Making Faces (8 page)

“Well, It's too late to make a lion skin out
of fondant, but I think it'll pass muster.” Elliott smiled. “I've
got another cake to finish, and then we'll head out. You need to
get home. Don't want you getting burned out.”

“You're the one who has to come back
tonight,” Ambrose said amiably. Elliott Young staggered his hours
so he could be at home in the evenings, which meant he was back at
the bakery at around two in the morning. He would leave at seven
when Mrs. Luebke came on shift and be back again around three in
the afternoon when her shift ended, working until seven or eight
again in the evening. Most days, Ambrose would join him after
practice, making the work go a little quicker.

“Yeah. But I'm not trying to keep my grades
up and going to wrestling practice before and after school. You
don't even have any time for that pretty girlfriend.”

“Pretty girlfriend is gone,” Ambrose
muttered.

“Oh yeah?” Elliott Young searched his son's
face for signs of distress and found none. “What happened?”

Ambrose shrugged. “Let’s just say she wasn’t
the girl I thought I knew.”

“Ahh,” Elliot sighed. “Sorry, Brosey.”

“Beautiful or smart?” Ambrose asked his
father after a long pause, never breaking his rhythm with the
rolls.

“Smart,” Elliott answered immediately.

“Yeah, right. That's why you chose mom, huh?
'Cause she was so ugly.”

Elliott Young looked stricken for a heartbeat
and Ambrose immediately apologized. “Sorry, Dad. I didn't mean it
like that.”

Elliott nodded and tried to smile, but
Ambrose could tell he was hurt. Ambrose was really on a roll today.
First Fern Taylor, now his dad. Maybe he would have to start doing
penance like Hercules. Thoughts of the mournful champion rose up in
his mind. He hadn't thought about him in years, yet Bailey's words
rang in his mind like it had happened yesterday.

“
I guess being the champion isn't all fun
and games, huh
?”

“Dad?”

“Yeah, Brosey?”

“Are you gonna be okay when I'm gone?”

“You mean to school? Sure, sure. Mrs. Luebke
will help me, and Paul Kimball's mom, Jamie, came in today and
filled out an application for part time work. I think I'll hire
her. Money's always an issue, but with a wrestling scholarship and
with a little tightening up here and there, I think it's
doable.”

Ambrose didn't say anything. He didn't know
if “gone” meant school. It just meant gone.

The marquee in front of the city offices,
right on the corner of Main and Center, said
Going for Four!
Take State, Ambrose!
It didn't say
Go Wrestlers!
or
Let's Go Lakers!
Just
Take State, Ambrose!
Jesse
immediately took issue with the sign, but the other boys on the bus
didn't seem to mind. Ambrose was one of them. He was their team
captain. They all thought he would lead them to another State
Championship, and that was all that mattered to them.

But Ambrose was as bothered by the sign as
Jesse was. He tried to shrug it off, the way he always did. They
were on their way to Hershey, Pennsylvania for the State
Tournament, and Ambrose couldn't wait until it was over. Then maybe
he could breathe for a while, think for a while, have a little
peace, just for a while.

If wrestling was just about what happened on
the mat and in the wrestling room he would love the sport. He
did
love the sport. He loved the technique, the history, the
sense of being in control of the outcome, the way it felt to
execute the perfect takedown. He loved the simplicity of the sport.
He loved the battle. He just didn't like the screaming fans or the
accolades or the fact that people were always talking about Ambrose
Young as if he were some kind of machine.

Elliott Young had taken Ambrose all over the
country to wrestle. Since Ambrose was about eight years old,
Elliott had invested every last cent into making his son into a
champion, not because Elliott needed him to be, but because talent
like Ambrose's deserved that kind of fostering. And Ambrose had
loved that part too–being with his dad, being just one of a
thousand great wrestlers on any given weekend, vying for the top
spot on the medals podium. But in the last few years, as Ambrose
garnered national attention and Hannah Lake Township realized they
had a star on their hands, it had stopped being fun. He'd fallen
out of love.

His mind tiptoed back to the army recruiter
who had come into the school last month. He hadn't been able to get
the visit out of his mind. Like the whole country, he wanted
someone to pay for the deaths of 3,000 people on 9/11. He wanted
justice for the kids who lost their moms or dads. He remembered the
feeling of not knowing if his own mom was all right. Flight 93 had
gone down not so far away, just a little over an hour's drive from
Hannah Lake, bringing the reality of the attack very close to
home.

The US was in Afghanistan, but some people
thought Iraq was next. Someone had to go. Someone had to fight. If
not him, then who? What if nobody went? Would it happen again? He
didn't let himself think about it most of the time. But now he was
anxious and jittery, his stomach empty and his mind full.

