Pins: A Novel (30 page)

“Is it true?” Mike asked without turning to face him.

“What?”

“Are you a fag?”

Joseph looked around his little brother’s room. Action figures, puzzle pieces, every toy he ever abandoned for wrestling. Mike had moved the toads up to his room. They sat silent, nearly invisible in their terrarium behind rocks half underwater, a little dead branch planted like a tree.

“Look, I don’t know, okay?”

“How can you not know if you’re a fag?” Mike turned around.

“Look, you. Don’t say that again. That’s a really bad word. Look, I’m really happy you stood up for me and all, but don’t tell Ma I said that.”

“Okay.” Mike sort of smiled. “But are you?”

“Uh, see, what…oh, man.” As he knelt down on the floor, his knees made a crunching sound. His shoulder twinged. His neck throbbed. He had to get to the tub before he stiffened to Tin Man status. “What I am is none of their business, okay? Anybody starts making cracks about me, you tell them to try sayin’ it to my face, awright?”

“But are you?”

He remembered the time when he was Mike’s age. Even then he looked at men differently, touching his father’s hands, seeing other boys on the playground of St. Augustine’s, in ties, white shirts, watching their soft profiles in classrooms, not knowing what to do with them, so full of feelings.

“Yeah. I am.”

Mike waited a moment, took it in, then said, “Well, you shouldn’t be.”

“Well, I got no choice. So get over it.”

“Brother Brian says you’re going to hell, even if you confess a million times, you’re sinning by your evil thoughts.”

“Since when did you start believing what Brother Brian says?”

“Since he whacked me.”

“Well, remember who’s your family and who loves you and who gave you all his old toys without you even having to ask and I nevah hit you. Not once.”

“I don’t want your old toys. I don’t want anything from you. I wish you were dead.”

“Fine.”

Joseph walked to his room, grabbed a towel on the way, stripped down to it, picked ZONE OUT, popped it in the little box, clamped it on, went to the bathroom, sank in the water, suds up to his neck, knowing it was ridiculous to even imagine electrocuting himself on two AA batteries.
 

16

DRUNKEN SPREE ON HIGHWAY

ATHLETE DESCRIBES SCENE

He considered throwing away his clippings about The Varsity Posse. Ever since one paper coined the phrase, it stuck.
 

His parents kept trying to say it was going to be okay. They didn’t have to see the faces turn away in the halls the day after he appeared in court. They didn’t have to pretend the looks didn’t hurt.

But then he figured they did. At work his father must have been getting hassled. Would he be fired? Could his mother write a check without being recognized at D’Agostino’s?

Talking about things should have helped, but she didn’t talk to him. Mrs. DeStefano visited, enjoying being needed, helping his mother cry, worry, wonder aloud what to do, what the neighbors would think.

He wanted to go downstairs, but he couldn’t stand the women’s stares, the accusing glances, the way they watched his every move.

He dug into his closet where his new and old Asics lay tumbled together with his gear in his wrestling bag. A jock strap tangled around a plastic bag, the extra instant cold compress Coach Cleshun had given him for his neck. It wobbled like a water balloon. One slap and it would be freezing. Somebody said the stuff inside was toxic.
 
He read the back of the bag.

“WARNING! May be harmful if swallowed. If accidentally swallowed, give one or two glasses of milk or water and induce vomiting.” It went on, in Spanish too. Joseph tried to read the words, but gave up after “el vomito,” shoved all his old gear back into the closet.

Another check in the hall. He didn’t hear voices, but then low whispering.

It was about Anthony again. Checking stories before commissioning the shrine or some stuff about the school and the police.

“She said the assistant coach came to her door to apologize for something…”

A clink of coffee cup.
Live at Five
blathered away.

“Now it’s like, everybody knows. I don’t know what to do. He refuses to talk about it. I don’t know what to say.”

“He hasn’t found the right girl.”

“He’s never had a date.”

That they would continue this wasn’t what made him bolt. He wanted to hear more about Anthony. Him and Fiasole? No way. If it were true, more power to Anthony. At least he didn’t die a virgin. He wanted to go talk to Anthony, blue-faced or not.

The only way to make a quick escape was to dash down the stairs, turn right through the dining room, then the kitchen, porch, yard, air, silence.

He breezed by them, but his coat whipped around the banister.

“Where are you going?”

“Out.”

“Don’t get in any trouble. You have to go back to court tomorrow.”

“I’m just going for a walk!”

“Joseph!”

He went anyway, out the back door.

“You cannot run away from this!”

Through the neighbor’s yard, pulling on his coat, then finally running, he thought he heard one last bark of his name, knew his mother wouldn’t shout like she could in Newark, not here with all the cute hedge rows, driveways, listening lawns.

He ran to a chunk of woods in the back part of town he’d gone to explore with Mike. His knee began to hurt, so he had to slow down, then walk. He thought of turning around, going back toward Totowa. For a while Joseph thought of going to find the headstone, then changed his mind. He just found a part of the other woods, a small acreage, coated in mushy clusters of leaves that hadn’t fully rotted from the winter snow. He walked until the rumble of the highway receded. The woods were silent except for his footfalls and panting.

