Truth, Pride, Victory, Love

by David Connor

  “I told them I had to kiss you good night.”

  “Oh.” She was stroking my beard again. “You like Cal?” I asked her.

  “I think Calvin’s hot. I assume I’ll like him… or at least like it.” She smiled, and I knew what she meant.

  “Be careful. I love you.”

  “I love you too. Listen… I shouldn’t say anything.” I knew she was going to. “But I think you should call Mathias.”

  “Mathias?” I’d been sure she was going to say something about Cal and me.

  “He talks about you all the time.”

  “He does?” I asked.

  “He likes you.”

  “He said that?” Someone knocked on Ricky’s front window, one of the girls, whose name I didn’t know.

  “Just a sec,” Caryn said, looking their way. “Not right out.” She’d turned back to me. “But he always asks how you are—and how Devon is—and what you’re up to. It’s always, like, twenty questions about you versus one about me.”

  “Hmm.”

  “His prom is next week. I think he wants to ask you, but….”

  “What?” Her lavender dress made so much frigging noise when she shifted, looking back at Ricky’s Nissan. I wanted to be sure I’d heard her right.

  “He’s gay too.” She’d whispered only the important word. “He told me. Here.” Caryn took her phone from her purse and texted his number to the cheap convenience-store cell phone in my pocket, the one I’d purchased with some of the money I’d earned washing dishes at the local pizza restaurant after school and swim practice. Frankly, I didn’t have time to date.

  “He’s not sure you like him. Do you?”

  I shrugged noncommittally. “I guess.”

  “He claims you told him he was stuck-up.”

  “Oh.”

  “Caryn, come on!” the girl who’d banged on the window called.

  “One more sec.” She didn’t even turn back this time. “Did you?” she asked me.

  “Sort of,” I said.

  “I don’t think he’s stuck-up. He’s just rich.”

  “And I’m not.”

  “So?”

  The question was left hanging as Ricky’s girlfriend got out and took Caryn by the elbow. After a moment of thought, not one other soul around, I hit up Mathias right there in the parking lot. I knew if I took more time I’d chicken out. With no clue what to say, I settled for something short and inane.

  Hi. It’s Reed. :)

  Visions of making a fortune as the guy who figured out how to unsend a text, leaving no possible way to tell it had ever been thumb-typed, came next. Part of me wanted to throw my cheap-ass phone under the front wheel of my dad’s cheap-ass used Hyundai, run over it, back up, and then do it eight or ten more times. Alas, that would have accomplished very little. Mathias knew my home phone number. He knew where I lived. If he wanted to let me know me and my lower-middle-class neighborhood were way out of his Ivy League, rather than ask me to prom, he’d find a way to do it politely yet efficiently. In fact, he probably had a guy who did that sort of thing for him, I figured, with coffee and a second-hand trombone as consolation prizes.

  When a response didn’t come right away, I drove home. When one didn’t come within an hour, I alternated between figuring Mathias was asleep and Mathias had hit Ignore. Hours later, startled awake in my bed by the eventual buzz and spasming clunk as my flip phone skittered across the nightstand, my first thought was It’s him!

  I rolled over atop the covers, in nothing but white boxer briefs, fumbled to reach it before it hit the floor, and rubbed my stiff dick against the crumpled blanket at my side. My whole body tingled, and I took a moment to enjoy it. I even let my boner out the fly front, a fifth little bedpost. The real ones had always looked like four huge peters to me. I was waiting for Devon to point it out someday. I’d recently started experimenting with them some. If I stood on the bed up on tiptoe, I could line my ass up in a way so the slight point at the tip of one of the fat, round top orbs teased its opening. I thought about it way more than I got to do it. I fantasized a lot about living alone, with different-sized head and footboards in every room. Mine was the only one where we lived now. No one else’s bed had posts at all.

