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  “What are you boys doing?” Marie Nicci’s hair swirled up in a just-get-it-out-of-the-way-while-cooking look. She wore jeans, an extra large Garfield T-shirt. The boys looked up at their mother on the porch, but remained crouched by the basement window.

  “We found something,” Mike blurted.

  Joey nudged Mike to secrecy about the toads. He didn’t want their mother to see them. She might want them killed. She’d insisted on hiring an exterminator before they moved so much as a box into the new house. His mom’s favorite line became, “No more cockroaches,” as if she were in a commercial.

  The questions had come up more frequently as she arranged the contents of their new house “into some kind of order.” The boxes were put away, finally, and now Joey was her project. “Don’t you have any friends? Aren’t there any nice kids at your school? and Are there any Catholic boys you know?” were his mother’s top three pop quiz questions. Every day it seemed as if he should file a report: Have acquired one hello from boy in Math. Two giggling ‘Oh, I dropped my pencil again’s from Miss Piggy in front of me in English. Religious background unverified.

  “We’re lookin’ at the winders,” Joey said, moving to hide the toads.

  “Windows.” She’d been inspecting corners, shelves, still forming opinions about the house’s details.

  “I don’t think anybody would break in,” Joey said, exchanging silent “Are we in trouble yet?” glances. Mike crossed his arms, pulled back, stout and brown-eyed. He would definitely be short, Joey figured, just like all the Nicci men.

  “Well, I suppose somebody could break in. Whaddayou boys think?”

  Marie stood, wiped her hands, pushed strands of hair behind her ears.

  Joey assured her. “Forget about it. This kinda neighborhood, that just doesn’t happen.”

  “Much,” muttered Mike.

  “You boys oughtta use that glass box in the basement.”

  “Terrarium,” Mike announced.

  “Right.” She said, touching both their shoulders. “They’ll probably sneak inside for the winter anyway.” She ascended to the porch. “But I’m warnin’ ya, I don’ wanna be steppin’ on frogs when I’m doin’ laundry.”

  Before being elbowed by his brother, Mike shouted, “They’re toads.”

  4

  Over the sound of the ten o’clock news, Dino and Marie Nicci loudly discussed yet another bill that had managed to follow them all the way from Newark.

  They’d just returned from a Colts Boosters dinner. Assisting the boys and the Mat Maids and coaches were the parents, who’d sold tickets at work or at church, each competing with every other charity and group fundraiser in the little town that Marie Nicci had already twice called Stepford Land.

  Joey had convinced his dad to buy a Colt Boosters windbreaker, which looked hideous on just about anyone. The jackets were designed by the Shiver brothers’ mom, who ran a gift boutique. Mrs. Shiver also designed girl’s ballet costumes. She was creative.

  What nobody told her was the harsh orange slashes and white and black background made anyone who wore the jackets resemble what Dink called the Pumpkin Squad.

  For the boys, other rituals united them. Spitting became a big thing again, along with new words to learn, like “paramilitary,” “pickle-sniffers,” “stoked,” “sproing,” a variation on “schwing” which Raul Klein the 140-pounder imitated with annoying frequency.

  But spitting – that was serious business. Every drop counted for weight-cutting. Watery baptismals were hurled in every direction the moment the boys tumbled outside for running laps, especially from the protein powder set, who hurled big mucousy hockaloogies, scraped audibly from the throat, flipped up from boys’ tongues to tile shower walls, where they clung like splayed tadpoles. Points were given for arc, parabola, viscosity.

  Joey noticed how skinny he’d become after those first few weeks of shedding, and how he’d begun to tighten into what Assistant Coach Fiasole called “muscularity.”

  He checked himself in his bedroom mirror, compared himself to his heroes. He couldn’t decide whether to cut the cover page of the November issue of USA Wrestler from the magazine and pin it on his wall with all the other pictures and drawings he’d made, or just put it on the pile with the other magazines on his bookshelf.

  On the cover, Dennis Hall, a 125.5-pounder who’d recently won the bronze medal at the Greco-Roman World Championships in Finland, stretched his arms out, his hands in tight fists of victory. One nipple peeked out from the strap of his American flag Team USA singlet. His eyes were tight, wincing, his mouth open in a frozen shout.

