Out of the Pocket (4 page)

Coach sighed and studied me. It’s unnerving how he can see inside me sometimes. “That’s it for you today, Bobby,” Coach said.

“Take two laps and hit the showers.”

“What? No—Coach! I wanna keep playing!”

Coach put a hand on my shoulder. “Bobby, you’re our starting QB, but it’s like you’re still on summer break.” He smiled slightly.

27

“You’re not in trouble, I just want to talk to you and don’t want you to hurt yourself. You’re lost out there.”

As I trotted off the fi eld, Austin ran over.

“Dude, you in trouble?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “He said he wants to talk to me.”

“Shit, dude.”

I shrugged. “You still coming by after practice?”

“Yeah,” he said, before sprinting back onto the fi eld.

The showers were empty and every sound I made reverberated through the small, steamy room. I let the water run down my back and stared at the floor, feeling that empty feeling in my chest again, that hole that swallowed up all the good.

It was happening more and more.

I wondered if Coach was going to yell at me. I really didn’t need the yelling.

I felt guilty enough; I should have been focused on the upcoming season, which would probably make or break my career. Instead here I was having the dreams.

The night before I had this dream that Todd and I were sharing a room at a hotel on a road trip. We were teammates, which didn’t make sense since we played different sports. Also, none of my teammates were there. We wrestled in the hotel room for what seemed like hours, and it was the most vivid dream I’d ever had. As we lay on the hotel carpet, spent from wrestling, he brought his mouth close to my ear.

“You and me, buddy,” he whispered, and I could smell his sweet breath.

I woke up feeling ecstatic, transformed. Though nothing had changed, all day I felt strange, like I was waiting for a reunion with a friend who didn’t exist.

28

I know that’s weird.

And here I was, alone in the shower room, violently aware that showering in this room was a privilege, and not one for a guy who dreamed about other guys. Guys like me weren’t supposed to be in here.

One day I typed “gay NFL” into Google. A bunch of things came up about a couple guys who came out as gay, but only after retiring from the league. The number of openly gay players in the history of the league? Zero.

So how the hell can I be gay and still have a shot at making it as
a pro? Hide, I guess. But isn’t that sort of dishonest?

Fifteen minutes later I sat in Coach’s office, across from him, and watched him wipe the sweat off his forehead with his white shirtsleeve.

Coach Castle used to be a tight end for the Cincinnati Bengals.

Now he was a Durango coaching legend. We’d been real close ever since he watched me at the first practice my sophomore year. After throwing drills, he came up to me and gave me a firm handshake.

“Welcome to varsity football,” he had said. “You have skills. If you work hard, you’re gonna be one helluva quarterback.”

Coach took a sip from the soda can on his desk.

“Bobby, you need to get your head straight,” Coach said. I watched as he picked dirt out from under his fi ngernails and fl icked it down to the floor. “This is your opportunity to get noticed, and your head is not in the game.”

“I know,” I said, looking down.

Coach reached across the table and placed his huge left paw on my right shoulder. “Look at me,” he said. I looked up at him. Coach’s eyes were incredibly kind. His skin, sort of a dark mocha color, was starting to sag ever so slightly around his cheeks. “Pressure isn’t easy to deal with. You can talk to me.”

29

And I thought to myself:
Yes, I should.

I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came out. So I said, “I just have a lot on my mind, is all.”

Coach crossed his arms, his eyes not wavering from mine.

“Shoot,” he said.

I could suddenly hear every noise like it was magnifi ed. The air-conditioning chirped every few seconds, interrupting a low hum. The high-pitched buzz that goes along with the fluorescent lights rumbled through my ears.

It was just us, and I imagined the conversation we could have if I just told him. What would he say? Would he turn his back on me, or would he understand? If he didn’t, would he hate me? Kick me off the team?

But it was too important. Messing up with Coach would screw up my chances of getting a college scholarship, and without one, I could forget ever making the NFL. I couldn’t risk that.

“My folks,” I said, and then I closed my eyes, hating myself for making stuff up.

Coach leaned forward. “What about your folks?” he asked.

