by David Connor
“You like it so much, it’s yours. I keep telling you to forget Webber and become the second slice of bread in a hot sex sandwich when Caryn comes for a visit.”
I chuckled then. “Wow. That’s an interesting description. And quite tempting.” I kept my volume down again. We had a corner to ourselves, and it was pretty loud out on the floor.
“Seeing you all wet and bulgy got me horny.”
“Shh.” I couldn’t hear specifics of anyone else’s conversation, which left me secure they couldn’t hear ours. Still…. “Keep a tab and I’ll pay you back.”
“I can swing a celebration dinner—if I can stop your dad from paying first.”
“Try. Tomorrow night, we’ll really have something to celebrate. Tonight is just grub.”
“I have to pay for two dinners?”
I sighed. I shrugged. “I don’t know. We’ll cross that bridge when we get there tomorrow. You know they’re cutting Dad’s hours at work, right? The campus is downsizing because a lot of the patients are going out to live in community homes. They’re selling off some acreage, so they don’t need as many groundskeepers. If dad didn’t have seniority, he might be out of work altogether, like Julius is already.”
“That’s rough, man. And I hate our new neighbors in the park. No hot tub.”
Beth, Julius, and the two kids were back in the basement. With Julius jobless, they couldn’t manage the lot rent.
“It sucks. Dad doesn’t know I know. I heard them talking. Mama’s worried she’ll be next. They don’t have food service workers out on the group homes at all. The residents just cook for themselves. Dad can retire in eighteen months with full benefits, but until then, money is going to be even tighter. Anyway, pretend you don’t know any of that, just sort of grab the check and say it’s to congratulate me. If they can just hold on a little longer and I can pitch in….”
“Hey.” Cal offered a squeeze at my elbow. “Come on. You’re going to worry yourself to death with all the fibbing and financials—or out of the Olympics.”
“Naw. I’m okay.”
“I know.” I could almost see the lightbulb come on over his head. “You flaunt your stuff enough, maybe strip down to a Speedo, the restaurant might comp the whole meal.”
I smiled. Cal could make that happen. “I wish. I hate how much shit costs. Everything. I cut off the Webber money thinking things would be cheap from now on, with just a few weeks to go. I mean, it’s not like I have to pay my own way to Rio, but there’s always something… a few bucks here and a few bucks there. As far as my parents are concerned, their tickets to Rio came from ‘Friends of Swimming,’ not me.”
“Is that a thing?”
“It is. As long as Dad doesn’t go online to thank them, I should be able to get away with the ruse.” I saw Cloud-ia motioning to me from across the stadium. “Shit. I got to go, I guess. Catch you later.”
“Good luck.”
“Lowlight of my day.”
I WAS in the hotel elevator a few crappy hours later, finally able to relax, on my way down to meet my Dad, Devon, and Cal for dinner. When it stopped before the lobby, on stepped Mathias. It was just the two of us, which meant I couldn’t ignore him.
“Hello.” Just like when Adele sang it, the word coming from him would always give me chills. “Good show today.”
“You too.” Fuck. That was lame.
“Not so much.”
“Sorry.” There was still a chance for him. Mathias swam best in some of the longer races. “Tomorrow’s medleys—that’s your thing.”
“Let’s hope.”
“You doing the commercial shoot?” I asked.
“Naw. My people want me to go in another direction.”
“Ah.”
“Something just about me.”
“Oh. Yeah. Sure.”
“This is the best we can do?”
“For now, maybe it is,” I said sadly as I totaled up the price of his Dsquared jeans, his Givenchy sweater, the Hugo Boss shoes, and factored in another pair of Armani skivvies. I wanted to take them all off slowly, back him against the railing, and take him in my mouth. The smell of him. Mmm. I had no idea if he was wearing twenty-dollar cologne or one costing a thousand. Either way, the moment it came wafting into the small, intimate space, a little spicy, a little woodsy, and a hint of clean laundry, I had a really hard time resisting the urge to jump him. I had to stay mad, though, so I summed up the cost of his wardrobe again. The second time I did, I was struck by envy as I realized I’d paid less for my whole outfit than he had for one sock. I hated myself for that emotion, because it meant I was an ungrateful douchebag, one who undervalued everything my mother and father had given me my whole life and everything they had taught me about what was important. Maybe the problem never was Mathias and his money. Maybe it was me all along.
