Raise Your Glass

by John Goode

  Well, if I’d had any doubts this was about me, they were gone now.

  “Now, I have no personal thoughts one way or another. But when members of my team come to me and say they have found out something about a student that makes it impossible for them to play on the same team as that student, I have to investigate.”

  Mr. Raymond interrupted him to ask, “And what student were they talking about?”

  “Bradley Greymark,” Coach Gunn answered.

  “And what did they find out that made it impossible for them to stay on the team with Mr. Greymark?”

  Gunn paused, taking a breath as if steadying himself to say it out loud. “They said he had recently admitted he was a homosexual.”

  I heard a few people on the stage as well as in the audience murmur to themselves for a few seconds before Mr. Raymond got their attention. “And, Coach Gunn, did you confront Mr. Greymark about these rumors?”

  “I did.”

  “And what did he have to say?”

  Gunn leaned into the microphone. “He admitted they were true.”

  More murmuring, this time much louder.

  This time Mr. Adler asked the question. “Coach Gunn, what did the students that came to you say was their problem with having Mr. Greymark on the team?”

  “They said that they would feel uncomfortable about changing clothes with someone who would gain sexual pleasure from seeing them in a state of undress.”

  Well, that was bullshit, because I knew the idiots that had talked to him, and they wouldn’t understand half of those words. This was starting to sound real rehearsed.

  “Coach Gunn, do we have coed locker rooms?” Adler asked.

  “No, sir.”

  “And why is that?”

  Like he needed to explain that?

  “Because it would be highly inappropriate for boys and girls to be in a state of undress together. Especially at their age.”

  A few people chuckled, but so far, nothing was funny to me.

  “Well, it seems to me that we do indeed have a problem,” Raymond said, taking back control of the meeting. “What would you suggest we do, Coach Gunn? In the best interests of the team, of course.”

  “I don’t think it is fair to make students who are clearly uncomfortable with his lifestyle be forced into a situation where they have to do something like expose themselves.” He made it sound so rational, so damn logical, that if he had been talking about anyone else but me I might have agreed with him.

  “Sounds reasonable,” Raymond said, pretending to mull it over as if this was the first time he had heard the proposal. “Thank you, Coach Gunn, you may sit down.”

  Gunn shuffled back to his seat, and I saw my mom glaring at him.

  “Now, we have a proposal in front—” Mr. Raymond had begun to say when the doors burst open with a crash. Kyle walked down the aisle with a stack of papers in his hand.

  The cavalry had arrived!

  Kyle

  I WAS late, and I knew it.

  The parts of the city charter I needed weren’t online and that had meant running all the way to City Hall to get copies printed. I had them; there was no way they could do this legally and I had the proof. I ran down the hall, throwing the doors open in an explosion of noise that was as regrettable as it was unavoidable.

  Every pair of eyes was on me.

  I couldn’t see anyone in the seats because of the low light, but the school board was illuminated perfectly. If looks could kill, Mr. Raymond would have cut my head off by my first step down the center aisle. A small part of me screamed orders, telling me to turn around and run away, that this was not how I behaved. I was supposed to be invisible, unnoticed by everyone. I wasn’t Perry Mason, interrupting the trial in the middle of testimony to submit new evidence. Even though it was small, running was a powerful impulse, one I might have succumbed to last week.

  Before Brad.

  “I need to address the board,” I said, holding the papers up. “You can’t do this.”

  Mr. Adler stood up. “No, Mr. Stilleno. You can’t do this. School board council meetings are closed to students, as we explained to your… friend, Mr. Greymark. You need to leave.”

  I stopped halfway down the aisle. “Seriously?” That I did not know.

  Mr. Raymond leaned forward. “Very seriously, young man.”

  “Crap,” I said to myself as I started to think I might have done all my research for nothing.

  “So you can rule on Brad’s future, and I don’t mean just at this school, but he can’t be in the same room to face his accusers?”

  I froze as I heard my mom’s voice. She was sitting in the front row with two other guys I didn’t recognize.

  “The rules are very clear in this matter, Ms. Stilleno. Your son will have to leave,” Raymond began to explain.

  She looked back at me and just smiled. “Go on, we got this.”

  I looked at my papers in despair. All that work for nothing?

  “Mr. Stilleno, do you need to be escorted out?” Mr. Raymond asked.

  I looked up at him and considered flipping him off but thought better of it. I turned around and walked out of the auditorium, pretty sure we were dead. I tossed the papers into a trash can as I passed it and began to lumber outside, dejected.

  “Hey!” I heard someone whisper. I looked over and saw Brad standing at the stairs to the balcony. “Come on!” He gestured to me. “They can’t see us up here.”

  I grabbed his hand, and we sneaked upstairs where we could see the entire meeting. “Where have you been?” he asked.

  “Wasting my time, obviously,” I replied, feeling like crying, I was so upset. This was not how the story was supposed to end. I was supposed to charge in and knock down the walls of bigotry with my well-researched information. Not get shot down halfway into the room like an idiot. He squeezed my hand and I looked over to him. He was just staring at me so intensely I wondered if I had something on my face. “What?”

