Out of the Pocket (22 page)

I can control this. It’s all in my head.

We got the ball to start the second half, and my hands wouldn’t stop shaking. I saw my father’s face when I looked at Austin in the huddle. I looked away. I fumbled the first snap, but luckily we recovered. In the huddle, I tried to apologize, but the words came out funny. My mouth had dried up. A paste had built up around my lips. I swallowed, seeking the wetness of saliva, but there wasn’t any.

“Messy,” I said, when what I meant was, “I messed up.” The guys looked at me funny. I finally got the words out to call for a long pass to Rahim.

I looked down at my fingers and told myself to get a grip. The hiked ball hit my jittery hands, and I knew there was trouble. My whole left arm was shaking as I dropped back. I saw Mendez’s eyes as he was blocking for me and they said it all; I was more out of control than I could have ever believed. My throwing motion was fine, but my shaking arm undermined everything. I pulled back my arm 198

and struggled to not hit myself in the face with the ball. I unloaded, shaky arm and all, and unleashed a pass about twenty yards shy of where I was aiming, and slightly to the left. It was a gift to the same linebacker who had just scored a touchdown prior to the end of the first half. He caught it and made a nice gain on the interception return before he was tackled.

My arm was gone.

I walked slowly to the sidelines, aware of the damage I had done, and the fact that I had no confidence that I could shake it off. Coach saw it in my eyes as I took my helmet off. He came over to me and put his hand back on the top of my head. I could feel the heat of his thumb as he lightly pushed down.

“We’re going with Haskins,” he said to me quietly. I looked up at him and tried to speak, but by now the whole world was shaking.

In my head, the phrase had come as
Are you sure? I can try
harder, Coach.

“T-t-try?” I said, stuttering.

He put his arm around me and guided me to the bench. I couldn’t speak. Coach went over to Haskins and got him to warm up. I sat and hid my head in my hands, rubbed my temples gently with my thumb. I wished no one could see me from the stands, but there were television cameras everywhere.

So I hid my face. While I sat like that a funny thing happened to me. Suddenly it was like I was alone out there, in my own private space, with my head hidden in my hands. And my thoughts had a chance to gather and things calmed a little.

I pictured my arm flailing in the wind.
I can’t even control my
own body.
But instead of feeling horrified and embarrassed, I felt nothing. And then I pictured my father lying in a hospital bed, out of control as well, with all these tubes connected to him, and he had 199

this yellow glow on him, like he was radiating. And I felt a jolt in my tear ducts and knew that I should be crying, but instead my mind was strangely calm.

And all I really wanted was to be alone, out of the football stadium, with my own thoughts.

As I heard the crazy noise swirling in the air around my head, I realized that I shouldn’t have played, I shouldn’t be there at all. I was full.
Okay
, I thought,
okay
. I let all the catcalls go. The screaming fl oated like a cloud over and around me.

“Yeah, boy-eee!” Rahim shouted across the locker room toward Austin and me. The game was over, we had won 31–17 after our defense took over. Haskins played well enough at quarterback for us to win.

I didn’t see a minute of it.

In the locker room, I don’t know if people were avoiding me or not, but everyone was excited. I pasted a smile on my face, gave Rahim a long-distance thumbs-up, and buttoned up my shirt.

They should celebrate. I just need to be alone.

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My eyes not moving from the road in front of me, I drove fifteen miles to China Cove Beach after the game with my mind nearly blank. I parked in the empty parking lot.

The beach was deserted.

It was a moonless night, and as I took off my shoes and stepped onto the chilly sand, the only light was coming from the lampposts behind me in the lot and off in the distance to my right, Long Beach.

The sand went from fully visible under my feet to wet and chilly grains that I could barely see as I continued to approach the water. I could hear the ocean hissing in front of me, but it looked black without the light of the moon.

I stood, facing the water and the crashing waves. In the pitch-black night, I could see the Long Beach lights and wondered what it would take to get away from all light.

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I wanted pitch blackness so I could be truly alone, no interruption.

