Divisions (Dev and Lee) (10 page)

That gives me a smile as I finally look through my e-mails. Bunch of spam, and then one from my father wishing me well. That one gets me staring into space for five minutes, thinking about him and my mother, and how dismissive she was when I called. “Harold can take care of himself,” she said, using my father’s middle name like she always does, and she sounded annoyed that I’d woken her up. She didn’t even ask how I was doing. It’s strange. For the last few years, I haven’t wanted to go home. But I always thought that I could.

Then there’s an e-mail from Alex, the rabbit from the Dragons. The e-mail’s titled, “Thought you should know about this.” I click.

It starts out with him hoping I’m doing okay, asking if I want to get together for lunch sometime. I guess I should tell him I’m living three days away now. He goes on: “Hey, you added this guy Vince King to the Dragons list a month ago and we just got this notification on him. College says he passed away on Saturday. Don’t know the details, but you were interested in him and it’s kind of an excuse to get in touch ‘cause I felt shitty for not writing when I saw it, y’know?”

Aw, crap. Most of the good mood I had from moving in evaporates. I type out a quick, numb response. “Thanks for the heads-up. I’m in Chevali but I’ll be back in Hilltown sometime this fall. Let’s get together.”

And then I have to go look at the Cobblestone College website. The athletic section has a page mourning the passing of Vince King, and a link to the article in the kid’s local paper. That article just says that he was found dead in his family’s home the day after Thanksgiving. The lack of detail smells weird to me. If it were a car accident, it would say “Car accident.” If he had some kind of disease, it definitely would have mentioned a stay in the hospital. But nothing. No “heart attack,” no “brain aneurysm,” no “fell off a ladder.” So it was the kind of death they wouldn’t want publicized. Like a suicide. And a gay kid committing suicide, well, there’s been a few of them lately.

I know he’d been having a hard time when he wrote to Dev, but…

Then I get a sinking feeling. I haven’t checked Dev’s e-mail since before the holiday. It had trickled off since he came out, and I figured I’d get back to it after the Pelagia game. I’m sure there’s nothing there. Sure of it. But I’m still terrified, when I log in, to look, and my finger hesitates over the mouse click before I finally open the inbox.

God, what was his e-mail address? I scan the list, look through it again. Nothing from anyone with the name King, as far as I can tell. And I’m relieved that he didn’t reach out while I wasn’t looking, but I’m also disappointed. I wish he’d thought he had someone to talk to.

I do another web search for his name, filter it to prioritize recent results, and then I get a weird hit. “Praying for the soul of Vincent King,” the page is titled, on a website with an all-too-familiar name: families-united.org. But when I click on the link, the page isn’t found. Thank goodness for search engines; I can see a cached version that looks like it was stored last Sunday.

It asks the “faithful” to join the congregation (which one, it doesn’t say) in prayer for the soul of the son of Paul and Vanessa King, who has been “tempted by the homosexual lifestyle” and who has been “receiving lies as truth from homosexuals seeking to lure him into a degenerate lifestyle.”

It gets worse the more I read, but the thing is, most of it doesn’t sound specific to Vince. It ends with a repeated exhortation to keep this young boy in the reader’s prayers—doesn’t even say “young bear.” I snoop around the website and see a bunch of different prayers with a lot of the same terminology. Some of them have pictures, school pictures with the young fox, or ringtail, or rat, anywhere from high school juniors to college seniors, looking bright and smiling against that uniform school picture background. Pictures supplied by the parents, not the cubs. Many—most—of the pages are about poor boys tempted by homosexual degenerates, but I find two youngsters in danger from the evils of drugs.

When I click around the website, I find other charming essays posted. Things like how all homosexuals ideally want to fuck little boys. How the homosexual agenda includes a complete redefinition of marriage to include farm animals. How homosexuality is a disease that has a cure.

