ELIXIR by Gary Braver

Author:Gary Braver
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2010-03-31T21:00:00+00:00

Three

But at my back I always hear

Time’s winged chariot hurrying near;

And yonder all before us lie

Deserts of vast eternity.

—ANDREW MARVELL, “TO HIS COY MISTRESS”

21

THE PRESENT

DEVIL’S LAKE, WISCONSIN

The kid with the blond ponytail under his cap was good.

He was from Pierson Prep where they had an experienced team and a dedicated coach who trained his wrestlers as if they were heading for the Olympics.

Wally Olafsson had watched the kid’s last match earlier that afternoon. He had pinned the captain of Appleton Tech in a mere thirty-nine seconds. He wasn’t too tall, but he was well-built, fast, and balanced. Worse, he knew some fancy moves Wally’s son, Todd, hadn’t experienced before, including a cunning reverse cradle. Unfortunately, Todd was facing the kid for first-place finals in the 135-pound weight class for the region. If Todd won, he’d go home with a two-foot-high trophy. If he lost, he’d take second and a fourteen-incher.

It was after seven, and the gym was packed with wrestlers and spectators filling the stands and pressed five deep around the three mats where the matches had been running continuously since ten that Saturday morning. Parents with cameras were squatting on the edges, hooting and hollering for their boys.

Wally sat high in the stands so he could get an overhead zoom of Todd through the video cam.

All around him were wrestlers—young hardbodied Zeuses smelling of Gatorade and testosterone. The heat of their presence took him back to his own high school days when he played varsity baseball at Buckley High in Urbana. Now he was fat, bald, and grossly out of shape. His joints cried out just watching the boys twist each other into crullers. Yet, there was a time when he, too, was lean and made of hard rubber. But, sadly, at fifty-seven, Wally Olafsson had decided that he was beyond physical fitness and had settled into middle age ripeness. George Bernard Shaw was right: Youth is a wonderful thing; too bad it’s wasted on the young.

Because Marge had moved to the other side of the state with Todd after their divorce, Wally saw his son wrestle only at these weekend tournaments. And this was the biggest—a three-state regional. Wally could barely steady the camera as Todd faced off with the kid in the green Pierson tights. First place would mean everything to Todd.

The ref blew the whistle, and instantly the Pierson kid dropped to a predatory crouch, dancing to keep Todd at bay. It was the same strategy he had used in his last match—start low, jig a few seconds, then springing to take his opponent off guard and pulling him down like a cheetah on a gazelle.

Tiring of the sparring, Todd made a move to get the kid in a headlock. But he missed. And the Pierson boy flew up, catching Todd around the shoulders and pulling him down on his back with a hard thud. In a reflexive squirm, Todd rolled onto the kid’s back which through the viewfinder seemed like a smart move but proved fatal—a ploy the Pierson kid had used on his last opponent.

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