John Irving - In One Person

“Imagine the mat is a cement sidewalk, or just a plain old wood floor,” she said. “That wouldn’t feel so good, would it?”

“No,” I answered her. I was seeing stars; I’d never seen them before.

“Again,” Miss Frost said. “Let me do it to you a few more times, William—then you do it to me.”

“Okay,” I said. We did it again and again.

“It’s called a duck-under,” Miss Frost explained. “You can do it to anyone—he just has to be pushing you. You can do it to anyone who’s being aggressive .”

“I get it,” I told her.

“No, William—you’re beginning to get it,” Miss Frost told me.

We were in the wrestling room for over an hour, just drilling the duck-under. “It’s easier to do to someone who’s taller than you are,” Miss Frost explained. “The bigger he is, and the more he’s leaning on you, the harder his head hits the mat—or the pavement, or the floor, or the ground. You get it?”

“I’m beginning to,” I told her.

I will remember the contact of our bodies, as I learned the duck-under; as with most things, there is a rhythm to it when you start to do it correctly. We were sweating, and Miss Frost was saying, “When you hit it ten more times, without a glitch, you can go home, William.”

“I don’t want to go home—I want to keep doing this, ” I whispered to her.

“I wouldn’t have missed making your acquaintance, William—not for all the world!” Miss Frost whispered back.

“I love you!” I told her.

“Not now, William,” she said. “If you can’t stick the guy’s elbow in his throat, stick it in his mouth,” she told me.

“In his mouth,” I repeated.

“Don’t kill each other!” Grandpa Harry was shouting.

“What’s goin’ on here?” I heard Coach Hoyt ask. Herm had noticed all the lights; the old gym and that wrestling room were sacred to him.

“Al’s showing Billy a duck-under, Herm,” Uncle Bob told the old coach.

“Well, I showed it to Al,” Herm said. “I guess Al oughta know how it goes.” Coach Hoyt sat down on the home-team bench—as close as he could get to the scorers’ table.

“I’ll never forget you!” I was whispering to Miss Frost.

“I guess we’re done, William—if you can’t concentrate on the duck-under,” Miss Frost said.

“Okay, I’ll concentrate—ten more duck-unders!” I told her; she just smiled at me, and she ruffled my sweat-soaked hair. I don’t believe she’d ruffled my hair since I was thirteen or fifteen—not for a long time, anyway.

“No, we’re done now, William—Herm is here. Coach Hoyt can take over the duck-unders,” Miss Frost said. I suddenly saw that she looked tired—I’d never seen her look tired before.

“Give me a hug, but don’t kiss me, William—let’s just play by the rules and make everyone happy,” Miss Frost told me.

I hugged her as hard as I could, but she didn’t hug me back—not nearly as hard as she could have.

“Safe travels, Al,” Uncle Bob said.

“Thanks, Bob,” Miss Frost said.

“I gotta get home, before Muriel sends out the police and the firemen to find me,” Uncle Bob said.

“I can lock up the place, Bob,” Coach Hoyt told my uncle. “Billy and I will just hit a few more duck-unders.”

“A few more,” I repeated.

“Till I see how you’re gettin’ it,” Coach Hoyt said. “How ’bout all of you goin’ home?” the old coach asked. “You, too, Richard—you, too, Harry,” Herm was saying; the coach probably didn’t recognize Nils Borkman, and if Coach Hoyt recognized Elaine Hadley, he would have known her only as the unfortunate faculty daughter who’d been knocked up by Kittredge.

“I’ll see you later, Richard—I love you, Elaine!” I called, as they were leaving.

“I love you, Billy!” I heard Elaine say.

“I’ll see you at home—I’ll leave some lights on, Bill,” I heard Richard say.

“Take care of yourself, Al,” Grandpa Harry said to Miss Frost.

“I’m going to miss you, Harry,” Miss Frost told him.

“I’m gonna miss you, too!” I heard Grandpa Harry say.

I understood that I shouldn’t watch Miss Frost leave, and I didn’t. Occasionally, you know when you won’t see someone again.

“The thing about a duck-under, Billy, is to make the guy kinda do it to himself—that’s the key,” Coach Hoyt was saying. When we locked up with the growingly familiar collar-ties, I had the feeling that grabbing hold of Herm Hoyt was like grabbing hold of a tree trunk—he had such a thick neck that you couldn’t get much of a grip on him.

“The place to stick the guy’s elbow is anywhere it makes him uncomfortable, Billy,” Herm was saying. “In his throat, in his mouth—stick it up his nose, if you can find a way to fit it up there. You’re only stickin’ his elbow in his face to get him to react. What you want him to do is over react, Billy—that’s all you’re doin’.”

The old coach did about twenty duck-unders on me; they were very fluid, but my neck was killing me.

“Okay—your turn. Let’s see you do it,” Herm Hoyt told me.

“Twenty times?” I asked him. (He could see that I was crying.)

“We’ll start countin’ the times as soon as you stop cryin’, Billy. I’m guessin’ you’ll be cryin’ for the first forty times, or so—then we’ll start countin’,” Coach Hoyt said.

We were there in the old gym for at least another two hours—maybe three. I had stopped counting the duck-unders, but I was beginning to get the feeling that I could do a duck-under in my sleep, or drunk, which was a funny thing for me to think because I’d not yet been drunk. (There was a first time for everything, and I had a lot of first times ahead of me.)

At some point, I made the mistake of saying to the old coach: “I think I could do a duck-under blindfolded .”

“Is that so, Billy?” Herm asked me. “Stay right here—don’t leave the mat.” He went off somewhere; I could hear him on the catwalk, but I couldn’t see him. Then the lights went out, and the wrestling room was in total darkness.

“Don’t worry—just stay where you are!” the coach called to me. “I can find you, Billy.”

It wasn’t long before I felt his presence; his strong hand clamped me in a collar-tie and we were locked up in the surrounding blackness.

“If you can feel me, you don’t need to see me,” Herm said. “If you’ve got hold of my neck, you kinda know where my arms and legs are gonna be, don’tcha?”

“Yes, sir,” I answered.

“You better do your duck-under on me before I do mine on you, Billy,” Herm told me. But I wasn’t quick enough. Coach Hoyt hit his duck-under first; it was a real head-banger. “I guess it’s your turn, Billy—just don’t make me wait all night,” the old coach said.

“Do you know where she’s going?” I asked him later. It was pitch-dark in the old gym, and we were lying on the mat—both of us were resting.

“Al told me not to tell you, Billy,” Herm said.

“I understand,” I told him.

“I always knew Al wanted to be a girl.” The old coach’s voice came out of the darkness. “I just didn’t know he had the balls to go through with it, Billy.”

“Oh, he has the balls, all right,” I said.

“She— she has the balls, Billy!” Herm Hoyt said, laughing crazily.

There were some windows surrounding the wooden track above us; an early-dawn light gave them a dull glow.

“Listen up, Billy,” the old coach said. “You’ve got one move. It’s a pretty good duck-under, but it’s just one move. You can take a guy down with it—maybe hurt him a little. But a tough guy is gonna get up and keep comin’ after you. One move won’t make you a wrestler, Billy.”