Man Up

by Kim Oclon

  The only sound came from the shower stream coming from the bathroom across the hall and Dad’s groans as the shower pelted his body. He always liked the spray to be on the strongest setting.

  “What?” I rolled my eyes at Robert who was leaning on the doorframe.

  “I had to sell a million candy bars and do this stupid home-run-a-thon to play baseball and they’re going to let you play on their team for free?”

  “Yep.” Even my little brother was giving me a hard time.

  “That’s pretty awesome,” Robert said.

  CHAPTER 38

  DAVID

  The good news was that the first practice of the season was predictable. I already knew Mike would continue to avoid me by sticking to Kurt and Alex like they were the ones who played Little League with him for years. Of course, Kevin didn’t half ass anything, always on a mission to prove over and over again how awesome he was. And thankfully, Patrick warmed up with me again. The drills were the same as last year but held some excitement since it had been about a year since we last did them. I even welcomed the exercise I hated as a freshman where we had to field grounders with a piece of particle board cut into the shape of a mitt strapped to our hands. I looked each grounder all the way into my body and used two hands.

  I didn’t know if the whispers I heard were directed at me or just in my head.

  By the end of the week, I stopped feeling like my fly was down. Kevin’s dad stayed away and he was quiet ever since that last day of tryouts. Well, I guess his dad would be quiet providing I didn’t grab a teammate’s ass or let a grounder go between my legs.

  The following week brought a warm streak, where the fields dried out a little and temperatures climbed all the way into the mid-forties but it felt even warmer when the sun was out. When I headed to school on the day the mercury finally hinted that spring was here to stay I knew I’d have an early practice and was jittery all day. Maybe because there was really no way for baseball to be an indoor sport. We could do hitting drills and fielding drills on the smooth field house floor, but it doesn’t compare to being out on the dirt.

  Sure enough, when I took a detour past Coach Kelly’s office on the way to my locker, the information was already posted. On a plain piece of white paper and written in his hurried handwriting was “Varsity baseball WILL practice after school today.” ‘After school’ was underlined several times.

  “I can give you a ride home,” I told Tyler as we waited for Art Appreciation to start. Yet another reason why practicing outside was so great.

  “Maybe you can stay for a little while,” Tyler suggested.

  “I’ll be all sweaty and gross,” I said.

  “So will I,” Tyler pointed out. “Besides, we’ve seen each other all sweaty and gross before, remember?”

  I smiled, always happy to remember the summer before when I would see Tyler running his laps. “Good point.”

  I had to run all over the place after school. My PE class just started a weight lifting unit, which coordinated nicely with the start of the baseball season, but the weight room was the furthest you could get from the locker room. I decided not to change into my jeans and just run out to my car in my PE shorts and T-shirt. After getting the bag of warm practice clothes, I had to fight the stream of students coming out of the doors because I needed to get back in. I dug through the bag on my way back to the locker room, double checking what I had even though I couldn’t do anything if I discovered I had forgotten a sweatshirt or an extra pair of socks.

  The athletic part of the locker room was a blizzard of athletes from three different sports coming and going, bags being thrown into lockers, equipment bags being packed, and many athletes applying several layers of clothing. Except for the volleyball team who could practice in their shorts and T-shirts in any weather.

  I didn’t even see Tyler, although I did look for him. Most athletes chose lockers based on where their teammates were and Tyler’s was near the entrance while mine was in the middle. I quickly peeled off my PE T-shirt and exchanged it for a long sleeve T-shirt of the construction company my dad used to work for and then slid out of my PE shorts so I could put on a pair of sweats. As I grabbed my cleats and turned to head out of the locker room, I almost ran into Alex, who quickly covered his bare brown chest with his jacket, the way a cartoon character would when he discovered he was suddenly naked.

  “Seriously Alex?” I said, ignoring the squirmy glance to either side of me.

  “Whatever,” Alex huffed, still holding his jacket over him.

