“Forgive me,” he said. “It annoys everyone. I’ll try to do better.”
After a beat he lightly pounded his desk with his fist. “So let me understand,” he said. “You’re angry that your friend betrayed you by telling others.”
“Yes. Exactly,” I said.
“I can imagine that. Friendships are paramount, and there needs to be trust.”
I stared at him, waiting for him to tell me something I didn’t know.
He studied me, as if trying to peer inside me. “Yes, I believe that’s so. Also, you are angry because you are gay and this will make it hard to pursue a career in football.”
“You got it.”
Blassingame stood and wandered to a bookshelf, picking up a book from the second-highest shelf and replacing it on the top shelf. “I see. Perhaps the answer is to change your sexuality.”
I laughed, thinking about the power of the dreams, the way they’d gotten stronger. I imagined trying to change them and suddenly it seemed ludicrous. “I don’t think I can.”
“Ah. So it’s stronger than you are.”
“Well, in some ways it is, I guess.”
He took the same book down and leafed through it. “So you can’t change it.”
“No, I guess not.”
“I see.” He came and sat down again and smiled at me. “Well, Bobby. If you can’t change something, I believe you have two choices.”
“What?” I asked.
“You can accept it, or you can deny it.”
I stared at the busted golf club and thought about this. He had a point. “So I guess I accept it,” I said. “But what if I accept it, but the world doesn’t?”
“I guess all you can do, then, is change the world.”
I laughed. The idea of me, Bobby Framingham, changing the world was pretty stupid. It was hard enough for me to remember to change my underwear.
“Okay then,” I said sarcastically. “I guess I’ll do that.”
He winked at me. “I know you’re not serious, but do me a favor, will you? Keep that in mind. Someone has to change the world. Why not you?”
“I’ll think about that,” I said, wondering if there was anyone out there who actually understood what I was going through.
8
I was adjusting my shoulder pads before Thursdays’ practice when Dennis and Austin came up to me in the locker room.
“Yo, Bobby Lee!” said Austin, clasping my shoulder. Dennis stood silently by his side. Austin called me that because my mother, who was born in the South, sometimes did. It was a term of endearment, and I usually liked it.
I liked it less when used by a double-crossing jerk of a best friend.
“What up?” I replied, focusing on my cleats. There were clumps of dirt in them from the previous day, and I tried poking them out with my fingers.
“Dipshit here has something to say to you,” Austin said, and he sort of pushed Dennis at me. Dennis scowled at him.
“Monday in the cafeteria. Way out of line,” he said, by way of apology, his eyes averted.
“Yeah,” I said. “Way.” I had avoided Dennis for three days, which isn’t that hard since we don’t hang out that much outside of football. The tough thing was Austin and I had barely talked either. Just football stuff, nothing personal. I was so mad at him, and Austin knew it. He’d been avoiding me.
“Finch won’t write that shit,” Dennis said. “If you want, I’ll go tell him he better not or I’ll kill him. If that appears in the paper, he’s a dead geek.” Vintage Dennis. An apology by way of promised violence.
I laughed, still not quite over it.
“Probably let’s not do that. Just don’t ever do that to me again, okay? Don’t tell anyone. Please.”
Dennis shrugged. “Not a problem,” he said, relieved, as if everything were back to normal. Things weren’t, but I didn’t have the energy to focus on it. I had to think about practice and the game tomorrow. Dennis strutted off to his locker, and Austin hung around.
He wasn’t in uniform, and wouldn’t be for at least another week.
“Yo, I’m sorry, too, dude,” he said.
“Oh, Dennis was sorry? I didn’t hear him say that,” I said. “Must have missed that in that great apology.”
Austin sat next to me. “What do you expect? It’s Dennis.”
I looked up at him and saw real regret in his eyes.
He really was sorry that he had told Dennis, I could tell.
“So Rahim knows, too,” I said, detaching my mouth guard from my helmet.
Austin examined his feet and said, “Yeah.”
I walked toward the water fountain and Austin walked at my side.
“Anyone else?”
He shook his head.
I pressed the button, placed my mouth guard under the stream of water, and looked up at him. I tried to say it as nicely as possible because I didn’t want to fight. “Why’d you do that, Austin? I trusted you.”
