Stranger Than Fiction (True Stories) Read online

  Nick Feldman calls it "elegant violence."

  During the matches, wrestlers lie around on the edges of the mats and watch. Wearing baggy sweats. They stay together, arms around each other, or locked in practice holds, in the kind of laid-back closeness you see only in men's fashion advertising anymore. Abercrombie & Fitch or Tommy Hilfiger magazine ads. Nobody seems to need "personal space." Nobody throws off "attitude."

  "You're brothers," says Justin Petersen, who at seventeen has a 4.0 GPA and runs his own Internet marketing business. "We eat together. When you have lunch, it's with the other wrestlers, and all you do is talk about how hungry you are and you can't wait until after that weigh-in so you can eat this or that. How many tenths of a pound you're going to lose in a day."

  Nick Feldman says, "As a whole, wrestlers are more comfortable with themselves. There's not too many egos getting blown everywhere because that's just all smoke. It's anti-NBA, pretty much."

  "Hell," says Sara Levin. "Going through hell together does it. You know that a guy in Russia is going through the same thing that this guy here is, trying to cut this much weight. They've got to do the same thing to get on the mat. There's a bond in that we're not a glamorous sport. We're not high-profile, money. You know that you're down and dirty."

  Like brothers, they even look alike. Many with broken noses. Cauliflower ears. Most have a kind of pulpy, boiled look from sweating hard and landing on their faces. They're all muscled like an anatomy chart. Most seem to have heavy brows.

  "In our wrestling room, we usually have the heat high," says Mike Engelmann, whose long eyelashes are in contrast to his brow. "What that does is it kind of flushes your body. You sweat all of it out. You drink more and sweat it out again, and it kind of sinks the cheeks and the eyes in, a little bit, and the forehead's all you've got left sticking out there. I kind of like the look, because it shows you're working hard."

  This brotherhood thing seems to end when the ref blows his whistle.

  On Saturday, despite all the years of preparation, the freestyle tournament is all over, fast.

  Joe Calavitta loses and is out of the Olympics.

  In Junior competition, Justin Petersen wins, and as soon as he's off the mat he throws up.

  The few people in the stands cheer, Sheldon Kim's wife, Sasha, saying softly, over and over, "Go, Shel. Go, Shel. Go, Shel…"

  "When you're in there, one-on-one with somebody," says Timothy O'Rourke, "you can't even hear what's going on in the stands."

  O'Rourke is pinned in five seconds.

  Sheldon Kim loses.

  Trevor Lewis wins his first match, but loses his second.

  Chris Rodrigues wins his first match.

  Sheldon Kim's younger brother, Sean, loses to Rodrigues.

  Mark Strickland goes against Sean Harrington, with Lee Pritts coaching from a corner. Behind in the match, Strickland calls a time-out, screaming at Pritts, "I'm going to break his ribs!" His face twisted as if he's already crying.

  "The toughest guys I know cry after matches because they put so much into it," Joe Calavitta says.

  Lee Pritts says, "You become so close with a workout partner that they're like your own blood, and if they go out and lose a match, lose a big match, then you've just had your heart torn out."

  Strickland loses to Harrington.

  "I hate to see him lose," Pritts says. "I've seen him have so much success, that when he loses, it's crushing."

  Pritts wins his match.

  Chris Rodrigues wins his second match.

  Ken Bigley wins his first and second matches, but loses his third.

  Rodrigues loses his third match and is out of the freestyle tournament.

  Sean Harrington and Lee Pritts are going to the Olympic finals in Dallas.

  A medic refuses to say how many muscles are pulled, bones broken, joints dislocated. All that's, he says, "highly confidential."

  And the freestyle tournament is over for another four years.

  That night, in a tavern, a wrestler who didn't win talks about how he was screwed over by the ref in favor of a local hero, and how USA Wrestling should import impartial refs from other areas. This wrestler talks about going to Japan to earn $20,000 in an "ultimate fighting" match, then using the money to create a joint marketing venture between topless clubs and amateur fighting events.

