But there wasn’t pain. Hunter carefully restrained his weight, the other boys having watched them move with exhausted fascination. Pulling away, Joey secretly felt the warm trade of sweat, how it clung to his shirt after they moved apart, smelled of chicken soup.
For wrestle-offs, which took place last, if there was time, Joey immediately went to Dink, even though he knew Dink would win. He waited beside him, sitting outside the circle, while other guys stretched and watched the smaller weights go first.
“Here we go again,” Dink muttered.
Joey couldn’t help but feel sorry for Anthony when he competed against Lamar Stevens. They bounced around the mat like two rubber bands, then got caught up in holds like one tightly bound pretzel, Lamar’s dark brown legs entwined with Anthony’s pale limbs. It hurt just to watch his legs get twisted in such strange positions. No wonder he always got hurt.
Anthony got one of his legs caught around the grip of Lamar’s leg, his other leg pulled back under Lamar’s arm, his ass up high, exposed.
“Inkwell! Inkwell!” Raul Klein yelled. It was their joke term for a stack, the position which left the loser butt up, arms pretzeled, most important, shoulders to the mat: pinned.
“Hey, we’re up.”
Joey fought all he could, thinking, not exhausting himself. It took Dink longer to pin him. Joey was getting better.
Cleshun and Fiasole went light on the guys, since it was still early December, told them to do only five laps around the school. Most of the football guys had become thick, overweight actually. Their bodies needed to be heavy for self-defense. But for wrestling, they had to get all the padding off. Even Buddha Martinez had to lose enough pounds so he could at least get down to some sense of what Coach Fiasole called “muscularity.”
Joey loved the sound of the word, how Coach Fiasole led them around the weight room, showed them how to think of their bodies as machines.
Joey had drawn a cartoon of the biology chart of the human body, like his own muscle chart at home. Muscue Larry, a guy with exposed body parts, veins, showed off his temporals, lats, deltoids like a new suit, a map of body parts, pink and purplish muscles the countries, tendons the border crossings.
Coach Cleshun asked a few guys to stay after practice, those that were being ranked. Joey relaxed. He wasn’t in such a rush to get out of there, without all the guys yakking, hooting. He padded naked across the clammy floors, his towel in his hand.
Bennie stood alone in the shower room, his wide V of a back shiny under the water that fell off the round shelf of his butt. Joey at first went to a far shower, then decided he could handle it. He turned on a nozzle one to Bennie’s left. Bennie turned to face him, grinned.
“Hey.”
“You’re gettin’ good.”
“Thanks.”
As they talked, Bennie turned, as if testing Joey, held his head under the water, arching back, turning his hips to reveal his cock slowly peeking around the corner of his hips. Joey had to see it, the way Bennie’s stomach hairs quivered like river moss under the water that rolled over the ridges of his abs and off his cock like a tiny waterfall. Bennie brought his hand down for a quick scrub with soap, tugging It a few times longer than usual.
Joey turned away, smiled inside.
HOSTILE? DESTRUCTIVE? PRONE TO VIOLENCE?
HAVE WE GOT THE SHOE FOR YOU.
Below the Asics poster, other posters of Gable, Smith, Baumgartner, Schultz, Ventura –all the greats– covered the walls. Off to the side, Coach Cleshun had hung a team photo of himself from his college wrestling at Penn State.
Guys liked to joke about how geeky he looked, his glasses covering up most of his face, his little head nearly hidden by another guy in the row in front of him. Cleshun liked to take the ribbing, Joey thought, to help the little guys like him believe even they could succeed.
Walt, Bennie, the Shiver brothers, Hunter, Dink and Joey crowded into Coach’s tiny office or leaned in his doorway. Coach had posted the results of the previous week’s seeding meeting. Coaches from around the region had met to vote on each others’ players, determine the boys’ rankings, which were not only an often accurate estimate of a wrestler’s previous and potential record of where the boys were considered for that season, but who to beat, where they would go. Rankings had a powerful effect on serious athletes and a big ego boost to the hot dogs.
The boys listened while Coach stood, paced, telling tall tales of the other coaches’ bragging. Fiasole rocked back and forth on the two back legs of the desk chair.
