Pins: A Novel (39 page)
peat moss - 2 20lb bags
one 50 lb.
trim to match den paneling
new garage door opener
filter for AC
chips
bbq sauce
videos
Forced Family Friday usually meant errands before home, hunting down the evening’s entertainment and food. Joe was allowed to drive, under supervision, in a parking lot.
After he’d parked successfuly, Dino congratulated him. “Pick something for everybody,” he said as they entered the video store. Joe picked
The World According to Garp.
“I don’t think so,” Dino said.
“Why not? It’s about wrestling.”
“It’s not just …Fine, for later, after your brother and sister are asleep. Now pick a G-rated one, for everybody, like that shrunken kids thing.”
“We saw that.”
Joe wandered away from his dad.
He scanned the shelves, irritated that he had to think for everybody. It was like being a small dad. Anything with guns his mother refused. If it was a cartoon, Mike would say it was too baby-ish. Was this what it would be like, he wondered, if he liked girls and had kids?
He met up with his dad at the science fiction aisle. They agreed on aliens as a safe theme. Even though he’d already seen it, Joe wanted to see the one with Steve Guttenberg getting his rocks off in a pool.
His father picked a different one.
“That’s got monsters in it,” Joe countered. “Soph’ll get nightmares.”
Dino glanced at him a moment, surprised, amused.
“What?”
“Just lookin’ at my son.”
Joe reconsidered. “If we tell her they’re just Muppets, she’ll be okay.”
Weekends in June offered ample time for Dino’s “projects.” Between digging and rooting, they trekked from True Value to Gardenz-r-Us to some new taco place in three hours.
His hands, still coated with soot, slammed the truck door closed as he and his father headed in through the garage. His eyes a bit crusted, his jeans caked in dust, he resembled an immigrant marble worker.
He already had four hundred dollars from his job. It was tiring, but in a new way. On days like this one, he could just relax after working for the family, working on his home.
As they pulled up the driveway, Mike crouched near a tree, looked up from some insect he’d just caught in a jar. “You got company.”
Joe and his dad found Coach Cleshun sitting in the living room talking with his mother. Cleshun’s voice and manner was strained, like a minister coming to visit. It gave Joe a strange sense of power, watching the man court his parents’ favor, especially when he had a snowball’s chance of getting it.
“I just want you to know that I hope, when you come back to school, that you’ll consider coming back to the team. I know there’s a lot of water under the bridge, but you’ve got a lot of potential.”
Marie took the ball, handed it to Joe.
“I’m up to one-forty now.”
“Not a lot of muscle, I’m sure. We’ll get you down to wrestling weight quick enough. You’ll have to move up a class. I wanna see you at the track, doin’ some running, you hear?”
“I… I’ll think about it.”
“I want you to do that.”
Marie said, as they rose, “Well, like I said, it’s up to the doctors.”
Dino added, “He’s very busy working now, too.”
“My physical therapist said I should swim.”
“Yeah? Well, that’s good. Cross-training.”
“No. Instead of wrestling.”
“Oh.” Coach Cleshun laughed, a forced laugh, then started to get up, as if to leave. Joe felt a small rip inside himself, as if this one connection, or possible connection to the world he lost were too frail, and he wanted to test it.
I told Coach, and he is all right with it.
“Um, can you guys excuse us a minute, please?”
“Oh, why sure.” Marie and Dino awkwardly retreated to the kitchen.
Joe waited, then walked his coach to the door. “You know, um, one of the things goin’ on is, well, you know, I’m…I like guys. I’m like dating …a guy.”
Coach blinked. Twice. “That’s not really any of my–”
“So if you don’t want me on the team ‘cause of that, I’ll understand, but, um, I think I’m gonna go out for swimming ‘cause of my neck and all.”
“I know you’ got this lawsuit thing goin’ on. I’m not tryin to …believe me. That’s not my business. That’s between you and your parents.”
“And my case worker and my shrink and my group counselor–”
“Yeah, okay.”
He wanted to say more, but Cleshun seemed to get it.
“You remember the times you guys razzed me about that geeky team picture I got on the wall? When you come back to school, we’ll play a little game, but you don’t tell anybody else, okay? You have to pick out the guy who never dated girls, the one who’s goin’ to those Gay Olympics in New York.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Oh, um. . .” He didn’t want to make it so obvious, the connection, so he pretended to be changing topics. “Is um, Fiasole gonna be at school next year?”
“Oh, no. He graduated. Got a job at Montclair State.”
“Oh. Cool,” Joe grinned. So much for choosing a college. He imagined himself and Fiasole together having a beer sometime after Joe graduated from college in 2000-something.
He held the door closed, watched through the glass as his coach walked down the steps and along the sidewalk.
He didn’t tell Cleshun he’d gotten the name of Gay Games wrong. Joe’d already found out which days wrestling would be at the NYU gym, and asked for those days off from work. He still had to figure out how to ask his dad to take him, since they’d never let him go into Manhattan alone. He wasn’t so much worried about going as he was worried for his dad. How would Dino react if there were drag queen cheerleaders, or guys kissing? How would he react if Joe liked it?
He was still trying to figure out how to properly ask Mr. Khors if he could spring Donnie for a day. Maybe he’d like to go, too. Joe wanted to create Father-Son days, like a corny commercial. He had a picture of them all in the Bronco, driving back home at sunset, the sky a brilliant orange and pink behind the George Washington Bridge, dads up front talking, boys in the back, holding hands, everybody seatbelted, safe. Safer.
It could happen. Heather told him positive imagery was very helpful. Maybe he was dreaming. Maybe it was time to cut back on the happy pills.
The kitchen smelled oddly dormant. Nothing was cooking. Then he remembered: pizza night. He grabbed a sandwich, but felt anxious. He had to move. “Ma, where are my clean sweat pants?”
“The team ones or the blue ones?” she shouted back from somewhere in the house.
“The blue ones!”
“In your drawer!”
“Thanks!”
“You’re welcome!”
He found them, changed, stepped off the porch and under the warm baked air of a June day bouqueted with little fluffy clouds.
Spread out on his lawn, breathing, he rolled and flexed. His body greeted him with tiny rips and tears hello as he stretched quadriceps, hamstrings, snortissimus dorsi.
Jim Provenzano is the author of the novels
PINS, Monkey Suits
and
Cyclizen
, the stage adaptation of
PINS
, as well as numerous published short stories and freelance articles. The curator of
Sporting Life
, the world’s first gay athletics exhibit, he also wrote the syndicated Sports Complex column for ten years. An editor with the
Bay Area Reporter
, he lives in San Francisco.
www.myrmidude.org
