Trying to Save Piggy Sneed (18 page)

I said something truly stupid, like: “Is this the home of Anthony Pieranunzi, the wrestler?”

The woman laughed. “Lord, no,” she said. She'd heard of the wrestler; there had been other phone calls — and, of course, bills sent to the wrong address. (Bills had become a common theme — they were perpetually being sent to the wrong address.) The woman told me that someone had once called her husband and asked him if he was
the
Anthony Pieranunzi. It was
the
Anthony Pieranunzi I was looking for, of course. But he had slipped away with Vincent Buonomano, neither of them ever knowing how important they were to me.

I felt like talking to a friend.

Following a conversation with Sonny Greenhalgh, which deteriorated into a dispute concerning whether John Carr had wrestled at 147 pounds or at 157, I decided to call John Carr. The conversation with Sonny, as with most conversations with Sonny, entailed a fair amount of Sherman Moyer. To this day, it stands as an outrage in Sonny's life that he lost twice, in the same season, to Moyer — although this was 33 years ago. (Sonny was an All-American;

Moyer wasn't. I'm guessing that this is what makes the losses unacceptable to Sonny.) To this day, my sympathy for Sonny is moderated by the fact that, at the time, I was cheering for Moyer, who was my teammate; I didn't know Sonny then, except that I knew he was a highly regarded 130-pounder at Syracuse. My sympathy for Sonny's two losses to Moyer is also lessened by the fact that I wrestled Moyer every day for an entire wrestling season; as such, I lost to him every day — a mere
two
defeats at the hands of Moyer seems like no disgrace and no special hardship to
me.
Sonny and I
always
talk about this, notwithstanding the fact that we have other things in common to talk about. (I coached Sonny Greenhalgh's son, Jon, when Jon was a teammate of Brendan's at Vermont Academy; Jon Greenhalgh won a New England title in 1989.)

But this time my conversation with Sonny concerned John Carr — was he a 147-pounder or a 157-pounder? What turned the talk to Carr was that Sonny had heard that Carr's dad had died, and I remembered Mr. Carr fondly — from the time he'd enthusiastically stepped in and coached me at West Point. By the time I got off the phone with Sonny, there was another thing I wanted to talk to John Carr about: I knew he'd won a New England title the year before we both went to Pittsburgh, but I couldn't remember if he'd been a PG at Andover or at Cheshire — in both cases, in my memory, the uniforms were blue.

At the New England tournament that year, the Outstanding Wrestler award was given to Anthony Pieranunzi, the presently elusive East Providence standout, who'd kept me from winning a New England title; John Carr arguably deserved the award.

Pieranunzi was good, but the talk in the locker room suggested that Carr was better; I don't really know, because I never wrestled Carr. And that was why I believed Carr had wrestled at 157 pounds: if he'd wrestled at 147, I
would
have wrestled him — he would have been a workout partner, at least a few times. (As a 130-pounder, I used to work out with the 147-pounders occasionally, but the 157-pounders were too big.)

When I called information, the operator informed me that there were seven guys named John Carr in the Wilkes-Barre area of Pennsylvania, but it didn't take long to track him down. I talked to the wife of the wrong John Carr, and to four or five other wrong John Carrs, too; they
all
said, Oh, you want the wrestler.” Or: “You want the coach.”

By the time I got him, it was all over town that I was looking for him; he was expecting my call. Carr remembered me, but not my face; he couldn't put me with a face, he said. I'm not surprised; in fact, I was surprised he remembered me at all — as I said, we never wrestled each other and my wrestling was hardly anything worth
watching.
If John Carr had had a minute to watch the other wrestlers in the Pitt wrestling room, there were a lot of better guys to watch than me.