“So then, so then, the Paterson coach says, ‘My one-seventy-seven can lift an ox. He grew up on a farm and gets up at dawn to bench press oxes.’“
Everybody laughed.
“Oxen,” Dink corrected.
“Smartass.” Coach smiled, beaming. “Then the Wayne coach goes, ‘Well, my boy can bench press a gorilla. He is a gorilla. Mattera fact, we got him imported from Africa!’“
The boys blasted out in laughter again, hanging on Coach’s every word.
“So I said, ‘Well, my heavyweight recently visited Japan, where he beat Godzilla twice in Sumo! ‘ Man, it was such a bunch of, ‘I got bigger balls ‘an you, my team’s better ‘an yours,’ I tell ya, the testosterone was so thick you could cut it with a knife. And this little spaghetti man,” Coach nodded to Joey. “Once I brought out his records from the tough-fightin’ city of Nerk. . .” A few more chuckles. Dink tugged Joey’s ear. “I tole them you were a hit man with the Mafia, and they better rank you, or else,” Coach made his hands into guns, “Ba-da-bing, ba-da-bang!”
The guys shoved each other, chuckling. Joey didn’t mind that they made fun of his being Italian. That was how they said he was theirs.
“I don’t want you men to get all high and mighty with the other guys. They’re still your teammates, even the first year guys. I want you to teach them what you’ve learned. Got it?”
Heads all nodded, obedient, silent.
“Now, I want you all to remember. I don’t want any of that stupid weight-cutting action. You boys wanna move up or down, you do it natural. If you feel you’re growing out of your weight class, you can, at any time, challenge your teammate in your chosen weight class for a varsity duals position.”
More silence. Through the wonders of the order of wrestling, the weight classes, the pecking order seemed to have been achieved, for the time being. Joey didn’t even move.
Gaining weight meant moving up. Moving up meant challenging Dink.
He would never do that. He would starve first.
10
Bennie’s large hands slapped down on their shoulders. “So brothers, do you feel proud to be so good?” He escorted Joey and Dink out of the school. Their gym bags kept banging against their backs.
“Fuckin’ A,” Dink said.
“Feels great,” Joey beamed.
“Pride,” Bennie scolded. “The greatest sin.”
“What?” Dink tried to shrug off Bennie’s grip, but he steered them toward the parking lot.
“Don’t let your heads get big.”
“Aw, c’mon, Bennie,” Dink pulled away. “We’re just happy, you know? Can’t a person be happy about something without suffering eternal damnation?”
“That’s right. You Catholic boys get to sin over and over again.” Bennie stopped by his dingy blue-gray Mustang, the car’s body a mottled map of gray primer, a giant burnt Hot Wheel. Joey could see himself and Dink reflected in the windows. Were they going to get a ride home? He found himself feeling giddy, as if another privilege were being presented.
Bennie jingled his car keys. “Just pop into the booth, presto-change-o, start from scratch. You know, I wish I’da been raised a Catholic.”
“Well, it’s never too late,” Dink smirked as he stood by the door.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Bennie pretended to be confused. “Did you boys want a ride?”
“Yeah, I mean, if it’s…we thought you were. . .”
“So sorry to have misled you
.”
“Come on Bennie, we’re beat. Just this once.”
“Soon, brethren. Not today. But remember, we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of the world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”
“What?” Joey blurted.
“Ephesians, six twelve.” Bennie’s grin disappeared as he sat down in his car, shut the door, gunned the motor, ambled carefully out of the parking lot, Guns and Roses blasting from inside the Mustang.
Dink turned away, shaking his head. Joey didn’t know what to make of Bennie. “What was that about?”
“That,” Dink said, “was Bennie’s way of fucking with our heads.”
“Well, it worked.”
Dink adjusted the strap of his gym bag over his shoulder. “Yeah. Well, let’s get going, before my legs give out.”
“Ba-da-bing, ba-da-bang,” Dink shot Joey with his fingers as they walked home. Joey dropped his gym bag, fell to the ground, and Dink fell atop him.