I sit and stare at the computer screen, wondering what could have happened to a twenty-year-old bear, and why my mother’s anti-gay group is praying for his soul. I could call her, I guess, and ask her to nose around with the friends she’s making. But that assumes I have any currency left with her. And right now, I would place more money on my ability to step into a Firebirds uniform and catch one of Aston’s passes than I would on my chances of getting information out of Mother.

When I was twenty, I had friends and a social life and maybe a boyfriend, depending on when in that year you looked. I might not have known where I was going in life—I might still not know—but I knew that wherever it was, I was going to be able to get there. I never felt the crushing isolation or despair that I think about when I hear about kids who kill themselves.

That first year of school, though, when I came home with my pride pamphlets and my patched-up jacket and basically dared my parents to confront me…that was a more precarious time. When Mother yelled at me over Christmas, Father took me aside and told me to take the jacket off, to make Mother happy. At the time, I thought he was taking her side. Now, in hindsight, I’m not so sure. But he didn’t tell me I was wrong or bad, not ever, and Mother didn’t either. They didn’t tell a bunch of strangers that there was something so fucking wrong with me that they had to put a call out onto the World Wide Web for prayer to cure me from being a sick pedophile. Even if they had, I had FLAG and Brian and a whole bunch of uppity gays and lesbians ready to tell me there was not a damn thing wrong with me. If I hadn’t…if I’d just been scared, and alone, and then my parents turned on me…

And yeah, I’m speculating, but it’s a feeling in my gut, the kind I’d get when I’d watch a kid play and I’d think,
that guy is going to be a star
. Those feelings weren’t always right, but they were right more often than they were wrong.

“Hey, I think my silverware is nicer than yours,” Dev calls from the kitchen.

It takes me a moment to reply, “I picked yours out for you.”

He pokes his head in the bedroom again and sees me sitting at the desk in front of the computer, just staring at the screen. His paw lands on my shoulder and squeezes. “Everything okay?”

“Uh. Why?”

“Well, your ears are down and your tail’s under the chair and your eyes look like you just watched your Dragons lose the big game.” He bends down and kisses my ears. “Something in your e-mail?”

“This kid who wrote you a couple months ago.” I click around until I find his picture. “Him. He died.”

“Died?” Dev’s claws prick my shoulder. “Shit. How?”

“I don’t know. But he was gay, and he was ‘found dead’ the day after Thanksgiving, and there’s this webpage up asking people to pray for his soul from this fucking anti-gay organization.” I fold my paws in my lap and try not to think of Mother.

“You think…” He sounds confused. “You think they killed him?”

“No. I think…” I pause. “I think he killed himself. But I think they probably helped drive him to it.”

He rubs my other shoulder as well, claws retracted now. “That’d suck, but…maybe it was just an accident.”

I stare at the screen again. “I know it sounds crazy, but Dev, I have this feeling. I don’t know how to explain it.”

His paws knead my muscles. “Fox,” he says, “let’s get you moved in. I’ll be at practice tomorrow and you can check the story out if you want. Hey, if you call Hal, I bet he’d help.”

“That’s a good idea.” I lean back into his embrace, reach out with a paw, and hide the websites. “I’ll call him in the morning.”

Tuesday’s just a really nice day. I’m putting away things in the kitchen and then I think, is he really just in the other room? Or I take something out of the box that smells like him and put it in my cupboard and think, that belongs there.

That e-mail he got sucks, and I’m kinda mad at his friend for bringing down what was otherwise a pretty good day. So I work to take his mind off it at lunch, and then we go walk around a park and I take him shopping for all the things he wants. He perks up a little then, picking out some nice art—real art, not sports posters, but nature scenes of hills and oceans and one really nice winter landscape. “To remind us of winter,” he says.

And he says I need an end table and a whole bunch of food, so by the time we get back we have to make three trips up in the elevator, between the paintings and the awkward little table and the five bags of groceries. “Are you sure I need all this food?” I say. “I’m never home.”

