by John Goode
If you’re playing shortstop and the guy smacks one between second and third, everything moves so fast that you have no time to think about it. You catch the crack of the bat against the ball and catch just the hint of something in your vision before your body begins to move. You scoop the ball up and are into your windup toward second before you even know what’s happening. More than once, I’ve been patted on the back for an awesome play before I even knew what I’d done. Whether you make the play or not, a line drive happens so fast you have no time to stress about it.
The fly ball?
All the time in the fucking world.
You’ve waved the guy next to you off of it—because no one wants to be the asshole who slams into his own guy in the outfield and end up on YouTube. At that moment, time slows to a crawl as that dot becomes bigger and bigger. Now, some guys will tell you this is a routine play and that it there is nothing to it. Let me tell you, there is no such thing as a routine play. Balls like doing strange things when they make contact with a glove, doubly so if the ball senses fear from the catcher. They’re like animals waiting for that one chance to race past your legs and out into traffic. Every baseball wants to hit your glove and then jump out so you can be the fucktard who lost the game.
You know your dad is watching you. Your mom. Your friends. Your girlfriend. The girl you wish was your girlfriend. Your buddies. Your buddies’ families. Everyone. If they’re on your side, they’re holding their breath, praying for you to catch it. If they’re for the other side, they’re cursing you with every bit of energy they have. The guy on first is halfway to second, watching to see if you’re going to lose your shit. The hitter has been on first since the late fifties, praying to every god he knows for you to flub. Suddenly your shoes are five sizes too large, and your cover fits you like you’re a four-year-old wearing your dad’s worn-out Rangers cap. You don’t want to glance at the runners, because that is admitting you’re going to drop the ball and want to be ready to cut the guy off at third. Also, you never want to take your eyes off the ball, because you know from long experience that the second you do, it will spin violently in any other direction it can, just so when you and the fans look back, everyone wonders, “Why the hell was he so far away from the ball?”
So, basically, this ball has been falling for like an hour and a half.
You feel like you’ve been out there long enough to go grab a burger and get back before it falls. Yet it’s been seconds. You have imagined catching the ball and the team hoisting you on their shoulders in celebration, and you have seen the ball fall through your glove, and people in the stands are throwing food at you. All of this and more runs through your head as that ball swells larger and larger in the sky.
As we drove to school, all I could see was that ball hurtling at me, and I just knew I was going to drop it.
Kyle had no idea how freaked out I was.
At least I hope he didn’t. It’s hard to read Kyle sometimes. He’s smarter than any five guys I know, so knowing what was going on in that head of his is always a tricky proposition. He’s always thinking, and that might have been cool if he was a computer or something. For Kyle, thinking can just end up being destructive. It’s like he was always playing chess in his mind against himself for stakes that were so high they were damned frightening.
He clung to my hand as we drove, which, I had to admit, helped me relax more than a little. I had already bolted from doing this last Friday, and I wanted to do the same all over again.
Kyle was nervous; I mean, who wouldn’t be? But if he knew these people like I did, he’d be pissing himself. I’m sure that, to outsiders, the Popular People might seem like they have it made, but the reality is much different. And a lot darker.
As I park the car, let me break it down for you so you can be prepared:
Only so many people can be popular in a given place at any particular time. I figured out, by the way, that isn’t just for high school. The Rule of Popularity Limitation is pretty much universal. As far as I know, it applies all the way to Hollywood and the world in general. There is always a hot girl and then the ones around her. Doesn’t matter if you are talking about Marilyn Monroe or Megan Fox, there is always an It girl who captures the boys’ attention and the girls’ envy. There isn’t a rhyme or reason for why this happens, but there is just a something that people see and are attracted to. It isn’t about tits or ass or any of that. I mean, sure, the physical stuff helps, but in the end, what grabs the attention is attitude more than actual physical looks. And there is only one spot that can be filled by one Girl—or Guy—of the Moment. One.
Like Britney Spears: when she was hot, she was so hot. I mean, I remember being seven and thinking I was going to lose it when I saw her videos. She was It and everyone knew that. And then there were the girls around her. Christina Aguilera, Mandy Moore, Jessica Simpson—the list goes on and on. Now, there is nothing wrong with those girls. If you were to break it down attribute by attribute, there were better singers, better bodies, better dancing, better everything. Yet in the minds of everyone else, all those girls were just second to Britney. They were just girls. Britney was It.
And that is how people are. They fixate on that person. Everyone else is compared to them and always found wanting. I’m sure what I’m saying is nothing earth-shattering to anyone. It’s not like I have the launch codes or anything. But here is the rest of that reality: you either know you are It or that you are not It. Knowing that simple fact changes who you are inside for the rest of your life. And not in a sunshine and flowers way, either. Knowing that you’re It also means you know you have a shelf life. From the second that someone tags you and you become “It,” a timer starts counting down over your head. If you’re not “It,” you just stare at that clock and wait. There is only a finite amount of attention that people can focus, only a finite amount of attention on one person, and only for so long before their attention shifts. That means if someone becomes more popular, someone else just becomes less popular. It sounds stupid, but it’s the way it is for those of us who live on the adoration of others.