In the briefest moment, Joey stole a glance at Dink’s ear, the one that wasn’t thick from a beginning cauliflower. The sun shone through Dink’s skin, turning the thinnest part a bright crimson. Veins and capillaries fanned out like a tiny river. Joey impulsively reached up, grabbed for it. He wanted to touch it before wrestling thickened it up forever.
Dink grabbed his arm, headlocked him, released him. They jumped up as if nothing had happened.
They could be so up, hyped, stoked, but as soon as they got home, wolfed down some food, they’d crash out like zombies.
“Hey, I got some other videos,” Dink said.
“What, any college stuff?”
“Yeah, and more school tapes.”
“What, yer dad’s?”
“Naw.”
“Coach’s?”
“Naw. This guy comes to matches. Goes to other matches too, all over. He’s a real fan. Came up to me once, asked me to make a video. He’s got his basement all set up with mats.”
“What, then he sells ‘em?”
“What? No way, Jose. I dunno. Maybe. He just like, gets these guys to wrestle. I think he sells ‘em. Gave me a hundred dollars.”
Joey half-sang what had become one of their private jokes. “Fruit cake.”
Dink never said yes or no. He just sang a line from a Nirvana song: “What else should I say. Everyone is gay!”
He sang it so loud Joey had to swat him. “Shut up, man.”
“Y’oughtta come with me, man. Lives in Paramus. He’s got all these tapes, all these guys. . .”
“I don’t think so.” He was actually curious, and interested, but it sounded like Dink was trying to set him up again, as if he needed an excuse to have sex with him. Why didn’t he just say it?
“Whatever. Those shoes a yours are gettin’ pretty skanky. I didn’t get my Asics International Lyte from allowance money.”
Dink’s shoes were top of the line. But just the idea made Joey feel creepy. “I ain’t lettin’ some old guy make videos of me.”
“They come to the matches anyway.”
Joey didn’t say anything. He just wanted to drop it. How did Dink know all these things? Why did he hang them in front of him like bait? Dink didn’t need the money. Why would he do something like that? Guys like that came to matches? Their matches? He wanted to ask Dink all sorts of questions, but he didn’t want to scare him off. He didn’t want to be like Anthony, getting too close to the truth, ending up alone because of it.
Dink said nothing for a while. They walked.
“My mom’s goin’ to Willowbrook Saturday. Ya wanna go with me?”
“Sure.”
“Okay. Cool.”
When he asked his mother if he could go, she said, “You’re going where?”
He had a hard time explaining, since when Dink invited him, Joey didn’t know that Willowbrook was a shopping mall. His mother thought he meant the insane asylum of the same name.
Joey didn’t care what it was. He was going with Dink, away, anywhere that little girls didn’t need the answer to “Why is My Little Pony pink?” explained in endless detail, where no runts would spy on him, where his buddy’s every touch made him think sexy thoughts, where no one made something as dumb as shopping sound like a sin.
Mrs. Khors said, “See you in an hour at the fountain.” They sped off on a quiet spree, downing coffees at a cafe, since they had to cut weight. Joey learned quickly that he should only drink coffee in the morning, even then on weekends only, or else he’d be up all night drawing.
Joey followed Dink through every shop in the mall, including both sporting goods stores, where they laughed at the dorky salesmen dressed like refs, scanned through the circled racks of T-shirts, knowing they didn’t even have wrestling shirts, let alone the wild ones from the catalogs.
“This is all junk. Come on.” Dink led him to a vintage store with a lot of old stuff, already worn, everything half as much as the fake grunge in the mall.
They clicked through CD racks. Joey told Dink which ones he liked. Dink took him to the bookstore where they had planned to spend the extra cash on comic books, until Dink dared him to steal something.
The first thing Joey wanted was the Marky Mark book, which he’d already looked at while Dink scanned the shelves in Sci Fi/Horror.
His heart thudded from the glances at the pages where Mark Wahlberg’s shirtless torso stuck out like a wet muscle version of some pop-up book. He wanted to see something like that at night. He wanted more pictures of men he worshipped. He couldn’t draw everything.
