Tipping the Balance

by Koehler, Christopher

  “Pretty much, but not this year. I didn’t even bring it up because I knew it’d be a non-starter,” Drew said, making a face. “I even apologized later to Brad for not giving him a chance to say no to it, for just assuming. I mean, he was pretty uncomfortable at that CalPac football game last month, so why even bring up the ball, right?”

  “So what changed this time?” Morgan asked.

  Drew made a face. “I’m just sick of the hiding. Come out, already. He knows he’s gay, he’s just stuck back there with the old coats and the shirts no one wears anymore.”

  “That’s rough,” Nick said.

  Drew loved both of them that moment for not saying “it takes time” or anything like that. For recognizing that he just needed to talk. “And yes, I know you tried to warn me about this possibility, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. So no need for an ‘I told you so’, okay?”

  “Do you really think I’d do that to you? Now?” Nick said softly.

  “Do you really want an answer?” Drew said, trying to summon some shadow of his usual humor.

  “He wouldn’t do it now,” Morgan said, “he’d wait until later, when you’ve recovered.”

  Drew laughed a little, and when Nick threw a pillow at Morgan, he said, “You know he’s right.”

  Nick smiled, warm and loving and sickeningly sweet. “Yeah, he is.”

  Drew watched and tried to stop jealousy from swamping him as his closest friend and his boyfriend exchanged some silent communication. Then Nick nodded.

  “You know, that’s kind of annoying.”

  “Hush, you. It’s time to get this party started,” Nick said, standing up. He held out his hand to Drew.

  “First, you’re not Pink, and second, it’s not Saturday night,” Drew groused.

  “We prefer the Shirley Bassey version, thank you,” Morgan said.

  “You would. Sorry to be such a downer,” Drew said. This wasn’t how he wanted to spend his birthday evening.

  “So what happens now?” Nick asked.

  “We go dancing,” Drew replied.

  “I meant with Brad,” Nick said.

  Drew stood up. “That’s up to him. I’m done with closet cases. If he wants to be with me—and I hope he does—then he needs to join me in the outside world.”

  Drew ignored the meaningful look Morgan shot Nick. Couples and their glances. Would he and Brad ever get to that? Or were they done? That hurt to think about, so he knew his answer, but like he’d told Brad earlier, it was all up to him.

  Drew didn’t start gritting his teeth and faking a smile for Nick and Morgan’s benefit until after they arrived at Aspects. They took him to a cute little Salvadoran restaurant, apparently where they’d gone on their first date, equally apparently trying to kill him with cuteness overload. He loved them, he truly did, but sometimes it hurt how into each other they were. It wasn’t like they exchanged little secret smiles or fed each other off their forks, because that evening, after his rupture with Brad, he would have maimed one or both of them. It was just obvious that they were together. He liked that, since he’d played a role in it, but that night, when he wanted to be there with a boyfriend of his very own, it hurt.

  By the time they arrived at Aspects, he actively dreaded the rest of the night. For a Monday night, the bar sported a big crowd, but to Drew it was just obstacles to navigate around. It felt like pinball, and he was the ball. Zing! Change course. Zap! Change course again. Bing! How much longer until he could leave politely?

  Most nights he enjoyed the press. He never knew just whom he might bump into, like the next Mr. Right Now. But right then he just wanted the man he’d thought had been Mr. Right to be there to clear a path for him and then hold him tight while they danced.

  They got drinks at the bar and then danced together, the three of them, but when the first slow song came on, Drew bowed out. He hated being the third wheel enough as it was.

  But then he saw Morgan speaking urgently in Nick’s ear over the sound of the music. Then he shoved Nick toward Drew. Right then, he knew why Nick loved Morgan so much.

  “You’ve got a good man there,” Drew said as he tucked himself under Nick’s arms.

  “Yes, I do,” Nick said.

  “Thank him for me, will you?” Drew said as they danced to some slow, sad song.

  “Even though he said the sad unicorn needs a hug?” Nick said, smiling.

  Drew shook his head. “You’ve got a brat there, you know that, right?”

  “Yes, I do,” Nick repeated, laughing.

  They were silent for a moment, just swaying to the music. Then Nick said, “Just make sure he’s worth it, okay?”

  Drew knew they weren’t talking about Morgan anymore. He nodded because right then, it was that or cry.

  They finished out the dance, and then they joined Morgan on the sidelines.

  “You know what, guys? It’s just not happening tonight. I’m sorry. I gotta get out of here.”

  “We’ll go with you,” Nick said.

  “You don’t need to leave just because I’m a downer,” Drew said, rolling his eyes. “I’ll catch a cab back to your place. You two stay here and have fun. Who knows,” he said, flashing a hint of his old grin, “maybe you’ll flush some more of your rowers out of the bushes.”

  Morgan laughed as Nick gave Drew a playful shove toward the door.

