Crossover

by Jeff Rud

  But until this morning, I hadn’t thought about what those words actually meant or how hurtful they could be. I was ashamed of myself for not realizing that before. Luke was a good kid. He didn’t deserve this. At the front of the room, Mr. Riley droned on and on. I heard none of it.

  I managed to track Luke down in the cafeteria at lunchtime. He was sitting with Brad and Ollie. “You got a minute?” I asked.

  “Sure,” Lukas said. “What’s up?”

  “Can I talk to you outside for a second?”

  Luke looked puzzled. We walked out the cafeteria door and down the steps into the courtyard. There was an empty bench at the far end. Nobody else was around.

  “Pretty messed up morning, huh?” Luke said.

  “Yeah, that’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about,” I said. “I was thinking about that note in your locker and what was painted on that one set in the theater. It’s not right. I mean, who cares if you’re gay?”

  The words had just tumbled out of me. It wasn’t exactly the way I had planned to say it, but at least now it was out there. I wanted to let Lukas know that I disagreed with people who called him names and made fun of him just because he was gay. I wanted to let him know I was on his side.

  Lukas just sat there on the bench with a stunned expression on his face. “I’m not sure what to say to that,” he mumbled.

  “What I’m trying to tell you is, I don’t care if you’re gay,” I said. “I think the stuff in that note was really stupid.”

  Luke was now shaking his head rapidly. He drew a deep breath. His voice got louder as he spoke. “You know what, Kyle? I expect this from some of the morons on the basketball or football teams, but not from you. I thought you were my friend, but I see you’re just like everybody else in this stupid school.”

  “Luke, I...”

  “I gotta go,” Lukas said, turning away and running up the stairs. He disappeared quickly through the glass doors and down the hallway.

  Things had not gone the way I had planned. I had wanted to let Luke know that I supported him. But it obviously hadn’t made him feel any better. In fact, I was pretty sure I’d just made things a whole lot worse.

  chapter eleven

  I found it really difficult to get to sleep that night. So much was running through my mind. I felt horrible about the way things had gone with Lukas. I was still shaken over the vandalism to his locker and to the Oliver! sets. And I was worried about my place on the basketball team. How was I going to deal with Ben Stillman? And was Coach Williams going to be on my case for the rest of my high-school life?

  It was close to midnight. My reading light was still on. I was absentmindedly thumbing through the pages of Slam magazine when Dad stuck his head into my room. “Kyle,” he said. “You should be asleep, guy. You’ve got practice early tomorrow.”

  “I know,” I said. “I was just thinking.”

  “About what?”

  “Nothing, really,” I said. “Well, a lot, actually. Well, it’s hard to explain...”

  Dad had that look on his face—his eyebrows arched and his jaw clenched tightly— that he gets whenever he is concerned about me. He sat down on the far end of my bed. “What’s going on?” he said.

  It came out in a rush. All the stuff about the vandalism and Lukas. How I had tried to talk to him afterward. How Lukas was now pissed at me, like just about everybody else seemed to be.

  “I can see why all that would leave you thinking,” Dad said. “You guys had quite a day.”

  He took a deep breath and patted my feet before resuming. “You know, Kyle, you shouldn’t worry too much. You and Lukas will work things out. But you’ve probably learned something valuable here about homophobia.”

  Homophobia? I hadn’t really thought about it clearly until now, but I knew he was right. That’s exactly what this was—the fear or hatred of gay people.

  Dad had written a series of prize-winning articles for the Bulletin last year about homophobia and its effects on the gay community in our city. I remembered reading them and wondering what it must feel like to be persecuted and excluded, sometimes even within your own family.

  “What’s going on at your school is exactly the sort of thing I was writing about,” Dad said. “It’s something that is fed by ignorance. And it almost always results in somebody getting hurt.”

  I gulped. I had seen the hurt in Luke’s eyes after he opened his locker this morning and again when he and I had spoken in the courtyard. I had been confused by his reaction. I still wasn’t sure if he was gay or not. But I was certain it had been a miserable day for him.

