At Bryan’s request, we’d entered into the annual Seal Beach sand-castle contest. I’d never even heard of it, but then again, I was a somewhat-normal human being. For Bryan, sand sculpture was like a religion.
We’d set up close to a concrete wall, which had seemed like a good idea at first—an actual wall to play off of, Bryan explained—
but now that the other contestants had all claimed their spots, it was a bit of a struggle to step around groups to get to the prime wet sand.
And without wet sand, our castle had nothing to stand on.
Literally.
The night before, I’d returned to the football field against Bolsa Grande, a team that had just one win. We’d won big, 54–7. I didn’t play the best game ever, but I threw the ball well. Coach was happy with me, anyway.
It was playoff time. We’d won our league and were 9–1 overall.
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On Monday we’d find out who we were playing first, but based on our record, we knew we’d be a high seed and get to play at home.
When Bryan had called and asked if I’d want to go to the contest, at first I wasn’t sure, because it wasn’t the kind of thing I’d normally do. I asked if I could bring Carrie along, and was glad when he didn’t even hesitate in saying yes. Carrie thought it was a great idea.
“Where else can you build a sand castle and have people look at it?” she said enthusiastically, over the phone.
“Any beach,” I said.
“True,” she replied. “But where else can we do it this weekend where it’s a contest and I can meet Bryan?”
“That’s true,” I admitted.
I looked around at our competition. We were building a castle, but others were working on sand elephants, cars, even a SpongeBob.
Bryan had wanted to do something more creative, but I insisted on a castle when we began that morning. Ours was the only castle in the area. Even though it was mostly Bryan’s work, I really wanted us to win.
Carrie came around to the front and took a careful look at our handiwork. Bryan had been the main architect and had done all of the intricate work, since Carrie and I proved to be defi cient at sand-castle building in general. She was best at filling up buckets and either throwing them up in the air or pouring them out randomly. I was good at digging and hopeless at designing.
“I think this needs a veranda,” Carrie said, observing Bryan’s circular towers.
Bryan looked up at her, grimaced, and asked the appropriate question. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I don’t know. I’m not actually sure what a veranda is, but I’m sure this would be better with one,” Carrie responded, quite sure of herself.
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“It’s a porch, silly girl,” Bryan said.
Carrie put her hands on her hips and stomped for emphasis.
“I’m a woman, damn it! I’m part of this sand-castle building team, and I’m a silly woman. In fact, after that chauvinistic comment, I’m considering changing that to
W-O-M-
Y
-N
, okay? Bobby, stick up for me!”
“You’re a
W-O-M-
Y
-N
,” I said, not looking up. “Stand up for yourself.”
Carrie laughed, probably not having realized she was contradicting herself, as she often did. “Still, kick his butt. He hurt my feelings.”
“I will if you want me to,” I said quickly, driven by the urge to tackle Bryan.
“Don’t you dare, Bobby,” Bryan said, bracing himself as I leaped to my feet. He started to step backward, away from me. I smiled and decided to let him be. He tentatively sat down again, content to work on the castle.
Bryan was a great designer. Even with Carrie and me messing things up, the castle was awesome. He’d created two perfect circular towers, above a multilevel base with flawless squared-off walls.
He had me digging, I realized, to keep me busy and out of his way, sort of like how Carrie’s multiple personalities had kept her occupied.
Currently, she was carving elongated phalluses into the sand in the corner of our little lot. “Sand carrots,” she said with a proud smile, presenting them to us. The fact that one had a scrotum at its base made it clear that this was no carrot. I raised an eyebrow at her.
“If you thought it was something else . . .” she said. “That says a lot more about you than it does about me, Bobby Framingham.” Bryan laughed.
The judges came around at about 1 P.M. By then, I had gotten 220
excited about the fact that our castle was really good. We’d filled in the hole I’d dug, and demolished Carrie’s carrots. It looked professional to me.
“We’re actually going to win,” I said. Bryan and Carrie just looked at each other and shrugged. Apparently I was the only one who was concerned about winning.