  I shook my head, wishing Alex knew I wanted to check him out as much as he wanted to check me out. In my socks, I slid over the locker room floor and out to the field house. I pushed open a side door in the field house that was closest to the baseball diamond and sat off to the side of it to put my cleats on.

  Robert didn’t think that I knew he had slept with his glove under his pillow the night before his first travel ball practice, but I did. I had seen it dangling from underneath the pillow when I had gotten up that morning. I had smiled at the thought of Robert being so excited. But, at this moment, I felt the same excitement. In my opinion, the season officially started today when I would first set foot in the familiar territory of second base and hear the dirt and sand crunch as I shuffled to my right or left.

  Who knew where I would be next spring and if I would be going through the same ritual but Coach was right about what he said at tryouts. This team had the ability to go far and I felt the possibilities as I laced up my cleats and double knotted them. I hoped there would be some sort of batting practice today because the sound of a bat squarely connecting with a baseball on a cool day was comparable to a singer hitting that high note at the end of a song. It just sounded awesome and impressive.

  “Hey, Coach,” I said, leaning his bag against the bench in the dugout.

  Coach Kelly had a cloth band wrapped around his head to keep his ears warm and it looked like it was going to pop right off his head. He had an old Lincoln windbreaker zipped all the way to his chin. “Mr. Lukas,” Coach nodded at me. “You get in touch with Rowen yet?”

  “Not yet,” I stiffly said. I’d seen the large envelope from CNEI everyday ever since it arrived and got added to the college pile.

  “Well, don’t wait too long.”

  “I won’t,” I responded, busying myself by taking my glove and bat out of my bag. I was getting used to the idea that Sinni could very well be my only option and didn’t hate the idea but didn’t exactly like it either.

  “We’re doing base running today.” Coach Kelly walked to the equipment box behind the backstop. “Stay on your feet this time, okay?”

  My cheeks were probably already red from the cold so if they got any redder at Coach’s comment, he didn’t notice.

  Gradually, the rest of the team made their way to the dugout, filling it with more equipment bags and giddiness about finally being outside. It wasn’t long before Coach Murray, the assistant coach, blew his whistle and barked out, “Four laps around the perimeter.”

  “We’re still running even though we’re outside?” Kurt said.

  “What’s your point?” Coach Murray asked.

  Several players grumbled as they got to their feet and started trotting to the right field fence. Cleats sloshed when landing in a patch of grass that had not yet recovered from the winter. Everyone’s breath came out in small clouds that swirled together as we made our way through center field, toward left field, and finally back to home plate.

  The captains led stretches, which meant Mike and Kevin sat in the middle of the circle made by the team, each facing one side. Mike sat directly in front of me but kept his eyes on Patrick who sat on my left. I wondered if he knew how Carrie felt or if he’d even talked to Carrie about anything that was going on.

  It was a practice that would have been monotonous had it been in the middle of the season when all anyone wants to do is just get to the next game. Situational fielding drills, bunting practice, and then diving
practice for the fielders while the pitchers threw to the catchers behind the dugout.

  I dove to my left, stretching out my glove as far as I could and managing to snag a grounder before it whizzed under it.

  “Good stop, Lukas,” Coach Murray said as I tossed the ball back to him.

  A streak of cold, wet dirt seeped through the side of my sweatshirt and clung to the long sleeve T-shirt underneath. No doubt, my mom would ask me to start doing my own laundry again.

  “Nice grab,” a junior named Cameron said to me as he joined the back of the line. “I didn’t think you were going to get it.” Cameron’s primary position was shortstop but he probably wouldn’t get much playing time there so the coaches were working on turning him into an outfielder.

  “Thanks.”

  The small interaction with Cameron added to what I felt at the end of the practice the other day. While Kevin would never stop being a douchebag and Mike would hopefully stop being weird after a little while, I had spent more than half of my senior year being so anxious for no reason. Maybe I should have given more credit to my team and everyone at Lincoln High School. How would this year have been different if it started by holding Tyler’s hand when I entered the building back in August? Maybe that would have been too much. But maybe I could’ve at least acknowledged that he was my boyfriend, and an awesome one at that.

