Man Up

by Kim Oclon

  “You’re here.” Tyler held my stare as we neared one another. His expression didn’t tell me much but the butterflies above his right eye moved as I got closer. Little scabs already started to form under the tiny strips. “What happened to you?”

  “I came to ask you the same thing,” I said, not stepping up on the porch, so Tyler stood a couple feet above me.

  “How’d you find out?” Tyler asked.

  “Kevin told me, sort of,” I said. It took everything not to lay my hand on top of the one Tyler had curled around the porch railing. I settled for gripping the space next to it.

  “Before or after he did that?” Tyler nodded at my face.

  “Before.”

  Tyler just nodded and I felt lost. I didn’t think we would engage in a heavy make out session right there on the porch after everything that happened but Tyler made no move to come closer to me. “You’re pretty mad at me, huh?” I stuffed my hands into the pocket of my sweatshirt.

  “Not for this.” Tyler waved his hand over his face, indicating the bruises and butterflies.

  I looked down and worked at a patch of dirt on the sidewalk with the toe of my shoe. “From before?”

  Tyler just nodded.

  “I was mad at you too,” I said. It looked like Tyler raised an eyebrow but I couldn’t really tell. “But I had all weekend to think about it and I’m not that mad anymore. I understand now…sort of.”

  “Before or after you found out about this?” Tyler, again, waved his hand over his face.

  “Before.”

  “I thought about you all weekend too,” Tyler sighed at the admission but when I was about to smile, he rushed on. “But not like that.” The smile vanished from my face. “You told Will you had no idea what he was talking about when he asked if I was your boyfriend.”

  I couldn’t remember his exact words, but that sounded about right. The look on Tyler’s face, however, I remembered that.

  “Not telling anyone is one thing. You and me having a secret makes everything seem more special in a way. But a flat-out denial that there’s nothing here,” Tyler waved his pointer finger back and forth between him and me, “I wasn’t ready for that. And it sucked. I don’t know exactly how, but lying is different than keeping a secret.” Tyler backed up a couple steps to sit in the porch swing.

  I got that. It was the same feeling I had with Coach Kelly when I was in his office. It would have been simple to tell Coach I wasn’t gay but I couldn’t bring myself to say no. “It felt like I took a line drive to my chest when Will asked me if I was your boyfriend,” I said. “It’s not an excuse, I know.” Tyler nodded in agreement as I took a tentative step on to the porch. “And Ms. Larson had just talked to me…it wasn’t a good time.”

  “I didn’t tell her,” Tyler evenly said.

  “I believe you.”

  “Good.”

  “You have no idea who did?” I asked.

  Tyler shook his head.

  I leaned against the porch railing, hands in my sweatshirt pocket, trying to gauge if there was enough room for me on either side of Tyler. “I’ll never deny it again,” I said, believing it. “I don’t want to. Plus, Mike knows and Patrick.”

  “Mike?”

  This was why I was here. Not only did I need to know that Tyler was okay, but I needed him to know what had happened today. “Kevin and I got into it in the weight room. They were there.” I shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal but I could still hear Mike squealing out of the parking lot.

  “How’d that go?” When Tyler turned to face me, he moved over the tiniest bit.

  I just shrugged again and grabbed on to the chain of the swing, sort of hanging on it.

  “I’m sorry about that, really. But now you have a good idea how I felt.” He moved another inch over.

  “I didn’t know what to expect when I came over or if you’d even be here.” I released the chain and slid into the empty space on the swing, relieved that Tyler didn’t jump off or tell me to get off. “I seriously thought you were on life support or something.”

  “I think the goal was to scare, not to kill.”

  “Are you scared?” I put my hand on Tyler’s knee, waiting and hoping.

  “More mad that it happened. I didn’t go to school not because I couldn’t but because I didn’t want to talk to anybody. I didn’t want them to ask me any questions.”

  “I get that,” I said.

