Out of the Pocket (23 page)

“It was getting pretty big there for a while.”

“Shut up,” I said, but I was wondering if he was right. Maybe I was full of myself. Maybe the whole problem had been that I think too much about things and think my feelings are more important than they are. Maybe if I just chilled out, I’d realize—

“Dude, I was kidding,” Austin said.

I snapped to attention and smiled at him. “I know,” I said, defensive.

“Whatever,” he said.

My mother knocked on the door and pushed it open a bit. “Have you gone through all of those cookies?” she asked.

Austin and I looked at the empty plate. “No,” I said, smiling with chocolate crumbs in my teeth.

She smiled back. “You have a visitor,” she said.

Austin jumped to his feet. I wiped my mouth and started to tell him to stick around, but he beat me to it.

“Big game tomorrow,” he said, and he gave me sort of a half hug and bounded out of my room and down the stairs, waving to my mom as he passed her.

“I’m glad you two are still friends,” my mom said, and I rolled 208

my eyes because my mother should like write Hallmark cards or something.

I walked down the stairs and saw that the visitor was Coach Castle. He was sitting on our couch, drinking a glass of water. He was so big he made the couch look miniature. My mother followed me down the stairs, and when the three of us were standing there in the living room in awkward silence, my mother said, “Why don’t you guys have lunch together today?”

Coach clasped me in an awkward hug. “We’re going out,” he said.

“Sure.” And I followed him out the door.

I suggested Five and Diner, and he drove us there. We didn’t say much in the car, and we were pretty quiet at first at the table. It wasn’t like he was angry at me, more like it was awkward and neither of us knew where to begin.

I wanted my usual hash browns and root-beer float, but I didn’t think Coach needed to see how poorly his quarterback ate. So I went with a big chicken salad instead. He ordered a burger.

“How are you, Bobby?” he asked, after we ordered.

“I’m actually pretty good,” I said.

“You look good. You keeping in shape?”

I looked down at the table. “Not so great,” I said. I saw the tide of anger rise in him, pure Coach Castle, ready to pounce on weakness, but then I saw him quickly change his impulse.

“It’s good that you’re taking care of business,” he said.

“Yeah,” I replied.

“How’s your dad?”

“Okay,” I said. I had talked to him every day and he always sounded pretty much like himself, only exhausted from the treatment. Apparently, the radiation strategy is to kill the cancer, and 209

everything nearby, too. So you get healthy by feeling much worse at first. He was staying an extra two weeks now, which sucked, but he convinced me it was for the best. He said the doctors were very optimistic he would be cancer-free after that.

The conversation sort of went on like that until our food arrived and I wondered why we were there. But after a few bites of burger, he got to the point.

“I need to apologize,” Coach said, looking directly into my eyes.

“I should never have allowed you to go out there for the homecoming game.”

I waved him off. “No, no. I wanted to. I—”

“I’m the coach,” he said. “Not you. I’m responsible for looking out for your best interests, and I failed. I’m sorry.”

I thought about that. I didn’t know what to think. Maybe I’d ask Blassingame the next time I saw him.

“You’re coming back Monday?”

“Yup.”

“I need to know whether you want to play,” he said, staring into my eyes.

“Of course . . .”

“No, not of course,” he said, his tone more like that of the coach I knew and loved. “I’m asking you if you really want it, Bobby. Do you have that spark to play like you used to, or do you want to hang it up for the year? Haskins is doing just fi ne in your place.”

I surprised myself with my vehemence. “No, Coach, that’s my job. I want to play. I’ll do anything.”

He smiled, and I was relieved. It was like seeing an old friend again, after sitting across from a stranger for fifteen minutes or so.

“Good. Because Haskins, I’m telling you, Bobby, it ain’t gonna work in the playoffs. He’ll beat a bad team tomorrow. Good teams will shut down the running lanes and we’ll be in some deep shit.”

210

I’d gotten the reports from Austin and Rahim. They told me practices weren’t quite the same with Haskins back there. I laughed.

“Good to feel needed,” I said.

“Well, we do need you. So get your ass to the gym later today, and get your mind on the game. It’s showtime for the Bulldogs.”

