Tales from Foster High

by John Goode

  And they would, the same idea had been mulling over in my head the entire day even though I hadn’t wanted to give it actual thought. I was Brad Greymark, and people wanted to believe I was just a straight guy who had stuck up for some poor, picked-on gay kid rather than accept me being a fairy myself. I suppose people being willing to accept that I’d said what I did to protect someone should have comforted me, but all it did was make me angry.

  “One, he isn’t lame,” I said coldly. She wasn’t shocked; this was the language of our little group. Part sarcasm, part vocal evisceration. No one dared share actual feelings or concerns lest they become fair game. Instead, we traded words and phrases that were at best verbal feints and at worst just outright bullshit. “Two, you think today has been any easier on me? You think I can just say something like that and not be—” I mentally pulled myself back from saying scared or terrified since they implied weakness. “—concerned about how it will affect my life? You can’t be so conceited that you’ve made this all about yourself?” Her eyes looked as if smoke might issue from them at any second, she was so mad. “And three, you had to have some clue. After all, wasn’t the reason you went out with me in the first place because you didn’t want to have some guy trying to get up under your skirt every five seconds? We both know I was the safe choice.”

  “Maybe I wanted you to get up under it more,” she flared.

  “Well then maybe you should have dated someone who was into you!”

  And for a brief second the mask slipped off her face, and I saw the actual pain that was hiding behind it. That was a mean thing to say to anyone, much less to the girl I had just humiliated in front of the entire school. My expression changed as I tried to apologize. “Jennifer, that wasn’t what I—”

  I didn’t get to finish since she grabbed my Coke and threw it in my face as hard as she could. I felt it burn my eyes as I began to cough from trying inhale at the same time, going down to one knee. The ice had pelted me all over, and it felt like someone had thrown a handful of rocks at my face. “Fuck you, Brad!” she screamed, throwing the empty cup at my head. I was about to try talking again when something that hurt like a son of a bitch hit my head.

  “Fuck!” I called as she stormed out.

  I tried to wipe my face clean as I breathed through my mouth. By the time I could see again, she was gone, and Ms. Garner was standing next to me, not sure what to do. She had a sympathetic face as she held my class ring out to me. “She… dropped this,” she said not wanting to say Jennifer had thrown it at me. I took it and rubbed my head from where it had hit me.

  In the silence, Barney walked into the lobby and proudly proclaimed, “Next movie’s starting! You better hurry up.”

  I suddenly needed to be anywhere else but there. I grabbed my ring and fled the scene.

  Coke still dripped from my hair when I got out onto the street. I shook my head like a dog who had just ran through a puddle, knowing I could never get in my car this soaked. I took off my jacket and groaned, seeing the white already stained brown after its brown shower. “Oh fuck me!” I cursed, shaking my jacket out the best I could.

  “Need a towel?” a voice asked me.

  I looked over and saw Mr. Parker leaning in the doorway of his store, finishing a cigarette. He tossed the butt into the street. “You look like you’re having a bad day. Come in, and let’s get you cleaned up.”

  He walked back in, and I followed miserably. I think my socks were squishing. How did the Coke get into my sneakers? My entire world sucked.

  The store was empty, but the familiar smell of new vinyl and plastic that was ingrained into my brain as meaning “sports” comforted me. “I think I’m dripping on your floor,” I said, seeing a puddle form underneath me.

  He tossed me quarterback towel. “Use that while I see if I have anything bigger in the back.”

  I soaked the excess Coke off me. I just knew it was going to be sticky as fuck when it dried. I pulled my T-shirt away from my chest once I realized it was sticking to me. “Get the extra-large Coke,” I mumbled to myself. “It’s only a quarter more.”

  Mr. Parker came out with a couple of beach towels in his hand. “Here, stand on that one, and use this one to dry off with.”

