I walked from the bathroom. My mother gasped. I flexed my right arm, then got into my stance, made a mean face, and growled. She smiled, eyes full of pride.

“My money’s on you,” she said.

“Damn straight it is,” I replied and pointed at her. She burst into laughter.

That night she made a big dinner of spaghetti and pork chops, mixed vegetables, applesauce, garden salad with Italian dressing, and a tall glass of milk. My father arrived home as I was setting the table. He removed his boots and sat.

“Wow, this looks wonderful. What’s the occasion?”

“Today’s nutrition provides tomorrow’s strength,” I said, reciting the exact phrase our coach had used earlier in the day.

He nodded. “Of course, of course. Well, enjoy eating meals before matches while you can. As you get older, especially in high school, you’ll probably have to cut a little weight.”

We dug in and started eating.

“So you ready for tomorrow?” he asked.

I nodded. “You bet.”

“Nervous yet?”

“Nope.”

“You will be.”

He was right. When I woke the next morning, a slight nervousness had settled in my gut and grew as the day wore on. Most of the other students were coming—friends, acquaintances, girls who I had crushes on and who I had, at one point or another, masturbated to. I grew more and more jittery, and an hour before the match, standing in line for weigh-ins, I was scared shitless. Jason stood behind me with a blank stare that I knew meant the same. They weighed in both teams together, by weight class. I was the first person to step on the scale. I’d also be the first match wrestled. I weighed 74.5. My opponent weighed exactly 80. He was the team’s eighth-grade captain. That didn’t help my nerves, though I wasn’t impressed by the look of him. He was an inch taller than I was and somewhat lanky with shaggy, dark hair and a pimply back. I noticed immediately that he had armpit hair, which made me more nervous than anything else as I had none of my own. Then our team dressed together and sat in the locker room beneath the gymnasium while the other team warmed up first. Most of us were silent. Then our heavyweight lifted his leg and ripped a fart that echoed off the locker room walls and made us all laugh, assuaging a bit of the collective anxiety we were all feeling.