And This Too Shall Pass

by E. Lynn Harris

  “Yeah, for the first time in a long time, I know she’s right. I mean, in a way, after that happened with the good reverend, I tried to intellectualize my religion. You know, I knew in my gut that there was a higher power. I mean when you look around you—the sky, stars, moon, and the trees—then you know that man could never do this.”

  “I know … that’s where I put my faith,” Zurich said.

  “This is so strange. I mean I’ve kept what happened to me secret for over a decade and here today I’ve shared it with two people, two special people,” Sean said as he glanced at Zurich, whose face looked as if he wanted to ask some serious questions. “Is there something you want to ask me?” Sean ventured. He knew he was going to have to take the lead if he expected Zurich to open up. The look on Zurich’s face said that he wanted to talk and ask more questions, but was afraid.

  “Is it hard, I mean, being involved with sports? Don’t you worry that some of the players might find out?”

  “Yeah, but I can’t really worry about that. I try not to let my sexuality get in the way of my work. I love sports and I love writing,” Sean said confidently.

  “Have you ever been with an athlete, maybe somebody you were covering?”

  “Yes, but it wasn’t a good situation,” Sean said.

  “Why?”

  “First of all, he was a fool. Good-looking, well built, all that stuff, you know, a dick from heaven, but he had a violent streak,” Sean said.

  “What happened?”

  “Well, he didn’t like being gay or bi as he used to say. And sometimes after we had sex he wanted to fight. He could never have sex with me unless he had been drinking. And he would only call me late at night or early morning. And he was always worried about whom I was talking to,” Sean said.

  “Why would you put up with that?”

  “I guess I thought it was the best I could do.” Sean said lamely. He had asked himself that many times, but he knew there was a price to pay for lusting after a certain type of man.

  “Is it somebody I would know?”

  “Know personally? I don’t know, but he was a big enough name that I know you would have heard of him,” Sean said.

  “But you’re not telling?” Zurich smiled.

  “No, I’m not. Why are you interested?” Sean smiled as he looked at the curiosity on Zurich’s face.

  “I don’t know, maybe just curious,” Zurich said shyly.

  “Let me ask you something. How did you feel about your brother being gay?”

  “So MamaCee told you, huh?”

  “Well, I think it slipped out, but she didn’t seem to mind that Zach was gay. Which I find fucking amazing,” Sean said.

  “There were times when it bothered me. Especially the first time I saw Zach hugged up with another guy,” Zurich said. “I was so mad I almost came to blows with the guy. I didn’t want anybody doing that to my brother. I mean Zach had to pull me away from that guy.”

  “When did that happen?”

  “When I came to visit him in New York. But he told me the first time he got down with a guy.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I told him I didn’t want to hear it. So I would go on talking about something in my life, but he would stop me and say if I can’t talk about my life then you can’t talk about yours. And I was just like ‘But, Zach, how could you?’ And he was just smiling and telling me how great it was.”

  “Why else did it bother you?”

  “What do you mean?” There was an edge in Zurich’s question.

  “Were there any other reasons?”

  “I guess I had all these stereotypes of gay people and I knew my brother wasn’t like that. I mean Zach could have been a better athlete than me.”

  “Was there something else? I mean, besides the stereotypes.” Sean felt Zurich was coming close to opening up about his own fears and how his brother’s sexuality affected him.

  “Like?”

  “Like were you ever worried that since you guys were twins, I mean, identical twins, that you might be gay?” Finally, Sean thought, it was on the table. He felt like wiping some imaginary sweat from his brow.

  “You want the truth?” As Zurich asked the question, he turned over in his mind what to tell Sean. He felt a certain degree of comfort with Sean, but realized he was not Zachary.

  “Yeah. The truth works,” Sean said.

  “Yes. It’s my biggest fear,” Zurich said softly.

  “Why?”

  “Because of the way the world is. The way we treat people that are different. Look, I mean, I’ve always been in sports. And now here I am in the NFL and I know that’s not allowed here,” Zurich said.

  “What’s not allowed?”

  “Being gay,” Zurich said.

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No. And there’s the other thing.”

  “The other thing?”

  “Yeah, my faith. The Bible says it’s wrong,” Zurich said. He didn’t know if he actually believed that; it was just reflex, what he thought he was supposed to say.

  “I’ve heard all that shit before. Don’t you think God or whoever you believe in wants you to be true to yourself? Look, I’m not going to get into that Bible stuff with you, so let me ask you another question. Have you ever been attracted to a man?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Come on now, Zurich, don’t play dumb. You know what I mean.”

  Zurich’s eyes moved around the empty stadium. For a few moments he didn’t say a word. He was wondering if he could trust Sean with everything. If he answered the question truthfully, he would be sharing a secret he hadn’t even shared with Zach. But suddenly the words began to emerge.

  “Yes, once in college. It was this guy in one of my classes. It was a film production class. He was kinda wiry-looking, glasses, wore dreads, but he was so smart. And when he talked to you, it was as though he was looking through you. That he was really listening to every word you said. Every syllable. We would talk all the time, about film, about sports. We even ran together. I felt comfortable with him. And I had never felt that safe around another man, unless you count Zach and my father. Well, one night we were talking, he had just finished reading me some parts of a script he had written. And I was telling him how great it was. What a great writer he was going to be. And then, just out of the blue, he said if I asked you on a date, would you go,” Zurich said as he stopped talking for a moment and stood up to stretch his large body.

