Pins: A Novel (5 page)

They did a bit of battling burps, watched their own matches first, cringing at fumbles, slams, cheering smart moves, escapes, all caught on video by Dink’s father, who lived in Passaic, but came to all of the matches. Joey wondered how it felt, not having a father all the time, but it didn’t seem polite to ask. Instead he merely grooved on the buzzy beer feeling.

“Shoulda tried a whizzer,” Dink advised as they watched an earlier match. They’d both lost, but Dink was still a better wrestler, so Joey listened, all the while admiring his own image. It was one of Dink’s gifts, seeing how impressive the team looked, black singlets with thick orange and white stripes down the sides.

The side piping made them look somehow thicker, he wanted to say, but didn’t think Dink would get it.
 
He was still getting used to the Colts as his. As much as he enjoyed the strange thrill of being next to naked in public, he was glad the body of their singlets was black. Some teams had light-colored or even white singlets, which left nothing to his imagination. He could even tell who wore a jock strap or Lycra shorts, or even detect the shifting positions of a wrestler’s gonads.

Watching himself on video for the first time up close, Joey couldn’t help but compare his own body with his teammates. He fit on the ascending scale of weights, bigger than Anthony and the others below him, smaller, of course than the upperclassmen. He liked the way Dink was smaller, yet thicker than him, the way their butts were different. Seeing himself wrestling, he realized he wasn’t a muscle-bound hulk, but he wasn’t the beanpole he saw in the mirror. I’m goodlooking, he thought.
 
I have a very nice body.

“So, you had Fiasole last year, too?”

“Max? Naw.”

“Max? That’s his name?”

“You didn’t know?”

“I …I never asked.”

“The guy is so cool.” Dink told him Assistant Coach Fiasole was getting a Masters Degree in Kinesiology at Montclair State, so Coach Cleshun was working him too, coaching him on how to coach. Fiasole had almost gone to state championships as an undergraduate at Trenton State.

They watched some other matches, ate some chips (a total no-no), then turkey sandwiches (a not-so-bad no-no), then some Häagen-Dazs (a total, complete absolute Nein!). A Greek guy and a Japanese guy butted heads. The Greek guy was getting creamed.

“They got tiny dicks,” Dink blurted.

“Who?”

“Japs.”

“So?”

Dink kind of grunted.

“How do you know?”

“Look at ‘em.”

Joey did, then said, embarrassed to blurt it out, “They always get small when you wrestle. It’s self-defense of the body.”

“Who said that?”

“I dunno. I read it somewheres.”

Dink grunted out some fake Japanese, “hoojiga boojiga!” piled on top. They rolled around on the floor for a bit, fake stuff.

While Dink straddled his back, Joey lay on his belly. They settled that way, feeling each other’s warmth through their sweats. Dink’s groin pressed against his butt. Joey tried to pretend he didn’t notice, hoping Dink wouldn’t pry him over, since his penis began to stiffen between his hips and the carpet. He folded his arms under his chin, content. He could have stayed there longer, if Dink had only chilled, let the moment be, before whispering in his ear, “J’ever get a boner from wrestling?”

He tried to shrug Dink off, but Joey found his hands clamped down like Spidey under the Octoguy. Dink held him down. He put his arm around Joey’s neck, arms, held fast.

“Get off me!”

“C’mon, Neech. You can tell me.”

Joey might have told him if he’d just let go.
 
Dink rubbed against his butt, insisting. Joey thought Dink was trying to trap him somehow, but then he thought, how could Dink fake a boner if he wasn’t a homo, too?

Dink rolled off.

“Geez, Dink.”

Joey sighed, put his head under his arms to hide his embarrassment. But under his armpit, he spied Dink’s body, his belly exposed with his shirt up, his boner pressing his sweats into a soft tent. Everybody called him Dink because his penis was small – Dinky Dick – but the way it pushed up in his sweat pants, Joey figured that wasn’t always true.

