A brilliant season

Regional Wrestling Tournament, São Bernardo do Campo Sports Center, São Bernardo do Campo, SP.

This is the beginning of the afternoon. The lights at São Bernardo Sports Center started going on slowly. We're sitting on the first row of seats of the sports center, me and all Corporal. I only came today, could not come yesterday, but little by little, blow by blow the kids put me in the picture. And the main picture for them is the score: Cobras 25, Onças 30, Corporal 27, São Bernardo 27. The other teams, already disqualified had long gone back home, what leaves me without the efervescence I imagined for the event. Figueira is sitting at my side, staring into that eternal void, speaks too little, looks you in the eye too little. I accompany him to the sports center's cafeteria for O.J., asked him to not exaggerate with sugar, what he complied with despite himself. He wouldn't say a word. I was going to say something, break the silence, but there was no time for that. A voice behind us did it for me.

"I was looking for you, fighter."

We turned to the voice, almost at the same time. A kid that was a bit taller than Figueira, staring at us. Figueira returned the stare as it was his style.

"Aren't you going to introduce me to her?"
"This is Miss Grisam. This is Martins, from São Paulo", he said in a slow, monotonous voice, despite himself again.

Martins. The famous Martins, finally, someone I had heard talk about so much was now a concrete reality in front of me. He was serious, not allowing himself even a shadow of a smile, as far as I could observe.

"Can I take a seat?" and he looked at me. I pulled a chair for him, even not knowing whether or not I should.

"As far as I'm concerned, the cafeteria is a public place, isn't it?", Figueira shrugged.
He sat with us. Asked whether Figueira had seen the set of bouts for the day.
"They've put us together to fight again today, Figueira. They gave you the list, didn't they?"
"And you had nothing to do with it, did you, Column?"
"You know I didn't", he retorted, "what do you think the system here is? If you do this kind of thing in Santos, just don't come blaming it on me."

Figueira was then silent. Started spinning the glass and gazing at the circular movement of the O.J. inside. I decided not to interfere, see what would become of that dialogue, if anything. It seemed a cordial conversation if a conversation between two rivals like them can really be cordial.

"You know I'm going to kill you, don't you, Figueira?"
"Wha'?", I asked, astonished at what he had just said.
"Stay out of it, Miss Grisam", growled Figueira, "no boasting, Column. Win the bout where you have to: on the mat."
Martins smiled, calmly.
"I'm going to kill you, Figueira... You won't get out of here alive; this is your last night on Earth..."
He then looked at me and said, "You're beside a great, great big forceful wrestler, did you know?"
I told him I did.
"This is why it'll be so sweet to kill him. I'll lock his leg and put him in my arms, like a baby to show the referee. Then, I'm gonna crush him till he is as big as a matchbox and give him back to Corporal, where he belongs. It's even easier to take him home in the van. In the glove compartiment. You have a son of a bitch of a style, Figueira. But you're not ready for me", and he held out his hand to Figueira.

Figueira shook his hand firmly, as if he knew the exact meaning of every word the Column said; as if he knew, right from the start why the Column was saying all that to him.

And it happened that two teams were left in the end, when the others had long thrown the towel: the Onças, from São Paulo and Corporal. Onças 40, Corporal 36. The bouts were the toughest many of them had lived to see and tell, but the Corporal kids were in one of their rare days of complete concentration. But what it bolied down to was that the paulistanos were not there to talk about the weather. Even Panotti was overwhelmed by the Column's might, the way he threw the opponents around, with both rage and technique in an ever-increasing level. He never won by higher score, only pinned and pinned. That was exactly what Figueira was about to face, he told me.

"If Figueira wins, this is going to be our first prize as a team. But I don't believe he is going to win, not even by a higher score. Not the Column, Figueira doesn't stand a chance. If any better wrestler had disqualified the Column, we'd have a better chance. But since he's still in the game..." and Panotti shook his head, in disbelief.

