and walked away.
“Bobby?”
“Yes.” I scraped at the bark of the oak tree with my middle finger. I listened to the sounds around me. Silence could sometimes be so loud. The wind hissing through the rustling trees, some chirping birds, I almost never heard any of this, because I didn’t listen.
“So I’m sorry to ask you a personal question, but are you? Gay?”
I looked around to make sure my father wasn’t standing there. “I just said yes.”
“Oh,” Finch said, and then his eyes lit up. “Wow.”
“Shut up,” I said, miserable.
I sat on the dirt under the tree and rested my face in my hands.
Finch stood above me, and it was like this major power shift.
Finch smiled and knelt over me. “That’s okay,” he said. “I’m cool with that.”
I looked up at him, surprised, but not shocked. “Really?”
“Sure.” He stood up and looked at the branch about two feet 102
above him. He sort of jumped up, trying to touch it, but never actually left the ground, as if his feet were glued to the dirt underneath him. I can touch the branch. He didn’t get close.
“Thanks, Finch. It’s new; I’m just figuring it all out.” I found a twig and began tracing a pattern in the dirt, a circle. Was Finch becoming someone I could talk to?
“I think it’s an amazing story.”
I looked up at him in amazement, and shook my head, hard. “No.
No no no.”
“Think about it Bobby. I did some research. Did you know that there’s not a single openly gay athlete in any of the four major sports?
You could be the first! That’s incredible, that’s like, Jackie Robinson incredible. Don’t you see that?”
I stood back up and began to pace. “No, Finch. I’m not ready for that at all.”
“But—”
“No! I’m serious Finch. We’re four-and-oh, and I got a call from Stanford. This is my dream. You really think I want to ruin that?”
“How would you ruin it?” he asked.
Now I was pacing fervently in front of the oak tree, and he was standing still, watching me like he was watching a tennis match. “I can’t do that now. If Coach found out, I have no idea how he’d react.”
“Coach Castle? He loves you,” he said.
I registered that. “Yeah, well.”
“I know it sounds difficult, but I think you’re missing out on a big part of it.”
“What?” I stopped in front of Finch, hoping that he had some magic words for me that would make it all better.
“You’d make a difference in a lot of people’s lives. There are so many people out there who think all gays are wimps or something, and you’re not a wimp. You’re, like, the coolest guy in our school.”
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I blushed. Actually, I hadn’t really thought about that before.
How can who I want to sleep with and love have such an effect on
other people?
It seemed so dumb, but it made a lot of sense when he put it that way.
“Finch?”
“Yeah.”
“Thanks. You’re a friend and I appreciate that.”
He smiled and looked down, embarrassed. “Thanks, Bobby Framingham.”
“Maybe I can make a difference in people’s lives. I don’t know.
I’m not ready.”
“I thought that might be the case,” he said. “It’s too bad, ’cause it’s a great story. I’ve been thinking about it and researching it for a few days now.”
“So you knew?”
Finch laughed. “Well, Bobby Framingham, if you don’t want people to know, you’d better tell those friends of yours not to make it so obvious. It wasn’t just what they said, it was how they acted. Of course I knew.”
“Damn. I’m gonna kill Dennis.”
“That would make the world a better place,” Finch said. “Sorry, just kidding. I know he’s your friend.”
I laughed. “No, you’re right.” I looked back at the house, turning away from Finch. “Are you?”
“Am I what?”
“Gay?” I turned back and looked at Finch.
He looked up at the sky. “There was a time when I thought I was, but nah, I don’t think so. I like girls too much.”
I wasn’t sure if I was disappointed or relieved. “Do me a favor, Finch?”
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“Sure. Anything, Bobby.”
“Please don’t tell anyone. I’ll make you a deal. If and when I’m ready to come out publicly, no matter when or where I am, I’ll call you and let you do the story.”
His eyes registered this and I imagined the victory parade in his brain. Score one for Finch Gozman. “Thanks! You think you could time it before my application to Stanford is due?”
I looked at him like he was crazy, and then he laughed.
“Just joshin’ ya,” he said.
“Yeah, that’s funny,” I said. “Anyhow, I gotta go back to my dad.”
