FireHouse

http://daveconiferfirehouse.blogspot.com

Zach Bowie thought he knew what he was all about by the time he got to high school. Playing bass and singing lead in a rock band was one of the few bright spots for Zach, who lives with his single mother in the crappy part of an upscale suburb. That all changed during his sophomore year when the first string 171-pounder on the wrestling team went down with an injury. Zach had wrestled for years but until then it had been little more than something to do during the winter. This time it was different. The thrill of walking onto the mat in a varsity match was as good as the rush he felt on stage. Maybe even better.What would happen if he wasn't smoking three packs of Marlboros a day? Zach has to find out. Between band gigs he secretly trains on a strict regimen of running and weight-lifting. A few months later Zach has lost a foot of hair and gained twenty pounds of muscle. When November comes he covers the holes in his wrestling shoes with duct tape and reports to practice.

Pretentious lead guitarist Joe Fauquier is a dreamer who just knows the band is on the verge of making it big, in large part because of Zach’s obvious talent. He sees Zach’s new commitment to wrestling as an obstacle to stardom, and complains bitterly.

Mark Easton, the captain of the wrestling team who cruises the streets in a fully-loaded SUV, demonstrates his unhappiness with Zach’s presence by nicknaming him ‘Burnout’ and getting on his case every chance he gets. The two clash, sometimes violently, but Zach senses that Easton is afraid of him. He uses that intimidation to his advantage and shocks the team by beating Easton out of his own spot in the lineup.

Zach knows he's spread himself too thin but it's too late to do anything about it. By mid-season the wrestling coach and Fauquier have both lost their patience. Fauquier strikes first, by scheduling gigs when Zach is wrestling and then replacing Zach with an empty-headed heavy metal rocker. Dejected about being booted from the band, Zach loses his resolve one Friday night and slips back into some of his old vices. The next morning Zach stumbles onto the team bus with a hangover and an injury sustained in a scuffle with a bouncer, leading to his dismissal from the team.

It turns out that Zach had more friends than he realized. An unlikely coalition of jocks and rockers meet by accident and hammer out a plan to get Zach back onstage and on the mat. But how's he going to pull it off next season?