The judge, a fiftysomething man with a white ponytail and a really skinny build, was walking around with his pad, taking notes on each sculpture. I was trying to gauge his reactions.
What could I say? I loved winning.
“Shaundra is now a full-fledged prostitute,” Carrie said to my back. Bryan laughed, not knowing the history of Carrie’s neighbor and former best friend.
“No, she isn’t,” I said, my attention on the judge. He was smiling in front of SpongeBob, and had his hand on his chin.
“Well, all I know is that at her house there’s a turnstile where a door should be, and grown men line up in front of it every morning,”
Carrie said. Again, Bryan laughed.
“Uh-huh, sure,” I said, distracted.
“What are you doing, Bobby?” Bryan said.
“Waiting for the judge.”
They both laughed. “Why?” Carrie asked. “Do you have a crush on him?”
I glanced back at them. “It’s a contest, isn’t it?”
Bryan stood up and came over to where I was standing. He dropped a kind hand on my shoulder and rubbed gently. “We’re not gonna win, B,” he said.
I looked at him. “But you did such a great job! You deserve—”
He smiled and interrupted me. “Yes,
we
did,” he said. “But the more creative ones always win. SpongeBob will win, or that cruise ship.”
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I looked at our castle. “Why didn’t you say so? We could have done something else.”
“Oh, Bobby,” Bryan said, mussing my hair. “We did it for fun, not to win.”
I took a deep breath. What was it with me and winning? I looked over at Carrie, who seemed to be creating some new pornographic sand design, and looked back at Bryan, who was smiling and looking directly in my eyes.
I laughed. He laughed back, and I laughed some more and it felt really good.
Carrie stood when she saw us and her face lit up and she came over and tugged on my shirtsleeve. “I’m working on a new sand design. It’s called
Sister Needs a Straight Man
. Wanna look?”
It was a faint outline in the sand, without a discernible shape.
“Very surreal,” I said. “I love it.”
We three looked at her outline and then Bryan laughed, so I did, too, and Carrie as well. And part of the world then opened up to me, because I heard myself laughing and it sounded strange and familiar all at once, like I had laughed before but maybe not like this. And it occurred to me for the first time:
It really doesn’t matter. Life can
be full of sand castle building and Bryan and Carrie and that’s truly,
purely good.
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Finch lived about a block away from Rahim, about a half mile closer to school than I did, in a subdivision where his family had lived as long as I’d known him. It was a Sunday morning in late November, and after a talk with Bryan, I decided meeting with Finch in person would be a good idea.
As I parked in front of his house, I remembered how, five weeks ago, Finch had come to my house, uninvited. I’d been watching football with my father, just minding my own business. He’d stolen time with my dad in order to dupe me, I realized. Blood surged into my temples, but I remembered my purpose, and realized that anger would solve nothing right now.
The Gozmans lived in a large white house, nicely manicured in the front. As I walked up the cobblestone steps to the front door, I saw that the hedges had been trimmed perfectly, and it made me 223
wonder if Finch’s parents had any idea of what he had done to me.
Such an ordered family ought to know, I thought.
I knocked on the door, and Finch’s mother answered.
“Hi, Mrs. Gozman,” I said. “I don’t know if you know who I am but—”
“Of course! Bobby Framingham! How have you been?” Finch’s mother was a small woman who wore horn-rim glasses that made her look older than she was.
“I’m okay,” I said. We stood there at the door, awkwardly. “Is Finch around?”
She offered me a tight-lipped smile. “I believe he’s upstairs. I’ll call him for you,” she said. And then she disappeared, closing the door in my face.
A few minutes later Finch peered around the door at me. “What’s up?” he said coldly.
“I want to talk to you,” I said, my voice slightly trembling.
“We can talk from here,” he said, keeping the door open just slightly and allowing me to see him through the sliver that remained open.
I sighed. “I’d rather talk to you face-to-face, Finch,” I said.
“Do you promise not to hit me?” he asked.
What a dork. You
commit the crime, be ready to do the time.
“Yeah, I promise,” I said begrudgingly.
