He requested tunes, comics, music mixes. The guys on the team ruled that department. They came in posses.
The view outside his new window faced east, he discovered on his first day upright. On days when they sat him up, he could almost see the tips of Manhattan skyscrapers over the green hills.
In what was called a “miraculous recovery,” crediting the marvelous microsurgery of Dr. Behn, he became mobile, with the brace carefully limiting his movements. On the ward, he was referred to as Iron Man, Robowrestler, Spike.
He still had visits and massive entertainments of painkillers. On a Sunday afternoon, while returning from the rest room, he knocked over a tray, which woke his father, who lay slouched in a chair under a slat of morning sun.
“What?” Dino Nicci squinted, sleepy-eyed. “You okay?” his father blurted. He was tired. He’d been getting up early to go to mass, visiting or calling every day, back to church on Sunday, Saturday and Wednesday, lighting candles, devotionals, the whole nine yards.
“You want anything?”
Yeah, Dad, could you please call my boyfriend and find out why he has yet to get his lazy ass here to see me? “Mmmn, food? There anything?”
“I don’t know, um, wait.”
Dino foraged in the cooler, usually packed with sandwiches, cold pasta, now running low. “Hold on.” He left, returning with a bottled juice, two candy bars, three peanut butter cheese cracker packs from a vending machine somewhere down the hall.
Dino helped his son eat the snacks, washed down with tepid water from a plastic pitcher with a straw.
“Um, I’m tired. Can you help?”
Dino jumped up, eased his son down to the mattress as they talked.
“The lawyer called. They’re going to pay.”
“You can’t. Dad. It’s my fault.”
“Don’t, don’t start. Don’t get upset. You move when you get upset. We discuss, slowly, awright.”
“But I wanted to die.”
“Okay. Okay. You think we won’t love you because you … ’cause maybe you never gonna get married, or because you think that it’s your fault Anthony died, that your friends are in jail?”
“Well, that …wraps it up.”
“You didn’t. You tried to, and maybe you fucked up. You know what? Everybody fucks up. If I hadn’t fucked up, we never woulda had you.”
“Woulda been better.”
His father gripped his arm, hard. Under Dino’s grip, the little plastic hospital band dug into his wrist. It read: Joseph S. Nicci, followed by numbers he couldn’t read.
“No. Never. You are my boy. Y’unnastand? Now, I love your mother, and Soph an’ your brother, but I’m gonna tell you until you understand.”
“Yeah?”
“That I love you more than anything. You are my son. You are my blood. My firstborn. I only…” Dino choked up, but forced it out. “I only hope that, even if you really think that you’re…Nothing you can do… will…”
“Okay, Dad. Stop it.”
“Okay.”
They held hands, since hugging was still dangerous.
“Ma says you’re still smokin’.”
His father pulled back, wiped his eyes. “Yeah, well, I did the same thing every time she was in the hospital havin’ you kids.”
“That stuff’ll kill ya.” They laughed, sort of. Dino told him, “Jus’ let me keep makin’ jokes like that an’ I think I’ll be okay.”
“Not in fronta your mother.”
“No hangin’ from the roof?”
“No.”
“No hunting trips?”
“Enough.”
Priests arrived. Cameras arrived. The priests were not turned away.
After the first few dozen visits, Joe noticed the same broken neck jokes worked, made them all laugh, more comfortable. They told him they were praying for his recovery at both St. Dominic’s and St. Augustine’s. “A double dose!” Sister Bernadine called it.
Most never visited twice. His mother told him that folks often came by to make themselves feel better, and just visiting once was enough.
Except Raul, who said he felt guilty about not stopping Joe from getting up. Joe forgave him, asked questions about the team, which led to his life, which led around why Raul wasn’t dating, then back to religion, them having a lot in common there, just different names and stories.
Raul and Dustin would visit, talk about wrestling, watch the tube with him, gossip about the other guys, make shadow puppets on the ceiling do battle to save the universe.
