Pins: A Novel (17 page)

Dink tried to shrug off the silence, but he was up, walking around Joey’s room. “So, when all the ‘family’ time’s done, we could go out, y’know. With Bennie and Hunter.”

Joey tried to hide his surge of, what? He didn’t know. Fear? Jealousy? He just wanted to spend time with Dink. “I dunno. Those guys are buggin’.”

“You don’t like doin’ that punk stuff, do ya?” Dink’s face fell slack, without a trace of teasing. “Aw, don’t sweat it. They just like, get dopey. ‘Sides, once wrestling’s over, they’ll forget we existed.”

“So why we go out with them?”

“You got a car? Or a driver’s license, even? Can you go out an’ buy a six-pack? Can you get into an R movie ever?”

“Well, no, but–”

“So, let’s just have fun with them while it’s fun, okay?”

Joey could have argued, but he didn’t want to. If Dink had said, let’s go jump in a pile of mud, he’d have done it. So he just growled a line from a Nirvana song, “Forever in debt to your priceless advice.” That got Dink grinning again, but he stood up, grabbed his coat.

“Be real nice to your parents now, so when you ask to go out, they let you outta the cage.”

“Right.”

“So, what’s this you said about Ton ‘o Cookies?”

Dink thanked Joey’s parents graciously, his gifts secured in a plastic bag.
 
His mom once again said what a nice friend he had. Joey agreed.

Before Sophia and Mike were sent to bed, Joey helped them set a little plate of cookies and a glass of milk on the dining room table. It was really for Sophia that they were doing it, since Mike kept making wisecracks about “the fat guy getting stuck in the chimney.”

Sophie peeked up, her chin just shy of the table. “You gotta leave him something too, Joeeo.”

“Well, Sophio, I’d leave him a protein smoothie but it would get all gloppy by the time he gets here.”

“Joey, don’t be obnoxious.”

“Whoah. Where’d you get that one?”

On TV, Bing Crosby sang with David Bowie. His parents lay at opposite ends of the sofa, their legs entwined in the middle, Marie the recipient of a long-promised foot massage.

“Didn’t we see him at the Meadowlands?” Dino asked.

“That was Bob Seger,” she corrected.

“Oh, right.”

“How could you confuse Bob Seger with David Bowie?”

“Who did I see Bowie with?”

“Sharon Kelly.” She kicked him. “Who he dated twice before he met me.”

“Oh, yeah,” his dad said. “Wonder what happened to her?”

“I took you off her hands and she lived happily ever after.”

Sitting across the room from them, Joey tried to see his parents as the kind of kids who did things like that. Joey wondered if they’d partied, if that little nudge his mother gave his father said, don’t talk about that. That was when we were wild.

Sensing another rampant heterosexual display of affection, Joey kissed his parents goodnight, hightailed it up to his room, ripped the wrapping paper open to see what he knew Dink’s present was.

Four cassettes, each one a special music mix. Dink had even listed the songs on the inside and used pictures from wrestling magazines to decorate the outside of the cassettes. There were four titles: GRAPPLE!, AAURGGH!, PSYCHE UP! and one called ZONE OUT, all written in Dink’s neat handwriting, the tapes full of different tunes Joey had heard at Dink’s place, music Dink knew he’d like.

He’d tried to listen to them all before he fell asleep around midnight, but ended up listening to ZONE OUT, which had all slow songs, love songs, sad songs that had nothing to do with Christmas, but made him feel a warm joy that took him off to a half-dream where he and Dink were competing for the world federation championship, cheered on by a crowd, both winners, which he knew was impossible, since he’d never done tag team.

20

“Drops your cocks and grab yer socks! It’s Chr-r-ristmas, sold-juh!!”

Joey woke up with his earphone wires wrapped around his neck, his batteries dead, a pajama-ed Mike bouncing off his bed, a bell-ringing Sophia doing a jig up and down the hall.

Under the tree, little and middle-sized gifts surrounded a big box in the middle of the room wrapped in reindeer-striped paper.

After too many mornings of sweaters, stockings full of Pez, stick and ball sports equipment, he’d learned to make lists, get what he wanted, within reason, be happy to watch Mike and Soph do the screaming while his father took pictures. Stuff didn’t matter much to Joey.

But the big box sat in the middle. Even though everybody knew what it was, his dad said, “Wait, that’s for everybody, from Santa.”

His mother was appreciative, happy with her presents; clothes his father had picked out secretly, on his own, wrapped in a quartet of matching different-sized boxes. His mother had gotten him nice clothes.

