”

“I pinned my dude. That’s what matters.”

“Yeah.”

Ralph patted my back. “Let’s get ready for Tommy. Okay?”

Tipp City won the next three weight classes. There was nothing anyone else on our team could do directly. The only two Countryside wrestlers that could impact the team competition were yet to come. Tommy was one of them. Ralph and I had already done as much as we could to prevent the Red Devils from winning the team title.

While Ralph and I led the team’s cheers, Tommy completed his part of the mission. Taking a close victory on points.

Tipp City won the next weight class, though it was not against one of our wrestlers. Mathematically, they could win the district title provided no more Countryside wrestlers won.

Chuck’s match was tough and went to the very end, but he prevailed on points with the ride time advantage. With the decision in his match, our team won at least second place for the District Seven title. If Gary, Timmy, Kevin, or I won, Countryside would at least share that title. If any two of us won, the title was ours.

I wanted to win for Mark’s sake so that he could always say he lost to the district champion. I wanted to do well in the regional tournament for the same reason. Even if I didn’t go on to win the state championship, I defeated the defending champion four times in the season.

In their matches, both Gary and Timmy won by decision, but the point differential was not close. And that was more than enough to give Countryside a share of the district title. Kevin took fifty-two seconds to pin his opponent making the title undisputed. Completing the team’s perfect record in the tournament was up to me, icing on the cake in a showdown between two familiar rivals, one well-seasoned with tournament experience even if he’d never won it, and the other who had relatively less experience but had not lost a match, other than forfeits due to injury, since December.

It wasn’t the match everyone came to see, although it served as the grand finale of the two-day tournament, the necessary conclusion. One of us would be the champion and advance to the regional tournament. For the other, it was over for the season as well as a high school career.

Mike stared at me while I stepped out onto the mat to join him in the center. I didn’t need my enhanced senses to feel the burn of his focused glare. This was it, his last chance — my only chance — at the title. He said nothing, assessing my mental state, perhaps. Considering what happened in my previous match, if I were in his place, I would do the same.

My mind was only on getting the match over as quickly as possible. No point in drawing things out — whichever one of us won was fine with me except that my team’s pride was involved. They had a lot of faith in me, and I knew that if I lost, it would affect everyone in some way. I needed them and they needed me.

Already the tournament officials were bringing out the awards tables, and arranging the trophies and medals. The individual trophies for the wrestlers were larger than the one I left in Pam’s room. I’d have to finesse it if it was going to fit in my car when we returned to Countryside’s parking lot. Perhaps I needed to figure out how to shrink things. Apparently, that was a thing I needed to learn. That’s how confident I was. Regardless of the circumstances for being there, I wasn’t about to lose.

When the match began, Mike was defensive. It was a ploy, something he’d picked up, maybe from wrestling Mark or any number of others. It wasn’t a huge problem. I recognized it. What surprised me was that he used it against me. It also caused me to second guess whether it was part of a more elaborate setup.

Maybe that was what Mark talked to him about. I was overthinking it, really. No matter what he was up to, I plowed ahead, dropping him to the mat with a hip throw for a takedown, and grabbed an arm as I attempted to roll him. He resisted, but it came down to which one of us was stronger, something that we debated between the two of us, but the answer was clear that night as I completed the move.

The referee slapped the mat three times. Anti-climactic as it was, it concluded the district tournament. The disappointment I saw in Mike’s eyes I fully understood. He wanted this to be his year, to win the district title for once, just once. There was no chance for vindication. I just tied the bow on his career.

Reaching down I locked hold of Mike’s wrist and yanked him to his feet. He patted my back. “It’s a bad habit, Brent.”

“A habit you’ll never break.”

“Maybe in college? You’re going to a Big Ten school, right?”

“Yeah, but I may not wrestle.”

Mike stared at me, incredulously. That possibility never occurred to him, I guess. “Naw, you gotta wrestle. You gotta give me another chance.”

“Somebody else will have to beat your sorry ass.”