By the time he got to the place it would be easier to cry, he found that he couldn’t. He had almost come to like the feel of his tears. He always felt a little better afterward. Now it was only sweat. He watched as the drops soaked into his gloves while his breath snaked up in wisps.

About a year B. S. A. (Before Saint Anthony), when everything was okay, his father had let him drive the truck. Even though it was in a parking lot, he felt as if he could handle it.

He thought about where he should go if he took the truck. There weren’t any cliffs handy, except maybe an overpass on the turnpike, or the Palisades. He didn’t think he’d be able to push the truck through the stone barricades along the sides. He’d seen the skid marks on roads where people had wrecked cars, glass crumbs shiny on asphalt.

But then he thought about messing it up, just getting injured, ripping a leg off, being a cripple, a vegetable. No, there was no sure way to do it. He’d get away with people thinking it was a mistake, but that wasn’t what he wanted to do. He had to atone, make God understand, then Jesus would take him under his arms. Anthony would be there to welcome him, forgive him.

“Bullshit.”

The sound of his own voice was sucked into the woods. “Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit!” He growled aloud, then screamed, a wordless noise that made birds flutter away, then echoed out, absorbed again by the ragged blanket of snow. He was still alone, but his throat hurt.

Joseph wondered what Dink was doing in Passaic at that moment. Miss Pooley told him he could write to Dink, but what would he say? “Sorry I narced on you, but gee, maybe we can still be friends.” How about, “I’d like to have another date, if you aren’t too busy getting your ass plowed by drug dealers and bank robbers.”

They’d never done anything like hiking or going to the city together. Dink was due to get his driver’s license, but that wasn’t going to happen until December, if ever.

Joseph dug into his pants, tried to push off the sad thoughts with sex thoughts. Heat pushed out from his body, warmed his hand like a small brush fire. He thought about how Grampa had told stories in their musty apartment in Newark, how Grandpapa had fought in the war, how cold it must have been, how they stayed warm by huddling close together. He felt both heartened and guilty for imagining himself a soldier, hugging close to his buddy to stay alive, bumping helmets.

17

Grandmama Nicci drove Joey and Mikey to a theme park in a fake desert with booths and souvenir shops where the dinosaurs weren’t out but he could hear them or maybe it was coming out of those little speakers in the bushes but he couldn’t tell since it got dark and Grandmama said she was tired and Joey had to drive from the back seat then found his way up the front seat until they got lost and had to ask directions at a takeout place where Joey asked how far it was to the exit. “Do you mean with raptors or without?” the speaker box said. Off to the side Joseph saw his posse standing with the earth crumbling away under Hunter then Bennie like one of his father’s Yes albums which looked cool but then Dink started losing his footing and the grass under his wrestling shoes got all mucky like Easter grass and marshmallows combined and Dink fell away too and he wanted to follow but found himself in a warm room with boxes of adhesive tape lining a wall and Assistant Coach Fiasole leaning over him to look at a leg muscle that spasmed but Fiasole wore only a jock strap and glasses.

By morning, he couldn’t remember the rest, except for waking up with a boner and his gastrocnemius in spasm from running to the woods the day before, so he got up, took a hot shower.

The decision about Bennie was supposed to be in the paper, but there was some kind of delay. Joseph had slept all afternoon. By nightfall, with everybody asleep, he was restless in bed until about four in the morning, then quietly slipped downstairs, lay on the sofa.

He’d been up this early a few times to catch buses for out of town tournaments, but that was different. A queasy nervousness kept him awake, kept him from really seeing the sky, a blurry fatigue born of too much sleep.

 
Sitting, then lying, then standing silent in the living room, imagining himself as a piece of lifeless furniture, Joseph overcame the urge to switch on the tube, to eat, to move.

They were starting to hone in on Bennie, making him out like a Born-again nut. Waco Boy.

At St. Dominic’s, Brother Ryan had told him that a Catholic must feel sorry for sinners, even murderers, even for a guy who shoots up a dozen people in a McDonald’s. Especially them, he’d said. Maybe Bennie was that bad, needed extra prayers.

But then he thought –and was glad he didn’t ever have the opportunity to make the grave mistake of asking it aloud– weren’t people like Bennie supposed to go to hell?

Looking out the window, he listening for stray cars whooshing by on the busier road down from their street. The whole town slept, except for a few people driving, maybe tired workers off thier shift at a donut shop.

He found his old sneakers, padded out onto the porch. Already a glint of light had surprised him, filling the sky like a slate. The porch and yard were coated in a light dew, making the grass glisten in the weak light. He heard a twitter of a few arguing birds.

A slat of purple, then orange, appeared in the sky. He’d never seen the sun come up, wanted very much to go out to a high hill, just see the world. There was supposed to be a great view up on the hill in Laurel Grove Cemetery. He vowed to go to that place, where Anthony was buried. He wanted to see what was out there, the faraway buildings in Manhattan where all those gay men were supposed to live, the ocean, where people didn’t care who he was, or what he hadn’t done.

A mourning dove hooed like a wood flute. A garage door rumbled open down the block. He pulled back into the house, crept back up to his room.

