I got up and bought myself lunch, then rejoined Austin. Dennis had arrived and was busy devouring two heaping plates of rigatoni.
“Hey, Dennis, what’s going on?” I asked.
“ ’Sup,” he said. Dennis’s communication skills were lacking. When he wasn’t being funny, he was busy showing us how the world isn’t cool enough for him.
His dirty-blond hair fell in wisps over his forehead, and I tried to imagine what girls saw in him. He did nothing for me.
“What are we hating today?” I asked Dennis. Getting him on one of his rants was one of my favorite things, but it could be hard to do. He was either there, or he wasn’t. No middle ground with Dennis.
“You, if you keep asking questions,” he said, grumbling.
“Problem solved,” I said, turning to Austin to speak. Austin interrupted me.
“Don’t look now, geek reporter approaching, nine o’clock,” he said. I turned to my right and saw Finch Gozman loping over.
I cursed myself for not removing the remaining chair at the head of our table. Gozman took it as an invitation to join us.
“Hey, guys!” he said, and I had to suppress laughter, thinking of Dennis’s imitation of Finch, which started with the same line. “Hey, guys!” Dennis would say when he saw us in the hallway. “Hey . . . hey . . . wait up!” And then he’d start following us, his arms out in front of him like Finch, his eyes scrunched up, looking like a serious nerd.
It was mean, but pretty much right on target.
“Hey, Finch,” I replied, not looking at him, hoping the lack of excitement at seeing him might send him a message.
It did not.
“Great game the other night, Bobby Framingham,” he said. He always called people by their full names. I didn’t actually hate Finch. He was just annoying sometimes.
“Thanks, Finch Gozman,” I replied, and Dennis smirked into his pasta. I prayed he wouldn’t laugh. Finch, for one, was pleased to have his full name used.
“So, um, guys, what say I do my interview with Bobby now?” he said to the whole table.
I lifted my wrist and studied my watch, as if hoping the minute and hour hands would offer some sort of excuse as to why we couldn’t do this right now. I didn’t need the attention at the moment. I came up with nothing.
“Oh, you’re doing a story about the guy who tried to have me killed by the Oilers secondary?” said Austin.
Finch laughed in big spastic breaths. “That’s funny! Let me write that down!” He took out a pad, pen, and a small digital recorder. He pushed the button on it. “Interview with Bobby Framingham,” he said into the recorder. He looked up at me and smiled. “So,” he went on. “Who is Bobby Framingham, and what’s going on with him?”
Austin looked at Dennis and laughed. Dennis laughed back, like they were sharing a secret moment. I felt a twinge of panic in my gut. “I don’t know,” I said. “Same old stuff.”
“Why are they laughing?” Finch asked me.
“Don’t pay attention to them, they’re both in need of serious help,” I said, shrugging them off. “I’m good. The team is playing well and I’m feeling confident.”
“Is it true you want to go to Stanford?”
I smiled at the thought. “Yeah, but it’s a long shot. They’re probably going to recruit one or two quarterbacks in the whole country this year. Hard to imagine one will be me.”
“But you could be one, you’re one of the best in the state,” Finch said. “I’d love to get into Stanford.” I looked at Finch’s big, sincere brown eyes, like those of a dog who just wanted to be petted. It was kind of nice, since my friends, as evidenced in Austin and Dennis, who were now flinging food at each other, rarely complimented me.
“Thanks, Finch. I don’t know. I just do the best I can.”
“Aw, perfect answer, kid,” said Austin, screwing his pointer fingers into each of his cheeks and fake-smiling. “Moron.”
“You have a piece of rigatoni in your hair,” I said, and he violently thrashed a hand through his hair and found the offending pasta. He threw it and it hit Dennis in the eye. Dennis shut both eyes tight and swatted at the pasta as if it were a fly.
“So tell me about how it feels to be the quarterback!” Finch said, full of enthusiasm. Austin laughed, and Dennis would have, but he was still busy with the eye pasta, stuffing it in his mouth. “How does it feel to be behind center?”
“Arousing,” Dennis said, jumping in to the conversation with his mouth full. My heart nearly stopped.
“Huh?” said Finch, laughing uncomfortably.
“It gets him hard,” mumbled Dennis, looking at his food.
“Shut up, asshole,” I said, glaring not at him but at Austin, terror in my eyes. He wouldn’t look at me.
