Pins: A Novel (10 page)

10

Bennie’s large hands slapped down on their shoulders. “So brothers, do you feel proud to be so good?” He escorted Joey and Dink out of the school. Their gym bags kept banging against their backs.

“Fuckin’ A,” Dink said.

“Feels great,” Joey beamed.

“Pride,” Bennie scolded. “The greatest sin.”

“What?” Dink tried to shrug off Bennie’s grip, but he steered them toward the parking lot.

“Don’t let your heads get big.”

“Aw, c’mon, Bennie,” Dink pulled away. “We’re just happy, you know? Can’t a person be happy about something without suffering eternal damnation?”

“That’s right. You Catholic boys get to sin over and over again.” Bennie stopped by his dingy blue-gray Mustang, the car’s body a mottled map of gray primer, a giant burnt Hot Wheel.
 
Joey could see himself and Dink reflected in the windows. Were they going to get a ride home? He found himself feeling giddy, as if another privilege were being presented.

Bennie jingled his car keys. “Just pop into the booth, presto-change-o, start from scratch. You know, I wish I’da been raised a Catholic.”

“Well, it’s never too late,” Dink smirked as he stood by the door.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Bennie pretended to be confused. “Did you boys want a ride?”

“Yeah, I mean, if it’s…we thought you were. . .”

“So sorry to have misled you.”

“Come on Bennie, we’re beat. Just this once.”

“Soon, brethren. Not today. But remember, we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of the world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”

“What?” Joey blurted.

“Ephesians, six twelve.” Bennie’s grin disappeared as he sat down in his car, shut the door, gunned the motor, ambled carefully out of the parking lot, Guns and Roses blasting from inside the Mustang.

Dink turned away, shaking his head. Joey didn’t know what to make of Bennie. “What was that about?”

“That,” Dink said, “was Bennie’s way of fucking with our heads.”

“Well, it worked.”

Dink adjusted the strap of his gym bag over his shoulder. “Yeah. Well, let’s get going, before my legs give out.”

“Ba-da-bing, ba-da-bang,” Dink shot Joey with his fingers as they walked home. Joey dropped his gym bag, fell to the ground, and Dink fell atop him.

In the briefest moment, Joey stole a glance at Dink’s ear, the one that wasn’t thick from a beginning cauliflower. The sun shone through Dink’s skin, turning the thinnest part a bright crimson. Veins and capillaries fanned out like a tiny river. Joey impulsively reached up, grabbed for it. He wanted to touch it before wrestling thickened it up forever.

Dink grabbed his arm, headlocked him, released him. They jumped up as if nothing had happened.

They could be so up, hyped, stoked, but as soon as they got home, wolfed down some food, they’d crash out like zombies.

“Hey, I got some other videos,” Dink said.

“What, any college stuff?”

“Yeah, and more school tapes.”

“What, yer dad’s?”

“Naw.”

“Coach’s?”

“Naw. This guy comes to matches. Goes to other matches too, all over. He’s a real fan. Came up to me once, asked me to make a video. He’s got his basement all set up with mats.”

“What, then he sells ‘em?”

“What? No way, Jose. I dunno. Maybe. He just like, gets these guys to wrestle. I think he sells ‘em. Gave me a hundred dollars.”

Joey half-sang what had become one of their private jokes. “Fruit cake.”

Dink never said yes or no. He just sang a line from a Nirvana song: “What else should I say. Everyone is gay!”

He sang it so loud Joey had to swat him. “Shut up, man.”

“Y’oughtta come with me, man. Lives in Paramus. He’s got all these tapes, all these guys. . .”

“I don’t think so.” He was actually curious, and interested, but it sounded like Dink was trying to set him up again, as if he needed an excuse to have sex with him. Why didn’t he just say it?

“Whatever. Those shoes a yours are gettin’ pretty skanky. I didn’t get my Asics International Lyte from allowance money.”

Dink’s shoes were top of the line. But just the idea made Joey feel creepy. “I ain’t lettin’ some old guy make videos of me.”

“They come to the matches anyway.”

Joey didn’t say anything. He just wanted to drop it. How did Dink know all these things? Why did he hang them in front of him like bait? Dink didn’t need the money. Why would he do something like that? Guys like that came to matches? Their matches?
 
He wanted to ask Dink all sorts of questions, but he didn’t want to scare him off. He didn’t want to be like Anthony, getting too close to the truth, ending up alone because of it.

Dink said nothing for a while. They walked.

“My mom’s goin’ to Willowbrook Saturday. Ya wanna go with me?”

“Sure.”

“Okay. Cool.”

When he asked his mother if he could go, she said, “You’re going where?”

He had a hard time explaining, since when Dink invited him, Joey didn’t know that Willowbrook was a shopping mall. His mother thought he meant the insane asylum of the same name.
 

Joey didn’t care what it was. He was going with Dink, away, anywhere that little girls didn’t need the answer to “Why is My Little Pony pink?” explained in endless detail, where no runts would spy on him, where his buddy’s every touch made him think sexy thoughts, where no one made something as dumb as shopping sound like a sin.

Mrs. Khors said, “See you in an hour at the fountain.” They sped off on a quiet spree, downing coffees at a cafe, since they had to cut weight. Joey learned quickly that he should only drink coffee in the morning, even then on weekends only, or else he’d be up all night drawing.

Joey followed Dink through every shop in the mall, including both sporting goods stores, where they laughed at the dorky salesmen dressed like refs, scanned through the circled racks of T-shirts, knowing they didn’t even have wrestling shirts, let alone the wild ones from the catalogs.

“This is all junk. Come on.” Dink led him to a vintage store with a lot of old stuff, already worn, everything half as much as the fake grunge in the mall.