“I will be.” He gives me a smile, and I’m glad he’s feeling better. “And I’m going to cook more for you.”

I eye the steaks I’m putting into the freezer. “Should I leave some of these out?”

“I’m not cooking tonight. I’m worn out.”

I hope he means just from the shopping, but I don’t press. We order pizza and play UFL 2009, but in the middle of the first game, he gets distracted and I score an easy interception, returned for a touchdown. “Didn’t have your head in the game,” I say.

“No,” he says. “Sorry.” I wait for him to laugh, to tell me I won’t get an easy score off him like that again, but he just goes back to the game. So I figure he’s thinking about that e-mail, and I edge along the couch, closer to him, until he snuggles up against me. When the game’s over, I suggest we snuggle up close in the bed, and he’s grateful to quit playing. I know there’s no urgency, that he’s not going home tomorrow or the day after, that home is actually right where he is, under me in bed, but I still want him bad, and he wants me too.

After, he wants to shower, but I say I’m sleepy and I’ll shower in the morning. He says he’s not going to put his clean fur next to my sticky messy fur, so I get up and we shower together. And that’s not so bad. Feels good to go to bed clean.

The next morning, we tease each other a little bit, and then he says that I should get to practice, that he’ll still be there when I get home. I get dressed while he watches me, still naked, and I leave for the stadium with a huge grin on my muzzle.

The good mood persists in the locker room. The win over Pelagia on national television got a lot of coverage in the media. After we beat our division rival Hellentown in probably the best game I’ve ever played in, people started really taking us seriously. Best of all, the requests for interviews and comments from me about being gay have started to die down. The media’s covering us as a team. Yeah, I still get questions in the after-game press conferences and stuff, but it’s less than it used to be.

Coach gives us a quick speech in the locker room before we break up into individual units. He was a quarterback fifteen years ago, and players have gotten way bigger since then, but he’s still an imposing wolf with a wolf’s command of the room, a glare that can pin you to the wall, and a great deep speaking voice that I’ve never heard without some trace of a growl in it. He stands in the doorway of his office, from which he can see the whole room, with the other coaches flanking him. “One week at a time,” he says. “I’m so proud of what you guys have done in the last month. We won a statement game at Hellentown, and then didn’t let up. Port City, Pelagia, those weren’t easy games, but you made ‘em look easy. We control our own destiny.” He’s said this every week since the Hellentown game. “If we win out, we’re in the playoffs.”

He pauses to let that sink in. I know I’m still having some trouble believing it. “That’s not an easy thing to do. Yerba has a good team, and Freestone isn’t a gimme. Kerina isn’t a good team, but division games on the road are always tough. Then…” He points at the calendar, where December 29
^th
is circled in red. “We get Hellentown here, last day of the season. They’re still just one game behind us, and you know they would love to show up here with a chance to take the division from us. But we control our destiny, and if we play the way I know we can play, we will exit that game as champions of the UFL South.”

“Yeah!” Our cheer echoes throughout the locker room, so loud that no one voice is distinct in it. And then Charm’s voice rings out, “Fifty G’s, coming up!”

Charm, my roommate on the road, is a big stallion who talks as tall as he stands. We laugh, and Gerrard says that it’s not about the money, and Ty says that’s easy to say for the guy who already has all of it. We get a forty thousand dollar check if we make the playoffs; another fifty thousand if we win the division. That’s nothing to turn up your nose at for most of us. Put together, it’s about a third of what I’m making this year, not counting commercials. And we want to see that “UFL South Champion” banner flying over the stadium. The last time the Firebirds went to the championship, they went as a wild card. The team has never—never—won its division in its thirty-two year history, not when it was part of the UFL Central behind those great Kerina and Gateway teams, not when it was moved to the UFL South twelve years ago. Kerina has, I think, a million division titles; Hellentown has eight, including the last three; even New Kestle has six. Chevali, not a one.