  They’d tried, they’d really tried, but for all the thoughtful gestures like the sticky little drink with a birthday candle stuck precariously in a lime wedge that Nick brought him from the bar, carefully sheltering it with his hand, it was just a bust.

  Feeling lower than he had all night, Drew retrieved his coat from the coatroom and headed out into the dark. He breathed deep, pulling the cold air into his lungs. He let it out, willing his sadness to go with it, not that it worked. He was still slinking away from a bar on his birthday, his closest friends inside and his so-called boyfriend nowhere to be seen.

  “Hey, buddy, how ’bout a fiver for a sandwich?” a man called from where he crouched on the sidewalk.

  Drew ignored him. The indigent population of Sacramento skyrocketed in the winter due to local migration and being bussed in from colder climes. The mild climate meant they wouldn’t freeze to death. Drew approved of not freezing to death in theory, but the panhandling annoyed him.

  “No, I’m sorry, not tonight,” Drew said, scouting around for a taxi. He should’ve had the bouncer call him one, but he couldn’t take another moment of the mix of happiness and desperation back at the bar. He pulled out his phone and started flipping through the contacts to find a taxi service. Even the tipsy taxi. He could fake being drunk if he had to.

  “C’mon buddy, you know you got it.”

  But just because Drew didn’t want the street people dying of exposure didn’t mean he intended to treat them all to a meal, either. He glanced at the panhandler but saw just scruff and dirt. “I said no. Leave me alone.”

  “Then how about thirty for a knuckle sandwich?” said a second man, stepping out from between a parked car where he and a third man had been talking.

  “What? That has to be the dumbest—” Drew started to say, but then he saw the fist coming for his jaw as someone grabbed the phone out of his hand.

  Drew ducked. Then tried to dodge away, but ran hard into one of the other men, who clamped down on his arms while the panhandler held his chin.

  “Shoulda given me the fiver,” he said before his fist cracked Drew’s jaw, slamming his head back hard and painfully.

  Then a fist hit his gut, and he was doubled over, and the blows kept coming, and he went down.

  There was searing pain and blackness and—

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “Poor Drew,” Morgan said as they went to collect their coats. Without the birthday boy, they couldn’t muster much enthusiasm for the crowd and the noise when they could be at home dancing on a different plane altogether.

  “I tried to warn him,” Nick said.

  “I k
now you did, but that’s not going to make—”

  “Hey! There’s someone being bashed out there! Call the cops!” someone screamed into the bar’s main door.

  Nick and Morgan looked at each other. “You don’t think—”

  “Come on!” Nick yelled, racing for the door with Morgan right behind him.

  Sirens wailed from far away.

  They saw a knot of people kneeling around a fallen man, and in the distance, people running.

  Morgan took off at a dead sprint.

  “Morgan!” Nick screamed, but his long-legged boyfriend ignored him.

  Cursing, Nick shouldered his way into the knot of people around Drew. “Drew!”

  “You know him?” a woman said. A large badge on her jacket proclaimed her a member of the Lavender Avengers.

  “He’s my best friend,” Nick said, nauseated at the damage and the blood. It was everywhere, running freely down Drew’s face and onto his clothes, even onto the sidewalk.

  Then flashing red lights bathed them. The ambulance arrived as Morgan loped back toward the bar, breathing heavily.

  “Move aside! Paramedics! Let us through!”

  Nick looked at Morgan expectantly, but Morgan just shook his head slowly. “They… got away,” he said, catching his breath.

  A woman in a paramedic’s uniform came up to them. “Hey, they said you know this guy?”

  Nick nodded slowly. “His name’s Drew St. Charles. He’s… he’s my best friend except for this man here,” he said, taking Morgan’s hand.

  “We’re taking him to the UC Davis Med Center. It’d be great if you could meet us there. Any information you have will be a real help.”

  Morgan put his arm around Nick. “We’ll see you there.”

  “And finally, we have the ‘situation’ with the men’s varsity,” Pete Rancilman said. The way he said “situation” made it sound like he smelled dog shit on his shoe.

  Brad rolled his eyes. Rancilman just wouldn’t let this go. Brad had been trying with minimal success to derail this all autumn, but now he was angry. This meeting on top of the fight with Drew last night was one provocation too many.

  This “situation” involved his friend and former coach and, he realized with a start, him. The CalPac crew now boasted two gay coaches, not one. “Just what ‘situation’ do you mean, Pete?”

  Pete looked at him like he was stupid, but Brad was used to that. Lots of people thought he was stupid. “We have a coach preying on his rowers. He’s a detriment to the crew and a liability. This has to be dealt with.”

  “The athletic department investigated it and dropped it,” said Prissy Morrain, another member of the committee. “Furthermore, we’ve heard nothing from anything like the NCAA or USRowing.”

  Brad had liked her from the start, and not just because she was as skeptical as he about Rancilman’s motives. “The only situation I see down at the boathouse when I’m coaching is that the crew is about three times the size it was when I rowed last spring.”

