Pins: A Novel (2 page)

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He wanted to wait until dinner to tell–the varsity part. But his mother’s smiling face, the smells of sauce cooking, Mike’s pouncing on him as soon as he got through the door made him so happy, he burst out the news after he dropped his gym bag, limped into the kitchen. In the living room, Sophia sang a “Hi, Joo-eee,” from a pile of Smurf toys.

“I made varsity!”

“You made a what? Michael, get off the floor.” His mother seemed wired. He should have saved it until his dad came home.

“I made varsity. On the team.”
 
You know what else?

“But you’re only a sophomore.”

“I’m best in my weight. I wrestle varsity next match.”

“Oh.” His mother wiped her hands on a towel, his enthusiasm bringing some cheer into her eyes. “That’s very good. Congratulations.” She hugged him.
 

Joey felt a tension, pulled away after a moment, wondering what new problem bugged her that day. Little Falls was only a few miles north of Newark, but it might as well have been Long Island, with all the “foreign customs,” she joked. Marie Nicci kept getting lost when they drove around for errands. There were too many trees, offramps.

“Your father should be very happy,” she said.

Happy, like when his father carried her through the front door the day they moved into the new house, cradling her in his arms for a second honeymoon.

Sure, he’d be happy.
 
His dad was gung ho, even though he’d never really wrestled, didn’t know the rules. As Joey would lay on the floor while the family watched the tube, rolling through some of what his first coach at St. Augustine’s called sphinx stretches, where he’d arch up like a cat, he thought his father was annoyed by his wrestling. He’d tell him to “Getchyer butt down,” or
 
“Stop humping the rug,” as if it bothered him to watch bend his legs over his shoulders. After that, Joey only stretched at practice.

“Here, boys. Eat.”

On the table, their mother had arranged a bowl of carrot slices, celery sticks, dip. Mike took one glance, headed for the cookie jar.

Joey went to the cabinet to look for peanut butter. “I gotta get a jacket,” he said. “Everybody gets one.”

“What kind of jacket?”

He opened the jar, dipped two carrot sticks in, stuck them in his mouth. “Vahshee jhacketh. I goaaa lhearr.”

“Chew. Swallow. Then talk.”

“Sorry.” He gulped, redipped the carrots.

Mike winced. “Ew, spit in the peanut buttah.”

He faked a punch to Mike. “I got a letter. See? Can you sew it on?”

Mike’s revulsion switched to fascination. “Lemme see!”

Joey held the patch high like a torch as Mike jumped for it.

“We’ll have to talk to your father about it.”

“But I have to get one. Stop it, Mikey!”

“Fine. Do me a favor. When your father comes home, I want you both in your rooms, doing homework, silent.”

“But. . .”

“No buts.”

Mike whined. “I wanna varsey jacket.”

Joey obeyed, retreating to his room. He opened a book, his notebook, set a pencil down, but instead got his little cassette player, put on his earphones, listened to his Pearl Jam tape, air-guitared around his room.

He hoped he wouldn’t have to get a job to pay for the jacket, although he would if he had to. He didn’t know how he could, since practices were every day after school until March. On those days he was usually so tired he fell right to sleep after dinner. Weekends maybe, but that wouldn’t be enough.

He liked to think his dad supported his wrestling. In Newark, matches had been after school. His dad worked until six. He did come to a few weekend invitationals, but he usually seemed so tired, Joey’s small weight class being early in the day, Dino Nicci sometimes couldn’t remember whether his son had won or not.

His parents made a gesture of appreciating his wrestling. They got him a subscription to
Sports Illustrated
. What they didn’t know, which Joey could have told them, was that the magazine rarely covered wrestling of any kind, except for the Olympics. It was all football, baseball, other games he could never play, not only because of his size, but because they weren’t at all like wrestling. Too many sticks, balls. So much distance.

Sometimes he’d see championships on Saturday afternoon sports shows, state finals, nationals in Iowa or Oklahoma, fans stacked in auditoriums as high as silos.

He already had subscriptions to
USA Wrestler
and
Amateur Wrestling News
, saved every issue like a bible, leafing through the pages to read about winning boys from around the country, collegiates, even Olympians.

He liked to look at the few times he’d made it in the magazine, just his name in tiny print among a list of winners. He hadn’t gotten a picture in yet, but hoped someday to see himself on the pages with other boys, so many of them handsome, with thick necks, confident smiles.

He was ten years old when he first saw wrestling.
 
He never rolled around at home. Kids did not roll around at St. Augustine’s.

But watching the 1988 Summer Olympics, inspired by the touching profiles of athletes overcoming difficult times, like when Greg Louganis hit his head on the diving board, how Americans had to work hard to raise money while athletes from other countries had all their expenses paid, he watched coverage of a few other sports, but he lay before the living room television, rapt as, two by two, nearly naked men in shiny tights tumbled around on a circular mat while thousands cheered.

Seeing the men grab each other, their bodies tense, close, Joey rose up on his front hands, then began trying moves. It seemed ridiculously easy, no sticks or lines. Besides, they were touching, wearing almost nothing. He could see everything, their broad thick backs, powerful legs, arms. Best of all, some of them were really short, but they still won.