Coach’s rah-rah speeches have not changed much during the season; what’s changed is our confidence and our belief in his words. And, I think, his own confidence in them. In the year I’ve been playing for him, I’ve seen him at the end of a lousy season and at the beginning of a new one. I think he always believed we could be good, but there’s a big difference between believing and seeing, even for the most optimistic of us.

Just like how a couple months ago, I don’t think I would’ve believed that I could have held a press conference where I told the world I’m gay. And I certainly wouldn’t have believed that if I had, the team would be laughing, slapping each other on the back, including me in their jokes and rituals like they always did. Winning solves just about every problem, my coach in high school used to say, echoing every sports journalist ever. And maybe if we were slogging through another 4-12 season, there would be a lot more hostility, slurs and slams, whispers behind my back. But the other guys who start alongside me at linebacker, a coyote named Gerrard Marvell and a leopard named Carson Omba, all they care about is that I bring my game. Aston, our quarterback and the most high-profile player on the team, has gone out of his way a few times to assure me that he’s cool with everything. Zillo, the coyote who backs up my position, thought I was a sissy until he had to go out in my place and try to block the same bruising running back who knocked me on my ass and cracked my ribs.

That’s not to say that everyone’s cool. Colin, this fox rookie who plays cornerback, has had it in for me since the first time I announced my sexuality to the team. Used to be real pally with Zillo until the coyote’s change of heart—and I think they had it out a week or two later, when Zillo started hanging out with me more and he and Colin stopped talking altogether. For the fox, it’s a morality issue, so Zillo’s tainted by association; Colin wears a cross and takes his religion seriously. Of course, he was a big star in college and almost got in trouble for taking money illegally from alumni, so on the morality scale he doesn’t have a leg to stand on. And then there’s Corey Mitchell, but I think he mostly hates me ‘cause I took his starting spot when he got injured. I haven’t even heard him mention the gay thing.

I have an eye out for Corey, because this is the first day he’d be allowed back in the facility. He was suspended by the league for a week for laying a vicious late hit on a New Kestle player, and the Firebirds added two more weeks to that. Corey’s nowhere to be seen, though, when the linebackers assemble with our position coach, “Steez” Mikilios.

His ropy feline tail curls smoothly behind him, and his ears are up, so he’s in a good mood. And he likes me, even though I’m not a cougar like him and Corey are. Species bias is okay to a point, but when it comes to football, like Gerrard says, it’s all about the game. He’s not above telling me where Corey is better than me, but it’s been a couple weeks since he had to.

Gerrard and Carson and I have worked pretty hard to get on the same page, and Steez tells us where we need to improve. Gerrard could coach us himself, and has, when we do extra workouts, but when Steez is talking, the coyote defers to him, only adding in words when he really feels it necessary. We start out with an overview of the game, watching film and studying our own performances.

“Second half, good performance,” Steez says. “Team has a big lead, easy to lose focus, but you all keep head in game. Tomorrow we fly to Yerba. Good team, balanced attack. We are writing new plays, you will learn them.”

“No problem,” I say, and Gerrard grins at me.

Steez curls his muzzle in a feral smile. “Good, Miski. You think is easy? Perhaps we write five more. You like that?”

The grins of my teammates turn to barks of annoyance. “Shut up!” “No, no!”

“Go easy on us, coach,” Gerrard says. “We don’t all have study partners like fifty-seven there.”

I flick my ears and grin. It’s a nice thing for him to say, an acknowledgment of my relationship with Lee and also of Lee’s football smarts. And it gets Steez to say, “Study partner, no study partner, Miski learns plays fast. You all learn that fast, we win championship.”

“Hey, can I borrow that fox of yours?” Zillo says, low, and then kinda gulps and his ears go flat. “I mean, uh, for studying!”

The other guys laugh, and Marais, a cougar who backs up Carson, says, “What’s the matter, you can’t get enough head on the road?”

“I get plenty,” Zillo says. “Not as much as Marvell there, but who does?”

