Openly Straight

by Bill Konigsberg

  “So what was so important that you had to barge in and wake me up?” she asked.

  “Never mind,” I said. “It’s over.”

  But I definitely couldn’t tell Albie and Toby that story.

  “She reminded me of my grandmother,” Toby said wistfully.

  “Your grandmother was a crazy naked lady?” I asked.

  “Well, yeah,” he said.

  And for some reason, that struck all of us as pretty hilarious.

  FOR ME, the whole coming-out thing was about finding a boyfriend. I mean, why else would you come out? Because it’s so much fun to be oppressed? No, you come out because you want to find love. But it didn’t really work that way for me. Even in a place like Boulder, finding a boyfriend just wasn’t that easy. It was like, where do you look?

  The only other kids at my school who identified as gay were more friend material than dating material. I liked guys who were laid-back and chill, and my choices were You-Know-Caleb, who was the opposite of chill, and a guy named Marshall who was a year above me. He was okay, but not really my type. I tried this online chat site for gay youth, but I got bored with it pretty fast. Typing isn’t exactly my idea of a fun way to spend a Saturday afternoon, thanks very much.

  Meanwhile, my mom had a totally different idea of what coming out was all about. Maybe a month after the coming-out party that my father had dubbed my “cotillion,” my mother urged me back into the car for another surprise trip. It was a Thursday night and I had a biology test the next day, but my mother told me this was “more important.”

  She drove the Prius down Thirteenth Street toward Pearl, and she turned on Spruce. I said, “Please tell me you’re not taking me to your Shambhala Meditation Center place again.” One time the previous summer, she got it in her head that I needed more serenity. Serenity is apparently like a great, big fabulous party, except without food or people or talking or fun. She was not amused when I told her afterward that if she’d wanted me to shut up, she could have just stopped by my room and told me to shut up.

  “Better,” she said as she parked in front of a church. She explained that we were going to this group she’d been attending for the past few weeks: a PFLAG meeting.

  PFLAG is short for Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, and it’s long for a place to spend a few quality hours talking about what your gay son or daughter likes to eat for breakfast. There was only one other kid there, and he was wearing a polka-dot tie. Also not my type. We passed a feather around a circle, and when it was in your hand, you had to say something about yourself. “It’s a good time to locate yourself,” the leader, a woman with Sideshow Bob hair named Martha, had said.

  God, did I try to locate Rafe. Everyone was so earnest and cheerful, and I didn’t want to be the jerk, so when the feather came to me, I said, “I thought we were going for ice cream, but other than the fact that I don’t have any candy-cane ice cream with white chocolate bits mixed in, this is kinda cool.” People laughed. When I added, “I love my gay son,” people didn’t laugh, and my mother shot me a look that said either, “I will kill you when we get home” or “Comedy is not really for you, is it?” I’m not sure which.

  She kept going, I didn’t, and about four months later, around fall of my freshman year, my mom came home one night and told me and my dad that she had fabulous news.

  “I’ve just become president!” she shrieked.

  It needs to be said that sometimes my mom forgets important details when she talks. Like the time she told us she was considering leather (couches, it turns out), or when I was little and she said, “Here’s a napkin to put your balls in” (the Atomic Fireballs that I was eating, she meant).

  So my dad and I waited a bit, and finally she added, “Of PFLAG!”

  I congratulated her, but inside I knew this was maybe not the best news. I hadn’t loved the one meeting, and did this mean I would have to go back now?

  It meant worse. Suddenly, every dinner conversation centered around oppression. I don’t think I’m a really insensitive kid. I cried when I saw that old movie The Color Purple when Oprah Winfrey was hauled off to jail, and when I saw Milk and Sean Penn got shot because he was gay, I sobbed. So you can’t say I’m not down with the oppressed. But every dinner conversation? Homophobia, heterosexism, genderqueer? Really?

  It was sort of like Mom was the gay one now. Me, I was basically the same kid I’d been the year before. Still a virgin. Still not dating. Still texting with Claire Olivia until one in the morning almost always.