He’d never really noticed how beautiful they were, his little tribal brothers. When Dustin asked to touch him, feel what Raul had jokingly called his “Frankenspikes,” he felt a tingle, a healing, the lightest caress.
But mostly it was family. They ate together in his room as if it were an extension of the house. Marie brought dinner that night, or maybe a week later. He couldn’t tell for a while. Out in the hall, beeps, clattering carts distracted them.
He’d been off saline, other things for weeks, but every now and then rubbed over the scar, the arm plug. On the tube, Doug Savant was being stalked by an ex-boyfriend.
“How old were you when I was born?”
“Eighteen,” she said.
“Were you still in high school?”
“Just out.”
“Was I a prom baby?”
“You were born in September. Add it up.”
He couldn’t.
Marie said, “January. You weren’t the only one who got out of control during Christmas break.”
He tried to smile. “Everybody. They all married so young.”
“That’s the way it works out sometimes.”
“I’m really glad Dad never had to go to war.”
“Me too. I think you done all the fightin’ for both of us.”
“Yeah.”
“So how ‘bout it? Ya gonna come home from the war, Guiseppe?”
They sat for a while, listening to the beeps and sounds of the hospital intercom out in the hall.
She finally spoke again, as if, as always, there was just one more thing. “How could you ever think we wouldn’t still love you?”
“I don’t know.”
“About… your being…”
“Yeah.”
“It’s your pal Donnie, right?”
Unable to nod, he instead smiled.
“I could tell. I mean, aside from those other boys, he was your only real friend you brought over for us to meet, but if you had only let us get to know them and be a part of your life, it wouldn’t have hurt to…”
As she continued talking, he listened, part of him still lingering on the ‘only real friend’ part, trying to ignore the ‘was’ part.
“Huh?”
“You love him?”
He said, after about a minute, “Lemme put it this way, Marie.”
“Okay, Joe,” she smirked.
“I knocked him out, but I’m gonna marry him anyway.”
3
Another doctor gave him another final examination. His hands worked so quickly Joe didn’t even have time to worry about getting a boner. The first time he came in, his nametag looked like it said Risen.
Dr. Rosen asked what other medications Joe had been taking. He didn’t smile when informed of El Vomito.
Marie and Dino had a meeting with Dr. Rosen. The next time he visited, Joe received another prescription.
“You take them at breakfast, dinner, after eating, not before.”
“What is it?”
“An anti-depressant.”
“Not that stuff they gave George Bush.”
“Why?”
“You ever hear of the Gulf War?”
The doctor didn’t laugh, just let his lips shift upward a little.
“I want you to be a bit more careful with your pill-taking, young man. You need to be more careful about your health. I’ve recommended a very good, very un-scary psychologist. Would you be interested in something like that.” It wasn�
�t a question.
“Sure.”
“It doesn’t mean you’re crazy or anything.”
“I know.”
Joe could have told him he understood. In addition to his neck, temporarily fucking up his liver with the pills and whiskey, he also had a weight problem, tendonitis in both knees, the remnants of a skin fungus, a stress fracture in his collar bone, and excess cartilage deposits in his ears.
“Your parents told you about the therapy options?”
“Yeah, someone else to report to.”
“I’m serious. You have only one life, so enjoy the rest of it, you hear me?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.” They shook hands, and Dr. Rosen left while flipping through his chart.
Around dusk that night, or another night, his mother called about some problem with the garage door or the car. He said he was okay and would see them when they got there.
They kept telling him to rest, but he had to start moving again.
He fingered two quarters out of his bathrobe pocket, wheeled into the waiting room.
The tube hung from the ceiling. Across the room, the double-bypass lady sat dozing on a chair, her IV hanging beside her. It was said that she kept showing up in different places on the floor, claiming her room was haunted.
