Pins: A Novel

by Jim Provenzano

  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.

  “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 mon
ey 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.

  Joey wanted to stay with Dink, not let the wicked joke keep them smirking. Stevens had cheered them up, for a minute. But then he felt weird, comparing how he should feel if it were a girl coming up, saying a pussy joke to a guy. When guys talked about girls, they were outside, something over there. The way they talked about women according to their body parts annoyed him.

  He didn’t want to think of Dink as either somebody to have sex with or a friend. He didn’t know how they could be combined. How could he think about him like that, separate, when his whole life was immersed in what he loved? Dink was part of him, not someone he caught, the way guys talked about girls but never hung out with them unless they were going steady. He didn’t have to ask someone else to ask if Dink liked him. He knew what Dink smelled like. He knew every inch of his body.

  Several boys, knocked out of the running for the day, lay on rows of bleachers, resting, flat out, rows of bodies. All around the gymnasium, all the people, families supporting their kids, other kids from different teams, most in gray sweats with emblems, the names of their schools, all of them stirred in Joey a feeling of incredible belonging.

  But would he belong if he was honest about himself?

  He’d read news stories. They said all kinds of confusing things; gays had bigger brains, lesbians got cancer more often, then all that Christian stuff, the Pope not being much better, calling homosexuality an “intrinsic evil.” He reminded himself to look up that word.