Man Up

by Kim Oclon

  I actually raised an eyebrow when I read the short message. Seriously? Sinni?

  On one hand, I was grateful that Coach was still rooting for me but on the other hand, I didn’t want to recognize that my college plans had been reduced to Sinni. The stress of not having any concrete plans was always present but I hadn’t given it much thought the past few days with everything that was going on.

  After dropping the envelope back into my bag, I started aimlessly searching for things. Baseball scholarships to real schools. How to pay for college. Salary for minor league baseball players. I didn’t even look at the results, just typing in words and hitting “enter,” feeling helpless and annoyed. Then I looked around the library as if concerned someone might be over my shoulder, monitoring my searches and typed in “College of Northeast Illinois.”

  I quickly navigated my way through the website and found the page for the baseball team. There was Coach Rowen’s picture in the top corner. Square face with an equally square jaw and buzzed brown hair. But he was actually smiling in the photo, so much so that it showed the wrinkles at the corner of his eyes. In the team photo, the players looked happy to be playing there, a couple grins were sprinkled among the stereotypical stare downs at the camera. The uniforms were blue and black with brand new hats that had perfectly shaped beaks. Photos featured all the typical shots of players diving and sliding, the same I’d seen on every other college site he’d visited.

  I wasn’t sure why I’d expected something else, like the team would be playing some sort of stickball in the parking lot while wearing the grass stained gray pants each player borrowed from the park district during my Little League days. This looked like a real team. I recognized a player from Lincoln who tore his ACL halfway through the season a couple years ago.

  “Doing some window shopping?”

  I turned to the chair next to me and saw Allie plop down in it. She had decided to forego the button-down shirt and just sported a Beatles T-shirt with her traditional skinny jeans. Aside from a couple waves in the halls, I hadn’t really talked to her in a while.

  “Some of those guys are pretty cute,” she said, raising her eyebrows. “Not that I’m an expert or anything.”

  I quickly collapsed the window and tried to gauge if Allie saw anything on the screen besides the “cute guys.” The various photos and stats for the players hopefully drowned out the CNEI banner across the top of the page. “Do you ever go to class or do you just live in the library?”

  “I am doing research for my sociology class.” Allie faced her computer with her fingers poised over the keyboard. “We’re studying deviant behavior and breaking society’s norms.”

  “Okay, so you have one class,” I said.

  “Thinking of going to Sinni?” Allie nodded towards my computer, which now displayed the Lincoln High School coat of arms.

  “No,” I quickly said. “Maybe.”

  “So, what are you doing next year?”

  “I’m not sure yet.” I clicked the icons on the desktop, making them bigger and smaller, darker and lighter. “I had a couple of ideas, but they fell through.”

  “That sucks.”

  I shrugged. “What about you?”

  “Both of my parents went to U of I,” Allie explained. “So, I’m going to UIC.”

  “Cool,” I said.

  “So, how’s it going since the last time I saw you here?” Allie asked, typing while still looking at me.

  “You didn’t see the story on the news last night?” I asked in an exaggerated shocked tone.

  “No,” Allie turned to me like I was a girl with some hot gossip. “What’d I miss?”

  “My best friend won’t talk to me. My boyfriend got beat up. And I told everyone at tryouts yesterday that I’m gay.” I spilled everything to Allie, unsure how she had that effect on me.

  “Wow, that’s a lot. Are you okay?”

  I shrugged a shoulder. “Better than I thought.”

  “Is your boyfriend okay?” Allie stopped typing.

  “He’s a lot tougher than me.” I liked how it felt to talk about Tyler with someone at school.

  “You’re kind of tough,” Allie assured me. “Does baseball have the late time slot again?”

  I nodded. “Probably for the next week and then we’ll switch with softball until it gets warm enough to go outside.”

  “We’re having a speaker at our meeting tomorrow. Some guy who founded a hotline for kids. He didn’t come out until he was in his fifties.” Allie went back to typing. “You can come if you want.”