“So when do we get to talk for real?” he asked. “Tomorrow?”
“Maybe.”
“Okay. I’ll wait.” The elevator stopped. “My floor,” he said, and in the two seconds before the door opened, I reconsidered our entire relationship and my soul a dozen times. “Well, off to another interview.” He rolled his eyes and then stepped off.
“Thank God I’m done with that for the day.”
“You get back from Rio, it’s going to get bigger.” I’d noticed right away he’d said “you” and not “we.” Had he given up already? “Everyone’s going to know you. Everyone’s going to love you.”
I was about to point out the word choice.
“Just like I do.”
The door started to close. “Wait.”
Mathias stopped it from sliding shut.
“Tomorrow… in the pool… I hope… I want you to….”
“You want me to win?”
“Well… I want you to come in second.”
He cracked a smile. “That I believe. Always the bridesmaid.”
“Oh.” I looked at the floor.
“I hope you win.” He touched my cheek. His hand smelled like the cologne.
“Really?”
“Of course.”
I glanced up.
“I always root for you,” he said.
“Thanks.”
Another three seconds passed before he finally let go of the door. The moment it slid shut, I wanted to bang on the button and make it part again. It did it on its own, almost immediately, and I thought he had come back to fight for me.
“Oh.”
“Reed. Hey.” It was the reporter I had undressed during the news conference. “Going down?”
I swallowed hard. “To the lobby. Yeah. Meeting family a few blocks south for dinner.”
“Perfect. Can we talk?”
“Sure.”
“About Mathias Webber?”
“Oh,” I said. “You just missed him.”
“I know. I saw you and wanted your input for an article I’m doing. When he said, ‘Naw. Don’t bother Reed,’ well, I figured there was a story there.”
“Not really. I mean….” I was almost hyperventilating. “We used to train together.”
The elevator started moving.
“Did you part on good terms?”
“Sure.” Cloud-ia would be proud of that lie.
“You don’t have a problem with him being gay, do you?”
“Of course not. Not at all. Who do you write for, again?”
“Out and In. We’re focusing on gay discrimination in sports.”
“Is there such a thing?”
“Are you serious?” The question came on a humorless chuckle.
“I guess not. Not really. I mean, I’m not totally up on all that, but I’m sure there is.” I was stammering, like I always did with the press.
“Mathias has been facing a ton of backlash from swimming fans, swimming insiders, even sponsors and people looking for celebrity endorsements.”
“Really?”
“He hasn’t told you?”
“We don’t talk as much as we used to.”
“Well, I had a hard time getting the truth out of him too. It’s not so blatant… some of it.”
We had reached the lobby.
“Mind if I share your cab?” the reporter asked. “I’m Eric, by the way. Eric Spidderman.”
“Spidderman?”
“Yeah. Make the jokes. Spidderman—short i—but that didn’t stop my classmates, fourth grade right through college, from singing the webbed one’s theme song at me. If I heard it once, I heard it ten or twenty times a day.”
I chuckled. “I was planning on walking.”
“Even better. I could web us there. Poing, poing, poing!” Eric pretended to shoot them from his wrists. The guy was good-looking and charming. “But that wouldn’t give us much time to talk.”
“Well, the Spidey rule is pretty strict anyway. Everybody only gets one. I’ll save mine for when I’m in trouble—or way behind in the pool.”
“You’re cute.”
I froze in my tracks, partway to the hotel’s front door.
“Sorry. I wasn’t hitting on you.”
