Making My Pitch

by Ila Jane Borders

  In March of 2006 Shannon and I decided to move in together. If someone had ever told me that I—independent and aloof as I was—would do such a thing I would have said, “Hell, no.” The idea had always scared me—lose my independence and privacy?—no way. Now I felt no hesitation. We had differences—I was more of a fighter, a competitor; Shannon was more peaceable. I had built up emotional walls; Shannon was a great communicator. When we disagreed, we talked it out and compromised, never trying to change one another. She was fearless, too. She liked to bake brownies and take them over to the gang members who hung out near our apartment. Our differences were part of our strength together. She had a way of taking away my fears, anxiety, and tension. No one had ever been able to do that. I felt that whatever came our way, we could get through it.

  In April 2006 we made our commitment official. She gave me a leather ring—we could not afford an expensive engagement ring, and I wore it all the time. When Shannon had to be away from home, though, she wore it. She was my family now—no longer did I feel like the island my name represented—and this ring meant a lifetime commitment. But we had a few things to address. We had started spending time as a couple at Mom’s house, with my siblings there. They accepted our relationship, but Shannon’s parents held out. I had met her mother a couple of times but not her father. I knew what they thought of me: a gay firefighter? Not for their daughter. We decided to keep our living situation to ourselves and my family.

  We began to look to our future. We loved Long Beach but were living in a condo in a rough area of town. We wanted a good school district and a safe town where our kids could someday play the way we had growing up. A friend of mine was working for the Gilbert Fire Department, a suburb outside Phoenix. He told us that Gilbert had a low crime rate, good schools, affordable housing, and a fire department that was supportive of women candidates, with one openly gay woman already working there. Living in Arizona would also give us some distance from our families. We drove out that summer and took a quick look around. It felt right to both of us. But to have a chance at firefighting in Arizona, I would have to go through extensive testing and a five-weekend internship—kick-ass boot camp.

  Unfortunately, we were broke. I had just enough money for airfare to Arizona, where I was to take a written exam for the Gilbert and Mesa Fire Departments in October of 2006. I took my backpack and folding Razor scooter, like a skateboard with handles, and flew to Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, unaware that the area around it is not pedestrian (or scooter) friendly. I waded into the traffic. Horns honked, and I flashed my red lights as I made my way through the cities of Tempe and Mesa. The testing center at the Mesa Convention Center was farther than it looked on the map. It took more than two hours to travel the twelve-and-a-half miles to get there. I arrived with my pink shirt soaked through with only minutes to spare. We applicants were told to leave our belongings at the front door before going in to take the test. I went up to a Mesa firefighter and explained why I could not leave my scooter unattended—it was my way back to the airport.

  “You rode it here from the airport?” he said.

  “I did. I just need someone to watch my scooter while I take the test.”

  “No way. I could not live with myself with you riding back to the airport on that scooter. I’ll watch it. Come find me when you’re done.”

  Others gathered around. “That’s the kind of person we need,” someone said. “Somebody who really wants the job.”

  I got a ride back to the airport.

  During my time in baseball, I’d nearly always had a nickname. After the story spread about my wild ride to the interview, I became known as “Razor Girl.” After I made it through the six-week intern academy, we flew to Arizona in January 2007 to take the next step, my interview with the Gilbert Fire Department. Shannon waited in the parking lot, while I interviewed with three fire department personnel. When it was over, I told Shannon, “The interview went great. I think this is where I’m going to work.”

  “Good,” she said. “Because this is where I’d like to live.”

  Later I learned that my reputation as Razor Girl had helped get me accepted into the academy.

  We fell in love with Gilbert. Shannon could not get over the cows, sheep, horses, and goats alongside the roads and the open fields of alfalfa, wheat, and hay. Rural Arizona reminded me of the Canadian prairie, but with mountains. There was no graffiti or trash. It was an outdoor person’s state, with tons of hiking, mountain biking, skiing, fishing, and professional sports, including baseball year-round. We started driving through neighborhoods, looking for the house we might buy someday. We rented a two-bedroom apartment on Lindsay Road, just south of Baseline Road, and found renters for Shannon’s Long Beach condo. Shannon requested a transfer from her job as a computer service technician with Amcor Sunclipse in California to Tempe.

