My mind was all over the place. My left shoulder was staying put.
Staying put … put … put … OK, it just moved a half inch closer to the agony of defeat.
But back to my roving mind. I was thinking of girl-of-my-dreams Laurie Middlebrook … the broken light in the wrestling room’s rafters that never seems to get fixed and that I could see through my squinted eyes … and an unknown odor wafting off my opponent.
Oops! My left shoulder just gave way another half inch.
Yeah, I was on my back and struggling like an upside-side turtle in the middle of the road while trying not to get pinned at wrestling practice. And yet my concentration was being broken by that strange smell that one might associate with a participant on “The Bachelor.” Not that I ever watched that silly show — at least not a whole episode.
So what was that all about? Wrestling rooms are supposed to smell like Icy Hot, unwashed uniforms and a big vat of adolescent hormones and sweat. Not the girls’ side of the cafeteria at a junior high dance.
Another half inch.
I couldn’t even muster up enough thoughts of the lovely Laurie to inspire me and break the stinkpot spell. The only thing keeping me from being pinned was my left shoulder staying off the mat and …
Thud!
That was Coach Mathews slamming his hand down on the gym floor to signal a pin. My shoulder had finally given way just as my stomach felt like evicting my lunch — if you can call a few baby carrots and a small bag of Doritos a lunch.
“Hey you made a nice escape move before I took you down, Spank,” my opponent said as she held out her hand to help me up.
You heard me right. She. I’ll get to that soon enough.
I do know that I didn’t need any compliments from her. “Yeah, well, I might have done a little better if you hadn’t tried to poison the air around me,” I told her. “I’m surprised some of the other guys haven’t fallen over in some kind of stupor. What is that anyway?”
“It sure isn’t perspiration since it only took me about 45 seconds to pin you,” she answered, showing her true self. “It’s called perfume, you dufus. Maybe you should let me give you a couple of squirts if you think it gives me an advantage.”
A lot of our teammates apparently heard her smart comments as we walked off the mat. Actually, she skipped. They started laughing and giving me the razz. I even thought I saw Coach Mathews trying to hide a smile. A little levity at practice can be good, but too much of it seems to come at somebody’s expense — too many times mine — thanks to that girl we call Wheat.
Weighing 112 pounds on most days, I was again starting to wonder if I ought to find another way to utilize my lack of size — and strength — other than the sport of wrestling. Big, sensitive guys? Phooey on them. Skinny, little twerps can get a little sensitive, too.
I should probably introduce myself. The whole shebang is William Raymond Rogers. But it’s Billy Ray for short. My grandpas are William and Raymond and so that’s how that came about. But just about everybody besides teachers and other serious-minded adults call me Spanky.
I’m 15 years old and a sophomore at Clay High School in South Bend, Indiana —home of the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame and the former Mayor Pete, some bigwig in Washington now. I live with my mom, who is a kindergarten teacher, and my step-father, a police officer. They got married when I was 9, a few years after my real dad died. I got a sister in the deal, too. She is just 12 days younger than I am and usually right about the same weight as me.
I know her weight because we get on the scales before every practice … when we get up in the morning … when we go to bed at night … and after every meal. Sometimes, I even weigh myself after I go No. 1 just so I can feel good about losing a few more ounces. Keeping an eagle eye on your weight is a pretty big deal to a wrestler.
And yeah, my step-sister is the girl who pinned me yet again at practice. Might as well tell you that she just about always beats me when we square off. Too bad we are in the same weight class. She is a pint-sized version of Wonder Woman — or one of those Ninja Warriors. Or maybe even that good-looking girl elf in “The Hobbit.”
In fact, she probably is the best girl wrestler in the whole state of Indiana. And against the boys in the 112-pound class, she is 15-2 so far this season.
Her real name is Tanda Lea Evans but everybody pretty much calls her Wheat. No, not because she is skinny like a stalk of wheat or anything like that. Her dad nicknamed her that because her sometimes crazy hair reminded him of the girl in an old TV show called “The Little Rascals.” That girl was called Buckwheat but nobody wants a name that long and it apparently has some racial overtones these days. Don’t want anything like that. So she quickly became just Wheat.