Austin exhaled. “I didn’t mean to do something bad. I just needed to tell someone. I should never have told Dennis. That was stupid. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, that wasn’t so smart,” I said, waving my mouth guard in the air to dry it. “Well, it’s done, anyways.”
“Yeah. Done,” Austin said. “And I’m sorry, dude.”
“How are you feeling, how are you feeling?” I said, mimicking him making fun of me. He got it immediately and laughed.
I was glad it ended with a laugh, and felt a little bit lighter on my feet after I punched him in the shoulder and slowly jogged out to the field.
We started practice with the scrambling triangular, an agility drill. As a lefty, I dropped back, keeping the ball up near my left shoulder as if I was about to pass. I dropped back five steps, and then ran to my left at a forty-five-degree angle, as if being forced out of the pocket. I then shuffled quickly to the left and ran backward, back to where I began, and threw the ball off to my right. It’s supposed to help your agility when the pocket breaks down.
Sometimes the pocket breaks down and you’d better be ready to scramble. Your feet are all you can one hundred percent depend on.
I was ultrafocused and Coach saw my intensity.
“Attaboy, Bobby,” he yelled, and I felt hot, in my stomach. I like praise, especially from Coach, who can be tough.
We did formation work and I tried to keep my chin up, but the tier brought out the worst in me, as always.
The tier formation was this big, ugly, unwanted thing that was ruining my life, and I had no control over it, just had to deal with it the best I could.
I couldn’t get the timing down, especially when I was throwing to Somers out of the backfield. Sometimes it meant an extra few seconds in the pocket, and it was hard to stay patient.
“Yo, Bobby, stop your dancing,” yelled Rahim, after one play in which I had shimmied around the pocket for much longer than was comfortable. “You suck at it.” Everyone laughed, so I did, too.
Since it was Thursday, we did our typical run-through, focusing on our opponent for the next day, La Habra. Big defensive line, Coach kept warning. We had to be aware that there wouldn’t be much time to pass.
I was pretty sharp, surprising myself. On a quick five-step drop, I hit Rahim on a post pattern with a total rocket. I felt alive, powerful out there. It was the type of pass I threw once in a while that reminded me I could really do this. A few plays later I got Dennis to bite on a pump fake when we went starting offense against scout defense, no tackling. Dennis was a second stringer, which was one of those things we did not talk about. He was covering Somers, down the left sideline, and Somers did a hook-and-go, meaning he stopped short as if I were throwing to him. I sold it real well, and Dennis flew out toward the sideline, thinking the ball would be there. Somers darted past him and I hit him farther down the sideline.
Pretty slick, and it felt great.
Walking back to the locker room after practice, I caught up with Rahim.
“I know you know,” I sa
id.
“Good,” Rahim said. “I’m glad you told someone.”
I started in on why I told Austin and not him, and he shut me up. “I’m fine, B. You don’t need to worry about that,” he said.
Then he smiled. “I’m good with you being gay. My uncle is and he’s cool. God loves everyone the same.”
I took that information in. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. “Thanks,” I said.
The showers were boisterous, more than usual. Lots of hollering and talking about naked girls. Not my favorite thing, but I could deal with it. I usually just listened and laughed once in a while.
“Hey, moron, eyes up here,” bellowed Torry Hodges, one of our offensive linemen. I froze, because I knew I could not deal with it today. We’d had a good practice, I’d had a decent day, and all I wanted to do was go home. Then I realized that the comment wasn’t aimed at me. He was yelling toward one of the sophomore guys who doesn’t play much, a guy named Hector Jimenez.
“Fuck you, I ain’t no faggot,” Hector yelled back.
“Then why is my ass all hot?” countered Torry.
“Beats me, faggot,” said Hector, and everyone laughed. It was pretty ballsy of him to say that to Torry, who was a senior and about twice as big as Hector. Torry bolted over to where Hector was showering and put him in a headlock.
“What’d you say? What’d you say, boy? Fag boy?” Hector tried to squirm out of Torry’s grasp, but couldn’t.
This is the stuff that kills me. That straight guys will actually go over to a naked guy and put him in a headlock, no questions asked, but you make a mistake and forget to avert your eyes from their body, and suddenly you’re queer.
I looked over to Rahim. The shower room was set up with round poles, six showerheads on each. He was on the other side of mine. He caught my glance and suddenly got serious.