  I spread the first towel under me and stood on top as I dried myself with the other. When I got most of the mess out, I looked up to see that he held a Foster High sweatshirt in his hand. “Your shirt is wasted. Here, you put this on.” I pulled my shirt off and tossed it on the floor. I dried off what I could before putting the sweatshirt on. “You’ve grown since the last time I saw you,” he observed casually.

  “Thanks,” I answered, slipping the sweatshirt on over my head. “Going for Taylor’s hitting record this year.”

  He shooed me off the towel and bundled it up. “I was at Granada same year as Taylor; he was an animal on the field. Good luck with that whole record-breaking thing.” He nodded toward the back of the store. “Grab a pair of trunks in your size, and take those jeans off. I’ll throw all this in the washing machine.”

  I grabbed a red pair of basketball shorts. “Since when do you have a washer and dryer here?” I asked as I shimmied out of my jeans.

  “Got ’em last year. We do uniform rentals, and not everyone brings them back cleaned,” he yelled over the sound of a load going into the dryer. I followed him to the storage/laundry room and handed him my jeans and boxers.

  “Thanks for doing this, Mr. Parker. You’re a life saver.”

  He threw some soap in and closed the lid. “Not a problem. Wasn’t that your girl who almost tackled me coming out of the Vine?”

  I nodded as I sat on a stool. “Yeah, she’s a little pissed.”

  He chuckled. “That’s an understatement.” He had a small fridge next to his cramped desk. After a second, he opened the door and pulled out two bottles of Coke. “I know you’ve already had some, but you want another Coke?”

  I felt a grin starting in the corner of my mouth and, finally, laughed a little as I nodded.

  “Anything you wanna talk about?” he said, handing me one of them.

  “You wouldn’t understand,” I said, taking a long swig.

  “Girl trouble?” he asked. I shook my head no. “Boy trouble?”

  I started to cough and stared up at him, panicked.

  He put down his Coke and began to slap my back. “Whoa there, small breaths. You and Coke aren’t a good fit today, are you?”

  I looked up at him. “How did you know?”

  He arched an eyebrow and then grabbed another stool and sat across from me. “Well, I didn’t know anything until just now, but I had a feeling.”

  I groaned and put my head in my hands. “Oh jeez! Am I that obvious?”

  He laughed. “Not in the least, Brad. I just happen to be an expert in spotting things like that.”

  I began to wonder if everyone in the fucking town knew about me. What if it was just like Jennifer was saying? What if everyone had been talking behind my back, laughing at the queer as he pretended to be straight? I felt even worse than I had before, and I had been pretty sure I had maxed out my misery limit for the day.

  At first, Mr. Parker’s words hadn’t meant anything. Then their significance smacked my brain. Hard.

  I looked up. “Wait, what?”

  He smiled. I had to admit, for an old guy, he was smoking hot. “I meant I had some experience in seeing things like that in guys like you.”

  It felt like he was talking in another language for a second. I could hear the words, but they didn’t make sense putting them together. “Like me? I don’t—how would you—”

  Then the other sneaker dropped.

  “You mean—you?” I asked, shocked as I had ever been in my life.

  He nodded.

  “But you’re—I mean, you played college ball!” I was flabbergasted. Never really understood that word before now, but suddenly, it was making all the sense in the world. My flabber was more than gasted.

  “What? You t
hink there is a straight test you have to pass to get into the NCAA?” He chuckled. “I assure you, just ’cause someone plays a sport doesn’t mean he can’t like guys.”

  My mind was going in a million different directions at once as I tried to reset my reality to include the fact that the guy who owned the sporting goods store was gay too. “But you act so—so manly.” Man, that sounded lame. “I mean no one would guess you in a million years!”

  He shrugged. “No one has, to be honest.” Then he thought about it. “Well, my mom, but I don’t think that counts. Moms know everything.”

  “How, I mean, when did you—how did you know about me?” I finally asked.