  The buzzing continued. Rather than put my hard-on away, I pulled the covers over from the side, in case Devon awoke. It was still dark out, but I thought I might enjoy a quick rub out while Mathias and I spoke. Dirty. The call was from Caryn, though. It should have gone to voice mail by the time I picked it up. I’d kind of been chicken and horny—chorny. Caryn was persistent, though, and must have hung up and started again.

  “Hey.”

  “It’s awful,” she said. What a way to start a conversation.

  “What is?” I sat up.

  “They were drinking.”

  “Who?”

  Caryn stopped talking in order to sniffle. “The driver of the other car.”

  I was starting to put it together, even with her distraught and cryptic pronouncements. They had been in an accident, and it wasn’t good.

  I’D HUGGED Caryn like crazy the moment I’d seen her. As I sat in the beige-and-teal Hope Foster Memorial Hospital waiting room nearly two hours later, I was still thanking every omnipotent being I could think of that her injuries were minor. Though she’d wanted to stay until we got more word on Cal and Ricky, Mrs. LaValley had insisted she go home and rest, following the attending’s orders. “Call me the second the doctors tell you anything.”

  But Caryn didn’t wait. She’d made three calls already. Sadly, I’d had nothing to report. When my phone went off again, I fretted telling her the same thing a fourth time, but the text was from someone else. Balloons jerked their way up my small screen spelling out H-e-l-l-o, one letter at a time. It probably worked way better on his Apple Whats-it than it did on my Dollar General model. The message ended with a smiley face emoticon much fancier than my colon and closed parentheses. I could almost smile back, if not for what was going on.

  Hope Foster was over an hour away from where we lived. The drive there took forever, and I could only imagine how scared Cal must have been making the trip in the back of an ambulance. If only I’d insisted we take our crappy tent over to the field that night. He’d maybe be in my arms instead of intensive care, or at least safe and asleep. I needed to tell him I loved him, and that it was okay if he didn’t know for sure how he felt about me or couldn’t admit it if he did.

  “Our closest hospital should not be so far away.” I think my mother had said that six or seven times on the way. “Put that phone in your pocket.” That was her reprimand in the present, through gritted teeth, as Mrs. Bellamy paced in front of us.

  Cal had been up front in Ricky Gold’s car. Ricky Gold—there was a name for an Olympian. Unfortunately, it would be a while before he could walk again. Ricky’s girlfriend, Heather was her name as it turned out, and the other girl in back with her and Caryn, hadn’t been hurt badly either. Ricky and Cal had both struck their heads, Cal’s blow causing a seizure at the scene. That was the biggest worry at the moment, as he was down having yet another scan, the only reason his mom had left his side.

  I’m so sorry to hear about Cal. Please let me know how he’s doing.

  Mathias must have spoken to Caryn. He’d signed that message with a heart.

  AS THE days went on, Cal’s condition improved. He was still having seizures, though, and a neurologist offered the devastating news that they might continue on for the rest of his life, this according to Cal.

  “He also said you could just as easily never have another one,” his mother pointed out.

  “I’ve had two since he said that.”

  I couldn’t blame Cal for seeing the glass as half-empty.

  Everyone had left the hospital by then, Ricky for a rehabilitation center, Cal and the girls for home, and the driver of the other car, an older guy who hadn’t seen all the preprom anti-drunken-driving films we’d all sat through the Friday before, went off to jail. The
re was little solace in the fact he would definitely be prosecuted.

  Cal made graduation in late June, but the rousing applause he received upon taking his diploma hardly made up for the uncertainty he faced concerning his future. He couldn’t swim—not right away. Possibly not ever. He shut himself off and wouldn’t talk to Caryn or me about any of it. He called himself helpless. We felt like we were too.

  “What about the grants… the scholarships…?” Mr. Bellamy asked Coach Keller.

  Another meeting had been set up in my kitchen, only this time Cal and I were not included, so I had to eavesdrop from my bedroom at first, where I heard a lot of hemming and hawing, and then from the top of the kitchen stairs, where I could actually see Coach Keller deliver the news looking down at the table.

  “If he can’t swim, I’m afraid there won’t be any.”