Actually the kids of Corporal had already finished their agenda for the day, now that Zangrandi came back from the mat, weary, worn-out, but triumphant, after pinning his opponent from the Onças, waiting for the end. Mr. Costa approached us with Coach Rodrigo. He motioned to Figueira:
"I want to see this blood today, Figueira", he poked Figueira on the chest with his index, with a grave expression, "I want to see you give your blood for the team tonight."
"He is doing his best, Mr. Costa. I have never known him to do anything but his best...", I defended. Figueira stopped me and said he had already gotten the gist of it. His look, lost into a void that got to overwhelm me. He'd only have eyes to face his forceful opponent now. And he knew how worthy the Column was. Great ships have gone aground and sunk, he said. And this might happen again.

And, at the blow of the referee's whistle, the two went at each other as animals, seeking to take the supporting foot of each other off the ground. Corporal was tense; nobody would even blink. The onlookers wouldn't understand why so much fierceness betwen the two wrestlers; they knew it was a fight after all, but there had to be some more cold technique, not what they could see on the mat then. The referee even looked at us, confused, seeking to figure out why it had to be so violent. In a moment, Figueira twisted his own body, trying to throw the Column over his back. He even managed to score, but in a quick and unexpected movement, the Column mounted his back and applied him a headlock. Then, started to ride Figueira, as if he were his horse, dizzy amidst the roar and confusion of the paulistano rooters of Onças and ours. Figueira breathed heavily, suffocating under the forceful opponent's headlock, spinning like crazy around the mat while Morales and Panotti shook their heads.

"Well, it's gone", said Panotti, "now Figueira is going to be turned into peanut butter in the hands of the Column. It's the end and I don't want to watch it anymore."

The two fell down to the mat, Figueira underneath the Column, forming a mount on the mat, under a rain of battle cries from the Onças. The referee and the judge asked people to calm down, while the still mount lied on the mat. The referee knelt down to see what it was and didn't believe what he saw: Figueira's shoulders, still off the mat, the Column desperately fighting to pin him, Figueira holding up under the absurd weight of the opponent with only his backbone alive, a twisted face, just about to explode. The referee was waiting for Figueira to tap the Column on the shoulder or on the mat to finish the bout. Nervous, I couldn't help but telling Mr. Costa, "throw the towel. The kid won't stand the pressure, for heaven's sake!" Panotti, Morales, Mr. Costa, Coach Rodrigo and Galhardo looked at it astonished. Only Zangrandi seemed to imagine Figueira could be that mighty; but even he was tense at what was happening.

And what seemed to be impossible turned out to be inevitable: Figueira slowly started lifting the Column, very slowly, making all those people rise to their feet, in suspense. Time stood still all around us, when, still on his knees, Figueira threw the Column to the mat, ignoring his astonished look. Summoning up his last reserve of energy, mouth and nose bleeding, he mounted the Column's back and strangled him with all the might rage would artificially put around his arms, until the eyes of the Column almost jumped out of his face. Impressed, the referee stood still, without knowing what to do. In total and undeniable awe, Coach Rodrigo approached the scene and shot it into a snapshot, freezing the moment forever as if it wasn't in our memory for the eternity. The two raging opponents were now a raging sculpture chiselled with a sledgehammer, shaking with involuntary contractions. And slowly, as he had once risen above the noise and confusion, Figueira fell over his mighty opponent, now that he was even mightier than the Column, to the final blow of the referee's whistle. As if he had only waited for that to allow himself fall. The fight was over. Figueira had won. The referee waited for Figueira to rise again to take them to the center of the mat. He didn't rise. Never more would he rise again. Figueira's last stand. It was over and the wrestler too. Doctors had run to the mat, feeling his pulse, cleansing the blood no more hankies would be able to cleanse. One of the doctors fell down sitting on the pool of blood, a stain that would be on his clothes for good. The blood Mr. Costa sought so very hard to see was there plain to be viewed by everyone. Corporal, the Onças, the public, the audience clustered around, overwhelmed. I sat beside Zangrandi that started sobbing.

"Something tells me it's the last we've seen of him", he said.

I hugged Zangrandi, while he sobbed non-stop. My eyes watering, not only for sadness, but for the hate I felt for everything that makes a child a man long before the time. It was a brilliant season after all. And it was over. Corporal had finally gotten its glittering prize.


Into the void | Here comes that sinking feeling

Radio Universal: The Making Of A Thousand Gods.