  He finished his Coke. “Saw you and that boy over at Nancy’s this morning.” He held his hand out to take my empty bottle. “He’s in love with you.” I handed it over, stupefied by Mr. Parker’s words. Someone was watching us? How many other people had noticed us? He saw my concern and shook his head. “Don’t worry. You two aren’t obvious or anything. Not unless you know what you’re looking for.”

  I wished I hadn’t sighed such a huge breath of relief, but I did.

  “So what happened? You two break up?”

  On one hand it was so insane to be having this conversation with him, but on the other, it was so relieving to talk to someone about it. “He was getting picked on at school yesterday, and he kinda came out.” I began to run my hand through my hair, but it was one sticky mess, and my fingers stalled. “And I kinda… um… came out too.”

  He looked blown away as we sat there in silence. “Okay! Well I never did that.”

  “Yeah,” I replied miserably. “And now I wish I never had.”

  He studied me intently for almost a minute before asking. “Why?”

  “Why what?” I asked, confused.

  “Why do you wish you never said anything? Because you don’t like guys or because you don’t want the shit storm that comes with it?”

  It was an odd question to me, and I had to think on it for a few seconds. I hadn’t actually divorced the two thoughts in my head. I was regretting saying anything because of the eventual drama that came with it, not because I didn’t like Kyle. “Well, the shit storm I guess.”

  “And do you like that boy I saw?”

  “Kyle,” I corrected him.

  “And do you like Kyle?”

  I nodded slowly. “I do, but—”

  “No,” he said, cutting me off. “There is no ‘but’ after that.” He seemed angry for a second but then took a deep breath. “Look, Brad, I know I don’t know you outside of this store and all, but can I give you some advice?”

  “Sure,” I said, not sure where Mr. Parker was heading.

  “I’m you in twenty years. Consider me….” He took a second and mused on it. “Consider me the ghost of Christmas yet to be.”

  “It’s not Christmas,” I pointed out. Mr. Parker wasn’t the least bit distracted by my attempt at smoke and mirrors.

  “It’s doesn’t matter,” he said, waving my statement off. “Just understand that I am what you will become if you continue down this path. Brad, I was so scared growing up that people would look at me and know I was gay and just freak out that I never told anyone. I dated girls in high school, went off to Florida and dated more girls there, and I was miserable. I never had the guts to be honest with myself. When I blew my knee out and had to come back here—well it felt like being thrown in jail.”

  I was freaking out because Mr. Parker sounded just like me!

  “I’ve spent most of my life locked in a box of my own making, and it sucks, let me tell you. If I had to do it again—” He laughed darkly. “Well if I had someone like Kyle standing next to me, I’d tell the rest of the world to fuck off and take as much happy as I could grab.” And his eyes locked with mine, and I felt a chill down my spine. “Because, Brad, at the end of the day, sports won’t make you happy, your friends won’t make you happy, and your family will just wonder what is wrong with you. The only way that you’ll be happy is if you man up and face who you are.”

  “A fag?” I asked.

  “Different,” he said harshly. “Stop using other people’s words to hurt yourself. There isn’t a thing wrong with what you… what we are. The problem is with other people who can’t handle it. You think those people are going to love you? Comfort you? Stand behind you for the rest of your life? I can’t make this any clearer, Brad. If you live your life scared of what other people think, then you will always be miserable. And that’s the God’s honest truth.”

  “Are you miserable?” I asked him softly.

  He stared down, and for a second he didn’t look all that much older than me. “More than you can possibly imagine.”

  The washer stopped spinning, and he got up to throw my clothes into the dryer. His words chased themselves around in my head as I tried to process what he’d said. He was right. I mean, I had figured all that out before, but hearing it from someone else suddenly made it real. I was running scared because a group of people I really didn’t like might say something about me? Since when did I care what those idiots thought?

  “Look, it’s your life.” He fished a pack of smokes out of his jeans. “I can’t tell you what to do. I’m just saying. You don’t want to end up like me. Trust me, living with a life full of regrets is just about the shittiest way I can think of existing.” He walked back to the front of the store. “I’m going to smoke. I’ll be right back.”

