Man Up

by Kim Oclon

  “This guy I know, his kid is pissed at him because he can’t send him to some fancy school and he has to go to community college instead.” Dad kind of snorted.

  “Who’s this guy?” I asked.

  My dad’s hesitation was noticeable, but he just shrugged. “This guy I was talking to. He’s been out of work for a few years too. He did something with computers and his job became obsolete. I don’t know.” Dad threw up his hands. “But, I can’t even scrounge up a couple thousand bucks for community college.”

  “I haven’t given much thought to community college,” I said, clearly seeing the Sinni envelope with my name written on it stuffed into the stack of brochures, pamphlets, and generic letters.

  “You shouldn’t have to listen to your old man go on and on about this,” Dad snapped. “You have to focus on tonight.”

  “It’s only the first day. Probably a lot of calisthenics and boring drills.” I walked back to the front door to get my backpack. Maybe I would do some homework. “Tomorrow will be more intense.” Plus, Kevin would be there.

  “That works out because I won’t be around to bother you tomorrow.”

  “Because you’re going to the store for Mom?” I gave my dad another chance to tell me about the support group meetings.

  “I’ll do that in the morning some time.”

  “Where are you going in the afternoon?” I tried again.

  “For Christ’s sake. Enough with the questions, David.” He closed his eyes for an extra-long blink and roughly ran his fingers through his dark hair that had some white mixed in at the sides.

  “Sorry,” I said, not feeling the least bit sorry and walked to my room. My dad just got done telling me how I needed to focus on tryouts and the season and he was the one adding to the growing pile of distractions.

  CHAPTER 29

  DAVID

  When I walked into the field house with my equipment bag slung over a shoulder and last year’s cap pulled down over my eyes, a large group was already assembled in the center. All three levels of baseball tried out together even though certain players were already guaranteed a spot on varsity or junior varsity and there was a slim chance of any freshmen being moved up a level. However, this allowed coaches to see if an underclassman had the skill to play up and also gave the freshmen something to aspire to from the very beginning of their baseball careers at Lincoln.

  With the exception of a couple nods of recognition from a couple guys, no one acknowledged me as I dropped my bag at the outer edge of the group and sat down. I felt like it was the first day of tryouts freshman year when the team’s reputation for success and winning seasons was common knowledge and I had hoped I was good enough to make the freshman squad.

  My teammates from the past three years, some longer if you counted Little League, fractioned themselves off into small groups of people that they hung out with and talked to outside of baseball. Even though I had known all of these guys for quite some time, Mike was really the only one I really talked to and hung out with when it wasn’t baseball season. But now, Mike stood with Kurt and Alex, two back up players who sat on the bench a lot last season. Kurt had stood in the back row of team photos ever since freshman year because he was almost six feet tall in eighth grade. Everyone thought he played basketball. He might get some playing time this season since the starting third baseman graduated, but Alex was just a utility player who mainly got to play in doubleheaders.

  Unless you counted the words we indirectly said to one another in the cafeteria last week, which I didn’t, Mike and I hadn’t talked to one another since he sped away in the parking lot. The only time I hadn’t started a baseball season not sitting by Mike was my first year of Little League, before we knew one another. Maybe if I had found the balls to tell Mike before he heard it from Kevin he’d be sitting next to me, assuring me that it was going to be a kick ass season and none of the shit from the past few weeks mattered. He could have done that anyway.

  Coach Kelly and the rest of the coaching staff walked out of the training room as Coach Kelly blew a whistle. “Ten laps around, gents!” He yelled. A few of the upperclassmen groaned at the idea of running. “That’s a whole mile, I know. The same I run each morning when I get to school. Takes me eleven whole minutes. If I can do it and you can’t, you probably should have worked a little bit harder in the off-season.” Coach Kelly scanned the crowd and his eyes settled on me. “From what I understand some have been putting more time in than others. The weight room was a little empty the past few weeks.”

  At the mention of the weight room, Mike quickly looked at me. I was ready for it, catching Mike’s glance like a routine grounder, seeing the ball all the way into my glove before Mike turned away again.

  “Where’s Kevin?” I heard someone whisper loudly.

  “He’s been out of school all week,” was a response.

  “Dude, he’d never miss tryouts, a practice, a game, anything.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t need to be here because of his fancy scholarship.”

  “Nah, even if he didn’t have to play he’d still show up just to show off.”

  “Well, he is part of the reason we went as far as we did last year.”

  “The paper did a whole thing about his private pitching lessons and his curve.”

  I guessed no one knew about Kevin’s fight with Tyler.

  Soon, the entire group of about seventy players jogged around the field house in a loud shuffle. I found myself sandwiched in a group of sophomores as the freshmen led the pack as they did every year, hoping to impress the coaches. “Do they ever move up any sophomores?” A boy in a Tigers cap asked me.

  “Sometimes,” I nodded. “I moved up when I was a sophomore. So did Mike and uh, Kevin.”

  “Cool! That means there’s a chance then.” Another boy smiled at the friends jogging around him. “Maybe all of us will make varsity this year.”

