The party had been my idea, actually. It was a Sunday morning, a day after another win for us, this time against Fullerton, to put us in the semifinals. My dad was coming home after five weeks and I knew he’d want to watch football on TV, so I made it a welcome-home brunch. Most of the football team came, and a lot of people from my dad’s work. Bryan came, too, which made me sort of nervous. I knew it was wrong, but I couldn’t help but feel weird in front of my teammates.
We didn’t hide, and there wouldn’t have been any point, anyway. There were dozens of cars parked along the curb near the house.
The key jiggled, and in walked my mother, leading my dad by the arm.
He was totally bald, which was kind of shocking, and his face was a bit red, but otherwise, he looked good. He pretended to be surprised, but it was clear he wasn’t.
“Oh my God,” he yelled, his face lighting up. “Look at all this!”
I ran to him and hugged him tight. “Dad!” I said.
He put his arms around me and squeezed.
This time it was me crying. Ever since missing that week of school, I’d learned a couple things about holding in emotions. I sobbed onto his shoulder and he held me tight. I didn’t want to pull away.
He stroked my hair. “I know I look horrible, but I’m really good. Cancer-free,” he said.
I just kept holding on and crying.
When I did pull away, I tried to avoid looking at my teammates. But I found Austin’s face and saw he was wiping his eyes. I looked around and there wasn’t a dry eye to be seen.
My father greeted his guests, getting hugs from his employees and my coach and shaking hands with some of my teammates.
“Where’s the food?” he asked. “I’m starved.”
“It’s out back,” I said, glad to hear it. We’d set up a buffet in the backyard with all his favorites.
Carrie, who had never met my dad in person before, grabbed him by the arm and led him out back like they were old friends.
“Now that you’re not going to be my father-in-law, I feel like I can be honest about a few things,” she said as they exited through the patio door to the backyard.
A lot of the team headed outside after them, leaving just a few stragglers. Bryan was one of them. He was sitting on a stool near the kitchen counter.
I walked over to him. “You ready?” I asked.
“Of course,” he said.
We walked, slowly, over to my mother, who was tidying up, picking up some used plastic cups off the dining-room table.
How do you introduce your boyfriend to your mom? It was all so weird. I stopped walking, and figured Bryan would do the same, and I’d do some formal introduction.
Instead he just kept going.
“Can I help you with that?” he asked.
She looked up and smiled. “That would be lovely. Thanks.” “I’m Bryan,” he said, sticking out his hand to shake hers.
“Call me Molly,” she said. They walked into the kitchen together, and once again there I was, the one making everything harder than it was.
Later, after he had eaten and many of the guests had left, my father thanked me for organizing the party.
“I’m still a little tired. Hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to just sit down and watch me some football,” he said.
“Me, too,” I said. “Can I join you?”
“Of course.”
“Can I?” Bryan asked. I hadn’t had a chance to introduce them yet. Bryan had stayed on cleanup patrol with my mother, who now absolutely adored him—finally, a son who cleaned—and I was hesitant to make a scene with the team around.
My father, who had flopped down on the couch, looked up. “You must be Bryan,” he said, like it was the most normal thing in the world.
“I must be,” Bryan said.
“You like football, Bryan?”
“San Diego Chargers, all the way,” he said.
My father smiled. “Now that’s what I like to hear. I keep telling Bobby, if he could just survey the field like Phillip Rivers, he’d be an even bigger prospect.”
Bryan sat down next to my dad, intent on his every word, and I smiled, glad to know, if nothing else, that bald man was still the father I knew too well.
37
“It was awesome. That’s two easy wins. And two to go,” I told Dr. Blassingame as we sat in his office on a Thursday afternoon. It was December 4. After beating Corona Del Mar, 35-10, we knocked off Fullerton, 26-9, the following week. One more win the next day at Western would put us in the finals, and I was walking on air.
He stood up and smiled at me. “Things are really coming around for you, Bobby.”
I nodded. “I guess so.”
He turned around and reached for the bent golf club on his wall. “Remember when you were so angry about that initial article?” He unhinged it and put it on the desk in front of me.
“That seems like forever ago.”
“Yet it was just six weeks ago. Bravo,” he said. “Did I ever tell you the story about this club?”