  Joey checked out the striation of muscles on his bare arms and shoulders. Knowing that Mike wouldn’t barge in on him, probably still toying with his toads in the basement, he practiced what he did worst, talking.

  “How ya doin’? What’s that in the window?” he said to himself, trying to keep his voice low, give it some resonance. But it always came out flat, tinny, thick with the city accent he’d grown up hearing and speaking in ‘Nerk,’ which some guys mimicked with pointed accuracy.

  Fewer of the kids in Little Falls talked with thicker Jersey accents. Some tried valley talk, but it sounded as if they were practicing? for Scarsdale? One kid in Art class, Peter Hubbell, had talked with Joey a lot, until Joey got on the wrestling team. Then Peter treated him differently, looking at him in a way that made Joey nervous.

  “So, you’re a jock now?” he’d said, as if Joey had mutated, as if one couldn’t draw superheroes and also behave like them.

  When boys reacted that way, he shut them off, even if they seemed to have romantic potential. Even blunt sex talk, though, led to nothing. Nobody ever taught him the difference.

  “You got a worm. I got a helmet.” Wiggling his own in comparison for a millisecond that Joey had expanded to hours of memory, Tommy O’Leary was only one of the boys from St. Augustine’s he missed. Now he had a whole new team, better ranked, with bigger guys.

  Moving to Little Falls also brought a feast of places to be alone; the garage, the basement, the woods only a few minutes walk through some neighbors’ yards. He and Mike climbed four trees in one afternoon.

  Best of all, in his new room, he could wear clothes or not, play his music, leave his drawings all over the floor, smell his earwax, see how his lats were doing, feel the strain in his thickening neck, fiddle with his belly button, where little hairs grew in a trail.

  With his door securely locked, he dropped his sweats and pranced around his room in only his white socks, silent, the bapping of his cock against his belly and his breathing the only sounds.

  He let go of himself, calmed down, struck a few poses, punched air, then got excited again from the nervousness, the energy of working out again, of bumping bodies, of incredible changes.

  Maybe he was as cute as girls said, or what he’d heard was said, what he wished boys like Peter would say. Maybe his thick lashes weren’t too girlish. Maybe his brown eyes, so dark he had to lean in close to the mirror to see the little part at the center that moved like a camera, would charm somebody into falling in love. Maybe they already had.

  He thought he had a big nose, but a girl once said it was sexy, how she liked that in Italian men.

  Men. Like he was a man. Fifteen and never been Frenched. There were a few dates with girls at two dances at St. Augustine’s, but that didn’t count. That didn’t count at all. The girls flirted, the girls talked, he talked, and they danced. That was it. They giggled a lot and were scented like Sophia’s toys.

  Joey looked at the shelf of little trophies and ribbons. His dad had helped him install the shelf, starting a new project every weekend, doling them out to both boys.

  His two years on the St. Augustine’s Knights really didn’t count, according to some guys on his new team. They said Newark was a different ranked division, and considered him the bottom of the totem pole now that he was a sophomore. Still, it gave him a sense of pride to see the little brass figures crouching on the wooden
stands, even if he’d had to start all over again. That made him want to work even harder.

  In public school, a lot of kids seemed to pride themselves on acting stupid in class. Dink called it the Beavis and Butthead Pose. Dink became his filter, his informant, his best bud.

  In math, Joey spent way too much time looking ahead, waiting for him to turn around. When Dink didn’t, he watched the back of his buzzcut turn a dozen colors, depending on the light; copper, straw, even gold. As his hair grew out, the hair on the nape of his neck began to curl like a question mark. In practice, Joey got to hug in close to it, find answers. He began to resent anything that could interfere with this privilege.

  He checked a list posted on the inside door of his closet, next to his calendar with little scribbles for practice days. Nitrogen loss. Water gain. He set a goal of five pounds of muscle before Thanksgiving. Every day he would weigh himself. Every meal would become a science project, each drop of sweat a blessing.

  5

  “Gentlemen. Today, single leg takedowns and escapes so you can increase your versatility with some new technical moves. Go easy on your opponent’s knees. Cartilage does not come cheap.”

  It was very scientific, the way Coach Cleshun talked.