Sophia’s toys were all pink and plastic girl stuff. Mike made a point of showing his disapproval, making her whine a bit, until Joey promised to play Little Mermaid games with her later. Sophia had made paper angels for everybody.

Mike didn’t get his Evil Pegasaurus, but with all the other toys and stocking candy, he must have forgotten about it.

Ankle-deep in wrapping paper, by the blinking tinsel and ornament-encrusted tree, Joey sat content before his new pair of white Converse shoes wrapped in virginal plastic, his new sweater, a pair of jeans he could actually wear to school, since his mother “found out they were supposed to be baggy, even though I did not understand, this lovely boy at the store said all the kids were wearing them like that, so anyway, if they don’t fit, you can take them back.”

“No, Ma, I’m sure they’ll fit. Thank you.”

His father laughed at the plaque, said he would hang it up over his workbench, exactly where Joey had imagined it.

“We gotta open the big box!” Mike insisted.

“First, everybody gets a little something else.” Dino, in a show of theatricality he only made at Christmas, wedding anniversaries, maybe a birthday, pulled a quartet of similarly shaped boxes from behind the sofa. He doled them out like playing cards, and had everyone open them at the same time.

Sophia, of course, shrieked with joy upon unwrapping her copy of
The Little Mermaid
. Mike howled with glee at his own
Batman
, which he would immediately memorize and quote constantly. Marie got
The Sound of Music
, and Joey
Olympic Highlights.
 

Only then did his father allow Mike to shred the wrapping paper open to reveal what Joey knew was inside, a new VCR. Everybody clapped, hooted. Showtime.

Mike became more interested in the Styrofoam packing for a while. Joey was intent on plugging it all in ASAP. The sooner they got bored, the sooner he could study his real homework; matches.

Then his father said, “Marie, did we forget something?”

His mother tried to act confused, but as she arched her eyebrows too high Joey knew something was up. What was it this time, a car? A dog? Probably something so overblown it would surely be a disappointment, like the time they led him out to the driveway in Newark blindfolded. He was supposed to be excited about a new bike, but it was totally wrong for him, more the kind Mike would have wanted, did and quickly inherited.

Instead it was a box. Inside, his already broken-in varsity jacket lay neatly folded. Joey got it. They were reminding him that they had paid for the coat. He would definitely have to get a job after wrestling. He owed them.

“Thanks.”

He was about to get up for the round of thank-you kisses, but his mother said, “Wait, wait. Inside.”

He looked down under the folds of his jacket. Nestled deep inside like twin babies lay a pair of new black suede Asics International Lyte wrestling shoes, with orange laces already entwined through the holes.

“Those old ones you wear were really getting smelly,” his mother said.

“Yer mother went crazy tryin’ to find them.”

“Well, I had go with Irene all over. Why don’t they sell them in stores? Maybe the size number’s different than your regular shoes, I thought, and the number was all faded away. . .”

“She went while we were shopping.”

“Besides, I thought these would look better with your uniform.”

Dit. Dit. Dit. The sound of his tears christening the shoes.

So very embarrassed about it, he got up, hiding his eyes behind his parents’ faces, letting the gush pass while he hugged them. He wanted this moment to last for a long time, so he even posed for extra pictures to finish the roll so they could drop them off at the Photo Hut on the way back to Newark.

21

“A priest and a nun are riding through the desert on a camel.”

“Where are they going?”

Laughter.

“I dunno. They’re, they’re escaping the Philistines.”

“Why didn’t they take a horse?”

A little less laughter.

“That’s not the point. They’re going into the desert. It’s very dry. The camel passes out from lack of water.”

“That’s impossible–”

“Shhh.”

“So the nun says, ‘What are we gonna do?’ The priest says, ‘Pray.’ So they pray, but the camel’s getting worse. Finally the priest turns to the nun and says, ‘You know, Mother Superior, we might die out here. Is there anything you’ve always wanted to do before dying?’ The nun says no. The priest says, ‘Before I die I would like to make love to a woman just once.’ The nun says, ‘What’ll that do?” and the priest is flustered, totally desperate, so he says, ‘It’ll give us eternal life.’ So the nun says, ‘Forget about me. Go fuck the camel!”

Grampa Nicci got away with telling that joke at the dinner table only once. Joey never forgot it, because it was the only time he ever blew milk threw his nose. Years later, Joey’s father told him that Grampa Nicci dragged out the joke so that everybody would laugh the moment Joey gulped his milk.

