Pins: A Novel

by Jim Provenzano

  Seeing the men grab each other, their bodies tense, close, Joey rose up on his front hands, then began trying moves. It seemed ridiculously easy, no sticks or lines. Besides, they were touching, wearing almost nothing. He could see everything, their broad thick backs, powerful legs, arms. Best of all, some of them were really short, but they still won.

  At age thirteen he’d surprised his mother by handing her a form after school. “It’s for a physical,” he’d mumbled. “For what? You’re not sick.” “For sports. If you wanna try out for a team, you gotta get a physical.”

  He hadn’t seen his mother look so shocked since the time she’d caught him in the bathroom. She’d sighed, signed the form. “We’ll have to tell your father,” as if it were something naughty.

  Joey liked that feeling.

  By the time try-outs began a few months later, Joey had already begged his father to give him money to buy special shoes, sweat pants, a sweatshirt, a jock strap. He’d almost taken a wicked pride in asking his father, saying “jock strap” aloud. He grinned with his dad. His father had put down his newspaper, dug in his pocket, gave him five twenties. “Keep the rest,” he’d said. Joey wanted to hug his dad, who just patted him on the butt. “Don’t tell your mother.”

  It was a secret at first, between Joey and his father, who’d come with him, waited outside, how he got on the team after a few days of tryouts.

  “There’s never been an athlete in the family,” his mother had said at dinners with Grandmama, Aunt Lilla, everybody, who were all proud, but a bit unfamiliar with even the basic rules. The conversation usually switched to other topics, taller people.

  “Well, he’s our first,” his father had said with a combination of quizzical pride and astonishment.

  That first season, full of stumbling defeats, confused exhausting practices, Joey knew he wouldn’t quit, in spite of –or because– one of his ‘former’ friends back in Newark calling wrestling “a fag sport.” Joey didn’t have to defend himself. He’d just ignore anyone who didn’t appreciate it. He was becoming a jock on his terms. Other guys on the team, some of them real characters, knew they were a different breed.

  For Joey, it was his comfort. He got to touch guys for a reason. Even though some of them were ugly or smelled funny, he got to end his winter school days warmed by the burning tingle of contact. Learning how to clobber guys, if necessary, helped, too.

  The garage door rumbled beneath his feet. Joey rose from the spread-out pile of schoolbooks on the floor, darted to his parent’s bedroom window to watch his father’s Bronco pulled up, Dino Nicci walk up the driveway. His mood looked promising. Joey felt the gasp the house made as the kitchen door opened.

  He listened from above, heard only soft mutterings from downstairs between his parents, some rustling sounds, then his father’s shout, “Yo, animals! Food’s on!”

  Joey’s father waited patiently for Sophia’s tale of “a princess and she went up some stairs and found a cat and it had a magic button and it took them to a balloon …“ to dwindle down to something like an ending. Joey could watch Sophia for hours, fascinated by her animation. He’d watched Mike grow into The Pest. Sophia seemed different, enchanted.

  “Very nice, Soph,” his father said. “Now eat your dinner.”

  In a pause filled by the sound of gulping, forks on plates, Joey glanced at his father, who wiped a bit of food from his mustache. The rest of Dino Nicci’s face followed close behind with a thick stubble that made Joey worry if he would someday be so hairy, but that hadn’t gotten going yet.

  Joey could manage a scribble of a goatee, but his mother always made him shave it by Monday morning, or Mass, if they went, which wasn’t too often since they’d moved. Even though Mike went to St. Dominic’s Prep, it seemed church lay unpacked in a box in the basement with votive candles, that picture of the Pope. That was one reason he feared his father sometimes. He had to keep his questions about church on a low flame. His dad didn’t believe in it, so he never explained things. Joey just kept his prayers to himself.

  Since they moved to a not-so Catholic, not-so Italian neighborhood, it seemed he wanted to push it all aside, act more like the regular people with names like Johnson, Ferguson.

  “So.” Joey’s father looked at him. “I hear you have some good news for us.” Joey liked the sound of his father’s voice with everybody at the dinner table. It made him feel secure, with everything warm, this constant circle for him to come home to. Maybe his voice would someday sound as strong as his father’s, if he practiced.