“Sure, Bobby. Take care of yourself. If you ever need to talk . . .”
I nodded and he got in his green Nissan. He turned on the ignition and drove away, the radio blaring. I watched as his car disappeared, thankful that he wasn’t a jerk.
105
On Wednesday afternoon during my free period, I decided to do it. My secret was coming out, little by little, and I thought about how Coach would feel if I didn’t tell him.
He’d be hurt, and I didn’t want to hurt him.
I walked to Coach’s office with long, self-assured strides, the theme from that Eminem movie playing in my head. I imagined telling Carrie that. She’d have a heart attack. I wasn’t a rap kind of guy, and she really hated Eminem.
But I had to stop worrying about Carrie’s reaction to stuff. She wasn’t talking to me, wouldn’t even look at me. People kept on walking up to me and asking if we broke up.
I just shrugged.
I’d seen Carrie in school just once since the laser-tag disaster, and she’d ignored me. I tried to approach her in the cafeteria, but she was with friends, and they’d all glared at me, while she put her 106
head down in a very deliberate way. I pivoted quickly and walked away. Impulse. Very much like being in the pocket when I didn’t see or hear anything behind me but instinctively knew to get rid of the ball.
The gymnasium was loud and busy and I saluted half a dozen buddies who were there playing a pickup game of basketball, before heading down the hallway to Coach’s offi ce.
Coach was in the middle of scripting plays on his computer. I could tell, because I know how he spreads everything out all over his desk when he does that—stats, scouting reports, play diagrams—
and it made me think that maybe I should wait. The game against Laguna Hills was just two days away, and even if that was one we’d probably win, I’d hate to screw things up. But then I thought, if not now, when?
Is there ever a good time for a personal issue when you’re on a
team?
I stuck my head into his offi ce and quietly knocked on the door.
“Is this important?” Coach asked, looking up slightly.
“I don’t know,” I said.
Coach looked up from the computer. “Well, either it is or it isn’t.
Come on in, Framingham.”
I quietly sat down across from him and leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees and folding my hands under my chin as if to pray. On the desk in front of me were piles of articles chronicling the team’s victory over Los Altos. One had a picture of me dropping back to pass. I hadn’t seen that one. There was also a Cincinnati Bengals schedule, a testament to Coach’s fixation with the team he once played for. He was nothing if not loyal, and the guys gave him crap for it.
“Life is weird,” I said, after a short silence. Coach raised an eyebrow.
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“Uh-oh, looks like someone’s been hitting the philosophy textbook a little hard again,” he said.
I laughed and rolled my eyes. “Sorry,” I said. “I think too much.”
Coach turned to face me, giving me his full attention. He smiled.
“What’s on your mind, Bobby?”
“I’m having dreams about men.” It had come blurting out easier than I’d thought, as if it had been hanging on the tip of my tongue.
I’d fi gured it had been sort of stuck in the throat somewhere, fi gured it would take a long time, lots of stalling, but here I was, and my secret had popped out with very little prodding.
Coach remained expressionless, adjusted himself in his seat, and kept his eyes focused on me.
“What kind of dreams?”
“You know,” I said.
He adjusted again. “Have you acted on these dreams?” There was an urgency in his voice that scared me.
“No.”
“Good,” Coach said, clenching his hands together. “I don’t think you should.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really,” Coach said forcefully. “Look. Thinking things is one thing, acting is another. That’s not a good lifestyle, Bobby.
Maybe you’re a little confused right now, but that won’t work for you, you’re not the right kind of guy to do that.”
“So what do I do?”
“Ignore it, Bobby. Look. What do you do when you go up to the line of scrimmage and you don’t like what you see in the defensive backfi eld?”
“I call an audible.”
“Exactly. Do that here. This is a bad thing goin’ on in the backfield.” He laughed, a strange, weak laugh. “You don’t like what you 108
see, change it. You’re not a homosexual, Bobby. I know you. Just ignore those thoughts and get some new ones. What about Carrie?”
“She’s great.”
“Well, great. There you go.”
“But—”
“No buts . . .” said Coach. “Pun intended.” He laughed, and I just stared at him. “Bobby, how many gay quarterbacks do you see in the NFL?”