It was the first time in a couple weeks that my heart skipped a beat in that inimitable way that only happens around football. I felt alive, and grateful to Coach for believing in me.

“Showtime!” I said, smiling too quickly after a bite of chicken.

It slipped out of my mouth. I looked up at Coach and the laughter made it feel, for the moment, like nothing had changed from September. I knew it had, but I loved the feeling of being back in tight with Coach.

211

“I don’t know, scared shitless?” I told Dr. Blassingame, when he asked me how I felt to be back at school.

He laughed. It was Monday and we were in his office at the start of the school day. It was time to return to the real world, and football, and I felt a little woozy, like you feel when you’ve had the fl u and go back to school too soon.

“You’ll be just fi ne,” he said.

I was definitely feeling more comfortable with Blassingame these days. He had visited me at the house twice during the week and we had talked. It was cool, even though it was a little weird having a teacher invade the private space of your room.

“Do you think there will ever come a time when I’ll be glad this happened?” I asked, picking up a stray rubber band from his desk.

Blassingame laughed. “I’m already glad.”

I looked at him like he was crazy. “You’re nuts.” I stretched the 212

rubber band and it snapped, biting me lightly on the fleshy area between my thumb and index fi nger.

“True as that is, you learned a lot through this adversity, Bobby.”

I massaged my rubber-band sting. “So if I hadn’t been gay, and Finch hadn’t written that story, and my dad hadn’t gotten sick, I wouldn’t have grown?”

Blassingame shook his head. “You’re one tough customer, aren’t you?” he said. I shrugged and stretched the rubber band as wide as it would go, testing whether I could pull it apart. “It looks to me, my friend, like you’re ready.”

“We’ll see,” I said. And with a firm handshake, I was off to face the world of high school again.

At lunch I found out what happens when people feel like they know you better than they really do. Obviously word had gotten out about my breakdown, because complete strangers were coming up to me and confi ding in me their secrets.

“I actually have two moms,” said this guy with a Mohawk as we stood in the checkout line.

Carrie heard this one as she walked up. Her eyes were like saucers. I gave the Mohawk kid an understanding nod and we watched him put his tray down and pay the lady at the register.

“My sister’s best friend had a nervous breakdown,” this pimply-faced girl, probably a freshman, told me after I fi nished paying.

I nodded solemnly and waited for Carrie to pay for her lunch.

“Are you a confessional now?” Carrie asked.

“Apparently,” I said.

“Cool,” she said. “I’m having impure thoughts about the dishwasher guy.”

That made me laugh, and I felt better.

213

• • •

“Glad to be back?” Bardello, our third-string quarterback, asked me as we started the first of five laps around the football field. I nodded. The day had gone well, but the locker room had been strange.

I thought we had solved the “Bobby’s gay” problem when we had all been laughing in the shower. But now I was back after missing a game and a week of practice, and there was this awkward silence, like they thought I was going to snap at any moment. I didn’t hear one joke, and that’s what I wanted to hear: Laughter. It would tell me that everything was fi ne again.

My legs felt tight, my hamstrings like creaky wires in need of oil.

But after missing a week, I savored it all, especially how good the cool breeze felt on my skin.

“You think I could catch Haskins if I tried?” I asked Bardello.

As usual, Haskins had sped off to a big lead, while Bardello and I did our usual jog.

He looked over at me and laughed. “Sure thing, Crazy,” he said.

My one-week hiatus had gained me a new nickname. I sped off, leaving Bardello in my dust.

With Haskins at the helm, we’d beaten Westminster La Quinta 31–0, mostly on the strength of Mendez and our running game.

Haskins had done well, but I was the starter again, and it felt good.

Haskins was even pretty cool about it, telling me in the locker room before practice that it was good to have me back.

As I was rounding the final curve of the second lap, my pace felt good, my legs felt loose, and I was enjoying the slow burn in my chest. I was also slowly catching up on Haskins, who wasn’t aware we were racing yet.

“Watch out, Haskins, I’m gonna pass you,” I yelled, still a good 214

fifteen yards behind him. Haskins looked back, keeping his pace effortless while searching for me with his eyes. I saw him laugh and turn back, picking up his pace a step.

“You keep dreaming, Crazy,” he shouted.