  When we ran bases at the end of practice, I felt myself holding back, overly concerned about getting the proper footing as I rounded each base. As I ran past Coach, he raised an eyebrow at his stopwatch unimpressed.

  “He was faster when he was straight,” Kurt sneered when I was behind him in line. Real clever of him.

  The second time, I quickly hit my stride and tagged each base without even thinking about it. Visualizing Kevin’s face as home plate, I squarely stomped on it and had to catch myself on the backstop in order to slow myself down. I had to look down and smile as I saw Coach look at his stopwatch in disbelief. It had to be my fastest time ever.

  “Maybe I’m faster now, huh?” I said to Kurt.

  He looked away.

  At the end of practice, as everyone walked toward the locker room, the track team came in from an opposite door, so the two groups met at the locker room’s entrance. The volleyball team was still putting away the poles and nets from their practice.

  As the noise in the locker room increased with the amount of people coming into it, I heard Alex loudly say, “What the hell?” It was followed by loud laughter and then, “That’s fucking hilarious!”

  I didn’t give it much thought but then I saw several of my teammates gathered around my locker. I felt like I was on one of those cheap carnival rides that spun really fast and the floor had just dropped out from beneath me. I shoved my way through the people that blocked my path and unintentionally pushed someone I didn’t know out of the way so I could see what everyone was looking at.

  Someone had duct tape a jock strap to my locker and in a thick black Sharpie marker drawn an arrow pointing at the cup along with the message, Looking for some serious dick.

  What the fuck.

  I grabbed the jock strap and yanked it from my locker. Then, I realized I was holding someone’s cup in my hand and hurled it across the locker room. A couple guys got out of the way in mock fear of being hit by it, which started up the laughter again.

  The message was still on my locker, which looked even worse without the context of the jock strap, if that was even possible. I felt like I was in a movie and the camera was spinning around me to capture the crowd of faces. Kevin was doubled-over laughing the kind of side splitting laugh that would probably give him an ache soon. “Man, I wish I thought of that,” he managed to gasp out.

  Kurt and Alex had nervous smiles on their faces, their eyes darting from side to side, like they were trying to swallow the laugh that wanted to explode out of their mouths. Patrick darted out of the locker room. Mike pushed his way through the crowd, not looking at me or anyone else, and opened his locker as if he was the only one in the room.

  “You’re the gay guy?” Someone from the track team asked me, looking me up and down.

  “I told you he was,” another guy said.

  “No.” I heard Tyler’s voice before I saw him. “He’s one of the gay guys.” Dressed in black running tights and a red Under Armor shirt, I soaked in the sight of my boyfriend. Wind burned cheeks. Matted hair from the puffball hat clenched in his hand. Eyes focused on me

  The locker next to me slammed, startling me and everyone else in the locker room. Mike slung his bookbag over a shoulder and headed out. I watched him leave, but just as Mike was about to open the door, Coach Kelly stomped in, tracking in mud because he still had on the old sneakers he wore outside for practice. Mike jumped back upon seeing Coach and quickly slid past him to leave.

  Coach Kelly marched through the small crowd, glanced at my locker, to me, back at the locker, and then looked over the track and baseball teams. “Everyone grab what you need and get out of here,” he ordered.

  It took everyone a second to react but they all obeyed, many simply grabbing their book bags without changing clothes or putting on jackets. The noise and people swirled around me, seemingly moving at a fast pace while I stood still. I had to touch my locker in order to get my car keys, and I didn’t want to do that.

  In less than a minute, everyone was gone and Coach Kelly and me were the only ones left. It seemed loud in the locker room even though something in the boiler room was the only noise. “I’ll tell the maintenance crew about this immediately,” Coach told me. “It should be gone by tomorrow morning. Before anyone comes in for first period.”