  "Many of these guys do the ultimate fighting because it's good money," says Sara Levin. "We have Olympians who are doing it. Kevin Jackson's done it. Half of our Greco Olympic team from 96 does it. I'm not thrilled that it's the professional outlet that our guys have, but it's their only option."

  The wrestler in the tavern says he can sneak the money back from Japan and not pay any taxes. He plans to avoid state laws about professional fighting by paying fighters under the table. He signs autographs for little boys. He's huge and nobody disagrees with anything he says. And he talks and talks.

  The next morning, Sunday, a Marine recruiting Humvee is parked outside the Young Arena, blaring heavy-metal rock music from giant speakers as two recruiters in Marine fatigues stand nearby.

  Inside the arena, the mats are laid on top of each other, double-thick, in preparation for the Greco-Roman tournament.

  "A lot of people are scared of Greco," says Michael Jones. "It took me a lot of years to get into it, because I was scared of it. Because of the throws. You got some serious throws."

  Phil Lanzatella suits up to wrestle, the scar from his open-heart surgery running down the center of his chest. He explains how at least the third and final heart valve tear probably happened while he was practicing Greco-Roman wrestling with Jeff Green at the Olympic Training Center in 1997.

  "I weighed about two-seventy and Green's probably about two-sixty, so we totaled about five-thirty, coming through the air at I don't know how many miles an hour. Twisting and turning. And we got next to some smaller guys. That space was tight. And they put their hands and feet up," he says. "And we came out of the turn and through the air, and I landed right on the guy's foot."

  Lanzatella says, "I felt it. I knew what had happened, but I didn't think much of it. I'd taken worse shots than that."

  Today, there's some talk about the darker side of wrestling, how someone snuck a camera into the weigh-ins at the Midlands tournament a few years ago and the best wrestlers in the world ended up naked on the Internet. People talk about how amateur wrestlers have been stalked by obsessed fans. Called late at night. Harassed. Killed.

  "I know there was a lot of talk," says Butch Wingett. "DuPont was hot for Dave Schultz for a long time."

  Former college wrestler Joe Valente says, "This sport gets so much disrespect. People think it's a bunch of homo men trying to feel each other up."

  As the Greco competition starts, there's no one in the stands.

  Keith Wilson wins his first match, loses his second, but will still go to the Olympic finals because he's already qualified in the Nationals.

  Chris Rodrigues wins a single match and will go to the Olympic finals as a Greco-Roman wrestler. The only high school student to qualify.

  With his father after the match, he says, "This is just great. I'm still in high school. I get to go back home and tell all my friends I'm going to the Olympic trials in Dallas."

  Phil Lanzatella wins his first match three-zero.

  His second match, Phil ties zero-zero in the first period, then loses a point to his opponent in the second period and loses the match in overtime.

  Already the crowd of wrestlers is thin. People are getting out, catching planes. Tomorrow is Monday and everybody has to be back at work. Sean Harrington as a painting contractor. Tyrone Davis as a water-plant operator for the town of Hempstead, New York. Phil Lanzatella as a spokesman for the company who installed his heart valve and as an advertising account rep for Time Warner.

  Lanzatella sits at the far side of the tournament floor while the last consolation matches wrap up. His wrestling shoes sit a few feet away.

  "I got what I deserved
," he says. "I haven't been training hard enough. I have different priorities now. My wife. My kids. A job."

  He says, "Last time these shoes will see action."

  He says, "Maybe I'll take up golf or something."

  Sheldon Kim says, "This is probably it for me. I have other priorities. I have my little girl. After this, that's it for me. I've gotten enough out of the sport to know what I've accomplished."

  Wrestlers leaving "the family" to concentrate on their own.

  Now almost no one is here at the Young Arena.

  "Wrestling has a kind of cult following," says William R. Groves, who's driving back to Ohio State University tonight, to finish the last year on his Ph.D. in physics. "Your friends come. Your family comes. And I think a lot of people view wrestling as a boring sport."