  “You’re a fucking superhero,” he said, leaning in and kissing me. I could swear the whole room tilted as I closed my eyes and kissed him back.

  I might have stayed in that coma if I hadn’t heard Mr. Raymond call the meeting back to order. “If we can continue, we have a proposal in front of us. Does anyone have anything they want to add to the discussion?”

  “I do,” a woman’s voice called out.

  “That’s my mom!” Brad whispered.

  I could hear Mr. Raymond sigh from up here. “Mrs. Greymark.” He gestured toward the podium.

  Brad’s mom walked right up there looking three kinds of pissed. I had only seen her that one time at Brad’s and wondered how someone that small could hold her own against the behemoth that was Brad’s father. Seeing that look on her face, I understood now; he was the one I should be worried about.

  “Mr. Raymond, members of the board. If you think I am going to sit back and let you discriminate against my son like this you have another think coming.”

  “Mrs. Greymark—” he began to explain, but she just kept talking over him.

  “My husband and I pay taxes in this town. We have donated a sizable amount of money and time to this school and the baseball team. In fact, I have personally baked cookies to raise money to go to state last year. Where we won a championship, if I remember, based on my son’s performance. While the years of effort, training, and sacrifice that my son has dedicated to this school obviously mean absolutely nothing to you, they do mean a great deal to me and to my husband. With all that in mind, please justify to me your decision to remove Brad from the team. Now.”

  Mr. Adler waited to see if she was done this time before talking. “Mrs. Greymark, we are in new territory here. We have never had to deal with an openly gay student, much less an athlete.”

  “But you have had gay students before,” my mom said, standing up.

  “Mrs. Stilleno, you do not have the floor,” Mr. Raymond protested.

  “If you thought you were going to treat our
sons like second-class citizens and then have an orderly meeting where we pass the conch around to talk, you’re dumber than I thought.” There was laughter from the audience, and I saw Brad look at me in amusement.

  “Dude, your mom is epic!” he said, smiling.

  “Yeah, when she’s sober,” I said, more to myself, but he was right. She did sound kind of badass down there.

  “You have had gay students and athletes before,” she said when the noise quieted down.

  “If we did I didn’t know of it,” Mr. Adler admitted. “In fact, I don’t know a gay person in all of Foster.”

  “Yes, you do,” a male voice said as someone stood up next to my mom.

  “Holy shit!” Brad said, his eyes wide with shock.

  “Who is that?” I asked, squinting my eyes.

  “Mr. Parker,” he said, obviously amazed.

  “Mr. Parker from the sporting goods store?” I asked, stunned. “Mr. Parker is gay?”

  Brad nodded. “Yeah, and he’s way cool.”

  I was going to ask how he knew that, but they started talking again.

  “Mr. Parker,” Raymond said, obviously upset. “You’re gay?”

  “Yeah, so you know at least one,” he answered proudly.

  Raymond and Adler talked among themselves for a second as they tried to regroup. After a few minutes, Adler looked over to him. “Be that as it may, you were never a student here, Mr. Parker, so your point is moot.”

  “I also know for a fact that Matt Wallace is gay, and he played football here for three years.” More talking and argument, but Mr. Parker just kept talking. “Now, two of those years Foster went all the way, so you’re telling me there were morale problems then too?”

  “No one knew he was gay!” Adler protested.

  “Yeah, we did,” another voice called out. I saw Scott Ritchie, one of the best quarterbacks Foster had ever had, stand up. “We all knew, but we didn’t care.” He added in a gruff voice, “He played as hard as his brothers did, and that was all that mattered.”

  “What exactly do you think we would do in a locker room that is so different than what we’ve been doing for years?” Parker asked. “Do you think we’re going to start touching guys? Molesting them? Are you saying gay guys, unlike straight guys, who are models of chastity, are just unable to control their urges? We’ve been getting naked in front of you guys for years, and no one ever died from it. So what is different now?”

  Mr. Raymond’s face was getting red now. “Mr. Parker, it’s like the military. Though we can’t condone it if nothing is said—”

  “No, it’s not,” another voice said, standing up. This one was in Navy whites and looked like a big guy.

  “No fucking way!” Brad exclaimed.

  “Who’s that?”

  “Aaron White. He played ball for Granada last year.” Brad was obviously blown away.

  It was obvious Raymond was losing it. “And who are you, young man?”

  “Petty Officer White, and I can tell you that this hellhole is nothing like the military. I spent four years here hiding who and what I was, hating Foster the entire time because of it. I couldn’t wait to get out. What you’re doing is going to crush not only Brad but any gay player that comes after him. And you can try to justify it as morale or for the team, but it’s really just about you not liking gay people.”

  Now they weren’t murmuring. There was outright talking as people began to argue with each other. Mr. Raymond was trying to get control back but there was too much chaos. Finally he slammed his hand down on the table a few times and screamed, “Order!”

