Wrestling Sturbridge Read Online Free PDF

real appetizing for the rest of us when you get your fingers in there, too.
    “Good strong sermon this morning,” she says to me with a tight smile.
    The sermon seemed to be about vulgarity, and obscenity, and adultery, and hanging out on Main Street at night. The key thing you have to know about this town is that it disapproves. You don’t have to know much else, justremember that the higher powers—cops, council, parents, clergy—disapprove. My grandmother knows this and supports it.
    “He’s a forgiving God,” she reminds me, tearing another bit off the chicken and dipping it in the congealed grease at the bottom of the pan. Grandma’s a great hinter. She just knows I’m up to the most vile, perverse activities any neighborhood kid ever dreamed up, and she’s waiting for me to see the light.
    To her, I think, God is this force perched just above the town of Sturbridge, watching with a heavy hand, ready to strike us down if we sneak a beer by the river or touch a willing girlfriend below the neck. Somehow he gets his word across through the pale Reverend Fletcher, who grips my hand with a giant smile every Sunday—as if everything’s forgotten—and says he hopes I’ll be at the youth group meeting that night. I won’t be.
    Grandma heads back to the living room. I cover the chicken with the foil and shove it into the refrigerator.
    Al’s already dressed for practice when I get to the gym Monday, sitting on the bench by our lockers. “He wants to see us,” he says, pointing to the coach’s office. So we go in and sit down, and Coach has what I’d call his understanding frown on. Like he’s disappointed in us about something, but he’s ready to talk man to man.
    “I heard you guys had a fight?” He’s looking at me.
    I shake my head kind of slowly. “No.”
    He looks at Al.
    Al lowers his chin and raises his eyebrows. “No.”
    “Were you guys drinking Saturday night?”
    “Just Pepsi,” Al says.
    Coach looks at me again. “No way,” I say. We’re all quiet for about twenty seconds. “There was no fight.”
    “That’s not how I heard it.”
    “I wouldn’t fight this guy,” Al says. “No way. We just worked some on takedowns. We were psyched up.”
    Coach says, “Mm-hmm.”
    He looks at me. I say that’s all it was.
    “Al, you can go,” he says.
    Al shuts the door and Coach still has that look on, a little more intense maybe. “I know this is tough on you, Benny,” he says.
    “What is?”
    “I’m the one who told Hatcher to cut to 140,” he says. “I made Al stay at 135. It’s real nice that they wanted to make room for you, but this isn’t about being buddies.” He picks up a pen from the desk and starts clicking it on and off, keeping his eyes right on mine. “The both of those guys could win state titles this year. You know how incredible that would be? They need every advantage they can get, and they’re staying at those weight classes.”
    “I know.” I don’t get this lecture at all.
    “I know you don’t like it,” he says. “But I better not hear about you taking any cheap shots at Al.”
    Now I get it. He’s got to be kidding. “I never took a cheap shot at anybody.”
    “That’s not how I heard it.” His favorite phrase.
    He heard wrong, but I can’t say that to him. I just stare at him until he tells me to get ready for practice.
    I’m numb for the rest of the day.
    My grandmother comes over again on Wednesdays, but she doesn’t stay long. She and my mother, sometimes my father, go to the weekly covered-dish supper at the church. Eighteen different varieties of macaroni and cheese. And as an added bonus, the Reverend Fletcher offers a delightful and informative talk on how evil and sinful we all are, just in case the message didn’t get through on Sunday.
    I walk into the kitchen as they’re getting ready to go. My mom is looking for her oven mitt to get the casserole out, and I catch Grandma saying, “He sure is a patient God.” Just about