Fourth and Long

by Michele M. Rakes

  None of it really sounds appetizing. It’s all fast food. There’s a variety of ethnic foods—Chinese, Japanese, Italian, American—but the Greek place whets my appetite. They’re offering smashed potatoes with all the fixings, but I want the spinach and feta pastry.

  “How about Greek?”

  “I’ve never had Greek food. Is it good?”

  “You should get the Mediterranean sub. It has mozzarella, tomatoes, and basil.”

  “All the things I love,” Irus says. “What do you want?”

  I tell him. He steps up to the counter to order our food and drinks. I locate a small table tucked out of the way. A few minutes later, Irus comes over with a tray of food. Once we’re settled, I again notice folks looking at us, taking pictures, talking in whispers. Maybe.

  My paranoia must be kicking in because I imagine them whispering all the inane things people think about gay men.

  “Which one’s the girl?” some guy asks loudly.

  Irus looks up. The quick anger in his gaze sets me on edge.

  “Settle down. Let it go,” I say.

  A young woman responds, “Neither, you idiot. They’re both men.” She smacks him. They move on, arguing like they’re brother and sister.

  “You’ve set quite a challenge for us,” I say. “In addition to being courted, I have to keep you from killing members of the general populace.”

  “You’re talking like that because you’re mocking me, right?”

  “Yep.”

  People walk by and recognize us, while others don’t notice us at all. Irus relaxes and takes a bite of his food. He drops his sandwich back on his paper plate and wipes his fingers on a napkin. He reaches for my hand.

  “Nice ring,” he says, admiring the white gold of my championship ring.

  “Diamonds,” I say.

  “Lots of them,” he adds and looks at me. “You like diamonds?”

  “Not really. The ones in your ears are nice. They look good on you.”

  “I hadn’t realized you put it on this morning.” Irus indicates the ring, lifting my hand to his lips in a blatant public display of affection.

  “I didn’t. I wore it last night to the press conference. This morning I couldn’t get it off. My jammed-up finger is swollen. Hope it goes down before the next game.”

  Irus runs a thumb over the face of the ring. The diamonds glitter in the brash light. The thing is big and heavy on my finger. My knuckle is swollen to a little less than twice its size. Irus gives the ring an experimental tug. Won’t come off. He takes my other hand. Runs his thumb over my empty ring finger. The one where a wedding ring would go.

  “Looks naked. Needs something there. Something to remind you of my intentions.”

  “I don’t need anything.”

  “I know.” He picks up his sandwich and finishes it off.

  I gather up our trash on the tray.

  “I’ll take care of that for you.” A woman wiping down tables picks up the tray.

  I’ve barely said thank you when Irus takes my hand. He drags me into a nearby jewelers.

  “I thought you were gonna ease up on the marriage thing?”

  “One concession.” Irus leans over a glass display case. Inside are dozens of wedding ring sets. He doesn’t find what he’s looking for and moves down to a case displaying men’s rings. “Let me buy you a ring. Just something to back all the other guys off.” He grins, knowing that’s not even an issue.

  “You’re lying to me and yourself.”

  “Come on. A gift. Just because. What one do you like?”

  I only glance at the rings. “I like silver.”

  “Okay, that’s a start. How about white gold, like your other one?”

  “That would be all right.”

  “What about that one over there?” Irus is having fun. “Or that one?”

  A salesman joins us and begins asking Irus questions. I’ve sort of tuned them out. Just seeing the joy on Irus’s face as the salesmen pulls ring after ring out of the case. He examines each one but puts them back. He’s taking his task seriously. I’ve seen Irus happy. On the field. After sex. When I give him just a little more affection. But I’ve never seen him this content.

  I do this to him. My being here makes him happy. The truth is in his gaze. With every look he passes me, each ring he turns my way, I smile. What if life could be like this every day?

  “Why should you deserve happiness?” Paul’s voice says inside my head. Thoughts of that man threaten to ruin my mood.

  Irus draws me from my reflections. “How about this one?”

  He holds up a black band with engraving on the top and bottom. The band itself has three rows of diamonds surrounding the circumference of the band.