Once you enter that race to the top you are forever looking around you to see if there is someone you can pull down on your way. You wonder why pretty girls are so bitchy? Because they know every slur that the other girl takes means one step closer to the top of the food chain. You ever ask yourself why jocks always seem to be fighting? It’s because we are just a few IQ points away from pissing on stuff to claim it as our own. We are all sharks swimming in the same small tank, wondering who’s going to fall asleep first so the rest of us can have lunch. Not everyone thinks like this—they simply act like this out of survival, and most of it is subconscious behavior.
I always knew that there was something inside of me that, if it came out, would make me the very opposite of everything that makes up a popular person. So I guess I was always aware of how cutthroat popularity was, because it was just a matter of time before it was taken away from me. I could, or at least I hoped I could, handle what I always knew might happen.
Kyle was the one that I was worried about.
He wasn’t used to any kind of attention; he’d been careful to avoid any attention at all, for Pete’s sake. For someone to go from school unknown to school pariah over a weekend was a lot to ask.
I hadn’t realized how long I had been sitting, lost in thought, until Kyle squeezed my hand and asked, “You okay?”
I looked over at him and felt an ache in my chest when I realized how much I liked him. I had never felt like I did with Kyle. Not with Kelly, not Jennifer, not with any of the people I had dated. I had liked them, sure, and they had even turned me on; but when I looked at this boy, my mind lost the ability to comprehend simple concepts like breathing and speech. I couldn’t get close enough to him, and knowing how much I needed to be with him scared the bejeezus out of me. But that fear always ran like a bitch every time he smiled at me. The sincerity in everything he felt and said made me feel like a fraud in comp
arison. Then I saw Julie Benson walk by the car with one of her friends, and they laughed when they saw who I was in the car with.
Just like that, the fear was back.
I slipped my hand out of his and tried to ready myself for this. I could see the uncertainty in his eyes, and I felt horrible, because there was nothing I could do about it. “Look, Kyle, this is going to suck pretty badly, and I can’t imagine it’s going to get better anytime soon. So let’s make a promise. No matter what happens, we don’t take it out on each other. It’s going to be us against everybody else; the last thing we need is to turn on each other, okay?”
I could tell he didn’t understand exactly what I was talking about, but I thought I knew the danger of the next few weeks. We were going to have no one else but each other to rely on, and if we alienated each other, we were truly fucked.
He just nodded and looked as frightened as I had ever seen him.
“Ready or not,” I said, trying to show him my most confident grin before we got out of the car.
After I swung the door shut, I forced myself not to look up to see how close the ball was to me.
Kyle
LESS than twenty minutes after I walked into school, I realized I hated being the center of attention.
The looks I got from everyone—and until that moment, I hadn’t realized how many everyone was—as I walked down the hall were creepy. The whispering from behind me was a little too serial killer for me. But the suck-cherry on the top of the entire sucky sundae came when some girl I had never seen before walked up to my locker and started to talk to me. “So you’re, like, the gay guy, right?”
Four years at this high school, two years in junior high, and another seven years at two different elementary schools, and I was boiled down to being the gay guy.
I bit back a sigh and closed my locker. “I’m Kyle,” I said, trying not to sound as pissed as I felt.
When I looked, there were, in fact, three girls instead of just the one. I assumed either they were like a soaking wet Gremlin and multiplied over time, or I had just missed them walking up. If she understood the difference between referring to me as “the gay guy” and using my actual name, the knowledge was lost between her vapid gaze and her single AAA-battery brain. Clueless, but on a mission, she just stumbled on with her question. “Um, right. So you’re the one who turned Brad gay, right?”
As stupid as this might sound, I honestly didn’t think that there were people who still believed that.
I mean, sure, I got that I was outed as being gay now and that people were going to know about Brad and me. But the thought that some people might be so ignorant as to think someone can be “turned” gay had just never crossed my mind. Who thinks this crap? Like homosexuality is a contagious disease. And if it was contagious, wouldn’t a group of us have left packages of infected plaid shirts and jock straps lying around to turn the guys we wanted? I was hoping that AAA-Battery girl was asking a sad and completely inappropriate question for the sake of being sarcastic, or maybe making a joke. But I could tell from the unblinking stares from her and her friends, and the way other people slowed in the hallway to hear my answer, that she was asking a serious question.
“Yes,” I said, turning to face her directly. “Yes, I did. I took Brad Greymark, one of the most popular guys in school, and used my gay magic on him to turn him into one of us.” Her eyes got wide, and she looked at each of her friends’ faces in disbelief. I realized too late that she really thought I was answering her honestly. Foster, Texas, Kyle. Remember. Foster, Texas.
Before I could say anything else, they began to laugh and wandered off like a flock of peroxide-addled sheep.
A couple of the guys shook their heads at me and walked by, no doubt hoping they could resist my “gay magic.” All I knew was that I had probably just made Brad’s day worse without even trying. Of course, the thought that my day was just starting to spiral downward hadn’t even entered my mind yet.
