We huddled on the sidelines. “This is where we need to be smart about time management,” Coach said, his arms around me on one side and Rahim on the other. “This is where we take our time heading down the field. Don’t take it for granted, but take your time, guys.”
We nodded. It was the right idea. If we scored too quickly, they’d get the ball back. This game would be won by whichever team scored last.
We started the drive at our twenty-five-yard line. We took our time and with a nice mix of running and passing we approached midfield with less than four minutes to go. Then, on a third-down play, I dropped back and found Austin on a little button-hook route. He expected to be hit immediately, and when he wasn’t, he rambled down to the thirty-five. There were now just three minutes left.
I felt my chest expanding. If we just took care of business, we were going to win the title game. My breathing quickened.
We took the clock down to the two-minute warning with some nice runs to the outside. The Matadors fans were making more noise than I’d ever heard fans make, aside from that nightmare homecoming game. I pitched the ball back to Somers and he sped around the left side and had he not tripped at the twenty, he would have probably scored or gotten really close to the end zone.
“Way to go, Bobby! Somers!” Coach was screaming like I’d never heard before and I saw our guys on the sidelines jumping up and down. I looked and saw Rocky warming up to kick. The clock was ticking down to under a minute and a half. We were out of time-outs, and so were the Matadors.
We stalled on a run on first down, and on second down, Jessie Montoya, our fullback, dropped a pass. “No harm done,” Rahim said as we huddled again. It was third-and-ten with thirty-nine seconds remaining. We were at their nineteen-yard line. Coach called in the play. It was a run up the middle, a safe call. Coach must have figured we’d run the clock down, pick up a few yards, and have the ball right in the center of the field. I called the play, we clapped in unison, and headed to the line.
I looked out at the defense, and was amazed. On third-and-long, it’s a passing down, and I had expected they’d play their safeties deep to avoid getting beat by Rahim and Austin. Instead, their coach must have realized that we’d focus on running out the clock. Their linebackers braced to blitz the run. I gulped and tried to catch my breath. If we were stuffed, Rocky would have a tough kick for the game winner. I looked left, looked right. Rahim and I caught each other’s eye in what must have lasted all of a millisecond, but it was enough. I called an audible.
“C-thirty-four!” I yelled. “C-thirty-four!” That told the team to shift into tier formation. Somers hustled from where he had been, wide left on the line of scrimmage, to behind Mendez in the backfield. It was the first time I’d ever changed into the tier. It also alerted Rahim and Austin that they would be my targets. The defense crept up closer to the line, figuring Somers would act as another blocker. Bingo! We got ’em! I did it! Bolleran hiked the ball into my hands and I faked the handoff to Mendez. The entire defense bought it. Their linebackers rushed through our line and one second after the fake, Mendez was blasted by two defenders at about the twenty-four-yard line.
I hurried back into my four-step drop and saw Rahim facing single coverage on a down-and-out. He ran forward and then made a razor-sharp cut to the sideline. I drilled him with a perfect spiral. He caught it at the fifteen and the defender fell in front of him, trying to knock down the pass. Rahim looked downfield and made the split-second decision to head for the end zone, knowing that he had just one man to beat, the free safety, who raced toward him from the middle of the field. Rahim pivoted, faking like he was heading toward the middle of the field. It was a smart move, because if the defender bought it, Rahim could head outside and step out of bounds if he wasn’t going to score. But the defender didn’t buy his fake. The guy forced Rahim inside, knowing there were linebackers to help him there. I could feel it in my heart, what Rahim was feeling. He lunged back outside, hoping to power his way through, but the defender held on. Rahim’s a big guy. He wouldn’t go down, but instead tried to carry the defender out of bounds with him at around the twelve-yard-line to stop the clock.
The whistle blew. He was still in bounds by inches.
A whistle means forward progress is stopped, the tackle is made. We were short of the first down, meaning it was now fourth down, and the clock was ticking, less than twenty seconds remaining. Coach called for the field goal. The offensive players not involved in the kick sprinted off the field, and Rocky and his holder sprinted on. I looked up at the clock. Eighteen, seventeen. We were going to be okay. He could make this kick.
