Pins: A Novel (11 page)

12

“You don’ know what goes into makin’ a toilet. They gotta do a lot of work to make a pot to piss in.”

Joey did not want to hear about the wonderful world of plumbing. He was set to wrestle a junior with a 27-8 record and wanted to keep cool for the next night’s match. He’d looked the guy up in a copy of
Amateur Wrestling News
in the Cadet section. He thought it would be a good idea to get more information on his competition. It made him more nervous, with facts.

His father sat opposite him, his mother hovering, so she could be closer to the counter, since there was always something to get, more water, more cheese, the pepper, another fork. Sophia kept dropping hers.

“What, no plumbing?” his father grabbed another piece of garlic bread. “Plumbing paid for the food you’re eating.”

“We know, Dad.” Joey sliced a piece of romaine lettuce, trying to make his salad at least seem like a full meal, but the smell of his mother’s sauce made his stomach rumble.

“It’s like sculpture. Those fancy ones? They make ‘em one at a time.” Joey tried to show his disinterest, looking over at Sophia, who pulled a string of pasta, holding it high above her open mouth. “Sophia, stop that.” His father turned back to his oldest son. “It’s good work. You’ll like it. You don’t gotta wear a shirt, it’s so warm in there. I’ll take you out to the plant.”

“Dad, I don’t wanna make toilets.”

“It starts at seven bucks an hour. That’s good pay for an apprentice. You got better?”

His mother tried to change the subject. “Lets’ talk about this later. Joseph, eat.”

“Ma, I tole ya, I’m up in my weight. I gotta float a pound.”

“Why this craziness, this diet thing? The boys on football don’t do this. Irene told me.”

“Football season’s over. Besides, they train them like bulls. They just have a trough for them in the cafeteria.”

Mike snorted a laugh.
 
Joey felt better.

“What about basketball?”

His father dropped his fork against his plate. “Marie, the kid’s five-foot-four. He’s a midget.”

“That’s because he don’t eat!” She shoveled a glop of steaming pasta onto his plate. Sophia and Mike giggled, repeating, “Midget, midget.”

Joey ignored them, looked down at the swirl of noodles, the blood red sauce tempting him. A pang of hunger flamed up from his belly.

He wanted to eat it all, but reached for the glass, gulped milk instead. “Ma, I gotta float a pound or I gotta change weight class. And I can’t change my weight class ‘cause I’m already ranked this season in this weight class.”

“I don’t understand.”

“If you came to a match.”

“I can’t watch that. See you get beat up by some other boy, just like that time. . .”

Instead of listening for the fourteenth time about some kid in California who broke his neck, Joey decided to talk over her. “We don’t beat each other up. It’s a world-renowned sport.”

He pushed his plate toward himself, picked up his fork. “Look, one big mouthful, okay?” Shoving it in his mouth, he savored it like an entire meal. He chewed. Everyone watched, until Sophia, bored more than full, squirmed out of her seat with an “I’m done.” Dinner seemed to have been adjourned, or dismantled.

Joey sat at the table watching his parents take the dishes. “Save some for tomorrow, okay? Then I’ll pig out.” The look in her eye wavered somewhere between suspicion and flirtation. “You coming, Dad?”

As his father hesitated, Joey shook his foot nervously under the table, making a piece of glassware ching against a bowl. He glanced up at the clock on the wall. Five-thirty. He would have half an hour to get there. If his dad drove, he could make it early. If not, he had to jog. The gulp of pasta burned in his stomach, warm, delicious. He wanted so much more.

“I think I might make it.”
 
He paused.

“What?”

His father’s sly grin reassured him, kidding. “If you promise to come to the factory and see about a job.”

“Dad, it’s December. Why do I gotta apply for a job I don’t need ‘till June?”

“Because you already got about a thousand outta work guys in line ahead of ya, but if I get you in now, you’ll have a job then.”

“Joseph, give me your plate,” his mother said. “No more job talk.”

“What’s a matter? He’s got a problem with it? It’s very artistic, you know. Clay, glaze, makin’ molds. You oughtta like that, being the artistic type.”

Joey scowled, burned with embarrassment. He knew exactly what his father meant.

“Dino,” his mother scolded her husband.