A long moment passed. The people on the tube roared.

Dink said, “Sorry.”

“S’okay.”

They continued watching the video, touching every now and then, bumping shoulders or kicking their feet.

Joey couldn’t help but feel relieved and comforted from just watching, not just discussing ace moves or dopey fumbles, but that he could see the match from the outside, not under the knot of sweat and limbs that often hurled by like hours crammed into six minutes. He could let his eyes linger on a guy’s spread butt, the little descending bulge.

 
Both boys had settled down to watching the tapes without comments or jokes, their first truce.

“I got some other stuff, too.”

“What stuff?”

“You know, different stuff. Movies. Pro stuff, Van Damme.”

“Cool.”

“And some other kinda wrestling.”

“Like what?”

“Like no holds barred.”

“Mmm. Pancreeze, whatever they call it.”

Joey looked around the room, trying to find his other shoe. “You can take this one home, or I’ll make a copy for you.”

“We ain’t got a VCR.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No.”

“You’re not poor, are ya?”

“No, it broke on the move. And Dad keeps sayin’ he’s savin’ gettin’ a new one till Christmas. Made a total fuss over buying my jacket.”
 
He lied, but it sounded good. He’d worn the jacket every day since then, even on weekends.

“You keep wrestlin’ good, you get a scholarship. Free college.”

“Yeah, well, maybe.”

“Don’t maybe. You go all over the country, fly in planes.”

“Gee, real planes?” Joey gasped in mock wonder. Actually, he’d never been in a plane. The idea sounded terrific. He imagined hotel rooms in there somewhere, too. Maybe they’d be like the time his family went to Point Pleasant Beach in South Jersey for a whole weekend. He’d slept between Mike and his father for two nights since his mom got sunburned and had to lay all over the other bed with cream on and the sheets off.

About ten-thirty, Mrs. Khor’s car pulled up. She greeted them, said there was “no rush” to take Joey home, even though she kept her coat on.

Joey tied the laces of his Avias when Dink said, “Hey, I got it. Tell your dad Coach wants us to study tapes.”

“Yeah, so?”

“So, Christmas is comin’.”

“Yeah, so what?”

“And my birthday.”

“Double so what.”

“You freak.”

During the short ride home –Mrs. Khors insisted– the boys sat in the back. Even though his mom was being really polite, talking about the school, the team, Joey felt nervous, because Dink kept pressing his thigh against him, silently saying, isn’t she a bore. Maybe that was all Dink meant by it.

“See ya Monday.”

“Adios, amoeba.”

Joey laughed as Dink closed the car door. He watched Mrs. Khors pull the car out of the driveway, disappear down the quiet tree-crowded street. Their street. He was still getting used to that concept.

He looked up at his new house, with the wide porch, a night breeze rustling through tree branches under a sky he could see, not smell.

The house sat in silence, dark except for one light in the living room. He walked in, having drunk his first beer, having felt the nudging boner of his best bud. Altogether, it had been a good night.

After almost interrupting what appeared to be a successful attempt to create another Nicci, Joey bid his parents goodnight and retreated to the lower level of his big new house.

His mom had ordered cable, herself. Apparently the argument over that had inspired his father’s apologies and passion, with the usual results.

He had homework, to be sure, but not in the books. They may have been strict at St. Augustine’s, but because of it, he was miles ahead of the other kids, especially with reading. Besides, it was Friday night. He had culture studies. Nine years of Catholic school and no cable had warped him.

Joey foraged in the fridge in preparation for the surf session, about to gulp the last of the milk from its carton, when his father came downstairs in his bathrobe, flicked on the kitchen light.

“Use a glass.”

“Sorry.” He went to the cabinet.

“It’s late.”

“Not too late, right?” he asked, then poured.

“No, I guess not. You have a good time?”

“Yeah, we watched wrestling tapes. These college guys.”

“That’s a different style, isn’t it?”