  “But, I’m glad you’re here.” Tyler lifted his hand off his knee and placed it on top of mine. I let it sit there for a second, feeling the weight of his hand on mine, before turning my hand over to embrace Tyler’s.

  By the time I got home, my mom was on her way out the door to do another second shift at the nursing home. Today was my dad’s last day remodeling that basement. I knew he already had gotten the last check from that job, and he had no idea where the next one was going to come from.

  “Dad and Robert started without you,” Mom said, holding her coat in one arm and slinging her purse over a shoulder. “Grab a plate before there’s not any left.” As she was about to leave, Mom looked at me and stopped, with one foot out the door. “My god, David, what happened?”

  My hand went to my face. Since leaving Tyler’s, I’d actually forgotten about the red and purple circles around my eye. It didn’t even hurt that much. “It was an accident in the weight room.”

  “What type of accident?” Mom pulled her foot back in the house, causing the screen door to slam shut. “It looks like someone punched you in the face.”

  A chair scraped the kitchen floor and Dad’s heavy footsteps quickly approached. “Who punched you in the face?” he demanded.

  “Mike was doing this lift in the weight room,” I quickly said, sticking to my story from before. “My face got in the way. It’s fine, seriously.”

  Dad stood inches away from me, looking over my face, which felt weird. I had to turn away. “Your mom’s right. That doesn’t look like something that would happen in a weight room.”

  “Well, it did.” I laughed to myself. That, technically, wasn’t a lie.

  “Are you going to open this or what?” Robert came into the entryway with a bursting manila envelope.

  My parents’ attention shifted form my eye to the envelope’s contents. An excited smile crossed my mom’s face. “Yeah, hurry up and open that before I leave.”

  I remembered sitting in my car on Tyler’s street, thinking about the promise the day held if I continued to sit there. With a glance at Mom and Dad, I grabbed the envelope from Robert’s outstretched hand and tore it open before I could give it another thought. I held a stack of papers in my hand and read the top one aloud. “David, we are pleased to inform you that there is a spot reserved for you on the Minnesota State University-Mankato baseball roster. Welcome to the home of the Mavericks.” I looked up at his parents and Robert, knowing I had a ridiculous smile on his face, but they had the same ones on too.

  I went back to the letter. “Along with the spot, we’d like to offer you a scholarship that would cover…” I felt the smile disintegrate along with the bounce that had crept into my voice.

  Shit.

  My mom’s face still held part of the smile. “What? What are they offering you?”

  “A partial scholarship.” I straightened the packet of paper and worked on stuffing it back in the envelope. “It covers most of the tuition and nothing for room and board.”

  “What’s that?” Robert asked.

  “A dorm room and food,” Mom said.

  “Well, how much could that cost?” Robert shrugged.

  I tried to reseal the envelope with the adhesive left on the flap. “About ten thousand dollars a year. Maybe more.”

  “Ten thousand,” Robert said.

  After a few moments of loud silence, an overly cheerful smile popped onto my mom’s face. “It’s good news, though, right?”

  I just nodded. It wasn’t terrible news. Just not the right news.

  “They think you’re a r
eally good baseball player. They want you to play for them.” Mom ticked her sentences off on her fingers. “They’re offering you something.”

  “But it’s not enough,” Dad said into his shoulder.

  “But it’s something. And if one school can offer you this, then maybe another will offer you this and more. You’re still waiting to hear from Clearwater, right?” The cheerful smile was getting on my nerves.

  “Whitewater,” I corrected. “But they’re D-3. They don’t give athletic scholarships.”

  “Don’t go throwing that away just yet,” she said, motioning to the envelope. “We might be able to work something out.”

  “Like what?” Dad flatly said to her. “You got a bank account somewhere that I don’t know about? A loan officer who’s gonna think we have a decent credit score? Did your job just increase your pay by about two hundred percent?”

  Robert gave me a look that said Uh oh. It had been a while since Dad had gone on a tirade about work.

  “Greg, stop it,” she forcefully whispered as if Robert and I wouldn’t be able to hear her. “We’ll talk about this later.”