“None.”
“Exactly. And another thing. Don’t tell people. These are private things, Bobby. Do I tell you about what I do in bed with Mrs.
Castle?”
I blushed. “No . . .”
“Well, there you go. Now, what else can I do for you?”
The conversation had not gone the way I had wanted it to. I wasn’t sure how it was supposed to go, but now I felt worse.
I was pretty sure that Coach was wrong about this, that it wasn’t the same as him telling me about having sex with his wife. Of course that was inappropriate. But he was asking me to lie.
Isn’t that different?
I wished I could rewind the clock, back to the second before I entered Coach Castle’s offi ce, and call an audible there.
Later in practice, I screwed up my progressions as we were practicing a new play in tier formation. Rahim was covered, and instead of looking to my secondary target, Austin, who was playing again, I went directly to Somers, who was supposed to be a decoy on the play. This would normally have been a time for Coach to go ballistic on me—he’d done it hundreds of times before. But instead, he was quiet on the sideline. He looked down at his notepad, made a mark, and said, “You’ll get it next time,” without looking up. The entire of109
fensive line did a double take. I just shrugged it off and headed back into the huddle.
After a few more plays, we took a water break. On the sideline, Austin ran up to me and punched my shoulder. “Something’s up,”
he said.
“What do you mean?”
Austin crooked his head at me and took a quick squirt of water from a squeeze bottle. “You look weird today.”
“Thanks. Thanks a lot, dude.”
“No, I mean weirder than you usually look. Usually you’re just plain ugly, but today you look, I dunno, ugly and weird, too. What up?”
I looked around, saw that Coach was busy working with our defensive line. “I told him,” I said, looking away.
“Who?” Austin raised his voice.
“Coach.”
“Coach?” he said, laughing. “You crazy? You have to be crazy if you think that’s a good idea.”
I took a squirt of water and looked at him. Austin shook his head.
“Man, you are crazy. You tell your friends, that’s one thing. We’re young and we understand this shit. You can’t be telling Coach, he’ll probably drop you off the team. Damn. No wonder he didn’t yell at you.” And with that, Austin put his helmet back on and ran back onto the fi eld. I watched him, the way his upper body barely moved, how he carried all his weight so effortlessly just with his legs. For a moment he looked so different to me, foreign.
This was my best friend of the past six years, and as he ran away from me it made me think how random our friendship was. What did we even have in common? History, maybe? I watched him run and 110
imagined him continuing to run, farther from me, getting smaller and smaller, until he was just a useless speck on the horizon.
And the anger built up in my veins like venom, and I grabbed my helmet and stormed back onto the field, hoping to have a chance to throw a pass to Austin that would sever him at the neck.
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I arrived in the locker room for my usual pregame one-onone with Coach, but his door was closed. So I waited outside of his office for a few minutes. Minutes passed. Other players started to arrive and change. No Coach.
After about twenty-five minutes, an assistant defensive coach came out of Coach’s office. I started to stride toward it, but the guy closed the door behind him.
“Castle can’t meet with you today,” he said.
I nodded, wondering if he knew, if Coach was telling people. I felt like I’d been punched in the gut. Our meetings were a pregame tradition. An hour before every game I’d ever started, he and I would sit and chat for about ten minutes. We’d go over the game plan, talk about the opposing defense, sometimes even joke around.
So I walked over to my locker and began to change into my uniform, feeling vacant inside. I tried to reason with myself. Maybe he 112
was focused on the defense. Perhaps because Laguna Hills was not supposed to be a real challenge for us, Coach fi gured he didn’t need to focus on me.
Yeah, right,
the other part of my brain said. We hadn’t spoken one-on-one since our conversation two days earlier. That’s what this was about.
The team was busy getting rowdy, which is what we did before games. Rahim was leading our breakdown, Rocky was break-dancing, and everybody was hooting and carrying on. I was, too, except it didn’t feel the same. It was like the shouts were coming out of my mouth, but they weren’t connected to me.
I looked over to Austin, but he was joking around with Dennis and I didn’t have the energy to deal with Dennis right now. So I sat by my locker and tried to get my head in the game.