Sophia paraded through the kitchen, piped in a mimicking “Dino” that made everybody laugh.

“Well, the kid says he don’t got a summer job. I’m just tryin’ to help out. You said you don’t wanna be a plumber.”

“It’s not for everyone,” his mother said.

“It’s good enough to put this food on the table.”

“Mamma put da food onna table,” Sophia said.

“But daddy paid for it.” He pointed a thick finger at her tiny doll face, until she grabbed it, after which he scooped her up. “Paid for by all those crazy people who don’t know how to take care of their plumbing. I tell them all that old saying what the chamber pot said.”

Oh, not again, Joey agonized.

“‘Use me well and keep me clean, and I’ll not tell what I have seen.’”

“Ya got that right,” Mike agreed, glancing at Joey, showing his spite. Dad likes me better, he said with his smile. Joey wondered how a ten-year-old could get so good at sucking up.

“You don’t wanna make good money, that’s fine with me.” His father shoveled a last forkful of pasta into his mouth, chewed, dropped the plate in the sink, continued with his mouth half-full, “Just don’t expect us to pay for all your expenses. You gotta save up for college. This ain’t no free loading zone.”

“Fine, Dad.”

“Yeah,” Mike chimed in. “And I get your room the minute you’re gone.”

“Don’t hold your breath. Porky.”

13

The weekend after Thanksgiving it snowed four inches. Joey made angels on the yard with Sophia after shoveling the sidewalk and driveway clean.
 
Everybody was happy, not just because of the snow, but because of December and all that it promises.

He’d remembered Dink’s birthday. The night before, he’d made a card with a hand-drawn Spidey and dropped it in the Khors’ mailbox. The next day Dink invited Joey over again to watch more videos. They had a great time. Nobody got boners. Boners were not up for discussion.

By Monday everybody heard the news that Lamar Stevens broke his arm sledding, so Anthony got moved up to wrestle in Stevens’ weight, 119, for the rest of the season. Dustin moved up to 112. Tommy Infranca, the best of the JV runts, won the practice wrestle-off, got to start at 103.

Most of the guys who’d already heard about Lamar’s accident expected the change in the line-up. Nobody seemed especially thrilled with the news, except Tommy Infranca.

Joey lay on his back, stretching his legs. Coach Cleshun walked over him to hand Jose, Tommy and Anthony copies of diet plans, nutritional information.

“We get to pig out again!” Dustin bragged.

“No, just build up,” Cleshun said.

Dustin held his stomach, lording it over the team as best a five-foot-two boy could. “I’m gonna have my mom make spaghetti and sausages and a big apple pie for dessert and cheesecake!”

Anthony squinted as he scanned the copied papers, adding up his intake like an accountant.
 
He looked up at Joey. “Guess I’m next to you now, huh?”

Joey squirmed, pretended like he didn’t care; Anthony sitting next to him at duals for the rest of the season. Oh well, he thought. Get over it. He’s not that bad a guy.

Rolling over on his hands and knees, Joey crawled toward Anthony. “You better bring me luck, Lam-bee Boy.” Anthony dropped his papers, tumbled under Joey. They pulled apart when Coach Cleshun blew his whistle for everybody to start warm-ups.

After drills, which included crab walks, push-ups, going up and down the pegs, Coach split the team up in twos. Assistant Coach Fiasole was gone that day, so Hunter and Bennie led some drills.

“Ow, hey, watch my hamstring. It’s still sore.” Joey rubbed it, stopping a moment, amid the couplings of boys practicing moves.

Dink rolled off him. “Coach’ll be pissed if he finds out you’re back in practice with a ripped-up leg.”

Joey watched Dink pant, inches away, a sheen of sweat brightening his face. He noticed Dink lick the salt around his lips. Joey wiped his arm across his face, and while watching Dink, licked his own arm, but he made it look as if he just wiped himself.

“Yeah? Well, I’ll be pissed if I find my name on The List.”

It loomed, higher on the wall than all the awards, like a sentence served from on high. Two more JVs had dropped out the previous week. One chipped a tooth after falling on his head.

Dink assured him. “You’re not like Whiner.” Dink nodded his head toward Anthony, who desperately fumbled under Jose. “He’s a total loser.”

“At least he’s having fun,” Joey scolded like an old schoolteacher. “Besides, it’s only his first year.”

