Desperately Seeking Santa Read online

  Oh yeah. Right.

  Jordan’s boyfriend, Owen Nelson, was one of UW’s wrestling stars, and wrestling was huge in Wisconsin. He’d also been the first openly bisexual college wrestler when he joined the team as a freshman, so he’d gotten famous. Like, nationally famous. But that had been four years ago and, according to Jordan, most of it had died down by now. Like me, Jordan and Owen were both seniors.

  Seeing the group of LGBT fans, though, I realized it hadn’t entirely died down.

  After Jordan sat down, I leaned in. “So Owen doesn’t get shit for being out anymore? Really? Like, not at all?”

  Jordan shrugged. “He still gets sneers and comments. Then there’s the occasional homophobe asswipe in the crowd holding up a sign or something. But Owen is super focused. It just bounces off him. It bugs me more than it bugs him. Sometimes, I get pretty pissed off, but that’s the price of being open, unfortunately.”

  It was brave of Owen to be out as an athlete. And brave of Jordan, too, to come to every match, sit proudly in the stands, and stare down the faggot-haters. Joder. I’d never thought about it like that. Now I felt guilty for not coming to a match before. I was a shit friend.

  Jordan opened up his backpack. “Okay, so, warning. Do not be alarmed at all the spirit.”

  “Huh?”

  In quick succession, he donned a red Badgers scarf, fuzzy red Badger ears, and strung glowing necklaces on top of the scarf around his neck. He forced a couple over my head too.

  “Hey, I’m into it,” I pronounced as I grabbed some red fuzzy gloves from his backpack and tugged them on. “I am a fucking Badger bitch.”

  “Yeah. That’s not a thing, Gabe.” Jordan laughed.

  I stood up and waved to the rainbow flag contingent. “Owen! Owen!” I started the chant again, pumping my fuzzy red fists in the air. They chanted back. I finished up with a “Yeah!” and sat back down. I gave Jordan a raised eyebrow.

  “That’d be more impactful once the team comes out,” he commented wryly.

  “I’m practicing,” I said archly. I might be a noob at this sports thing, but if you’re going to do something, make it count. That was my motto. Besides, now that I’d remembered about Owen’s outness, I was motivated.

  The bleachers were nearly full by the time the meet started. The announcer called in the away team—they were from somewhere in Maryland—and then the UW wrestlers. The Badgers were introduced from the youngest to the best, which meant a lot of people I didn’t know came out first. But finally, Owen’s name was called.

  “Oweeeeeen Nelson. Weighing in at 174. Ranked number two in his weight class in the Big Ten!”

  The crowd went wild. Jordan and I stood up and cheered, and Owen came jogging out in a tight red singlet with a W on the chest. His blond hair was long and thick, and his pale skin gleamed over smooth, hairless muscles. He looked like he played a Nordic god on TV. He raised his arms and circled the floor, greeting the crowd. When he turned to face the away bleachers, I got to appreciate his tight bubble butt.

  Damn. You could bounce a roll of quarters off that thing. Yeah. The guy was hot. Too squeaky clean for my taste, but a full buffet of manliness for sure. Jordan was a lucky man.

  Owen turned and waved to the LGBT group, spotted Jordan, and gave him a big smile. I swear I heard Jordan’s heart thud over the sound of the crowd.

  Owen walked over to the team bench below us and dropped to the seat just as the announcer came on again. “And, finally, the only undefeated wrestler in Badger history, weighing in at a massive 285, and ranked number one in the Big Ten, it’s Mack ‘the Mmmmmmountain’ McDonall!”

  The crowd noise had died down after Owen, but now it ratcheted back up to maximum decibels. I barely heard it. Because… fuuuuck. What the hell was I seeing? Into the arena jogged the biggest guy I’d ever laid eyes on. Not just big, the man was huge. He had to duck his head to come in through the double doors from the hallway. He slapped hands with the coach as he went by, and the coach looked like an insignificant twig.

  Tall? He had to be close to seven foot, like one of those pro basketball players. Big all over? Dios, yes. His thighs looked like pillars, with thick slabs of muscle veeing over his knees. His shoulders were massive, his biceps and forearms sculpted, and his pecs and six-pack stood out clearly under the thin fabric of his red singlet. The guy was not just big, he was ripped.

