Man Up

by Kim Oclon

  I glanced to the side of Coach Kelly’s head, seeing a pile of basketball uniforms that were probably turned in the week before. “Not yet. Still waiting.” It was too much to think about at one time. I didn’t want to have a college talk and this talk mixed into one.

  Coach sighed. “I was hoping I’d be able to tell Scott Kaminski he was getting all worked up about nothing. As usual.” Coach’s eyes darted to me as his expression changed. “Not that this is something. Or anything. I just thought I’d be able to tell Kaminski his son must be mistaken.”

  My gaze went back to the gray, slushy track as I imagined Tyler in his hat with the little puffball and wind burned cheeks rounding the corner and approaching the straightaway.

  “I know.” Those two words scraped my throat. I did know that was what Coach wanted to do. He’d probably come across dozens of gay people, he just never knew it before.

  “Maybe that’s what I should do.” Coach’s tone wasn’t menacing. His voice went up a little at the end, like he was asking my opinion about whether or not to change the time of practice or cancel a game due to rain. “If you think that’s an option.”

  I tried to come up with something to say but my brain couldn’t communicate with my mouth. I just shrugged and shook my head. A cross between I don’t know and no.

  Coach looked at the phone on his desk like he expected it to ring at any second. “I’d like to say he’s going to shut up about all this after today,” he said, “but we both know that won’t happen.” He narrowed his eyes to the wall and muttered, “One more season of his shit. I swear.”

  I wasn’t sure if he meant for me to hear or knew that I did. I had one more season of this shit too.

  Coach moved the phone a few centimeters away as if that would protect him from it. “Well, I guess you should go back to class. Physics is an important class.” He shifted some papers around on his desk. “I hope to continue to see you at Open Gym. Add some weight next time.”

  I rose from the chair, feeling as if I had been sitting for the past eight hours instead of just a few minutes. I didn’t know where this left everything but didn’t want to sit in that chair for a second longer. I left without saying anything. Even though I knew it wasn’t a heart attack, I still felt like someone was jumping on my chest.

  As I made sure the office door latched closed, the clacking of the secretary’s keyboard stopped. “I don’t mean to be so forward,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  I turned to her. “Are you talking to me?”

  “Yes,” she offered another sympathetic, motherly smile. She really did look like she was sorry for the way Coach Kelly ambushed me. “Here.” She handed me a pamphlet. I glanced down at it to see

  Support and

  Acceptance for

  Freedom of

  Expression

  Each line a different color ink: blue, green, yellow, and red.

  “Maybe you’d like to talk to them,” Mrs. Carlson said. She was just trying to be nice, even supportive, and I really did feel like I should have been grateful for that since it wasn’t clear if Coach was on my side or not. Instead, I crumpled the pamphlet into a little ball and flicked my wrist so it landed in a nearby wastebasket. “Nope.”

  CHAPTER 4

  DAVID

  The paralysis that left me stupid in Coach Kelly’s office disappeared when I entered a hallway filling with students as the bell rang to signal the end of the period. Even though I’d never been one to throw a punch, not even when this asshole slid into me with his spikes up last year, I felt like I was going to hit the first person that looked at me in any way, friendly or not. For everyone’s safety, I ducked into a bathroom.

  I threw myself into the last stall and climbed on top of the toilet into a squatting position so no one would see my feet, burrowing my head into my hands. Damn this school for not putting fucking doors on the stalls in the boys’ bathroom.

  I hid in the stall until the bell ricocheted in the close quarters of the bathroom, louder in the small, empty space than in a full classroom. With the bell still ringing in my ears, my feet took me to the cafeteria where hundreds of conversations finally drowned out the noise in my head. That was all it was: noise. Like the static when the TV’s not working. As I waited for my turkey sandwich in the deli line, a list of commands separated themselves from the cafeteria buzz:

  Ditch Pre-calculus.

  Go to the library.

  Find Tyler.

  Talk to him.