  “I wanna jacket, too,” Mike blurted.

  Joey rolled his eyes. He longed to kick his brother under the table, but that didn’t work anymore. Mike always told.

  “What’s this about jackets?” Joey could tell when his father pretended to not know what was up, like whenever he did anything wrong. His dad liked to drag it out of him, force him to report everything. Only then would he pass judgment.

  Sophia gulped milk.

  “I made varsity. You know, that pin I got at the match this week. I wish you’da been there, Mom.” Wrong. Don’t bring that up. “I got on varsity. I got my letter. I’m the best in my weight and it’s an honor and but I gotta buy it, the jacket, ‘cause I get to keep it. . .”

  His father wiped his mouth. “Awright, awright. Can I congratulate my son before he talks me to sleep? We’ll see about the jacket. Can’t be too expensive.”

  “Two hunnerd-forty-nine dollahs.”

  “What?”

  “Plus tax.”

  “What?”

  “They make it to fit. They charge extra for the letter sewing, but Mom said she’d do that, but I gotta get my name embroiled on the chest like everybody else–”

  “Embroidered.”

  “How much allowance ya got?”

  Joey shot a glance at The Pest. He didn’t want Mike to know about his money. He would find it for sure, always snooping in his room, nosing into his stuff, like his drawings; superheroes, but sometime, he forgot to draw the tights. Joey rarely caught Mike, or noticed the remnants of his snooping. He’d become clever. “About thirty dollahs.”

  “Let’s say you pay for the embroidering, and we make this an early Christmas present.”

  “Thanks, Dad.” Joey couldn’t help himself. He got up from the table, hugged, kissed his dad, liking the feel of his father’s mustache on his face, then his mom, the soft moist feel of her skin. He smiled, felt as if he’d gotten away with something. They wouldn’t dare get to Christmas and not give him anything else besides the jacket.

  “So, I take it you’re havin’ a good time on your new team’?” his father asked as Joey sat.

  A good time? It was his whole life, what kept him safe, what he loved. It kept his great secret, hidden away, right out front.

  “Sure.”

  “Are they nice boys?” his mother asked.

  “Sure.”

  “That boy from St. Dominic’s, Anthony Lambros. You friends with him?”

  Friends was not the right word for Anthony.

  “Why you askin’ about him?”

  “Because I met his mother at Mass, she’s in my St. Anne’s group there, we do work with the church and–”

  “Yeah, right. Okay. I’m sorry.”

  “His mother told me he’s having problems.”

  Problems being a geek? “He’s on the team,” Joey shrugged. “You know, he’s at practice. He’s awright. I dunno. He does okay. He’s not great, but he just started this year.”

  Why was she bugging him about Anthony? Would she invite the Lambros family over for dinner? Did she want him to make friends with Anthony just because she met his mother? Didn’t she know it didn’t work that way?

  Lambros.

  They looked very much alike; thin, sallow-skinned, black-haired, eyes like brown pearls. But without his glasses, Lambros squinted like a baby rat with a big nose. He and Joey were the only sophomore Catholic Italian wrestlers in Joey’s new school. Anthony thought that meant they
should be friends.

  Joey thought otherwise.

  Draped in white and black vestments, the usually sullen Anthony glowed on Sunday when he assisted in Mass. Joey often had to be elbowed by his mother to stand, sit or kneel, his attention sometimes rapt on Anthony’s almost superior stance. Anthony obviously enjoyed the power trip. Joey wanted to admire him, but at the same time wanted to see him fumble, or one day drop the incense.

  Anthony had cornered Joey at lunch since the first school day after recognizing him from church. Since Joey didn’t have any friends before wrestling started, he pretty much allowed Anthony to eat with him.

  Anthony delighted in telling secrets about Mass that Joey didn’t want to hear. “It doesn’t really turn into the body of Christ.” “I chewed the host lots of times.” Joey couldn’t remember ever believing in Santa Claus, but he did believe in the Holy Virgin and Jesus and all the saints. Just because they were in public school didn’t mean they had to turn everybody in.