  Naturally, my eyes drifted to a certain area. Hey, it’s not every day you see a male specimen like this one. I was curious. He appeared to be wearing compression shorts under his singlet. Even so, there was a considerable lumpiness in that region that said the guy was proportional everywhere.

  Jordan reached over with two fingers and gently brought my jaw up to close my mouth.

  “Homina,” I said.

  Jordan snorted. “Pretty sure that’s not a word. Wanna try again, Socrates?”

  I ignored him, caught up as the crowd began to chant, “Mountain! Mountain! Mountain!”

  Mountain? Indeed. The massive land formation in question raised his arms. He did a slow circle to the crowd, flexing his ginormous biceps and baring his teeth. It was like a scene from Mad Max, where the super-scary villain comes into the death-match arena. I swear to God.

  When the Mountain turned toward us, I got a good look at his face. His short curly brown hair stuck out around a black head guard. His face was tough and a bit plain, like you’d expect a boxer to have. Heavy jaw. Clean shaven. Flattish nose. It was a strong face, a super masculine face, not unattractive but sort of hard and off-putting. Then his eyes swept over us and paused briefly on Jordan. His look softened for a moment with recognition, and, Dios, my knees went a little weak.

  Also? Having him look in our direction made my stomach squoosh in anxiety, as if I was in the crosshairs of a predator.

  Or something like that.

  The announcer started explaining the rules, and the wrestler called “the Mountain” loped over to the team bench. He plopped down to sit next to Owen, who looked very small by comparison. I swear I felt the bleachers shudder when he dropped.

  Jordan waved a hand in front of my face.

  I blinked and looked at him. “Who the hell is that?” My voice sounded awed.

  “Oh look, it can talk,” Jordan said wryly.

  I elbowed him. “Come on. Dish.”

  “That’s Mack. He’s crazy big, huh?”

  “That’s not a man, that’s a zip code,” I breathed. A really, really intimidating, yet fascinating zip code.

  “He’s not really like that.”

  “Huh?” I shook my head and gave Jordan my attention.

  “Mack. He acts like a Neanderthal for the fans, but in person, he’s sort of quiet and serious.”

  That seemed unlikely to me. “How do you know?”

  Jordan gave me an incredulous look. “Um… because he’s on Owen’s team? They’re not besties or anything, but Owen usually rooms with him on away matches. He prefers Mack because he’s not up late goofing off. He takes wrestling as seriously as Owen does.”

  “Oh.”

  We settled in to watch the first match. One by one, a guy from UW would be called out and wrestle in the middle of the red circle with some guy from Maryland. Some of the bouts were quick, like a few minutes, but others took a while. It was a weirdly visceral sport. There were soft noises: grunts of effort, the slap of flesh and thud of bodies, the squeak of athletic shoes on the wooden gym floor. But, surprisingly, much of it was quiet, the two wrestlers straining in a silent deadlock. The Field House, originally chilly, grew hot from all the spectators and wrestlers.

  Jordan explained the scoring system to me. They could score points for things like getting the other guy down to their knees, getting out of a hold, and a bunch of other stuff. There were fewer actual “pins” than I’d expected. A pin was where one wrestler gets the other guy’s shoulders pressed down on the floor. I’d thought that’s all wrestling was—pinning the other guy. But nope, sometimes it was just whoever tallied th
e most points before the time was up.

  After awhile, I got bored because the matches were all similar. Sure, it was a little homoerotic since most of the strategy seemed to be in getting on top of the other guy. But it was like watching bad porn on super slow playback. Only no one got naked, it was just a lot of sweaty, red-faced grappling. After about twenty minutes, I was kind of over it.

  But then the clock headed toward 9:00 p.m. and things picked up. The last few wrestlers were of a better caliber, even I could tell. And then… then they called Mack “the Mountain” McDonall. Weight class 285.

  His weight had slipped by me when he’d been introduced the first time, I’d been so dazzled by the sight of him. But two hundred eight-five mother-fucking pounds. Holy Godzilla. He was literally twice the man I was!