  “I feel bad about it,” I said. “I mean, I don’t even know if Luke is gay...”

  “Does it matter?” Dad said.

  I shook my head. It shouldn’t matter, I thought. But had I let it matter over the last few years? Had I stopped hanging around with Lukas because I thought he was “different”? And because I didn’t want to be seen as “different” too?

  At lunch hour the next day, I tracked down Jenna, who was eating with a bunch of kids from the musical. “Hey, Kyle.” She smiled sweetly, grabbing my hand. “I didn’t see much of you yesterday.”

  “Nah, I got tied up,” I said. “I mean, I had something on my mind. Got some time to talk about it?”

  She looked concerned. “Sure,” she said. “Let’s go for a walk.”

  Jenna and I circled the school grounds slowly. She bit into a green apple she had packed for lunch. “What’s going on, Kyle?” she said, stopping and looking me directly in the eyes.

  “It’s Luke,” I said. “I guess you heard what happened to his locker.”

  Jenna nodded. “That was rough,” she said. “I felt so bad for him. He was pretty shaken up by it.”

  “Is Luke gay?” I just blurted it out. “I mean, I told him yesterday that I was sorry kids were hassling him because he is. But he freaked out and took off. Now I don’t know what to think.”

  Jenna was silent.

  “All the guys are always calling him names,” I continued. “And he is sort of on the feminine side. I guess I just thought...”

  “Kyle, you’ve known him for years,” Jenna interrupted. “If it mattered so much to you, why didn’t you just ask him?”

  Good question. Seemed pretty simple in hindsight. But maybe I hadn’t wanted to know the answer. Maybe it had been easier just to ignore him. I hadn’t bullied or teased Lukas like Ben Stillman and his buddies had, but I had never stepped up to stop it, either. And for the past five years I hadn’t been a very good friend to Luke at all.

  Ms. Lawson assembled the entire cast and crew in the front two rows of the theater before Tuesday afternoon’s rehearsal.

  “Okay, kids,” she said. “By now, everybody knows what happened to our sets. We’ve got a lot of work to do to put things back together. We got a good start on it this morning. Let’s run through our scenes now. Hopefully, the new backdrops will be ready by Monday.

  “In the meantime, I want to let you know that the police have the security tapes from the theater and are going over them now. So whoever trashed the sets will hopefully be caught.”

  I was happy to hear that. I wondered what kind of morons would just destroy something for no reason.

  Lukas and I walked home together after the rehearsal. We were silent for the first block. Then I worked up the nerve to talk about what I had been worrying about.

  “Luke, man, I’m sorry for just assuming you were gay,” I finally said.

  Lukas stopped walking and stared at me. “It’s nobody’s business if I’m gay, straight or bi-sexual,” he said. “What difference does it make?”

  “So are you, or not?” I had to ask the question.

  Lukas shut his eyes for a second. He sucked in a big gulp of air, then exhaled slowly. He was looking down at the ground.

  “I don’t know—okay?” he said, his voice growing sharp. “I just don’t know. I realize everybody wants to put a label on me, but it’s not that easy. Sometimes I
think I am, and other times it’s really confusing. It’s easier just not to think too much about it.”

  Luke’s voice was now breaking and he was near tears. “Look,” he said, his blue eyes now meeting mine directly. “If even I’m not sure whether I’m gay, how come so many other people seem to be? And what possible difference does it make to anybody in this school? What difference does it make to you, Kyle? I’m still me. Same guy I’ve been all along.”

  I was silent. It shouldn’t make any difference, but somehow I had let it.

  “I guess what bugs me a lot more than anybody calling me names is that you and I haven’t hung out for a few years,” Luke continued. “I never really understood what that was all about and I was afraid to ask you. I thought it was mostly about me not liking sports. But if it was really because of this? I mean, that’s pretty lame.”

  He was right. I knew it. I had no defense.

