Safety Net (3 page)

They played at Rockridge, where it
was a good twenty degrees colder, overcast and dreary, but the stadium was a
heartening balance of half red, half green and gold, and there were television
cameras.

The first half was an even
defensive match with low, close scores. It could go either way. Neither team
was making a lot of mistakes, but neither team was dominating the field. The
second half was a different story. Terrence Duran brought his A game, all the
best plays he’d made against Oregon to no effect, but here they were hitting
home. Babcock ran through the Lions’ D like they didn’t exist and scored two
touchdowns, and a perfect sixteen yard pass from Duran brought in a last-second
TD, making the final score 35-17.

Postgame was insanity. Crocker fans
swarmed the field, the Hammer was passed around over the crowd like a
stage-diver in a moshpit, everyone screamed and cheered, and a bunch of the
Lions hung back to congratulate their buddies from the other side of the bay.
Lowell had never felt so high, not even after winning the all-Indiana tight end
award, because that had just been him, not his team. This win was everyone’s.
All the players hugged, bumped chests, slapped backs. A couple of senior
linebackers Lowell barely knew hoisted him off his feet in their exuberance to
celebrate with anyone wearing Crocker red-and-white.

The mood muted a little with postgame
business and Coach Bowman’s wrap-up, but when they got back to campus, the
parties had already started.

And after the parties ended, it was
Thanksgiving week. The campus was deserted, all the Hammer Week spirit had disappeared.
The mood during practice was good, and Lowell was mostly successful in not feeling
homesick over Thanksgiving by reliving the second half of the Rockridge game
over the phone to his mom and Kaylee.

The Saturday after Thanksgiving, on
a chilly, beautifully sunny day, in a mostly empty stadium, Washington State
University came to Crocker and wiped them out, winning 49-10. And just like
that, the season was over. Crocker: 6-6 (conference 3-6).

When Dale Lennart was five, the two
things he loved the most (aside from his parents) were football and Shawn
Hunter on
Boy Meets World
. He eventually grew out of the Shawn Hunter
phase, briefly transferring his affection to Justin Timberlake before settling
on a slow-simmer crush on Jake Gyllenhaal, but his love for football was
constant. He played varsity through junior high and high school, and was always
aware that to the rest of the world, the fact that he loved football and the
fact that he loved guys were irreconcilable contradictions. So he only ever
openly admitted one love.

Dale arrived at Crocker determined
to change that. He was tired of hiding, lying, and pretending. No one knew him
at Crocker. It was a brand new start. He could be anyone here, and the anyone
he wanted to be was himself.

He had decided to tell his
roommates first because if it was going to be a problem, maybe there would be a
way to reassign him to a different room. But when he moved into Hopkins Hall
during freshman move-in week, he discovered that it was primarily an athletes’
dorm and about half the football team were living there. One of his roommates
was a linebacker and the other was on the men’s soccer team. Dale kept quiet,
deciding to hang back and consider his options.

Complicating matters further, Dale
went to the open try-outs and made it on to the football team as a walk-on. He
hadn’t expected to make it; he’d gone to the try-outs to score a good dose of
football and scout out the other hopefuls who might want to play casually.

Coach Bowman reviewed, met, and
approved all the walk-ons personally. Dale stood before him, sweat-drenched and
breathing hard from another round of intense drills. Coach Bowman looked him
over, read his background information form and physical examination form,
handed his clipboard to an assistant, and folded his arms over his chest.

“You’re not bad. You’re promising.
Here’s my situation: my best wide receivers are seniors. My quarterback is a
senior. My best running back went to the NFL last spring, the damn idiot. I’m
trying to build a team that can survive graduation and damn idiots who go for
the draft before they’re ready. I need reliable wide receivers for that to
happen. How soon can you learn the playbook?”

Dale, still having trouble
believing this was happening, said vaguely, “Um, by our first game, coach?”

Bowman smirked. “We can probably
survive our first game without you, but if you can genuinely learn it by then,
at least I’ll know you’re not a damn idiot. You played wide receiver in high
school?”

“Yes, coach. Before that, in junior
high, I was a running back. I would’ve played in grammar school but my mother wanted
me to play soccer instead.”

Bowman smirked again, took the
clipboard from his assistant, and plucked a ballpoint pen from his jacket
pocket. Glancing up from the clipboard he asked, “Anything else you want to
tell me before I sign you on to this team?”

Dale stared at him. Coach Bowman,
former NFL quarterback, tall, severe, in his third year at Crocker and already
legendary for his bluntness, brilliance, and impassioned ambition for the team.

I’m gay.

“No, coach.”

-----

Dale reasoned that he wasn’t being
a chickenshit, simply being cautious. And once he was on the team and plunged
into practice on top of classes, he didn’t have time to dream up the best way
to play varsity football, come out, and not get his face bashed in.