Grampa Nicci was a funny guy.

He usually sat engulfed by the great red chair that cushioned him from his increasingly frequent hacking coughs. By then, he wasn’t so funny anymore.

Grampa Nicci died messy.

Joey still feared his memory. Moving away had made it less scary, simply mysterious.

With all the pictures of Grampa in Vietnam, Grandpapa in World War II, Grandma in Newark, Grandmama as a girl in Milan, then in New York with her new husband, mementos hanging, looming, the den was more fascinating this time.

The initial reason for his fear was also a family joke. As a young child, Joey was afraid to go in the room when he heard Grampa Nicci say that “Grandpapa was killed in our den.”

Joey didn’t remember misunderstanding that his great grandfather, then only twenty, with a pregnant wife back in the states, was an infantryman in World War II, killed in the Ardennes, the dense forest in Belgium. It was one of those non-memories that relatives told him he experienced. Someone might mention it on a visit to Grandmama or Aunt Lilla’s little home in Nutley. It was just another repeated bit of conversation between people who were very close, but really had nothing much to say to each other. It filled the time, reminded them why they loved each other.

Sophia and Mike had each been allowed to bring a toy to Grandmama Nicci’s to keep them occupied for the drive down to Newark. Sophia sat her Little Mermaid doll in her lap, the hem of her best dress peeking out from under her coat. Mike occasionally made pre-emptive strikes on Joey’s head with his new Wolverine. Joey couldn’t exactly bring his new Asics, so he wore his varsity jacket over his suit, which felt dumb, so he left it in the car. Joey hoped he’d see some of his old friends. Part of him didn’t want to see them, though. He didn’t understand that fear.

He could tell how nervous his mother was by the way she and his father were quietly arguing in the front seat, or else not speaking at all, except to Sophia or Mike, telling them how nice everything would be if they would just behave. It was as if his parents talked to each other through their children when they didn’t want to talk to each other.

His mother was more nervous, since it was his father’s relatives they were visiting, like she had something to prove, to show how happy they were, now that they’d moved away from “the rest of the family.”

The house was as he remembered it; dark, musty, but with sweet smells of cooking food, furniture polish, every table covered in doilies.
 
Grandmama liked the radio, couldn’t see a television well enough even if she had one, so the kids had to find something better to do.

Other relatives crowded the kitchen, talking loud, frightening him off with fawning adulation every time he entered. Aunt Joyce’s husband, Uncle Harry, who wasn’t Italian, was being especially nice, as if still seeking approval, even though he was a rich executive with some accounting firm in Elizabeth. Joey and Mike secretly called him Uncle Boring.

Joey’s father’s brother, Rico Nicci, had moved with his family to Atlanta years before to work in hospital management. He acquired a large house they had yet to visit, but had seen pictures of. They were called to the phone to be nice with the relatives they rarely saw. Mike got shy all of a sudden, his eyes dull, saying only “Uh-huh,” and “yeah,” reciting his list of gifts. Joey made a face while Mike held his finger in his ear.

When it was Joey’s turn, he talked with his Aunt Alicia, being polite, wondering if she remembered what he looked like. Then his Uncle Rico got on the phone, asked how his wrestling was doing.

“Pretty good.”

“You gonna be a champion, ah?”

“Sure.”

“Like Hulk Hogan, ah?”

“Actually, I’m more the Kendall Cross type.”

“Who?”

“Or Terry Brands.”

“What?”

“Tom Brands, on a good day.”

“You have a nice Christmas, ah? Putcha father back on the phone.”

“Dad.” Joey handed it over, relieved of another duty, eavesdropped on his father’s brotherly talk, realized his father was the Mike of his family.

Everybody talked, chatted, eating, drinking. Joey wanted a beer, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to find one. Sneaking wine was OOTQ, which was pronounced “Ooty-cue.” It stood for Out Of The Question, a term Dink taught him.
 

Maybe just one beer after dinner, if he asked.

After hiding outside until it was too cold, he found his father in the den, standing with–how convenient!–a beer in his hand, talking with Uncle Boring, who was smoking a cigar. Joey tried to dodge the cloud, but his father caught his eye.

“There he is.” He collared him with one arm. His dad would make something up, as they did sometimes, instant secret jokes.

“So, how long have you been wrestling, Joe?” Uncle Boring seemed interested, for the moment.

“This my third year.” He squinted through smoke.