“Spectacular,” Coach said to me quietly as I got off the field. I smiled and was thinking about it when Rocky, running onto the field, slipped and fell. A collective gasp came from our sideline. The clock was down to ten seconds. He quickly hopped to his feet and got into position as quickly as he could. The ball was snapped with about four seconds to go. We all held our breath.
The ball was snapped, and I watched as Rocky strode gracefully toward the ball. On the final step, his left foot slipped, and his right one, as it came toward the ball, ever so slightly nicked the ground first. We watched from the sideline as the ball hung in the air and seemed to lose momentum, falling just short of the crossbar.
The crowd roared, and I watched in disbelief as the La Habra fans rushed the field and hoisted some of their players into the air. I watched as Frank Ritzi was carried around, pumping his fists wildly, and felt my chest shrivel. Had the kick been made, that would have been me.
After all I’d been through, didn’t I deserve that?
I put my head in my hands and willed the world to stop. High school football was over for me, and we had lost. I felt like crying. A hand clamped onto my back.
“You did one helluva job, Framingham.”
It was Coach. I stood up in front of him and looked up into his eyes, expecting to see the anger I felt in my chest reflected there. I did not see it. Instead I saw a glimmer in his eyes that looked to me a lot like pride.
It shocked me. I was certain he’d be angry, but he didn’t look it.
“Thanks,” I said tentatively. I searched for the right thing to say in the situation, but nothing came.
The crowd was deafening, but I could hear Coach clearly. “I will never forget this season, ever,” he said. “I’m proud to have known you, Bobby Framingham.”
I looked away, ashamed that I had missed the moment. This was the last game I’d play with Coach leading the way. I gulped back the emotion in my chest and hugged him tight. He hugged me back.
“Thanks, Coach,” I said, looking directly into his eyes.
There was nothing strange at all as he smiled and spoke back to me. “God bless you, Bobby.”
Rocky looked so deflated, standing alone on the sideline, his head hung low.
“Hey,” I said.
He didn’t look up. “Hey.”
“You’re gonna come back next year and you’ll get another chance,” I said, not sure that was true. We were a pretty good bunch of seniors. But still, what can you say to a kid after something like that?
“I ruined it for you,” he said, with tears in his eyes. “I let everyone down.”
Austin and Rahim walked over, their helmets in their hands.
“Don’t think like that,” I said. “We lost as a team, not because of you. If I made that two-point play, we win the game and none of this happens.”
Rahim put his arm around Rocky. “Chin up, bro. It’s okay.”
“Yeah,” said Austin. “It’s all on Bobby.” I looked up at him, shocked. “Kidding, dude. God, you’re so sensitive.”
At least that made Rocky laugh, and the whole bunch of us walked him to the locker room, where we were doing pretty well for a team that had just lost a title game.
“Do you wish you could have that two-point play back?” a reporter asked me as we stood in the parking lot after the game. A bunch of them ambushed me, and I gladly took
the questions, knowing it might never happen again, depending on what happened with college.
I thought about it. “No,” I said.
“Why not?”
“What’s done is done,” I said, picturing the five-iron Blassingame gave me. “We make that play, who’s to say what would have happened after that? The game is over. We lost, but at least we played well, you know?”
The reporters were silent. Maybe what I’d said wasn’t what they’d expected, I don’t know. The same guy who had asked me before the game about being a gay quarterback spoke.
“So how was it, being openly gay and quarterbacking a team to the championship game?”
In the ensuing silence, I could feel the tension. First lines for newspaper stories across the area and even the country were being devised as I spoke.
“I don’t know. Sort of like being an openly straight quarterback, but with a lot more media attention on me,” I said.
And with that, I walked off, unsure that what I’d said made any sense at all, but still glad I’d said it.
39
“Whoever said ‘turnabout is fair play’?” I asked Austin. We were in my front yard on Christmas day, having just returned from our annual Christmas breakfast at Coach’s house. He’d presented us with league-championship pins to attach to our varsity letters.
“Dude, I don’t even know what that means,” he said.
I laughed. “I’m saying that we beat La Habra on a muffed kick, and then they did the same to us.”
“Yo, kid, all’s I know is if Rocky had some freakin’ balance, I could say I was on a championship team in high school.”