  The Mountain got up and walked to the center floor, shaking out his muscles and rotating his neck. I could not stop staring. Even his butt was huge, and not fat either. Just… massive meatiness. The guy he was wrestling got up from the Maryland team’s bench. He was big too, though not in the same way as Mack. The Maryland wrestler looked like a football player. He was at least a foot shorter and thick all around with a big neck and a definite gut.

  Jordan leaned in. “Two eighty-five is the highest weight class in college wrestling. These are the big boys!”

  “No shit,” I muttered.

  The two wrestlers arranged themselves in the center of the red circle, staring at each other from about two feet apart. Intimidation wafted off them like a miasma. The Maryland guy put in a mouth guard and rubbed one fist with the open palm of his other hand, as if polishing off the head of a hammer. Mack clenched and unclenched his fists. He ground his feet on the floor like he was trying to screw them in place. Like: No way are you gonna move me, bitch! A thrill of tension went up my spine, and I grabbed Jordan’s thigh and squeezed.

  “Ow,” Jordan complained.

  And then, before I was ready, if I’m honest, the whistle blew and they were on each other. At first, they plowed into each other’s chests, thighs straining, arms wrapping around anything they could grab. The Maryland guy was considerably shorter but aggressive. They looked like two steam locomotives running into each other on the tracks, each one trying to push the other out of the way. Irresistible force meets unstoppable object.

  I couldn’t even imagine how much strength it would take to hold against the Mountain, but for a moment, the Maryland guy did.

  His face showed the strain, though, turning red. Maybe trying to hasten things along, he grabbed the Mountain’s waist, digging in with his fingers, his biceps bulging as he tried to twist. But the Mountain never moved. He let the guy try for a few humiliating seconds. Then Mack reached over the Maryland guy’s back with those big hands, grabbed the guy’s hips and lifted his feet off the ground.

  Lifted him. Off. The ground. By reaching over his back and pulling up.

  Damn. That was… how could he lift at that angle? And the guy was so heavy too. But somehow, The Mountain did, his biceps straining, mouth grimacing.

  In a heartbeat, there was a flip and a wham! The Maryland guy was on the mat on his back with Mack on top of him. Maryland struggled, moving this way and that, rocking his body to keep his shoulders up. He wrapped a calf around the back of one of Mack’s knees and it looked like he was trying frantically to scoot out from under him.

  But Mack pressed that massive chest down over the guy’s head, and pinned one of his arms, not letting him move an inch. Dios. It looked like he’d suffocate the Maryland dude!

  I squeezed Jordan’s thigh harder. He punched me in the arm. I ignored him.

  It wasn’t the sight of Mack dominating the other wrestler that was so exciting. I’ve always been a super independent, mouthy guy. I don’t like being told what to do and can’t imagine enjoying being shoved around. In your dreams, bravucón. No, that wasn’t it. But seeing the strength of Mack, seeing that massive body work so smoothly and gracefully and powerfully like that, the sheer size of him….

  Homina. Homina.

  The ref dropped to his belly to peer under Mack’s body. He looked for what felt like a long time, but was probably only a few seconds, while Mack dug in his feet. Then the ref blew his whistle and slapped the mat. It was over. The whole thing had probably taken under a minute, but it had been the most exciting minute of my life. My heart was going loco.

  The crowd went mad, cheering and whooping. Someone started a chant: Mountain. Mountain. Mountain. Mack rose off the poor, squashed Maryland wrestler with a light hop and offered his hand to help his opponent up. The guy accepted and was pulled to his feet.

  Jordan poked me in the ribs, hard. I released my death grip on his thigh. “Sorry,” I said sheepishly.

  He gave me a stern glower. “Next time, I’ll bring a pillow for you to grab. If I’m going to get bruised thighs, I’d prefer to have fun while doing it.”

  I heard his complaint, but my blood was still pumping too high to pay much attention. I jumped up and chanted “Mountain!” with the crowd, continuing until I was practically the last one standing. Finally, I dropped to the seat and gave Jordan a wide-eyed look.

  He cracked a smile. “So Mr. I-Hate-Sports has gotten smacked by the wrestling fairy.”

  “No.” I snorted. Hardly. Right. Like I really cared about wrestling.

