Pins: A Novel (18 page)

Joey wanted to laugh, hearing his Grandmama swear, but he knew she still hurt after all these years.

“You take.” She pushed the photo toward him.

“Huh? Oh, no Grandmama, I couldn’t.”

“I gonna die some day. They all take, take,” she nodded toward the door. “I give you now. For Christmas, extra, ah?”

He couldn’t refuse the link, the fragile bond from one generation to the next, the lost pieces, the lost men. “Thank you.” He hugged her, delicately.
 
He put the album away, carefully placing the photo in his suit pocket.

They had set the table, the kids were running around, getting excited. Everyone sat to eat, Joey at the far end of the big table, no longer at the little folding card table with the kids. He didn’t have to talk. He just ate and ate, forgetting Coach’s warning about “over-indulging during the holidays.” He would sweat it off.

22

 
“Bitchin’ drawin’, dude.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m getting’ it framed.”

“Great.”

“Hangin’ it right over my bed.”

Joey wished he could work some sort of spell, like in a movie, where he could peer out from the drawing, watch Dink all night long.

Dink hadn’t called for three days. Joey decided he wouldn’t call first. That would make him seem like he was itching for a compliment about the drawing, or like he was a grabby girlfriend. He didn’t want that. He’d waited.

“So, you like the tapes?”

“Like ‘em?” Joey said. “Man, they are awesome. I got my ears plugged up all day.”

“And?” Dink hinted.

“And what?”

“Something else?”

Joey didn’t want to tell him about the Asics. He wanted to show them off in school, but he told Dink anyway.

“I called your mom about them,” Dink giggled.

“You did that?”

“Well, I didn’t think they’d know to do it, so–”

“You’re like my fairy godmother.”

“Hey, I’m not your godmother.”

Joey just laughed, nervous, giddy. “So, look, I’m like sorry about the other night. It’s like I just don’t–”

“Forget about it, awright? You don’t wanna. I am not askin’ you to. I’m just like–”

“I know it’s like, really.”

“Awright.”

That pause, that reaching together again, like when they locked up on the mat, tested the waters. Joey realized they hadn’t touched in over a week. He craved it.

“So, ya wanna get together for New Year’s?” Dink asked.

If Dink tried to hump him this time, he knew he wouldn’t push him off. He imagined their first kiss starting off 1994 with a real bang.

“Saturday night?”

“Sure.”

“Be at my house at eight. Bennie’s pickin’ us up at nine.”

Damn. “The posse?” Joey whined.

“What? What is wrong?”

“I just…Dink, I don’t like those guys. Do you … do like Bennie and Hunter get stoned?”

“Hunter? Hell, he’s so dumb he’d catch fire if he tried. Naw, man. And Bennie? Naw, but I think he tried juice.”

“Oh. Juice?”

“Roids.”

“Oh.” Then, “Let’s be friends with some other guys.”

“Who? Walt and the twins are like those Simpsons neighbors.”

“Who?”

“You know, ‘Hide-el-ee Ho!”

“Oh, yeah–”

“The Flanders, fer chrissake, and, I mean Buddha and the little guys are nice, but I mean they’re totally–”

“What?”

“Dweebs.”

“So?”

“And the others are either the God Squad or JVs who can’t even tie their own shoes–”

“They ain’t that bad–”

“Okay, but–”

“I mean other guys too.”

“What? Guys who don’t wrestle? Forget it.”

“Whaddayou mean, forget it?”

“They don’t have a clue of what we’re going through.”

Joey was silenced by the truth. If they weren’t brothers, they weren’t friends. Wrestling wasn’t just something they did. It was a different world, a different language.

 
“The thing is, Neech, we already picked our friends for the year, you know? I mean, wasn’t it the same way in Newark, except they call them, uh, gangs?”

“You are such the jerk.”

“And you love it.”

Joey waited, hearing Dink’s breath catching up. He couldn’t say anything. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe Dink. He did. He knew the ranks, the barriers, how he had moved away from the boys who, in younger grades he’d befriended, but eventually pulled away from; geeks, fags, wimps. Wrestling had pulled him out of that. He was now a proud geek, or something.

“Neech?”

He had new shoes, a best friend who might put out. He was gonna rock the mat once school got back in session. Even those muscleheads couldn’t mess things up.

23

The “huge-ass party” Hunter boasted about turned out to be a private affair in Alpine with a bunch of rich college kids. The guy who invited Hunter was nowhere to be found. They didn’t know anybody else, and no one else was wearing a varsity jacket, so the four of them stood out in a way that made Joey want to leave immediately and just walk home.

He would have explained it to Dink later. But even Bennie relented, promised other amusements.