“That’s what you say to the center’s butt,” Dennis continued, now laughing hysterically.
I felt the veins in my forehead pulse.
“Just ignore them,” I told Finch, whose eyes were now wide open. Or at least they were when I looked at him at first. I looked back at my so-called friends, and when I looked again at Finch, he was totally composed and had this calm look, as if this was a normal answer and he knew exactly what to say next.
I looked down at the recorder, as if I wished I could turn it off with a simple, cold stare.
Dennis was now in fine form, and the problem was, he didn’t stop when he got like this. Why would Austin tell him?
Dennis was playing with his food, his face red and his eyes full of peril. “Our star QB is a ho . . . mo”—and he looked at me, daring me with his smirk—“. . . sapien!” And then Austin’s laughing slowed a bit and he looked at me nervously. I wanted to vaporize and all I could do was allow the conversation to zip by me without affecting me. I turned myself off.
“What are you saying?” said Finch.
“That means he’s a human being,” Dennis said, proud. He’s such an idiot.
Finch scratched his nose and took a deep breath. “What is this?” he asked.
“Last week he told Austin about his Homo sapien tendencies. He came out of the closet . . . Cave! The Cave! That’s awesome. Bobby’s out of the cave!”
I really didn’t know if Dennis thought this was subtle, or what he thought at that moment. Maybe nothing.
Maybe his head was a big fat mound of mush that would put up little resistance before exploding if I, say, ran it over with my car.
I glanced at Finch, wondering how to do damage control. He was trying to ask a follow-up question, looking completely dazed.
“Moving on,” he said, trying to regain composure. “What’s the biggest skill you need to have in order to be a quarterback?” It was, I admit, not a bad job by Finch of getting us back on track, or close at least.
“Restraint,” I said, staring directly at Dennis, who was oblivious and once again wolfing down pasta.
After a few more questions about other, less charged topics, Finch left, looking confused. I turned first to Austin, and when I could find no words, to Dennis.
“What the hell were you thinking?”
“I said Homo sapien,” he said, grinning.
“And you thought that code would be tough for an honor student to break? What’s your problem?”
“Dude. He’s not going to write an article that says you’re a Homo sapien. Relax.”
I stood up and gathered my things, shaking. I kept my voice low and controlled. “Relax? Relax? You could ruin my fucking life,” I said, this time directly to my so-called best friend, Austin. “What’s wrong with you? Who else did you tell?”
“Rahim,” Austin said quietly, not looking me directly in the eye. I thought back to the comment Rahim had made about the dance, and it all made sense.
“Great,” I said. “Very nice.”
“What did you expect? That’s some information,” Dennis said. “Yikes.”
Austin just sat there, looking torn.
“Forget it, just forget it. Thanks for a terrific lunch,” I said, my voice q
uaking, and with that I stormed out of the cafeteria.
7
As I headed to math class later that day, I caught myself daydreaming about strangling Austin, or better yet strangling Austin with Dennis’s lifeless body.
Taking that as a sign that things weren’t quite okay, I took a detour.
Coach came to mind, then Carrie. I nixed both ideas, unsure how much more drama I could take in a day. I needed someone uninvolved to talk to. I thought of Dr. Blassingame, the head guidance counselor at Durango.
Dr. Blassingame had been my ninth-grade history teacher. When I was in tenth grade, he stopped teaching history and took his current position. He also became the faculty adviser for the Gay-Straight Alliance; I knew it didn’t automatically mean that he was gay, but that was the rumor around school, since he was at least fifty and not married. He was always nice, but eccentric, the kind of teacher who would be lecturing about Sumerians, go off on a tangent about the best ways to cook pork, and never come back to his point.
I’d never been to Dr. Blassingame’s office before; it hadn’t occurred to me to ask for help with anything. But as I walked along the hallway to his office, I felt like someone had tied a knot of rope tight inside my chest. Maybe this would help me untangle it.
The office was dimly lit and smelled slightly of vinegar. Blassingame was at his desk, gazing intensely into a book, his brow furrowed, a red pen in his left hand. He didn’t look up when I knocked lightly on his door. Instead he kept his pen on the page in front of him and spoke, his voice a bit forceful.
“Please tell me this: What’s a three-letter word for an ancient Hebrew coin that starts with a Z?” he asked, chewing on the pen cap.
“Excuse me?”