A news story continued, hosted by a familiar face, then that chubby news guy standing behind a podium, holding an award, a piece of plastic. He talked amid camera flashes. What he was talking about wasn’t clear, the volume was too low. The reporter was, to Joe, an old friend he’d never met.
Joe didn’t want to wake the lady, so he wheeled close, but a foot rest clanged against the snack dispenser. She nearly jumped out of her seat to spy a disheveled creature with a spiral of metal around his head backlit by a soda sign.
“Sorry.”
She stood, wheeled her IV over, helped him get his soda. They watched the news together for a while. A reporter stood outside a schoolyard. Some boy in some high school had tried to kill a classmate, but missed and shot a substitute teacher instead.
“. . .that the only trace of rage will be felt in the hallways of this school, and the memory of its fear.”
Then the show returned to the studio anchors, each sort of half-smiling, as if they’d tasted a hostess’ lousy cooking and were pretending to love it. The lady: “Coming up, a Tristate springtime holiday.”
The anchor guy: “And more on the baseball strike with Rock–”
“Enough.” Joe hit OFF. Double bypass lady didn’t complain, having already left the room.
4
Fortified by his family’s love, and a lengthy prescription of what became known as “the happy pills,” Joe returned home to spend the rest of May being doted upon. The last week of classes, he returned for finals.
He did surprisingly well, having been quite the captive audience for homework once the scary prospect of being a sophomore again sunk in.
His story was by then mythic, his return to school beatific, yet still embarrassing. With the neck brace and the remaining dot-shaped scars from the pins, he continued to be easily identified, avoid sudden movements. Occasionally he got a ghost of a twinge, like the time he waited for his ride home outside the school, heard what sounded like a junky Mustang rumbling around a corner.
What arrived instead was the Bronco, this time driven by his mom. She talked cheerily about some plans for that evening. He reminded her of an obligation.
“I don’t want you hangin’ around with a bunch of other kids who could be a bad influence,” she argued.
“It’s in a church.”
“A Methodist church.”
“So?”
“So, it’s not your church.”
“Well, it’s got the St. Dominic’s seal of approval ‘cause Sister Bernadine told me about it. It’s other kids like me who got problems.”
“And your parents can’t help you with that?”
“Ma, I love you. But there’s some things you just can’t talk about with your parents. Remember, you wanted this.”
“It still wouldn’t hurt to go back to Mass with me. Go to confession. It may not do anything for you, but I think you’ll feel better.”
“Ma, I went to confession. Been there, shaved that.”
“If you hadn’t messed with those boys–”
“Ma.”
“That Khors boy–”
“Ma. Chill.”
“This is what they teach you at that group? To talk back to your mother?”
“Ma,” he said, softly. “I learned it myself. When I died.”
“I’m going to forgive you for saying that.”
Her silence followed them into the kitchen, where she began the pot and pan drum solo before dinner. He knew he’d have to apologize later. He felt better knowing he wanted to live, even if it took a fuss to do it. Besides, knowing his mother disapproved made it a bit more fun.
TEENS
Taped to the door of a little side room in the United Methodist Church, a curved slab building of gray brick that looked like a giant crab shell, the sign almost scared him off. It felt good to go, how the team used to feel, but it was a different circle altogether. Nobody else was a wrestler, but everybody had done the “Down you go.”
Six other kids and a counselor sat in folding chairs; Consuela, a Puerto Rican girl with a crewcut; Todd, a skinny nearly invisible kid with glasses, his arm in a cast; Malcolm, a chubby black kid who could have given Buddha Martinez some competition; Heather, a sullen girl with green and red dyed hair shaved on one side with a matching Morrisey T-shirt who always ended her sentences with a question? and Alan, a long-haired blond kid whose pimples made up most of his features.
But what relieved and embarrassed him was the presence of Tom, the photographer. It seemed Tom had gone through some similar experiences, post-Anthony. Just sitting next to him flooded Joe’s thoughts with a sea of if-onlys. He always sat by Tom. There was so much catching up to do.