Since he sat in the back seat, didn’t have a door, he had to ride along. Besides, Bennie drove them. Bennie took them places they’d never been, never admitted wanting to see.

They kept drinking beers. Hunter produced a bottle of holiday peppermint schnapps he’d swiped from the party. They goaded Joey into gulping a shot, then another.

“Aulgh. Tastes like cough syrup.”

They laughed, each took a swig. Joey felt more than drunk. He was getting dizzy, not saying much. His gut rumbled as if it might fall through the low seats down to the ground below. Joey tried not to think of moving things, but the car kept hitting bumps. Bennie kept gunning the motor, making Joey’s stomach lurch. Where were they? Weren’t they going home? He saw a large lake to his right. A sign. Cedar Grove Reservoir.

“Where are we?” Joey moaned.

“Are we there yet?” Hunter mocked him. Dink’s eyes were glazed. Maybe he felt as awful about bashing the car window as Joey did. Maybe he didn’t feel anything.

“Near home, Neech. Hold tight.”

“I gotta piss,” Joey mumbled.

“Let it flow.” Bennie scanned his right, then veered off. The Mustang gurgled low. Hunter pulled his seat forward. Joey stumbled out, momentarily afraid they might leave him on the roadside as a sick joke. Then he thought that might not be so bad.

“Hurry up,” Hunter shouted.

He couldn’t just do it in the middle of the road with the guys watching. He found a shrub, ambled over to it, his vision blurred. He looked out at the water, saw his breath escape in cold whirls, fished out his dick. After a few sputters, it gushed for minutes. He kept swaying, having to right himself.

He tried to trot back to the car, but had to steady himself, moving slowly to stumble into the back seat. “Man, you musta had a whole gallon in there,” Dink said, still sipping his beer.

Joey said nothing.

Hunter pointed ahead at a pair of passing headlights. A white subcompact slowed as it passed. The driver glanced at them, accelerated, sped off.

“Hey, look at that car.”

“Which one?” Bennie asked.

“The Pinto!”

“Pinto?”

“Could it be?”

“Our little Whiner?”

“C’mon.”

Bennie wheeled the car around on the road. Joey felt his guts slide sideways. Dink spilled beer on his coat. “Shit, man.”

“Sorry.”

The Pinto kept up a steady pace. Bennie soon caught up, tailing from about fifty feet behind.

“Don’t rear-end him.” Hunter laughed, then made an exploding sound.

They followed the Pinto up the northwest edge of the Reservoir, where it turned on Ridge Road.

“Where’s he goin’?” Dink asked.

Hunter said, “I think home.”

“Naw,” Bennie said. “He’s on the prowl.”

“This is so dumb,” Dink said. “We don’t even like the guy and we’re following him on New Year’s Eve. If you hadn’t been such an asshole we’d still be at that party–”

“Patience, brother,” Bennie said.

“Bullshit,” Dink muttered.

“What?” Joey mumbled. Why were they following Anthony?

“He’s gonna pull off.”

“See?” The Pinto turned right, up the on ramp.

Bennie sighed, as if bored but determined to follow through, as if he knew what he was doing. He floored the gas, veered away from another car, then up and onto the highway.

Bennie gunned the motor to catch up, until the Pinto burned white from his headlights.

“You’re too close!”

Hunter poked half his body out the window, reaching, lunging for Anthony’s window.

Anthony once again pulled back, gripping his steering wheel. He braked, but then so did Bennie. The two cars edged close together, then scraped in a moment of metallic ripping that made Joey scream.

“Shit! My fuckin’ car!”

“Fuck this. Slow down, Bennie!”

Joey watched from the tiny rear window as Anthony veered right, getting smaller and smaller, then braking slowly, disappearing behind them.

Bennie pulled on the brakes.
 

Anthony loomed forward again, steering right.

“What the fuck are you doing!” Dink screamed.

Bennie’s eyes seethed in the rear view. He pulled right, ending in front of Anthony, who pulled back, then zoomed forward. Hunter twisted back from shotgun, hoisted a bottle. Dink and Joey both jerked their heads back to see beer foam coat Anthony’s windshield.

That was when the Pinto went off the road.

For the briefest moment, Dink and Joey looked at each other, frozen, afraid to move, to say anything.

Hunter blurted, “Holy shit.”

Anthony’s car weaved over to the gutter.

Bennie slowed down, pulled over. “Aw fuck him, he’s just gotta wipe it off. Look, he even turned his blinkers on.”

Bennie did not turn back. He merely glanced at his rear view mirror. Joey saw the red from Anthony’s Pinto flashing on his forehead before Bennie ripped himself out of the driver’s seat. He heard Bennie’s heavy clomping steps as he walked down the road, away.

Hunter followed, leaving the door ajar.