  “Interesting but I’ll pass, thanks though.”

  “Your turn, Allie.” A girl with super straight, long black hair who had a glittery scarf knotted around her neck tapped Allie’s shoulder.

  “Thanks,” Allie said as the girl sat down at a nearby computer. “Conference time with the teacher. Gotta tell him my idea about cannibalism for this project.” She grabbed her notebook and stood up. “And seriously, some of those guys are really cute. Imagine being cuddled up next to one of them during those cold early spring games.”

  “I have a boyfriend,” I reminded her.

  “It’s okay to look.” She laughed as she walked toward a man in a sweater vest.

  I rolled my eyes at Allie’s back, wishing I somehow would have met her sooner. When I saw that she was seated at the table with her teacher, I clicked on the Sinni baseball site that I had collapsed. Allie was right, some of the guys were kind of cute, but I was pretty sure none of them would have a puffball bobbling off their hat during the first practices of the season. Doing another scan of the library to make sure no one was looking at me, I scrolled through the players’ biographies and noticed that the current second baseman went to the school that Lincoln beat last year in order to advance to the playoffs.

  CHAPTER 36

  TYLER

  The series of equations and element symbols blurred together. I had done two of nine questions and my teacher was going to go over them soon. She sat at a laptop behind her desk, oblivious to the whispers going on in front of her.

  I wasn’t whispering or doing much of anything for that matter. David was out, for real this time. It was what I had been hoping for ever since we got together. While that didn’t mean we were going to make out in front of my locker, at least people would know that was why another senior was hanging out in the sophomore hallway.

  “Did you hear what happened at baseball yesterday?”

  I stopped scribbling in the corner of my paper and cocked my head in the direction of the whisper that came from a seat off to the side of me. It was Tara talking to Corey. I didn’t know them very well even though we’d had a few classes together. Tara played volleyball and Corey wrestled. That was about all I knew.

  “What? About David Lukas?” Corey moved his arms to the edge of his desk.

  “Yeah,” Tara whispered. “My friend’s boyfriend is on the team and she said that he stood up and announced to everyone that he’s gay.”

  “Seriously?” Corey whispered back. “He just stood up and did it?”

  “Uh huh.” Tara nodded as if confirming important information.

  I started scribbling again in case my teacher decided to look up and check if everyone was working, keeping an ear on the hushed conversation next to me.

  “And then when they were running, someone came up and tripped David and he fell all weird,” Tara went on. “Everyone started yelling stuff at him while he just rolled around in pain.”

  My eyes rolled.

  “He got hurt?” Corey narrowed his eyes. “Really?”

  “It was probably a hate crime or something like that,” Tara said.

  This was getting ridiculous. With my teacher still engrossed in whatever was on her computer screen, I leaned over and whispered to Tara and Corey. “That’s not what happened. At all.”

  Corey and Tara looked at each other, as if surprised they were overheard. “How do you know?” Corey asked.

  “Because I talked to him
last night and I know that’s not what happened,” I evenly said.

  “Well what did?” Tara asked like she didn’t believe me.

  “He just fell, that’s all.”

  “What about the shit they said to him?” Corey leaned toward me.

  “People always say shit,” I said.

  Tara and Corey leaned toward each other, talking in quieter whispers than before, occasionally looking in my direction. Apparently they moved on to a different subject because I heard Tara say something about prom.

  I hadn’t thought about prom and possibly going with David since our fight in the hallway. Maybe it could really happen. Maybe it didn’t have to just be a fantasy.

  I’d never seen him in anything except jeans or workout clothes. He would probably looked really hot in a tux, if he agreed to wear one. Maybe they had tuxes with the White Sox logo on the bowtie and vest. I would be okay with that.

  He probably didn’t dance. We could just hang out by ourselves, like we usually did. Only this time we could hang out by ourselves in a room full of other people.

