Out of the Pocket (8 page)

I looked over to Rahim. The shower room was set up with round poles, six showerheads on each. He was on the other side of mine.

He caught my glance and suddenly got serious.

“Hey!” he yelled. “Torry! Get off him, man.” Torry released Hector and looked across the way at Rahim, surprised. Torry was bigger, but no one was more respected on the team than Rahim. Torry leered at him.

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“He was lookin’ at my ass,” Torry said. Hector was back at his shower, his face crimson after the assault.

“You got eyes in the back of your head?” Rahim asked.

“I saw him,” replied Torry.

At that moment Austin walked by the shower room. He heard the conversation, and he’s not one to stay quiet, ever.

“Nobody wants your ass, kid. The hardest-up homo in West Hollywood wouldn’t go near your fat sorry ass,” Austin said, and the hoots came fl ying from every direction.

“Fuck you,” said Torry, who went back to showering.

“Fags don’t go for guys with elephant asses,” Austin continued, and I looked over at Rahim. He was looking right at me, and I could tell he was trying to gauge how I felt.

“You would know,” said Torry.

“I’m not gay, dude,” Austin said, and I had that sensation in my stomach like after eating too much candy. Too much syrupy sweetness and then the nausea, and wishing you could reverse time and not have bought the candy to begin with.

If Austin had said what he’d said to stick up for me, then why was my stomach in knots?

“You guys,” said Coach, his arms folded over his massive chest as he stood at the entrance to the shower room, standing next to Austin. He must have entered moments earlier.

He looked at me and I felt naked, or actually more naked than naked, as if he could peer into my soul and see the things I didn’t want him to see. I was embarrassed, for all of us, myself included.

If you’re gay, do you have to spend the rest of your life feeling bad
every time guys joke around? Can you turn that part of your brain
off? And how do you do it?

66

At dinner that evening, my mother entertained my father and me with stories about growing up in Birmingham, Alabama.

As we passed around dishes of broccoli and pot roast, she told us about the time she put a cat into the oven, when she was nine, to see what would happen. My grandfather saved it from the heat after a few minutes, and told her to never, ever put another living thing in the oven.

“And I didn’t,” she said, smiling and passing me the entrée,

“until this here pot roast, today.”

We all laughed. My mother’s sense of humor was cheesy, but I loved it anyway.

My father seemed to be in a little better mood this evening. My dad owned his company, Framingham Refrigeration. They dealt in cooling products. The joke was that my father was successful in the 67

field and therefore a “refrigerator magnate.” My mother coined the term one night, and it got us all laughing.

“Refrigeration,” he had corrected, totally ruining the joke.

My dad was usually funny, too, but lately he wasn’t like he used to be. When I was little we’d play tackle football in the living room, him on his knees and me standing up. Then, when I was about eight, we took it outside. We played one-on-one, and he taught me how to throw. And those games were great, and filled with jokes that would be repeated each time we played, like how he would pretend he was John Elway and if I sacked him Elway would be injured, and his replacement would be the Incredible Hulk, meaning suddenly my dad didn’t have to wait until I said “hike” to tackle me. I always knew the game was over when his tackles started getting more WWF and less football. He would tackle me, then pick me up by my feet and spin me around and it felt like I was fl ying.

Then he became the boss of his own company, I got bigger than him, and we turned into more of a football-watching father and son.

But my dad was still pretty cool.

For a guy who sold cold air, anyway.

Driving home after practice, I’d heard my name on the radio on KXIT, the sports talk-radio station here in Orange County. “This Framingham kid, I tell you, he’s a comer,” the radio guy said. “I watched him last week as he led Durango over Huntington Beach, and he’s probably the best high school signal caller in the area.

Darned if he isn’t one of the finest QB prospects in the state right now.”

That kind of talk used to make my day. Now it filled me with anxiety, and I wasn’t sure why.

“They talked about me on KXIT today,” I said, dishing pot roast onto my plate.

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My dad looked up at me. “What did they say?” he asked, a little of the old fire in his voice. I took a dinner roll and buttered it while I told him their exact words.