  It had all come together rather quickly. By mid-May, Cal and I had both been accepted at Cloverton for the fall semester, and then, just like that, within a month, before we even started, Cal was out.

  “You’re not, you know.” Those were Coach Keller’s words to me another few days later. I was outside, just sitting on the front steps, when he got there. “We’re still doing this.” He’d come to the house again, because I hadn’t been to the pool—not once since Cal’s accident, since his dream bubble had burst, since he’d been sent plummeting down into a deep, dark pit of depression.

  “Without Cal? We just… what? Forget about him?” I asked.

  I’d been on that bottom step for a while, thinking about Cal and also Mathias, who had asked me to his prom. I’d declined the invitation for two reasons. Cal was the first. My reluctance to be the 2012 poster boy for same-sex prom couples was the second. Mathias was out at his school. That was cool. I told him so, and also that I was proud of him for showing such strength and confidence.

  “It’s for the other guy too,” he’d said.

  “What other guy? You have another date lined up just in case?” We weren’t even a couple, and yet there I’d been, feeling and sounding all jealous.

  “No, doof,” he’d answered. “The other guy—whoever he is—maybe a freshman or a senior who’s scared, who has a lot to lose.”

  “Ah. You’re Joe Popular now, in other words. A public-school trendsetter no one would dare put down.”

  He’d chuckled at that, since I’d added a humorous lilt, though the chip on my shoulder concerning our different family bank balances had made it hard to do so.

  “Hardly, Reed. I’m just comfortable, I guess. I understand, though.”

  “That I’m not?”

  “That maybe it’s not a good time. You have a lot on your plate right now. Your friend is hurting. We’ll get together soon. Give Cal my best.”

  I hadn’t heard from Mathias at all in the ten days or so after that call, so therefore figured he’d found that gay freshman or senior, and dragged him out of the closet, to the tux shop just down the street from the Webber estate, and then to prom and to bed.

  “That’s not right,” I said to Coach Keller. I looked at my bare feet, not at him, because at that moment, lots of things weren’t right. Thinking about Mathias wasn’t right when I should have been thinking about Cal. Mathias not calling me wasn’t either. Abandoning Cal to go off and start a fulfilling life when he couldn’t—that sure as fuck wasn’t right. “If Cal can’t swim, maybe I should quit.”

  Coach Keller paced a little, stamping down grass I should have mowed a few days earlier. “Of course we don’t forget about him, Reed. But this is still an amazing opportunity for you.”

  “Maybe next year.”

  “It has to be now.”

  “The 2016 Olympics are still four years away.”

  “They’re only four years away. I’m already looking at guys to take Cal’s place.”

  “Oh my God!” I stood and spun away from him, and then back, huffing like a bull. “To take his place?”

  “You’re going to train better with a second… someone who’s actually more on your level.” With his shoe, Coach dug a divot Mama would notice when weeding her marigolds. “I’m not sure Cal ever was.”

  “Now you’re ragging on him?” I had all I could do not to raise my fists.

  “I don’t mean to.” Coach Keller gripped my forearms, maybe so I wouldn’t punch him in the mouth. “Listen, there’s this saying.” He waited until my eyes met his. “There’s the Olympics, and then there is everything else.”

  I shook my head.

  “It doesn’t mean we don’t care about Cal. It just has to be about making that dream a priority. Don’t you want to follow this, Reed? To try? If you’d really rather quit, I’ll walk away. See, I’ve wanted it for me my whole life. The more we trained, though, the more I wanted it for you. If you don’t anymore….”

  I thought only a moment. “I do. I want it.”

  “That kid who beat your time at our first meet….”

  “Mathias?”

  “Webber. Yes. I’ve been in touch with his mother. I’m going up there this afternoon to talk to her about bringing him down to Dover. I’d like you to come.”

  Portions of my life had been on fast-forward since Coach Keller first brought up the idea of Olympic swimming, but this was warp speed. Seeing Mathias every day instead of sporadically—I wondered if we’d be able to find enough commonality for conversation between swim sprints or in the shower together after practice. Maybe we wouldn’t need to talk in there, if our mouths were busy in some other way.