He shook his head, but smiled, then hugged me briefly just before the referee came over and raised my hand triumphantly as the District Seven Champion.

Coming off the mat, Coach Friske shook my hand. “Mark’s up and around.”

“Really?” That was good news!

“Yeah, his coach just told me.”

“Treated and released?”

“They’re running some tests on him, I guess and taking x-rays or whatever. They’re keeping him overnight. But he’ll be fine. It was too late to tell you what he said.”

“What was that?”

“You can probably guess.”

“Beat Mike’s butt?”

“That would be the polite way of expressing it.”

Greatly relieved, breathing easier, I chuckled.

“Where’s your lady?” he asked as the other members of the team surrounded us in celebration of our combined triumph, each of them taking turns shaking hands and patting both the coach and me on the back. “I figured she’d be here before me.”

“After the trophies are awarded.”

“That’s what you two decided?”

“Kinda like her team decided that for us.”

“You know — that thing earlier with Coach Ellis–”

“It’s fine. She was okay with it, I’m sure. I thought he was going to push her. And I overreacted.”

“What if he did…push her?”

“He didn’t.”

“But what if he — ”

“He didn’t. Let’s leave it at that.”

Coach Friske nodded. He understood.

Ralph and Tommy were already standing with Coach Ellis as the awarding of trophies was about to commence. Chuck and Gary were en route. Timmy and Kevin were still standing with me.

One by one the consolation winners, runners-up, and champions for each weight class were called forward to receive trophies and medals. When Mike and I received ours, we shook each other’s hands and slapped one another on the back. “All the best in Cincinnati,” Mike said. “I really mean that.”

“I’m going to miss having you around to pummel.”

“Like you ever did that to me.”

“Well, I came close.” I held the district trophy aloft. “Not sure how I’m going to get this one into my little car. The regional one’s definitely not going to fit.”

“You just deal with ’em one at a time,” Mike said patting my back. “I’m hitting the showers.”

“I’m hanging out here for a bit, for the team trophies.”

He nodded. “Take care.”

“You too,” Mike.”

As I watched him walking across the floor to the dressing room, that was the last time I ever saw Mike Smith.

Everyone was hovering around the coaches, waiting. We wanted to share the moment and the feeling everyone earned and deserved. The unexpected happened again. The team that was the underdog all season was now the district champion. However, the Springfield Sun would characterize it, no one could diminish our mutual feeling of accomplishment.

Kevin changed our name from ‘The Eliminators’ to the ‘Magnificent Seven’ in reference to the ‘60 western, one of his favorites and mine as well. The title was apt for a band of seeming misfits who were now a team that shared greatness as league and district champions.

After congratulatory handshakes from one another and the other teams, Pam delivered her special award and personal congratulations, the hug, and the kiss I had been waiting for all tournament long.

“Come up for air already!” Shane said as he patted my back and when I looked up, he offered his free hand, his other holding onto his girlfriend, Brenda’s. “Congratulations, my man.”

“Thanks,” I offered him the trophy. “Here, try it on for size. You’ll get yours next year.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“I heard Heath’s going to be okay,” Pam said.

“Yeah, the coach told me. That’s great news.”

“He was being overly dramatic,” Shane said.

“Maybe. Scared the crap out of me, though.” Turning to Pam I said, “I’d better head to the showers and get dressed.”

“Yeah, I’ve been warned about staying with the team,” Pam said, and then she kissed me again.

“Here, you want this, I think.” Shane handed the trophy back to me.

“Unless you think your faeries might prefer this one,” I said to Pam.

“Oh no, you take that one home.”

I laughed. “I’m sure this one is going to need some disassembly to fit into my car.”

“Or a temporary shrinking spell.” Pam projected between the two of us.

“You wanna teach one to me really quick?”

She kissed my cheek to get closer to my ear. “You can figure it out, I think.” Then she pulled back. “It’ll look great on top of the TV set in your family room.”

“Oh, no. Mom decided to put the other one on the fireplace.”

“Now you have three.”