Out of the Pocket (17 page)

“Now you, you need to be killed,” she said, holding her ground in the hallway. A circle of strangers formed around us, intent on seeing this drama play out.

“I . . . I was . . .” My voice shook in a way I’d never heard before, chattered as if I’d stepped out of a freezing ocean into a chilly wind.

I closed my eyes and tried to make myself calm. It wasn’t working. My eyes opened and tried to focus on Carrie. And then came the heaving in my chest, and I couldn’t stop breathing, faster and faster, harder than a person should ever breathe. The hallway became blurry. I latched on to certain faces—a girl with eyebrows that joined at the center of her face, a short kid, maybe a freshman, with braces glimmering—faces looming above me, and then they were in my eyes, then on the inside of my lids, and down, deeper, until I couldn’t breathe.

The room was very white. There was a ceiling fan above me, and as I rose onto my elbows I saw that all the walls shared the same blandness. I wondered how I’d gotten to the infirmary, what had happened, and in the midst of wondering that, I was again hit in the chest by the reality of what had occurred. I was gay, and everyone knew it
.

My chest felt heavy, but my brain was suddenly very clear.

The news is out about Bobby Framingham. Where to now?

A woman my grandmother’s age looked into the room and smiled.

She wore white, which made me feel for a moment like I was dead, in some weird version of heaven.

“You’re up! Are you feeling better?”

My mouth barely moved as I spoke. “Yeah, I guess.” She raised a finger at me as if to tell me to wait, I had company. I didn’t really want to see anyone.

153

Carrie walked in. Her eyes were still red, but she was calmer now.

She walked over to me and I looked away, out the one window in the room, which led to an alleyway I’d never seen before. She sat down on the side of my bed and sighed. “I’m sorry if I caused that,” she said, and she put her hand on my shoulder. I couldn’t look at her.

“It’s not your fault,” I said, concentrating on counting the specks on the window. There were fourteen. “It’s all on me.”

“What happened, Bobby?”

I took a deep breath and told her everything. I told her that I loved her, and I had for a long time wished I loved her
like that,
but I just didn’t. She winced when I said that, and then collected herself and lay down on the bed with me and held me.

“I’m so sorry,” I told her. “I—”

“Shh . . .” she whispered. “Not now.”

Carrie ducked her head and nestled it in my chest, and I could hear the echo of her voice in my chest cavity. “I’m gonna be fine, okay? I mean, I sort of love you
like that
and that part sucks, and obviously telling me in person would have been good, but I get it, Bobby. I’m still your friend. Nothing’s changed there.”

The nurse walked in, saw us on the bed together, and frowned.

“Please get up from that bed, miss,” she said. Carrie sat up, looked at her, looked back at me, seemingly asking permission, and then spoke.

“Don’t worry, he’s gay,” she said, matter-of-fact.

The nurse had this strange look on her face, and as soon as I saw it, there was laughter where the tears would have been if I’d let them come. Laughter poured from my tear ducts, this sound, this vibration, first softly and then really hard, and Carrie began to laugh, too, while the nurse stood there, confused.

We walked out together, Carrie holding my hand. “Oh my God!”

she said, halting her stride and looking at me, dazed.

154

“What?” I was dead tired and didn’t know if I could take any sentence that started with “Oh my God.”

“I’m your fag hag. Oh my God,” she said. “I’m gonna be the woman with twenty cats in my apartment. I’ll wear shawls and live in West Hollywood and never get married. And all for the love of a football player. Please say this won’t happen to me.”

“Aren’t you allergic to cats?” I asked as we paused in the empty hallway.

She was staring into space wistfully. “I’ll have to get weekly allergy shots.”

I put my hand on the back of her neck and rubbed, something I’d probably never done when we were so-called dating.

“I think you’re going to be okay,” I said.

She continued walking, her head down. “I hate shawls,” she said.

I missed my first three classes that day. Carrie went with me to Dr.

Blassingame’s office, where we sat, mostly silent, every once in a while offering random comments about my situation.

“This is a wonderful opportunity. You don’t have to lie anymore,”

said Dr. B.

“Football today will be really tough,” I said.

“You’re free to love whom you choose to love,” Blassingame said.

“My folks . . .” I said, trailing off.

“Truth never hurt anyone, only lies.” Blassingame again.