Joey walked to the back, checked for circular mirrors up in the corners, then stuffed the book under his jacket, under his sweat shirt, against his belly, down his pants.
He saw Dink standing out in the lobby of the mall, but then he thought of a scarier way to make sure he didn’t get caught. He went to the newsstand and grabbed a fitness magazine with even more nearly naked muscular guys in it, bought it. The bald guy at the cash register smiled ever so nice.
Joey trotted out to meet up with Dink, who tried hard to maintain the dopiest of grins.
“Whadja get?”
“Hold on. Not till we’re home.”
“Show me.”
“It’ll fall out. Come on.”
They snuck into the men’s room. Dink pulled out a paperback copy of a Clive Barker book. Joey yanked out the Marky Mark book. It peeled off his skin like a bandage.
“Cool.”
They marveled quietly at each other’s catch until somebody in one of the toilet stalls emitted a disgusting sound. They shoved the books in the bags with the other stuff, rushed out giggling.
Ten minutes later, Mrs. Khors found them waiting at the fountain with the smiles of angels.
11
Proudly showing off his front lawn fort from the first day, his brother had already made a few friends with some boys his age, who’d come by on little bicycles. Mike doled out empty boxes, becoming instantly popular with a casualness Joey secretly envied.
He’d helped unpack with his father and the movers, occasionally glancing down the street to see if anyone his age might also come by to introduce himself. No such luck.
He’d been wiping his face with his T-shirt when a chubby lady with big bosoms under a flowery blouse and tight pants that showed a bit too much of her wide hips smiled benevolently with a tray in her hands. “Your mother’s inside?” Joey nodded.
She called herself the Tuscan Welcome Wagon. That first September day with the huge moving truck taking up half the street, Irene DeStefano walked right through the open front door with a fresh-baked lasagna and a bundt cake. She walked right in as if she had always been his mother’s closest friend.
A widow with kids in college, content to live alone in the smaller house next door, Irena “call me Irene” DeStefano seemed to move into their lives to fill up her own. But his mother liked her. Even so, every time he came home, it became a signal for her to wrap up the chit chat, let her “ge
t dinner on the table.”
He tried not to resent his mother’s times with her friend, but so often he had good news, or wanted to spout off about something someone said, or rehearse his day’s events before repeating them for his father at dinner, or after, or not at all. He sure wasn’t going to tell anything in front of Mrs. DeStefano, even though his mother probably discussed every cold or report card or ear infection.
“Well, Hello, Joseph. How are you?” Mrs. DeStefano’s arms were out, demanding, so he hugged her.
“Okay. Hey, Ma.” He bent down to kiss her. “I got a shirt, like you said.” He pulled the wrapped shirt from the bag.
He wouldn’t tell his mother he’d taken all of three seconds picking it out from the bargain bin. He just knew what her idea of “a good shirt” meant, so he got one, as promised, stuffed with cardboard, about a dozen pins, one of which always seemed to stay hidden until Sunday.
“What else did you get?”
“Oh, a book, another shirt. See?”
“That’s nice. Is that flannel?”
“Yeah.”
“Keep him warm,” Mrs. DeStefano said.
“It’ll definitely keep me warm,” Joey grinned as he raced upstairs. He didn’t mean the shirt.
He’d already scanned the Marky Mark book, saw the third nipple with a little arrow, and the wet shot, with his soaked jeans down so low, his skin taut like a cream-colored dolphin. Joey clutched the growing contents of his pants. Oh man. Save it for later.
He read the page where Marky’s brother Donnie, from New Kids on the Block, told about his relationship with his brother. Joey had two NKOB cassettes, plus Marky’s too, which he’d scrubbed his Aunt Lilla’s stove to pay for.
In the Marky Mark book, Donnie Wahlberg explained how close he and Marky were: “Whenever I’m leaving Marky or he’s going away, or like even when he finishes in the studio and is takin’ off, we always kiss goodbye.”
It wasn’t sexy to Joey, just a reminder of how to love your family, even if he sometimes didn’t like them. He hadn’t kissed his brother in years. Mike never held still long enough for him to try. Of course, if his brother were Marky Mark, he’d probably have a hard time not kissing him.
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