  Was I missing something? Was there, like, a welcome packet that arrived once you’d come out, and had my mom taken it for herself when it came in the mail?

  She asked if I wanted to come out publicly when I started high school. I figured, well yeah. I mean, how was I going to get a boyfriend if I didn’t come out?

  I’m not totally stupid. I know that this is supposed to be super-traumatic stuff. But growing up in Boulder is like growing up in a bubble. I kinda always knew it would be okay.

  And it was. Mom set up a meeting with the school principal and the head guidance counselor, Rosalie. The four of us sat in a room, and I felt like a freak sitting there, with the principal overcompensating by making sure he looked directly at me every time he said something, and this Rosalie lady, who was way too excited about the fact I liked boys, grinning at me like I was her favorite pet.

  They told me about the GSA, and also that they had strict policies in place to deal with homophobia and bullying. And those things didn’t happen to me. I came out by telling some people, who told other people, and there we were, a school with gays and straights, and no one died in the process.

  Rafe,

  It sounds like you thought coming out was a small thing, but your mom and the rest of the world treated it like it was huge. Why do you think she reacted like that? We’ll read an excerpt from Edmund White’s autobiographical novel A Boy’s Own Story in class later this semester, and I’d love to hear your further thoughts about oppression and being out after that.

  — Mr. Scarborough

  The annual Fall Classic was a Natick School tradition, pitting the juniors against the seniors in a softball game on the final Saturday afternoon of September. Bragging rights were a big deal at Natick. Last year the juniors got them when they beat the seniors. The stakes were high, and I’d been hearing about it all week. On Friday afternoon, Steve stopped by my room while Albie and I were studying.

  “Hey, Rafe, how’d you do on the calc test?” Steve asked, totally ignoring Albie.

  “A minus,” I said. “I hate calculus.”

  “You and me both,” he said. “You can join our study group if you want. Zack is acing calc. Throw some differential equations in there, and he’s this genius. Otherwise he’s a dumbass.”

  “You gotta be honest,” I said, and Steve smirked.

  “Exactly. Hey, we got an extra ticket to see B.o.B in Boston. You wanna go?”

  “Uh, sure!”

  He smiled that amazing, perfect smile of his, and I felt my insides turn to jelly. It wasn’t so much that I was in love with him; I was just in love with being included. Being chosen.

  “So you gonna be out there with us? Tomorrow?”

  “Uh, yeah, sure,” I said again, afraid to mention that I hadn’t actually touched a softball since I was maybe eight and playing T-ball at school. And even then it was something I had to do until people saw how much I sucked at it and said, “You know, you might really enjoy soccer.”

  “You got a glove?”

  “Yeah, somewhere” was my muffled reply. In the garage back in Boulder, I left out.

  “Well, we’ll find you one. Righty?” Steve asked.

  “Lefty.”

  “We’ll head over around two. See you then?”

  “Awesome.”

  “Awesome,” he said, smiling.

  Once he left, Albie said, “Thanks for asking, Steve! It’s been a fine start to the semester. Why, yes, this is a new black T-shirt, ho
w astute of you to notice!”

  I shrugged, feeling bad for him, and wondering how this was going to continue to work, being a popular jock who also enjoyed hanging out with the misfit guys.

  Saturday was sunny, and the junior team — which was basically all the soccer guys — walked across the quad toward the field. We were bonding pretty well as a soccer team. We had four wins and a tie in our first five games, and it seemed pretty important to everyone that we win at softball too. All week, I’d been hearing strategy talk that I barely understood — we’ll play our fourth outfielder in short center, let’s use Kenny as our extra hitter to get his bat in the lineup — and now that we were on our way to the game, it escalated.

  “Bryce at first, Zack at second, Morris at short,” Steve said. “Benny at third, Joey behind the plate. I’m on the mound. For the outfield, Rafe, you play outfield? You’re fast.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Right field.”

  “Okay. Rodriguez in center, Robinson in left. And Standish as a fourth. Kenny’s the extra hitter.”

  A fattish kid I’d seen mostly on the bench at soccer practice nodded. I could see that in the grand pecking order of things, he was just happy to be along for the ride.

