Truth, Pride, Victory, Love

by David Connor

  “My parents have been together since high school,” Mathias said. “Did you know that?”

  “No.”

  “And just like I remember the lonely thing, for as far back as I can recall, they’ve been like they are. They coexist, but there’s nothing there. Like, twenty years in, they don’t even speak to each other.”

  “So that would be us?”

  “Probably.”

  It bugged me how he thought he knew everything. When he touched my face, the ambivalence was literally painful. I wanted him so badly, but I was furious with everything he was suggesting, from his condescension about what our relationship was, to the idea that fucking someone else would in no way make fucking me any less extraordinary if it ever happened.

  “It probably would be, because we’re not going to be the same people in one year, four years, or twenty years that we are now, Reed. At least we shouldn’t be.” His phone buzzed. He checked it and stood. “I have to go.”

  “Big plans?” I asked sarcastically.

  Mathias shrugged. “Almost every minute of every day.” He headed for the door. “You should see my calendar app.”

  I wanted to say something. I wanted him to, but I just let him go.

  11

  MY WINNING streak continued as the winter semester came to a close. I was making quite a name for myself in collegiate swimming. While my heart still ached for Mathias, at least I was excelling at one thing.

  “That’s all you really need,” my father said. “One thing you’re really good at and one thing you love at a time. If they’re both the same, you’re lucky.”

  “But what about after?” I asked over Christmas break, sitting at the kitchen table, eating homemade rolls made by mom with homemade jelly made by Mrs. Bellamy. “Though college is hard, I’m pretty sure I’m eventually going to graduate. I was thinking special education, but then I remembered….” I had to whisper. “I don’t like little kids.”

  My dad smiled. “You could always teach the big ones, or even adults. They have teachers where your mom and I work. Come up and check it out sometime.”

  “Oh yeah.” The roll and jelly suddenly tasted even better.

  “My other suggestion? The best time to worry about after is after. You’ll graduate. You’ll swim, and then you’ll find that next thing you love. Speaking of love, will Mathias be joining us over vacation?”

  I coughed for forty seconds. “Went down the wrong pipe.” I pointed at my throat, which hurt like a bitch from nearly choking to death. I still hadn’t come out to my parents, not when I’d been home for Devon’s birthday by myself, because Mathias had signed up for a two-day hike, and not later, because there was no need after that. Yet there was my dad asking me about my ex-boyfriend.

  “We bought him a stocking, and your mom had been hoping he’d help her peel potatoes for Christmas dinner.”

  “You know I’m gay?”

  Dad shrugged. “I never really thought about it, I guess. I just assumed you and Mathias were… more than friends.”

  “Wow. You’re okay with it?”

  He laughed. “Reed, why wouldn’t I be?”

  “What about mom… and Beth?”

  “They’re not gay.”

  “Dad….”

  “They know too.”

  “So… what… you had some big family discussion about it?”

  “I don’t recall that,” my father said. “I think it was one of those things that just came up here and there from time to time in passing—separate discussions, not one big one. We did put it in the Christmas newsletter, though, for Gramma, Grampa, and the distant cousins. I hope that’s okay.”

  I barked out a short laugh.

  “Things didn’t work out?”

  “We fought a lot.” I frowned. “I guess that means it was never meant to be.”

  “Oh… I don’t know about that.”

  “You and Mama don’t fight. I want a relationship like that.”

  My father let out a laugh similar to mine. “If that’s the impression we’ve given you, then I think we’ve failed.”

  “Never.”

  My mother came into the room then. She didn’t get to sleep in often. I’d have sworn I only saw her in a robe once a year, Pajama Day, which is what we called the day after Christmas, because the one rule was that no one dressed.

  “This one here thinks we never argue,” my father said to her.

  “Well, I’ve heard you argue, just not that much.”