“You can fi nally stop dressing like a straight person and show us your flair for style,” offered Carrie. I looked at today’s outfit, chosen in about three minutes before the dash to my car. Beat-up white sneakers, jeans, and a green polo shirt. I’d forgotten a belt. Not horrible, but certainly not real fashionable either. I guess I didn’t get 155

that gene. I looked at Carrie, and when I met her eyes, I saw she was kidding. We giggled.

“That may be a little beyond my level of gayness,” I said.

“True,” offered Mr. Blassingame, and we all nodded.

We three trudged out of Blassingame’s office at lunch hour and I wondered if maybe Carrie and I would do better to walk without him. Dr. Blassingame seemed pretty concerned about me and really

“wanted to support me,” as he said. I let him.

The cafeteria was crowded. I paused at the door and took a deep breath. “Are we ready?” I asked Carrie.

“I don’t know, are we?”

I thought about this. “No,” I said. “Not even a little bit.”

“If Finch is there, may I kick him repeatedly?” she asked, squeezing my arm.

“If Finch is there, kicking him repeatedly is a requirement,” I said. “Then we’ll set his withered body on fi re.”

“There will be no violence,” said Dr. Blassingame, missing the joke entirely.

I took the first step, feeling a bit scared about what was out there waiting for me. I could feel it as it happened. First, a couple eyes on me, followed by pointing and whispering. I felt this, eyes averted, intent on food, anything to make me feel less woozy. Then there was a hoot, not a nasty one, but the type a rock star might get, followed by a random “yeah!,” and then there was the clapping. First just a few people closer to the entrance, and then it traveled to the back of the cafeteria, in waves, and suddenly I was receiving a standing ovation in the lunchroom. I wanted to run. Carrie had her hand on my shoulder and she squeezed, as if reading my mind, telling me to stand my ground. Dr. Blassingame gently pushed me forward in a show of support.

156

What does the gay quarterback of the football team do to acknowledge a crowd? A wave? The Wave? A Queen Elizabeth Wave?

I put my hand up meekly, as if to say hi to maybe one or two friends, and felt ridiculous. The cheering got louder. “Bob-bee, Bob-bee,” began a couple chanters, but mercifully that ended almost as soon as it began.

I looked around, half savoring the moment, relieved that it was clapping, and not flying food, sent my way. That’s when I saw them: Austin, Rahim, and Dennis. I fixated on Austin, wanting, more than anything, him to look at me. He was looking at his feet.

157

The sign on the door to the locker room said VARSITY FOOTBALL

PRACTICE CANCELED—MANDATORY TEAM MEETING, 4 P.M., LOCKER ROOM.

Interesting, I thought. Advertise a meeting at the meeting place. I opened the door and, sitting in our meeting area in street clothes, was most of our team. As I entered, many of the guys looked up, Coach included. I couldn’t read his face. The room got quiet, and I resisted the urge to bolt. I walked to my locker, through the circle, very still, careful not to show any sort of emotion. I wanted to tell them everything at once, but I didn’t know where to start.

It was quiet. I sat down tentatively, glancing around to see who was there. I tried to catch Austin’s eye from across the room, but he refused to look at me. I searched out Rahim, who did hold my gaze and nodded. I wanted to smile, but couldn’t.

“Dude,” said Somers, straddling the bench in front of his locker.

“What the hell were you thinking?”

158

“Shut up, Somers.” This came from Rahim. I was grateful, and tried to show him that with a sort of half smile that may or may not have expressed it.

“Wow,” Somers said, looking around. “Bobby comes in and people change fast.” I felt a twinge in my abdomen, like a muscle cramp. I took a deep breath.

“Look, guys,” I said. “This is all a mistake. Finch Gozman wasn’t supposed to write about that. He totally screwed me over.”

“Wait. Are you saying it isn’t true?” asked Bolleran.

I saw Coach sitting at the head of a broken circle of players. He nodded to me. I didn’t know what the nod meant. Tell them? I support you? Hi? It was vague.

“It’s true,” I said. I couldn’t look at anyone. Silence.

“So you’re gay, and you told a reporter, but it wasn’t supposed to get in the paper?” This was Somers again. “Good thinking, Bobby.”

“It wasn’t like that,” I said, shuffling my feet back and forth.