  “I don’t think I ever consciously chose not to hang out with you because of that,” I said. “But I guess in the back of my mind it was there...and maybe I never tried out for theater before because I didn’t think it was what ‘real’ guys did.”

  Luke laughed bitterly. “I feel sorry for you, man,” he said. “You’re a talented actor and singer and you let something like what other people think stop you?”

  As Luke spoke, I realized that’s exactly what I had done. And I also realized that Luke—all five-foot-nothing and 120 pounds of him—had been strong enough to go after his dreams no matter what anybody else thought.

  “What can I say?” I smiled weakly at Lukas. “I’m an idiot?”

  Luke took my surrender graciously. “Aren’t all jocks idiots?” He winked. “I mean, I just assumed...”

  I had to laugh at his line. Luke had nailed it—and me—big time.

  chapter twelve

  I spent a lot of time that night thinking about what Luke and I had talked about and how closed-minded I had been. I had missed out on a great friendship, but it looked like he was willing to give me another chance. I’d definitely missed out on developing whatever talent I had on stage. I hoped it wasn’t too late.

  I knew all the things Luke had said about me were true. And it had taken being part of Oliver! for me to realize that basketball and theater actually had some things in common. In both cases, the people involved were passionate and deeply committed to doing their best. They worked as a team and looked out for each other. They weren’t really two different worlds at all.

  I also couldn’t help but think about all the times my basketball teammates and I had used the words gay and fag and queer. We hadn’t really meant that stuff to be hateful—I hadn’t, anyway—but that’s what it was.

  My mind flashed back to when I’d had the run-in with Ben Stillman and Coach Williams at the gym on Saturday. What was it that Stillman had said to me when I first came in the door for the shootaround? “Spend the night with Fag-in?”

  I bolted upright in bed, shaking. The graffiti on one of the backdrops that had been vandalized had contained the same stupid play on words: Fag-in. Could Stillman be responsible for the vandalism to the sets? And had he been responsible for putting the dog crap in Luke’s locker too?

  I didn’t want to believe that, even though I couldn’t stand the guy. But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. Stillman had been making fun of Lukas ever since I could remember. And he had seemed to have a hate-on for Oliver! since the day we saw the audition poster in the hallway. I didn’t have any hard evidence, but the possibility that Stillman was somehow involved ran through my head as I finally drifted off to sleep.

  I arrived at school Wednesday morning to once again discover a police cruiser parked in the circular driveway. This certainly was shaping up to be an eventful week at Sainsbury.

  We were only halfway through basketball practice when two uniformed officers marched through the double doors of the gym. They motioned from the sidelines for Coach Williams to come over and speak with them. After a minute or so of conversation with the police, Coach blew his whistle. “I’m cutting practice early today,” he said quietly, his face suddenly pale. “You guys can all hit the showers.”

  We began to disperse, wondering what was going on. “Armstrong, Flatley, I need to see you over here,” Coach said.

  I glanced over at Joey Armstrong and Kurt Flatley. Each had a pained expression on his face, as if coming over to speak with the coach was the most difficult thing in the world. As I walked into the locker room, I saw the two policemen talking to the coach and the two boys.

  “Wonder what’s happening out there?” Sammy asked the question we had all been thinking.

  “No idea,” said Pete Freeman. “If the cops should be after anybody on this team it should be me. I lead the league in steals.”

  We all groaned at his bad joke, but it didn’t do much to lighten the mood in the locker room. We showered and dressed in relative quiet. Each of us was feeling concerned and confused about why the police had come to the gym. And we knew it had to be something pretty serious for the coach to cut practice in half.

  It was midmorning when the announcement came over the school loudspeakers during history class. “May I have everyone’s attention for a minute?” The deep voice belonged to Mr. Jensen.

  “A special assembly will be held at eleven-fifty-five this morning in the gymnasium,” he continued. “All students and staff are to attend.”

