Divisions (Dev and Lee) (22 page)

To put off the time when I call Brian, I check over Dev’s commercial contract again one more time. I don’t trust Ogleby to look at anything more than the dollar figure at the bottom, not after Dev told me he’s still on the hook for two more Ultimate Fit ads because Ogleby didn’t read
that
contract closely. That also kills a couple hours for me, because let’s face it, when I don’t have a job, I need to do something besides play video games. The college season is done until the bowls start next week, so I don’t have those games to scout, and the UFL doesn’t play ‘til the weekend. Even when I was working in scouting, this was a slowish time, when we’d go over our lists and review the film of games, spending hours and days in the office until it smelled of stale corn chips and beer and guys. Not the hot kind of smelling like guys, either; more stale and old.

But I don’t have lists and I don’t have film. All I have is the mild winter Chevali air, and the contract, and seven hours ‘til Dev gets home.

Five hours left by the time I stop and break for lunch. I decide to investigate a local taqueria, and so my muzzle and paws still smell like taco sauce when I get back to Dev’s place. I wash and get rid of most of the smell, but it’s one of those things that persists no matter how much masculine spice musk soap you use to cover it up. Neutra-Scent would do it, but Dev doesn’t have any around.

I spend half an hour washing my paws and trying different soaps, and am considering running out to get a new kind of soap from the market when I realize that I’m just delaying the phone call I know I’m going to have to make.

He answers on the first ring. “Wiley Farrel,” he says in that same voice, cheerful and sincere, with just a touch of why-it’s-been-so-long-since-we-talked.

“Brian Dallas.”

“I’ve been reading about your adventures. Have you moved down here yet?”

“Last week.”

“Ah, and I was planning to send you a welcome basket. How do you like our fair city thus far? Isn’t it dreadful?”

I look out the window at the dust-colored air and the pale blue sky. “I’m surprised you’re still in this dreadful place.”

“Oh, Wiley, I’m in a much better place. The Equality Now people are just lovely and I really feel like I have some kind of direction to my life now. Also I am cast in a production of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ as Mercutio. We start rehearsals in a couple weeks. You should come by.”

I lean back on the couch and stretch my legs out. “Yes, I got your message about activism. Seems like Equality Now is the only game in town.”

“Only one worth playing. Are you considering getting back into it? We would love to have you on the team here.”

“Stuffing envelopes?”

“Oh, you start there, but I’m sure you could work your way up. One way or another.”

“Uh-huh.” The repartee, the guardedness, is familiar and a little invigorating. “Is that what you did, or are you still licking envelopes?”

“I’m not licking anything right now.”

“No boyfriend, then?”

“Not at all. I’m free as a bird in the romantic sense.”

My tail flicks back and forth. “Lucky for the Equality Now people. How did you get off envelope duty?”

“I did some before the election, but I’ve been working with Shamma on the newsletter for a few weeks now, and sitting in on some of the strategy sessions. Fascinating stuff. You know, it’s a lot like sitting around the FLAG meetings, only with less textbooks.”

“Fewer textbooks,” I correct automatically.

He snickers. “And
fewer
pedantic distractions. Well, actually, there are some of those, too.”

“And less drama?”

“Oh, there’s just as much drama. Fags are fags, dear fox.”

“So everyone’s sleeping with everyone else?”

“Pretty much, at least as far as I can tell. Not me, though. I’m saving myself for that special someone.”

He’s waiting for me to say that I’m taken, after which he would tell me not to flatter myself. So I don’t fall into that trap. “Wore out the Abercrombie catalog, did you?”

“Not yet.” I can see his smirk. “Check out the hot wolf on page 69 if you do pick it up. He’s kept me company on many a night.”

I shake my head. “Much as I would love to hear more detail of your masturbatory fantasies, Brian, I actually wanted to ask for your help.”

He coughs, theatrically, the way Brian does everything. “Oh my. Wiley Farrel, the self-made fox, heroic football scout and boyfriend of the famous gay football tiger? What could you possibly need the help of a poor fellow like me for?”

“You know, I like you less and less when you do that,” I say.

“Forgive me. Nay, I am the very pink of courtesy.”

“Shakespeare?”

“Mercutio, I told you. What can I do for you, Wiley?”

I take a breath. “I want to do something with Equality Now. Only I’m not having a lot of luck getting hold of anyone who can do something about it.”

“Something. Like what, specifically?”

That’s the question, isn’t it? “I’m not quite sure.”

“Well, with a brilliant plan like that…”

“I want to reach out to high school kids.”

He’s quiet for a moment. “You know, they put people in jail for that.”

“Har har. Thy wit is a very bitter thing.”

“
Bitter sweeting
, if you’re trying to steal my lines.”

I never played Mercutio, but that was one of Shakespeare’s insults I remembered from college. “There was this kid, Brian. He was a gay college player, and he killed himself.”

I tell him most of it, leaving out the part where my mother is cozying up to the group that, in my mind, made this happen. When I finish, he doesn’t say anything. I worry that he thinks I’m being melodramatic, that I’m making this up, that he’s going to say
so what do you care about this kid, you can’t help him
. “Brian?”

“Christ on a stick, Wiley, that’s fucking horrible.”

He apologizes to someone away from the phone, and I sit up straight on the sofa. “Isn’t it? I mean, they put up a web page telling people to pray his gay away.”

“Like it was a cancer or a disease.”