I was used to feeling confident with these guys, like a leader, and now that was in serious jeopardy. They all turned to face me. “I told Finch as a friend.”

“Well you screwed everything up,” said Bolleran. “We got homecoming in a couple of days and now we’re going out there with a quarterback who’s a homo. Your timing sucks.”

I felt my face getting red. “My timing? I told you already, there was no timing. I didn’t want to come out, okay?”

“Hey, all’s I’m saying is, if you didn’t open your mouth to a reporter, of all people, it wouldn’t be in the paper.” I heard some people quietly agreeing with him.

“Okay, okay,” said Coach, stepping in. “I also question your timing, Bobby. But you did what you had to.” I wanted to say, again,
It
wasn’t my timing,
but he didn’t give me a chance. “What do we need to do to put this behind us and get ready for Friday?”

159

“If he’s playing, I’m not playing,” said Mendez.

“Say what?” Coach asked.

“I ain’t goin’ out on the fi eld with no faggot. No way.”

Coach looked around the room. “Anyone else feel this way?”

Bolleran raised his hand. “I’m not gonna be center for this freak!

I don’t want Bobby touching my ass,” he said. A couple people laughed, including Dennis. I narrowed my eyes at him, but he wasn’t even looking my way.

“He should have to work from the shotgun,” said Dennis, and there was more laughter. He mimed it, me standing way behind center, and then he ran forward and pretended to squeeze the center’s ass, all the while licking his lips. That brought a roar from the room.

I just sat there, unfl inching.

“Goddamn it, Dennis!” Coach yelled.

Dennis sat down. “I don’t like it,” he said. “We shouldn’t have to worry about how the gay guy feels. I hate this PC bullshit. I don’t want to have to worry about what I say all the time.”

I felt the rage pulsing through my clenched jaw and neck. “You’re a lousy excuse for a human being, Dennis,” I said.

Dennis flared his nostrils. “Dude, you’ve seen me naked,” he said.

“Dude”—I sneered back, raising my voice—“maybe if you stopped taking your clothes off at parties, I wouldn’t have.”

Austin cracked up. “Oh, snap!” he said.

“Shut up, Rivera,” Dennis said. “It isn’t funny.”

“It’s a little funny,” Austin answered.

Coach cracked a smile. “I know this is off topic, but I’m curious.

Fowler, why are you taking your clothes off at parties?”

The room erupted. Dennis looked down and for a moment he looked ashamed, but then he broke into a smile. “I’m just giving the ladies what they want,” he said.

160

“Just trying to lighten the mood a little,” Coach said, smiling slightly. I wasn’t in a smiling mood.

When the laughter died down, Kyle spoke up. “He’s our quarterback, and we need him,” he said. “But the thing I don’t like is the locker room thing. He should have like his own locker room.”

Coach scanned the room. “What do people think about this?”

“I think if you’re worried about being in a locker room with someone who might be gay, you need to move to another planet,”

said Rahim. “There’s gay people everywhere.”

“What, are you gay, too?” said Somers. “This day just keeps getting better.”

“My uncle is gay,” Rahim said, staring down Somers. “And so are a lot of people. And they aren’t all after your body, okay? You’re being stupid.”

“Exactly,” said Rocky.

Somers shook his head. “Screw this. I know I’m not the only one who feels this way, but I’m the only one who has the balls to say it.”

“This is everyone’s chance to speak their mind,” Coach said.

“Speak up if you have something to say.”

“You’re our leader. You can’t be gay!” said Torry. “That’s just . . .

wrong!”

“Exactly,” said Somers. “This is like a big-time violation of trust, you know? All this time, you’ve been lying to us about who you are.

That ain’t right.”

My face felt like it could explode. “Wait. First you’re mad because I came out as gay. Now you’re made because I didn’t come out? Which one is it? Because this doesn’t even make sense.”

Somers shrugged. “Hey, that’s how I feel.”

“I already said it,” said Mendez. “If you choose to be gay, we can choose to kick you off the team. That’s the way it is.”

“You want me off the team?” I shouted, standing. “Who else?

161

Because I think you all know I’d die for most of you. I figured there would be some loyalty, but I guess not.”

“This would be a good time to die for us,” said Dennis.

“I swear to God, Fowler, keep your mouth shut for the rest of the meeting,” said Coach. Dennis stiffened.

“I think he should apologize,” said Somers.