At first, Joe wondered how they’d all done it, tried to kill themselves. Or were they all queer, too? He figured at least he still looked okay, the way they were looking at him, but he thought he’d meet a guy like Dink, somebody he could be buddies with. These were all geeks, kids who passed out in gym class.
An older guy, Richard, the counselor, who was very patient, wore jeans, a denim shirt, didn’t seem too scary.
Alan, the skinny blond very gay-acting kid, kept talking about Kurt Cobain. Alan had earrings on both sides, rings on his fingers. His every word made Joe squirm.
“When he did it, I just thought, why not? I mean, not like I thought I would be famous or anything. I just saw it as an option.”
Heather added, “There’s so much glorification of it in music? I think I was really negatively influenced by that? But I’m not going to like start listening to Michael Bolton to make myself feel better.” Heather and Alan laughed. They had inside jokes. They’d already become friends.
“Crazy,” Joe muttered.
“Joe, let’s not be judgmental,” Richard said. “We’re here to support each other.”
I’m here to support them, he wondered. When was it all going to be over? When could he forget?
Tom spoke up. “I think um, Joe and I have…it’s about just always wishing we could go back, bring Anthony back. It was everywhere, and people were supportive, but they didn’t understand.”
Even his parents had gone to therapy, Tuesdays at seven, after dropping him off at Chez DeStefano. They’d changed, gotten so odd, as if they were behaving the way somebody else told them to act, with a forced politeness. They’d even watched a few movies together. Joe called them Forced Family Fridays, as if they all just sat together, doing things together, then the rest of the world would go away, they’d all be happy. It sometimes felt good, but he didn’t like to admit that. Mostly he felt as if he was posing for a commercial.
“I know you think it’s crazy,” Alan said, waving his arms around, reading Joe in a ‘sharing’ way
. “But look, you probably never got beat up for wearing the wrong T-shirt, or getting your ears pierced, being out like me. I mean, I don’t have the things you have, okay? It’s like a totally different experience being openly gay. There is a freedom, but there’s still a lot of hassles.”
Heather gave one snap up.
“Heather,” Richard warned.
Joe sputtered, “I’m out…enough. But I don’t think I have to tell everybody, you know, like goin’ and wearin’ a button, like Hi, Blow Me…because I don’t think it’s anybody’s business what I do and it totally fuc– messed me up when it got out.”
“But wasn’t that part of it?” Consuela said.
“No. I didn’t…” They were all sitting there waiting, looking. Justify yourself. “I let everybody down. I couldn’t deal with having to…well, Jeez, you all know. You all know about it. Tom knows. Everybody knows about it, even though nobody used my name. It was like I was already ripped apart. Getting hurt, it was just…finishing the job.”
Malcolm adjusted himself in his seat. His butt spread out on both sides of the chair. Todd, the silent one, coughed and pushed his glasses back. Richard started talking in his reasoned counselor voice, which sort of annoyed Joe but made him feel better, like the pills they’d given him, which his mother kept hidden, doling them out once a day. Sometimes they made him want to jump around or be silly, but mostly they made him slightly hyper. He wondered what would happen when they ran out.
“You’ve all felt pressures from outside,” Richard said. “Unbearable pressures, from peers, from family, from all around you. What I’d like you each to do, okay, for next week, is think more about your own reactions, your own feelings, and not so much about what people would think, okay? I’m not saying you should do anything you want, like rob a bank or steal a car.”
That got a few chuckles and smiles, especially from Todd, who’d stolen his mother’s car and smashed it into a tree. Todd was twelve.
The meeting finished. Kids folded the chairs.
Joe fought an edgy feeling inside as Alan walked up.
“So, um, you go to Little Falls?”
“Yeah, between CAT scans.”
Alan laughed too hard. “Um, well, if you’re allowed, we could go to a movie or something.”
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