He pushed a piece of pot roast on top of his mashed potatoes with a fork. “Did they mention what kind of school might recruit you?”

I rolled my eyes.

“No,” I said. I took a bite of the roll, which was perfect: crunchy on the outside, and hot and sweet and soft inside. I pointed to it and offered my mother a thumbs-up. She curtsied from her chair.

“I wonder if you could wind up quarterbacking at Ohio State.”

I loved my dad, but he really knew how to take praise and make it into something else.
It’s like, tell him you’re a hot college prospect,
and he’ll say, “Fine, but are you good enough for the best program in
the country?”

I looked down at my plate, studied the casserole.

My father, however, was oblivious. “Don’t you think, Molly? Could you see Bobby starring at Ohio State, or maybe Notre Dame?”

My mother looked at my father and said softly, “I guess I could, if he goes there and I buy a plane ticket.”

I laughed. Her jokes were actually getting worse.

“Wherever he goes is just fi ne, Donald.”

“Well, USC at the worst,” my father said, exaggerating what we all knew wasn’t true. USC was exactly like his other two, an elite school that had its pick of every quarterback in the country. And maybe I was pretty good, but I was pretty sure somewhere in the United States there was someone bigger, and better.

I mean, there has to be, right? Or else wouldn’t I have heard from
more schools?
And then I started to freak out, sitting there at the dinner table, started to sweat realizing that at this moment there were quarterbacks all over the country who were opening letters and answering calls from coaches and probably had a pretty good idea 69

where they were headed to next year, and here I was, having heard from only a handful of schools.

“We’re both so proud of you,” my mother said, looking at my father and then at me.

“Thanks,” I said, trying to hide that I was having a little freak session in my brain.

“On to other subjects. How’s Carrie?” My mother offered me a jug of water.

I took it from her and poured some into my glass. “She’s good.

She found out today she got the lead in
Hairspray
.”

“I didn’t know she sang,” she said.

“She doesn’t. Should be interesting.”

My mother laughed. “I like her.”

My father grunted. It was no secret that my father was not a huge fan of Carrie’s, whom he’d never actually met, especially after her prank call a year ago. For two days my dad was walking on air, amazed that MTV executive producer Kathy Quimby had called because she wanted to do a reality show about me, the quintessential all-American California high school quarterback.

I was just confused, until the next day, when I saw Carrie in school.

She was walking toward me in the hallway and had this mischievous look in her eye. She could fool other people, but not me. “MTV, huh?” I said, and she broke out laughing. After I told my father, he always referred to her as “that strange girl.”

It was not a terrible description, actually.

I looked at my dad and offered him more pot roast. He waved it away. He wasn’t eating much these days.

“You should give her another chance, Dad. She’s a nice person.”

He concentrated on swallowing. “You can do better.”

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“Thanks, I guess,” I said, before taking another bite of my pot roast.

My father reached for his glass, and as he raised it to his mouth, it slipped from his hands, bounced on the table, and fell onto the hardwood fl oor with a thunderous crash.

It was like a glass explosion. Little shards fl ew across the fl oor.

“Nice work,” I said, kidding.

But when I looked at my dad, he wasn’t laughing. His face was beet red. “Goddamn it,” he muttered under his breath. He then pounded on the table with both fi sts, making all the silverware jump.

Time seemed to stand still. I didn’t think I’d ever seen my father really mad, let alone table-poundingly pissed off because of a simple dropped glass.

My mother stood and rushed over to him, careful to avoid pieces of glass. “Donald,” she said softly, leaning down and enveloping him in a hug. He sat there with his eyes closed, his face still red.

“Sorry,” I said softly. My heart started pounding.

“It’s not you,” my mother said, her eyes a little dazed as she looked up at me. “Can you give us a moment, sweetheart?”

I nodded, understanding that it was time for me to take a walk, which I did, not just from the table, but from the house.

I walked out and stood in the driveway, shivering in the chilly night air, wondering if maybe my lie to Coach wasn’t a lie, after all.