  On August 1, 2007, we moved into our apartment. Because Shannon’s transfer would not come through until January, she stayed with my mom from Sundays through Tuesdays, working twelve-hour days at Amcor. We drew even closer in Gilbert, because it was just us. Every weekend we biked along the canals, threw the Frisbee at Freestone Park, walked at the botanical gardens, and fished on Canyon Lake—and when we went to the grocery store, there were no lines at the checkout.

  Earlier that summer, Shannon got a glimpse of my baseball life when I was invited to Midway Stadium in St. Paul for the tenth anniversary of my pitching debut with the Saints. That’s when I met for the first time the Saints’ vice president of community partnerships and customer service, Annie Huidekoper. (Annie had been gone from the club for a few years when I arrived in 1997). Annie invited me to throw out the first pitch for a game and set up a radio interview. She was the hard-working go-to person at the Saints, devoted to the club and the fans and the whole St. Paul baseball experience. I knew that she had lived out of the closet for years, but it didn’t occur to me to speak with her, a brand-new acquaintance, about my struggle with my sexual orientation. Annie put it this way: “When I [first met Ila], we didn’t talk much, but my gaydar did come up, and I clearly sensed she might be gay. But I just figured, let it be. Maybe she hasn’t figured all that out yet.”

  My hunch was that as soon as Annie met Shannon, she’d figure out we were a couple. Connie Rudolph later told me that Annie wanted her to encourage me to come out, but Connie told her to keep it quiet. Annie respected that. We did not get to see Mike Veeck but joined Connie and her family at their home for a barbecue. After years of holding back and hiding my girlfriends, it was a relief to be open about my life with Shannon.

  The Christmas season of 2007 was the happiest I’d known. Shannon and I celebrated Christmas Eve at Mom’s house with my brothers and sister. I had never celebrated Christmas together with my girlfriend and my family. With Dad out of the house, the atmosphere at our house was relaxed.

  On Christmas Day, Shannon and I drove to her parents’ home in Indian Wells, where I met her father for the first time. We chatted about golf. They had always wanted Shannon to take up the game, and were delighted that she requested a set of clubs for Christmas. Then we were off to Gilbert. We had put up and decorated a live evergreen tree. Shannon’s gift to me was a red beach cruiser bicycle. Christmas night we watched A Christmas Story and Christmas Vacation, before falling asleep next to each other.

  Shannon’s birthday was January 4, ten days before I was to start at the Gilbert Fire Department. To celebrate we vacationed for a few days in the red-rock country of Sedona before returning to visit the Arizona Science Center for her birthday, where we spent time at the Titanic exhibit. I felt like we had it all. I was starting a good job in a growing community, and my family and friends accepted Shannon as the love of my life.

  9

  Loss

  Gilbert, Arizona. After our magical Christmas of 2007 and a toast to our future, Shannon decided to drive to California for a few days while I studied to renew my emergency medical technician certification. I remember squeez
ing her tight, tears in my eyes, and saying, “Please don’t go.”

  This holiday season had been the best ever; I didn’t want to let go of it, or her.

  On the night of January 6, Shannon calls to say she is on her way home. I tell her that eight o’clock is too late to be on the road.

  “No,” she says. “You know I love to drive, and I want to be with you—I’m already in Palm Springs.”

  We talk for about thirty minutes—seems like we never run out of conversation. At 11:15 p.m. she calls again from Quartzsite, Arizona, where she has stopped for gas. She is running late because it is raining.

  “Please,” I beg. “Just stay there and come in the morning.”

  Quartzsite, a few miles past the California border, is the last leg of the route along Interstate 10 from Los Angeles to Phoenix. Here the land begins to rise into sandy hills dotted with saguaro cactus—a sure sign that you are in Arizona. During the winter months Quartzsite becomes the temporary home for thousands of “snowbirds” who camp in their RVs. Shannon was not interested in stopping there.

  “I love you with everything I have,” she says. “I want to get to you tonight.”