  Dad shrugged and ambled back to his place at the kitchen table. “There’s not much to talk about.” He plopped into a chair and served himself way too much rice before hunching over his plate.

  Mom turned to me. “We’ll talk about this later.” She squeezed my arm. “Congratulations.”

  After Mom slipped out the door, Robert and I walked to the kitchen and slid into our chairs. Dad didn’t look up as he continued to eat, chewing and swallowing so quickly that his plate was almost empty. I moved my food around feeling wiped out from the days of ups and downs.

  “Maybe you could do some extra umping this summer,” Robert said. “Or you could call games for my league. I bet they pay more than the stupid park district.”

  “That’s an idea, Rob,” I said just to make him feel better. Dad was being irritable enough for everybody, otherwise I would have said something about the stupid Rebels and all their awesomeness.

  Dad pushed his chair back. “There’s nothing wrong with the stupid park district,” he said, disappearing down the hallway and closing the door to his bedroom.

  CHAPTER 23

  DAVID

  The next morning, the schedule for spring sports tryouts was announced in the middle of the something about club fundraisers and other school activities. Baseball started on Monday. Five thirty. Softball got the early timeslot the first week and baseball would get it the next. Even though the date had been common knowledge among all the returning players for quite some time now, hearing it on the morning announcements made it seem more real.

  I hadn’t seen anyone from the team since Mike sped out of the parking lot. Actually, I did see Patrick when I got to school today but when we made eye contact he had ducked his head and sidestepped into the nearest bathroom, almost running into the wall. Patrick and I wouldn’t have been considered great friends but we had been teammates as freshmen and then last year when Patrick was moved up to varsity. He rode the bench most of the season because the starting catcher was a senior.

  Patrick was pretty funny and usually entertained everyone by drinking odd combinations of pop mixed with the spices and condiments on the table when we all went out for pizza after double headers. He almost threw up last year after drinking orange pop, iced tea, parmesan cheese, and ketchup. While he didn’t exactly declare his support for me and march around the weight room waving a pride flag, Patrick didn’t tell me to fuck off either. Which is pretty much what my best friend told me to do.

  I ate my turkey sandwich on the way to the library, not because I had another paper to type up but because when I went to the cafeteria to see if Mike was at our usual table, he was sitting at a table with some of Carrie’s friends and their boyfriends. He always said he didn’t really like some of Carrie’s friends because he thought they acted dumb and he just didn’t get that. I guess he didn’t find it all that annoying today.

  Maybe it was too many movies and TV shows, but at some point during the day, I expected to see security guards drag Kevin down the hallway as he tried to free himself from their grasp and run away. Tyler decided to stay at home for another day and his parents didn’t argue, but they did take him to Lincoln that morning so he could tell the dean, Mr. Landry, what Kevin did to him. All through my psychology teacher’s lecture on various brain disorders, I imagined Tyler sitting in one of those damn plastic orange chairs, his parents on either side of him sitting in their own plastic chairs. I had only been in the dean’s office once. It was sophomore year when a huge fight erupted in the locker room after PE and the dean wanted to get an account from every witness. Mr. Landry had taken careful notes during my brief deposition, and I knew he was doing the same while Tyler told his story.

  Kevin was going to get suspended for at least a few days. He had to. And that suspension would definitely bleed into tryouts. Even though there was no debating that his son was at fault and responsible for Tyler’s injuries, Scott Kaminski would still throw a fit about Kevin missing a day or two, if not more. But even without Kevin’s dad buzzing in Coach’s ear, I knew Coach Kelly would have a hard time cutting Kevin for missing part or even all of tryouts. His curve was that good and his change-up was expected to be lethal this year. That outweighs gay bashing and being a douchebag.