  I set the flimsy paper plate on the ledge by the cashier so I could take my lunch card out of my wallet. A piece of orange plastic with my name and picture on it and a series of x’s crisscrossed the other side of the card, one for each day that I received a free lunch. Mom had applied for it a year after Dad lost his job. The first few times I had to dig it out, I felt self-conscious, like the lunch lady was judging me. That feeling was magnified by a million today.

  “You can get chips with the sandwich.” The lunch lady smiled at me from under her hairnet and tan visor. “Don’t you want chips?” She indicated to the display near the register.

  “No, I’m fine.” I managed to keep the edge out of my voice as I took the card from her hand and slipped it back into my wallet. I spotted Mike at our usual table, consuming almost half a piece of pizza in one bite and skimming a thin packet of paper. Just for a second, I debated whether or not to sit down, feeling like Mike would just know everything by looking at me. Know that Coach talked to me. Know that I had been keeping a huge secret from my best friend.

  The debate ended quickly. If I decided not to sit with Mike, he’d ask why. Creating a simple lie seemed too complicated so I stepped towards the table with a shake of my head and shoulders like I was about to step into the batter’s box.

  “What are you working on?” I sat down like it was any other day.

  Mike’s eyes remained on the packet as he scrawled some words. “I totally forgot this debate paper was due today. They always seem to come up on me.” Mike devoured the rest of his pizza, leaving behind a bit of crust. “We talk about the topic in class. We watch a news story about it. And I always forget to write the fucking thing.”

  “What’s this one about?” I had government last semester and knew Mr. Ritter assigned several debates during the semester.

  “This one is about health care. Privatized or government-run.” Mike moved on to a boat of French fries drowning in barbeque sauce. “I got government-run.”

  I focused on tearing the corner of a mustard packet and creating an abstract painting on the layer of turkey. It would have been so easy to keep talking about Mike’s homework or that afternoon’s workout, but I sensed an opportunity. Maybe this was a sign. “Hey, did you do the paper about the baker and the wedding yet?”

  “The guy who didn’t want to bake a cake for two dudes getting married?” Mike asked, wiping his hands on a crumpled napkin before turning a page in the packet.

  I nodded, certain my voice would shake if I talked.

  “Yeah, that was the first one. I got the freedom of religion side.”

  “I got the other side.” I searched Mike’s face or posture for something that would indicate he had made a connection between the paper topic and that I was the one who asked about it.

  Nothing. Mike just stuffed the last of his fries in his mouth and gulped a nuclear colored drink.

  During the debate in my class, three students ignored the actual topic and used their time as a platform for why guys marrying guys and girls marrying girls shouldn’t be able to marry in the first place. As the students talked about that being the real problem, my heart literally hurt. Not the same as when I was having a heart attack in Coach’s office. More heavy than hurt. I had never thought about whether or not I wanted to marry Tyler or if he wanted to marry me but I knew I wanted to be a dad and teach my kid to play catch. Mr. Ritter had to bang his little gavel on his desk and remind the students of the topic and the two sides of the debate.

  Since I had already b
rought it up and Mike seemed distracted by the paper he needed to write, I decided to press forward. “What do you think about that?” I treaded carefully, as if stepping on to a frozen lake when my dad took me ice fishing once.

  “About what? The guy and his stupid cake?”

  I nodded again, almost swallowing a piece of my sandwich without totally chewing it.

  Mike shrugged. “He makes cakes. Just make the fucking cake.” He might as well have been asked if he thought putting ketchup on a hot dog was blasphemous.

  “Really?” I leaned forward so quickly, I knocked the table, causing Mike to scribble down the margin of his paper. “So you’re not all freaked out about two guys getting married?”

  “Yeah, I really don’t care. What someone does in their house is none of my business. Just don’t involve me in it.” Mike went back to his paper.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “I guess as long as I don’t have to see it, then I don’t care.”

  “What if I were gay?” I don’t know how Mike heard me above all the noise in the cafeteria.