  “That is a black titanium and sterling silver band with pavé diamonds, meaning the diamonds are set very close together to cover the entire band. From the French word for paving. You can also get the same ring set with rubies, black diamonds, or sapphires,” says the salesman.

  “Titanium should withstand how hard you are on your hands. Pales next to your championship ring, though.”

  “You’re a dork,” I say.

  “You don’t like it?”

  “I didn’t say that. I mean, it’s a handsome ring. Do you love it?”

  “Yes. Yes, I do. How much?”

  “That particular ring is six thousand one hundred ninety-nine dollars and ninety-five cents. Without sales tax.”

  “Really? You sell this shit in the mall?” I ask.

  The man gazes at me blandly. Irus waves me off.

  “Never mind him. Let’s size this thing.”

  “Irus? You can’t be serious.”

  “Chump change compared to a game check.”

  “You don’t need to spend that kind of money on me. Wait until you get your contract.”

  “No. Come on, give me your finger.”

  The salesman interrupts. “Perhaps I could show you something in a less expensive line?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  “No! Jackson, give me your hand.”

  Without waiting for me to offer my hand, he takes it, drops to one knee in the middle of the jewelers, and says, “You don’t have to marry me right now. Not even a month from now, or a year. Whenever you’re ready, Jackson Namath McCoy, I’ll be here for you, and this ring will be a symbol of that promise.”

  People are gathering in the window as they realize Irus is proposing. Cell phones are in hands, filming or taking pictures. Some of the female staff are looking on with misty expressions. One man leaves the store. Another has to suffer the pain of hearing his wife point out his romantic inadequacies.

  Strangely, once Irus squeezes my hand to bring me back to earth, only his rich brown eyes so full of hope have my full attention. My voice is gone. All I can do is nod my head. There’s a lot of noise. Cheers. Clapping. Irus slides the ring onto my finger. The cool feel of the band jams at my second knuckle. I laugh.

  “All my fingers have swelled up.”

  Poor Irus. He looks so crestfallen. The salesmen hands him an identical ring. “Try this one. We can resize it after the swelling goes down.”

  Irus takes the ring and barely gets it over my knuckle. The ring encircles my finger, dark and cool against my white skin. “It reminds me of us,” I say.

  Irus stands and kisses me. Again, there’s faint oohing and aahing from through the storefront window. The heat in my cheeks tells me I’m blushing.

  “If you buy two, I can give you a deal,” says the salesman.

  Irus breaks the kiss, rubs my back, and looks at the salesman. The crowd disperses as Irus asks, “What kind of deal?”

  “I’ll give you both for ten-five.”

  “Both? For ten thousand five hundred? Throw in the sizing?”

  “Cleaning and maintenance,” the salesman says. He follows up the offer with his winningest smile.

  Irus pulls out his wallet and passes his card over the counter. I pick up the other ring. “Shouldn’t you
try it on first?”

  He smiles and holds out his hand. The ring slides on easily. Perfect. “I guess we’re engaged. Do we send out announcements and save the dates?”

  “Smart-ass. No, now we go make out in the back of a darkened movie theater.”

  “I never got engaged on a first date before,” I say innocently.

  A few of the sales staff look up in shock. Irus laughs. “No, this isn’t our first date…just our first date date. I mean, we’ve been together before, you know. A while. We’ve been together for a while.”

  Our salesman keeps his cool and completes the transaction with Irus as I wander about the store. The ring feels strange. I find myself playing with it, my thumb twisting it around, sliding it back and forth. I glance in a case full of diamond earrings. I’m not really thinking of anything. A man enters the store. He joins me at the case, peering down at the variety on display, and then he looks at me.

  “You’re Jackson McCoy, aren’t you?”

  Irus is finishing up across the room. I look back at the man. His expression is angry. Disgruntled football fan? Before I can answer, he continues, “Yeah, you’re the guy who got Coach Phelps fired. Said he diddled you when you a little boy. How can you be so sick? Accusing someone of something so twisted? What could make you even think of something like that?”

