Confessions of a Middle School Wrestler
On my 41st birthday I stood in front of the bathroom mirror and assessed the wear and tear, including some that occurred during my middle school wrestling career.
I was a horrible wrestler. I hated the sweat and the bouts of ringworm, and I particularly hated the singlets. Most of all, however, I hated that in the hierarchy of my weight class I languished d near the bottom, and only wound up with a match when the opposing team claimed a 145-pounder of similar hopelessness.
On those rare occasions when an opponent arose, my coach, Mr. Carroll, would pull me aside in the hallway. A notorious close-talker who favored a blazer and turtleneck combo, he would smile and say, “I’ve found you a butterball.” In Mr. Carroll’s estimation this meant that the other team was burdened with a wrestler who, at 145 pounds, was approximately half my height and three times my girth, while being no more talented than me. In the anxiety that still haunts, I see an endless parade of portly adversaries in my dreams, all of them hell-bent on smothering me in their armpits.
During the last match of my career, a butterball took my temperature with a high-crotch takedown right out of the gates, and had me in a compromised position by the end of the period. He had a point advantage, and a fire in his eyes that told me he would go for the pin. With a deft half-nelson he had me on my back and struggling to keep one shoulder off the mat; the referee was down at our level with whistle in mouth, anticipating my demise; I kept that one shoulder up and flopped like a mullet, the cartilage between my ribs popping; my opponent, sensing desperation, wrenched my chin deeper into his armpit, leveled his bulk onto my sternum, and brought his mouth close to my ear.
“I’ve got you now,” he whispered with measured certainty. At that moment I realized that, in the end, I just didn’t really care. So I dropped my shoulder to the mat, heard the slap of the referee’s palm, and was more than a little annoyed that my face was held in the butterball’s armpit for a few seconds post-victory.
As I looked at myself on that 41st birthday, my wrestling career was at the top-of-my mind. That same day, just hours prior, I was on the forward deck of Lincoln Westby’s panga, 15 miles east of Dangriga, Belize. We’d moved off the flats as the tide approached high and made the run to a cut into the reef where Lincoln had, in the days prior, spotted rolling tarpon. A man of legendary reputation, I took Lincoln at his word when he announced, “We’ll see dem. Yuh’ll get yah shot. Some a dem taahpon go two hundred poun.”
It was difficult for me to envision a 200-pound slab of silver, let alone imagine being attached to one. Lincoln cut the engine and let us slide into the cut, which was impossibly blue, with a wide swath of sand bottom showing between the coral heads. The wind had dropped to nothing, and at dead high we just sat for a few minutes before Lincoln eased the anchor overboard.
I had barely fished for tarpon, and I’d never hooked a good one. In retrospect a more serious angler would have prepared more thoroughly for the potential of an epic fish, but as I stepped on the bow platform, success seemed pretty implausible. Lincoln scanned the cut in characteristic silence; I took it as a compliment that he didn’t ask to review my leader or knots. Sun burned the tops of my feet. Sweat rolled down my back and soaked my shirt. My wife, Kim, handed me a cold Belikin; it was my birthday, after all.
Somewhere at the end of that beer we saw them roll. It was maybe a hundred yards out, a winking disruption in the calm. There were broad backs and pushed water. I looked back at Lincoln, who smiled and nodded. “We jes wait fah dem,” he said, not taking his eyes off the fish. “Dey come up dis way as de tide ease out.”
The fish rolled intermittently, but seemed to hang up at 60 yards out, seemed unwilling to push in closer. After a while, Kim cracked a Belikin, turned to Lincoln, and began to ask a question. It was then that Lincoln said, “Dey undah us! You go now, make dah shot!”
Not knowing what else to do, I lobbed the fly backhand to the up-current side of the boat and took in the slack. Underneath us, a skein of impossibly large shapes moved up-current. And then, the sea broke wide open.
There was a take and a whipping of line, multiple hard-pull hooksets, and a singing drag. The fish came up 80 out, exploded and shook, gills flared. It was an absolute monster, and while it zinged me into my backing, I looked back at Kim and Lincoln and cursed like a pirate, while somewhere inside me the seeds of doubt were already quietly germinating.
“De big one,” Lincoln announced while freeing the anchor. I leaned back on the fish as aimed for the sea. Lincoln had the motor idling in case we needed to chase.
I knew already, we needed to chase.
The next few minutes seemed an eternity. I kept pressure and regained 150 feet of backing, then fly line. The tarpon pulled into shallow water at the north end of the cut. I tried to lift him, saw him jump once more, close this time, then felt him thrum down at an incomprehensible angle. I saw my line wrapped-up, and turned to Lincoln for advice.
It was over before he could speak. I reeled in and sat down. The fly line was corral-cut and ragged-ended.
In the mirror that evening I saw something familiar. At a glance it was a lack of follow-through, a lassitude of spirit that plays out in my performances, as it has since I was 14. I could say I’ve become more of a battler, more driven, but it wouldn’t really be true. That tarpon reminded me that in the heat of competition, I often let go, exhibiting a flaw that by western standards should be tragic. But I suppose at 41 I’m old enough to frame it differently, or perhaps just to hide my failings behind wisps of philosophy.
I like to think I didn’t give up on that tarpon as I’d given up to the butterball. I like to think that in my fishing, even when the stakes are high, there’s no need for conquest or, correlatively, no potential for defeat. There is all of the sweat, and all of the adrenaline, and sometimes all of the incomparable heartbreak, but there is also a complex relationship between fish and man that’s nothing more or less than a dynamic struggle. In the end, I was happy to cast well, to hook and jump a massive tarpon, to feel the weight and raw power of something rarely seen. I didn’t need to land that fish to make a lasting memory, or to qualify myself as a winner.
I walked away from the mirror, took a drink onto the dock, and watched the sun go down on another year. Standing there, I realized just how much I have grown, despite my unimpressive physique. That middle school wrestler didn’t love the game and just didn’t care; the angler in me loves the game, plays to the end, and whether victorious or not, is always ready for the next test.
