Man Up

by Kim Oclon

  Mike’s “fuck you” echoed in my ears. That along with the thought of Tyler hurt or in the hospital or worse forced me to crouch and duck my head like a rugby player in a scrum. I lurched forward and caught Kevin around the waist. Both of us tumbled over the steel bar that connected the leg press chair to the machine.

  “Don’t fucking touch me,” Kevin yelled when we landed on the stiff rubber mats that covered most of the floor.

  I had to let go of Kevin while we were in midair and landed on my elbows a little off to Kevin’s side, but I was able to spring to my knees and tackle Kevin again as he was about to get up. He twisted in my hold and managed to get to his feet. We two circled one another, with Kevin jerking his head forward in a weak attempt to make me flinch.

  “You followed us? Why the fuck did you follow us?” There were too many kisses outside of Tyler’s house for me to try to guess about when exactly Kevin saw us. I felt sick thinking about Kevin intruding into the world that was ours.

  “It was supposed to be a joke you fucking sicko.”

  “You asshole. You fucking asshole.” My voice grew louder with each word as I charged Kevin again, who crouched, ready for me this time. He threw his body weight into me and pinned me, winding up his pitching arm behind his head and releasing it like a catapult. Instinct made me scrunch up my face and close my eyes as if that would somehow deflect the punch. But it perfectly connected with my eye.

  A series of small explosions went off in my head before pain spread across the left side of my face. I brought my hand to my eye like I was afraid it was going to fall out of the socket.

  “You tell Coach that it was me, I’ll really kick your ass.” Kevin stepped over me on his way out of the weight room.

  I heard the door open as I was still on my knees, blinking and holding a hand over my eye. When I heard the latch to the door catch, I let go of my face, expecting to see an eye in my hand. The area was already starting to swell, and it was getting hard to see from that side. I quickly blinked, as if that would slow the swelling down. When I brought my hand back up to my face, it felt wet and I immediately panicked. Was my nose bleeding somehow? Did eyes bleed? I didn’t think so, but who knew? I looked at my hand and didn’t see anything. It was only when my chest heaved and I choked out a sob did I realize I was crying.

  CHAPTER 19

  DAVID

  My freshman year, I got a nasty blister on my right middle finger. Every time I gripped the ball to throw it felt like a small fire kindled directly on my fingertip. Eventually, I had to bat with my finger in the air, hoping the umpire didn’t think it was a slick way to flick him off. I didn’t tell my coach at first, feeling like a complete wuss for thinking a blister was an actual injury but then it got infected. This required me to go to the athletic trainer before practice to get the wound cleaned, bandaged, and taped to provide extra protection. I felt so stupid walking out of the training room with a piece of tape covering the top knuckle of my finger while other athletes got actual injuries taped or hobbled around the room on crutches, preparing to begin a rehab regimen. It probably looked ridiculous to everyone else. Really? A blister? Might as well just amputate it now. But, when the major aspects of the game required you to grip a ball or a bat, I eventually accepted that an infected blister was actually a debilitating injury.

  My daily trips to the training room lasted about a week, and I got to know the athletic trainer, Mr. Litch, pretty well. As he wound a bandage around my finger he assured me several times that many major leaguers were placed on the DL due to similar injuries. When I sprained my wrist at the beginning of the season last year, Mr. Litch had known it was serious because I wasn’t a regular in the training room. Some athletes spent their pre and post practice time there even though they didn’t need to, pretending an old injury needed attention so they could avoid the boring routine of daily warm-ups and drills. So now, when I shuffled through the training room door, with my hand over my left eye, Mr. Litch looked up from the ankle he was taping and raised his dark eyebrows at me.

  “How does the other guy look?”

  “What?” I asked.

  “It looks like you just got socked in the eye. What about the other guy?” Mr. Litch’s tone was playful but his eyes were kind.

  “No other guy, just a bar,” I quickly constructed a story. “Mike was doing squats and I was walking past. I bent down to pick up my sweatshirt and bam…perfect timing.”