  Even if the weight room were open today, I would have opted to skip it. It had nothing to do with Mike, Patrick, or anything baseball related. These free afternoons wouldn’t be around next week with baseball and outdoor track starting. Even if the fight with Kevin never happened, and Tyler was at school today, I still would have skipped the workout to head over to Tyler’s house. The few days left before spring sports officially started reminded me that in the fall Tyler would be starting classes at U of I and I would be…somewhere, but not in Champaign-Urbana. And not Mankato.

  I stopped at my house first with every intention of running in and out so quickly that the screen door wouldn’t even shut by the time I rushed back out, but my mom rushed up to me as soon as I walked in.

  “Would you be able to pick up Robert from practice today?” She asked. “I’m going to do another shift tonight and can’t go get him.”

  “I’m going over to Tyler’s. Can’t Dad do it?” I didn’t like reminding my mom that Dad wasn’t working at the moment and had all this free time, but if he was around then it made sense for him to get Robert.

  “If he were home, I’m sure he would,” Mom said, picking up her purse.

  “Is he working on something?” I asked.

  “Kind of.” She looked away.

  “Did a new job start up?” I never played Twenty Questions with my mom, usually because she never gave me a reason to.

  “No, he went to a meeting.” Mom busied herself by digging in her purse even though it looked like she was just moving things around.

  “Where?”

  “A meeting,” Mom said again.

  “Dad doesn’t go to ‘meetings’” I replied. “Even when he was working he never went to ‘meetings.’ What’s going on?”

  Mom stopped fidgeting in her purse and held her hair in a ponytail. “You can’t tell him I told you. He’s embarrassed for some reason and doesn’t want you or Robert to know.”

  My stomach did a flip. “What’s wrong with him? Is he okay?”

  She must have sensed my worry because Mom walked over to me and put a hand on both my shoulders, looking at me squarely. “He’s unemployed and has been for over three years.”

  “So he’s at job interview or something?”

  “No, he’s at a support group for people who have been unemployed for an extended period of time.” Mom gave my shoulders a little squeeze before letting them go.

  “Is this about yesterday and Mankato?” I needed to ask because I felt terrible that Dad felt terrible about the partial scholarship.

  Mom shook her head. “This is his third time going. Although, I know he doesn’t like that
he can’t help you out. We can’t help you out.” Her eyes were sad. “I’m so sorry, David.”

  I shrugged, not because I didn’t care. I did. Plenty of my classmates were getting full rides to school courtesy of Mom and Dad. Even though I knew Mike was going to get a baseball scholarship to one of his choice schools, it wasn’t like he needed it. This girl in my psychology class complained that her parents were making her pay for her own books. I would have gladly paid for my books and her books if it meant I didn’t need to worry about any other costs.

  “Your dad feels like he can’t provide for us the we way he’s supposed to. Like he’s letting us down.” Mom released her hair and tucked it behind her ears. “These meetings help him see that other people are in the same boat as him.”

  “That sounds like a good thing,” I said. “Well, maybe not a good thing, but you know what I mean.” I opened the pantry door and looked for something to eat.

  “If he feels like he needs to go someplace for some extra support or help and talk to people who can fully understand what he’s going through, I told him there’s no shame in that.” She glanced at the clock and went to the closet to get a Lincoln High School jacket that I outgrew my sophomore year. “I’m glad he finally decided to go. He had been talking about it for over six months, but just started.”

  “Thanks for telling me,” I said.

  “I guess he can listen to me say, ‘There’s nothing wrong with you’ and ‘Something will come along’ only so many times.” Mom shrugged on the coat and fastened the three middle snaps. The sleeves were too long and she had to push the cuffs up her forearms to keep them from covering her hands.

  “So will you get Robert in an hour and a half? I have to get going. I said I’d be there by 4:00.”

  “Yeah,” I said, not really listening, although I knew I committed to picking up my little brother. “I’m just going to Tyler’s first.”

  A few moments after she left, I watched the van back out of the driveway, narrowly missing my brown beastly car, and disappear down the street. Mom wouldn’t be home until close to midnight. She hadn’t pulled a double shift like this in a while.