  His words are like a blindside hit from a strong safety. My limbs feel dislocated. Like I’m falling apart. Irus comes over. I don’t know how much he heard, but I’m not going to wait around for him to smash this asshole’s face in…and get arrested.

  “What’d you say?” Irus asks.

  I grab Irus by his shirtfront and yank him out of the store. The man follows us.

  “Answer me. What kind of sick fuck are you? Why you gotta lie like that, huh?”

  Irus spins around and confronts the man. “What’s your damage?”

  “Coach Phelps a great guy. He volunteered for my son’s youth league,” the man counters.

  “So this is about your guilt,” Irus says.

  “What?”

  “Yeah, your guilt over not knowing the man who spent time with your son. Instead, you’re projecting your feelings onto Phelps’s victim, effectively making the victim the perpetrator. A man you can easily despise and blame for your inability to protect your child from a predator who seems like the greatest guy on earth. Jacks didn’t do anything to you. He’s protecting your son by standing up and telling the truth.”

  The man looks from Irus to me. I shrug and say, “He had some psych classes in college.”

  “Your boyfriend is a filthy liar,” he says to Irus. “A home wrecker and a slut.”

  Irus steps inside the man’s space. I take Irus’s arm, ready to pull him back if necessary. “Might want to go ask your son how he feels about Coach Phelps. The things I know about that man I can never unknow, as much as I wish I could, and you’re punishing the one person who doesn’t deserve your anger. Harassing him out of fear.”

  “Come on, Irus. Let’s go home.” I turn him away from the man

  “I promised you a movie.”

  “I’m not in the mood. Take me home.” I wonder if I’m doing the right thing by coming forward.

  “Yeah, take your lying faggot boyfriend home,” the man says, his voice full of so much hate and contempt.

  Irus spins around. His fist comes up, but I yank him back as he swings. He misses the man by a mile.

  “Excuse me,” a new voice says. A man with short hair and wearing a black turtleneck interrupts us. He wears dark-rimmed Buddy Holly glasses. A large hardbound book in his hands. His black skinny jeans rest low on his narrow hips.

  The man turns to the newcomer. “What do you want, queer?”

  The guy in the turtleneck doesn’t say a word. He swings the hardbound volume like a bat, clocking my persecutor across the temple, knocking the man down in one shot.

  Turtleneck looks at me. “I don’t like bullies.” He steps over the man and walks away.

  A woman with bright pink pigtails runs up to us. “Did you see that? So fucking cool! I got the whole thing. I’m gonna upload that shit.” She takes a picture of the man writhing on the floor, holding his head. She looks at us. “You guys better get going. Here comes Tweedle Dipshit. And Fred. Mall security. Fred’s cool, but the other guy always acts like he’s on an episode of Cops.”

  Irus laughs, takes my hand, and drags me all the way down to the theater. He buys two tickets to Lord knows what movie and hauls me up to the counter for soda and popcorn.

  “We have a game coming up. We don’t need all this crap,” I say.

  “Shut up. Give me some bonbons, kid.”

  Irus pays with his smartphone. In the next second we are ensconced in a dark theater with an armload of junk food. Irus kicks his feet up, puts my drink in a holder next to him, flips up the armrest, and pulls me close to his side.

  The theater is almost empty except for a few people down in the middle rows. The previews play as Irus brushes his thumb along my jawline. Two security guys walk in and start to swing their flashlights over the moviegoers. Irus crawls damn near on top of me and kisses me brain dead.

  “Hey, buddy!”

  There’s a tap on Irus’s shoulder. He turns to look at the security guy. “Yeah?”

  “Oh, sorry. We’re looking for two men.” Irus dismisses the man outright and gets back to macking on me. God, he’s making it good too. He really gets his hips into it, our dicks grinding together, and I toss my leg over his ass.

  “Come on, Al. Remember what it was like? Let them be,” says other mall cop. Must be Fred.

  “Please, ma’am, forgive the interruption.” I wave my hand to the guy and they both leave.

  “Made good on my promise,” Irus says, coming up for air. “Told you we’d make out in a darkened movie theater.”