“Nope.”
He stared at it while he told me the story. “When I was in my thirties, I was a fairly good golfer, believe it or not. I loved golf, but I also had a temper. One day, I overshot the green on my second shot on a par four. I hit it into the woods, a good twenty yards past the green.
“I was furious, Bobby. You wouldn’t know it to look at me now, but back then, when something didn’t go my way on the golf course, the clubs sometimes felt the wrath. That day, when I couldn’t find my ball in the woods, I got so furious that I wrapped my club around a tree.”
I looked at it. It was pretty nicely bent. “Wow.”
He touched it, and slowly pushed it over to me. “I want you to have this,” he said.
“Dr. Blassingame—”
“No, no, let me explain,” he said. “I’ve kept this around for many years, as something to help me remember an important lesson. I have a feeling you may know the lesson to which I am referring.”
I shrugged. “Something about getting angry, I guess?”
“Well, yes, in general that’s so,” he said, nodding. “Specifically, it was the lesson about what happens when I try to control things I can’t, such as past events.”
“You get a bent five-iron,” I said, nodding.
He laughed. “Precisely. And you’ve learned this lesson, Bobby. In order to remember it always, I’d like you to have this. It’s time for me to pass it on.”
I shook my head in disbelief, and touched the club. “Thanks a lot, Dr. B.”
He smiled at me.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Of course, Bobby.”
I looked directly into his eyes. “How do I know when to take control, and when to just let things go?”
“Now that, Bobby Framingham, is an intriguing question.”
“So what’s the answer?”
“If any of us knew, we’d all be just about perfect,” he said.
“Well that sucks as an answer,” I said, pulling at the club as if to straighten it. It wouldn’t budge.
“I can tell you what I do. It’s just me, but I can tell you my way of doing things.”
“Okay,” I said.
He leaned in as if telling me a secret. “I listen to my heart, Bobby. If I really want to know what to do in a certain situation, if I’m not sure if I should take control of something or let it go, I listen to my heart. I let my heart tell me what to do.”
“Heavy . . .” I said.
He laughed. “Well, as I said, that’s just me. Perhaps over time that will mean more to you.”
I smiled at him. “I get what you’re saying, I just . . . well, I get it.”
He looked at me for a moment, and a smile poured over his bearded face.
“Yes, I really believe that you do,” he said.
38
It had to be a rematch with La Habra. To get to the title game, we’d beaten Western, a great team that had knocked us out of the pl
ayoffs the previous year. It had been a real defensive struggle. I played well, but neither team could do much offensively. With less than a minute to go, Rocky split the uprights with a short field goal, and winning 16-13 felt better than some of the blowouts we’d had earlier in the year.
We were not surprised at all to see who we’d be playing next. We should have known, after that September classic—the one we’d won on Rahim’s blocked kick—that we’d be seeing La Habra again in the playoffs. At the time, it would have been hard to imagine that the rematch would be the championship game.
I barely slept the night before the game. Instead, I talked on the phone with Bryan deep into the night.
“Wish I was there to calm you down,” he said, his voice soft.
“You only think that,” I said. “I’m not particularly good company right now. I don’t even want to be with me.”
“Well, I do,” he said.
“Their defense is tough,” I said. “I have to be just about perfect or we’ll lose.”
“It’s a team sport, Bobby. Don’t put it all on you.”
“I’m not. Coach is,” I said. Coach had told me that I needed to make good decisions in this game. Mendez, he told me, could have an off game and it wouldn’t matter. It was up to what I did with the ball when chased out of the pocket, because, as he said, that would happen all day long with these guys.
“Will you be okay? I need to get some sleep,” Bryan said.
“Yeah,” I mumbled. “I’ll be fine.”
“I love you, Bobby.”
He had never said that to me before. My thoughts flew and I couldn’t breathe.
“Bobby?”
I had no words. He was kind and caring and handsome and I loved spending time with Bryan. And the new things. All great.
Maybe I do love him, but isn’t it too fast? And on the phone? Should I say it back? Thoughts flooded through me and it took a while to speak.
“You too,” I finally said, and I hated how lame that was.
He exhaled. “You too, what? There are two roads here, Bobby. Pick one.”