Joey gulped. His father taking an interest in sports? “Yeah, but still, it was nice to watch ‘em. Learn stuff.”

He almost asked his dad about the VCR, but then his father just said “G’nite.”

He drank in silence, burped, washed the glass, ate a bunch more stuff while channel-surfing for two hours, then went upstairs, brushed his teeth, stripped down to just his sweats, tissues nearby, recreated every touch of Dink that night, quietly humping his mattress, then went further, brought Assistant Coach –Max!– into it, flipped over on his back, legs over his shoulders, let fly.

He woke up in a fog. The chain of his crucifix had caught on his pillowcase, lightly choking his neck. He felt drained, weird. He’d actually imagined sex with Dink and his coach. He knew what he wanted. He ached from the pain of knowing it might never happen.

He extracted his Saint Sebastian prayer card from the little bedside table that made him miss his cramped bedroom back in Newark just a bit.
 
It wasn’t forgiveness for his sins he asked for, but relief from a strain in his back.
 
He was taught to pray to his patron saint for healing. He figured it couldn’t hurt. Might as well keep in touch.

Saint Sebastian’s body looked strange to him, not a modern body at all. He needed to work on his shoulders, abs. Joey had always been oddly fascinated by the light shining down on him while tied to the tree, the arrow in his neck, all of it arranged for eternity. The saints always looked as if they knew all along they would suffer, like they had appointments with God, who was detained, and would they mind waiting?

6

The best thing about invitationals; guys from a lot of different schools competed. The worst thing; weigh-ins started at dawn, on Saturdays.

Fair Lawn was less than half an hour away, but Coach Cleshun had made a six a.m. call for the bus, just to be sure.

Due to the new job and all its unspoken pressures, Dino Nicci worked Saturdays. “Leaky sinks never take weekends off,” he’d said too many times, so Joey didn’t even ask him to come. He knew the real reason. He’d heard his father say something about having to impress his new boss, “being in debt up to our asses,” then grinning like it was beyond hopeless.

His mom had packed a lunch, given him money “just in case,” even though Mr. Khors had called the night before to ask if it was all right if he “took the boys out to dinner” after the invitational. Of course he would pay for it. Parents always paid.

She also tried to get him to eat the eggs and toast she’d made appear out of nowhere, but he had to explain weigh-ins again while fishing through his gym bag to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything; jock strap, extra singlet, fingernail clippers, towel, lock, with the combination secretly written inside his worn-out wrestling shoes.

“I’m just barely over one-twenny-seven, Ma.
 
I gotta be one-twenny-six. I’ll eat after.”

“Have some juice at least.”

“Okay,” he relented, knowing he’d have to sweat every ounce off before weigh-ins.

“I still don’t understand why this weight thing is so important. Can’t you–”

“You know how we don’t have breakfast on Sunday until after Mass? After we take communion?”

“Yeah.” She looked confused.

“It’s like that.”

“Joseph!”

The doorbell rang.
 
Joey gulped his juice down.
 
“I’ll get it,” he raced past his mother to the foyer, embarrassed that Dink would see her in a nightgown.

“C’mon,” Dink said, shivered on the porch, his hands in his pockets.

“Just a sec.” He dashed back in the kitchen, grabbed his lunch, stuffed it in his gym bag.

“Do well,” his mother said.

“Thanks,” he muttered, then turned back, gave her a kiss.

Joey got in the back with Dink, buckled up. The man at the wheel reached over, shook hands. “Hi, Mr. Khors.”

“Good morning, Joseph.”

Dink’s father wore glasses, had hair the color of Dink’s, but not much of it. “You boys ready for today?”

“Better be,” Joey said.

“I’ll drop you off at the bus, then I’ll see you in Fair Lawn.”

Then he got it. This was what divorced dads did, had weekends with kids. He thought it was special, but then realized how awful it must be to get dropped off in both directions. He felt a sense of camaraderie that Dink was sharing this time.