  “We’ve done a pretty good job of hiding it,” my mother replied, standing at the coffeemaker my dad had set up even though he, like me, never touched the stuff. “It upsets Devon. He was never really able to tell the difference between bickering, discussing things loudly, passionate differences of opinion, and hate or intolerance of another’s opinion.” She kissed my dad on the cheek. “Our arguments were never that.”

  “Never. But some things need to be figured out at great volume,” Dad said. “And if curse words help you get there, I always figure throw a few in.”

  “How do you get over it later?” I asked.

  “Never cross certain boundaries. We don’t call each other the profanities, just the bills, the car, the roof….”

  “And we know we love each other.” My mother finished the thought.

  I made a face. I hadn’t meant to, but it was something akin to the one I’d made tasting sauerkraut when I was six. At least this time I didn’t puke.

  “You’re all grown up now,” my mom said, fighting a smile. “We can be as corny with you now as we want—and as truthful. Every day is not the day after Christmas. The days before Christmas are not so easy. We always wish we could do more for all of you.”

  “You do plenty.”

  “We wanted less empty space under the tree. If your father had his way, we’d be in credit card debt up to our ears this morning.”

  My dad’s sheepish grin offered no argument. “I’d love to spoil my children and grandchildren some Christmas.”

  My mom finally sat across from me after refilling her cup, as if the first one had been the necessary fuel for the two-foot trek to her chair. “Does this conversation have something to do with why we haven’t seen Mathias lately?”

  “I can’t believe we’re just treating me dating dudes like it’s not an issue.”

  “We can make it one,” my mom said before another sip. “If you want.”

  “Not really.”

  “Well, kiddo.” My father stood and delivered his final verdict on Mathias and me. “You have the rest of your life. You’re young.”

  “First loves are always special,” my mother countered.

  Dad brought the leftover Christmas breakfast doughnuts over to go with the rolls. “Though not always forever.”

  “Don’t listen to your father. Sometimes two people find their way back to one another, even if they split up for a while, like we did.” She took his hand.

  “See, we argue even when we’re on the same side. I’m not debating any of that. Tomorrow is another day, and none of us are Kreskin. That’s what I’m saying. You might date ten more men and still end up with Mathias. It could happen.”

  “You broke up before?”

  “Several times,” Mama told me. “But here we are.”

  “Have a doughnut.” Dad held one out to me.

  “Nothing but sugar. I shouldn’t,” I told him. “I’m probably already up a few pounds, and we have a meet the first week in January. I ate all the leftover roast beef, though. Protein is better.”

  “One won’t hurt you.”

  “He said no, Marvet. He’s training.”

  “Oh, come on! It’s Christmas.”

  I took the doughnut, but set it on my dresser when I got up to my bedroom, where I went to text Mathias. Devon came in fresh from the shower as I hit Send on Just wanted to wish you a Merry Xmas. Hope all is well.

  “What are you doing taking a shower on Pajama Day?”

  “None of your business.”
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br />   Well, that explained it. He had a small gut that hung over the white towel wrapped around his waist. Though the stark contrast in color between the two accentuated it, I thought it was smaller than it once had been.

  “Want a doughnut?” I picked it up.

  “I’m fat.”

  “Naw.”

  “Yeah. Loralie O’Dell said so.” He shook his tummy like Santa in one of the cartoons we had watched a few nights earlier. “I’m on a diet.”

  “Who cares what she says?”

  “I like her. When I told her I did, she said she would like me too if I wasn’t so fat. I need to work out more.”

  “Fuck that shit,” I said, checking my phone for a response from Mathias.

  “You eat a lot. Why don’t you and Mathias have big bellies?”

  Again with Mathias. Apparently my brother had been expecting him to sit with us for roast beef, ham, mashed potatoes, and green beans too. “All the swimming, I guess.”

  “How come you’re gay?” He sat on the bottom of my unmade bed, facing me.

  “Oh.” I exhaled loudly. All in one day, we were getting it done. “What do you know about gay?”