“I’m sort of freaked out tonight, okay?” I swallowed hard. “Give me time.”
He was silent for a moment. “Fair enough,” he said. “I’ll be there tomorrow.”
I liked this angle better. “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” I said.
He laughed gently. “Good. Well, either way, I love you, Bobby. Sweet dreams.”
In the locker room before the game, I called the team together and gave a little pep talk. I hadn’t done it in a while, but it felt like the right thing to do.
“This is it, you guys,” I said. “I know one thing. I could never ask for a better bunch of teammates. You stuck with me through a lot of stuff this year. But I don’t want to go there. All I want to say is I wish we could always be teammates. Let’s go out the best way we know how, and win this thing!”
“Yeah!” I heard as the cheers began. “All the way! All the way!” The team began to chant and the energy in the room went through the ceiling.
“Whose house is it?” yelled Rahim.
“Our house!” screamed our underclassmen.
“Are you ready to conquer?” Rahim yelled.
“Hell yeah!”
“Lock and load!” Rahim shouted, pretending to aim a rifle.
“Open fire!”
We’re going to win the title game.
“Can you beat La Habra?” asked a television reporter as we ran onto the field. The championship game was being televised, which had our team pretty excited and me pretty nervous. Last time I’d played my way out of a televised game.
“Hope so,” I said, truly excited.
Another reporter got in front of me and shoved his microphone in my face. “How has it been, being the openly gay leader of this team?” the man asked.
I frowned. “After the game, please,” I said.
The La Habra crowd was trying to taunt me, but it wasn’t working.Somehow, the few calls of “faggot” that came from the stands were not affecting me at all.
The game started, and what was expected to be a defensive struggle was the opposite. Both teams drove down the field with little trouble. Our line held theirs in check for the most part, and though I was chased a bit, I kept on making good choices and finding the open man. I completed my first nine passes, two for touchdowns. At the half, it was 28-21 in our favor.
By late in the third quarter, both defensive lines looked worn out. Their star running back, Frank Ritzi, was approaching two hundred yards, and had scored twice. We had to settle for a couple of field goals, and at the start of the fourth quarter, they led, 35-34, and were about to get the ball again.
“We gotta slow them down, defense!” yelled Rahim on the sideline, before our defense took the field again. I looked at our guys. They looked exhausted.
On the first play from scrimmage, the Matadors went deep, going after Dennis, who was covering their flanker. I held my breath, worried that he wasn’t energized enough to make a play.
The ball came down and I watched as the flanker in green and gold went up for the ball. Slightly after he jumped, up went Dennis. He outtimed and outjumped the receiver, and took it away from him. The flanker fell down, and Dennis sprang to life. He ran like I’d never seen him run before; holding on to the ball with two hands, he juked and pivoted around a couple Matadors before finding a path to the end zone. He had blockers ahead of him. I watched him zigzag past one last defender before diving into the end zone. We were leading once again.
Coach decided to go for two. If we made it, we’d be up by seven. He called for a play we’d only run a handful of times in practice. I’d bootleg to the left, with two running backs behind me like an option play. Austin would pretend to block ahead of me, and at the last moment he’d go out for a quick pass. An easy two points, I figured. I liked the call.
I took the hike and sprinted left. The Matadors shadowed me. If it were a true option, where I could either run or flip the ball back to a running back, we were dead. Just before I crossed the line of scrimmage, Austin snuck into the end zone. I tossed him a chest pass, afraid to give it away by raising my arm like I was throwing. My chest pass was weak, and sailed low on Austin. He came back for the ball and caught it at the two. He was tackled before he could stretch back to the end zone. We’d failed. Our lead was 40-35.
“Tough luck,” Coach said as I trotted back to the sidelines. I nodded. It was my fault, but I knew we’d have another chance.
La Habra took its time with their next drive, giving us a heavy dose of Ritzi left, Ritzi right, and Ritzi up the middle. We couldn’t stop their ground attack. They took a full eight minutes off the clock, and the drive ended with Ritzi heading off tackle left into the end zone for his third score. They tried for two as well to give themselves a three-point lead, but couldn’t convert. They led 41-40, with six minutes remaining.