Pins: A Novel by Jim Provenzano Read Free Book Online Page B

the bleachers. A cluster of boys hovered about, waiting for the slip of paper that they were to take to one of the three mats. It was also where they got to see their opponents. Joey’s, however, didn’t make eye contact. He saw that as a good thing. From across the mat, amid the relaxed traffic of others, they watched each other get ready.
    When his match came up, Assistant Coach Fiasole rubbed Joey’s back while he bent over. He massaged Joey’s muscles, digging his big hands into the boy’s lats and traps.
    “He’s a rookie,” Fiasole whispered into his headgear. “He doesn’t have your experience. This’ll be an easy one.”
    Then Fiasole said the secret word, one that he probably said to the other boys, because it sounded like the team’s name. Since they were both Italian, Joey liked to think of it as their secret code, a word that meant “cultured.”
    “Colto.”
    Joey sprang out onto the mat, hyped yet calm inside, tingling from Fiasole’s touch, relieved to see the fear in the darting eyes of his smaller opponent from Hackensack, a curly-haired redhead who kept glancing back to his own coach, a burly black guy. Help me, the kid’s eyes said.
    Two strips of fabric, red and green, with Velcro attachments, lay in the center of the mat. Joey attached one around his ankle while his opponent knelt with his back to him, putting on the other.
    Assistant Coach Fiasole didn’t need to shout more than a few cues. It was like a rehearsal for a more important match. “Fireman’s!” he yelled. Joey did it, tossing the kid over him like a bag of leaves.
    “Hold it!” Fiasole barked. Joey did, until the ref blew his whistle. The Hackensack kid fumbled under him in the center, Joey’s hands carefully placed below the kid’s belly, the other at his elbow.  
    After a warning for passivity, generally flopping around like the untrained guy he was, Joey got him down with his first sprawl like a bird picking at a dying turtle. He plied him one way, tried to grab his arms. At least the kid knew how to hold a position, but moved too slow to manage an escape.
    After the ref raised his arm, Joey shook the kid’s hand, the other coach’s. As he returned to his side, Fiasole patted his butt.
    Joey had barely broken a sweat, wondered if it was too soon to break into his lunch.
    “Good job,” Dink said, having just wrestled. They dug into their bags. He offered Dink half his sandwich. Mr. Khors leaned down from a bleacher seat behind them. “Watch my backpack. I’ll get some more food.”
    “What’s in it?” Joey asked Dink.
    “Duh! What were you, Neech, raised in a cave?” Dink picked up the square bag, more of a purse than a backpack to Joey, compared to their gym bags and all the junk they hauled around. “The camera,” Dink said.
    “Oh. I never seen one up close.”
    Joey pushed aside a burning feeling Dink gave him, especially when it came to not having things. Dink seemed to have no picture of people unlike himself; spoiled, rich, lucky.
    “You want up close?” Dink opened the bag, fitted the little machine in his hands, pressed a button, aimed it at Joey. He jumped into a nasal announcer guy voice. “We’re here with Mister Joseph “Newark Newboy” Nicci, a top contender in the one-twenny-six Cadet level, who’s literally taken over the landscape of Northern New Jersey. Mistah Nicci, what is your secret?”
    “Well, Bob, I’d say it’s the support of my teammates and the love of my fans. All…kazillion of them.”
    Dink sputtered into laughter. Joey saw Dink’s dad walking along the bleachers toward them.
    “Hey, your dad,” he warned. But Dink turned, got a shot of his dad coming toward them, a paper plate in each hand.
    “Hungry, boys? I know you’ve got to keep your weight, but since you’ve got some time before your next match. Donnie, don’t waste the batteries.” He’d bought them hot dogs and potato salad from the concession stand. They ate the potato salad.
    “You gonna