  Anthony liked telling Joey how that stuff was all made up, which Joey didn’t mind so much, except Anthony didn’t tell it in a way that was funny, but more like a conspiracy.

  Joey told him off then, saying that where he was from, in Newark, they had a better church and he shouldn’t be talking that way about mass in the first place, especially being an altar boy, and didn’t he have any respect?

  He didn’t hear a peep from Anthony for weeks.

  Until wrestling practice, where Anthony just showed up, not knowing a thing, not even knowing how to stretch, fumbling with his contact lenses. He got pummeled just like the others who’d quit, but he refused to give up.

  He also refused to give up on Joey.

  Two days into wrestling practice, Joey approached Jock Row, a phalanx of tables full of athletes in varsity jackets. As Joey passed, guys mutely nodded while Anthony chattered away at his side. Joey had seen an empty seat beside that blonde buzz cut, the name that sounded like Donald Course. But then some other guy took that place, so Joey moved on, sitting with Anthony, some other geeks.

  Along the walls, hoods relaxed. Babes hovered nearby, in packs. Guys and girls kissed. It was a system unfamiliar to him, having only dealt with boys, and not very well.

  It was a Monday when it happened. Joey would never forget the way Anthony blurted it out, testing Joey, who sort of knew in the back of his cluttered mind the other thing in common between them.

  Joey chewed on a last bite of Salisbury steak before catching Anthony’s attempt at a joke about the cafeteria dessert for the day, canned fruit. He said, “Better to be a fruit than a vegetable.”

  “Huh?”

  “A fruit. You know? Like me?”

  Joey stopped chewing. He would remember the feeling of the meat laying inside his mouth as he sat unmoving, until he swallowed, hoping to choke on it. Then he squinted the squint he gave someone who tried to act tough with him before a match. He leaned in close to Anthony, as if hearing confession, absolving him. “Thanks for sharing.”

  “Joseph?”

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s Donald?”

  Joey and his dad were watching a rerun of Who’s the Boss. Sophia told stories next to him on the sofa, which he half-listened to while watching Tony Danza fumble through a shampoo commercial set in a shower, wearing only a bathing suit. Joey didn’t want to get up, since he’d sprouted a boner, but tugged his T-shirt over his sweat pants as he walked to the kitchen.

  Joey’s mother held the phone a moment, her eyes saying, who is Donald?

  Donald. Donald. Dink!

  “Oh! Thanks.”

  Joey took the phone, retreated into the kitchen as his mother left him alone.

  He heard Dink’s mother in the background, “Who are you talking to, Don?” Dink refused to answer to Donald or anything else, so Joey never did, even just to tease. He didn’t mock Dink’s having a nosy mother. He knew that situation too well.

  “It’s Joey Nicci, from the team.” Dink said his name perfectly.

  Joey heard silence, Dink’s hand covering the phone. He imagined Dink huddled over a kitchen wall phone, like him, pictured Dink moving to a bedroom, on the bed, on his belly, wearing only his underwear, white socks.

  “Hey, what’s up?” Joey asked. It was a little strange for Dink to call, since he never had before. They were just school, lunch, team friends. Joey figured that was about everything, so they must be best friends in training.

  Dink sounded as if he were eating something. “I got some NCAA videos. Some Olympic stuff, too. My dad got our matches too, but just the ones he came to. Gotta warn ya, his camera work’s a little shaky. Ya wanna come over an’ watch ‘em?”

  It was definitely the varsity thing. Dink wanted Joey to dive into the team now with complete devotion. He wasn’t sure how that was done. In Newark it wasn’t such a big deal because they were a lousy team. As to dates, Joey rarely got bugged about not asking girls out. Not getting girls in trouble seemed to keep his parents satisfied, as if he were behaving. Talking with Dink felt like misbehaving.

  “Sure,” Joey said.

  “What night, skeef?”

  “What?”

  “Skeef. You never heard–”

  “What’s it mean?”

  “Aw, can’t tell ya. You’re too young. So when you coming over, my man?”

  Joey couldn’t think. If he knew what, then when would have been easier. Was this a date, or were they friends?