  “Did you go?” Sean asked. He wanted to shout, come on sit your fine ass back down and tell me the story. Don’t stop now. Suddenly, as though Zurich were reading Sean’s mind, he sat back down on the bleachers. He crossed his large calves, folded his arms as if he was protecting himself, and began to talk.

  “I thought he was kidding. That guys didn’t go on dates. But he wasn’t playing and he said they did if one of them was gay and the other didn’t know he was gay. I just laughed. It was a nervous laughter. Not, you’re a fuckin’ freak laughter. But I was nervous.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I think I wanted to go,” Zurich said.

  “So come on, what happened? Did you go?”

  “No, I chickened out. I told him I would go to the movies with him. That’s what he wanted to do, but it wouldn’t be a date. Just two friends going to the movies. But the night we were supposed to go, I stood him up. I mean I saw him pull up, walk up to my apartment, and ring the bell. But I didn’t answer. I just stood in the window looking out on the night. When he was walking back to his car, I didn’t move and he saw me standing in the window looking down. He just shook his head and got back in his car. He never spoke to me again.”

  “How did that make you feel?”

  “Like a jerk. Like a stupid jerk. Almost as stupid as something I started to do recently,” Zurich said.

  “What was that?” Sean wondered if he was getting ready to tell him that he cruised parks and bookstores, and if he did, would that spoil the near-
perfect image he had of Zurich?

  “Man, just thinking about it makes me feel stupid. When this thing happened with Mia, and the way my teammates reacted, well, at first, I was mad, like I said. I was mad at her for lying and that I couldn’t talk to her and get her to tell the truth about what really happened. I was embarrassed that I didn’t correct my teammates, that I didn’t tell the truth. But then I started to think maybe, just maybe, this is a good thing.”

  “What?”

  “Well, it would stop some of the kidding. My lawyer had told me that since I had never been in any type of trouble, that the DA, if they pressed charges, would probably be willing to plea bargain.”

  “What are you talking about? I don’t understand. Are you saying that you thought about admitting to something you didn’t do just to impress a bunch of locker room buddies?” Sean asked. He had heard of dumb shit, but this was a first.

  “Don’t you see? I would no longer be Mr. Nice Guy. Zurich, the guy who’s afraid of women, taking the pussy. To some of my teammates, it made me more of a man. And as quarterback you need to be respected. Come on, Sean, you’ve been in as many locker rooms as I have. When we’re not talking about how great we are on the field, then what?”

  “I know pussy, business deals, and more pussy. I also see a lot of guys checking out each other, comparing dicks and shit. You’ve seen it. Besides you should be respected for your playing ability. Not for accepting somebody’s screwed-up idea of what it takes to be a man. Let me make sure I’m understanding what you are saying. You thought about pleading guilty to something you didn’t do, just so some dumb-ass jocks would think you were just as much man as they think they are. That’s bullshit, Zurich. Bullshit and you know it.”

  “I didn’t say that,” Zurich said firmly.

  “I hope not.” Sean didn’t want to think about Zurich’s current situation. He wanted to get him back to those original feelings. “Let’s get back to this guy. Did you tell Zach about him?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “ ’Cause he would have been mad at me for what I did. I know he would have tried to talk me into going. But I wasn’t ready,” Zurich said.

  “How did you know that?”

  “All I could think about was, what if I had a good time? What if I ended up in bed with him and then somebody busted in the door while we were doing the do? I mean I went to school on a small campus and I would have been ruined. A story like that would have followed me forever.”

  “So you’ve never acted on your desires?”

  “Who said I had desires?”

  “Well, you’ve never been to bed with a man?”

  “No.”

  “Do you regret it?”

  “I don’t think I should answer that.” This was getting to be too much for Zurich. He had lost control of his feelings and to a reporter, something Gina had warned him never to do. “Let’s get back to the story you’re working on,” Zurich said nervously.

  “You asked the question. Before I get back to my story, I have one more question to ask.”

  “Okay.”

  “Were you nervous sleeping in the same bed with me last night?”

  “No. Should I have been?”

  “No, but had we had this conversation last night, would you have slept in the same bed with me wearing only your underwear?”

  “Maybe I would have worn a T-shirt,” Zurich smiled as he hit Sean playfully on the arms with a balled fist.

  “Man, you’re something else. Naive, evasive, and scared, but you’re something else.” Sean hadn’t determined if Zurich was telling him the whole truth, or if he had ever allowed himself to accept his truth. Sean understood that sometimes, when you are black and gay, living a lie can be the only truth accepted.

  “You got another mile in you?”

  “Hey, if you can do it, then so can I,” Sean said confidently.

  CHAPTER 21

  YOU AIN’T SANGING

  While reviewing the questions she had for Zurich and his upcoming preliminary hearing, Tamela listened to “The Deborah Crable Show” on WVON. Tamela was so engrossed in her notes and the callers from the show, she didn’t hear when Warner walked in to discuss the case. He stood quietly at her door before interrupting her concentration.