  “Okay, I’m going to shower,” I reply. “Soon as I get out I’ll call to make sure you stay awake.”

  “Okay, I love you.”

  A few minutes later I call back. No answer. Shannon always answers her cell phone. I call again, over and over. No response. Worried, I phone some hospitals in the area, but there are no reports of a major wreck. Thinking she might have been in a minor accident, I get into my car and head west on the I-10. I keep calling. No answer. Sometime after midnight I call Mom and ask her to pray. I bargain with God.

  Mile Marker 27.2, the I-10 Freeway. As I approach Quartzsite, the freeway is shut down. The smell of fire and burned rubber is in the air. I park on the side of the road and sprint across the median, avoiding the highway patrol officers who are securing an accident site. Then I see Shannon’s white Lexus SUV, the entire top half gone. I fall to my knees and vomit.

  Right then a highway patrol officer gets to me. “Who are you?” he says.

  “I’m Shannon’s fiancée.”

  He says, “Well, technically we can’t tell you anything until we reach her next of kin. Would that be her parents?”

  I look at the officer. “I’m the only one that knows where her parents are, so you better tell me what the heck happened, so I can explain it to them, not you.”

  He looks away, then back at me. “Ma’am, Shannon has been in an accident. She was killed on impact.”

  I go numb before slipping on the stony face I had built up during childhood. Show No Emotion. I look toward her car. No matter how bad it is, I need to say good-bye. But the officers won’t let me see her. Then I spot her shoe—I had just bought her a pair of Sketchers—lying on the highway and pick it up. This is my fault, because Shannon was hurrying home to me. My cries sound primal in the cold, rainy night—where the hell was God’s hand in this!—I was too angry to ask how could he let this happen.

  It happened at I-10’s mile marker 27.2, just past Gold Nugget Road. Four miles east, the highway 60 overpass has a sharp curve that enters the I-10 going east. If you are, say, driving drunk and speeding, it would be easy to miss the sign pointing you toward Phoenix and simply careen straight ahead onto the exit from the I-10. In such a condition on a rainy night, it would be easy to miss the two unlighted red signs that read: “WRONG WAY.” That is what a man named Lewis Young, with a blood alcohol level of .244 percent, had done in his lifted F250 truck. Shannon was passing a big rig when she would have seen his headlights. Both cars had been going eighty miles per hour when they collided. Ten minutes after Shannon said, “I love you,” she was gone.

  My cell phone has gone dead, so on the way back to Phoenix I stop at a pay phone to call Mom. She promises to come stay with me as soon as she can afford to travel. Then I call Shannon’s parents. After they arrive we identify the wreck that had been her Lexus. Back at our apartment, they take nearly everything of hers, but I keep her bike, her clothes, and two pieces of furniture. It breaks my heart to see how little they know of their daughter’s life. They know that she was in the process of transferring to Arizona but not that we were living together. They do not know that the reason Shannon wanted golf clubs for Christmas was because I had been teaching her to play. They want to choose an urn for her ashes and ask me what her favorite color was (lime green). For the funeral they want to play her favorite song; do I know what it was? (Abba’s “Dancing Queen.”)

  Shannon’s funeral took place in Cerritos, California, on Saturday, January 12. I got up and said a few words, though most people there didn’t know of our relationship. But as I looked out at the faces in the seats, I saw old friends from the Santa Ana College Fire Academy, and the Long Beach and Fullerton Fire Departments, including my former girlfriend, Karen. My family was there, too, except for Dad, who said he could not handle it. Somehow I found the words I wanted to say and was able to speak them with a smile. Shannon would have liked that.

  After the funeral, I stopped at the Home Depot and bought an orange bucket, a bag of concrete, two gallons of water, white paint, and a couple of two-by-fours. I painted the pieces of wood and nailed them together in the shape of a cross. On the cross I wrote “Shannon, 1/4/74–1/6/08. . . . We love you.” I mixed the concrete in the bucket and plunged the cross into it. On the drive back to Phoenix, I stopped at mile marker 27.2 and set the cross in the sand. As cars and trucks raced by, I wept. The area was my personal vision of hell. On the median’s embankment were the burn marks of the F250; in the dirt by the road’s shoulder were not only the picture of Jesus that Shannon kept on her dash but also her other shoe, with glass in it. Then I found my leather ring, which she wore whenever we were apart. We had talked about trading it in for a “real” ring. Now all I wanted was that leather one.