I never heard about The Little Rascals until my step-dad and Tanda moved in with Mom and me. I guess because my step-dad already had a Buckwheat, he decided he might as well raise a Spanky, too. Spanky was also a Little Rascal — kind of a chubby, goofy-looking kid with a beanie who always wanted to be in charge. Nothing like me. But anyway, that’s how I got my nickname.
I wish I had a better story than that to tell you about our nicknames. But I don’t. I don’t mind mine. I just don’t think I want to be a Spanky when I’m older — like maybe when I’m 18.
We are what some people call a blended family. My mom, whose name is Louise — or Loosey Goosey as my step-dad sometimes calls her — is white like me. In fact, we are almost too white. Both of us burn easily in the sun and need to wear hats and lots of sunscreen when we’re outside for any amount of time in the summer. I don’t tell her this but Mom looks really good in her Chicago Cub cap with a pony-tail sticking out the back.
My step-dad, whose name is Ric Evans, is a tall Black guy who looks a little like that movie star Dwayne Johnson who used to be The Rock. And I would give Ric a fighting chance against The Rock.
Tanda — or Wheat — is sort of in between in color. Her real mom is mostly Hawaiian but we don’t see her. Wheat and Ric — I’m starting to call him Dad here and there — aren’t even sure where she is anymore. That’s OK. I like the family just like it is.
Yeah, I do like Wheat. I prefer my buddies don’t know that I like her all that much, though. But she is probably my best friend, even if she can beat me up on the wrestling mat just about anytime she wants.
We’re in the same grade at school and also in the same algebra class. For now, we even share a bedroom at home but we don’t broadcast that. We have a 20-month-old brother named Lake — oops, should have mentioned him before — and he has what used to be Wheat’s room, now called a nursery. She moved into my room for what was supposed to be for a few months after Lake was born.
I didn’t like it at first. But she didn’t mind taking the top bunk and we have gotten used to each other as roommates. My parents gave me the choice about a year ago: I could room with Lake, set up a room in the basement or keep sharing with Wheat. I think they were surprised when I picked Wheat.
I think they were even a little sorry that they even made that one of the choices. If Lake was a little older, I might have picked him but he’s still in diapers and … you know. I like little kids but not enough to get involved with that kind of stuff. He also starts talking to himself about 5 in the morning and I don’t need that.
And Wheat didn’t mess with my decor (that’s the word, right?) Like my collection of frogs — plastic, ceramic and a couple of real ones called Notre and Dame that I keep in aquariums — and my big posters of the Chicago Cubs’ Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant. “They’re cute,” Wheat said of both the frogs and the Cubs. So we were good.
I know a lot of the guys think Wheat is pretty — and I suppose she is in a weird sort of way. But she might as well be a guy as far as I’m concerned. Neither one of us is into that girl-boy stuff. That’s what I keep telling myself anyway — until Laurie Middlebrook pops into my mind.
That doesn’t mean we go into the bathroom together or talk about stuff like puberty (that was uncomfortable enough in ninth grade health class) but I don’t care if she sees me in my underwear or anything. Hey, she’s my sister.
And we spend more time wrapped up in practice than some of those fake love scenes in the movies. I know that sounds weird. Actually, it sounds kind of yucky now that I put it in words. But, hey, that’s wrestling.
A lot of guys don’t like wrestling Wheat. I think more because she can beat them rather than that they don’t want to wrestle a girl. Most of our teammates have gotten over it, though. Even if she is a girl and just a sophomore, she is one of the leaders on the team.
We’re supposed to be moving at some point. At least that’s our parents’ plans. They’ve been looking at other homes. Right now, we live next door to a funeral home — a neat old white house with a couple of big pillars by the front door and black shutters on all its windows. That’s part of the reason they want to move, thinking it might seem a little creepy raising a family next to a funeral home. But I don’t mind.
The funeral directors, two brothers named Todd and Michael Dixon, pay me to mow their yard and to occasionally wash their big cars when no mourners are around for me to get wet. I also will shovel the snow off their walkways when they ask me. I even know the combination to their garage so I can get into the place for the lawnmower and shovels.