  “I watch Glee.”

  “Ah. Then you know everything. I just am,” I said. “Some people are, and some people aren’t.”

  He looked down at my blue-striped bedspread. “Are you going to be gay forever?”

  “I think so, yes. Is that okay?”

  “No.”

  “Oh.”

  “How come I’m not gay?”

  “Same reason I am.”

  “I want to be just like you.”

  I raised Devon’s head by the chin to make him look at me. “It’s better if you’re a little like me and mostly like you.”

  He got up. “Did you and Mathias fuck at college?”

  Had I been eating that doughnut, I might have choked a second time. “Nope.”

  “I watched two guys fuck online.”

  “Did you?”

  “Yup.”

  I checked my phone again as Devon put his pajamas back on without shyness. “Dad and Mama might not like that,” I said.

  “You do it.”

  “Says who?”

  “Your browser history.”

  “You got me there. Well, I’m older. What did you think?”

  “I just wanted to know what it looked like.”

  “They don’t show that on Glee?”

  “Nope.”

  “Gotcha.”

  “It looked like it would hurt.”

  I couldn’t argue with him there either.

  “You fixin’ to fuck?” he asked me.

  “I’m not sure two people fix to fuck. And we have to watch it with that word.”

  “I know.” Devon sat again to put on socks. “Now I only get to say it to you. Except I forget sometimes.”

  “It’s hard when you have to think about how to act and everything you’re not supposed to say.”

  “Yup.”

  “Well, when it comes to sex, it either happens or it doesn’t. I don’t think it will with Mathias.”

  “How come?”

  “He’s fucking someone else.” Truth was truth, I figured, and a fourteen-year-old was like a twenty-five-year-old in almost 2013.

  “Oh,” Devon said. “Did you fuck someone else?”

  “Nope.”

  “How come?”

  I shrugged. “I was probably too busy thinking about fucking Mathias to go out and look for someone else.”

  Truth was truth.

  “Hey. Next time you’re checking out my browser history, check out the links about Fred Evans, Anthony Nesty, Charles Chapman, Sabir Muhammed, Anthony Ervin, and Cullen Jones.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Dudes you should know about.” I wrote the names out for him before I headed back up to Cloverton.

  THE SECOND semester didn’t start for a few weeks, but since we had a competition, we also had practice, which Mathias had skipped, because he was in Europe. When someone from the gay and lesbian club told me that, I asked her, “Did he travel to any country in particular, or is he planning on fucking his way across the continent?” That would have offered ample explanation as to why he had never replied to my text. All I got back when I asked, though, was an, “Oh. I don’t know.”

  He showed up for the meet, at least, and the Cavaliers won every race. Actually, I won every race but one—fucking breaststroke—and helped the team win both relay events. Mathias placed second to me every time but one. That was how it went almost all the time, at every meet since September. He always ended up with the one gold I coveted. I wanted them all. Though I had slightly improved at the breaststroke, because Coach Keller had insisted upon it—“You’re not sitting out anything. You’re not going to have a weakness.”—Mathias was better.

  Sadly, that one gold, along with every other medal he’d gotten at the January meet, was later yanked away.

  “Un-fucking-believable!” Coach Keller bellowed at private practice. “You want to explain this text I just got?” He held out the phone as if we could see it. “Get out of my pool.”

  “What?”

  “What?” We weren’t in unison anymore. I’d asked first, and then Mathias.

  “I said get out.”

  Mathias must have known it was about him. As I treaded water with an expression of cluelessness, he climbed out on the side. Water ran off him, puddling on the concrete surrounding the perimeter as his chest heaved with heavy breaths. We hadn’t been working hard, so it had to be emotion. I wondered which one.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “You want to tell him, Webber?”

  “I flunked a drug test.”

  I wasn’t offered time for a reaction or a follow-up question. “Which means you’re disqualified from the last event,” Coach said. “That also means Reed gets gold in breaststroke.”

