by Kim Oclon
As I tried to clear my nose of the equipment room stink, I saw Patrick unlocking the door to his car. It was small and looked even smaller next to mine, which was a couple spaces down. “Hey, Patrick,” I called, picking up my pace from a drag to an actual walk.
“Hey,” Patrick responded with a small nod of his head.
I wasn’t sure what to say next. It seemed stupid to thank him for warming up with me and desperate to ask him to be my warm-up partner again tomorrow. “Good job today,” I finally said. “See you tomorrow.”
“Yep, see you tomorrow,” Patrick said, sitting down in the car and closing the door.
CHAPTER 32
DAVID
I leaned back against the locker next to Tyler’s, hoping that the owner had already stopped by earlier in the morning so I wouldn’t have to move. He looked really cute from this angle and I couldn’t see any evidence of what happened with Kevin, who was back at school today.
“Want to walk me to English?” Tyler asked, closing his locker and standing up.
“Sure,” I said.
We weaved our way through the stream of students clogging the hallway. “Coach is going to have me be the anchor in the 3200 this year,” Tyler said.
“Is that a good thing?” I asked. “Doesn’t an anchor weigh something down?”
“I never thought about it like that,” Tyler said. “But in a relay race, the anchor is usually the best runner.”
“Nice,” I said as we had to separate for a second to let a herd of freshmen go by. They always walked in clumps.
When we were halfway up a flight of stairs, Mike came barreling down and almost ran right into us. He had a piece of paper in his hand and I noticed the logo from the University of Kansas in the corner. The excited look on Mike’s face vanished as he looked from me to Tyler and back again. “I gotta talk to Coach,” Mike said to the stairs below him before sidestepping and rushing off.
“So, he’s obviously come around,” Tyler said as we started up the stairs again.
“Not quite.” I stiffly said. I turned back and saw Mike’s practically empty book bag bouncing against his back. “He can’t even share the good news with me?”
“Good news?” Tyler raised an eyebrow.
“He got a scholarship to Kansas. I know it. The paper in his hand was a letter from the school.” I worked out a scuff mark on the speckled tile floor with the toe of my worn out sneaker. I was upset that Mike didn’t tell me about Kansas and jealous that he even had news to share.
“Very observant,” Tyler said. “You’re like someone on one of those detective shows.” The warning bell rang, telling me I had a minute to get to Psychology. “There’s still time for you to get something.” I hated the look on Tyler’s face, like he felt sorry for me.
I shrugged again. “I already did get something.”
“What?” Tyler asked. “That’s awesome. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It’s just some stupid letter from some guy in the athletic department at Sinni,” I said, embarrassed that my news was so lame in comparison to Mike’s. Two of the sophomores from yesterday hurried by and looked away when they saw me.
Shit. Everything about me sucked.
“That doesn’t sound like a ‘stupid’ letter,” Tyler said. “You have to tell me more about it later. See you in Art.” He walked toward a classroom. “A whole period about Michelangelo’s David. Not my favorite David, but should be interesting, right?” He raised his eyebrows at me.
I couldn’t help but smile. “It sounds very…interesting.” At least Tyler still didn’t think I sucked.
Keeping a steady powerwalk pace, I knew I could make it to Psychology in about twenty-five seconds, all I had to do was avoid the couples strolling side by side, taking up almost the whole side of the hallway.
When I pulled back into the parking lot that evening, I saw two large, similar SUV’s occupying the two spots nearest to the entrance. One was beginning to rust along the bottom while the other looked like it was just detailed or driven right out of a showroom. I sat in my car, staring at the SUV’s. While I had given too much thought to Kevin being at tryouts today, I never thought of his dad. I didn’t see Kevin at school today but that didn’t mean much since I usually didn’t see him during the day.
A knock on the window jolted me. I still had my seatbelt on so my arms flailed but the rest of me stayed locked in place. Outside, Tyler waved, flashed me a smile, and then hurried off to catch up with his teammates. I waved back even though Tyler was long gone.