  I nodded, kind of numb and unable to tear my eyes from the locker like it was a bad car accident.

  Coach Kelly stood for another moment. “If you hurry, you should be able to make it out of here before the volleyball team comes in and sees you standing there.” He shrugged when I didn’t say anything. The writing was so dark and so big. “I’ll try to find out who did this.” Although his face was sincere, Coach Kelly didn’t sound very hopeful about the prospect.

  “Fucking idiot,” I yelled after the door had closed behind Coach.

  In order to open my locker, my hand had to be mere centimeters from the word “dick” and I felt dirty for almost touching it. It took me two tries to lift the handle. As I got my stuff together, the effects of the gravity carnival ride slowly wore off. The thing with those gravity rides was that you go on them knowing the floor was going to drop out. You expected it. Well, I had gotten on the ride and was stupid enough to think that just because it had made a couple of uneventful rotations, that meant nothing was going to happen even though the ride started spinning faster and faster. I swallowed a scream rising in my chest, feeling like I wanted to throw everything in my locker at the wall.

  Just as the volleyball team was coming in, I left the locker room and walked toward the parking lot with my head down, looking at my feet going one in front of the other. After doing this for a few seconds, it looked like my feet weren’t part of my body anymore. The hallways were empty for the most part, which was a good thing because I wasn’t looking where I was going. I had walked the path from the locker room to my car so many times I could have done it with a scarf tied over my eyes.

  “Hey, look where you’re going, All Star.”

  I stopped and looked up to see Allie. “Hey,” I said, putting my head down again, ready to resume my blind walk to the car.

  “Well, that’s not a very enthusiastic greeting,” Allie said, following me to the door. “Shitty day?”

  “It wasn’t that bad until about five minutes ago.” I didn’t slow down but Allie kept pace with me.

  “School related? Boyfriend related? Or stupid douchebag related?”

  “That last one,” I muttered, not in the mood to describe what had just happened. I pushed open the door.

  Tyler was sitting off to the side of the door, hugging his knees, but he quickly stood up when he saw
me come out of the building.

  “Hey,” Tyler said. “I didn’t know how long you’d be.”

  “I wasn’t about to do a handwriting analysis or collect DNA samples,” I grumbled.

  “Huh?” Allie said, raising an eyebrow at me.

  I noticed Allie and Tyler glance at one another. “Do you guys know each other?” I waved a hand from Tyler to Allie.

  “Library girl,” Tyler nodded at Allie with a smile.

  “Calculus guy,” Allie nodded back as if this were a formal introduction. “And boyfriend?”

  “Yup,” Tyler said, a smile spreading on his face.

  “Well, give this one some extra loving tonight. He seems pretty upset about something.” Allie kept walking when Tyler and I stopped at my boat of a car.

  “Do you need a ride?” I asked.

  Allie shook her head. “I have my own wheels, thank you.” She walked over to a lamppost and unlocked the chain that was looped around an expensive looking bike.

  I opened my door and then climbed over to the passenger door to unlock Tyler’s. We sat for a little while, staring at the dashboard.

  “I’m sorry,” Tyler finally said.

  I narrowed my eyes, staring out the driver side window. “I don’t know why. You didn’t do it.”

  “True. But that doesn’t mean I don’t feel bad that it happened.”

  I continued to stare, noticing how different the scenery looked since that afternoon when I gave Tyler a ride home after the first day of open gym. No more snow sloshed at the curbs. The grass actually looked alive in some places. I felt a pull at my right hand, which I had put in the pocket of my hooded sweatshirt after turning the car on.

  “What did your coach say?” Tyler asked as he ran his finger over the calluses on my hand.

  “He’s going to get someone to clean it up before school starts tomorrow,” I said to the window so my breath made a cloud on the glass.

  Tyler gave my hand a squeeze before wrapping my fingers in his. “Do you want me to go with you to tell the deans about it?”