  CHAPTER 37

  DAVID

  Both the van and my dad’s pickup truck were in the driveway when I got home after school. I hoped my mom would be rushing out to do another second shift and that maybe Dad had something to do that would get him out of the house until practice. I even waited in the car for a few minutes, giving them time to fly out of the house and into their cars, but the front door remained shut.

  I knew Mom would be thrilled about the news about Sinni while Dad would probably grunt because he couldn’t provide something better for his son. I hadn’t talked to my parents very much in the past few days mainly due to my mom’s busy schedule and my dad being in a bad mood. I did see Mom this morning before going to school and she asked me with a cautious smile how tryouts went and I just nodded and said, “Fine.” They were over and I was on the team.

  When I finally did go into the house, Robert stood at the sink, halfway through a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Of course, my whole family would be home today.

  Robert licked some jelly off the back of his hand and then wiped it on his T-shirt. “What’s that all about?” He nodded toward the kitchen table.

  In the center of the table, probably perfectly placed there by my mom, was a large, flat envelope from Sinni. My name and address were handwritten and Rowen was written above the return address. “Sinni, huh?” I shrugged. When Coach had said to keep an eye on the mailbox I had no idea that meant to expect something today.

  “Are you going there?” Robert asked, his mouth full of what was left of his sandwich.

  I swiped the envelope off the table. “Where are Mom and Dad?”

  “Mom’s in the shower. Dad’s in the garage.”

  Dad being in the garage either meant he was looking for something to do to keep busy or that maybe he was organizing his tools for a job that was starting up.

  I carried the envelope to my and Robert’s room as Mom stepped out of the bathroom in pajama pants and a long sleeve T-shirt that was from Robert’s middle school. The comfortable clothes meant she was done with work for the day.

  “David,” Mom smiled when she saw me. “Did you see what I left in the kitchen for you?”

  I held up the envelope and nodded.

  She wrapped her arms around herself. “Well?”

  I looked at the envelope like it was a test I was pretty sure I failed. “I don’t know. I haven’t opened it.”

  “Why not?” Dad asked, stepping in from the garage. He wore jeans with holes at the knees and a T-shirt that had so many stains on it, I couldn’t tell what it originally looked like.

  “I just got home,” I said. “And does it have to be a show? It worked out pretty well last time when everyone got to see me find out that Mankato thinks I suck.”

  “They don’t think you suck,” Mom said. “They just didn’t give you everything you thought they would.”

  “Because they think I suck.” I didn’t care that I was being all whiny and complaining. It was easy for Allie to try to convince me that a couple cute guys would make up for the fact that I was destined for Sinni. She was all set to go to the UIC.

  “You open it.” I thrust the envelope into Mom’s hands. I went into my room and sat at the foot of my bed, looking at the streaks my feet made in the carpeting as I slowly ran them back and forth.

  I heard Dad’s heavy footsteps walking closer, followed by Robert’s quick ones, and the envelope rip. A moment of silence and then a gasp. “David!” Mom exclaimed. “It’s an official offer. Tuition and fees completely paid for.” The towel on her head loosened and fell to the floor.

  “Yeah, I had a feeling,” I said without looking up.

  “You knew about this?” Dad asked, stepping into the bedroom.

  “Kind of.”

  Mom stood in the doorway, scanning the letter. Her eyebrows furrowed. “This says they hoped you received their first letter and had a chance to consider CNEI among possible places to continue your education.” She held out the letter to me. “What’s that about?”

  “They sent me a letter a few weeks ago,” I shrugged, wishing everyone would get out of my room.

  “Why didn’t you say anything?” Since I didn’t take the letter from her hands, Mom let it hang at her side.

  “Because it looked like some stupid generic letter they probably sent to everyone. It didn’t seem important.” I didn’t want it to be important.

  Mom picked up her towel and slung it over her shoulder. “Well, I think it’s pretty important and I can’t believe you don’t.” She placed the envelope next to me, with the letter from Coach Rowen on top.

