Openly Straight

by Konigsberg, Bill

  “It’s hard to be different,” Scarborough said. “And perhaps the best answer is not to tolerate differences, not even to accept them. But to celebrate them. Maybe then those who are different would feel more loved, and less, well, tolerated.”

  The writing continued, and I looked at Scarborough, thinking: That’s never gonna happen with this bunch. And damned if he didn’t look back at me and sigh.

  As I walked back to East Hall after class, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. A flicker of color, near the tree line. When you walk across the quad toward the dorm, the woods are to the left. There are some dirt paths into the woods, and everyone knows that some kids go there to smoke weed. Infamous. And way risky at Natick; if you get caught with weed, you get kicked out. It’s that simple.

  I turned my head, and what I saw surprised me. It was Robinson, emerging from the woods. He was half walking, half jogging toward East Hall, turning his head left and right to see who was noticing. He saw me, and he didn’t freeze exactly, but he slowed his pace and looked down, as if that were somehow going to make him look less guilty. I almost sped up to catch him and say something like, “Busted!” but I didn’t know him well enough to joke around about something that could be serious. And I hadn’t really taken him for a stoner type.

  So I pretended I hadn’t seen him or didn’t care, which was basically true. What he did was his business. I just kept walking, a good fifty yards behind him. But about a minute later, I saw another flash out of the corner of my eye, and this time, what I saw sort of was my business.

  Toby, exiting the woods as well. Heading toward Academy Hall, the building with all the classrooms, where I was walking from. He didn’t see me.

  Toby and … Robinson? In the woods, alone? Robinson was Toby’s mystery boyfriend? The idea made me laugh. Robinson the Jockhead? Gorilla Butt? No way. Robinson was like the weirdest, most random choice. Not that I was surprised that maybe he was gay or bi; lots of people you’d never think could be gay or bi actually are. I knew that, everyone knew that. But … Toby and Robinson? For reals?

  We had four wins, two losses, and two draws going into our game with Exeter. And we knew we were going to lose to them. We always do. The question was, how badly?

  Well, without Bryce, 6–1 badly.

  I had started for the first time, as the left midfielder. They had to move Rodriguez to the position that Bryce had played. The left midfielder needs to be fast and in shape, and be able to dribble the ball upfield and pass to our best offensive players.

  I wasn’t great but I wasn’t bad. I definitely don’t think we lost because of me. It’s just that Exeter is superfast and strong, and we couldn’t quite keep up.

  “Listen up, boys,” Coach Donnelly said after the game. “I generally don’t praise a loss. Especially a loss by five goals. But I must say, you showed heart out there today. As a team, we have an enlarged heart, and by and large that’s a function of your effort.”

  Ben and I walked to the locker room together afterward.

  “I’m very concerned about this enlarged heart we have,” I said.

  “Me too,” Ben said as he held the locker room door open, and we were hit with the stench of sweat. “We can probably fix it by trying less and relaxing more.”

  “Yes. We should send that in to the medical journals. We’ll be saving lives.”

  In the showers, it was low-key. The loss had taken the wind out of a lot of the guys’ sails, and that included Steve, who, as striker, had really not gotten the job done. So we soaped and rinsed in silence, listening to the sound of water slapping tile.

  I had gotten used to taking a shower at the far end, where I could turn around if I got shy. Showering in the middle of the room seemed like a dangerous thing to do, especially since there was the possibility I could get excited by all the bodies surrounding me. It hadn’t happened to me yet, but there was no telling when, especially since having no room of my own to “take care of things” had begun to weigh on me. I wondered if storing up semen would have a health impact on me, positive or negative, like shinier hair or weight gain.

  “Hey, Steve, did you hook up with Melody?” someone asked. I think it was Zack, but I wasn’t sure because of the sound in the shower chamber.

  “Shut up,” said Steve. “Why do you wanna know? You want to hook up with her?”

  “Maybe,” Zack said. “She’s seriously stacked.”

  “Well, then, yeah. I did. Hands off.”