  But I couldn’t stop staring at the Mountain as the ref held up his arm. He did the whole slap his chest and bare his teeth thing. But then a genuinely pleased smile flickered across his face. I blinked. Like in that moment when he’d spotted Jordan, that softer look was as incongruous on him as pink bows were in a wolverine’s mane. But… sort of nice?

  Then he did a few more angry fist pumps for the crowd before going back and dropping onto the bench. This time, I anticipated the slight shudder of the bleachers when he sat down and it gave me a thrill.

  “He’s undefeated,” Jordan said.

  “Huh?” I was still watching as Mack took a long drink of water from a bottle, those massive shoulders flexing.

  Jordan flicked my ear with his middle finger.

  “Ow!” I glared at him, rubbed the spot. “That hurt, cabrón!”

  “I think you need an oil change in there. Your gears keep getting stuck.” Jordan sniggered. “Lube on Aisle 10!”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’ve never seen anything like that. I mean, not in real life.”

  Of course, I’d seen impressive fights and stunts in the movies, but this wasn’t like that at all. The way he’d lifted that guy from over his back!

  “Yeah. Mack’s pretty remarkable, and I can say that having gone to every wrestling match Owen’s been in since the sixth grade. I told you Mack is undefeated. That’s super rare. Even as good as Owen is, he has a few defeats a season. But Mack’s got such a genetic advantage. Most guys in his weight class are overweight. But because of his height and build, Mack struggles to keep his weight down to 285. Plus having a height advantage is a big deal in wrestling. More body to move, leverage, stuff like that.”

  “Uh-huh.” I wanted to stuff my fist in my mouth and bite it. I refrained.

  “He’s been scouted for pro wrestling, but Owen says he’s not interested.”

  I had a mental flash of Mack “the Mountain” McDonall dressed in one of those ridiculous pro wrestling costumes, like with a purple cape, huge gold belt, and satin shorts. Not that I knew a damned thing about pro wrestling other than what I saw in commercials, but that was my layman’s idea of it.

  The image didn’t quite gel. Maybe it was that flicker of genuine pleasure I’d seen on Mack’s face when he won, the slip of the mask.

  I cleared my throat. “So. Owen’s coming up soon?” I changed the subject. I didn’t want Jordan to think I was a total weirdo, creeping on a guy just because he was large.

  Jordan brightened immediately.

  “Oh, yeah! It should be a good match too. The guy from Maryland that he’s wrestling, Marcus Bresman, has got the same win-loss record this season as Owen.
He’s ranked number three in the Big Ten. He’s really good.”

  Jordan chewed on his thumb nervously. He looked down at Owen, and as if reading his mind, Owen looked back and up and found Jordan in the crowd. He smiled. The intimacy in the way they looked at each other was crazy. It was as though a silent message passed between them, something beyond words.

  No matter what, I’ve got your back. I believe in you.

  Would I ever have anyone who looked at me like that? Knew me like that? Who stood with me as tightly as my own skin? Probably not. Only the luckiest people ever had that. My folks sure hadn’t, not even when they were married.

  The announcer called Owen’s name. His match was good too. It was one of the longest without being interminable. You could tell both wrestlers were amazing. The Maryland wrestler was a black guy, thick-set and strong. Twice he had Owen down and nearly pinned, but Owen pulled some trick maneuver and got out of it, and the same the other way around. The sound of slapping flesh and shoes on the squeaky mat was loud in the breathless arena. Then Owen got the guy all wrapped up in various appendages, like a pretzel, and had him immobilized. The ref blew the whistle.

  Jordan and I hopped up and cheered like maniacs. But even through all that drama? My attention kept drifting back to Mack. He sat and quietly watched the match, elbows on his thighs. He seemed to be in his own little world.

  Two days later, on a Thursday afternoon, I left my desk at the newspaper and drove to the Madison Elks Lodge for an interview. It was my first time going out on assignment, which was pretty damn cool—even if the story itself was the epitome of lame.

  On my way over there, my mind wandered back to the wrestling match. I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the Mountain and that big Maryland guy. I kept remembering the sight of those two big bodies colliding like planets, and the way Mack had picked up that guy from over his back and slammed him, then just flattened him, the way his enormous body had looked on top…. That scene refused to be dislodged from my frontal lobe’s replay queue. It was stuck there like kernels in your teeth after eating corn on the cob or like the world’s catchiest song.