Pins: A Novel (6 page)

“Hey, your dad,” he warned. But Dink turned, got a shot of his dad coming toward them, a paper plate in each hand.

“Hungry, boys? I know you’ve got to keep your weight, but since you’ve got some time before your next match. Donnie, don’t waste the batteries.” He’d bought them hot dogs and potato salad from the concession stand. They ate the potato salad.

“You gonna tape Dink’s match?” Joey asked.

“And yours, if you like. Make a copy for you.”

“Oh, thank you, sir.”

Dink glared over to Joey. “Sir?”

Joey didn’t like Dink making fun of him, or maybe making fun of his dad. Maybe he should give them some quality time. “Well, I gotta go see when I’m up.”

“Later.”

“Have a good match, Joseph.”

“Thanks.”

 
Taped up along a wall were the result sheets for Qualifying, Prelims, Consolation rounds and Finals, each name on a line narrowed toward the single line for Champions.

“So, you gonna bust ass today?”

Pauly Somebody, from . . . “Irvington?”

“Kearny.” Pauly pulled up his T-shirt to show his singlet, which bore his school name.

“What exit?”

“The first one. North.”

“That’s right.” Joey remembered the match quite well. He’d been screwed into the ground in twenty seconds, a sprained finger his souvenir. He couldn’t draw for weeks. He wasn’t about to let that happen again.

They didn’t give each other’s names, didn’t want to make it seem as if they forgot, or cared if they forgot. It was cool.

But there was something new, along with what looked like several more pounds of muscle. On his shoulder he had a small tattoo of Wile E. Coyote. Although Joey wanted to touch it, compliment him.

He did neither.

“Man, I’m psyched,” Pauly said as Joey pulled his gaze from the guy’s shoulder.

“Really?”

“Oh, man, not you?”

Joey grinned. “I’m not even awake yet and I already flattened a guy.”

“What school?”

“Hackensack.”

“They are so gay.”

“Whatever.” They looked at each other, not speaking, then he returned his gaze to the wall. The line-ups came out printed from a computer that one of the coaches had brought.
 

Joey could feel the guy still glancing at him. “Ya get nervous when it gets down to the wire?” Pauly asked.

“Naw,” Joey said, pointing at the chart like an art critic. “It’s kinda like lookin’ at the Empire State Building, only sideways, so it’s more relaxed than like, just one match, more …linear.”

“You’re weird.”

Then Joey figured it out. His eyes followed the rows of his name, Pauly, oh, that’s it. Tucci. They would spar later that day.

Against each other.

He was trying to psyche Joey out.

“Well, good luck,” Joey said, lightly smacking Pauly exactly on that tattoo.

He retreated to Camp Little Falls. Hunter, the Shiver brothers, Lamar, Raul Klein, and Tommy Infranca, a JV gunning for varsity, sat in a lazy circle. Joey parked himself down. They were talking about football. Joey didn’t say anything until Dink approached, stretched out, laying his feet on Joey’s shins like a human foot rest. Toying with Dink’s shoelaces, he even began to untie them and relace them together, but Dink didn’t protest.

 
“When you up?”

“Two more on Mat Three.”

“Good. You got time to massage my back.”

“What, is he your slave?” Hunter sneered.

“And my massss-ter!” Dink said in a prissy way that made everybody laugh.

Hunter looked shocked.

“Didn’t you ever see
Kids in the Hall
?”

“No.” Hunter said, still waiting for an explanation. But apparently Raul and the Shivers
 
and even Eddie Whitehirst and a few other JVs who came to watch had seen the show, too. The boys started imitating the “I’m crushing your haid” guy, pinching their fingers at each other, until Raul crawled over, actually grabbed Tommy’s head, hooking his arm around the boy while another guy plucked off his shoes. All Joey could see was Tommy’s crewcut getting noogied by Raul, then a few others. Tommy ripped himself out of it, chuckling, his face flushed.

Hunter said to Joey,
 
“Hey, go talk to Chrissie.
 
She wants you.”

What for, he wanted to ask. He didn’t want to move, wanted to lay there, retain his post as Dink’s sofa.

Chrissie and Kimberly were busy with the score keeping. With their hair hidden under baseball caps, not all done up like in school, from behind they almost looked like boys.

A guy from one of the other schools stood from the table, conferred with the girls, stepped out onto the mat, tapping the ref’s back with a taped-up towel, the time clock in his other hand noting when each period ended. When Joey had defeated the Hackensack kid, his timer had tossed the towel, which sometimes happened. He remembered dodging it when the kid’s aim missed. Sometimes the towel would bop the ref in the head or back. People would laugh.

“Go ‘head.” Hunter shoved him.

“Naw. They’re busy.”

“Well, go tell Bennie he’s up soon.”

He obeyed. He didn’t know why. He just wanted to hang with Dink. He liked Hunter well enough, even though he and Bennie kind of scared him.

Bennie had moved to the bleachers, munching on something, his NO FEAR T-shirt showing spots of sweat. He lay on the footrest of a bleacher. Joey approached Bennie cautiously, watching him through the side guardrail as if observing some large creature in a cage.