  “I’d say bad timing.”

  “I just wanted to get a bag of ice,” I said, wanting to leave as quickly as possible. I knew from experience that the longer you waited to get ice on something the worse it looked. Mike had insisted he didn’t need to put ice on his shin when he took a hard grounder off of it, saying it was just a bruise. The next day a purple welt the exact size of a baseball protruded from his leg and he had to wear a shin guard for a couple games.

  “Sure.” Mr. Litch nodded towards a large cooler. “You know where it is.”

  I fished for the biggest bag I could find and pressed the ice to my face. I couldn’t help but release a small sigh as I felt the cold slowly start to spread over the heat that surrounded my eye.

  “Good thing that happened now so you have a little while to heal,” Mr. Litch said, going back to the ankle he was taping. “You might have been out for a game or two if that happened during the season.”

  “I’ll have to be more careful,” I said as I tried to spread out the bag as much as possible so it covered more of my face.

  “Or tell Mike to be more careful,” Mr. Litch smiled. “We’ll blame this one on him.”

  I pushed open the double doors and a warm sun greeted me. It was shocking when I had been used to biting cold and snowflakes. I took my phone out of my pocket and watched the bars in the corner go from a couple little ones to completely full. Just as I was about to text Tyler, I lurched to a stop, almost tripping over my feet.

  Mike sat on the trunk of my big, brown beast of a car, otherwise known as a shitbox according to Kevin. He slightly shivered in the T-shirt and shorts he was working out in. His Lincoln baseball cap from last season was pulled low over his eyes so I couldn’t tell if he saw me or not. But, Mike looked up when I skidded through a small patch of gravel.

  “What happened to you?” Mike nodded toward me.

  I had lowered the bag of ice at the shock of seeing Mike. My reflection in a trophy case had told me that it looked worse than it felt with swirls of red and purple covering my puffy eyelid and lower eye. At least I could see out of it and I was pretty sure I was fine to drive home. It would look worse as it started to heal, but that wouldn’t start for another day or two.

  “Kevin,” I said.

  “Did you hit him back?”

  Despite the few feet that separated us, I felt that we might as well have been on opposite sides of the Grand Canyon. “I tackled him first. He just got the first hit.”

  Mike nodded like he was watching film of batting practice and was analyzing the mechanics of his swing. He squinted. “Fucking asshole.”

  “Kevin or me?”

  Mike leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Do you really have a boyfriend? Like not a friend who’s a boy but a boyfriend.”

  My mouth felt as dry as a sandbox baking in the sun. “Yeah,” I managed to say, surprised that the roller coaster feeling in my stomach was only that of a kiddie ride and not the ones that broke world records for speed and drops. This wasn’t the way Mike should’ve found out. I wished I would have just done like I did on the patio with my dad and not given Kevin the chance to do this to me again.

  “Who is it?”

  “You know who it is. Tyler. From track.” Saying his name reminded me that I was the reason Kevin hurt Tyler. Tyler got hurt because of me. My upper body jerked towards my car as if part of me could continue talking with Mike in the parking lot and the other part could speed over to Tyler’s house. Texting or calling wasn’t going to cut it, I needed to see him. But, I remained planted in the s
mall patch of gravel.

  Mike shook his head to himself. “For how long?”

  I couldn’t read Mike’s tone. There was zero inflection or emotion. “Since the summer.” It would be another blow to Mike. I knew it as I said it.

  Mike reacted with a slight neck jerk. “That’s fucked up.”

  “What is?”

  “I had to hear it from Kevin? My best friend is…has a boyfriend and I have to hear it from that douchebag?”

  I lowered my head, thinking about how to respond to Mike. “I wanted to tell you. I was really close a couple times.”

  “When? When I asked you to go out with Carrie’s friend? When I wanted to know which girl you were taking to Homecoming? ‘Actually, I think I’ll just go with some guy!’” Mike sprang off the trunk and leaned against it, his arms folded tightly.