At age thirteen he’d surprised his mother by handing her a form after school. “It’s for a physical,” he’d mumbled. “For what? You’re not sick.” “For sports. If you wanna try out for a team, you gotta get a physical.”

He hadn’t seen his mother look so shocked since the time she’d caught him in the bathroom. She’d sighed, signed the form. “We’ll have to tell your father,” as if it were something naughty.

Joey liked that feeling.

By the time try-outs began a few months later, Joey had already begged his father to give him money to buy special shoes, sweat pants, a sweatshirt, a jock strap. He’d almost taken a wicked pride in asking his father, saying “jock strap” aloud. He grinned with his dad. His father had put down his newspaper, dug in his pocket, gave him five twenties. “Keep the rest,” he’d said. Joey wanted to hug his dad, who just patted him on the butt. “Don’t tell your mother.”

It was a secret at first, between Joey and his father, who’d come with him, waited outside, how he got on the team after a few days of tryouts.

“There’s never been an athlete in the family,” his mother had said at dinners with Grandmama, Aunt Lilla, everybody, who were all proud, but a bit unfamiliar with even the basic rules. The conversation usually switched to other topics, taller people.

“Well, he’s our first,” his father had said with a combination of quizzical pride and astonishment.

That first season, full of stumbling defeats, confused exhausting practices, Joey knew he wouldn’t quit, in spite of –or because– one of his ‘former’ friends back in Newark calling wrestling “a fag sport.” Joey didn’t have to defend himself. He’d just ignore anyone who didn’t appreciate it. He was becoming a jock on his terms. Other guys on the team, some of them real characters, knew they were a different breed.

For Joey, it was his comfort. He got to touch guys for a reason. Even though some of them were ugly or smelled funny, he got to end his winter school days warmed by the burning tingle of contact. Learning how to clobber guys, if necessary, helped, too.

The garage door rumbled beneath his feet. Joey rose from the spread-out pile of schoolbooks on the floor, darted to his parent’s bedroom window to watch his father’s Bronco pulled up, Dino Nicci walk up the driveway. His mood looked promising. Joey felt the gasp the house made as the kitchen door opened.

He listened from above, heard only soft mutterings from downstairs between his parents, some rustling sounds, then his father’s shout, “Yo, animals! Food’s on!”

Joey’s father waited patiently for Sophia’s tale of “a princess and she went up some stairs and found a cat and it had a magic button and it took them to a balloon …“ to dwindle down to something like an ending.
 
Joey could watch Sophia for hours, fascinated by her animation. He’d watched Mike grow into The Pest. Sophia seemed different, enchanted.

“Very nice, Soph,” his father said. “Now eat your dinner.”

In a pause filled by the sound of gulping, forks on plates, Joey glanced at his father, who wiped a bit of food from his mustache. The rest of Dino Nicci’s face followed close behind with a thick stubble that made Joey worry if he would someday be so hairy, but that hadn’t gotten going yet.

Joey could manage a scribble of a goatee, but his mother always made him shave it by Monday morning, or Mass, if they went, which wasn’t too often since they’d moved. Even though Mike went to St. Dominic’s Prep, it seemed church lay unpacked in a box in the basement with votive candles, that picture of the Pope. That was one reason he feared his father sometimes. He had to keep his questions about church on a low flame. His dad didn’t believe in it, so he never explained things. Joey just kept his prayers to himself.

Since they moved to a not-so Catholic, not-so Italian neighborhood, it seemed he wanted to push it all aside, act more like the regular people with names like Johnson, Ferguson.

 
“So.” Joey’s father looked at him. “I hear you have some good news for us.” Joey liked the sound of his father’s voice with everybody at the dinner table. It made him feel secure, with everything warm, this constant circle for him to come home to. Maybe his voice would someday sound as strong as his father’s, if he practiced.

“I wanna jacket, too,” Mike blurted.

Joey rolled his eyes. He longed to kick his brother under the table, but that didn’t work anymore. Mike always told.

“What’s this about jackets?” Joey could tell when his father pretended to not know what was up, like whenever he did anything wrong. His dad liked to drag it out of him, force him to report everything. Only then would he pass judgment.

Sophia gulped milk.

“I made varsity. You know, that pin I got at the match this week. I wish you’da been there, Mom.” Wrong. Don’t bring that up. “I got on varsity. I got my letter. I’m the best in my weight and it’s an honor and but I gotta buy it, the jacket, ‘cause I get to keep it. . .”

His father wiped his mouth. “Awright, awright. Can I congratulate my son before he talks me to sleep? We’ll see about the jacket. Can’t be too expensive.”

“Two hunnerd-forty-nine dollahs.”

“What?”

“Plus tax.”

“What?”

“They make it to fit. They charge extra for the letter sewing, but Mom said she’d do that, but I gotta get my name embroiled on the chest like everybody else–”

“Embroidered.”

“How much allowance ya got?”

Joey shot a glance at The Pest. He didn’t want Mike to know about his money. He would find it for sure, always snooping in his room, nosing into his stuff, like his drawings; superheroes, but sometime, he forgot to draw the tights. Joey rarely caught Mike, or noticed the remnants of his snooping. He’d become clever. “About thirty dollahs.”