  Mike’s pen stopped in mid-word. He slowly turned his head like a robot. “But you’re not.”

  My heart beat in my ears. “Okay, not me. What about someone on the team?”

  “What? Like Kevin?” Mike smirked.

  “Anybody.” I kind of had my answer but I wanted a real one. A firm one. One that would tell me Kevin and his dad were bigger assholes than we thought.

  “Honestly, David, I’d rather not know. If you know something, keep it to yourself. Let me finish this, okay? I’m almost done.” He tossed the empty boat of fries and crumpled napkins into a garbage can before turning the page in his notebook and giving me my answer.

  My effort to blend in with the crowd of students entering the library failed. Students were supposed to sign in and present their ID to the student working behind the check-in desk during that given period. With only four other students waiting to get into the library, it was impossible to sneak in. Since it was a month into the semester so the student worker and the librarian probably had a good idea who the regulars were and who was ditching class.

  I stood on one side of the library’s sensor that tattled on students attempting to take something without checking it out. If I even stepped near it, I had a feeling it would siren, complete with flashing red lights, blaring to the entire school that I was somewhere I wasn’t supposed to be.

  “Do you want to check in?” the girl behind the counter asked. I’d never seen her before. She had pretty eyes and a soft voice, with brown hair that was really short and almost buzzed at the back and sides, but a little longer on top. She wore gray skinny jeans and a plaid shirt with a T-shirt of some band I never heard of. A bunch of other kids wore the exact same thing only they had different band shirts on. I usually stuck with jeans and a hooded sweatshirt in cold weather and jeans and some sort of baseball T-shirt in warmer weather.

  “Uh, yes,” I blurted. “I mean no.” I took a step back from the telltale sensor when the librarian glanced over her shoulder at me.

  “That doesn’t really answer my question.” The girl smiled.

  I leaned on the counter that separated us and whispered, “I need to talk to someone.”

  “Who?”

  “Someone. Please.”

  She surveyed the library. Students playing games on computers. Students typing papers. Students sitting in front of a stack of books, playing on their phones. Groups scattered about at tables, socializing rather than studying and having a hard time keeping their voices at a whisper. Her gaze lingered in the back corner of the library. Without looking at me, she picked up the scanner used to register IDs. With a pull of the trigger, a hairline of red swept the empty counter.

  “You’re all set to go,” she said to the books piled in the ‘return’ bin.

  “What?” I asked, not catching on immediately.

  She picked up the small stack of books. “Have a nice day.” The girl walked the books over to a pushcart a few feet away.

  The sensor didn’t acknowledge me as I stepped over it like dog shit on the sidewalk. Since Tyler actually used his study hall to study, I knew he spent the time at a table by himself in the back of the library in the non-fiction section. No one ever went there unless their teachers insisted they use an actual print source and not only rely on the library’s database of online articles for research. I took a quick detour past the magazine rack and scanned the titles without reading them and then picked a paperback book off a rack that spun. If the girl at the desk was still watching me, I didn’t want her to see where I was headed.

  And then I saw Tyler hunched over a thick textbook at a secluded table in between two bookcases. One held ancient encyclopedias courtesy of a variety of publishing houses and the other stored two copies of every yearbook printed since Lincoln High School opened in 1973. Tyler had one hand ready to turn the page while the other quickly scrawled something in a spiral notebook. Even though I couldn’t see his face, everything stopped for a couple seconds as I imagined him chewing on the inside of his lower lip. I remembered when I pointed it out to Tyler one time, he said he didn’t know he did that when he was really focused.

  I suddenly realized I didn’t know what I expected Tyler to say or do. He had been so understanding and good to me since the beginning, allowing me to come by his locker before school like we were two friends simply hanging out before first period. Holding my hand on the center console of the car. Waiting to kiss me until we got to one of our houses. We never really lied to anyone, it’s just that no one ever came out and asked, “Is he your boyfriend?” “Are you dating him?”