Finch disappeared for a moment and finally opened the door, pulling his purple windbreaker over his head. Once his jacket was on, he spoke. “I just want you to know I did what I did knowing it would be good for you,” he said.
“Right,” I said. We stood at the front door, looking at each other.
“No really,” he said, kicking the concrete. “I mean, obviously I wanted the story, but talking to you, you were so miserable. You needed to do it,” he said.
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“Whose choice was that?” I asked.
He said nothing.
“I want an apology,” I said. “That’s all I want. I want you to say you misled me, and that you’re sorry. That’s all.”
“You jocks,” he said, mumbling.
“Excuse me?” I said, turning and looking directly at him.
Finch shrugged. “You jocks have no idea what it’s like to have a hard time.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at him.
“Bobby, everyone likes you. You think being gay will stop people from liking you? I bet it didn’t. I wrote that article, and for like a day, people came up to me and made me feel like I was something. Then it was over. It was like I didn’t write it at all.”
The laugh came from deep in my gut. “Poor Finch,” I said. “That must be hard for you, not being popular.”
“Fine. Make fun of me—”
“Really hard, not fitting in. Something a gay quarterback would have no knowledge about, right?”
He bowed his head and turned away. “No. I don’t think you get it,” he said. I couldn’t see it, but I could hear the tears in his voice.
“You’re someone. I’m not.”
I sighed. “Look at what you did to me. Should people like you?
You screwed me over. I wasn’t even close to ready and you decided it was time. How could you?”
“I did what I had to,” he said. “Look. I’m sorry. Are we done here?”
“Almost,” I said. “You really think Stanford will be impressed by that article?”
Now it was his turn to laugh. “I don’t think that, I know that,” he said.
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“Best of luck,” I said. “From the bottom of my heart.”
He turned and slipped back behind the door, and I walked, victoriously, down the cobblestone steps back to my car.
I felt in my jacket pocket, found the stop button, and turned the digital recorder off.
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I’d told Bryan I had the tape, and he could write the article. He refused.
“This is your story,” he said. “You write it.”
“You sure?” It was Sunday night and we were talking on the phone. I told him what Finch had said, and Bryan was enthusiastic that I had all the evidence I needed.
“I’m sure, the
Orange County Register
is sure. I told my editor on Friday what you wanted, and he told me all we needed was proof on tape. It’s a go, Bobby.”
“What if my writing sucks?” I said. “I mean, I’m a stupid jock, right?”
“Kinda doubt it,” he said. “Just write the thing, we’ll take it from there.”
I got off the phone and sat down at my computer, staring at the blank screen.
I’m glad I’m out of the closet now, but it wasn’t my
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choice,
I wrote, and then I erased that line completely. I had no idea where to start. Bryan had said to write my story, not to worry about length. Include everything, he said. Whatever I was comfortable sharing.
“Your story will help so many people,” he had said. “I’m already proud of you and you haven’t even written it yet.”
I stared at the blank screen for minutes, until inspiration struck, and I slowly typed out a sentence:
I’ve never been very good outside the pocket.
I stared at the sentence on the screen. It was true, and I liked it.
Then the second line came to me, and the story began to pour out of me.
I could hardly type fast enough to keep up with my racing thoughts. My fingers searched out the right letters and I pounded away. Putting it in words helped me feel better.
Even though it was late when I finished, I called my dad and read him the article. A few days earlier I had opened up and told him about what had happened with Finch.
“You just wrote that?” he asked.
“Yeah.” I could hear the praise in his question and I felt like I was glowing, I was so happy.
He chuckled. “Can you send me a copy? I’d like to share it with some people here. It’s great, Bobby. Really great.”
I was waiting for the
but,
which never came.
“Really great,” he repeated. “Your mother tells me you’re dating someone.”
“Whoa,” I said.
“It’s fi ne, Bobby. I’m glad. Is this a nice . . . boy?”
I laughed. “This is weird.”
“Is it?”
“A little,” I said. “How did Mom even know?”
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“She said Carrie called for you and you were at practice and they talked.”
“Yikes! Getting weirder,” I said.
“I don’t know, Bobby. Sounds like you’re a little homophobic.”