Pins: A Novel (37 page)

“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.”

Joe faced him. Alan was not cute in the way he thought of guys, seemed a total fag, but that was his problem, not Alan’s. “This isn’t like a date.”

“No, no, no, oh no. Heather and Tom’ll come too, if you like, but, oh no. We’re sisters.” Alan patted Joe’s arm.

“Okay, but I have to ask my parents.”

“Right.” Alan turned, then sort of whirled around, saying, “Besides, I don’t go for jocks.”