The Imaginary Girlfriend by John Irving Read Free Book Online Page B

impress my parents with everything I’d learned at Pitt; for whatever reason, my match against Army was not the kind of match Ted Seabrooke would have recommended for me. It was one mix-up after another; it was all a scramble. I knew from the beginning that I wouldn’t win a free-for-all.
    To be fair to myself, I not only lost the first takedown but I was thrown to my back and lost three points for a near-fall in addition to the takedown points. When I reversed him, I was still behind 5-2; he immediately reversed me, and I immediately escaped. When I had a second to look at the score, I saw I was losing 7-3 and the first period had just started. You can’t slow down the pace when you’re losing 7-3, and so that was the kind of match I was in—a free-for-all. I kept scoring, but he kept scoring back; whenever I checked the score, I was always no more than 5 but no fewer than 3 points behind. The cadets were screaming, not only because their West Point boy was winning; it was the kind of match a crowd loves—
any
crowd loves a free-for-all. I don’t remember the final score: 15-11, 17-13. . . . Ted Seabrooke would have told me—indeed, Ted
had
told me—that I would
never
come out on top of a score like that. It was my last match in a Pittsburgh uniform, which I had worn for all of two days.
    Whether they were disappointed or merely underimpressed, my parents were kind enough not to say. My mother was shocked to see how thin I was. I’d gotten much stronger in the wrestling room at Pitt, but I was nonetheless smaller than I’d been at Exeter; unlike Larry Palmer, I’d stopped growing when I was 15. My mom was worried about my weight. To that end, I was able to get some money from her—so that Caswell and Lee Hall and I could eat all the way back to Pittsburgh. I don’t think I told my parents about the hundred-dollar taxi ride; I know I didn’t tell them that I’d made up my mind to leave Pitt—I still didn’t know where I would go.
    I don’t even remember if Lee Hall won the Freshman Easterns or if he lost in the finals; it wasn’t like Lee to lose, but I vaguely recall that he had a difficult opponent—a Lehigh kid, as I remember him, but I’m on record for not remembering much. For example, I don’t remember how Caswell did; in the end, like me, I think he won a couple of matches and lost a couple—I know he didn’t make the finals, but he might have placed. (Caswell did everything in such a friendly, efficient, uncomplaining way; that’s probably why I can’t even be sure of his name.)
    Back in Pittsburgh, I will never forget telling Coach Peery that I’d spent all the pocket money.
    â€œYou took a
taxi?”
Rex kept saying.
    I had so much respect for Rex I couldn’t tell him why I was leaving Pitt: specifically because I couldn’t bear being a backup. Instead, I made up a story about missing a girlfriend back home; I thought this sounded more human—hence more forgivable. I didn’t have a girlfriend “back home,” or in Pittsburgh.
    My ex-girlfriend was from Connecticut; she was spending the year in Switzerland. The only Creative Writing I’d managed to do at Pitt was a diary I kept; I was imagining that I would show my ex-girlfriend my diary—and thus win her back. Everything in the “diary” was made up; I hadn’t exactly had the kind of year that made me want to write about it. I didn’t know this at the time, but I had begun a traditional writer’s task—namely, I was in the process of inventing myself. Before I could invent anything else, I needed to practice.

A Brief Conversation in Ohio
    In Pittsburgh—notwithstanding my disappointment in my wrestling—it had been a defeat of a deeper kind to be abused in Freshman English, where I received the grade of C- and was told by an instructor with less of a beard to shave than my own that my