  We strutted across the quad, feeling like rulers of the campus. Underclassmen either meekly said hey as we passed them, or averted their eyes.

  “You want to warm up?” said Robinson when we got to the field.

  I’d barely spoken to him, even though we hung out in the same circle and his locker was right next to mine. He had a mole on his cheek that I always tried not to look at and the hairiest butt I’d ever seen. The guys called him Gorilla Butt in the showers. He didn’t seem to really mind.

  “Okay,” I said, practicing snapping the glove Steve had lent me. It felt old and raggedy, and I wondered how I’d be able to catch the ball with it if it came to me. Robinson walked onto the grass and jogged backward about ten feet. Then he tossed the ball at my head.

  I raised the glove and opened it, deeply concentrating while trying to look nonchalant, and the softball lodged in the pocket.

  Robinson grinned. His front teeth were exceptionally large. “Next time, try it without the kick.”

  “What kick?” I threw the ball back at him.

  “When you caught the ball, you kicked up with your right knee. You were protecting yourself. The ball won’t hurt you.” He had a really deep voice, very manly. He seemed older in a way.

  I didn’t realize I had been doing that. So when he threw again, I tried real hard to stay still. Then, at the last moment, I realized I hadn’t raised my glove. I barely got it up in time to deflect it away from my mouth.

  He laughed again, that mole shaking as his mouth moved. “I mean, it won’t hurt you as long as you catch it in the glove.”

  I had to laugh. I mean, I’m not an idiot, but this throwing and catching thing was like a muscle I hadn’t used before. I ran over, picked up the ball, which had landed about ten feet away, and threw it back to him, sidearm. It felt good.

  “You’ve got a good arm,” Robinson said. “I guess you haven’t played much softball, huh?”

  “We were more into, like, skiing,” I said.

  “Cool.”

  As we warmed up, I saw Ben and Bryce deep in conversation. I almost went over to say hey but decided not to because they looked serious. When Steve called us all in to announce the lineup, Ben cuffed Bryce on the shoulder. Bryce’s face looked pained. I thought back to how he seemed at the party, and I wondered what could make a kid look that upset at a softball game.

  We were up first as the away team. Right before we sent our first hitter up, Bryce called everyone over. As he spoke to us, he looked down at the dirt.

  “I’m having a hard day,” he said, almost a mumble. “Just take it easy on me, okay?”

  The guys all looked at one another, as if needing a cue on how to react. I felt like nodding and saying, Sure, of course, but I didn’t want to stand out. I looked over at Ben, and it seemed to me that he probably could have said something supportive. But I guess I wasn’t the only one afraid of standing out.

  “Oh-kay …” Steve said, as if Bryce were a crazy person. “Sure thing, buddy.” And it amazed me, how the words were all Natick positive, like all for one, and one for all, which was the kind of team-first mentality I was so used to hearing from the guys. But his tone was a lot of things, and none of them was positive at all.

  Bryce kicked the ground in the same way I would have if someone had said something that hurt my feelings. And then Zack went up to the plate, and it was like none of that conversation ever happened.

  My turn to bat came up in the first inning. The guys were all pretty good, hitting the ball into the outfield every time. As I stood on the dirt circle where I could take warm-up swings, I thought back to probably the last time that I had swung a bat … again, third-grade T-ball? Joey, our catcher, was batting before me. He stayed back on his right leg, watched the arc of the ball, and then swung hard, shifting his weight with a big step forward. I was a lefty, so I figured I would just reverse everything. Joey made an out by hitting a high ball to the first baseman, and I came forward.

  “Hey, you need to get in the box,” said the senior team’s catcher.

  My face flushed. “I know,” I said, looking down in front of me. There was a crudely drawn rectangle in the dirt surrounding home plate. I stepped into the box and extended the bat to make sure it would reach over the plate. It would.

  Then the kid on the mound lofted an underarm pitch. As it started to come down, I thought about swinging, but I would have had to swing up over my head, which didn’t feel right. It landed in the catcher’s glove, right about waist high.