“Oh.”
“Don’t get me wrong. I will… if you’re gay.”
I started walking again.
“I’m not getting too far with Mathias,” Eric said. “I’ve been hitting on him, but I must not be very good at it.”
I didn’t like him anymore.
“You don’t think it’s because I’m black, do you?”
“No,” I said. “I’m sure that has nothing to do with it.”
“As for you, I was sort of expecting the bumbling, introverted hottie I’ve seen at your press conferences. You’re not that at all.”
“Thanks….” I felt like that—at least the bumbling and introverted part. “I guess.”
“You do better once you relax.” Eric held the door for me. “So. Gays in sports.”
The sun felt nice after being trapped indoors all day. The sidewalk was busy in both directions, but there was enough space and enough ambient noise to have a semiprivate conversation. That was good, considering the topic. “What about gays in sports?” I asked.
“Well… discrimination.”
“You said some people weren’t treating Mathias very well.”
“Right. I mean, we get our share of bigotry on a daily basis, just because we’re a gay magazine. We’re used to it. People click on my stories online just to call me faggot. If someone is relatively new to celebrity, like Mathias, well, it can be tough.”
“Yeah.”
“I can mostly say, ‘Screw ’em.’ Like, consider the source, these trolls who sit around all day with nothing better to do than post shit and shade on websites or Amazon.com. People’s reaction to the shooting at Pulse in Orlando….”
“Yeah.” That event was too fresh in my mind for the mention of it not to hurt.
“Hate. Such hate, both the crime and the vitriol after it, not to mention a lack of compassion. It still disgusts me how some sickos almost tried to justify a massacre with Bible verses. ‘I told you so.’ ‘Serves them right.’”
“Yeah.”
“There’s nothing we can do about them except hope love really wins, but when large organizations or corporations show prejudice, it’s unforgivable, and we can hit back.”
“Like who? Not anyone in swimming.”
“None that I can find. I’m a digger, though, and if there’s something to be discovered, I will. Mathias’s agent pushed him for a candy bar ad, see? The company flat-out refused to even consider him and had no trouble saying it was because he was gay.”
“Oh. That sucks.” I hurt for him.
“It does. This commercial you’re doing….”
“Yeah?”
“Did you know they made a request—a specific one—that Mathias not be included?”
“That’s not true.” I stopped again. I looked at Eric. Mostly I’d been staring at cracks in the sidewalk, but I had to see if there was any sign he was bullshitting me.
“I’m afraid it is. Madison Avenue, to use a rather antiquated notion of the advertising industry, gives gay men a shot here and there, in ads geared toward gays. You might see a couple during RuPaul’s Drag Race, let’s say. For the most part, however, it’s still a very old-fashioned world when it comes to what—or should I say who—shills toothpaste and chocolate.”
“So, what are you saying? What are you asking?”
“I wouldn’t mind a quote on that. I could use your name… or leave it out.”
“I don’t really know. If it’s true, I think it’s sad. I think it’s bad business, even. Are you telling me Macon Charter Bank discriminates?”
“No. We did a story recently on soap operas… how there was a large gay presence all over the screen, almost every day… romance, cheating, love scenes, the whole shebang… you know, gay characters doing the same exact stuff the straight ones do. We were all hallelujah, like we made it. Then, all at once, the gays were basically exterminated… decimated… one literally, and rather violently.”
“Yeah. I used to watch those shows. Now I refuse… on principle.” Did I save myself, I wondered. “They’re starting over, though… supposedly… bringing back Sonny for Paul and maybe Will from the dead on Days of Our Lives. And Lucas and Brad got married on GH… and Kristina is bisexual… maybe.”
“Yeah. I’m looking into all that too—what’s throwing us a bone as opposed to real inclusion. How long will it last? How prominent will the stories be? If Lucas and Brad get married and then we never see them again, that’s unforgivable too. There were rumblings sponsors pulled their ads when viewers—the ones buying the soap the soap opera was created to sell—complained about all the ‘sick and twisted homosexual porn’ on their grandmothers’ stories.”