Parked in the nearly vacant school lot, the driver chatted by the bus door with Assistant Coach Fiasole, waiting. Fiasole waved to Dink’s dad as he drove off.

Dink hopped up the steps of the bus, called out, “Window seat,” but Joey didn’t mind.

“Neech!”

“The Dinkster!”

They high- and low-fived. Some guys were still trying to doze, despite the uncomfortable seats, the morning sun glaring through smudged windows. Most others chatted away expectantly, bursting out with jokes, laughter, grunts, hoots.

Bennie and Hunter took the two back rows, laid out flat, faking sleep. Buddha Martinez sat behind little Lamar, the team’s only African-American kid. Guys sometimes called them Laurel and Hardy. Stevens curled up, half asleep. Buddha Martinez stuck his finger in Lamar’s ear, who swatted him away. Dustin and Raul pulled their hoods up over their heads, pulling the drawstrings out to do the by-now overdone impersonation of Killer Ants. Troy hummed along to a song in his cassette player, fending off the Ants. The Shiver brothers sat together, talking their own secrets. They were nearly twins. Everybody made jokes about them being boyfriends. Brett Shiver had a stutter, so he didn’t talk much. The Shiver brothers were experts at making odds. They’d tally up other school’s points from wins, losses, tabulate what they considered would be the probable point spreads. It was a crazy system, but it sometimes worked.

Others chuckled, talked with Chrissie Wright and Kimberly Holbrook, the two Mat Maids who volunteered to assist on scorekeeping, timing, stats. Guys liked to flirt with them. Everybody had a pal or someone to talk to.

Except Anthony. Sitting alone in a seat up front, his head buried in a book, Joey gave him a glance, was about to say at least “Hey,” but Dink called for him, waving him to a seat, where they would spend the morning staring out the window, goofing off, getting nervous about the day to come.

LITTLE
 
FALLS
 
COLTS

103 - Dustin Ely

112 - Anthony Lambros

119 - Lamar Stevens

125 - Joseph Nucci

130 - Donald Khors

135 - Troy Hilas

140 - Raul Klein

145 - Walter Cryzinski

152 - Jeff Shiver

160 - Brett Shiver

171 - Andrew Hunter

189 - Benjamin Skaal

275/HW - Mario Martinez

They’d mispelled his name again. He stuffed the program in his bag, tried to forget about it, get ready.

Dual matches, while sparsely attended, at least had a simplicity, us against them.
 
Invitationals were more relaxed.
 
Since five or six teams competed, three mats were rolled out in the gymnasium with competitions going on like a circus. Clusters of guys herded around the outskirts in teams, shouting suggested moves, sitting, stretching, jumping rope.

There were few outside people at tournaments. Half-filled with parents, family, wrestlers who weren’t competing, the bleachers were also cluttered with gym bags, coats, coolers, crumpled bags of bagels, half-empty plastic soda bottles, assorted headgear. People walked up and down the aisles, across the three mats with a casual comfort while boys twisted and turned amid them. Boys leaned or lay on the extra rolled mat along the wall of receded bleachers.

Behind each mat at a table sat a timer, statistician and scorekeeper, mostly boys either not competing, or mat maids. Sometimes guys watched out for the girls before changing in a corner. A few snuck off to the locker room.

Joey’s headgear dangled from the shoulder strap of his pulled-down singlet. Over that he wore one of his usual baggy sweat shirts, his favorite from St. Augustine’s.

Joey and most of the Colts lounged around one corner of the gym floor, gear half-spilled out of their gym bags. Raul and Troy did push-ups. Anthony passed them, considered sitting with the rest of the team, then darted his glance away, sat in a corner.

“Damn. That loser is bringin’ us down,” grumbled Hunter.

“Aw, give him a break,” Raul said, huffing between push-ups. “Even if he’s lousy, you gotta give him points for trying.”

