Four Days to Glory
Wrestling with the Soul of the American Heartland
Chapter OneLocating the Enemy
Jay doesn't plan on his headgear ricocheting across the wrestling mat and spiking against one of his teammates' legs, but he won't be racing over to do anything about it, either. You can hear the slap of plastic on skin from across the gym when it makes contact, but since the teammate caught in the crossfire is both an underclassman and a varsity wrestler in the state of Iowa, he does not so much as throw Jay a look. The boy instead sits there in his chair alongside the mat, hunkered down, the hood of his sweat top pulled around his head to shadow his face. He does not move. There is, his posture suggests, no sting from the spiked headgear, no red mark on his leg from the point of contact. Nothing has happened. And Jay need not apologize for—well, for what is essentially nothing.
But Jay means it, of course—not the ricochet, but the rest of it. He wants his disgust fully visible to anyone inside the gym, which is why he yanks off the equipment and fires it downward in the first place. ... read full excerpt from: Four Days to Glory ebook