  Everyone jumped at that and began to take their seats, well-behaved former high school students to the end. “Be that as it may, we have lost sight of the reason for this meeting. The proposal is to prohibit openly gay students from playing on any school-related sports team. We have heard your concerns: now let’s vote.”

  Both of our moms screamed bloody murder, and I saw Mr. Parker stand up too, but it was obvious that the board was going to vote no matter what anyone with a brain might say.

  “All in favor of the ban?” Raymond asked.

  Every single one of them raised their hands.

  “The motion is—” he began to say when the doors flew open again.

  “Now who?” Brad asked, unable to see the door since it was under us.

  Everyone stopped and looked in silence.

  Slowly, as if there was nothing on the line at all, Brad’s dad walked down the aisle toward the podium. I saw his wife smile and move aside, letting him take her spot.

  “Nathan,” Mr. Raymond said, obviously nervous. “Please don’t tell me you’ve come to admit you’re gay as well.”

  No one laughed at that.

  “No, Frank, I’m here to speak the only language you understand,” he said, turning to his wife. “I assume the passionate plea for equal rights and an end to bigotry didn’t help?” She shook her head, and I could feel the “I told you so” emanating off him. “Did you have a chance to discuss the federal laws?” he continued blandly. She arched her eyebrows and glanced at the members of the board, silently condemning them to the lowest class of Permian slime creatures she could imagine.

  “And what language is that?” Raymond asked.

  “Money,” he answered with a shark’s grin. “You do this to my son, and I will sue this district for every dime it has. When I’m done I won’t only have your job but I’ll own the whole damn school. Under the city charter, what you are doing is illegal.”

  “No, it’s not,” Mr. Raymond argued.

  “Yes, it is!” I screamed, standing up.

  Whoops.

  Everyone on stage shot me looks as sharp as shark’s teeth when the audience looked up at me. I might as well talk; I was fucked anyways. “According to the city charter, municipal funds cannot be used in any function that can be considered segregated or restrictive towards any member or group of the student body.”

  Brad stood up next to me. “Yeah! What he said.”

  I saw his dad nod.

  “The boy is right,” Nathan said, getting Mr. Raymond and the school board’s attention. “It was originally put in there for racial segregation during the sixties, but it is worded so it includes any ban based on bias. You can’t stop a student from playing if they are black, a girl, or even gay. I am begging you, pass the ban.” His eyes flashed as Mr. Raymond began to sweat. “It doesn’t matter to me if he goes to college on a scholarship or on the settlement the state of Texas will give me after hearing what a mess you made of this. But either way, my son is going to college. And if you don’t think I’ll call the feds in to back me up, you’re dreaming.”

  One of the ladies up on stage next to Raymond pulled him aside and began to whisper to him. Brad’s dad gestured angrily for us to get down there. “Busted,” Brad said with a huge grin on his face.

  By the time we got to the floor, everyone on stage was gabbling, and it was obvious that the board in its little nest didn’t agree anymore. Brad went and sat next to his mom, and I headed over to mine, where she sat with Mr. Parker. “Surprised?” she asked, knowing full well I was.

  “Did you bring him?” I asked, pointing to Mr. Parker.

  “Tyler and I went to school together. I’ve known he was gay since he was your age,” she said smugly.

  “You did not,” he argued.

  “Oh please,” she replied sarcastically. “The only thing you were missing was a purse.”

  Mr. Parker made a face as he sat back in his chair.

  After a few minutes, the board stopped arguing and Mr. Raymond began to speak into the microphone. “In light of the information the board has just obtained, we move to strike down the ban and reinstate Bradley Greymark on the baseball team.” He looked over at Brad. “But there will be arrangements made for you to change out somewhere away from the others, same as if there was a female on the team.”

  There was a cheer from most everyone in the seats, but I didn’t notice because al
l I was looking at was Brad. And he wasn’t happy. I knew what he was going to do half a second before he did it, but by then it was too late.

  “So is there any other new business or can we adjourn for the—”

  Brad stood up. “I have something.”

  The entire auditorium went silent as he took his father’s place at the podium.

  Brad

  I WALKED up to the podium knowing my dad wasn’t going to just move aside.

  “What are you doing?” he practically growled at me.

  “Making things right,” I said, trying to sound braver than I actually felt. He wanted me to say more, but I refused to look at him, instead just staring at the school board, who had obviously had enough of me for one day. “Don’t screw this up,” he said as he let me pass. I saw him take a seat next to Mom, and they both had that look on their faces that said they thought I was about to screw the pooch on this.

  “Mr. Greymark, you got what you wanted today,” Mr. Raymond said, sounding about as patronizing as anyone I’d ever heard. “What more could you possibly—?”

  I looked over at Kyle, and I could see he was nervous. As our eyes met, he gave me a smile and a nod that told me, even though he had no idea what I was about to say, he was with me. “I want to address the bullying problem on campus.” Both Raymond and Adler rolled their eyes as I began to talk. “There is a problem at this school, a problem that has existed for a long time with nothing done to stop it. Hateful, spiteful acts that go unchecked and ignored by the teachers and the staff.”