  “Ball one!” the umpire shouted.

  “Cool,” I mumbled.

  Then the guy threw one that was a little lower. I was about to swing, but then I didn’t.

  “Strike one!”

  The third pitch came in a lot like the second one, and I just put all my weight into it, stepping forward and taking a huge swing.

  Contact! The ball jumped off my bat and went toward the third baseman. I watched for a second, saw the third baseman put his glove down because it was a low shot, and then remembered I was supposed to run. I sprinted as fast as I could. I focused on first base, figuring the ball would probably get there before I did, and I’d be out.

  It didn’t. I crossed the bag and looked back over at third. The guy was holding his shin and writhing around on the ground.

  “Nice shot,” said the first baseman. “I think you killed our third baseman.”

  “I did?” I said, flushing with pride from the fact that I had actually gotten a hit.

  I ran around the bases when the guy after me, Kenny the extra hitter, hit a long fly ball past the right fielder. When I crossed home plate, the guys slapped my butt, and one cuffed me on the shoulder.

  “Not bad for someone who obviously has never played softball before,” Steve said.

  I reddened. “That obvious, huh?”

  “Oh, yeah,” he said. “How are you with the glove?”

  I pointed to Robinson, who I’d warmed up with. He was standing nearby.

  “He’s brutal, Steve,” he said. “Seriously bad.”

  “We’ll switch it up, then,” Steve said. “Kenny. Take right field, okay? We’ll use Rafe as the extra hitter.”

  I nodded, sure that meant something to someone. I figured they’d tell me where to stand, and I’d stand there. And, anyway, I was having a blast.

  It turns out that the extra hitter gets to sit on the bench while the rest of the team is on the field. Kenny, whose belly made him look like a pregnant lady, shot me a dirty look as he waddled to the outfield.

  “You better study up, Colorado,” he yelled back. “We need your speed out there.”

  In the third inning, with us leading 5–4, I got another chance at the plate. This time, I was a bit jacked up. I swung as hard as I could, and the ball went really, reall
y high. Just not far. The pitcher barely moved and caught my ball easily.

  I jogged back to the bench, a little red in the face because I’d just made an out. I sat down next to Ben and fished out my water bottle.

  “Where are Albie and Toby?” he asked. “How come they’re not watching the game?”

  I laughed, but he didn’t. I just figured he was kidding, since the likelihood of those guys hanging with the jocks was about the same as Kenny being a swimsuit model.

  “You guys looked like you were having fun the other day,” Ben said as I took a swig of water.

  “Well, we were,” I said, swishing the water around my mouth. “I know they’re weird, but they’re good to hang with.”

  “Cool,” he said, surprising me.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I guess.”

  Ben poured some sunflower seeds into his palm and threw them into his mouth. “What were you doing, anyway?”

  “Oh, we went to see a crazy naked lady running down Bacon Street.”

  “Ah,” he said, his eyes narrowing. I could tell he was trying to gauge whether I was messing with him, whether this was my sense of humor.

  “That’s actually a true story,” I said. “Hard to explain. Involved a police scanner and drinking.”

  “Of course,” he said, and we both laughed.

  We watched as Steve stepped up to the plate and took a few practice swings.

  “So Toby?”

  “Toby what?”

  “Wanted to go see a naked … lady?”

  “Peer pressure,” I said, and we both laughed again.

  “So what do you think of them?” I asked. I wiped the bottle across my forehead; even on a day in the seventies, it was humid here.

  “Different,” he said. “Albie’s real smart. Toby is gay. You know that, right?”

  “He told me,” I said. “Not a big issue.”

  Ben nodded. “It used to be pretty bad for him,” he said. “The guys could be really mean. I mean, not me and Bryce. But some of them were. And then, last year, this gay guy came and spoke on Diversity Day. He used to play college football. That really changed things. All of a sudden, the whole soccer team starts talking about homophobia like it was this issue that had always concerned them, you know? And Steve started making a point of sitting with Toby at lunch a couple times a week. He would always say hi to him and make sure no one was bothering him. And no one has.”