“Crazy is coming to get you,” I yelled, and I saw Coach just ahead of me, working with the linebackers on a drill near the thirty-yard line. He looked up as I said that and grinned.

I saw Austin running routes with the receivers. He glanced up at me and gave me the finger just as I whizzed past him on lap three. I laughed and felt a tingling in my chest.

Lap four was always the tough one, but it was especially hard today, after having missed a week of conditioning. I got within ten yards of Haskins as I hit the final lap. Bardello was a good half lap behind us. I had something to prove today. To hell with everyone telling me I was slow. I was whatever I chose to be, and at that moment I chose to be faster than Haskins. I pumped my legs harder and felt myself accelerate. I enjoyed the feeling of speed, whooshing through the wind and knowing that as this race picked up steam, the rest of the team had stopped to watch. I could feel their eyes on me, could feel them as I closed the gap between Haskins and me, could feel him begin to panic about losing out in a race to the slow and crazy gay guy who was about to take his job.
Who is this masked
man who comes back from a weeklong hiatus stronger than ever, and
faster, and—

As I turned the third of four corners, my legs moving faster than my body usually moves, my head narrating the race, I lost the rhythm in my legs. Like a steady drumbeat and then the drummer misses the snare, there I was, my torso too far ahead of my lower body, and I knew it was inevitable. The stumbling began, and I heard the collective gasp of the players, who were just ahead, standing in the near 215

end zone to my left. My left leg hit the turf of the track awkwardly and soon I was toppling, top-heavy, down onto the track, a huge one-man crash followed by a dramatic rollover. Trying to control the fall made it worse, and as I struggled to my feet again, I fell a second time. The gravel showered into my face as a dust cloud enveloped me.

For a few moments it was pure silence out there. Splayed out on the track, I felt like a freak, and then it began: the applause. I don’t know who started it, but soon the entire team and coaching staff were clapping for my spectacular fall, and I flipped over onto my back, looking up at the blue sky until I burst out laughing, as hard as I’d laughed in a long time. Soon there were hoots and whistles and catcalls, and whether it was what they meant or not, I felt the love in my bones. I rose up, a huge smile on my face, and bowed. I finished my final lap, a slight burning where I’d scraped my left knee, but I didn’t care. I was now trailing even Bardello, to a rising chant.

“Crazy Legs! Crazy Legs!” they yelled in unison.

“C’mon, Bobby,” Austin yelled. “Shake an arm . . . I mean a leg!”

I’m back in the game.

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“Is this normal?” Carrie asked, using a tiny white toy shovel to fill her neon-green plastic pail with wet sand. “I get the feeling this is not at all normal behavior for high school seniors.”

I looked up from where I was sitting, at the foot of our sand castle, and addressed the question to Bryan. “I don’t know. Is it normal for us to be doing this now that we’re almost out of high school?”

“Totally not normal. Not at all. Once you’re in college, you can do this stuff, but face it, you two are freaks,” he said, meticulously carving bricks into one of the towers.

“I thought that was possible,” said Carrie, throwing a full pail high into the air and watching the sand fall out in clumps. The wind blew some of it onto the castle. She then twirled in circles like a four-year-old. “Weee!” she screamed. The group to our right, a bunch of middle-aged men with major beer guts, looked at her and frowned.

“Carrie,” Bryan said, mock stern. “Do I need to put you in time217

out?” I loved that they’d known each other for thirty minutes and were already acting like old friends.

Carrie stamped into the sand right in front of Bryan and crossed her arms tightly across her chest. “No fair!”

“Life isn’t fair,” Bryan said. “Now get to work. We’re falling way behind. If we lose this contest, it’ll be your fault, young lady.”

“Life isn’t fair,” Carrie agreed. “I’m at the beach with two adorable
gay
guys.” She said this really loud as well, and I blushed as the folks next to us looked over at us again. They didn’t care. They went back to work and ignored our little area of dysfunction.

Bryan looked at me and offered me an exaggerated grin. I offered him a toothy grin back, and shrugged. “We are adorable, aren’t we?”

I asked him.

“Totally,” Bryan responded. Carrie stuck her finger down her throat as if to vomit, and then coughed violently, because her finger had been covered in sand.