  Justin Petersen says, "It is a dying sport. I've heard some people say that boxing's a little bit worse, but wrestling's right there behind it. There's a lot of colleges dropping their wrestling programs. The high school popularity is going down. It doesn't have a lot of years left, that's what people say."

  "It's dying at the collegiate level most of all," says Sean Harrington. "But I've read that at the kid level, the young children, it's more popular than ever. There's just lots of kids getting involved in wrestling because parents know what it can be to their children."

  He says, "It's a hundred percent Title IX."

  In the twenty-five years since the federal law that requires colleges to offer equal sports opportunities for men and women, more than 462 schools have dropped their wrestling programs.

  "Title IX, that's a major factor," says Mike Engelmann. "All those colleges are getting screwed out of their wrestling programs because we have to have an equal amount of sports. I don't want to sound like a sexist or anything, but I really don't believe in it."

  Even Olympic champion Kevin Jackson says, "I have a son, and he's started to wrestle a little bit, but he does tae kwon do, soccer, basketball, and I really hesitate to push him toward wrestling in any way because it is such hard work for little reward."

  Still sitting near his shoes in the almost empty arena, Phil Lanzatella talks about his children, "More to the point, I'd push them to tennis or golf. Something noncontact, with lots of money."

  Jackson says, "So many people around the country have wrestled, or they know someone who wrestled. They have some connection to it. We just have to do a better job of promoting our athletes so folks watching TV can make that connection."

  "These guys," Engelmann says, "I'm sure all their kids are going to wrestle, too. And that's why it's not going to die. I want to have kids, and I'm not going to push it on them, but I hope they're going to want to wrestle."

  Phil Lanzatella has a plane to catch, too.

  "Maybe all this energy can be funneled into monetary gains," he says. He's been approached about writing a book. "Now I have the time to reflect and certainly the stories. From 1979 through today. I've been through about every aspect. Running for state legislator… going out with Mondale's daughter when we boycotted the Olympics in 80… being a part of five Olympic teams-that's never been done before. Yeah, there's a lot."

  He picks up his shoes and says, "I still have to call my wife…"

  "It feels so good when you stop," says high school wrestling coach Steve Knipp. "It's such a demanding thing when you're doing it that when you stop cutting weight and get to eat, you never appreciated food so much in your life. Or when you get to just sit down, you never appreciated that chair so much. Or when you get to take a drink of water, you never appreciated water so much."

  And now Lanzatella, Harrington, Lewis, Kim, Rodrigues, Jackson, Petersen, all those ears. Davis, Wilson, Bigley, all those stalactite cauliflower ears are diffused out into the big world, where they'll blend in. Into jobs. Into families.

  Where they'll only ever be noticed by other wrestlers.

  Keith Wilson says, "It's a small family, but everybody knows each other."

  And maybe amateur wrestling is dying, but maybe not.

  At the Olympic team finals in Dallas, there are 50,170 paying spectators, and big-money corporate sponsors including Bank of America, AT&T, Chevrolet, and Budweiser.

  In Dallas, one wrestler asks to perform an old ritual to mark the last match of his career. In this tradition, the wrestler puts his shoes in the center of the mat and covers them with a handkerchief. With the crowd silent, the wrestler kisses the mat and leaves his shoes behind.

  Sean Harrington says, "I got a friend who used to tell me, 'If I wrestled, I'd be the best. I know I'd be the best. I know I could. But he didn't. He didn't do it. So he could always just think that he could've been the best, but he never actually put on the shoes and went out and did it."

  He says, "Just the fact that you've accomplished, and you've set your goals and you went after them, and you never were a 'woulda, shoulda, coulda. You actually did it."

  No one mentioned in this article made the Olympic team.

  You Are Here

  In the ballroom at the Airport Sheraton Hotel, a team of men and women sit inside separate booths, curtained off from each other. They each sit at a small table, the curtains enclosing a space just big enough for the table and two chairs. And they listen. All day, they sit and listen.