I flopped down onto the beach and took my shoes off, buried my feet in the sand I could feel but not see. I couldn’t tell where the water began but figured it was about thirty feet away from the slightly distant hissing of waves.

What do I do now?

The night chill made me shiver as I tried to make sense of my life. What if my dad died? What if the radiation didn’t work, and he didn’t get better?

And what if football was over? What if Coach never let me play again? Who was I going to be if that was taken away from me? If my arm could just shake uncontrollably on the field, how could I say I was in control enough to be a college star?

I gasped and inhaled chilly sea air at the thought of how much my life had changed in the last couple of days.

As I pinched sand between my toes, I thought back to times my parents took me to the beach when I was a kid. I remembered how my dad would take me into the water. He’d make me stand in front of him and hold my elbows, and when a wave came, he’d wait until the very last second to lift me. Just as I could feel my heart jumping in my chest and the mist of the wave approaching me at eye level, he’d lift me high up, above the wave, and then bring me down gently into the water.

That was always my favorite game.

I dug my feet into the sand and lay back, looking up at the blank sky.

There wasn’t a goddamn thing I could do to make my dad better.

Or start the game over. Or change the fact that I was gay. Or anything.

Other than lie there.

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Or what?

In the chilly night breeze, I slowly sat up and faced the ocean, totally taken with a crazy idea.

I have to go into the ocean.

To cleanse my mind. I just need to go.

Standing, I took my shoes in my hands and stepped forward into the water. Waves crashed and sizzled, exploding into white foam and licking at my ankles, ice cold penetrating the bones of the soles of my bare feet. Each wave sent a shock and a shiver up into my body as it passed, and again as it receded, forming puddles behind my heels. Goose pimples dotted my forearms.

A cold sweat beaded on my forehead and suddenly I couldn’t swallow or catch my breath. A dull ache had formed in my throat.

Wave after wave crashed into me, soaking the bottom of my jeans and making them feel heavy.

It was colder than anything I’d ever felt.

I took off my football jacket and tossed it carelessly behind me.

Underneath I wore a T-shirt, and despite the chill, I took that off as well, flinging it behind me. Now I was just in jeans and I felt my nipples hardening from the cold night air. I thought about how the denim would feel against my skin if I walked into the surf, how it would cling to my thighs and weigh me down when I most wanted to feel free.

This is real. I’m Bobby Framingham and the whole world knows
I’m gay. My dad is in the hospital and I’m no longer a starting quarterback. This is who I am.
My breathing quickened as the reality hit me.

The freezing air and water brought moisture to my face. Mucus dripped from my nose to my lips. My sinuses burned, and I felt the wetness in my eyes that had been so dry.

And the fi rst tear fell.

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My eyes flooded with them and I screamed as loud as I could scream.

I charged blindly into an oncoming wave, breaking it with my bare chest as best I could before it flung me back toward the shore, frigid salt water rolling over my head, mocking me.

I regained my balance, paused for a sliver of a moment as my body adjusted to the shock of the icy waters, and silently, shivering and convulsing, walked past that wave, out into the dark, mysterious ocean.

The chill of the water I still could barely see shocked and enveloped me, and I found myself out of control and thrashing against the approaching waves. But then I gained my footing and stood, the water waist-high, I imagined, though it was hard to tell. My body felt numb from the shocking freeze of the ocean, but the night air felt even colder. The water level rose and fell along my body, leaving my body warmer below and colder above, disorienting me.

I let out a hoot as I caught my breath.

I braced myself before another invisible wave could knock me down. I heard the swell seconds before it crashed into me and took the hit to my side, hearing the smacking sound and feeling my body fight the impact of the forceful current. The water flew off my body in all directions, hitting me in the face like frozen nails.

I screamed. Everything poured out of me as a wave smacked me in the chest and sent me toppling under the salt water and I felt like I had when the defender had tackled me and called me a fag, insulted and pounded together in a way that squeezed at my gut.

Frigid liquid lodged into my nose and ears like ice cubes. I went under, trying to locate the bottom of the ocean with my feet. Frosty salt water flooded over my head and my thoughts garbled and all I could hear and feel was water rushing into my ears.