Hey Don!

Greetings from purgatory! I got your dad’s address of where you’re at from your mother who was very nice. I guess she didn’t remember to send you the other letter I sent.

Hoping you’re doing well. I’m thinking it’s better for us to be apart for now. I keep thinking that. The ass prince kicked me off the team and suspended me for three days after I got in a fight with brandon miller the b-ball goon who basically was a creep and deserved it. You would be happy, Dink. I finally fought back. I’m also 135 now and I beat Heil Ass out of his slot at least for the last duals.

It’s raining a lot here but I guess it does where you are too. I hope things are going okay and they are beating you I mean treating you nice. I have basically been grounded for the rest of my life but I know it’s nothing like what you are going through. the Colts really were losing bad which shows how good we were huh? Maybe enough of us will get our act together to go all-county tourney. Did you get on the team there? Guess not. Maybe I’ll see you there. I am hoping you are still my friend. I wish you had just looked at me in court. I saw you all those times you were on and the other guys. I even taped some of it which you might think is crazy but I miss you and wish everything hadn’t happened. I wish you were still my friend that you knew how much I miss you and when you get out we could go do stuff but legal stuff if that’s okay with you.

I listen to your music tapes a lot and it helps. I hope you can write to me or call me. We got a new number. I don’t know what they let you do now.

Joe

What with his “difficult season,” Joseph didn’t qualify for Group 4 District Finals. Even so, he went with some other guys on the team to root for Walt and the Shiver brothers, who did qualify.

The Passaic County Finals were held in Paterson, but a different school than their Washington match. The gym was enormous and modern, like the students.

Little Falls had the least amount of wrestlers competing among bigger teams like Clifton, Hackensack, Bergen, Wayne. Mrs. Shiver brought lots of food, which the boys wolfed down as they parked themselves a few rows up on the bleachers, thus allowing them more space for lounging and swearing.

Between the stands and the mats, the gymnasium was divided in half, the WRESTLERS ONLY half cut off from the families by a very familiar long yellow plastic tape.

It had been four months, and still things like that could chill him. Joseph spaced, not watching the matches for a while, until Raul nudged him about some ace move that everybody was cheering over all of a sudden.

Occasionally, Joseph wandered around, low-fiving guys he recognized, or had wrestled. He felt the whispers follow him like a shadow. “He’s the guy who…” “I swear, that’s him…” He grew wary of the attention, of playing cool. Because asking the Passaic coach made him nervous, Joseph checked the roster. No D. Khors.

Coach Cleshun stopped by, but stayed out on the floor with Walt and the Shiver brothers mostly.

Scanning the bleachers, fading in and out of interest with Walt and the Shivers’ matches, he trotted off into the locker room to pee. He stood at a urinal, walked by the showers, blocked a few thoughts, memories, desires.

Then he saw something that looked slightly out of place.

A square-shaped black gym bag, the side of it webbed, sat unguarded on a locker room bench. He’d wanted to get one like it, to store stinky workout clothes away from his other stuff, but used a plastic bag instead. For a moment, he considered stealing the bag, but an internal leash reminded him of Miss Pooley, his parents, all those people he’d face if he did anything else wrong.

Then he noticed something about the bag.

It had a sound.

Joseph stepped silently toward the bag, peeled back the zipper, his heart pumping up under his ribs in great gulping thuds, as he saw, nestled in towels, a small video camera.

It was running.

The webbed side of the bag had a small hole cut out which faced the entrance to the shower room, where, in a few minutes, dozens of boys would be walking by.

Panicking, understanding, wondering who, but not why, he wanted to wait to let it capture what he saw daily, knew as a treasure, but a private one.

He’d felt them nearby at matches. This was just one more step closer, too close. He felt a shiver of disgust, contemplated what to do, what not to do.

Walt got third in his weight. Brett got fourth. His brother Jeff lost after his second bout. Out of nine teams, Little Falls came in ninth.

Some guys won. Some guys lost. One guy at 130 from Hoboken thought he’d won, but the scorekeeper on the lighted wall tally was off from the official score at the table. The boy raised his arms in victory. When the ref held up the other guy’s arm, he literally shouted “What?” stormed off.

“Aw, man, that is so embarrassing,” Jeff Shiver cracked. Everybody laughed. “Dude, if that happened to me, I would just die.”

Joseph waited a moment, just long enough to get Jeff off guard, before he caught Jeff’s eye and grinned, “Would you? Would you really?”

Jeff’s eyebrows furled. He pulled back. “Chill, man. C’mon, Neech. It was a joke.”

“Right.”

He chilled, scanned the bleachers, dramas and victories played out before him in an arena that felt no longer his.

Mrs. Shiver gave the boys a party afterward. It was very creative. She had set up little WWF paper napkins that matched the paper WWF table cloth in the yard, where an array of chips, sodas, cookies were descended upon by the boys, who refused to reveal to her what was so darn funny.
 

They were speculating on the story that one boy from Fort Lee had told about having found parts of a smashed video camera in each of the locker room toilets.

Then they all played a few video games.

Not ones with guns, the maze type.