It was the Sunday after the
Sacramento State game. Dale hadn’t gotten any field time, not a surprise. The
reality of being on the team had finally sunk in, though, when they’d suited up
and jogged out onto the field. Until that moment, he’d kept expecting Coach
Bowman to come over during practice, ask him what the hell he was doing, and
tell him to leave.

He had just come back from the
student union convenience store and was locking his bike when Erick West rode
up and parked his bike on the same rack. Erick looked over and said, “Lennart.
I need to get in some throws. You wanna catch for me?”

It was a gorgeous September Sunday
afternoon. Dale would’ve played catch with a toddler to get in some football
time. “Yeah, sure. Let me dump my stuff first.”

Erick lived on the same floor in Hopkins.
Dale had caught for him a couple of times in practice, exchanged brief bouts of
team talk in the hallway, and sat with him at the football players’ table in
the Hopkins dining hall a few times. Erick was a likeable guy, and not just in
contrast to Ryan Hutchinson. Dale had caught for Hutchinson in practice, too,
and already nurtured a secret desire to kick his teeth in for blaming every
overthrown pass on Dale “not being where he was supposed to be.”

Erick brought the ball, Dale
brought bottles of water, and they left Hopkins together, walking through the
dorm ghetto and past a cluster of campus computing offices to reach one of the
multipurpose open fields.

It was glorious, running up and
down on the grass, catching ball after ball and passing them back under the
bright September sun. Erick wanted to work on some specific turns and directed
Dale to go left or right or across, but eventually they fell into an
understanding. Erick didn’t have to say anything, and Dale could predict which
direction to run by watching for small cues in his stance. He guessed wrong a
few times, and Erick overthrew a few times, but for over two hours nearly every
pass was complete.

“Catch like that on game day, we’re
there,” Erick said as they left the field.

“Yeah, it’s a lot easier when you
don’t have any D getting in your way.”

Erick chuckled. “Sad but true.”

They paused by the computing
offices, sitting on a slab stone fence in the shade and finishing off the
water. Very late sun dipped through the narrow leaves and spindly branches. It
was quiet, peaceful.

Dale watched a cluster of leaves
sway in a gentle breeze and said, “I’m going to tell you something. I hope it’s
not going to be a problem.” He hesitated, having a fierce bout of second
thoughts, and when Erick didn’t prompt him, Dale took a breath, released it,
and said, “I’m gay.”

He glanced over, braced for a look
of horror. Half-curious what horror looked like on Erick West, whose normal
mode was a unique blend of easy-going and intent. No horror; Erick looked puzzled.

“Are you telling me this because,
uh, you’re putting the moves on me?” Erick asked.

Dale laughed, releasing pent-up
nerves. “Oh, God, no! You’re, um, not my type.” His type, he thought. As if,
with his vast experience, he could even know what his type was. Was it the
scrawny kid with greasy hair and dirty fingernails at summer camp who’d kissed
him and let him feel him up? Or the stoner dude he’d snuck around with exactly
four times his senior year and who had, in the back of his marijuana-stinking car,
taught Dale by example how to give head?

He looked at Erick: tall with
quarterback chunk, buzz-cut grown out into a carpet of dark fuzz, late
afternoon beard gathering on his chin and jaw, a large nose and a wide mouth,
and when he laughed, his teeth were scary big. Yeah, no, whatever Dale’s type
was, this wasn’t it.

Erick’s puzzled look didn’t change
to one of relief. Dale glanced away and picked at the label of the empty water
bottle he held. “Maybe I shouldn’t have laid this on you like this. Here’s the
thing. When I came to Crocker, I decided I had to be honest about myself, who I
am. And, wow, did I have all these big plans to tell everyone. No secrets, just
get it out there. Yeah, that basically hasn’t happened, and it’s been eating
away at me, and I just wanted to tell
someone
.” Dale risked a sidelong
glance at Erick. “Sorry, bro. That someone was you.”

Erick didn’t say anything, but
nodded once. Dale wondered whether it would be less awkward and awful if he ran
away now when Erick asked, “I’m the first person here you’ve told?”

Dale looked over and Erick was
watching him, calm and serious. Dale shrugged. “I told my parents the night
before they drove back to Ohio. Yeah, that was me being a coward and putting it
off to the last minute. And even now I’m not sure what their reaction is
because we don’t talk about it. They’re probably cutting me out of their wills
as we speak.”

“You going to miss that inheritance?”
Erick deadpanned.

Dale smiled. “Oh, yeah. You don’t
know how much I had my heart set on my grandmother’s out-of-tune upright piano
in our basement. It’s got lace doilies on it.”