  I narrowed my eyes at it, trying to read the contents in one glance. I was able to gather that Rowen had been to a couple Lincoln games over the past couple seasons and was impressed by my skills and speed. Coach Kelly had sent him my reel a couple weeks ago. Rowen hoped I would consider becoming a Bobcat if I didn’t already have plans for the following school year. Please get in touch as soon as possible.

  I didn’t know Coach had done that. “Can we talk about this later? I want to do some homework before practice.”

  My dad’s demeanor changed at the mention of practice. “Season officially starts today, huh?”

  “Yup,” I nodded.

  “How’s that going?” my mom tentatively asked.

  “It’s just the beginning of the season,” I said. “Lots of drills and boring stuff.”

  I noticed my parents eye one another. “That’s not what I’m talking about,” Mom said.

  A filmstrip of the last two days played in my head. Coach’s concern about me being distracted. The sophomores. Mike’s letter from Kansas. Kevin. His dad on the lookout for any reason. The team. Patrick and his two moms. “It’s going better than I thought it would.” Which was true.

  “Is that jackass bothering you?” Dad asked.

  Jeez, my dad made it sound like Kevin and I were getting into fights on the playground during recess. “He bothers everyone.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “He behaved himself yesterday,” I said. “As much as anyone can expect him to behave himself. And I think Coach made it clear to his dad that the team is not going to be fag-free even if he doesn’t like it.”

  “Don’t say that,” Mom sighed.

  “What? It’s good news isn’t it?” I looked at my dad and gave him an “am I right?” look and noticed the splashes of paint on his tattered jeans and the tan flecks that dotted his hands and forearms. “What are you painting?”

  Dad looked at his hands. “The people with the basement I just finished?” I nodded so Dad knew that I knew what he was talking about. “A hallway and the master bedroom.”

  “I thought you didn’t like to paint,” I said, remembering how often he cursed himself when trying to not get any paint on the ceiling.

  “I don’t,” Dad agreed. “Are you done in there?” He turned to Mom and jerked his head in t
he direction of the bathroom. When she nodded, he said, “I’m going to take a shower.” He picked at the flecks on his hands on his way out. “This’ll never come off.”

  After Dad left the room and closed the bathroom door behind him, Mom stood in the doorframe. “This isn’t bad news. I don’t know why you’re acting like it is.”

  I grunted a little, unsure how to explain to my mom that it’s not that the news was bad. It just wasn’t the news I wanted.

  “One of my coaches played for CNEI,” Robert piped in from behind my mom.

  “Real inspiring, Rob, thanks,” I said. “Maybe one day I can coach an overpriced travel team too.”

  “They have a lot of stuff.” Robert sounded offended. “Actual batting cages inside that roll up and down. It costs a lot of money for stuff like that.”

  “My mistake. It’s worth every penny.”

  “Leave your brother alone.” My mom gave me a look I hadn’t seen in a long time, which forced me to mumble out an apology to Robert. “This is what we’ve been waiting for, isn’t it?” She gestured to the paper on the bed.

  “We’ve?” I looked at her. “Yes, we’ve been waiting for this. Aren’t we so excited that David sucks so bad that the only place that wants him is stupid Sinni. Not Kansas, not U of I, not Mankato. Nowhere.”

  Mom rewrapped her hair in the towel and snapped her head up. “I’m not going to tell you that getting a scholarship to CNEI is the same as getting a scholarship to one of those schools. I would love to be able to send you to any school you want.” She paused. “As long as it wasn’t too far away. But I can’t. We can’t. And you know what? A lot of other kids’ parents can’t either.”

  I lowered my eyes, feeling like a complete asshole and remembered trying to talk to my dad about him going to the unemployed support group. Paying for college on top of everything else had to be a popular topic.

  Mom picked up the letter that still sat by my side and waved it in my face. “And I bet those kids would do anything for this. Anything.” When she dropped the letter, it fell to the floor. Mom stalked out of the room and I heard her walk the three feet to her bedroom and shut the door.