  There was laughter, and then Zack did this thing in which he wet his hair and then shook his head like a dog, getting everyone else wet. It didn’t make a lot of sense to me, since we were already, you know, in a shower. I made a mental note to ask Ben about this phenomenon. He was becoming a very good source for long, philosophical discussions about all things less than brilliant at Natick.

  “Stop it, freak,” Steve said, wiping the water from Zack’s hair out of his eyes. “You know Robinson’s getting laid. Always off somewhere. You got a babe somewhere?”

  “Yep,” Robinson said.

  My face flushed, embarrassed for Robinson. I figured he meant Toby. And if he did, here was someone who was actively lying about who he was. Did he feel like he had to? What did he think would happen if his buddies Steve and Zack knew about him and Toby? And why didn’t he come out last year, after the college football player came and talked? I looked over at him, and it was like I could see inside him, inside his rib cage, all the intricate muscles and veins and bone and the same heart that everyone else had. Was it twisting in there? I felt sorry for him.

  “Man, I would not want to see that hairy ass of yours in motion, you know,” Steve said, and then he mimed pumping in and out, which, I have to say, was not so bad to watch. Everyone roared with laughter. Robinson just took it. Didn’t really react in any way.

  “Zack needs to get laid,” Steve continued. “What about Amber?”

  “Amber is a fucking slut,” Zack said.

  “Awesome,” Standish said. “Would she do me?”

  “No,” Zack said.

  It was customary, this naming of girls from Joey Warren. And yet every weekend at our parties, the soccer guys would stand in one corner of the room, looking all preppy and uncomfortable, until finally one of the girls broke the ice by talking to one of the guys. And then it was like the uncomfortable beginning of the party never happened.

  “Is Amber the one who got splattered when Colorado threw up?” someone said.

  Lots of laughter. I was glad I was under piping hot water, because that way, they couldn’t tell that I was blushing.

  “Yo,” Zack said. “She leans over to kiss him and he’s like … blat!”

  “Off the hook,” Steve said. “Nice, Colorado.”

  “I aim to please,” I said.

  “You didn’t want her?” Standish asked. “She’s crazy hot.”

  “I was shitfaced” was my response.

  “Yeah, true. I had to take him upstairs or he was gonna pass out in his own puke,” Steve said as he lifted his arm and washed the pit. “You have a girlfriend, Colorado?”

  I’d thought about this moment all summer. The moment I was finally asked if I had a girlfriend. I’d decided that I’d say no. After all, not all straight guys have girlfriends. I’d skirt the question and remain one of the guys by being more of a listener than a talker. A follower. The quiet guy.

  Standing there among my teammates, though, the silence became loud. I felt as if every second I remained quiet, my entire life at Natick was ripping apart. And I couldn’t let that happen. Sometimes, reality makes you ever so slightly shift your plan.

  “Yup,” I answered.

  “Back home?”

  “Yeah. Claire Olivia.” My jaw felt tight.

  “Oh, yeah, you read something about her in English class,” one of the guys said.

  “Is she hot?” Steve asked.

  “Incredibly,” I said, turning to face the shower spray.

  “She blow you?” This was Steve
, again.

  This time I didn’t answer. I looked over at Ben, who was definitely minding his own business. I noticed that he didn’t partake in the trash talk, the girl talk. I liked being part of the soccer posse, but I had to admit, there were about a thousand things I liked better than this part, in which we talked about women like they were just things. I tried to imagine what it would be like if gay were normal and all of us were gay. Would we objectify men in the same way?

  My head felt so noisy. The thoughts were rapid and loud, and I put my head under the streaming hot water, trying to wash it all clean.

  “Man, you must miss that shit. Why’d you leave?” Steve asked, for some reason taking my silence as a yes.

  “Good college,” I said. “I mean, I can probably get laid at Harvard or Yale, right?”

  “Fuckin’ A,” said Steve. “Those Harvard girls are off the hook.”