I was right: Carr had been a 157-pounder, and he told me he'd been a PG at Cheshire when he won the New England's —
not
at Andover. I told him I was sorry to hear about his dad. Carr wasn't coaching anymore; he complained that the influence of freestyle (international) wrestling had hurt high-school and collegiate (or folkstyle) wrestling. For one thing, there was not enough pinning — wrestling wasn't as aggressive as it used to be, John Carr said. I share his view. I was never a fan of freestyle. As I once heard Dan Gable say of collegiate wrestling: “If you can't get off the bottom, you can't win.” (In freestyle, you don't have to be able to get off the bottom; the referee blows his whistle and
lets
you off the bottom — you can spend almost the whole match in the neutral position, on your feet. And so I knew what John Carr was thinking: he was thinking, How tough is
that?
In a freestyle match, I
might
have been able to beat Sherman Moyer; it was when I was on the bottom that Moyer killed me.)

Carr told me that Mike Johnson was still coaching at Du Bois, and that Warnick's kid — or one of War-nick's kids — had been pretty successful on the mat at West Point. I remembered seeing the name Warnick in the Army lineup and wondering if this was a child of the Warnick who'd arm-dragged me to death in my one winter at Pittsburgh. After John Carr and I said goodnight, and I hung up the phone, I realized that I'd not asked him if Warnick's kid had learned his father's killer arm-drag. I almost called Carr back. But when I start the phone calls, especially at night, I have to stop somewhere. If I keep going, I get in a mood to call
everybody.

Of course I'd like to call Cliff Gallagher — if only to hear him say, “Not even a zebra, Johnny.” And I often think about calling Ted Seabrooke, before I remember that I can't. Ted wasn't a big talker — not compared to Cliff — but Ted was insightful at interrupting me, and at contradicting me, too. I'd be saying something and he'd say, “That sounds pretty stupid to me.” Or: “Why would you want to do that?” And: “Do what you know how to do.” Or: “What's worked for you before?” Cliff used to say that Ted could clear the air.

It still seems unacceptable that both Ted and Cliff are dead, although Cliff (given normal life expectancy) would almost surely be dead by now — Cliff was born in 1897, which would make him all of 98, if he were alive today. I think it broke Cliff's heart that Ted died first — Ted died young. And Ted fooled us: after the diabetes, which he got control of, he had some healthy years; then the cancer came and killed him in the fall of 1980. He was 59.

For Coach Seabrooke's memorial service in Phillips Church, there were more wrestlers than I ever saw in the Exeter wrestling room. Bobby Thompson, one of Exeter's ex-heavyweights — and arguably the biggest-ever New England Class A Champion in the Unlimited class — sang “Amazing Grace.” (Bobby is the school minister at Exeter today.)

It was an outrage to all his wrestlers that Ted was dead. He'd seemed indomitable to us. He had twice been struck by lightning, while playing golf; both times he'd survived. Both times he'd said, “It's just one of those things.”

After Ted's memorial service, I remember Cliff Gallagher grabbing me with a Russian arm-tie and whispering in my ear: “It should have been me, Johnny — it should have been me.” My arm was sore for days. Cliff had a nasty Russian arm-tie. At the time, Cliff was 83.

I don't lead a hectic life. It's not every night, or every week — or even every month — that I feel the need to “clear the air.” Most nights, I don't even look at the telephone. Other times, the unringing phone seems to summon all the unreachable people in the past. I think of that poem of Rilke's, about the corpse:
“Und einer ohne Namen/lag bar und reinlich da und gab Gesetze”
(“And one without a name/ lay clean and naked there, and gave commands”). That is the telephone on certain nights: it is the unreachable past — the dead demanding to give us advice. On those nights, I'm sorry I can't talk to Ted.

H
ere's what happened when Dan Quayle invited me to dinner. My wife accused me of covert right-wing activities; Janet speculated that she'd married a closet Republican, or a secret golfer. I promised her that I didn't
know
Dan — I'd never even met him. Then we both calmed down and read the rest of Mr. Quayle's letter. Everything was correctly spelled, which was both a shock and a disappointment, but it was only a
pro forma
invitation — not nearly as “personal” a letter as it had appeared at first glance. It was also an embarrassing mistake: I'm a registered Democrat and Janet is a Canadian citizen; here we were being invited to become members of something called the Republican Inner Circle. We understand it's easy to get on the wrong mailing list; nevertheless, we were tempted to join. Since we moved to Vermont (in 1990), neither the Democrats nor the Canadians have invited us to be members of
anything.

