Pins: A Novel (12 page)

14

As the Giant Hohos, also known as the Tubers, were carefully unrolled by the JVs, under his and Raul Klein’s watchful supervision, behind him, Joey heard a snapping sound.

 
“Hi, Joey.” Chrissie Wright grinned, giving her gum a moment’s rest. She wore jeans and a Little Falls Wrestling Mat Maid T-shirt. Her hair frizzed out like an exploded cat.
 

“Oh, hi.”
 
Joey nodded to her, then turned away, busying himself with unrolling the mat that came toward them like a slow bulldozer.
 
“Um, it’s coming this way.”

The gaggle of boys and unrolling mat shoved them apart. Joey went back to work.
 
He half-heard “stuck up” come from her direction, but ignored it when a couple guys tried to roll Tommy Infranca under the mat.

Dink ran beside Joey as they rounded the back court of the gym, which the boys had been granted only out of the graciousness of the “grand high” basketball team, which was in Clifton, about to lose, Joey hoped.

The basketball team always caused problems when the wrestling team had tournaments:
 
late practices, alumni matches. They didn’t like the wrestlers dragging mats over their precious floor. That’s how Dink explained it to Joey, who took it as the common folklore of any rivalry-filled high school. One of Brett Shiver’s T-shirts summed it up best; ‘The sight I adore on a basketball floor is wrestling mats from door to door.’

“Whyncha go talk to her?” Hunter shoved him as they finished with the mats and began jogging around the gym perimeter.

“‘Cause I don’t wanna.”

Dink jogged circles around the others.

Hunter quizzed him. “Why, you don’t go out with south-mores?”

“Naw, too skinny.” Joey always had an excuse ready.

“Yeah, guess yer right. Go for the older girls.”

Dink cut in. “I like ‘em with big tits.”

Hunter said, “Whadda you know, you haven’t even–”

“I know, awright.”

“When was the last time you had a date?”

“Last summer. Melissa Hutchins.”

“Ja get any?”

“It’s all pink inside.”

“You perv.”

Hunter jogged on, laughing. As he and Dink looped around again, Chrissie glanced at him, then turned away in a huff.

Sure, he could fake it, but he wasn’t about to. Forget that. Besides, it wouldn’t be nice or fun to lie to Chrissie.

As they passed her, Dink bellowed out loud as he slapped Joey on the back, nearly making him trip, “Well, Neech, it’s sure better than layin’ in bed an’ beatin’ off into a sock!”

He’d never thought of doing it that way.

Coach barked a few orders, silenced the herd, all hooded under sweat shirts like monks.

“Mister Skaal, will you honor us with a prayer?”

Bennie stood, nodded to Lamar, who held a small boombox, his other arm in a scribble-coated cast, then headed out to the gym.

The team went to their knees in the damp quiet of the locker room. Joey bowed his head, glancing at a crack in the cement floor before shutting his eyes. There was no request, no demand. They simply went to their knees in prayer. That was how it was done. It was a rare moment, when Joey actually felt as if he might be talking to God and Jesus and everybody.

Silently, secretively, Joey slipped his crucifix, which he had removed from around his neck, dropped it between his right sock and ankle.

Bennie paused a moment, surveying the sight of all his teammates kneeling below him.

“Lord, please help us in our mission tonight to defeat our enemies from Bayonne. Give us strength that we may be victorious and not cause great harm to our foes. Let us bring honor to our school, our team and our teammates, who are our brothers, and our friends, for a man that hath friends must show himself friendly, and there is a friend that sticks closer than a brother. Amen.”

After the mumbled Amens, the Catholic boys –Tommy, Dustin, Anthony, Joey, and Dink– crossed themselves. Everybody opened their eyes, slowly stood, as if waking from a nap.
 

Coach said softly, “Remember gentlemen; it’s on the mat that counts. Let’s go.”

The rumble of the boys standing was followed by a low growl that rose higher and higher as they huddled in a tight circle, each with an arm extended to the center. Joey loved the moment, feeling his arm as only a part of another creature. They gripped their fists tightly, aiming them low, layered, a tight chrysanthemum of teen rage.

As their growl became a medium yell, then a high howl, the arms rose and rose, raised high to the ceiling. Their singular howl dispersed into a round of doglike hoots reverberating into the lockers.

Joey kept his hood up, as did the others through their opening entrance and run-around. They jogged around the circle while the Mat Maids clapped to the music, leading the crowd in the chant, “Colts! Colts! Colts! Colts!”

Tommy Infranca led them. The team marched in by weight, growing in size as each boy trotted out. Lamar sat proudly by the tape recorder at the announcer’s mike.
 
Music blasted the gym.

The basketball team had the whole stage band to pump up their entrances through a big paper banner emblazoned with a life-size drawing of a Colt. At the Homecoming football game, they even had a real horse that some guy rode around the playing field.

The wrestlers had a Panasonic and guts.

The boys had convinced their coaches it was a very healthy psyche-up, since other schools did it too, with other music, even on the PA sometime. “Eye of the Tiger” was called “way eighties” by Dink. Walt had suggested “Lunatic Fringe,” from
Vision Quest
, but that was considered sacred. They didn’t tell Coach Cleshun the name of the Stone Temple Pilots song that Bennie chose: “Sin.”

Joey shot a dopey pretending-to-flirt grin at Chrissie, showing off how easy their little dance was, even though it had taken Assistant Coach Fiasole hours of practice to get them all in synch.