  “Yeah, like any Harvard girl would give a moron like you the time of day,” Zack said, and everyone laughed. I joined in, because at least it wasn’t about me again.

  I looked over at Ben again. He caught my glance and rolled his eyes, and at first I thought he was judging me, that he knew what I was doing. But then I realized he was rolling his eyes at the conversation, and I smiled, grateful I had a friend who didn’t need me to be someone I was not.

  When I called Claire Olivia later, I felt like I’d dragged out naked pictures of her and showed them to the guys. It felt like I’d crossed the line. But there was no way I could explain that to her, so I went in another direction.

  “My mother is driving me crazy,” I said.

  “What now, Shay Shay? Did she actually send you those hemp pillowcases?”

  “Nah, she gave up on that. But now she’s all about coming to visit on Parents’ Weekend, and you know she’s going to embarrass me. She lives for that. They both do.”

  “Sigh. Parents. They’re the worst,” she said.

  “Totally.”

  “So how’s the boyfriend front?”

  “Nonexistent. I’m just studying all the time.”

  She asked, “How’s Ben?” I’d mentioned my new friend a few times, and I had told her about the time we’d gone looking for Bryce, and then how he’d cried on my shoulder and asked me to sleep over. I didn’t tell her that I thought about Ben a lot these days, because that would bring up all sorts of issues I wasn’t ready to talk to her about, such as the fact that Ben didn’t know I was gay.

  “I think you’re in love with him,” I answered, laughing.

  “Me too. Maybe I’m just jealous that he’s your new me.”

  I said, “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “He’s, like, your gal pal, or your guy pal, whatever. And I think it’s so cool, the whole straight and gay buddies thing. He just sounds, you know. Cool.”

  “He is,” I said.

  “You know, you haven’t said even a single word about the GSA or what the gay scene is over there. It’s a little weird,” she said.

  “I’m just not focused there,” I said. And that was the truth.

  “Okay, whatever. I want to go on record and say that if you become some celibate monk or something, I am so going to want pictures of you in any frock they make you wear.”

  “I’m not becoming a monk,” I said. “Although some of those frocks are very flattering.”

  She laughed. “Why can’t You-Know-Caleb be less of a bitch and more like you?”

  “It’s one of the mysteries of the universe,” I said. “Why can’t all gay guys be exactly the same so that Claire Olivia doesn’t have to adjust?”

  “You’re such an ass.”

  “Love you!”

  She laughed again. “I love you too, Shay Shay. I just can’t wait to see you. You’ll be back for Thanksgiving, right?”

  “Definitely.”

  MY FRESHMAN YEAR at Rangeview, two seniors on the football team dressed up as Shakira and Beyoncé for Halloween. One wore this midriff shirt that showed off his hairy stomach, and he kept shaking his butt in people’s faces, and the other wore huge hoop earrings and this tight red dress. It was hysterical. So for Halloween sophomore year, I got this idea. I told my mother, and she took me to this cool vintage clothing store where we got me a leather miniskirt and black leggings. She made me up that morning for school, and Dad couldn’t stop laughing when I came downstairs as an eighties rocker chick, with this stupid plastic electric guitar thing around my waist. I wasn’t pretty, exactly. If anything, I looked kind of butch.

  But when I got to school, the weirdness began. Kids looked at me and then quickly looked away, as if they were seeing something delicate and secret about me. In history class, Ms. Peavy used my outfit to talk about Stonewall, which was this big riot during which drag queens fought cops in Greenwich Village in New York City. It turned out to be the beginning of the gay rights movement.

  “When Rafe wears that outfit, it works on two levels,” she told the class. Everyone was staring at me, and suddenly I was a red-faced rocker, wishing I were just about anywhere else in the world. “It’s fun, and at the same time it reminds us of the powerful role drag queens played in the gay rights movement.”

  I wanted to say, Um, I’m not actually a drag queen. Drag queens impersonate women. Wait, am I a drag queen? I didn’t even know anymore. All I knew was that suddenly everyone was looking at my outfit like it was a political statement, or proof that deep inside I really wanted to be a woman. Not funny at all.