  Even though most of my weekends were spent with Tyler, sometimes I hung out with Mike or some guys on the team. When the conversation would turn to girls and Mike would complain about how Carrie gave him a hard time for spending so much time with the guys or somebody else would talk about a girl and how her clothes hugged her body in a way that caused all of them to stare, they’d ask me which girl he was into. Who did I think was cute? It wasn’t lying to say, “I’m not really into anyone right now.”

  Just because I didn’t want to lie didn’t mean I was ready to make an announcement over the school’s PA system either.

  I slinked into a seat across from Tyler. “Hey, what are you doing here?” he whispered, smiling in surprise. “I told you during second period that I don’t need a ride home tonight, right? Late practice because the wrestling team needs the space after school?”

  “Yeah, you told me already.” I fidgeted, wondering if all the chairs in the school were always this uncomfortable.

  We didn’t plan on taking Art Appreciation together but were excited when we compared schedules the week before school started. I wasn’t really into art but did appreciate the excellent view I got of the back of Tyler’s head everyday because I sat two rows behind and one over from him.

  “So, what’s going on? You want to talk some more about hidden messages in The Mona Lisa because I think that little grin means she might have had a thing for girls or knew some secrets about Da Vinci.” He softly laughed but quickly stopped when I didn’t hint at a smile. I wished we were back in Art, talking about Da Vinci conspiracy theories before physics and everything in my world was normal.

  “Coach called me out of class to ask me if I’m gay.”

  “What?”

  “It was Kevin Kaminski.” My stomach flipped the way it did when I saw a set of spikes coming toward my face during that game. “He saw us together. He told his dad. His dad told Coach. Coach asked me if I’m gay.” Short sentences were easier because I was breathing like I had just completed the running regimen Coach made use do when we committed errors. Maybe I was hyperventilating.

  “Slow down. He saw us?” Tyler looked like I just spoke to him in a foreign language.

  I just shrugged, not sure what to say next because I didn’t know anything else.

  “But where? How? How would he know?” Ty
ler didn’t wait for me to answer. “I don’t understand how he would know.”

  “I don’t either. He sees you in my car and that automatically means something to him?” For the first time since my conversation with Coach Kelly, I really thought about it. What the hell did Kevin see?

  “Well, what did you say?” Tyler’s voice calmed a little as he inched his foot forward so the toes of our shoes touched, my scuffed gym shoes against Tyler’s black canvas shoes with red laces, the closest we’d ever come to being public about our relationship. Even though several layers of leather and cotton separated our feet under the table, it felt like we were on Tyler’s bed with our arms and legs wrapped around each other.

  “Nothing. Which is probably an answer all on its own.” I wiped the back of my neck with a clammy palm and gave Tyler a quick summary of my conversation with Coach. Or rather, the one-sided conversation.

  “That’s crazy,” Tyler sighed. “Sounds like he just wanted you to deny it so it would go away.”

  I looked away from Tyler. “He said some shit about me being distracted by the guys on the team. Like I wouldn’t be able too…” It was too embarrassing to say it out loud. “Like maybe he might have a reason to cut me this year.” My voice cracked and I couldn’t believe that out of everything that happened today, the thought of not playing baseball was what was going to make me fall apart. I covered the toe of Tyler’s shoe with mine.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “What would you do?” I curled my fingers into a fist, pretending they were wrapped around Tyler’s hand.

  “I would tell Kevin Kaminski to fuck himself.” His pale skin pinked with each word. “The queers are here. Get used to it.”

  “I’ve already thought about that.” I said, grateful to have Tyler and that he didn’t mind ducking into corners of the library, surrounded by dusty books that no one cared about.

  “I can’t believe this is happening at our school.” Tyler hung his head and held it in his hands.

  “Why?” I asked, talking to Tyler in a way I never had before. “Because we don’t hear about little faggots getting beat up on their way home from school or walking in the hallway?” Tyler winced. “Because everything is just fucking perfect?”