“Well, you can still say that,” I said.
He just looked at me.
“I mean, don’t say it to anyone who might actually check to see if it’s the truth.”
He laughed a little. “I’m surprised you aren’t more pissed off,” he said.
“Me too,” I said. “I don’t know.”
A football rested under the tire that hung from the oak tree. I jogged over and grabbed the ball and tossed it to Austin.
“I’ll miss this,” I said.
“Shut the hell up,” he said. “You’ll do this the rest of your life.”
I threw the ball hard at his midsection. He caught it. I’d meant I would miss doing this with him. We’d probably never play football on the same team again.
“By the way, it’s not a bad picture of you.” He tossed the ball back to me. I knew he was talking about the cover of Out & About magazine’s December 28 issue. After my article came out, another guy called who was much nicer, and this time I agreed to do it. “Thank God they convinced you to put a shirt on.”
“Screw you, they wanted me naked,” I said. “It was my modesty—”
“Yeah, dude, you’re way modest,” Austin said. “Still, it’s cool.”
“Yeah, I mean, how many gay guys can claim to have almost led their team to a title for one of California’s three hundred and thirty zillion divisions?”
“I don’t know,” said Austin. “Five? Six?”
“That’s probably true,” I said, and we laughed together.
Austin caught a pass and tried to dunk the ball like it was a basketball, over a branch that’s about ten feet high. No good. “So where do you think you’ll be next year?”
“I have no idea,” I said. “Stanford probably won’t recruit me.”
“Yeah, I saw they’d already recruited a quarterback. Biggs from Los Alamitos.”
I hadn’t known that. I felt my stomach fall a bit. “Oh well.”
“I’m hoping for Fresno State,” Austin told me as he chased the ball.
“That would be awesome,” I said. “Probably Colorado State for me, but I still have a few I hope to hear from.”
“Cool, we’ll stay in touch,” he said, and I nodded.
Austin tried to sit in the tire, but it wouldn’t hold his weight. It buckled under him, and he skipped away from it. “So the tier formation. Turned out okay, huh?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Better than I thought. Remember how we hated it?”
“You, mostly.”
“Yeah, right,” I said.
We sat on the grass, which was cold but dry. “How’s Rhonda?”
He sighed. “Shit if I know.” Austin still went through girls like I went through pizza.
“Oh well,” I said, pulling out a tuft of grass and throwing it onto Austin’s lap.
“Plus, I’m done with all that running around,” he said.
“Get out.”
“No, really,” he said. “It’s stupid.” He took the grass off his lap and sprinkled it onto my head.
“Okay,” I said, wondering where my friend Austin was and who they’d replaced him with.
“How about Bryan?”
I wiped the dirt and grass off my head. “How’d you know his name?”
He screwed up his face at me. “What am I, an idiot? I saw him at the party. Plus, people talk,” he said.
“He’s good.” I smiled.
“What’s he like?”
“He’s nice. I mean, he does weird stuff, but he’s cool.”
“What’s weird, and do I want to know this?” he asked.
“Weird like refinishing old furniture.”
“Yeah. I don’t know anything about that,” he said. “I guess that’s like if I’m dating a girl and she likes to go shopping.”
“Just about exactly,” I said, smiling at him.
Bryan is coming over later for Christmas dinner. It’s a little weird, because my parents clearly like him more than they like me. He knows exactly how to listen to all my dad’s stories and ask good questions, and he laughs at my mom’s jokes. It’s a little annoying, tell you the truth.
I’m not sure what any of this means yet. What does it mean that I’ve just been through the worst months of my life, lost the title game, and feel so happy I could almost burst? I’ll probably wake up out of this soon and everything will be back to normal. Bobby the gay football star will be gone, and Bobby the regular guy will be back, and it’ll be like putting on a well-worn sweater. I’m pretty sure that’s what will happen, because life isn’t like this. We don’t get to live a life where the good is so purely good that you can taste it, like the sweetness of an orange.
But until that time, I guess I’ll enjoy this make-believe, fairy-tale life. Because it feels better, you know? Better than anything has ever felt.
Bill Konigsberg, Out of the Pocket
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