In the field house, it was a similar scene to the day before. Players gathered in their usual groups and Mike with his new best friends, Kurt and Alex. Before now, he never even sat with them when everyone went out after doubleheaders. I spotted Patrick walking in from the locker room, dragging his bag of catching equipment behind him.
The only difference today was that Coach Kelly looked over some notes on a clipboard with Kevin’s dad peering over his shoulder. And then there was Kevin standing a few feet off to the side, his arms folded like he was a little kid who just got yelled at for something.
I sat off to the side of Patrick, keeping an eye on Kevin, his dad, and Coach Kelly.
“Scott, come on,” Coach Kelly looked up from his clipboard. “I’ve told you before that spectators are definitely welcome at games. But practices are for players and coaches only. The same applies to tryouts.”
Kevin’s dad maneuvered himself so he was standing squarely in front of Coach Kelly. In his khaki pants and striped polo shirt, he looked like he was about to spend an afternoon playing golf. “You told me you were going to take care of this.” His raised voice shushed several of the conversations circulating around me. I suddenly felt like I needed to retie the laces hanging off my glove.
Coach Kelly lowered his clipboard and clicked his pen before putting it in the pocket of his workout pants. “And I have.”
Loud whispers replaced the discussions about baseball, school stuff, and weekend plans. “What’s he talking about?” I heard someone whisper.
“What’s going on?” whispered someone else.
“It doesn’t look like it,” Scott Kaminski retorted, glaring at me.
Even though my head was down, I raised my eyes and looked at Kevin’s dad. He looked less intimidating without his sunglasses on. A couple of the players around me must have thought they were the intended targets of the glare because they self-consciously looked around and nervously laughed.
“Look,” Coach Kelly said. “If you’d like to, we can step into the training room for a minute and have a conversation. And we can also talk about how your son is lucky he’s not going to be penalized for missing tryouts yesterday.” At the mention of his name, Kevin huffed and turned his head so his chin was almost touching his shoulder.
Coach Kelly nodded at the JV and freshman coaches next to him. “Start ‘em up in three minutes. Stragglers run extra.”
“Fine,” Scott Kaminski answered, breaking his glare only for a moment to give Kevin a stern eye. As he led the way to the training room and walked past me, he said, “I don’t care how good you think he is. The baseball diamond and the locker room is no place for a fag.”
“We’re talking in here, Scott,” Coach Kelly said pointing to the training room.
I sucked in a breath as if punched in the gut. My whole body tingled from the imaginary effects as the whispers swirled around me.
“Did he say ‘fag?’”
“For real?”
“Who is it?”
Several heads looked around the herd of players as if they would be able to spot the person when they saw him. Kurt and Alex joined in the search, ignoring Mike’s list of Kansas’s accomplishment over the last few seasons.
Patrick sat with his arms resting on his knees, his head cocked in my direction. “Jeez, what’s up his ass?” He raised his eyebrows at Kevin’s dad and Coach Kelly who were just entering the training room.
I tried to give Patrick a smile of thank
s but was too distracted by the four sophomores I jogged with yesterday who were whispering to the people around them. I couldn’t make out what they were saying. My shoulders were so tense I couldn’t move them.
Kevin sauntered to the part of the group that was as far as possible from me. He started talking to two other starting pitchers.
“Hey, did you hear…” I heard one of them say.
I didn’t need a crystal ball to tell me what was about to happen.
“Fuck no, man. I’m no homo,” Kevin blurted out for all to hear. The buzzing of everyone talking stopped as Kevin pushed one of the other pitchers in the shoulder. He caught his balance in a step or two and laughed.
“Watch your language, Kaminski,” the JV coach flatly said over his shoulder.
“Yeah, watch your language Kammie,” someone in Kevin’s group imitated the coach.