They clicked through CD racks. Joey told Dink which ones he liked. Dink took him to the bookstore where they had planned to spend the extra cash on comic books, until Dink dared him to steal something.

The first thing Joey wanted was the Marky Mark book, which he’d already looked at while Dink scanned the shelves in Sci Fi/Horror.

His heart thudded from the glances at the pages where Mark Wahlberg’s shirtless torso stuck out like a wet muscle version of some pop-up book. He wanted to see something like that at night. He wanted more pictures of men he worshipped. He couldn’t draw everything.

Joey walked to the back, checked for circular mirrors up in the corners, then stuffed the book under his jacket, under his sweat shirt, against his belly, down his pants.

He saw Dink standing out in the lobby of the mall, but then he thought of a scarier way to make sure he didn’t get caught. He went to the newsstand and grabbed a fitness magazine with even more nearly naked muscular guys in it, bought it. The bald guy at the cash register smiled ever so nice.

Joey trotted out to meet up with Dink, who tried hard to maintain the dopiest of grins.

“Whadja get?”

“Hold on. Not till we’re home.”

“Show me.”

“It’ll fall out. Come on.”

They snuck into the men’s room. Dink pulled out a paperback copy of a Clive Barker book. Joey yanked out the Marky Mark book. It peeled off his skin like a bandage.

“Cool.”

They marveled quietly at each other’s catch until somebody in one of the toilet stalls emitted a disgusting sound. They shoved the books in the bags with the other stuff, rushed out giggling.
 

Ten minutes later, Mrs. Khors found them waiting at the fountain with the smiles of angels.

11

Proudly showing off his front lawn fort from the first day, his brother had already made a few friends with some boys his age, who’d come by on little bicycles. Mike doled out empty boxes, becoming instantly popular with a casualness Joey secretly envied.

He’d helped unpack with his father and the movers, occasionally glancing down the street to see if anyone his age might also come by to introduce himself.
 
No such luck.

He’d been wiping his face with his T-shirt when a chubby lady with big bosoms under a flowery blouse and tight pants that showed a bit too much of her wide hips smiled benevolently with a tray in her hands. “Your mother’s inside?”
 
Joey nodded.

She called herself the Tuscan Welcome Wagon. That first September day with the huge moving truck taking up half the street, Irene DeStefano walked right through the open front door with a fresh-baked lasagna and a bundt cake. She walked right in as if she had always been his mother’s closest friend.

A widow with kids in college, content to live alone in the smaller house next door, Irena “call me Irene” DeStefano seemed to move into their lives to fill up her own. But his mother liked her. Even so, every time he came home, it became a signal for her to wrap up the chit chat, let her “get dinner on the table.”

He tried not to resent his mother’s times with her friend, but so often he had good news, or wanted to spout off about something someone said, or rehearse his day’s events before repeating them for his father at dinner, or after, or not at all. He sure wasn’t going to tell anything in front of Mrs. DeStefano, even though his mother probably discussed every cold or report card or ear infection.

“Well, Hello, Joseph. How are you?” Mrs. DeStefano’s arms were out, demanding, so he hugged her.

“Okay. Hey, Ma.” He bent down to kiss her. “I got a shirt, like you said.” He pulled the wrapped shirt from the bag.

He wouldn’t tell his mother he’d taken all of three seconds picking it out from the bargain bin. He just knew what her idea of “a good shirt” meant, so he got one, as promised, stuffed with cardboard, about a dozen pins, one of which always seemed to stay hidden until Sunday.

“What else did you get?”

“Oh, a book, another shirt. See?”

“That’s nice. Is that flannel?”

“Yeah.”

“Keep him warm,” Mrs. DeStefano said.

“It’ll definitely keep me warm,” Joey grinned as he raced upstairs. He didn’t mean the shirt.

He’d already scanned the Marky Mark book, saw the third nipple with a little arrow, and the wet shot, with his soaked jeans down so low, his skin taut like a cream-colored dolphin. Joey clutched the growing contents of his pants. Oh man. Save it for later.

He read the page where Marky’s brother Donnie, from New Kids on the Block, told about his relationship with his brother. Joey had two NKOB cassettes, plus Marky’s too, which he’d scrubbed his Aunt Lilla’s stove to pay for.

In the Marky Mark book, Donnie Wahlberg explained how close he and Marky were: “Whenever I’m leaving Marky or he’s going away, or like even when he finishes in the studio and is takin’ off, we always kiss goodbye.”

It wasn’t sexy to Joey, just a reminder of how to love your family, even if he sometimes didn’t like them. He hadn’t kissed his brother in years. Mike never held still long enough for him to try. Of course, if his brother were Marky Mark, he’d probably have a hard time not kissing him.

Restless, anxious, starving, not knowing whether to beat off or say a prayer for the contorted thoughts he had, Joey crept back to the top of the stairs to listen to the women talk. He didn’t want to pig out with Mrs. DeStefano there, so he perched, listening from above.

“It’s very nice, give him a little responsibility.”

“But you know, the mother is divorced.”

“What does she do?”

“Do?”

“Her job.”

“She’s a secretary at some real estate company.”

No, Ma, he wanted to shout down the stairs. She sells houses.

“Well, it’s good he’s making friends,” his mother said.

“And in sports. That’s so good for a boy his age, to let off steam. The girls love an athletic boy.”

A silence, then his mother shifted to talking about Sophia, then Mike, then Mrs. DeStefano said that no, Marilyn’s cancer had not gone into remission and Burt had yet to return from Cairo but it wasn’t until they said something about maybe next week that Joey realized they were talking about people on a soap opera.