“There is no try. There is only do.” Hunter blurted out the quote from Yoda.
 
Coach Cleshun did it better, though.

“Mercy is for the weak,” Bennie added as he stuck his earphones in, deposited Megadeth’s latest into his small CD player, walking off to the bleachers. Only after he was well out of range did Joey see Raul swirl his finger toward his own temple, as if silently saying, “Certified Nut Job.”

At another mat, Coach Cleshun barked out commands to Walt, who seemed to be doing pretty well against a kid from Haledon.

Over the loudspeaker, a voice announced, “All one-twenty-six, cadet. Please report.”

Joey trotted to the table on the other side of the mats, away from the bleachers. A cluster of boys hovered about, waiting for the slip of paper that they were to take to one of the three mats. It was also where they got to see their opponents. Joey’s, however, didn’t make eye contact. He saw that as a good thing. From across the mat, amid the relaxed traffic of others, they watched each other get ready.

When his match came up, Assistant Coach Fiasole rubbed Joey’s back while he bent over. He massaged Joey’s muscles, digging his big hands into the boy’s lats and traps.

“He’s a rookie,” Fiasole whispered into his headgear. “He doesn’t have your experience. This’ll be an easy one.”

Then Fiasole said the secret word, one that he probably said to the other boys, because it sounded like the team’s name. Since they were both Italian, Joey liked to think of it as their secret code, a word that meant “cultured.”

“Colto.”

Joey sprang out onto the mat, hyped yet calm inside, tingling from Fiasole’s touch, relieved to see the fear in the darting eyes of his smaller opponent from Hackensack, a curly-haired redhead who kept glancing back to his own coach, a burly black guy. Help me, the kid’s eyes said.

Two strips of fabric, red and green, with Velcro attachments, lay in the center of the mat. Joey attached one around his ankle while his opponent knelt with his back to him, putting on the other.

Assistant Coach Fiasole didn’t need to shout more than a few cues. It was like a rehearsal for a more important match. “Fireman’s!” he yelled. Joey did it, tossing the kid over him like a bag of leaves.

“Hold it!” Fiasole barked. Joey did, until the ref blew his whistle. The Hackensack kid fumbled under him in the center, Joey’s hands carefully placed below the kid’s belly, the other at his elbow.
 

After a warning for passivity, generally flopping around like the untrained guy he was, Joey got him down with his first sprawl like a bird picking at a dying turtle. He plied him one way, tried to grab his arms. At least the kid knew how to hold a position, but moved too slow to manage an escape.

After the ref raised his arm, Joey shook the kid’s hand, the other coach’s. As he returned to his side, Fiasole patted his butt.

Joey had barely broken a sweat, wondered if it was too soon to break into his lunch.

“Good job,” Dink said, having just wrestled. They dug into their bags. He offered Dink half his sandwich. Mr. Khors leaned down from a bleacher seat behind them. “Watch my backpack. I’ll get some more food.”

“What’s in it?” Joey asked Dink.

“Duh! What were you, Neech, raised in a cave?” Dink picked up the square bag, more of a purse than a backpack to Joey, compared to their gym bags and all the junk they hauled around. “The camera,” Dink said.

“Oh. I never seen one up close.”

Joey pushed aside a burning feeling Dink gave him, especially when it came to not having things. Dink seemed to have no picture of people unlike himself; spoiled, rich, lucky.

“You want up close?” Dink opened the bag, fitted the little machine in his hands, pressed a button, aimed it at Joey. He jumped into a nasal announcer guy voice. “We’re here with Mister Joseph “Newark Newboy” Nicci, a top contender in the one-twenny-six Cadet level, who’s literally taken over the landscape of Northern New Jersey. Mistah Nicci, what is your secret?”

“Well, Bob, I’d say it’s the support of my teammates and the love of my fans. All…kazillion of them.”

Dink sputtered into laughter. Joey saw Dink’s dad walking along the bleachers toward them.