Everything seemed to happen very slowly. Necks turned in Kevin’s direction. So many eyebrows raised. As Kevin turned, he raised an arm and extended his pointer finger. He opened his mouth.
Not again. This wasn’t going to happen again. “It’s me.” Two words. Five letters. I let out a breath.
But then, also in slow motion, the necks swiveled to the other side of the group and stopped when they got to me. Except for Mike, who looked at the floor and the four sophomores from yesterday.
“Whoa,” I heard Patrick whisper to himself.
“You?” Kurt looked at me like I hadn’t showered in a month. “Seriously?”
“Gay?” someone whispered. “Like guy on guy?”
“Like butt sex,” someone replied in a whisper.
“Yeah,” Kevin said, jutting his pointer finger in my direction. “He’s the fag, right there.”
“That’s enough, Kaminski!” the JV coach yelled.
My breath quickened and came in short bursts. I couldn’t do anything to slow it down. With the exception of Mike and Patrick, every eye in the field house was on me, including the JV and freshman coaches. I couldn’t see them, but I could feel them.
More whispers. They sounded so loud.
“Did you know?” Kurt asked him.
“I, uh,” Mike stammered.
“Since last week,” Kevin answered for Mike. “It kind of came out in the weight room.”
“Oh,” Kurt said, looking sideways.
I couldn’t have said anything even if I could think of something because of this crazy breathing. My whole upper body moved with each inhale and exhale. I couldn’t barely move my neck so I was stuck looking at the small bumps in the field house floor I had never noticed before.
“Hey, man,” I heard Patrick say. “Are you okay?”
A loud and long whistle pried all the eyes away from me and somehow also snapped me out of my weird trance. “Ten laps, gentlemen!” The JV coach clapped. “Let’s go.”
When no one moved, the freshmen coach blew three short whistles. “Let’s go!”
Everyone snapped to attention and hurried on to the track. Patrick nudged me. “Come on,” he said. I straightened my elbows and knees, feeling like they had been stuck in a cast for the past two months. With the two coaches staring at me, I shuffled past them.
My goal was to not get lapped. I managed to plod along and if I kept this pace I wouldn’t have to talk to anyone for the next ten minutes.
What the fuck just happened?
It wasn’t the way I would have planned it. Harder than telling Allie in the library but strangely easier than telling my dad last summer.
I heard people say they thought the world looked different and they looked different after having sex for the first time. As my feet slapped against the track, I wondered if the same happened after coming out. Like all the way out. I didn’t think I looked different, but I definitely felt different. Like my fly was open and everyone was looking at my junk.
At least no one ran out of the field house. No one called for me to clean out my locker right then and there and supported Kevin’s no-fag clause.
As I rounded the curve, about to finish my second lap, a bang caused me to almost trip over my feet. I looked ahead and saw Kevin’s dad stomp out of the training room and swing his arm out so the door bouncing against the wall wouldn’t hit him. Coach Kelly followed behind him, catching the door before it slammed into him. He calmly walked over to the other coaches while Kevin’s dad continued on a path that would lead him out of the field house. That door opened, letting in a stream of track team members. He appeared not to notice since he didn’t break his stride and plowed right through them.
CHAPTER 33
TYLER
Some tall guy in khaki pants shoved his way through everyone and almost ran right into me. I managed to slide right by him and into the field house. He could have been a coach but I’d never seen him before and he was stomping around like he just got kicked out of class. He even muttered something about something being a bunch of bullshit.
A few guys glanced at one another with confused smiles and laughed at the guy’s tirade. I joined in but the smile left my face as soon as I saw David coming around the curve and jogging towards me.
He didn’t appear to be physically injured. No blood or anything. But his face looked pained. Like each step hurt even though there wasn’t a trace of a limp. I tried to send him a telepathic message. Please look at me. And he did just that as he labored by me and started his next lap.