“That’s just it. He don’t know shit, not like us. We been wrestling since cataclysm.”

“You gotta give him a chance.”

“This is competition. You don’t get charity.”

“‘Move it or lose it,’” Joey echoed Coach’s catchphrase.

“Yeah, move it–” Dink lunged for Joey, his arm suddenly around his waist, his head digging into the back of Joey’s neck. Joey couldn’t get a hold, so he clinched his leg around Dink’s, to no avail.

“–or lose it,” Dink grunted from behind his ear. The moment Dink had Joey flat down on the mat, pressed against Joey’s butt, Joey played his little interior game, Snapshot. He blinked, stored the sensation of Dink on top of him.

But now, with a match in two days, he had to work, get his fireman’s down, sharpen his crossface and peel his new best friend off his back.

It started out like any other dogpile. Some guys just got stupid, ended up deserving a whipping. Joey got his, didn’t scream much. Dink got his when he got lettered. He griped about it for a while, had a few bruises, but that was just part of it. Part of the fun. Everybody had it done to them.

When Joey wrestled in Newark, the thing was snuggies. He couldn’t count how many times he had a chafed butt from the pranks the upperclassmen played.
 
Guys could ruin a good pair of shorts with one yank. “Why do you always need new ones?” His mother had quizzed. He couldn’t tell her. She wouldn’t understand it wasn’t a big deal in a world where tokens of friendship included blown snot.

So dogpiles were no big deal. You take your punches and scream and yell and it’s over with. It was how everybody said, “You’re one of us.”

But Anthony never went for that.
 
Anthony had a way of complaining or questioning the rules, as if he could somehow argue his way out of getting flattened. Everybody started calling him new names, first “Lambrusco,” then “The Wine Man,” then just “Whiner.”

A few times he’d get to leave practice early, or go off, sit in a corner, breathing from a little inhaler, or else it was his contacts.
 
Joey wondered if Anthony felt chest pains from just walking down the halls. He didn’t understand what asthma could do, how someone’s lungs could do that, become painful.

Practice wound down to a sputter. Coach got a phone call, left them to drills, with Hunter leading. Then things got silly.

When they heard everybody else running, dogpiling, Joey and Dink pried themselves away from each other and just jumped on top. They had no idea who lay on the bottom, but they were all growling and yapping and yelling when one of the voices became high-pitched, weird, like somebody on the bottom was getting an arm gnawed off.

“Let him up,” somebody said. They pulled apart. Under it all, flushed and panicked, his eyes livid with hatred, Anthony flung his arms about, hitting at anybody nearby. Guys kept backing away, just watching him hurl himself about in defiant fury.

“Fuck you! Fuck you! I hate you all! You fucking morons!”

“Calm down, gentlemen, calm down.” Coach Cleshun ran in to see what the problem was.

“These fucking animals just attacked me!”

“It was just a dogpile,” Hunter said.

“Somebody was punching me!”

Coach Cleshun led Anthony away, while the rest of the team had to do twenty laps around the school, outside. Afterward, everybody panted, wheezed, made grunting jokes.

“Circle.”

They grouped, sat, settled down, as Cleshun stood, waiting for what became several minutes.

“I can’t leave you alone for a moment without you turning into animals, is that it?” Coach’s face flushed crimson. “You need a babysitter, is that it?” The strap of his whistle tightly bound around his fist, Joey thought Coach might punch something, or someone, but he just kept lecturing.

“This is a team sport. Even though it’s just you against another man once you’re out there, you still have to. . .you’ve got to support your teammates. You think you’re gonna get it from out there?” He pointed to a door. “From the people who wanna cut our funding because we don’t bring in the crowds like the B-ball boys?”

Silently, the circle of boys either stared down to the floor, or at each other.

“Go. Now.”

The briefest utterance of moans were silenced by Cleshun’s bark, “Mister Skaal, Mister Hunter, I’d like to have a word.”

The boys rose, their muscles stiffening already.

Troy shouted after they’d trotted to the locker room, “I think the word is ‘ass-reaming!’”

Joey laughed with them, knew that Coach had tried to sway the team’s energy back in line.
 
But he also knew the truth.
 

Whosoever didn’t already hate Anthony did by now.