  I looked around the parking lot, which was mostly empty since it was between sports seasons. I took a step towards Mike. “I was just getting used to everything myself,” I said evenly, my voice stronger than it was before. It was getting annoying, people thinking they were owed some explanation about who I wanted to go out with. “And I asked how you felt about it and you made yourself pretty clear.”

  Mike looked taken aback. “When?”

  “During lunch last week. You were working on that marriage equality debate paper and told me you’d rather not know. So, I kept on letting you not know.”

  “What?” Mike looked like he was trying to take notes from a complicated lecture and was having trouble keeping up.

  “I asked you how would you feel if someone on the team was gay and you said you’d rather not know.”

  “I didn’t know you were talking about you.”

  I smiled in spite of myself, feeling a wave of calm spread over my body. “So you’re okay? We’re cool?”

  Mike’s eyes clouded. “I don’t know.”

  “If you need some time, I get it. Completely,” I said, taking another step forward and reaching out to put a hand on Mike’s shoulder.

  Mike jerked his shoulder away and turned his head to the side. My hand hovered in the air. I slowly lowered it, as if I didn’t know how to place it back at my side. “Oh, okay.”

  “How can you expect me to just be okay with everything?” Mike turned back to me. “What did you think? That we can all go on double dates together? You, me, Carrie, and…”

  “I don’t know what I expected.” I unlocked the car and threw my book bag and coat in the backseat. I slammed the door, something I rarely did since I wasn’t sure the doors could handle the force. “Actually, no, that’s not true. Maybe I knew that I should just shut up about it and start over next year. Kevin and his stupid dad, Coach, and now you.”

  “It’s not that simple, David,” Mike said. “Kevin announces to the weight room that you’re gay and you think we can just go to the batting cages or play video games or…”

  “Or what?” I pressed.

  “Jesus Christ, David.” He pushed himself off the trunk off the car. “We’ve had lockers right next to one another in the locker room for the past three years!”

  “And we’ve been best friends for ten, so what?” My god, Mike actually thought I’d sneak a look at his dick after practice.

  “So what?” Mike repeated, smirking. “Some best friend.” He stalked away, without a glance back at me. When he got to his car, he slid into it and the car lurched into gear.

  I watched the car whip out of the parking spot and speed off towards the exit, not bothering to slow down for the speed bumps that lined the parking lot. When I got in the car, I thought it was my heart that made my body feel like it was pulsating, but it was actually my throbbing eye. I tilted the rearview mirror to get a better look at the various shades of red and purple but bent the mirror away, hating the look of myself.

  I punched the steering wheel with a yell. “Fuck!” I punched it again with my other hand and then again with the other like it was a speed bag and I was doing some weird boxing regimen in the front seat of my car. “Fuck!” I yelled again, giving it two final jabs before gripping the wheel with both hands and resting my forehead on it.

  CHAPTER 20

  DAVID

  I blindly flew out of the parking lot, and not because of an injured eye, barely bothering to check if the road was clear so I could make the left turn. The stoplight in front of me changed from yellow to red. I slammed on the brakes. My body jerked forward against the tightening seat belt.

  The muffled tune of the 1959 Chicago White Sox fight song still sounded peppy even though my phone was zipped up in my bag. Keeping an eye on the light, I rummaged through the little pocket with one hand until my fingers felt the phone. “Home” appeared on the screen and I had another nanosecond debate with myself. I didn’t want to talk to my parents, but if I didn’t answer, they would either expect a call back or I would have some explaining to do once I got home. And why were they calling any way? I swiped my finger across the screen and took a breath.

  “Hello?”

  “David!”

  “Robert?” I took the phone away from my ear and looked at it, as if that would explain why my little brother was calling me. Hee rarely did and only when he needed something. The light turned green and I crept forward, holding the phone to my ear again.

  “I got the mail…”

  I rolled my eyes. “Good for you.”

  “No, let me finish.” Robert said. “I got the mail and there was a really big envelope from Mankato!”