  On the radio, the host and callers were discussing gay rights and the right of gays to adopt children. One of the callers was reading the guest, a local black gay activist, the riot act. “I don’t understand these people wanting special rights for what they do in bed, which, if you ask me, is unnatural and against God’s law. And now they want to adopt kids and turn them into homosexuals like them, it’s just wrong. Pure and simple, just wrong,” the older male caller said.

  Deborah Crable responded, “Caller, why do you think gay people shouldn’t be able to adopt?”

  “Like I said, ’cause it’s just wrong. It’s in the Bible. And instead of trying to get people to buy this homosexual’s book ’bout adopting kids, they need to be reading one book and that’s the B-I-B-L-E,” he said.

  “Caller, can you tell me where it states in the Bible that homosexuality is wrong and they shouldn’t be able to adopt if they have been approved through the regular channels like other prospective adoptive parents? And if gay people can’t look to the church and Bible for solace, then where can they go?” Ms. Crable asked. Deborah Crable always tried to get her loyal callers to stick to the facts, to be specific and brief with their comments, but whenever she did shows about sexuality, her show usually turned into a radio slugfest.

  “I don’t know exactly what scripture but it’s in there,” he said defensively.

  “Okay, caller, when you find that scripture give us a call back. Thanks for calling and listening,” she said.

  Still unaware of Warner’s presence, Tamela muttered, “Gay people raising children, what will they think of next?”

  Warner cleared his throat and tapped his fist on her door, and Tamela looked up. “Warner, how long have you been standing there?”

  “For a few minutes, just listening to the talk show along with you,” he said as he came in and sat in one of the leather chairs facing Tamela’s desk.

  “Yeah, I must admit I’ve become somewhat addicted to these shows,” Tamela said. “I can’t get my morning started until I’ve had my coffee, my cranberry muffin, and a little talk radio.”

  “Which one are you listening to?”

  “Deborah Crable, she’s the best. Today, they’re talking about gay rights and adoption and I mean these callers are giving her guests the what for.” She paused and turned around in her swivel chair to lower the radio before asking, “What can I do for you?”

  “I wanted to wish you luck with the preliminary hearing, but I know it will be just fine. I also wanted to know if Ms. Miller or her counsel has contacted you about a possible civil suit?” Warner asked.

  “I haven’t heard from her and neither has Zurich. I feel real good about our chances of having the charges dropped on Thursday. But I know you know as well as I do that a civil suit will be a totally different matter. You might have your hands full,” Tamela said.

  “Yeah, but I’ll be ready. I’ve looked over your notes. Some very interesting information. I can’t believe this guy hasn’t had sex in over five years,” Warner said.

  “That’s what he told me. I must admit at first I didn’t believe him, but I don’t know. I guess women aren’t the only ones who practice celibacy,” Tamela said.

  “What about witnesses from the restaurant where they had dinner?”

  “Well, I’ve talked to a couple of the waiters and one of the parking lot attendants. I’ve been having a little trouble reaching the other attendant who was on duty, around the time Zurich thinks Mia should have been picking up her car.”

  “Right. But didn’t Mr. Robinson say she had been drinking quite a bit?”

  “Yeah, I don’t know how she was able to drive home. That’s where her neighbor found her. The first attendant re
members when she showed up for dinner, but didn’t provide much more information. I hope this other guy will be more help. I might not be able to use any information he might provide for the prelim, but if we go to trial, it could help you,” Tamela said.

  “I think you’re right. So you’re having a hard time getting in touch with him?”

  “I’ve got his home address and I’m going by there tomorrow to try to see if he knows anything. Maybe I can just get him to concur with Zurich’s assessment of her sobriety.”

  “That would be helpful. Where does he live?”

  “Over in Cabrini Green housing projects with his mother. I got the information from the restaurant,” Tamela said.

  “You’re not going over there alone, are you?” Warner asked.

  Tamela looked at him and thought, No, this white boy isn’t trying to make me feel unsafe going among my own people.

  “Why do you ask, Warner?”

  “It’s pretty bad over there. Maybe I should go over there with you,” he said unaware of how his statement might sound to Tamela. He really was concerned about her safety, even though he himself had never been to the well-known housing project. He was basing his concern on what he had seen on television and what he had read in the paper. Tamela thought Warner’s going would just make matters worse. A well-dressed black woman and an equally well-dressed white man would certainly bring unwanted attention. But she wasn’t in the mood to read this white man about his perception of danger.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine. My father teaches a lot of those kids. I will be safe. And if the kid has some information and doesn’t want to come to our offices, then you can go over the next time.” Tamela smiled slyly. She thought to herself how Warner might regret the day he went to Cabrini Green alone.

  “Okay,” Warner said as he started toward the door. Just as he was about to leave her office, Tamela turned the volume on her radio back up and out came the voice of a black man saying, “It ain’t no black gay folks, that’s white folks’ stuff. They sent all the gay slaves back to Africa.” Tamela started to laugh and said, “I know that’s right.”