  When the two football guys wore women’s clothing, I’m pretty sure nobody called them drag queens. I remember that day at lunch this kid at the table next to mine asked his friend if he’d seen the two jock transvestites.

  Drag queen. Transvestite. Very different, I guess. And apparently, an openly gay guy can only be the former.

  It was a way awkward day, and I will definitely never do that again.

  A few weeks after that, after a soccer game at Gateway, this huge high school in Aurora, Jordan Kemp came up to me in the locker room.

  “Hey, Rafe,” he said, his head down. Jordan and I had probably exchanged two words ever. His eyes were really close together, in the way mentally challenged people’s eyes are often too close together.

  “Hey,” I said. “Good game.” Jordan had scored two goals. I’d done nothing to help the team at all.

  “Lemme ask you a question,” he said, furtively looking around the otherwise empty row of lockers.

  “’Kay,” I said.

  “I’m definitely not gay, but if I was, would I be considered hot?”

  I tried really hard not to laugh, knowing that if I did, it would close this little honest window that had opened.

  “Um, yeah,” I said. “Kinda hot.”

  “Should I get, like, a different haircut?” He touched his dark blond hair. It was short on the sides and front, not neat and not styled, but short, almost like he should have a mullet, except he didn’t have the party in back.

  “Maybe use some gel,” I said, having no idea.

  “Cool,” he said, avoiding my eyes, and then, with a quick, impersonal nod, he was off. I don’t think Jordan ever said another word to me.

  A couple of weeks later, I scored my first goal of the season. The goal happened to help us beat Niwot, 3–2.

  Afterward, a reporter for the school paper, Roger Jones, came up to my locker with a notepad and a digital recorder, which he shoved in my face.

  “The gay guy won the game!” he enthused, as if that were a question. I froze.

  We stared at each other for a few seconds until it got uncomfortable. “Do you have anything to say?” a rattled Roger asked. I was like, No, not really, and he went away, and the article came out, and the headline had the word gay in it, as if who I was attracted to had anything at all to do with kicking the stupid soccer ball. So Rosalie, the guidance counselor, went and had a talk with Roger. Because it was Boulder, we had to have this big meeting where I sat uncomfortably in the background as Rosalie lectured the newspaper s
taff not to make a big deal out of someone’s sexuality unless it was relevant. And all the time, I sat there wondering: When is it relevant? When I get a boyfriend?

  Rafe,

  Think about what I said to you earlier this semester about going deeper. This is nicely done but it feels rather rehearsed. I want you to get more comfortable NOT having all the answers. To me, this reads as if you had several pieces of evidence and you wanted to lay them out as reasons for why you felt frustrated about being “out.” Fine, but what are YOU learning from writing this?

  That’s quite the question here at the end. When is being gay relevant? My question back to you is this: Has your answer changed here at Natick, now that you’re not “openly gay”?

  — Mr. Scarborough

  “So, are you up for something insanely stupid?” I asked Ben when he opened the door.

  It was late Saturday morning, a week before Parents’ Weekend. He stared at me, wiping the sleep out of his eyes. He was in his sleeping shorts, his thick legs making it hard for me to look up at his face.

  “So, something insanely stupid?” I said again. “You game?”

  “Wow, that’s quite an offer. I’m guessing this is not a two-person outing?”

  I laughed. “Did the ‘insanely stupid’ part give it away?”

  “Yeah,” he answered.

  “I actually have no idea what this outing is. I just have a strong sense that it will be odd, since it’s an Albie-and-Toby production.”

  “I’m in,” he said.

  Later, we four walked to the parking lot, me and Ben wearing normal clothing, Toby wearing his usual skinny jeans and hoodie, and Albie wearing pants with arguably the biggest pockets I’d ever seen. It looked like you could fit a family of squirrels in there. When I asked him about it, he said, “You always want to be prepared for the unforeseen.” And that’s when I started really having doubts about this outing.