  I almost dropped the phone. Everything about Kevin and Mike and Tyler went away for a second. “Really?”

  “Do you think you got it?” I imagined Robert holding the envelope to the light in an effort to figure out what was inside.

  “I don’t know.” Conflicting emotions battled for control over me. Relief as one of my prayers might already have been answered. But there was also Tyler.

  “It’s a big envelope,” Robert reminded me. “They wouldn’t stuff an envelope full of paper just to say ‘you suck,’ would they?”

  “Probably not,” I agreed, turning down a street.

  “Are you almost home? I want to open this.” I appreciated Robert’s enthusiasm.

  “Not yet, Rob,” I said. “I have to go to Tyler’s first.”

  “You see him all the time,” Robert whined. “Don’t you want to know what this says?”

  I turned the car into a subdivision and pulled over to the side. “Of course I want to know what it says. I’ll be home later. We’ll open it with Mom and Dad tonight.”

  “Fine.” Robert sighed and hung up.

  CHAPTER 21

  TYLER

  I heard David’s car before I saw it. The engine sounded like it should either be on a racecar or an SUV the size of a yacht. But it was just an old engine on an old car. He was coming here. There was no other reason for him to be in this neighborhood. Any other time, every other time, I got the cliché butterflies, but this time it was an anvil.

  We have a porch swing outside of my house and I spent most of my day on that. Mom and Dad let me stay home from school and thank God they didn’t try to miss work to babysit me. The deal was that I would go to school tomorrow.

  After being inside the whole weekend, it felt good to be outside and not have to wear six layers. Plus, my face looked a little less like an artist’s easel of blue and purple paint that swirled together anymore. Slowly rolling my ankles back and forth to push the swing put me into some meditative trance where everything around me disappeared.

  The engine jolted me out of the trance. Self-consciousness washed over me. My face didn’t look like messed up paint but it wasn’t pretty either. I didn’t want pity from David. I wanted an “I’m sorry” or something that would indicate Kevin Kaminski didn’t kick my ass for no reason.

  CHAPTER 22

  DAVID

  I felt like some stalker, sitting in my car on the side of the street, peering over the steering wheel so I could see Tyler’s house a few doors down from
where I was. If I knew what was inside that envelope, I could share it with Tyler. But maybe Tyler didn’t care to hear any news from me, good or bad. Maybe he wanted to break up because of everything that had happened. I felt hollow when I imagined my world without Tyler in it. My world would no longer be ours.

  Sitting in the car, everything still held promise. The packet from Mankato could offer me the scholarship I’d been waiting for. Tyler was still my boyfriend. It seemed like a better option to just sit in the car, at least for a few more seconds. For those few seconds some things were still okay.

  Finally I put the car in gear, and pulled away from the curb so carefully someone might have thought I was a brand-new driver behind the wheel for the first time. As the car inched closer to Tyler’s house, the contents of my lunch inched their way up my throat. I parked along the curb when I reached Tyler’s house because backing out of the driveway seemed like too much work if I needed to quickly leave. After putting the car in park, I checked my eye in the rearview mirror. It could have been worse if I didn’t get ice on it. I turned the car off, hearing each click as the engine settled, and took the keys out. Before I could talk myself out of it, I took a deep breath, swung open the car door and stepped out.

  “Are you just going to stand there?”

  My eyes darted to the front porch swing where Tyler and I spent many cool evenings lazily swaying back and forth. He stood next to the swing in black workout pants, a long sleeve T-shirt from last year’s state tournament, and an unzipped dark gray hoodie.

  “You’re okay,” I said, not knowing what else to say but feeling a sense of relief. From where I stood, I could see some discoloration on Tyler’s face but not how bad it was. There were no casts, crutches, or dramatic bandages you usually see in movies when someone was in a fight. Tyler leaned against the porch railing and I didn’t know if it was out of habit or because he needed the support. I slowly walked up the driveway, keeping my gaze on Tyler’s face as more details of it came into focus. Puffiness on one side. Colorful half-moons under an eye.