I looked up into total blackness, gasping for air and wiping the water from my eyes. I couldn’t be sure my eyes were open until I 204

touched my face and blinked, darkness and just a blur of lights to my right.

My heart was pounding in my brain; I could hear it louder and louder with each pulse. I looked toward the beach, my eyes at water level, and just before a wave crashed over my head, I saw it. A figure, standing on the beach, looking out at me.

As I emerged from the wave I heard my name. I recognized the voice, and I whimpered.

I let the ocean push me in to the shore, jumping to allow the wave to carry me and paddling along with it. When my chest hit sand, I jumped to my feet and eluded the next crashing wave behind me.

When I reached Bryan, I collapsed on the sand, trying to catch my breath. Bryan took off his jacket and enveloped me in it. I couldn’t feel the heat, couldn’t feel anything except my brain, spinning still, and what felt like a layer of ice over my entire body. It stung like a hundred bees. My teeth would not stop chattering.

He hugged me through the jacket, and I allowed myself to go limp in his arms.

“You okay?” I heard him ask.

He dried me off as best as he could, wrapped me in his dry jacket, and while I still couldn’t feel my body, the bee stings were getting lighter and lighter until they were just pinpricks and finally, just cold.

My jeans were sopping wet. In the darkness he took them off of me.

Bryan dried off my legs and in the dark I tried to clear my mind so I could say something that would make this all make sense. After the ocean, every feeling was heightened and shivers zipped up my spine. I looked up and I could see the outline of Bryan’s face and wanted so much for him to understand what was going on in my brain without having to say it.

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I couldn’t tell.

Bryan took off his jeans and put them on me.

Once I was zippered up, I watched his silhouette as he stood there in a T-shirt and his briefs. He bent down and pulled me up, and we stood silently, looking out at the nearly invisible ocean.

“They hate me,” I said fi nally. “I can’t ever go back there.”

Bryan put his arm around me and leaned in to me. “Yes, you can,” he said. “And you’re going to have to get used to some people not liking you.”

“I hate this,” I whispered, and the words, the world, seemed to fade in the wind.

Bryan paused and gripped my shoulder tighter. “I know. Me, too.”

I looked out into the blackness, where the horizon was supposed to be.

“I feel like things will never be the same again. It feels like the end of the world.”

Bryan faced me then, and stared into my eyes. His eyes were so peaceful, and he leaned in to me and closed his eyes, and then he put his lips on mine and we kissed. His lips were soft, the softest, most angelic thing I’d ever felt.

“It isn’t,” he said, and he took my hand and walked me toward the car.

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Austin and I were up in my room, chomping through a box of Oreos. “Hey, look,” Austin said, shaking his leg. “Looks like a weeklong vacation for me, too.”

“You prick,” I said, half smiling.

It was Thursday after school, or at least it was after school for Austin. I’d stayed home for my fourth straight day and still had one more to go.

After the homecoming game, both Dr. Blassingame and Coach Castle called my mother to check on me. When they told her about what had happened at the game with my arm, she sort of freaked.

She took charge, and decided I was going to take a few days off from school to “slow things down,” as she said. I didn’t like it at first, especially because she was implying I’d sit out a game. But after talking to both Blassingame and Coach, I kind of realized it had been decided for me. I was off for a week and that was that.

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A couple of days into it, I realized it wasn’t a bad idea because I began to actually relax for the fi rst time in a while.

“How’s Haskins look?” I asked.

“How many times are you going to ask me that?” Austin answered. “He’s awesome. He’s the best quarterback we’ve ever had.

Coach keeps saying that we’re lucky that Bobby kid went crazy.”

“Shut up,” I said, a little pierced by his comment.

Austin punched me in the shoulder. “You’re such a baby. I’m kidding, dude. We need you back for the playoffs, okay?”

“Okay,” I said, a smile creeping over my face.

“Anyway, I’m glad you’re getting your head shrunk,” Austin said.