  “Yes, Brad, we know. You rowed for Nick Bedford last spring. You assistant coach for him now. You saw him in action, swooping in on an innocent undergraduate—”

  “Have you met Morgan Estrada, this poor pitiful rower you think Nick poached?” Brad said, laughing helplessly. It took him a moment to control himself. “That’s the last way I’d describe him. That’s hilarious. Did you talk to him about this?”

  The way everyone looked at him told Brad that they’d never even considered talking to Nick’s alleged victim. “He went after Nick, not the other way around. The guy gets what he wants eventually, no two ways about it.”

  “But is that really the kind of influence we want in a position of authority?” Pete pressed.

  “So what’re you proposing, Pete?” asked Steve Mulder, another member of the committee who’d graduated from CalPac long before Brad had been born. “I can’t say I’m not concerned by a coach dating one of his rowers, gay or not.”

  “I think we need to seriously consider getting rid of him,” Pete said. He sat back in his chair, smiling in satisfaction.

  “For what?” Brad demanded. It was time to shut this down for keeps.

  “What d’you mean, for what?” Pete demanded.

  This guy’s homophobia was off the charts, even Brad could tell that. “Exactly what I said. So far as anything official is concerned, Nick Bedford’s in the clear. There literally is not a case here that you can support, and you can’t fire people at CalPac for being gay, unless you want the school breathing down your neck, that is.”

  At Rancilman’s shocked look, Brad shook his head. “So in addition to not checking with the crews about Coach Bedford, I’m guessing you haven’t looked at the policy and procedures manual for a while? Honestly, if this is how I’d done my homework, I’d never have graduated. I had to go into all of this before the school would even let me be a part-time assistant coach. If you try to fire Nick without an official reason, that school may well drop the crew.”

  “That damned school sure puts the liberal in liberal arts,” Pete snapped.

  “Liberality has nothing to do with it. It’s basic personnel management,” Prissy declared, sparing a wink for Brad. “To say nothing of fairness.”

  “Given all that, we’ve spent enough time on this,” Steve declared. “I move we drop this until such time as either the school finds that Coach Bedford did anything wrong, or we hear from one of the regulatory bodies. We’ve got other, more important things to deal with, like the urgent need for a bigger boathouse. That’s going to cost a fortune and….”

  Brad pretended to listen, but his mind was on other things.

  This did affect him. Between the word in the locker room and Rancilman’s witch hunt, Brad knew he couldn’t hide forever. He might not be marching in any parades, but he was gay, and it was time he admitted that without shame, even if only to himself. It didn’t make him queasy like it had, and that helped.

  Besides, hiding meant no Drew, apparently, and that…. He just couldn’t go there right then. He pulled his attention back to the meeting, even though he longed to be anywhere but there, anywhere Drew was.

  Brad drove home, taking the longest, least direct route he could devise. Slow pokes? Not a problem. He was thinking. He did his best thinking behind the wheel. Some men were toilet men. They only thought on the can. He thought while he drove.

  Something had snuck up on him in that meeting. He realized he would have to be out if people were going to go after his friends just because they were gay. That was the job of the big lugs of the world—to be out there in front to protect their friends.

  He coached because he missed crew, not because it was his career. If the committee fired him, it was no big deal. If Rancilman wouldn’t let this issue die after tonight, Brad would tell him point blank he was gay just to see the reaction.

  He might not be entirely comfortable with his sexuality, but homophobia was definitely a problem he faced. He recognized that now.

  Brad figured out something else there in the dark. He’d let Drew down, and not just with the dancing thing. Morgan had been right. What he did and liked in bed didn’t change who he was.

  And what he’d done in bed—or over a sawbuck—he’d kind of liked it. It felt weird at first having another man’s dick between his legs, but he’d sure come and come hard. All those intense physical experiences with Drew, to say nothing of the emotional ones, had been telling him one thing: “Get over it.”

  But he hadn’t heard from Drew all day, and it was killing him. Drew’d been pretty pissed when he’d left Brad to lock up his house, but he’d also said the next step was Brad’s. So at a stoplight, he hit Drew’s mobile number, since he had his douchetooth headset in. He hated it, but it was easier than a ticket for driving and talking, and he knew that sooner or later the cops would crack down on the scofflaws.

  “Hey, babe, it’s me. It’s Tuesday night,” he said when it went to voice mail. “I’m… I’m really sorry. You were righ
t. About a lot of things. I miss you. I just got out of one of those jack-off alumni oversight meetings, and that asshole’s still after Nick. I could use your advice…,” he trailed off lamely when he realized he was babbling. “Anyway, I miss you. Wait, I already said that. I hope you’ll call me.”

  Brad felt about as low as he could after disconnecting the call. Drew must really be mad.

  When Wednesday passed without a call back, Brad grew more worried and even depressed. When he checked with security at the job site, they told him no one had seen Drew. Bob Miller did tell him, however, that someone from Drew’s real estate office had come by looking for him.