When I walked into Civics, the buzz of half a dozen whispered conversations stopped. Three guesses who they were talking about. I sat down and pulled out my book while the whispers slowly began to start up again. I caught Brad’s name a few times and the word “fag” at least once. I focused my attention on a random page in my book and struggled to find a way to turn off my hearing. If you were wondering, turning off my hearing is not a superpower I happen to possess.
If anything, I had become almost hyperaware of the conversations around me over the years. One of the practical advantages of being socially invisible was that people talked about almost anything in front of you. I had adapted almost secret-agent levels of eavesdropping, and that was messing me up at the moment since I could hear what everyone else was saying.
“I don’t get it.”
“Him? Why him?”
“I didn’t even know he was in our class.”
“Brad must be into nobodies.”
“He’s kinda cute.”
That one got my attention, but I forced myself not to look up to see where it came from. I was cute? Now I was cute? I mean, how long had I sat here next to these people, but it took this to be considered cute. I swear I didn’t understand how the world worked. I had looked up to see how much longer before class started when my phone vibrated in my jeans. I pulled it out and saw a text from Brad.
BRAD: I hate my life.
I knew how he felt.
KYLE: I hate your life too.
BRAD: Hey you started this!! lol
KYLE: You kissed me jackass!!
BRAD: That doesn’t count. You threw wood first.
KYLE: I hate you.
BRAD: GTG class starting.
I didn’t even notice until I had put my phone away that I had a Stepford robot smile plastered on my face. My face felt weird as I forced it back to normal and had to wonder how screwed up my life was that smiling was considered an experience outside of normal for me. When I did look around, I saw a few dozen people look down quickly, and I realized that I had just added more fuel to the fire.
Thankfully, Mr. Richardson walked in, with the tardy bell right on his heels.
“Okay, settle down,” he said, grabbing his own book off the table. “We left off on Rosa Parks last week, and her arrest in Alabama. Anyone want to explain why she was arrested?”
Of course no one raised their hands because if there is anything worse than being the guy who thinks knowing the answer is cool, it’s being the person who has to prove they know the answer by raising their hand all Mr. Kotter-style. I wasn’t the only person in the room who knew the answer, but I was just as afraid to raise my hand as everyone else. He finally called on someone who mumbled a barely audible, “Um, because she was black?”
There were a few snickers from people, and the person who answered tried to shrink back into their chair. Mr. Richardson gave the room a death glare, which was the teacher equivalent of throwing gasoline on a brushfire of embarrassment before it turned into an inferno of humiliation. There’s nothing worse than being laughed at in class while the teacher stomps a foot and claps their hands in an anemic attempt to regain control. It had never happened to me because, until recently, no one could have actually proven I went to Foster High. But I had seen it, and the torture looked horrific.
Mr. Richardson had begun to explain what Rosa Parks was actually arrested for when I heard a fake-ass whisper from behind me. “Maybe she wanted to do it on the bus like Kyle, here, huh?” There is a physical reaction that comes when you realize someone is talking directly to you. It’s a bit like a flush, but instead of warmth, it’s a chill that transcends any reaction you have had from a drop in temperature. It runs down your spine, and it’s what I must imagine being chased in a horror movie must feel like: that moment when the fear turns to panic, and no matter how hard you scream at yourself to move, nothing in your body wants to listen to anything you have to say on the matter.
I knew he saw me stiffen up because his douche bag laughter followed, echoed by the snort
ing chuckles of two other people. He was performing for an audience.
“That’s what you want, right?” he whispered again. “To get it in the back of the bus like a little bitch?”
I should have been scared. I should have been terrified, to be honest. Minus walking into class buck naked, this had been my nightmare for the past decade, hands down. Getting ridiculed for something I had done was bad enough, but being mocked for being gay? I think I would have preferred going to class naked, as long as it wasn’t so cold my junk didn’t look like it belonged to an infant.
“Least, that’s what I heard. Brad bopping his boyfriend on the bus like all good faggots do.”
I stress again: I should have been scared. But I wasn’t.
I was furious.
I stood up and turned around to glare at the asshole. The look on his face went from cruel leer to absolute shock in two seconds flat. Mr. Richardson stopped talking as the entire class held its breath. “She didn’t want to sit in the back of the bus, you retard!” I screamed at him. “She didn’t want to do it in the back: she refused to move to the back.” The people behind him covered their mouths as they reveled in their comrade’s embarrassment. “And if you have something to say, why not be a man and stand the fuck up and say it out loud?”
There was an audible gasp as the class reacted to me swearing. There were few taboos in high school that can shock a class of teenagers, but swearing in front of a teacher will always be one of them. “Mr. Stilleno,” Richardson called out loudly. I ignored him.
“Does anyone else have anything they want to say?” I asked, looking around the class. “Yes, I’m gay. Yes, I’m dating Brad. I have no idea if he’s gay; if you want to know, ask him. And if you want to know what we’ve done, feel free to describe to me in detail what you’ve done sexually, and I’ll be more than willing to share.” I thought people’s eyes were going to fall out of their heads from the way everyone looked at me with stark amazement. “It’s the twenty-first century; I cannot believe my sex life warrants this much conversation. Are we done?”