  He was a nice guy, but he was so “paramilitary,” as Troy called it. Troy didn’t like exercise. Troy just liked wrestling. Troy was undefeated.

  With Coach Cleshun, though, everything had to be in a certain order. When Joey had approached Cleshun in his Chemistry Lab, saying how he looked forward to wrestling with a new team, Cleshun cut him off with, “Tryouts are next month, Mister, uh, how do say your name again?”

  Assistant Coach Fiasole, on the other hand, attended to the boys like a mother hen. He tried to get everybody to dress up on match days. He was a local boy, but he’d been away in Manhattan, had some funny jokes.

  Assistant Coach Fiasole did all the boosters stuff, like distributing the little orange and black signs for all the athletes’ yards that read, “HOME of a COLT!” Fiasole made sure the guys filled out all their health forms, took care of sprains, cuts.

  About a foot taller than Coach Cleshun, but younger, Coach Fiasole had a way of touching, joking with more sincerity. Because of his college classes, he wasn’t at practice every day, but the days when he was, things were much better, not just Coach Cleshun the taskmaster drilling them.

  Fiasole lined the boys up like chorus girls, had them all hop on one foot, the other legs stuck out in front of them. Guys held each other’s shoulders, blasting out giggles while Fiasole clapped his hands. “I want one leg up. Keep it out. Keep hopping.”

  Fiasole picked Walt out, put his arm over his shoulder. “By hopping while your opponent tries to catch you off center,” he announced while the boys backed off, watching in a loose circle, “. . .when he’s got your leg. . .” Fiasole hopped shoulder to shoulder as Walt held his thigh like a Christmas turkey – “You need that one moment where you hop,” –bounced– “to take” –lifted his free leg– “his leg” –kicked Walt down, swiveled over his chest, pinning him– “and get him down.”

  A few guys slapped the mat, admiring what they couldn’t wait to learn, paired off.

  “You hold my leg,” Dink said. Joey took it, feeling the weight of his new friend. Dink’s sparse blond hairs tickled his forearms. They hopped. Dink gripped his shoulder, then blurted “Hup!” kicked his leg back. Joey could have blocked it, but the point of the drill was to let the guy get it at first. It was like learning a dance. Dink fell on him, easily. They landed, chests pressed to each other, their faces inches apart.

  “Think you can handle it?” Dink said as he hovered.

  “Piece a cake,” Joey challenged.

  “Fruit cake.”

  “I got something to show ya.”

  They’d wolfed down another cafeteria lunch. Dink took him to the library, where he looked up the old yearbooks, secretively peered through the wrestling team photos, including one with senior Stephen Cleshun looking exceptionally dorky.

  “What a geek!” Dink snorted a laugh as they flipped further back to older yearbooks to find other pictures of faculty members as teens. “Thank God we don’t have to wear those stupid leggings.”

  They looked at yearbooks all the way back to the fifties, when the school was in an older building. There were supposed to be some guys who went on to become college champs. Some of them resembled nice guys he would have liked to have met. Most of them were just faces in pictures behind a glass case in the school’s main entrance, where the boys joked about their pictures gathering dust in a bookshelf long after an alien takeover which led to some other tall tale that got out of control and made them laugh so loud they got kicked out of the library.

  Eleven blocks to Dink’s house, he counted as he walked. Through the week he’d felt a giddy rumbling in his stomach. He had a secret with Dink, who only had to mumble, “Friday,” at the end of each practice to make him smile and look forward to their “date.”

  Practices had zoomed by that week. Classes were suddenly entertaining. He even got Mister Halprin, the usually grumbling History teacher, to smile when he made a joke about Christopher Columbus making the best wrong turn of his life.

  Joey had listened intently to his teachers, even the boring ones. Even though he preferred to draw superheroes, he’d drawn a still life of apples and a jug in Mrs. Bridges’ art class with a newfound devotion.

  Leafy avenues welcomed him as he trotted toward Dink’s house. All was quiet, except for the rustle of his hard leather sleeves brushing against the softer fabric of his new varsity jacket, with his sweatshirt’s hood hanging out the back. He silenced the noise by stuffing his hands in his pockets, even though his gloves kept him warm enough.