But, alas, Janet questioned my motivation for accepting a dinner invitation from the Vice President. I do admit that the letter from Dan Quayle was a trifle vague. We weren't sure if money or celebrity was the desired result; yet it appeared that we would get to dine at the White House — at no charge. Furthermore, it was implied that the Republican Inner Circle was of an intimate size, suggesting that we might even expect close conversation with the Vice President
and
the President.

After the President's puking incident in Japan, we knew it was dangerous to be seated
too
close to Mr. Bush while he was eating; we wanted no part of that. Nevertheless, it's about a 10-hour drive to Washington from Vermont; to eschew eating in proximity to the President, for fear of projectile vomiting, was weighed against the potential boredom of dining near the Vice President. Coming all the way from Vermont, we wondered if the level of Mr. Quayle's “close conversation” would be a just reward. My repertoire of golfing tales is somewhat small; a night comparing greens fees struck me as less than exciting. On the other hand, Janet and I wouldn't have minded an evening's chat with
Mrs.
Quayle, but we didn't think it was our place to suggest a seating plan that would land us next to Marilyn.

In light of what's happened — I mean that there are Democrats at least temporarily occupying the White House — you can imagine how much Janet and I regret that we turned down Dan Quayle's invitation to dine at the White House with the Republican Inner Circle. What a blown opportunity! But I'd had a funny evening at the White House before; I wasn't sure I had the stamina to repeat it.

President Reagan invited me to dinner, several times. At first I declined — I'm sorry to say, with childish bad manners. I said stupid, rude things. (“No thanks. I'm eating with the homeless that night.” Juvenilia like that.) Then, after the third invitation, it occurred to me that the Republicans were obdurate in their sense of who their friends were, or who they
wanted
for friends; I also realized that if the Democrats were ever in office, they might be too busy invigorating the economy to invite me to dinner. If I wanted to go to dinner at the White House, I thought I'd better accept Mr. Reagan's invitation. How was I to know I'd get another?

So I went. The occasion was your usual state dinner, about 200 people — this one for Mr. and Mrs. Algeria. To my surprise, I was seated at the President's table with only five other stunned individuals. There was a nervous lady from Ohio; she'd written Mr. Reagan his favorite fan letter of the week, although neither the President nor his fan would tell the rest of us what the letter had said. Also among us was a Rhode Island woman they called Attila the Nun (in a very attractive, all-gray outfit) and the former New York Jets quarterback — and a personal hero of mine—Joe Namath. Mr. Namath enlivened the conversation by stating that “only in the United States” could such a thing be happening to him — namely, that he was having dinner with the President of the United States. I let it pass.

But, throughout our dinner, Mr. Namath repeated and repeated his observation, until I finally said, “Well, of course, it's highly unlikely that you'd be having dinner with the President of the United States in any country
other
than the United States.” Everyone looked at me as if I were a real jerk; only Mr. Reagan got the joke, and he was also kind enough to point out why my effort at humor had failed.

“It's your timing
and
your delivery,” the President said.

Then the fan of the week from Ohio asked the President to tell us the “funniest thing” that ever happened to him. Mr. Reagan didn't hesitate.

“We were at the Brown Derby,” the President said. But suddenly Mr. Reagan realized that Mrs. Algeria, and her interpreter, were also at our small dinner table. (Actually, the interpreter sat in a less comfortable chair
behind
Mrs. Algeria; it seemed incredibly impolite that he wasn't served any food.) Mr. Reagan was worried that Mrs. Algeria might not be well schooled in California entertainment spots. Thus the President explained: “The Brown Derby is a famous restaurant where movie people go.” This was communicated to Mrs. Algeria through her interpreter.