The Boy We Killed

Abstract

The Boy We Killed Adam Szetela (bio) My coach's ear looks like a smashed piece of cauliflower. They call this cauliflower ear. It's when the cartilage breaks. Unlike a broken nose, it can't be put back together again. Wrestlers treat cauliflower ear like the marines treat a USMC tattoo. It's a permanent badge of respect. I don't have cauliflower ear. I have a scar underneath my left eye. I got this scar when I lifted Nate above my head. When I slammed him back on the mat, his hip bone broke my face. His hip bone was so sharp because he was so thin. When you wrestle, the only thing as bad as getting pinned is not making weight. To make weight, wrestlers run in trash bags duct taped to their bodies. They sit in saunas with heavy sweatshirts, rain jackets, and scarfs wrapped around their throats. On the day of a meet, they might vomit until dark-green-to-yellowish-brown bile stains the toilet wall. When Mark didn't make weight, we held him down. As he screamed for help, someone shoved a dirty mop in his face. We used the mop to clean the mats. The mats were covered in bacteria that lived off our sweat. The bacteria caused skin infections. Impetigo. Scabies. Staph. The next day, Mark had tinea corporis on his face. Another name for tinea corporis is ring worm. Wrestlers and fighters get it. The pair of circles on Mark's face looked like a pair of balls below the dick of his nose. We called him Dick Face, Cock Mask, and Ball Breath. We took turns punching him in the stomach. If you caught a skin disease, you caught a beatdown. You also got your ass kicked if you were a fish. When a wrestler is about to get pinned, they try to keep their shoulders off the mat. They writhe. They flail. They flop around like a fish out of water. A fish is someone who gets pinned. Doug was the biggest fish on our team. We kicked him in the balls. We punched words into his chest like it was a broken typewriter. Fat fuck. Faggot. Dildo. We twisted his nipples until they were purple, black, and covered in blood. Until they hung from his skin like burnt pepperonis. Our coach had even less tolerance for fishes and kids who missed weight. During practice, they were used as dummies to demonstrate moves. It was one thing to get a bloody nose or a black eye from a teenager. It was another to get one from a grown man. Even on the bus ride home from meets, there were beatdowns. If someone got pinned, we would pin them against the window and stick our wet fingers in their ears. If they missed weight, we would break open their coolers and throw their food on the road. One time we grabbed a freshman by his legs and pretended to push him out the bus window. This kid screamed as the metal frame tore through the flesh on his ribs. [End Page 274] We didn't want him to hit the pavement. We just didn't want him to get pinned again. Before our last meet of the season, our coach gathered us in the center of the wrestling room. There was an incident at a high school a few towns over. One of their wrestlers was out for a jog to cut weight. One of his teammates came around the corner in a car. It was a prank gone wrong. The kid was run over an hour before weigh ins. His skin and bones were smushed into the pavement. He was dead. I don't remember how long the silence lasted before we broke into partners to drill takedowns. I don't remember who I was paired with. Maybe it was Nate or Mark. Maybe it was the freshman we pretended to push out the bus window. The freshman whose name I don't even remember. But I do remember that no one got a mop to the face that night. No one had their dinner thrown in...