  They continued to excitedly speculate the odds of making it to the next level of their baseball careers but I drowned it out as I thought about Tyler and the countless laps he had run around this very track. And just as I imagined Tyler picking off one more runner in the final lap of his longest race, I saw him standing in the corner of the field house, his nose and cheeks bright pink from an outside workout. A yellow/greenish mark streaked under his eye and a scar over the other was the only evidence of what happened with Kevin. Similar colors circled my eye.

  Tyler saw me as I approached a curve and we held each other’s gaze until I couldn’t see him anymore without turning my head all the way around. Right before he was about to disappear from my view, I could see the smallest of smiles form on Tyler’s face. Something special just for me.

  By the time I made my way back to that corner, Tyler had already left and I felt a little disappointed.

  “Ask him,” said one of the sophomores.

  “You do it,” whispered another.

  I wasn’t in the mood to give the swarm of sophomores a pep talk about their chances of being on varsity as an underclassman so I picked up my pace to break away from them but a couple kept up with me.

  “Hey,” said the one in the Tigers cap, striding along side me and lowering his voice so it was hard to hear him above the noise in the field house. “We, uh, we heard that someone on varsity is…” He looked at his friends, “…gay. Is that true?”

  “Really?” I didn’t break from the rhythm of my steady jog. I knew this was coming. I spotted Mike in the middle of Kurt and Alex, about fifteen yards ahead of me. Alex must have just said something stupid because Mike gave him a shove and Kurt laughed. “Where’d you hear that?” I looked straight ahead, my eyes following the lines that divided the lanes on the track.

  The sophomore kept his voice low. “In the locker room. A couple of the varsity guys were talking about it. They said they don’t want to play with someone who’s…you know.”

  “Really?” I said again, disguising the hurt in my voice but feeling it in every limb of my body.

&n
bsp; “So it’s true?”

  I didn’t know this kid at all. He looked familiar, probably from tryouts last year or from the locker room. “It’s true.”

  “Who is it?” The crew scanned the pack circling the field house, looking for the answer.

  “Me.”

  The sophomores jogging with me stopped, creating a small pile-up on the track. “You?” they all said at once.

  “Uh huh.” I kept going so I didn’t know what their face looked like but I felt their eyes on me. After a second, I heard the group start jogging again at a slower shuffle but I kept my pace from before. I still had three laps to go and needed to be ready to prove to Coach how I was ready and focused on the upcoming season.

  CHAPTER 30

  TYLER

  Waiting to get a ride home from David crossed my mind, but sitting around for two hours seemed like a stupid thing to do. I wanted to tell him that I knew what it was like to wonder if someone knew or if you had to tell them, and then wonder why you even had to tell them in the first place.

  One of my teammates drove me home but I didn’t go inside my house right away. From the look of the dark house, it didn’t seem like my parents were around anyway. I was about to sit on the stoop but opted for the swing instead.

  I put myself into a trance by slowly swaying back and forth and thinking about David and what might be going on at tryouts.

  Coming out was a never-ending process. Something you always had to do. I was out at my old school. And then I came to Lincoln, I had to do it all over again. When I went off to U of I in the fall, it would be the same thing.

  If it mattered so much, it would be nice if it was the norm when introducing yourself to also state your sexual orientation. Like telling someone where you were from.

  “Hey, I’m Tom from Cleveland and I’m straight.”

  “Straight? My brother is straight too.”

  “Hi, everyone. My name is Julie. I’m from Vermont and I’m bisexual.”

  “I’ve always wanted to go to Vermont! Cool.”

  “Tyler. Originally from Chicago and now some town you probably never heard of. Gay.”

  Simple.

  CHAPTER 31

  DAVID

  When Patrick came red-faced and huffing and puffing down the last straightaway, Coach Kelly blew his whistle and unzipped a bag of baseballs. “Warm-up routine!” he yelled. “Partner up, let’s go.”

  Out of habit, I immediately looked for Mike. We had warmed up together before every practice and every game except for the ones freshmen year when I had that nasty blister on my finger and for a week sophomore year when Mike had the flu. Mike went to get a ball but instead of walking towards me, he turned and positioned himself in front of Kurt, who was already waiting for the first throw. Last year, Mike told me he hated turning double plays with Kurt because his throws were always off.

  Keeping my head down, I went to get a ball for myself, trying to come up with a plan before I reached the bag and had a ball in my hand. Throwing with a freshman or one of the assistant coaches would be so embarrassing.

  “I’ll throw with you.”

  I turned to see Patrick standing behind me, still breathing heavily from the run.

  “You got a ball?” he asked, jamming his catcher’s mitt on his hand.

  “Yep,” I responded, watching Patrick shuffle to a spot on the field house floor. When he got to the end of the line of partners, he gave me a small wave with his mitt, indicating that he was ready for a throw. A ridiculous wave of relief passed over my shoulders as I stuffed the ball into the pocket of my glove, and trotted over to Patrick.

  I never had any desire to be a catcher before, but I would have liked to spend more time at Patrick’s side with the pitchers and catchers than huddled in a line with the other infielders when warm ups were over. Two of the JV coaches hit balls to the players who were separated into two lines. I noticed Mike got in the back of the line that I was in and stood a few feet further back.

