Let's Get It On!

Mark re-racked the barbell after his 10th repetition and jumped up from the bench, placing his hands on the dipping bar and leaning forward until the pain in his chest was unbearable. And then he held the stretch for a count of 60, his head bent down and away from the 20 sets of eyes marveling at him. His chest filled with extra-hot, ravenous blood as he righted himself, his new choker made of white bone cool around his neck.

"Jesus Christ, man," said Maury.

"What?"

"Dude, you just hit 10 reps with 315 like it was nothing-"

Mark shrugged. "The last few were pretty hard-"

"It didn't look like it."

Mark took a deep breath and squeezed his chest until he thought it might burst. He exhaled. "Dude, what do you call a girl who's a slut and a cunt?"

"I don't know. What?"

"A sclunt."

Maury's expression, as always, remained the same, his blue eyes locked in place, unblinking, like those of a sphinx; his lips separated as if about to speak though it rarely happened; and his complexion a pale eggshell white that never saw another color brought to it. "That's funny, man. Real funny-"

"Really?" Mark looked into the boy's eyes as his pony-tailed head nodded at him. "Dude, are you fucking autistic or something?"

"Huh?"

"Nothing-"

"How much do you weigh, Dennison?"

Mark turned to face his interlocutor, the teacher of his weight training class, Mr. Trees, the school's sports Renaissance man, as he coached every sport that mattered: football and wrestling. "Um, about 150-"

"Really? That's it?"

"Uh huh-"

"Ever thought about coming out for the football team?"

"Nah-"

"Why not? You don't like football?"

"No, I like football. I'm a big New York Giants fan-"

"You should try out next fall-"

"It's the team thing I don't like-"

"What do you mean?" Mr. Trees put one hand on his bald head and rubbed his large belly, which hung out from under his Cedarville High polo shirt, with the other.

"I don't like groups. I don't join groups or teams or clubs or organizations-"

"How about wrestling? There are individual classes-"

"Yeah, but you're still on a team. I'm just-"

"Scared!" came a loud voice from across the room.

Mark looked in the direction of the insult and narrowed his eyes. "I'm not scared of anything or anyone." He sniffed a quick loogie into his throat and popped his left elbow. "A wise man once said that if you're going to commit a crime, you should do it alone. I think the same applies for anything you do in life."

"Well," said Mr. Trees, tugging at the bottom of his shirt, which snapped back up to his belly button, "I think you ought to reconsider. As a matter of fact, I'm going to ask you every day until you do." He laughed.

Mark wiped a swath of sweat from his forehead and smeared it on his shorts. "How about this?" He pointed at the boy who had interjected himself in his and Mr. Trees' conversation. "I wrestle him and if I win, you never ask me about football or wrestling again."

"And if he wins?"

"He won't-"

A collective "Oooh" arose from the other boys in the weight training room as Mr. Trees leaned towards Mark. "Dennison, Jesse Simons is a 4-year letterman in wrestling. He's won States three years in a row and hasn't lost a match during that whole time. Plus, he outweighs you by 30 pounds-"

"If you're saying he's scared-"

"Let's get it on!" screamed Jesse's voice from behind Mr. Trees' blimp of a body.

The weight benches, dumbbells, and barbells crowding the middle of the room were rolled away to the farthest corners, and Mark and Jesse stood facing one another, Mr. Trees between them, acting as referee.

"Do you even know how to wrestle, Dennison?" snarled Jesse.

"I've seen it on TV-"

The boys circling the makeshift wrestling area laughed. Then became quiet just as quickly as Mr. Trees blew his whistle and Mark and Jesse lunged at one another, each grasping the other's biceps, their wet heads knocking and rubbing together. Suddenly, Mark rocked to his right, then jerked left, twisting his arms with all the force he could summon from his legs, Jesse's body pirouetting horizontally in the air twice before thudding face first into the weight room's rubber flooring. Quickly, Mark flipped him over and slid across his torso, pressing the boy's shoulders into the floor, a smile cementing itself on his face as he watched the blood trickle upward from Jesse's nose into his closed eyes.

Mr. Trees tapped Jesse out, then fell to one rickety knee to tend to the boy. Mark high-fived Maury and the two walked out of the weight room between two rows of mute, wide-eyed boys who couldn't back away fast enough.