One Shot Away Read Free Page B

eat for a few days. I’ve done it before.”
    â€œYou just ate half an apple pie.”
    â€œNot half.”
    â€œGo do some sit-ups!”
    â€œI just ate, you said so yourself.”
    â€œNow. Greco is going to be weighing you. What’s he going to think?”
    â€œRandy, I’ll cut, don’t worry.”
    Randy grabs the back of Diggy’s neck and digs his fingers into his flesh. “Get going.” He tries to lead him toward the weight room.
    â€œGet off me.”
    Randy releases him. “Diggy, you should want this more than me. Your entire high school career is going to be summed up in the next twelve weeks. You made a name for yourself last season. You proved to everyone you were a Masters. If you don’t make weight, what’s going to happen?”
    This season is Randy’s wet dream. He wants Diggy to win the districts. Diggy wants to win as much as Randy, but he’s hungry all the time. And worse, he knows all about starvation and hunger pains that keep you awake, that rip his gut like a banzai sword. He once sat in a sauna until he was so dehydrated he couldn’t blink, couldn’t spit, couldn’t speak. Then he went two days on sliced carrots, which may not sound impressive, but a carrot is ninety percent water. It was terrible. He had orange diarrhea for days.
    â€œLet’s get serious,” says Randy. “You want your name on the Wall?” The Wall is the Wall of Champions in their high school. Diggy’s brother was the District Champ and the State Champ from his freshman year to his senior year. The single State Champ in the history of Molly Pitcher High School. In fact, the only four-time state winner ever in the state of New Jersey. Get the picture. His name is plastered all over the Wall.
    Randy smiles at Diggy. Randy used to sell cars and he’s got this unmistakable salesman’s smile, with one side of his mouth raised and a blink at the same time. Now he owns the dealership.
    â€œOf course I do.” Diggy wants his name next to his brother’s. He’s thought about it ever since Nick’s name was put on the Wall.
    They go into the weight room, lined with mirrors. Diggy’s black hair, cut in a fade, is clean and tight. He smiles at himself. He may not be ripped, but he has the look that half the high school guys would crush their left nut for. Randy sets the sit-up board on an angle. “Gimmie sets of twenty, until you reach one hundred.”
    Diggy hooks his feet under the cushioned bar. “It’s called five sets of twenty,” he cracks.
    Randy smacks the back of his head with his open hand. “Get serious.”
    â€œKeep your damn hands to yourself.”
    â€œThat didn’t hurt you,” he says.
    â€œHow would you like it if I slapped you upside your head?”
    â€œJust do them.”
    â€œI can count for myself.”
    â€œYou got it, buddy. Do it your way.” Randy leaves and Diggy hears his footfalls on the stairs.
    Diggy bangs through a set of twenty. Randy’s right. He is the 152 varsity starter. He should move up a weight class to 160, but Jimmy O’Shea has it locked. Diggy’s not saying Jimmy is better than him, but at the moment he’s not challenging him to a wrestle-off for a few reasons: Diggy will win more matches at 152; Jimmy will win more matches at 160 than 170; and the truth is, he could lose to Jimmy.
    He rests, then cranks out another set. There’s a part of Diggy that knows Randy is doing this for his own good, and then there’s Nick’s theory: Randy is pushing him because he’s a fat-assed prick who rode the bench on his high school football team, then got cut in the first round at college. Randy never got any respect. He wasn’t the big man in the gym until Nick tore through wrestlers like a tree shredder.
    Diggy grabs a handful of fat around his navel. He knows where the weight came from. Taco Bell Grande