  An hour later, a buzz rippled through the hallways as over eight hundred Sainsbury students made their way toward the gym, the only place large enough to hold the entire student body. Teachers lined us up by class, and we sat in rows on the same shiny hardwood floor where I had sweated through so many basketball practices.

  “Good morning, students,” the principal said as he stepped to the mike. “Today’s assembly concerns something very serious. I’ll keep it brief, so we can all continue with our lunch hour.

  “As you might have noticed, the police were here again this morning,” he continued. “They have reviewed the security videotape from the theater and identified two of the students responsible for the damage to the sets for the school musical. Those students have been suspended.”

  A murmur rolled across the gym floor. Everybody looked around, trying to spot the guilty students.

  “The officers saw a third figure on the security tape, but they haven’t yet been able to determine who it was,” the principal said. “Thus far, the two students who have admitted to taking part in the vandalism have refused to implicate that third person.

  “I am making an appeal to the student body. If you know who this third person is, please come forward. Your identity will be kept confidential. Of course, if that person wants to come forward, that would be even better.”

  A few kids in the gym chuckled quietly. Nobody stepped forward. Big surprise.

  “I want to remind everybody that acts of hatred and vandalism are not tolerated here at Sainsbury,” the principal said. “It’s not who we are. That’s all.”

  My head was reeling. It was obvious now that Joey Armstrong and Kurt Flatley had been responsible for the damage to the play backdrops. But they hadn’t acted alone. Those two guys were tight with Ben Stillman. I pieced together all the anti-gay comments Stillman had made during the past few weeks. He had to be the third person involved. And I was pretty sure the three of them had trashed Luke’s locker too.

  My first instinct was to march straight up to Principal Jensen and tell him what I knew. Or thought I knew. I didn’t have any actual proof, but there were certainly plenty of signs pointing to Stillman.

  My thoughts were interrupted by Coach Williams’s stern voice. He had grabbed the microphone at the front of the gym. “Could I just get your attention, please?” he said. “I would like all the senior varsity basketball players to meet in the locker room for a few minutes. Thank you.”

  Sammy fell in behind me as I made my way to the locker room. “What’s up?” I asked. Sammy just looked at me and shrugge
d his shoulders.

  The rest of the team was inside by the time Sammy and I got there, yet the locker room was eerily quiet. Coach Williams occupied his usual spot in the middle of the room. He wore a somber look and heaved a large sigh as he began to address the group.

  “Fellas, I hate to say this,” Coach said as he looked around the locker room. “I had to suspend two members of our team today. Joey Armstrong and Kurt Flatley have admitted to wrecking the drama sets last Saturday. I don’t have to tell you how disappointed I am over that news. It’s not what I expect from any of you.”

  We all looked at the floor, at the walls, anywhere but into the eyes of our disappointed coach.

  “As Principal Jensen said, there was a third person in the videotapes,” Coach continued. “If anyone else from this team was involved, I’d like him to step forward right now.”

  Silence. Nobody made a move. I glanced over at Stillman. His eyes were fixed on the gray tile floor of the locker room. But I could clearly see his face. It carried an expression that I had never seen on him before: a cross between fear and nausea.

  “Okay, then,” Coach said, looking somewhat relieved. “We’ll practice tomorrow, as usual. Let’s put this behind us and get ready for Friday, all right?”

  The coach extended his right hand into the middle of the room. The rest of us followed suit, putting our right hands on top of his. “One, two, three—Eagles!” we yelled. The cheer had always made me feel good before a game or after a practice, but right now it seemed out of place.

  chapter thirteen

  By the time our rehearsal for Oliver! was over that afternoon, I knew I had to share my suspicions with somebody. The third person in that security video had to be Ben Stillman. It all fit together perfectly.

  But what could I do? I had no hard evidence. And if Stillman was booted off the team it might not completely ruin our basketball season, but it would come close. Joey Armstrong and Kurt Flatley may have been second-stringers but they had still been tough, dependable players. Now they were gone. If I ratted on Stillman, one of our key starters would be gone. And more than likely our chances of winning the regional title would be history too.