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didn’t want to hear. “It doesn’t really turn into the body of Christ.” “I chewed the host lots of times.” Joey couldn’t remember ever believing in Santa Claus, but he did believe in the Holy Virgin and Jesus and all the saints. Just because they were in public school didn’t mean they had to turn everybody in.
    Anthony liked telling Joey how that stuff was all made up, which Joey didn’t mind so much, except Anthony didn’t tell it in a way that was funny, but more like a conspiracy.
    Joey told him off then, saying that where he was from, in Newark, they had a better church and he shouldn’t be talking that way about mass in the first place, especially being an altar boy, and didn’t he have any respect?
    He didn’t hear a peep from Anthony for weeks.
    Until wrestling practice, where Anthony just showed up, not knowing a thing, not even knowing how to stretch, fumbling with his contact lenses. He got pummeled just like the others who’d quit, but he refused to give up.
    He also refused to give up on Joey.
    Two days into wrestling practice, Joey approached Jock Row, a phalanx of tables full of athletes in varsity jackets. As Joey passed, guys mutely nodded while Anthony chattered away at his side. Joey had seen an empty seat beside that blonde buzz cut, the name that sounded like Donald Course. But then some other guy took that place, so Joey moved on, sitting with Anthony, some other geeks.
    Along the walls, hoods relaxed. Babes hovered nearby, in packs. Guys and girls kissed. It was a system unfamiliar to him, having only dealt with boys, and not very well.
    It was a Monday when it happened.   Joey would never forget the way Anthony blurted it out, testing Joey, who sort of knew in the back of his cluttered mind the other thing in common between them.
    Joey chewed on a last bite of Salisbury steak before catching Anthony’s attempt at a joke about the cafeteria dessert for the day, canned fruit. He said, “Better to be a fruit than a vegetable.”
    “Huh?”
    “A fruit. You know? Like me?”
    Joey stopped chewing. He would remember the feeling of the meat laying inside his mouth as he sat unmoving, until he swallowed, hoping to choke on it. Then he squinted the squint he gave someone who tried to act tough with him before a match. He leaned in close to Anthony, as if hearing confession, absolving him. “Thanks for sharing.”
     
    “Joseph?”
    “Yeah?”
    “It’s Donald?”
    Joey and his dad were watching a rerun of Who’s the Boss .   Sophia told stories next to him on the sofa, which he half-listened to while watching Tony Danza fumble through a shampoo commercial set in a shower, wearing only a bathing suit.   Joey didn’t want to get up, since he’d sprouted a boner, but tugged his T-shirt over his sweat pants as he walked to the kitchen.
    Joey’s mother held the phone a moment, her eyes saying, who is Donald?
    Donald. Donald. Dink!
    “Oh! Thanks.”
    Joey took the phone, retreated into the kitchen as his mother left him alone.
    He heard Dink’s mother in the background, “Who are you talking to, Don?” Dink refused to answer to Donald or anything else, so Joey never did, even just to tease. He didn’t mock Dink’s having a nosy mother. He knew that situation too well.
    “It’s Joey Nicci, from the team.” Dink said his name perfectly.
    Joey heard silence, Dink’s hand covering the phone. He imagined Dink huddled over a kitchen wall phone, like him, pictured Dink moving to a bedroom, on the bed, on his belly, wearing only his underwear, white socks.
    “Hey, what’s up?” Joey asked. It was a little strange for Dink to call, since he never had before. They were just school, lunch, team friends. Joey figured that was about everything, so they must be best friends in training.
    Dink sounded as if he were eating something. “I got some NCAA videos.   Some Olympic stuff, too. My dad got our matches too, but just the ones he came to. Gotta warn ya, his camera work’s a