Bennie tapped his finger lightly on his own chest to the beat of the music hissing from his earphones. Joey didn’t say anything at first, but then Bennie looked up, as if sensing him. His arm rose. Hands slapped low fives, fingers hooked, parted. Bennie pulled one ear free. “Good match, Neech.”
 

Joey brushed it aside, climbed around. Bennie sat up. Joey joined him. A bagel was offered. They munched. “He was out of it. Too easy,” Joey shrugged off his victory, but he still felt a surge of pride. One of the big guys rooted for him. He’d noticed.

Two rows below them sat two large older people, a man and woman Joey assumed to be Bennie’s parents. They didn’t look it. They were both overweight, really large, quiet. Occasionally the man leaned back to make a comment about a guy’s moves. They both nodded a silent greeting. Bennie introduced them. They nodded hello.

Joey tapped Bennie’s arm. Bennie plucked his other ear free. “Hunter says you’re up soon.”

Bennie replaced one earphone, continued to watch the match before them. “Aw, I got time. ‘Sides, I always beat that fag.”

The word hit like a little misguided splash of venom. He wanted to go talk to someone else. Paul E again? No. They were opponents. Not that there was any real animosity. Wrestling wasn’t like that, mostly.

Who would he talk to, if he did? Introduce himself to the kid he beat? He figured he’d get along well enough with any of them, but he didn’t know what to say. He’d sure acted stupid with Paul E. Coyote. Staying on the bleachers with Bennie felt safer, venom or not. They watched Dink wrestle a kid from Passaic.

“C’mon, Dink! Take ‘im down!” he shouted. Bennie clapped a few times.

Joey tried to believe that he got caught up with Dink’s matches because in duals, with just two teams, Joey always competed before Dink. He was already fired up.

But it was really about smaller things; how Dink’s buzzcut felt like bristles, the way Dink grabbed his ears when they played.
 
He could almost see Dink considering which move to try, which one he’d fumble.

Bennie and Joey shouted encouragement, filling in the gaps between Coach’s yells and Dink’s dad, who sat down in front, videotaping.
 

Dink had nearly been pinned a few times. That always got people going, especially a takedown. Most people were watching as Dink and his opponent went at it. The match to the left had finished, and the one to the right had just begun, so almost everybody watched center ring.

Dink escaped an almost fumbled reversal, avoiding an advantage over their 7-7 tie. The kid at the scorekeeping table tossed the towel to end the period, but the ref, even though he stood only a foot away, didn’t see Dink get the reversal until after he saw the towel, so Dink didn’t get the two points.

Dink’s father jumped up, stepped to the mat, still holding the video camera, yelling at the ref like a baseball coach.

 
The ref twice said, “Off the mat,” but a few people began yelling, booing, including Bennie, who’d ripped his earphones off to stand, mutter a curse.

The other guy’s coach and teammates stood around sheepishly, preparing to defend, as if to say, well, it happened. Too bad.

The match went to the other guy. A few people booed. That didn’t happen very often, but with such an obvious blunder, even opposing team’s parents agreed, chattering away in the bleachers at the injustice.

“I’ll go cheer him up.” Joey left Bennie at the bleachers to sit with Dink on the rolled mat in the back of the gym. Dink peeled his singlet down to his waist, tossed his headgear into a corner. Joey retrieved it, put his hand sympathetically on the sheen of sweat on Dink’s back.

“Shoulda won that,” Joey consoled. He retracted his hand, but did not wipe it off.

“I did.”

“Yeah.”

They sat together, Joey looking around, trying not to stare at the heaving, glistening torso of his buddy, Dink’s milky skin spotted with light shoulder freckles. A mole poked out of his skin near his right latissimus.

“Could you get my bag?” Dink asked.

“Sure.”

Joey retrieved it, feeling a special privilege as he crossed the mat between circles.

He watched Dink’s dad talk calmly with the ref over by the official’s table, then walk over, crouch before the two.

“He even admitted it,” Mr. Khors said, apologetic. “It was a bad call. But they can’t use video to determine that. They never do.”

“He can’t just change his mind, Dad. It doesn’t work that way.”

“I’m real sorry, Donnie. You know you won.”

“Fuck it. It’s just an invitational. I’ll get my stats up before the season’s out.”

Dink’s father put his arm around his son. Joey turned away, felt a strange ache not incurred on the mat, as if he wasn’t part of that, a closeness his own father didn’t share. Sure, his dad was nice enough, gave him money for equipment. But he wasn’t there. He had to work.

He’d called him Donnie. How would Dink feel if he called him that?

Dink spoke a few words into his father’s ear. Mr. Khors went off to get something for him.

Lamar Stevens came up to try to cheer the two. “Hey, what’s this?” He placed the hood of his sweatshirt up over his head, then pulled it down from the bottom so it fell away from his bald head.

“I dunno,” Dink said.

“It’s Neech gettin’ a boner! Ha Ha!” Lamar ran off to the practice mats. Joey jumped up after him, but he didn’t feel like completing it. Stevens could get away with jokes like that because anybody could pummel him, so nobody did. His sense of humor protected him.