He looked up and his eyes opened wide. “Oh! Sorry! I thought you were Meg—Mrs. Moran.”
“Sorry,” I said, standing in his doorway.
“Don’t apologize,” he said. “Zid? Zid? Is that a word?”
“Excuse me?”
“A Hebrew coin,” he said, exasperated.
“I really don’t know,” I said. “Dr. Blassingame—”
“This thing will be the death of me.”
“I was hoping I could talk to you,” I continued, my head beginning to pound.
“Zig? Zod? Zed? God! I’m losing it.”
I took a deep breath. “Okay then, probably time for me to go,” I said, turning away.
“No! No! Please. I’m sorry, you just caught me at a funny moment. Please come back and talk to me, Bobby.”
I turned and saw he was smiling at me. The hostility in my chest melted away.
“How did you remember my name? There have to be two thousand kids in this school.”
“Yes, but not everyone is Bobby Framingham, fearless leader on the football field,” he said, standing and motioning me in. “I promise, no more crossword puzzle.”
I walked in tentatively and sat in a cushioned chair facing him, my heart beating so loud I could hear it inside my ears. Blassingame was round in the middle, with tattered graying hair and a full beard. His office was decorated with Xerox copies of Far Side cartoons and golf memorabilia, including an iron club bent in the middle as if someone had wrapped it around a tree. It hung directly behind him.
“So what brings you to Casa Blassingame?” he asked. “I’m sure we haven’t crossed paths since you were in my class a few years back, correct?”
“Correct,” I said.
He reflexively grabbed for the crossword puzzle in front of him and then looked up at me and pushed it away, sheepishly smiling, his eyes wide. “And to what do I owe this great pleasure?”
I took a deep breath. “I think I’m in trouble,” I said.
He tilted his head at me and raised an eyebrow. “What kind of trouble?”
I laughed, feeling completely out of my comfort zone. “I’m not sure this category of trouble is one you’ve dealt with before.”
He pursed his lips. “Try me.”
“How about this?” I said, slowly blinking and still feeling some heat in my chest left over from the cafeteria. “How about—I’m the quarterback of the football team, a college recruiting prospect, and . . . I’m gay. I told one friend, and now he told two others, and I think my life would pretty much end if it becomes public.” I exhaled wildly.
Blassingame didn’t flinch. “I think that’s wonderful,” he said, emphasizing each syllable with enthusiasm.
I opened my mouth and stared at him. “It’s wonderful?”
He laughed gently and smiled at me. “Well yes, isn’t it? Sexuality is a beautiful thing, and we’re all different, and knowing who you are is truly a gift—”
I bolted straight up and stood over his desk. “Are you serious?” I asked. “This could ruin my life.”
“Oh, I see,” he said, crossing his arms as he looked up at me. “How?”
“Are you gay?”
Dr. Blassingame looked at me like I was from another planet. “Now, I must say that in usual circumstances, I’d find that to be an inappropriate question, Bobby. But in this case, I’ll allow it. I am heterosexual. What difference does it make?”
“I’m sorry,” I said, a little embarrassed. “I just don’t think you get the significance of me, as a football player, being gay.”
“Well, surely there are some homosexuals who play professional football.”
“Name one,” I said, slowly pacing his office.
“But that’s preposterous,” he said. “Surely there are some famous gay athletes. Martina Navratilova.”
“Well, there are some women, yeah,” I said.
“There you go,” he said, as if the problem was solved.
“Can you name a single gay male athlete?”
“The diver,” he said, searching for a name.
“Team sports,” I said. “It’s different when it’s a team sport.”
He gawked at me inquisitively.
“You can’t name one, I can’t name one,” I said patiently.
“But it never occurs to me to think of the sexual persuasion of an athlete. Why does it matter?”
“Well, maybe it shouldn’t, but it does,” I said. “Otherwise, wouldn’t there be some openly gay people?”
He seemed to be staring through me. “Zuz!” he yelled.
I protected my face with my arms, half expecting a physical attack after what sounded like a war cry.
Blassingame laughed. “I’m sorry Bobby. It was in the back of my mind. Zuz. A three-letter word for an ancient Hebrew coin. The doctor triumphs yet again!” He raised his hands in triumph, grabbed his pen, and filled in three blank spaces.
Anger was boiling in me, but I looked at him and he seemed so enthralled by this discovery, like a child learning how to read, that I had to laugh. He did, too.