  “Well, prolly Friday? Can’t stay up on a weeknight.”

  “Okay.”

  “Yeah.” Joey knew he’d have to ask. He thought Dink might be impressed if he didn’t ask while on the phone.

  “Lemme give you the address.”

  Joey didn’t mention that he already knew where Dink lived, had memorized it the first day he and Dink walked home. He’d been waiting for Dink to want to be friends. On the mat, even though Dink was a weight class above him, they always partnered. Each of them had moves to share.

  They fit together.

  3

  “What happens to them in the winter?”

  In one of the sunken basement windows on the side of their new house, a foot-high wedge of corrugated metal arcing around the pane, some rocks and a few weeds had made a comfortable home for two sullen, brownish toads.

  They’d never seen toads before, except on the tube or in National Geographic. Those were in a box in the basement, left by the people who’d moved out. Joey knew which issue had photos of Jacques Cousteau’s crew with all the men in tiny swim suits. He took that one to his room, along with about five other moldy ones.

  In the basin of the dusty window pit, one of the toads jumped.

  “Hold still,” Joey yanked Mike’s hand back.

  “I wanna keep ‘em.”

  “They’ll stay here.”

  “What about when it snows?”

  Joey wasn’t sure. Weather wasn’t something he thought much about in Newark, except as something to protect himself from with clothes between bus trips. He’d sometimes rode around with his dad in the plumbing pick-up, but the whole family gave up trying to fit into that years before.

  The week before the Niccis moved out of Newark, their neighbors had been robbed. “Our final warning,” their father had said. Out here, by their new house, with the evening sun cutting golden slats through their new trees, in their new yard, he could feel the end of a season, the last bits of warmth touching their backs, and an incredible sense of safety. Maybe toads hibernated, dug in the ground. Maybe they hopped all the way back to the woods.

  Maybe they just died.

  “We can’t take ‘em inside.”

  “Sure, we can,” Mike said. “There’s a terrarium in the old boxes the people left.”

  The people.

  Whoever had lived in the house had left mysterious things like prizes. Mike and Joey foraged quickly, claiming old Matchbox cars, half a train set. Mike got more of them, because he seemed to need more toys. Joey could afford to be benevolent. J
oey got a wooden box with a latch. He bought a lock, started keeping things in it.

  When Mike said words like “terrarium,” Joey had to smile in wonder. Only a few years ago, he had held Mike in his arms, or taught Mike how to hold Sophie when his mom was tired or his parents wanted to be alone. As a big brother, he had responsibilities, toads and such.

  He’d said goodbyes to almost everyone from school and church at the St. Augustine Festival at the end of August, which, of course, was a big deal for a school named St. Augustine’s. Joey imagined it as his own going away party. His mother even brought a camera, embarrassing everybody when she asked Father Scanlon, who only had one eye, to take a picture. Father Scanlon made a big joke about aiming with his patch eye, shouting, “Where are ya? Where the hell are ya?” He kept taking pictures as everybody barreled over laughing.

  Joey thought of the move as his own gift, just in time for his fifteenth birthday, even though they moved weeks before September eighteenth. Mike and Sophia were going to go to the new Catholic school, but Joey graduated, switched to public school.

  The matter of Joey’s wrestling divided them.

  St. Dominic’s had no wrestling. Little Falls Public High School did. In the decisive words of Dino Nicci, who had become less than devout, “The boy wants to wrestle.”

  In an obvious show of gratitude, Joey helped with everything; making lists of box contents, running to the store for more packing tape, scouring liquor stores and groceries for boxes. The day they’d gone to see the big empty house, the kids had raced upstairs, claiming their own rooms as if they’d only been away for the summer.

  In Little Falls, people said “hello” on the tree-lined streets with little shops and restaurants without bars over the windows. Nobody slept on the sidewalks. Banners hung across the tiny main street: “D.A.R.E. to Keep Kids Off Drugs!” and “Colts Pride is Citywide!”

  Their new fifty-year-old but well-renovated house sat comfortably in a green yard, a big fat A-shaped roof, front gables pushing out over bedroom windows, flower beds in the back garden, a front and back porch.