  The next morning I got up and played “Dancing Queen” before reporting to the Gilbert Fire Department Academy. I went to the training captains and explained that I had just lost my fiancée in a head-on collision. I dared not mention her gender. Arizona is not an antidiscrimination state, and I could be let go for no cause.

  “I don’t know if I’ll make it, but I’m going to try,” I said. “I want the job.”

  The men were kind. “Anything we can do to help.”

  The guilt I felt for taking Shannon out to Arizona crashed over me in waves. I would have welcomed death if it had come my way. I began to see that I was breakable and that I needed people. It turned out to be mostly women, who I had always had trouble drawing near, who were there for me. Connie Rudolph came. My defenses down, I told her that Shannon was much more than the dear friend I had introduced her as in St. Paul. It took a while to spit out the words that I was gay. The news did not seem to bother Connie at all. She stayed with me for several days, and just as she had years earlier, during my days with the Saints, got me out of myself in the best way possible—into nature, namely the Phoenix Mountains. Hiking the rocky trails past sagebrush, saguaro, pincushion, and jumping cholla cactuses while turkey vultures and hawks soared overhead was the spiritual tonic that Connie knew I needed.

  Debbie Martin, one of my instructors at Santa Ana College, was another woman who stood by me. Years ago she had lost her daughter on a slippery mountain road in Big Bear, California, when their car went over a cliff. Debbie’s listening ear and understanding of loss helped get me through.

  Growing up, I had seen Mom as weak for not protecting us from Dad. Now I saw her strength. When she arrived in town, she took one look at my face and my messed-up apartment, and asked, “What can I do to help?”

  She cleaned the house. She did the laundry. She never told me to stop crying. One afternoon Mom said, “Sit down on the couch, Ila, and tell me about Shannon. Tell me some stories I don’t know.”

  As we reminisced about the silly things we had gone through, I started laughing. Then it went to tears, and then I was asleep. I
slept for several hours, and when I awoke, I saw Mom, weeping.

  “We all loved her, Ila,” she said. “I loved her, too. You know, I think she telephoned me more than you.”

  “I want to die,” I told her, “but I’m not going to do it. I just need some help to stay alive.”

  Mom is the reason I survived. Most of all she listened. Buried under the guilt I felt at Shannon’s death was the guilt I carried about my grandmother’s drowning. Now Mom and I talked about guilt and forgiveness and those early memories. Mom knew things that I either did not know or had forgotten. Mom’s parents had been unhappy about her marrying out of the Roman Catholic faith. They didn’t attend the wedding and didn’t even see me until I was three months old. That visit, though, began to heal the rift. Mom always thought that Grandma was good for my Dad. He had been raised in an abusive home, and Grandma was able to bring him out of himself. Grandma had grown up scared of the water—her older brother and sister used to tease her about it. So when Mom and Dad bought their house with a pool, she was determined to learn to swim. She did not want me, her first grandchild, to know she was afraid of the water. She had spent the entire summer of 1979 just learning to get her face in the water. By the end of that year, she was doing laps, though Mom said she couldn’t really swim very well.

  It helped to have meaningful work, where my anger at losing Shannon fueled the energy I needed to make the grade. Each day I put myself on the line like it would be my last day on the job—nothing held in reserve. At graduation, my peers voted me the Recruit of the Academy, and the department gave me the Academic Scholar award. The occasion on May 14 was a blur as Debbie Martin pinned the badge on me at graduation. I was now a probationary member of the Gilbert Fire Department. There was so much to like about this department. For one, it had ex–professional athletes: former major leaguers like Clay Bellinger and Andy Larkin, former minor leaguer Eric Christopherson, and former professional football player Andy Bowers. I got to work alongside them and other great guys, great in the sense of being loyal to their wives, doing the right thing, spending time with their kids, giving back.