As more baseball players passed by, I walked to the other side of the curve, trying to keep an eye on David. Mike passed by, running in between two guys in an exaggerated slow motion like it was the end of a race in a movie.
And then there was Kevin a few paces behind him. The icy feeling from the last time I saw him filled my chest and I was embarrassed by the jerk in my legs that told me to go to the locker room. But I stood my ground, needing to see David as he made his way around again.
He was on the straightaway, coming towards me. His stride choppy and his arms close to his chest. If I focused all my attention on him, he would know that whatever happened, I was here for him. He had come so far in the last couple weeks. So much further than he had in the past six months.
I wanted to jump on to the track and run alongside him.
CHAPTER 34
DAVID
I must have looked like shit because Tyler gave me the look I saw on TV shows, where someone is dying in a hospital. When I saw he was still in the field house, waiting for me to complete another lap, I did my best to shake the stiff feeling from my legs and relax my arms so they were easier to swing at my sides.
I wished I had time to plan for this. To prepare for it. But how? Like a speech for class and print out articles about the gay NFL player or about the major league players who said baseball was ready for an out and proud teammate? Maybe the major leagues were, but I wasn’t so sure about Lincoln High School.
As everyone finished their laps and some dropped to the floor in exaggerated exhaustion, I felt my plod slow to a trudge as I approached the final straightaway, so much so that Patrick managed to catch up with me. I sat down in the exact spot I was in just ten minutes ago. Tyler still stood off to the side of the track but after a few seconds, he turned and went to the locker room. Of course I understood that he had to go but I felt safer, less exposed with him there.
Coach Kelly stood in front of the group for a moment. He inhaled like he was about to say something but didn’t. He quickly glanced at me and then looked back out over the group. Again, he opened his mouth and after standing there with his mouth open for a moment, he said, “Let’s warm up, gentlemen.”
“Hey,” a small freshman called to another. “I’ll be your partner.” He glanced at me and looked around as if searching for a place to hide. “Not like that. I mean with the balls.” He shook his head. “One ball. A baseball.”
“I get it,” I said to him. “You’re going to warm up.”
“Yeah,” he said, looking even smaller.
“I’ll grab a ball?” I said to Patrick. Phras
ing it as a question left room for him to back out.
Patrick nodded. “Sounds good,” he responded and slowly backpedaled a few paces to an open area.
Knowing I still had a warm up partner actually relaxed some of the tension in my shoulders. I used that feeling to propel me forward, keeping my eyes on the bag and the ball resting right on top. There was nothing special about this ball but the slight scuff mark on the top gave me something to focus on.
“Dude, get your hands off the balls,” Kevin sneered from behind me.
My hand froze on the scuffed ball but I quickly gripped it. “I just need this one,” I evenly said.
All through tryouts, I felt the stares. Apparently this was how it worked. At least this was how it worked when you’re part of the baseball team at Lincoln High School. When I was in eighth grade, this girl had cancer and when she came to school with her bald head, I couldn’t help staring. She had sat in her desk, looking down and didn’t move for the entire class. I wanted to find her and say I was sorry.
I felt eyeballs burrow into my shoulder blades during fielding drills where the JV coach stood at home plate, barking out situations. When we broke up into several smaller ones to do timed base running, the staring continued as I rounded first and headed for second. The feeling made me run faster. The sooner I crossed home plate, the sooner I could disappear at the back of the line. Looking up, I saw Coach Kelly glance at his stopwatch. This was going to be my fastest time ever.
I kept my eyes on the plate as I rounded third. Only ninety more feet to go. My brain must have been moving faster than my legs because my left foot somehow kicked my right calf and I knew what was going to happen even before my arms outstretched, bracing for the fall. Through my sweats, the field house floor burned my knee as it skidded on it. I rolled a few feet, landing in a tangled heap in front of everyone. My knee burned. My elbow tingled.
I got up as quickly as I could, ignoring how my sweats were stuck to my knee.