  Outside the ballroom, a crowd waits in the lobby, writers holding book manuscripts or movie screenplays. An organizer guards the ballroom doors, checking a list of names on a clipboard. She calls your name, and you step forward and follow her into the ballroom. The organizer parts a curtain. You take a seat at the little table. And you start to talk.

  As a writer, you have seven minutes. Some places you might get eight or even ten minutes, but then the organizer will return to replace you with another writer. For this window of time, you've paid between twenty and fifty dollars to pitch your story to a book agent or a publisher or movie producer.

  And all day, the ballroom at the Airport Sheraton is buzzing with talk. Most of the writers here are old-creepy old, retired people clutching their one good story. Shaking their manuscript in both spotted hands and saying, "Here! Read my incest story!"

  A big segment of the storytelling is about personal suffering. There's the stink of catharsis. Of melodrama and memoir. A writer friend refers to this school as "the-sun-is-shining-the-birds-are-singing-and-my-father-is-on-top-of-me-again" literature.

  In the lobby outside the hotel ballroom, writers wait, practicing their one big story on each other. A wartime submarine battle, or being knocked around by a drunk spouse. The story about how they suffered, but survived to win. Challenge and triumph. They time each other with wristwatches. In just minutes, they'll have to tell their story, and prove how it would be perfect for Julia Roberts. Or Harrison Ford. Or, if not Harrison, then Mel Gibson. And if not Julia, then Meryl.

  Then, sorry, your seven minutes is up.

  The conference organizer always interrupts at the best part of the pitch, where you're deep into telling about your drug addiction. Your gang rape. Your drunken dive into a shallow pool on the Yakima River. And how it would make a great feature film. And, if not that, then a great cable film. Or a great made-for-television movie.

  Then, sorry, your seven minutes is up.

  The crowd out in the lobby, each writer holding his story in his hand, it's a little like the crowd here last week for the Antiques Road Show. Each person carrying some burden: a gilded clock or a scar from a house fire or the story of being a married, gay Mormon. This is something they've lugged around their whole life, and now they're here to see what it will fetch on the open market. Just what is this worth? This china teapot, or crippling spinal disease. Is it a treasure or just more junk.

  Then, sorry, your seven minutes is up.

  In the hotel ballroom, in those curtained cubicles, one person sits passive while the other exhausts himself. In that way, it's like a brothel. The passive listener paid to receive. The active speaker paying to be heard. To leave behind some trace of himself-a
lways hoping this trace is enough to take root and grow into something bigger. A book. A baby. An heir to his story, to carry his name into the future. But the listener, he's heard it all. He's polite, but bored. Hard to impress. This is your seven minutes in the saddle-so to speak-but your whore is looking at his own wristwatch, wondering what's for lunch, planning on how to spend the stipend money. Then…

  Sorry, your seven minutes is up.

  Here's your life story, but reduced to two hours. What was your birth, your mother going into labor in the backseat of a taxi-that's now your opening sequence. Losing your virginity is the climax of your first act. Addiction to painkillers is your second-act build. The results of your biopsy is your third-act reveal. Lauren Bacall would be perfect as your grandmother. William H. Macy as your father. Directed by Peter Jackson or Roman Polanski.

  This is your life, but processed. Hammered into the mold of a good screenplay. Interpreted according to the model of a successful box-office hit. It's no surprise you've started seeing every day in terms of another plot point. Music becomes your soundtrack. Clothing becomes costume. Conversation, dialogue. Our technology for telling stories becomes our language for remembering our lives. For understanding ourselves. Our framework for perceiving the world.

  We see our lives in terms of storytelling conventions. Our serial marriages become sequels. Our childhood: our prequel. Our children: spin-offs.

  Just consider how fast everyday people started using phrases like "fade to black." Or "wipe dissolve." Or fast-forward. Jump cut to… Flash back to… Dream sequence… Roll credits…

  Then, sorry, your seven minutes is up.

  It's twenty, thirty, fifty dollars for another seven minutes. For another shot at connecting with the bigger world. For selling your story. To turn that misery into big money. Book-advance money, or movie-option money. That big mega-jackpot.