Maybe they’re having trouble?
My dad always seemed so cold and distant these days, and I searched my memory for any evidence of problems.

I couldn’t think of anything, but somehow, standing in the dark night in front of my house with my mom trying to soothe my dad inside, that didn’t make me feel a lot better.

71

Game nights were all special, but nothing was quite like the first home game of the season. The stands got packed early, and you could feel the air. It was charged. As we ran out onto the field for warm-ups, the crowd gave us a massive ovation that shook the ground.

The La Habra Matadors, in their green uniforms and gold helmets, swarmed the field shortly after we did, and before I could catch my breath, the game was on. The Matadors scored quickly on a long touchdown run, and then stuffed us on our first drive. After a quick field goal to start the second quarter, the Matadors were up 10–0, and it was beginning to feel a lot like it had felt last year, when we lost 19–3. Their line was huge, but more than huge, they were fast; if any of them broke free, I had about three seconds maximum before I got smashed to the turf.

I got sacked three times in the first two drives, and each attack felt worse than the previous one.

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We started our third drive off at our own twenty-five-yard line, and the first play Coach called was a screen pass to Mendez on the left side.

I liked the call. Their defense was beginning to overpursue, and if I could get them to bite on a play fake long enough to set up the screen, we could get a big gain out of it.

We broke out of the huddle and I felt a confidence I hadn’t felt all game, the kind I felt when good things were about to happen.

Bolleran hiked the ball back to me. I dropped back in the pocket and looked right, as if I was heading downfield with a pass. It worked.

I sensed the defense adjusting, the linebackers headed to that side of the field. Meanwhile, our fullback and tight end snuck out to the left, in front of Mendez. I swung left and lofted a simple screen pass to him, right on the money, and I could hear the crowd sense the big play before it happened.

Mendez caught the pass and did a stutter step, allowing his two blockers a chance to get set ahead of him. I raced out forward and to the left, hoping I could block someone and help spring him farther.

I watched as Mendez raced around the left side, his blockers clearing the path, and I heard the crowd noise swell. Then I saw an arm swing out in front of my face, at neck level.

I felt the hit on my Adam’s apple. It was as if someone had shut off my wind supply and snapped my head backward.

I hit the turf, hard.

I lay fl at on my back, straining for oxygen. After several seconds I caught my breath and sat up, looking downfield, and saw the action was a good thirty yards away. I pumped my fist and pushed myself to my feet. Breathing was still tough, but I dusted myself off and trotted downfi eld.

Then I saw the yellow fl ag.

It was thrown much closer to the play than to me, but I clapped 73

my hands, knowing that we’d be tacking on extra yardage. You couldn’t get away with cheap hits on the quarterback in this league.

I hustled to where the ref was making the call. He signaled face mask, and I was confused, because the defender hadn’t hit my face mask.

Then he signaled with his arm the direction of the penalty, and I was truly shocked when it was against us.

The referee called it on number 81, Rahim, a flagrant foul. Already smarting from the hit to the Adam’s apple, I felt my face heat up. Rahim was not capable of a flagrant foul; he was strong and powerful and talented, but a gentle giant.

No damn way.

I started to run at the referee when for the second time in less than two minutes my progress was stopped by a stiff right arm. This time it was Rahim himself.

“Leave it alone, Bobby.”

“No way! Their lineman threw me to the ground,” I said, nearly hyperventilating.

“Leave it. Can’t change things now.”

I calmed myself down and we huddled. Coach signaled in a short pass, and my gut wrenched. We were already down by ten, and now we had twenty-fi ve yards to pick up. What was he thinking with this short stuff? No way were we going to break anything against these guys.

I wanted to go deep.

I looked at Coach, and decided to change the play. No one in the huddle would be any the wiser. I called for a long pass down the sideline, hoping to test their cornerback’s speed against Rahim’s.

More often than not, Rahim would win those battles. In case he didn’t, I could look short over the middle to Somers. In that case, Coach would get what he wanted anyway, no problem.