“True dat!” Marais slaps his paw.

Steez clears his throat. “New plays tomorrow morning. Today, station drills.” We all groan. Station drills are draining, repetitive physical exercises: shuttle sprints, tackle dummies, blocking. There’s a pass defense station that isn’t too bad, because at least we get to jump after a football, but even that’s tiring when you do it fifty times.

“Hey,” Zillo says as we break for the drills, “I didn’t mean nothing by that.”

“Don’t worry.” I punch his shoulder. “I know what you meant. Actually, I bet Lee’d love to work with some other guys. He’s not doing anything ‘til the start of next season.”

“Nah, it was just a joke. I mean, that’d be a little weird. Unless the team hires him as a coach or something.” He scratches his muzzle. “That’d be weird too, huh? Like if your boyfriend was a coach.”

“Yeah, ha ha.” He already sort of is, or was; the last few weeks he hasn’t had much to say about my play. I look around, imagine Lee in one of those Chevali Firebirds polos yelling at the football players to hustle. I bet he’d like it. I want to change the subject, though. “Hey, you know where Mitchell is?”

Zillo turns that long coyote muzzle of his back and forth, scanning the field. “Nah, I was just wondering that.” The only cougar in our group is Marais, starting drills with Gerrard just ahead of us. “Maybe he got traded. Deadline’s coming up.”

I squint through the sunny morning, inhale the smell of fresh-cut grass on the air. Behind us is the secondary, with Colin and a couple other foxes, some cheetahs, a lanky marten. On the other half of this side of the field, the defensive linemen work the tackle dummies. I see Pike, the polar bear who took over defensive end when Fisher was injured, and Kodi, the black bear who’s always hanging out with Pike. “Doesn’t look like anyone else is missing on defense.”

“Who would we get for Mitchell?”

I shrug. “He’s still a starting linebacker in the league. Could maybe get another safety, someone on the offensive line?”

“We got a good group here, even without Mitchell. Hope they don’t break it up.”

It’s our turn to go, but I pause a moment and give him my full attention. He’s looking right back at me, with a little bit of a coyote grin on his muzzle. “Yeah,” I say, and hold out my paw. He slaps it. “So let’s go kill the drill.”

Even though it’s December, it’s still fifty degrees out, and by the time we make it through our stations and break for lunch, everyone’s panting and hot. We grab the thick beef burgers off the catering table, cram fries onto our plate, and take big glasses of Powerade back to the field, where we sit on benches and eat.

That’s where we find out where Corey is. The defensive line is eating with us, my buddy Brick, the bear, next to me, and Pike, lazily chewing through his second burger, next to him, with Kodi on the other side. Pike’s the one who says, “Hey, where the fuck is Mitchell?”

We all sort of look around, and then Gerrard answers. “Getting a physical,” he says. “With Ford.”

Ford is a fox, a starting wide receiver. That creates a buzz. “So he
is
getting traded,” Zillo says. “Who’re we getting?”

Gerrard shakes his head. “Haven’t heard anything.”

“Hope it’s another wideout.” “What about a left tackle?” When speculating about who’s going to come to the team, it’s always bad form to suggest that we’re going to get a replacement for someone in the immediate vicinity. Unless you’re doing it to needle them.

“Could use another defensive tackle,” I say, nudging Brick. He came in the same time I did, and he’s been starting all year. He’s in no danger of being replaced, and we both know it. “The way you’re putting away those burgers, I dunno. Might be cheaper to get another tiger.”

“Fuck tigers,” Brick says, punching me amiably. “Maybe we’ll get another faggot on the team.”

That remark stings a little bit, even though I know he doesn’t mean it to. It builds up a little bit of separation between me and the team. But I have to swagger and play along. “I’d love one,” I say, “if someone else would hurry up and come out already.”

“Ain’t gonna happen.” Pike gulps down the rest of his second burger. “Only reason to do it is to get all the endorsement money, and our tiger here is top billing now.”