“Hey!” he yelled. “Torry! Get off him, man.” Torry released Hector and looked across the way at Rahim, surprised. Torry was bigger, but no one was more respected on the team than Rahim. Torry leered at him.
“He was lookin’ at my ass,” Torry said. Hector was back at his shower, his face crimson after the assault.
“You got eyes in the back of your head?” Rahim asked.
“I saw him,” replied Torry.
At that moment Austin walked by the shower room. He heard the conversation, and he’s not one to stay quiet, ever.
“Nobody wants your ass, kid. The hardest-up homo in West Hollywood wouldn’t go near your fat sorry ass,” Austin said, and the hoots came flying from every direction.
“Fuck you,” said Torry, who went back to showering.
“Fags don’t go for guys with elephant asses,” Austin continued, and I looked over at Rahim. He was looking right at me, and I could tell he was trying to gauge how I felt.
“You would know,” said Torry.
“I’m not gay, dude,” Austin said, and I had that sensation in my stomach like after eating too much candy. Too much syrupy sweetness and then the nausea, and wishing you could reverse time and not have bought the candy to begin with.
If Austin had said what he’d said to stick up for me, then why was my stomach in knots?
“You guys,” said Coach, his arms folded over his massive chest as he stood at the entrance to the shower room, standing next to Austin. He must have entered moments earlier.
He looked at me and I felt naked, or actually more naked than naked, as if he could peer into my soul and see the things I didn’t want him to see. I was embarrassed, for all of us, myself included.
If you’re gay, do you have to spend the rest of your life feeling bad every time guys joke around? Can you turn that part of your brain off? And how do you do it?
9
At dinner that evening, my mother entertained my father and me with stories about growing up in Birmingham, Alabama.
As we passed around dishes of broccoli and pot roast, she told us about the time she put a cat into the oven, when she was nine, to see what would happen. My grandfather saved it from the heat after a few minutes, and told her to never, ever put another living thing in the oven.
“And I didn’t,” she said, smiling and passing me the entrée, “until this here pot roast, today.”
We all laughed. My mother’s sense of humor was cheesy, but I loved it anyway.
My father seemed to be in a little better mood this evening. My dad owned his company, Framingham Refrigeration. They dealt in cooling products. The joke was that my father was successful in the field and therefore a “refrigerator magnate.” My mother coined the term one night, and it got us all laughing.
“Refrigeration,” he had corrected, totally ruining the joke.
My dad was usually funny, too, but lately he wasn’t like he used to be. When I was little we’d play tackle football in the living room, him on his knees and me standing up. Then, when I was about eight, we took it outside. We played one-on-one, and he taught me how to throw. And those games were great, and filled with jokes that would be repeated each time we played, like how he would pretend he was John Elway and if I sacked him Elway would be injured, and his replacement would be the Incredible Hulk, meaning suddenly my dad didn’t have to wait until I said “hike” to tackle me. I always knew the game was over when his tackles started getting more WWF and less football. He would tackle me, then pick me up by my feet and spin me around and it felt like I was flying.
Then he became the boss of his own company, I got bigger than him, and we turned into more of a football-watching father and son. But my dad was still pretty cool.
For a guy who sold cold air, anyway.
Driving home after practice, I’d heard my name on the radio on KXIT, the sports talk-radio station here in Orange County. “This Framingham kid, I tell you, he’s a comer,” the radio guy said. “I watched him last week as he led Durango over Huntington Beach, and he’s probably the best high school signal caller in the area. Darned if he isn’t one of the finest QB prospects in the state right now.”
That kind of talk used to make my day. Now it filled me with anxiety, and I wasn’t sure why.
“They talked about me on KXIT today,” I said, dishing pot roast onto my plate.
My dad looked up at me. “What did they say?” he asked, a little of the old fire in his voice. I took a dinner roll and buttered it while I told him their exact words.
He pushed a piece of pot roast on top of his mashed potatoes with a fork. “Did they mention what kind of school might recruit you?”
I rolled my eyes.
“No,” I said. I took a bite of the roll, which was perfect: crunchy on the outside, and hot and sweet and soft inside. I pointed to it and offered my mother a thumbs-up. She curtsied from her chair.
“I wonder if you could wind up quarterbacking at Ohio State.”
I loved my dad, but he really knew how to take praise and make it into something else. It’s like, tell him you’re a hot college prospect, and he’ll say, “Fine, but are you good enough for the best program in the country?”