  “I hope you bought tickets for a horror flick. Can’t bump dicks to a kid’s movie. Just sayin’.”

  “Um…not sure.”

  “The following production has been rated G for all audiences.”

  “Irus, you suck.”

  “Well, not right now, but give me a minute.”

  I shove him off me. “Not giving me a blowjob during a G-rated flick.”

  “Fine. Bonbon?”

  Why does it sound dirty when he asks that? I accept the offer and we settle down to watch the movie. My mind keeps going back to those things the guy said. I nudge Irus. “You know, that’s the way it’s gonna be, right?”

  “What?”

  “With me. In public. Folks are only gonna see me as the fag who squealed and made up lies about a great coach. Might want to rethink marrying me.”

  He tucks me in under his arm. His soft lips press to my forehead. “Nothing doin’. Not trading you in.”

  “You say that now. One day, you’re gonna get tired of fighting everyone.”

  “Watch the movie.”

  In my heart, I just don’t see how this is gonna work. I’ll let it go for now because I hate to ruin Irus’s fun. I lean up to give a quick kiss. “You know, Branson called us misfits, but it doesn’t bother me. Makes me think of the Island of Misfit Toys.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “You know, Rudolf…the Bumble…Yukon Cornelius?”

  “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “Looks like there’s another movie for you to watch when we get home.”

  “A’ight,” he says.

  I shove a bonbon in his mouth.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Mt. Rainier, WA

  Irus Beaumont

  Home field advantage against the highest-ranked team in our division will never happen. We’re nearly undefeated at home, but on the road, our record isn’t great. By sheer grit and the skin of our teeth, we battled to win our wild card game and our first play-off game. No one thought we could do it, and now we’re the upset no one calculated into the equation.

  We face the Vermont Paladins in the snow. So the coaching staff decides to take
us all up to the mountain. Jacks is in his element, scrimmaging in the powder, and the catches he makes are amazing. What’s better is the little-kid grin he pops up with every time he comes up outta the snow.

  The talking heads say the Paladins will be in the championship once they dispatch these pesky underdogs known as the Highlanders. Out here on our Island of Misfit Toys, I believe we’ve just found our Bumble, and I can’t begin to worry. Hell, I laugh every time I think of misfit toys since Jacks made that crack. I’d never seen the Christmas special, so Jacks made me watch it, and I think it suits us very well. All of us late-rounders and free agents.

  Yeah, the misfits are coming for you guys. Better go call Mommy, boys. Cryin’ time is coming.

  Now we’re home, watching the snow fall at Jacks’s mountain. That’s what I call this place now, Jacks’s Mountain. I sip my coffee. Jacks is outside, feeding his raccoons. They’re actually playing in the snow with him. Jared comes bounding in from his room, a football in his hands and a spark in his green eyes.

  “You wanna scrimmage?” he asks.

  “Definitely,” I say. I down the last of my coffee.

  “Irus, do I get to go with you to Vermont?”

  “You have school.”

  “What good is having two dads in the league if I don’t get to go to all the awesome games?”

  “Boy, don’t you be sassing me already. We don’t have custody of you yet. We will, but right now, we ain’t got no say in what you do.” At the boy’s disappointment, I add, “If we make it into the championship, you’ll be there, no worries.”

  Jared relaxes. We get him on the weekends. A sort of trial period. His foster mother drops him off after school at the facility if he’s been good. No fighting, cussing, or smoking. His grades have been slowly improving since the grand jury hearing. The experience brought Jacks and Jared closer. I just wish the jury’d come back with a decision. Don’t know what’s taking so long, but it has Jacks on edge.

  “I know you didn’t do anything for Christmas this year, but next year, will that change?” Jared asks, pulling me from my thoughts. “I liked Christmas back when my grandma was alive.”

  As we step out into the snow, I promise Jared he’ll have a real Christmas next year. He throws the ball to Jacks, and I scramble to bat it down, narrowly missing it. I tackle him into the deep snow at the edge of the yard. Jacks’s smile ’bout knocks me down, and Jared is right there with him, celebrating the catch.