  “Smoking’s bad for you,” I said as he walked away.

  “So’s running from your problems,” he shot back as he stepped outside.

  He had a point.

  I was Bradley Greymark, and that meant something in Foster. Not because of my dad, and not because of my friends. Because of me. I was the guy they followed, not the guy who followed everyone else. I wasn’t born a sheep, and no matter how much I might wish I was blissfully ignorant, I wasn’t. I might not like being the one in charge, but I was. And I’d be damned if I was going to let that pack of stuck-up idiots dictate who and what I was.

  By the time Mr. Parker came in, I knew what I had to do. It wasn’t going to be easy, and it wasn’t going to be all hugs and puppies, but I had no choice. “So what about now?” I asked him when he sat down.

  “What about what?”

  “What about now? I’ve never heard a thing about you, and in this town that’s impossible. So what about now? You still hiding?” I would have never spoken to an adult like this before, but for some reason I felt like we were almost equals now. He was twice my age, and he was just as scared of this whole gay thing, which made him more my age and me older than I was when I walked in.

  “I wouldn’t say hiding—” he began.

  “So that’s a yes,” I cut him off now. “Okay, how about this? If I have the guts to stand up and face the truth, can you too?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Like what? You want me to put a sign up in the front window or something?”

  “You think we’re the only gay guys in Foster?” I asked and saw his reaction on his face. “Well, maybe, but that doesn’t matter. There is this wonderful thing called the Internet. Lets you meet people from all over the world.” I grinned and teased him. “I know an old man like you might not know what that is, but trust me, it’s out there.”

  “Hey, I’m not even thirty!” he protested.

  “Like I said, old man. But if I am willing to risk it, you need to put yourself out there too,” I countered.

  “And if I don’t?” he asked.

  “Well then you’re going to be miserable, and I think that’s kinda sad,” I answered honestly. “You’re not a bad-looking guy, and you seem cool. Guys like us shouldn’t have to be alone.”

  “Like us?” he asked, smiling.

  “Hot, athletic, gay guys,” I replied, giving him a definition.

  “So I’m hot?” he asked.

  “For an old guy, sure.”

  We both laughed at that.

  “We’ll see,” he said, s
haking his head. “It’s not like I have a Kyle wandering around asking me out.”

  “And you never will unless you take a chance.”

  He rubbed his chin as he pretended to think about it. “You might be right.”

  “I know I’m right. This old guy I’m friends with told it to me.”

  He made a face. “That ‘old’ shit is beginning to wear thin.”

  “Then do something about it,” I challenged him.

  “I’ll charge you for the clothes,” he threatened.

  “Fine,” I said as I started pulling the sweatshirt over my head. “You explain why you have a naked teenager in the back of your store.”

  “Okay, okay, okay!” he cried as he pulled my arms down. “You win! I promise to put myself out there next time I have the chance.”

  “You mean that? Because if you are just saying it to shut me up, I know where you live, and—” I began to threaten.

  “I meant it!” He was laughing now. “I meant every word I said.”

  “Good,” I said, nodding. “And I promise to stop running.”

  He held out his hand. “Shake on it.”

  I grabbed and we shook.

  My day began to get better.

  BY the time my clothes were done, it was about the same time that school was letting out for the day, so I felt safe heading home. I thanked Mr. Parker again before I left and reminded him of our deal. He let me keep the sweatshirt and trunks, which I thought was way cool considering that those things are stupid expensive. I tossed the bag into the back seat and headed out to my house. I wanted to talk to Kyle now, but if he was going through even half of the shit flying around in my mind, he was going to need some space.

  And I had to admit I needed to get my head on straight.

  I had decided I wasn’t going to let what others thought and felt affect the way I lived my life, but that didn’t mean I knew what I was going to do about it. I needed a game plan before I brought Kyle in on it. I know if he showed up saying “I want to do this, but I have no idea how,” I’d be more upset than I had been before. He had taken the first step, which meant the next one was up to me.