I kept my eyes closed. I couldn’t look at Coach. “They’re having problems,” I said, ashamed. I was saying something that was probably not true, but what if it was? How could I lie about something serious when I was thinking about some other stupid thing that no one even cared about but me? If something was really up with my parents, I would never be able to forgive myself. I felt a queasy sensation rise in my throat.

“I’m sorry, Bobby.”

I opened my eyes and stared straight ahead, not at Coach, but sort of through him. I’d never lied to him before, and this felt like a stupid one. Why not just tell him what was really going on? But it 30

was too late. You couldn’t say your parents’ marriage was in trouble and then bring up something like sex.

I held my breath. I took the feelings and balled them as tight as I could and pictured myself throwing a bomb with them from one end zone to another, as far and high as I could manage.

One hundred yards.

“It’s okay. I’m fi ne,” I said.

He came and stood by my chair. I stood up, figuring he wanted me to leave. And then he hugged me, a big, clumsy hug.

“You can talk to me anytime,” he said, his ear right next to mine, muffl ing the words.

I stood there, paralyzed in his grip. When Coach let go I couldn’t look at him.

“Do you need anything?” he said.

“I’m fi ne,” I said. “Everything will be fi ne.”

He nodded, and I felt like I had said the right thing, at least.

“I’m sorry this is happening. But you gotta let the feelings out, Bobby. Keeping things inside, that’ll tear you up.”

31

“Watch the master at work,” I told Austin as we studied our playbooks out in my front yard after practice. I put down my playbook and picked up a football, tossed it lightly in the air to myself, twirled it in my hand until I felt the laces in the right place, gripped the ball, and threw a bullet of a pass at the tire hanging from the big oak tree on the other side of the yard. It ricocheted off the top rim of the tire.

“That’s great, dude,” Austin said. “Were you aiming for the house, or the street?”

“I was aiming for your face,” I said.

“Well, do that in a game, maybe,” he replied, stretching his legs out in front of him and reaching for his toes. “That way, maybe a pass will come close to me once in a while.”

I sat back down, grabbed my playbook, and swatted Austin’s shoulder, hard. He fl inched.

32

“Hey! What the hell was that for?” he asked.

“Bug on your shoulder,” I said, opening my book again. “You know, this tier-formation thing could really work. I mean, if we get a chance to play a team with just two or three players, or perhaps even more if some of the players have no legs, we should have a good shot at a touchdown.”

“You’re a really weird guy, you know that?” replied Austin, flicking the cover of my notebook.

“Thanks, man. Appreciate it,” I replied.

“Anytime, dude.”

“Where do you line up in Forty-eight Tier Gun Double-Z Flag?”

I asked.

Austin gave me a dirty look. “Where I always line up in tier, moron,” he answered. “On the right side.”

“Fine, smart-ass. What do you do then?”

“Well, let’s say you actually get the play off in time, in that case, I’d fake a block on the linebacker closest to me, and then roll out and fi nd an open space. I’m your second option. Rahim’s the fi rst.”

“Amazing,” I said. “You get a D-minus in basic math, but you somehow know that.”

He used his playbook to swat me back in the arm. “D-plus,”

he said. “And that shit was two years ago. Find something new to make fun of me for. How about Eighty-one Tier Toss Right?” Austin asked me.

I closed the book and visualized it. “I fake a toss to Somers, going left, and instead toss back and right to Mendez, who’ll have a whole bunch of blockers ahead of him. Easy.”

“You got it, bro,” Austin said, jumping to his feet and shaking out his legs.

“I still think Coach has lost his mind with this formation,” I said.

“I mean, it’s not just me, right?”

33

“Yeah, Coach C is losing his mind for sure,” Austin replied, rubbing his scalp frantically, like he had fl eas.

“Totally. I mean, his formation would be a little better if we had a tight end who didn’t run like my dead grandmother—”

“Bite me,” said Austin. “I can run.” He fake-lunged at me and I barely fl inched.

“Yeah, from the law.”

“I’d kick your ass in a race,” Austin said. I turned around and watched as he again stretched his legs out in front of him and reached for his toes.

“Care to make it interesting?” I asked.