  Front porches that weeks before hosted pumpkins and scarecrows now displayed clusters of corn husks with cardboard turkeys pinned to their doors. He passed homes with lights on, couldn’t resist looking in, seeing the living rooms with pictures on the wall, old ladies sitting in chairs. He breathed in the smell of dying leaves, of peace. He wondered how people could be so calm, like they were pretending they couldn’t hear the hum of New York just over the hill. He liked this new town, but it was so quiet, as if they were all hiding something. Did anyone see him, see the big letters on his back, COLTS in black on orange, their school colors, how he walked so fast, knowing he was going to his friend’s house? Did anyone see how he felt, as if he were walking in golden armor?

  He rang the doorbell, ran his hands over his short curls once more.

  “Well, hello, Joe. Come on in.”

  Mrs. Khors’ hair was long, blond, but not real blond, more three or four blondes. She had a different sort of look than Joey’s mom, less grounded. She kind of whisked in ahead of him as if she might be hosting a show.

  “Lemme take your coat. Do you want something to drink? We’ve got some chips, stuff in the kitchen. You’ll have to excuse the mess.”

  Joey wasn’t sure what she meant. The house was spotless; no piles of Legos or stray coloring books. All the furniture looked new, sharp. He couldn’t help but envy how Dink’s house felt less stuffy, as if they should be living somewhere more sophisticated. He couldn’t see why a man would want to divorce Dink’s mom. He noticed the way she held herself, relaxed yet self-assured. She’d been one of the realtors to help his parents find their new home, seemed to be making a good living at it.

  “C’mon,” Dink said as he plucked his friend from the kitchen, led Joey to his room. The back of Dink’s T-shirt, one he’d worn before, read, in thick red and black letters:

  I EAT WRESTLING

  I SLEEP WRESTLING

  I BREATHE WRESTLING

  I AM WRESTLING

  When Dink reached up for the banister, his T-shirt rode up. Joey had seen Dink naked every school day in the showers, had tumbled with him for hours more. That was a given. But seeing the small of his back, just that peek, teased him.

  A muscle chart ruled Dink’s far bedroom wall.
“Hey, you got one, too!”

  Dink dug in a drawer for videos. “Yeah, you got one? Makes it easier to figure out what muscle I broke.”

  “Ya can’t break a muscle. It’s either a sprain or a strain. . .”

  “I know. I’m joking.” Dink plopped down on his bed. Joey stood, looking at the other wall stuff; a poster of Nirvana hung over Dink’s dresser, framed newspaper clippings of Dink wrestling, posters of wrestlers, included one with a drawing in black with white pencil, of a white guy giving a black guy a tight Nelson: Below the picture it read: BO DON’T KNOW GRAPPLIN’.

  Above a pile of clothes spilling from the closet onto the floor, a full-length mirror hung on the inside door. Above that hung a poster of Marky Mark, shirtless, with several inches of underwear showing. Joey wanted a closer look, but didn’t want to go nosing around in Dink’s stuff, at least not with him there.

  There weren’t any chairs. He wanted to lay down next to Dink. He didn’t. It was in front of his thoughts but he never mentioned it and didn’t know where or how he could. He wanted to be in Dink’s room all night. It smelled almost like him.

  He looked at Dink’s CD collection. “Man, that’s a lot.”

  “Not so much. How many you got?”

  “Zip.”

  “Ya kiddin’.”

  “Got a Walkman, about a dozen tapes.”

  “We gotta get you into the ‘90s, my boy.” Dink stood close to Joey as he thumbed through the stack.

  “Soundgarden,” Joey said. “I heard them on the radio.”

  “Yeah. Bring me some tapes. I’ll make dubs for you.”

  “Really? Cool. Hey,” Joey held the CD. “This guy looks like you, if you didn’t have your buzz cut.” He pointed to a cute blond guy standing in a purple shirt, jeans.

  “Who, him?” Dink smiled. “He’s the drummer.”

  “Hmm.” He looked at one of the song titles. “‘Jesus Christ Pose’?”

  “Aw, man, you should see the video. They don’t show it anymore, ‘cause a bunch of religious assholes got it banned. The singer is on this cross, then he like flashes to all these different creatures being crucified, like even Terminator.”