He would eat after weigh-ins. He had a hard
time making 197 pounds and had to cut weight to get there. His
natural, off-season weight was closer to 215. But wrestling down
gave him an advantage. At 197 he was 215 pounds of power stripped
down to pure, lean muscle and not much else. His height was
uncommon in the wrestling world. His wingspan and the length of his
torso and legs created leverage where his opponents had to rely on
strength. But he had that too--in spades. And he'd been unstoppable
for four seasons.

His mother had wanted him to be a football
player because he was so big for his age. But football became
second fiddle the first time he watched the Olympics. It was August
1992, Ambrose was seven years old, and John Smith won his second
gold medal in Barcelona, beating a wrestler from Iran in the
finals. Elliott Young had danced around the living room, a small
man who had found his own solace on the mat. It was a sport that
welcomed the big and small alike, and though he wasn't ever a
serious contender, Elliott Young loved the sport and shared that
love with his son. That night, they wrestled around on the family
room rug, Elliott showing Ambrose the basics and promising him they
would get him signed up for Coach Sheen's wrestling camp the
following week.

The bus shuddered and jerked, hitting a
pothole before it lumbered up onto the freeway, leaving Hannah Lake
behind. When he came back home it would be done, over. But then the
craziness would truly start and he would be expected to make a
decision about which college to wrestle for and what to study and
whether or not he could stand the pressure indefinitely. Right now
he just felt tired. He thought about losing. If he lost would it
all just go away?

He shook his head adamantly and Beans caught
the movement and wrinkled his brow in confusion, thinking Ambrose
was trying to tell him something. Ambrose looked out the window,
dismissing him. He wouldn't lose. That wasn't going to happen. He
wouldn't let it.

Whenever Ambrose was tempted to just phone it
in, the whistle would blow and he would start to wrestle, and the
competitor in him wouldn't–couldn't–go down without leaving it all
on the mat. The sport deserved that much. His dad, his coach, his
team, the town. They deserved it, too. He just wished there was a
way to leave it all behind . . . just for a while.

“Welcome to Hershey, Pennsylvania, the
sweetest place on Earth, and welcome to the Giants Center where we
are looking live at day one of the 2002, high school wrestling
championships,” the announcer’s voice boomed out in the enormous
arena that was packed with parents and wrestlers, friends and fans,
all dressed in their school's colors, signs held high, hopes held
higher. Bailey and Fern were positioned in prime seating, right on
the arena floor with the mats that were spread from one end to the
other.

According to Bailey, sometimes being in a
wheel chair had its advantages. Plus, being a coach's kid and the
top stat keeper gave him a job to do, and Bailey was all about
doing it. Fern's job was to assist Bailey with stat-keeping–as well
as making sure he had food and a set of legs and hands–and to let
Coach Sheen know when Bailey needed a bathroom break or something
she couldn't provide. They had it down to a science.

They would plan breaks between rounds,
mapping out each day before it started. Sometimes it was Angie who
played assistant, sometimes one of Bailey's older sisters, but most
of the time it was Fern at Bailey's side. On bathroom breaks,
Bailey filled his dad in on the team standings, the point spreads,
the individual races, as his dad helped him do the things he
couldn't do for himself.

Between all of them, with Coach Sheen doing
the heavy lifting when it was needed, Bailey hadn't ever missed a
tournament. Coach Sheen had gained a little notoriety and more than
a little respect throughout the wrestling community as he'd juggled
the responsibilities to his team with the needs of his son. Coach
Sheen always claimed he got the better end of the deal–Bailey had
an amazing mind for facts and figures and had made himself
indispensable.

Bailey had witnessed every one of Ambrose
Young's matches at every one of his state tournaments. Bailey loved
to watch Ambrose wrestle more than anyone else on the team, and he
hollered as Ambrose took the mat for his first match of the
tournament. According to Bailey, it shouldn't be a contest. Ambrose
was far superior in every way, but those first matches were always
some of the scariest, and everyone was eager to get them out of the
way.

In his first round, Ambrose was matched up
with a kid from Altoona that was far better than his record. He'd
clinched the third spot in his district, making it to state by the
skin of his teeth in an overtime match. He was a senior, he was
hungry, and everyone wants to knock the champion from the pedestal.
To make things worse, Ambrose wasn't himself. He seemed tired,
distracted, even unwell.

When the match started, more than half of the
eyes in the arena were riveted on the action in the far left
corner, even though there were almost a dozen other matches going
on at the same time. Ambrose was his normal, offensive self,
shooting first, moving more, constantly making contact, but he was
off his game. He started his shots from too far back and then
didn't finish them when he might have scored. The big kid from
Altoona gained confidence as the first two minutes came to an end
and the score was tied at zero. Two minutes with Ambrose Young with
it all tied up was something to take pride in. Ambrose should be
putting the hurt on him, but he wasn't, and everyone watching knew
it.