“Like you just said, the gay guys were just doing what everyone else on a soap gets to do. It’s fucking 2016, for God’s sake. It makes me mad.” I put my hand on Eric Spidderman’s arm. “Don’t print that. I’m not so good with quotes.”
He smiled.
“Was Macon Charter one of those companies that pulled ads from Days of Our Lives?” I was trying to walk pretty fast, but Eric refused to keep pace.
“No, but they once had a reputation.”
“As being antigay?”
“I’m afraid so. Now, don’t get too down about it. I’m not passing judgment, because there may not be anything funky going on. Here’s what I do know. They definitely weren’t looking to remake Romance under the Rings by having a bunch of gay swimmers promoting their bank. That’s a direct quote from an insider.”
“Wow.”
“An insider for the agency who came up with the idea for the ad—that whole ‘truth and pride’ thing—he told me that. I mean, one hears the word pride these days, even you straighties think gay first, right?”
I felt as if he was baiting me, though it could have been paranoia. “Maybe.”
“And supposedly the head of the agency got cold feet about that. Now, this informant told me this…. Let me pull up the exact quote.” Eric fired up his tablet. “‘The bank has plans to include a lesbian couple in their holiday campaign. In no way did they want to overdo it by having a gay message in this one by featuring a recently out sports hunk in no clothes.’ That pertains to Mathias, we can assume,” Eric said. “The rest of the quote reads as follows: ‘That would be way too much. Two women and a small child is far more acceptable to the public as a family-friendly image than two men or even one gay man ever will be.’ Unquote. The upshot seems to be one homo commercial a year is all the world can handle, at least according to Macon Charter. I guess they fear becoming known as Bank Bareback.”
“Wow.” Repetitious, yes, but I didn’t dare say too much more.
“There’s outright discrimination, and then there’s the subtle kind. Now, dig this, remember that whole Chick-fil-A controversy a while back… how people got up in arms because the restaurant CEO supported certain antigay causes and stuff?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, this
company has been known to send some cash to some of those same organizations. In the past,” Eric stressed. “The whole conglomeration is under new leadership now, and things have become much more inclusive. That much I’ve been able to glean and prove all on my own. Now, I have to assume the head of the PR agency went to Mr. Bank Man with his ‘pride’ concerns, and as far as I know, the theme of the commercial remains the same.”
“Last I heard.” I’d gotten a packet just that morning with my lines.
“So, maybe there’s no story there… no discrimination.”
We stopped, waiting to cross the street. Eric looked at me expectantly. No question was posed. The one I asked myself was would I do the commercial either way. Right after that, I wondered whether they would even want me to, if they found out I was gay.
“I can see you thinking. I’m not telling you any of this to force you into a stance. I swear I’m not. I have to imagine the money is important to you.”
“It’s important to my family.”
“Let me reiterate. Macon Charter has a new CEO, and not a single person I’ve interviewed has mentioned any sort of prejudice or inadequate treatment, from corporate, to lower level, to customers, that whole commercial hook notwithstanding. Technically, they could lay that on some ad agency’s doorstep.”
And what would I do if someone did point out inequities?
“Also, from what I’ve heard, there was concern having Mathias in the ad would pull focus. That could be why he was excluded. I mean, you don’t put A-Rod in the background of a David Ortiz commercial, right? That’s a baseball reference.”
“Yeah, I got that.”
“I’ll be on it, either way. They’re not going to take the word pride and turn it into something homophobic. You with us?”
I shook my head, confused. It was noncommittal, part nod, part negative. “In what? You just said nothing discriminatory is going on.”
“Not with your ad, but Mathias should be able to eat chocolate and nuts, don’t you think? Don’t stay silent, Reed. Someone like you could make a world of difference just by speaking up.”
“Someone like me?”
“You know what I mean.”