Erick winced in exaggerated
sympathy. “Aw, dude, that’s rough.”

Dale laughed a little, letting
relief settle in. After a moment he said, “But, um. Yeah. You’re the first
person I’ve told.”

Erick nodded again, pushing off
from the stone slab they were sitting on. “Wow. Okay.” They started walking
back to Hopkins Hall. “Seriously? I don’t know what I think about it, but it’s
not a problem. As long as you can catch passes and run, I don’t really care
what you are. You’re my teammate. You’re in my dorm. Y’know...”

“We’re homies,” Dale said. “Cribmates.”

Erick raised an eyebrow at him. “Uh,
right.” He slowed his steps as they neared Hopkins and said, “The way I see it,
though, the only way to be the best player you can be is to be yourself. And
you’re going to have to be the best wide receiver you can be for next year’s
QB1, which is either me or Hutchinson.”

Dale had never thought of it that
way and almost laughed at the idea that his blurted, desperate coming out could
have been anything so calculated. But he said, “You have a point. Choice
between telling you or Hutchinson?”

“I would’ve picked me, too,” Erick
sighed, and that was as close to badmouthing Ryan Hutchinson as Dale would ever
hear coming from Erick West.

When they reached their floor and
split up to go to their rooms, Erick called down the hall to him, “Hey, next
week, same time? Help me get some passes in?”

Dale turned, walking backwards. “Bro.
Next week’s away. Arizona State.”

“Oh, shit, that’s right.”

Dale grinned at Erick’s panicked
expression, like he was going to get kicked off the team for forgetting their
schedule for half a second. He called out, “But week after that, sure thing!”

Like that, without foreseeing it,
Dale had made a new best friend. Whatever happened next season, he knew who he
wanted to be QB1, who he’d trust with his life -- who he
was
trusting
with his life.

He didn’t tell anyone else until
after the season was over. He spent Christmas break with his parents in Dayton,
and they didn’t talk about it until the last day, when his father brought it
up. He asked Dale if he was absolutely certain, and Dale said yes. His mother
looked like she was going to cry, but she managed not to, and Dale wavered
between wanting to ask what the big fucking tragedy was and wanting to lie and
tell them he wasn’t sure and maybe he’d change. He couldn’t leave Dayton fast
enough, felt like he couldn’t breathe until the plane landed in San Jose.

He eventually told his soccer
player roommate. He’d been around the guy for five months and thought he’d
handle it without dramatics. Having learned something from telling Erick, Dale
remembered to put in, “And I’m not telling you this because I’m attracted to
you, because really, I’m not.”

The roommate didn’t look happy, but
didn’t look revolted, either. He said something about “praying for” Dale, which
Dale decided was better than many alternative responses. He shifted the focus
away from his eternal damnation by asking whether he should tell their
linebacker roommate, and they talked about the guy for a while before mutually
deciding, no, probably wasn’t a wise move. Then the soccer player asked, “Does
this mean you’re going to be bringing guys back to the room? Like, for sex?” and
he definitely looked revolted now.

Which was so funny, Dale’s romantic
life being completely non-existent, Dale wished he could laugh about it. He
just said no and promised he wouldn’t bring any guys to the room for sex, and
later wondered grimly if that meant, in reality, not bringing any of his
teammates over to hang out, if his roommate was going to get the wrong idea.

He mulled it over all night -- his
parents, soccer player roommate’s reaction, not being able to tell linebacker
roommate -- and the next day when he met up with Erick he almost dumped it all
on him, but Erick had his own shit to deal with, and Dale felt like he’d just
be whining.
I have to grow up.

-----

“I just don’t understand it,” Mama
said crossly, looking over at Erick from behind her newspaper and pinning him
with her gaze. “They
recruited
you. You wouldn’t have even considered
Crocker if they hadn’t come sniffing around you in the first place. Duran’s
lost it.” Erick narrowed his eyes, glaring right back at her, and she relented,
“All right, maybe he still has some good days. But on his bad days -- and,
honey, you know better than I do how many bad days there were -- are you
telling me they couldn’t use you? That’s horseshit, pure and simple. Those
people recruited you, and you sat out the entire season, and what do they have
to show for it? Six-and-six. It makes no sense whatsoever.”

It was Christmas morning. Erick’s
dad was sleeping in, his traditional Christmas Day luxury, and Erick’s older
sisters were outside taking a walk, which really meant they were avoiding their
mother, and although Erick couldn’t blame them, he also couldn’t help feeling
like he’d been thrown under a bus. In his calls home throughout the season, he’d
had inklings that Mama wasn’t happy with Crocker, but he hadn’t faced both
barrels yet.
Merry Christmas, ho-ho-freakin’-ho
, he thought, biting off
the head of a gingerbread man.