  I was too stunned to care.

  “But that we—they—the Cavaliers lose any race you helped them win as a team. Nice going, dumbass. You’re out for three weeks, Collouci says.”

  I waited for Mathias to object.

  “And out of here. I don’t want to see you right now. I can’t. Go!”

  “This isn’t college,” Mathias said, his voice a bit shaky. “It has nothing to do with college. My parents are paying you to train me.”

  That was news to me, which in hindsight was rather naïve. My parents weren’t paying Coach Keller to train me. At least I didn’t think they were, and that left me wondering who was.

  “And besides,” Mathias continued, “it’s no big deal. It wasn’t performance enhancing, just a little weed I smoked over vacation, where it’s legal. I thought it would be out of my system for the competition. In another hour it would have been.”

  I was once again torn, envious of Mathias’s lifestyle, jealous I didn’t hang out with friends over Christmas in Europe and try pot for the first time. Yet I was also nearly as pissed off as Coach Keller, his eyes now straight lines, his nostrils flaring. Somehow, I even felt pity. Mathias was about to get slammed—verbally, if not physically—and despite his bravado, I could see in his wavering stare how sorry he was.

  “I said get out.”

  Mathias looked at me. Like that day in the fourth-grade classroom, I wanted to do something to help him. “Come on, Coach. He—”

  “You want to go too, Watson?”

  I kept my mouth shut. The question was obviously rhetorical.

  “When do I get to come back?” Mathias asked.

  “I don’t know if you do.” That was Coach Keller’s answer, and then he walked away.

  I climbed out of the pool as Mathias stood there, breathless. “He’ll cool down. I’ll probably see you tomorrow.”

  “Yeah. Maybe.”

  “I’ll try to screw up the courage to plead your case.”

  “No. Don’t.” His hand touched mine. “I don’t want you getting in trouble.” Then he turned to go.
/>   “Wait.” I ran after him, way too aware of the flapping sound on the cement.

  “Yeah?” He took a few steps back and seemed to be staring at his footprints, dark gray against dull silvery stone.

  “I texted you over Christmas.”

  “I know.”

  “Oh.”

  “No. It’s not like that.” He was still looking down. “I, uh… I don’t know. Sorry.”

  “What for?”

  Mathias sighed. “The whole of it, really. Everything…. Since that night in your dorm room when we almost….”

  “Why?”

  He shrugged and finally looked up at me. “I just am. I was a jerk.”

  “No. Maybe.”

  He smiled.

  “My mom says if two people are meant to be together, they’ll find their way, even with years in between.”

  “Years, huh?”

  Then I shrugged, just one shoulder.

  “I better get out of here.”

  “That’s your answer?”

  “For now.” Mathias hugged me, though, and feeling his arms around me after such a long time, it felt so good—until he let go and started off. Then it felt like good-bye.

  “Back in the pool, Watson.” Coach Keller had returned rather quickly, and I wondered how much he’d been privy to. I swam my best times ever that day. How? Why? I didn’t know. Anger, maybe. Perhaps I was trying to swim away from all the problems and frustration. By this point in training, the water had become more than my unrestrained sexual playmate. It was a place of sanctuary, like Notre Dame to Quasimodo. The world didn’t exist in the pool. It was a 50-meter bastion of refuge from too many thoughts and ambient turmoil. All I saw when in there was the wall in front of me and the ones on either side. All I heard was that pulse, and somehow, even in that quiet that would lead to more ruminating for some, I managed not to be aware of anything else.

  Mathias didn’t show up at Cavalier practice the next day or any other scheduled that week. The college team met every other day during vacation, but Coach Keller was still working us—just me now—every one.

  I checked my phone the moment I got out of the shower. It was a habit. Even if no one called or texted all day, someone always did while I was in there.

  Quitting the college team. Going to be training elsewhere for Rio. Good luck.