Joey’s favorite part was sidesteps, because it reminded him of the ride at Great Adventure that spun around until the floor dropped out. The boys whirled about the perimeter of the circle, facing in. Across from him, Joey grinned to Hunter, who spotted him between darted glances to each side. With Anthony to his left, Dink on his right, Joey maintained the space. The faces and bodies of his teammates, the twelve chosen, remained focused. Behind them, outside the circle, the gym walls, the bleachers, opponents, scorekeepers, coaches whirled by in a blur.

Usually Assistant Coach Fiasole turned down the tape at the right moment, but he let Lamar have the honor. The team ended their warm-ups standing in a row, pointing across the mat, shouting the chorus lyrics once, loudly to their opponents, “Down You Go!”

Assistant Coach Fiasole had edited the music to cut to the song’s end. Their opponents, who stood or sat, slightly stunned by the display, watched as the Colts bowed reverently like young Samurai warriors.

Despite their roar of adrenaline, the small yet appreciative crowd brought them down to reality. Despite the Mat Maids’ posters in the halls, kids didn’t want to go out on a cold night just to go back to school. Despite the bake sales, T-shirts, Booster Club meetings, some parents had jobs, or other kids to feed, pick up, drop off. The gym echoed, near-empty.

The coaches often told Joey it didn’t matter so much who showed up. “Wait till finals,” Hunter had said. “It’s on the mat that counts,” Coach had said. But Joey had too often tasted victory with near-empty bleachers as his witness. In the wrestling room, the practice mats covered the floors, comforting and soft. But in the gym, with the polished wood floor spreading out and shiny as a lake, the mat was a lonely island.

Sitting by themselves, expectant, Joey’s father and Mike sat amid the sparse audience. Mike waved. Joey grinned wide, baring his teeth. Fine, they’d showed up. Now he had to win.

Tommy Infranca got pinned, more nervous than unskilled. Dustin did well, winning by a technical fall. Just before Anthony stepped out, Assistant Coach Fiasole whispered something to him, and he took off.

“Come on, Anthony!” Joey yelled. Along the bench, a few Colts gave him a strange glance. He kept his attention on Anthony, but from the side, he half-saw, half-felt their glare, even Dink’s.

Anthony got pinned before Joey even took his sweats off. The shock of seeing Anthony slumping back to his seat so soon distracted him.

“What a fish.”
 
Troy made his lips pop open and shut like a trout.

Joey had seen movies with silent slow motion sports scenes, the hero making the snap decision at the moment, all the voices fading away into a muffled silence, followed by music rising to the roar of victory at the last moment.

This was not his experience.

When he saw the pair-up, he tried his best to keep his eyes off the opponent, a slightly buff blond with a sleek nose and big blue eyes. Joey tried not to think too much about him, see him, or else he’d see him as a person, humanize him, and then all would be lost. He sought out his opponent’s glance, seeking a trace of innocence, a hint of respect or fear or arrogance, something to start with.

Bayonne had an average record, and their lower weight guys were giving a good fight. Joey waited for Coach Fiasole’s pat on the butt and the magic word, “Colto,” then stepped over the line and into the circle for his three two-minute battles.

“Take charge right off,” Coach had said a hundred times.
 
Joey half heard it through his headgear, his ears muffled from most sounds.

He thought his upper body weakness would peg him, since the Bayonne guy was a bit buff. The guy nestled his head under Joey’s armpit, shoving through his arm lock. Then he used his head like a battering ram, shoving him back. Joey looked to the guy’s feet, distracted while trying to get a takedown, an arm slapped over the side of his head, clutching, grabbing. Joey responded by ripping away, shifting around him, back in again.

He grabbed the arm, twisted, dropped with a small yank, the guy’s body hurled over his shoulder. He sprawled, his body sprung taut over his opponent. Get him on his back, get him on his back.

“C’mon, Joey-eee!” a high-pitched voice. Chrissie. Suddenly she was all for him.

He got distracted again. The school photographer, out of nowhere, lay sprawled at the rim of the mat, elbows up, clicking a shot of Joey gritting his teeth. Cool, he thought. Hope it gets in the yearboo–

Wham! A crossface nearly punched him. Joey pressed up, pushing himself up on one elbow, yanking away an attempted arm bar. He pressed away from the floor. The ref whipped into his sight, whistle at his mouth, palm poised over the mat. No, he was not going just yet. Joey released a thick grunt, reaching under, pulling his arm free.

A tweet and they released. Choosing ref’s position, Joey knelt. He saw his dad out in the audience. Think, think, not about him, not about what he thinks, win for you, not him.

“Flank!” Coach shouted. Joey felt weight descend behind him as the hands were set in place, the back of his opponent warm, pressing against his butt.

He felt the Bayonne guy edge to the left, thought it might be a fake-out to get him to twist left. The guy wouldn’t try something so cheesy, so he faked a nudge left, twisted right, lunging his left leg out, digging the heel of his shoe deep into the mat. He pivoted on it, wriggled out of the arm lock to face his opponent.

Great, he was fine at squeezing out, now how about dealing with the guy? How about getting a pin instead of just points?

Joey glanced a brief moment at the blue glint in his opponent’s eyes, then down. Watch the hands. He dove, shooting down, grabbing for torso, exhaling as he went down, grabbing a leg, tying it, thinking of wrapping it with a hand, grunting up the strength to keep him down.