They have a basketball goal out back in the far end of their parking lot and they let us use it when they aren’t having a visitation or a funeral. Both of the Dixons played high school basketball and sometimes they will play one-on-one while in their loosened ties and dress shoes. They laugh and cuss at each other like they’re still teen-agers.
They’re funny, too, which most people would never guess about funeral directors. Todd — although I call them both Mr. Dixon — is always singing cowboy songs like “keep those dogies rollin’” and goofy stuff like that. And Michael will sometimes walk around on his hands after basketball. You can’t believe all the loose change I’ve found that’s fallen out of his pockets and into the grass. So I don’t mind at all living next to them.
But my parents also want a bigger house. I think that’s partly so Wheat and I can have our own rooms. I guess I wouldn’t mind my own room again. But I would miss my talks with Wheat at night. We can get pretty serious. Of course, we can be silly, too.
I like to stick my feet up into her mattress springs and lift her up in the air. I don’t want to do that too much, though. She has this knack of swinging down the side of the top bunk like one of those Indians on a horse in the old Westerns. Then she’ll swat me. And like I said, she can whip me — in just about anything physical.
That took a little getting used to. We’re both kind of scrawny — me even more so, I guess, since I’m the guy. Her real mom — DeeDee is her name — was a fairly famous surfer and Ric played football in college at Ball State before becoming an Army Ranger and then a cop. Being athletic is in Wheat’s genes.
I’m still trying to find out what sports I might be good at. I was so bad in Little League that I got the Most Improved Award two years in a row and I still was lousy. I know I’m hopeless at basketball. And wrestling? I guess I’m sort of OK.
If it wasn’t for Wheat, I would probably be wrestling varsity at 112 pounds. But that’s because the only other kid in our weight class, Tommy Reston, is out for the team because his dad made him. I don’t have to do much more than say boo to take him down. He is good for my ego. Teammates call him Tommy the Torso. He is built like a pipe cleaner but he seems to like his nickname. I think it makes him feel like he belongs. I guess it does.
I mainly like to wrestle so I can get to be around Wheat and watch how good she continues to get. She just has the knack and works really, really hard at it. I should point out that Ric’s brother, Uncle Mason, has two sons — our cousins — who were All-State wrestlers over in Illinois. Ric and Wheat lived with them for a year after Wheat’s mom took off with her surf board and some guy she called Bubber.
Ric says that Wheat used to follow her cousins around like a puppy. They eventually quit ignoring her and taught her all about wrestling and weight training and being really aggressive when somebody is trying to turn you upside down.
I don’t think they taught her about wearing perfume while she wrestled, though.
So when we got in bed, I finally asked her about it. “Seriously, what was that stuff you were wearing at practice today?”
“It’s called Midnight Breeze,” she answered. “Do you like it?”
“Probably as much as I like mat burns. And I don’t think you’ve been up past midnight since I’ve known you. So is this some sort of a statement by you that a girl who wrestles can still be feminine?”
“Nope. I call it a competitive advantage. ”
“Explain.”
“OK, when I was just about to pin you today, what were you thinking about?” Wheat went on.
I wasn’t going to mention Laurie Middlebrook, that was for sure. “Well, besides trying desperately to keep my back from being flat off the mat, I guess I was wondering why the heck you would be wearing perfume at wrestling practice.”
“Exactly. Your mind wasn’t entirely on how you were going to get out of my hold. Wrestling didn’t have your full concentration. Not that I need any kind of advantage to beat you — ha, ha. But it might help me against a really competitive opponent.”
Unlike Tommy the Torso, Wheat is not always great for my ego. I didn’t say anything more and turned over to go to sleep.
“Hey, Spank,” she said.
“What?”
“Besides that advantage I was talking about, the Midnight Breeze does make me even more attractive to the guys, don’t you think — ha, ha?”
“Sure, Wheat, anything you say,” I told her before using my feet to push her and her mattress about a foot from the ceiling.
She yelled and I lowered her down before she could come after me. We both started laughing then.
“I may stay awake past midnight just to show you. But you sleep tight, Spanker.”
“Back at you, Stinker.”
I should probably tell you that we like making up even more nicknames for ourselves — most of them pretty lame.