  One of the coaches hit a grounder between two players and it was scooped up by a freshman who looked at his glove like he was surprised to see the ball in there. I took a couple steps forward, waiting for my turn.

  “Maybe he’s on vacation or something?” It was this junior who would probably be on varsity this year. I forgot his name.

  “Seriously?” That was Kurt. “You think his dad would plan a family vacation during tryouts week?”

  “I’m guessing he got suspended or something,” Mike said in a tone that seemed proud to know something few others did.

  I crouched in the ready position a few feet away from a junior who started the guessing game on where Kevin might be.

  “Suspended?” Kurt laughed. “You think his dad would let that happen? I heard freshmen year he drew a dick on this frog diagram and Scotty got him out of that one on the technicality that it was biology.”

  “That’s fucking hilarious,” Alex laughed too.

  With my body still facing forward, I craned my neck to keep an ear on the conversation but then I heard the sound of a ball connecting with a bat. The ball skipped to my left and I lunged at it, seeing the ball whiz just under my outstretched glove. “Shit,” I muttered under my breath as the ball reached the back wall of the field house, bounced off, and slowly dribbled back towards me. Few things were more embarrassing in baseball than having to chase after a missed ball.

  By the time I returned and rolled the ball toward the bag at the JV coach’s feet, the conversation had switched from speculation over where Kevin was to which Chicago baseball team was going to have the best record this season.

  Swings in the batting cage and at tees followed the fielding drills and the first day of my last tryouts were over. I did well in the batting cage, level swings and solid connections, perhaps thanks to Mike and our time in Grand Slam. Mike managed to get in the group that was on the tees while I was in the cage.

  Most of the guys gathered up their equipment and dragged themselves to the locker room while I headed for the door that would lead me down the hallway into the parking lot. Either I was more out of shape than I thought or the day was tougher than I expected because I was exhausted.

  “David,” Coach Kelly called, “can you wheel the pitching machine to the equipment room for me?”

  I looked around the field house. Everyone was gone except for the other coaches who were gathered around a clipboard, pointing at something and making notes. “Sure.” I dropped my bag and maneuvered the machine so I was able to wheel it like a wheelbarrow. Coach Kelly led the way to the equipment room carrying the bags of balls and bats.

  When he opened the door, a stench that rivaled the weight room’s hit like Kevin’s punch to my face. The door hadn’t been opened too many times from last season and a stale, wet smell hung in the air. Dirty laundry mixed with sand and dirt. I tried to breathe through my mouth as I wrestled the pitching machine into its corner.

  “You seemed distracted today,” Coach Kelly said.

  The memory of the ball just out of reach of my glove replayed in my head. “I had a couple of missteps in the field,” I admitted.

  “This is just tryouts,” Coach Kelly had to walk sideways through the room since it was so small and flooded with equipment. “What about a game?”

  “A game?” In a game that would have been an error.

  “How do I know you’ll be able to keep yourself together come game time?” Coach Kelly asked.

  “Are you saying there’s a chance I might not be on the team this year because I missed one grounder?” I couldn’t keep the shock out of my voice. “Coach, you know I’m always ready come game time.”

  “I thought I knew that.” Coach Kelly gave me a look that softened when he must have seen the distressed look on my face. “Look, David,” he said dropping the balls and bats in an empty space on the floor, “this has nothing to do with…with what you told me earlier. It has to do with me needing to have complete focus on the field and up to bat. During games, during practice
, and during the next couple days. If a player’s head is constantly on something else and that affects his game, then that hurts the team.”

  “I know.” I wondered if Coach Kelly would be having this conversation with me if he didn’t know I was gay. If he would just chalk it up to some unexplained nerves and see how things went the next day.

  “And Kaminski’s going to be back tomorrow. Will you be able to handle that?”

  At the mention of Kevin’s name, my face hardened. “Do you think he’ll be able to handle it?”

  “He’s going to have to,” Coach Kelly said, squeezing past some softball equipment. “He’s our best pitcher and we need his curveball.”

  “I have to too,” I said. “Mankato offered me something but it wasn’t enough.”

  “Really?” Coach Kelly stopped at the door and didn’t open it. “I thought you’d have a solid offer by now.”

  “Me too.” I looked sideways.

  “A full ride is hard to come by,” Coach reminded me. “Even for the most talented players.”

  “Yeah.” He was right but it didn’t make me feel any better.

  Coach threw up his hands. “Well, now you can add that to your list of distractions.”

  “My head is in the game and there’ll be no more flubs in the field,” I told Coach. He had said distraction more in the past couple weeks than he had the past two years.

  “Make sure it stays that way,” Coach Kelly said, the gruff expression returning to his face. “I don’t think that JV kid is ready to be a starter yet.” He let the door slam behind him, leaving me to breathe in stench of years of baseball seasons.

  Because of the unexpected detour into the equipment room, I walked into the parking lot as other players were starting to filter out of the building. A few underclassmen were already seated on the pavement, waiting for their parents to pick them up. The group of sophomores that ran with me was huddled together off to the side of the door.