I’d attended the Nike combine in Palo Alto earlier in the summer, a day of athletic testing when scouts poked and prodded us like pieces of meat and timed us doing everything from running forty meters to getting dressed in the morning. The fastest guys ran the forty-meters in about 4.3 to 4.4 seconds. I came in just above 5, right with the linemen who weighed over two hundred seventy pounds. It wasn’t good, and that was one reason I wasn’t the most sought-after quarterback in the state.

Austin laughed at me—actually laughed, the prick. “Dude, you’re slow even for a white guy. I’ll tear you up in a race. I bet you a buck.”

I loved how my friend was, like, Mexican only when it was convenient, forgetting he was half white, too. We walked across the yard to the oak tree, which we had used as an end-zone marker when we were younger. From there to the other end zone, where the house ends on the driveway side, it was about twenty yards. We decided to use the end of the house as the fi nish line.

“Why don’t you just give me the buck now?” Austin said, shaking his legs loose.

34

“Because then you’d have to give me two after I win,” I replied.

Austin called the race. “On your mark, get set . . . go!” We took off and I had a quick lead after a few steps, but Austin turned on his burners. He accelerated, and once again I was faced with the sad fact that I’m just not as fast a runner as I could be.

He was going to win by a lot, so I did the next best thing: I fell to the ground, grabbing my ankle and howling.

“Oh, shit!” Austin yelled as he crossed the finish line and looked back at me, writhing in pain on my back. He sprinted back over and knelt next to me. “Bobby, you okay?”

It was a trick I’d learned back when I wrestled in junior high. I quickly grabbed him by the arm and flipped him. Austin might be bigger than me, but he wasn’t stronger. I pinned him easily.

“Get off me, dude!” Austin was squirming under me, trying his best to break free.

“Make me,” I said, panting.

“Try this on a girl,” Austin said, and I rolled off of him. He fell away and collapsed on the grass, huffi ng.

I stood, and wiped the dirt and grass off my arms and legs. Austin and I have been wrestling like that for maybe ten years, and it wasn’t the first time he’d called me gay in one way or another. But it just hit me different this time. Maybe it was all the time I’d been spending thinking about coming out. I looked down at him, lying in the grass.

Austin was more than just a teammate, he was like a brother to me.

We didn’t have as much in common at seventeen as we did at nine, but here we were, still together.

“So where’s my dollar?” Austin said as he got up to his feet.

I turned away and looked up at the sky, which was unbelievably blue. “Calm down, I’m good for it,” I replied.

I heard Austin rustling through his pockets, and when I turned 35

and looked, he had dug a circular green container out of his pants.

At fi rst I thought it was gum, but when he pried the top off, the powerfully bitter, fruity-mint smell told me it wasn’t.

“What the hell?” I said as he pinched a small amount of black gunk between his thumb and forefinger and put it in his mouth, between his bottom lip and gum.

“Tell me you’re not dipping,” I said.

Austin shrugged. “I like it,” he said.

“Austin, that’s disgusting. Not to mention how bad it is for you.”

He shrugged, and put the container back in his shorts pocket.

“This is the apple-fl avored kind.”

“Man, if only there was another, less lethal way to get the taste of apples in your mouth,” I said, shaking my head.

“Shut the hell up,” he said, a tiny bit of brown dribbling from the side of his packed lip.

I worried about Austin sometimes. His judgment.

“What do you wanna do?” I asked, trying to forget the fact that he had tobacco in his mouth.

“Watch TV?” he said. “We never do that.”

I gave him a dirty look. I barely ever watched, unless it was a football game or maybe baseball with my dad. I preferred actually doing things, but that’s just me.

He rolled his eyes. “Oh, I forgot, you’re Amish.”

I laughed. “I’m Amish because I don’t watch TV?”

“You don’t do a lot of things, dude,” he said, walking to the front door. As he swung it open a blast of air-conditioning hit us in the face. It felt good. We walked in and sat on the living-room couch.

My folks were out. “You hardly ever drink, don’t smoke, you don’t do drugs, and I don’t even think you have sex.”

I grabbed my dad’s
L.A. Times
and rearranged it more neatly on the glass coffee table. “Whatever,” I said.

36

“What’s up with you and Carrie?” Austin asked.

I laughed, because we didn’t have serious talks, like almost ever.