“You’re getting pretty good, I hear.” He nudged Dino’s elbow, spilling a bit of his beer.

“I’ll get you another,” Joey said.

“No, no, it’s fine.”

“Nineteen-two,” Dino said. Joey noticed his father was a tad drunk. Marie, with the women in the living room, the desserts and lots of coffee, would be driving.

“Scuse me?” Uncle Boring cocked his ear.

“His record. Nineteen wins, two losses. “

“Twenny,” Joey corrected.

“Oh, sorry,” his dad patted him.

“Our boy’s on the football squad,” Uncle Boring said, then, “Right Guard.”

Joey often wondered if he had some sort of allergy to the sport. His eyes went glassy anytime someone mentioned football. He didn’t get it, couldn’t follow the rules, could admire the butts, but in more situations, found the need to at least pretend to listen to the men gossip about certain players’ private lives, stats. He heard there was a gay one, tried to think of his name, figure out where to find out.

All the while, through the stiff shoulder of his jacket, he felt his father’s hand, felt a warmth, a pride of ownership.

Napkins delicately cradled silverware in little china holders that were taken out only once a year. He heard the rattle of his cousins in the hall, the mumbles of over-friendly relatives pretending to enjoy each others’ company, even though after every gathering his parents would sigh with relief once they were in the car, away, or his dad would fart and his mother would roll down the window in disgust while the kids all laughed. He longed to be gone, finished with this show. He knew the script. He craved Dink. Dink was unwritten.

A steaming bowl of glazed carrots preceded his mother. She set them on the side table. “Why don’t you go be with your cousins?”

“Be? Be with?”

“Don’t get smart.” She headed back to the kitchen. “Just go.”

“Awright.”

But adult talk was dumb, and the other kids silly. Bratty Matty and Theresa, snooty since they went to a private school, sat in the living room with Grandmama, probably hoping to get some extra presents for good behavior. Joey had gotten a tie and shirt. His mother got a sweater. Uncle Boring gave his father a bottle of whiskey in a fancy box, which may have explained why they were being so nice to each other.

Joey wound his way around the old house back to the Our Den.

His glanced at the more recent formal portrait; Sophia’s christening. A little bundle in her mother’s arms, his father beside her, proud, beaming, Joey and his brother stood stiff in suits, dwarfish sentries to their parents.

In the baby pictures, the young portrait photos of his father’s high school graduation next to another of his Uncle Rico, who was thicker around the face, Joey saw his father, then maybe eighteen, and saw part of himself.

Joey looked along a small bookshelf, spied a few photo albums. He took one out, an old one he remembered seeing once, years ago. He flipped through the black paper pages. The photos had wavy edges snug in little corner frames. Some of them had fallen out, leaving ghostlike squares.

People stood in front of row houses, like the one where he’d spent the first fourteen years growing up in Newark. There was a succession of children who became mothers, soldiers, plumbers, lawyers. Aunt Nina, who died before he was born, somewhere in a group photo at a factory in Linden, had made planes in World War II.

He felt glad his father never had to be a soldier, but a slight longing came over him. Where would he be on the wall if he didn’t come up with a wife, babies? Would they still include him if he never did any of that? Would the pictures just stop?

Joey nearly dropped the album. Photos fell to the floor as he turned to see Grandmama Nicci standing in the door. Bratty Matty and Theresa guarded either side of her.

“You like to see old times, eh?”

“Yes, Grandmama.”

“You gotta siddown,” Matty said.

“Go eat someting.
Andate
.” She waved them off like servants. Joey bent down to retrieve the fallen photos, stole a glance at his Grandmama’s feet as she delicately stepped into the room. Her shoes were dark black. Her hose sagged a bit at her ankles.

He stood. She smiled, her skin crinkling around her eyes. He could see the curve of her skull under the wisps of white hair.

“I’ll put these back in.”

“Sokay. I do later. Lemme see.”

He held out the photos, found one of his Grandpapa.

“You see. You look just like him.
Bello
.”
 
She pointed a bony finger at the photo, then put her frail hand to his face. Joey blushed, returned his gaze to the picture. His great-grandfather grinned, no more than a teenager, standing in the snow, a tarp over his shoulders, a gun strapped to his shoulder pointed upward from behind his back. Joey peered into the blurry image, let out a little sigh.

“Some boy,
un compagno
, took dat. He send it when my Guisseppe, he froze in da woods waiting out da goddamn Nazis. Dint find him until de snow gone. Many month. We come all way here to have him go back there and die. A crime, no?”