  “I’ll pick you up around two.”

  The moment Coach Keller left, I texted Mathias to tell him I was coming.

  Super stoked! he replied. Then he wrote:

  This.

  Is.

  All.

  So.

  Fucking.

  Amazing.

  I can’t wait to see you.

  Of all the things to be stoked about, of all that was fucking amazing, seeing me was the one he mentioned?

  I STOPPED by Cal’s before leaving. He was on the couch, like a patient, even though the doctors said he could be up and around—back to normal—except for no driving, swimming, heights, strenuous sports activity, or flashy video games. I guessed that meant he could… well, watch TV from the couch, maybe something like The View, or some less volatile chat fest, or perhaps he could take a leisurely walk. He had chosen the first. Channels sped by like racing cars. I worried about that, and then about the flashiness of SpongeBob’s undersea pineapple world when Cal finally paused upon that.

  “How ya doing?” I sat on the arm opposite his head, down by his sexy big feet in white socks.

  “All right.”

  I’d rehearsed a dozen monologues, one about how his future was delayed, not wrecked, one about sexuality, and one about love—different kinds—passion versus affection, lust versus romance. I’d even considered sending Cal’s mother away so he and I could mess around. In the end, I was sticking to small talk, because I was just as conflicted in some ways as he no doubt was. “Sorry I haven’t been over more.”

  “I’ve seen enough of you,” he said.

  He hadn’t seen me yet that day, because his eyes never left the screen. If one missed a single beat in the intricate tale of SpongeBob’s first job, it was probably difficult to get back into it, I figured.

  “You need anything? A blanket?” It was June, but the AC had the Bellamy house feeling like January.

  “Nope.”

  “You’ll acclimate in time. The new normal will eventually feel….” My words were ridiculous. I had no idea what the rest of Cal’s life would be like. “I’ll help out any way I can… Caryn too. She’s been asking about you.”

  “Help? How? You got places to go, people to see. What time do you desert me?”

  “What?”

  “Heading up to Mathias Webber’s, I hear. Finally getting to hang with the rich white kid like you always wanted to.”

  The knot in my chest, the sudden pain in my gullet, they blocked all
the words I wanted to say in denial. All I could manage was “How?”

  “You called your mom, right?”

  I had, on her cell phone. It was supposed to be for emergencies only, but I needed permission to go with Coach Keller.

  “She wanted to know if Dev could stay here an hour or so,” Cal said.

  “Oh.” We had Devon covered. Julius had gotten home from his job interview early—because he hadn’t filled out an application. In all the relay calling before coming to that arrangement, though, the Bellamys must have gotten involved. I hadn’t known.

  “Just go,” Cal said.

  “Cal… I’m… I’m sorry.”

  “The fuck you’re sorry, Reed! This was supposed to be you and me, not you and that faggot asshole.”

  “What was?” I needed to know if he meant the Olympics or something else. “And don’t call yourself—”

  “I didn’t fucking call myself anything. And before you get all… hurt in the feelings department, I wasn’t calling you….” His tone softened, like he really didn’t want that to happen. “I wasn’t calling you one either.”

  “How come he’s one and you and me—and I’m not?”

  “Just get out.”

  “Cal….”

  “Get the fuck out!”

  I couldn’t breathe. It was humid and gross outside, but that wasn’t why. I called my dad. I was having an emotional emergency as I sat on the edge of the Bellamys’ lawn and cried into the phone.

  “Life is going to be filled with difficult choices, Reed. Sometimes we have to do what’s best for others even if it feels like shit.”

  “So, I shouldn’t go?”

  “Other times, we have to do what’s best for ourselves even if it feels way worse.”

  I CONSIDERED that nonadvice as I trudged up the road toward my house. I was still only halfway there when my ride arrived, having moved only thirty feet in ten minutes. It was a good thing I wasn’t hanging my gold medal hopes on speed walking or long-distance running.