Dink kept darting his head back and forth, looking to Joey, along the road. Joey couldn’t move his head. He was afraid of what would happen if he moved. He crept his eyes toward Dink, who peered out the rear window. “Oh, shit, no. Stay here.”

“Huh?”

Heat escaped the car. Joey shivered. Was Anthony okay? Were they getting an ambulance? Were the cops there yet? The red light continued to blink. No cars came by. What was happening?

Joey slowly, carefully peeled himself out of the back seat, trudged down the roadside over gravel.

Were they doing something with Anthony? Maybe helping him, like the time he passed out at the match in Paterson?

No.

They were doing something to Anthony.

Bennie had him in his car, holding him down. When he saw Joey approach, he said, “C’mon, Neech. Get your punches in.”

Hunter held Dink back with an armbar that verged on permanent injury. “Get back in the fuckin’ car!” he shouted, but Joey wasn’t listening. Dink couldn’t help.

Joey leaned against the Pinto, his legs giving way. He had to bend over. Bennie’s feet stuck out of the back seat door. Joey heard sounds, like Anthony gasping.

Anthony was getting fucked, or killed, or both.

Joey had to hurl.

He heard Bennie say, “We’ll fill that little mouth up so it doesn’t talk. A fool’s mouth is his destruction.” He heard the clink, the sound of a belt knocking against the buckle, the sound of a zipper.

The last part of Anthony that Joey saw alive was his hand. It clutched the tip of the driver’s seat, almost ripping the fabric, his small fingers gripping it like a claw, before it fell out of view.

Joey leaned against the Pinto’s bumper, coughing, spitting, then falling to all fours. Little pieces of gravel bit into his palms and knees.

Dink started bawling, yelling, “Stop it! Stop it!” Hunter twisted his arm more until Dink was down to the ground, as low as Joey, whose guts were about to roll out like a carpet.

A gurgling force swirled around in his belly, punched its way up through his throat, mouth, nose. He lost the beers, dinner, Christmas cookies, lunch, even, it seemed, the last bitter mucousy gasps of breakfast. He kept crawling, backing away as the small lake of steaming barf spread before him. He heard Bennie retreating from the car, Hunter groaning in revulsion.

Hunter said, “Shit, he’s puking’ and the other one’s havin’ an asthma attack.”

“Let’s go.”

Joey felt someone’s arms grabbing him. They were screaming at each other. All Joey heard above Hunter and Dink was Bennie threatening.

He thought he was next.

He’d made it a good distance away from the guys, thought he was running, but by the time he figured out which direction was towards the car, the ground fell up to meet his face.

Some arms held him up. He unraveled inside, coughing, expecting another bucket of acid to jump out of his gut. He tried to snort a burning chunk out of his nose.

Dink whispered into his ear, “Come on, Neech, we gotta go now,” pushing him down the road, lifting him up and in. Joey tried to hold on, but his jacket got caught on a sharp edge of Bennie’s car door. He didn’t even get to say anything before they dropped him in the back seat, Dink not even holding him up or letting him lay in his lap, just pushing his head down to the floor as he coughed, sputtered. Nothing came out, even though the smell of the dirty floor runners mixed in with the burning in his nose made him want to be sick again. He could only feel relieved. His body quivered. Blood pounded in his head.

A few inches away he noticed that one of Dink’s shoes was untied.

Above them, Joey heard Bennie mutter, “We have to meet up again.”

“In jail, mutherfucker!” Dink shouted.

“Man, just shut up–” Hunter’s voice above him.

“No, you shut up!”

“You faggots narc on me and you are all dead, you hear me?!?” Bennie’s monstrous shout silenced them all. His voice almost made the Mustang itself vibrate. “I don’t care how long it takes, but you narc on me and I will eat you alive!!”

“Shit, man, what the–”

Joey tried to say something, but it came out garbled.

“He’s passed out,” Dink said, as Joey felt his hand pressing down, holding him down.

No one spoke for miles.

“We’re gonna meet up,” Bennie said.

“When? It’s already one. We gotta get him home. I gotta go home.”

“Tomorrow.” Bennie commanded. “I’ll call everybody. Now just shut the fuck up about it.”

Joey found his hand had crept down to his stomach, clutching it, holding, but really, his hand wanted to be close to his chest, as if he could push his ribs down to slow his heart from thumping.

Dink began muttering something familiar to him as breathing. Joey heard Bennie try to catch up. He started to join in while automatically reaching inside his varsity jacket, under his sweatshirt to find, along the thin metal string, his crucifix, “… is with thee. Blessed art thou among women. Blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”

They dumped him off in front of his house. He told himself he didn’t know what happened. No, he wasn’t considering that. He was considering the distance from the sidewalk through the door, from the door to the downstairs bathroom, if there might be interference.