“Yes!” I stand up and stride to the window, as though the people who did this are out there. “There are a couple pages up on the site for praying away drug addiction, too.”

“Those people are fucked up, Wiley. No,” he says to the same person on his end, “get the fuck away from my desk if that bothers you.” Back to me. “What do you want to do here?”

I smile and look out the window, over the rooftops and into the downtown of the city. Maybe even here there are cubs and kits who could be helped. Maybe especially here, in the conservative desert. “I want to put together some ads that will just fuck up Families United.”

“You’re sure they were actually there?”

In the reflection, my smile falters. “I’m working on that. Through another source.” I’d gotten so caught up in this that for the moment…for a short time…I’d forgotten about Mother.

“All right. Well. I’ll talk to some people here and I’ll give you a call back.”

“Thanks, Brian.”

“Oh, Wiley. It’s really good to talk to you again.”

Glowing and full of energy, I think about the Families United situation and how it would be great to be sure before I go into Equality Now. Should I call my mother? I’m sure I can handle her. Maybe feeling like I have an ally in this Vince King crusade makes me a little more confident; maybe the reality that someone wants to do something about it sharpens the necessity of knowing for sure what Families United did and who the people were who did it.

I mentally prepare myself as I punch in the number. It rings and rings, but she doesn’t answer. Then I get her voicemail. “You’ve reached Eileen Van Langston. Please leave a message.”

She went back to her maiden name. Anger flares, but I put it down. It’s not useful when dealing with her. I have to get the answers I want out of her, and there’ll be time for anger later, maybe.

I still want to talk to someone. Dev’s at practice, and my father’s at work. Besides, if I call him I’ll end up asking him if he knew Mother was going back to her maiden name. So I call Hal.

“Hey,” he says. “More news about that bear?”

“Sort of. I’m signing on with Equality Now and hopefully we can get Dev to do some PSAs aimed at college kids.”

“They’re on board with that?”

“Well, I have a connection there. Trying to get some more information from my side, and working with him to get them involved.”

“Connection, huh?”

I hear the question before he asks it. “Yeah, it’s Brian.”

“The guy who caused all this trouble.”

“He…” I falter, remembering more things from the past year than I want to. “He’s in a better place now. He wants to do something about those religious nutbags.”

“He’s not a fox, is he?”

I laugh. “Skunk. Spotted skunk.”

“Well, no problem then.”

“It’s not that, but…he feels the same way I do about the King suicide. And he didn’t even know him.”

Hal taps on his keyboard, but otherwise it’s quiet on his end. Must be at home writing. “Another activist soul. So you’re full time with this Equality Now thing?”

“Not yet. Still working out details.”

“Okay. Think you could meet me for drinks this afternoon, maybe lunch tomorrow?”

“Both?”

“Either.”

I grin. “Sure, I can swing lunch tomorrow. What’s the angle?”

He laughs. “Wouldn’t buy that I just like talking to you, that I don’t have that many friends around here, would you?”

“No.”

“Okay, then, how about getting Miski’s reaction to Strike?”

“I can give you that in a word: exasperated.”

“Wouldn’t you rather I buy you lunch in exchange for that word?”

I laugh. Truth is, I’m the one without a lot of friends, and I’m enjoying chatting with Hal. “Sure. Let’s do it. Know a good pizza place around?”

***

By the time Dev’s home, I’m running football players into each other. He slumps down on the couch and doesn’t take a controller right away, but after I shut down my game and start a new one, two player, he does. “How was practice?” I ask.

“Draining.” He stretches his arms then his legs. I scoot over to lean against him as he selects his team.

“Thought you’d be used to it by now.”

“Starting games is different from sitting on a bench. You can see all the practice guys, they’re hungry like we are and they’re not injured. I started nine games and I just ache all over now. My toe’s gotten mostly better.” He flexes it. “But my ribs are still sore, my back hurts, my right leg hurts…” He shakes his head.

I rub the leg, which happens to be the one near me. “Poor guy,” I say. “All you have is your fame and money.”

He growls in his chest. “Not saying I want to give it up.” He wraps his right arm around me, keeping the controller in his massive left paw, and squeezes me against him. “And you left out one other thing. I got my fox.”

“Yeah.” I lean into him, keeping an eye on the screen. “That doesn’t mean you’re going to trick me into not noticing you took the Fraters.” Peco won the title last year against the Boliat Boxers with a blocked extra point in the fourth quarter, 21-20.

“So take Boliat,” he says with a grin.

“I’m gonna take Port City,” I say. “Then it’ll be a bitter rivalry and I’ll get more motivation, especially if it’s at home.”

He laughs. “The game doesn’t know about rivalries.”

“No, but we do.” I flick my tail against the couch and settle in against him. Also, me picking Port City will let him kick my ass, putting him in a good mood to do other things to it later.

He does win, though I keep it close, and after that I make him a nice dinner of chicken in orange sauce with rice. “Y’ever cook naked?” he rumbles from the doorway of the kitchen.

“Um. Not when cooking anything over an open flame or that involves sauces.” I raise an eyebrow at him. “I could microwave you a dinner if you like.”

“Nah.” He grins. “Just thinkin’.”

“You can shred some lettuce while you’re thinking. And if you want to do that naked, that should be safe.”

He gets the lettuce from the fridge. “Nah. You’re the housefox. You should be naked.”

“Oh, is that how it works?”

He pats my butt. “Uh-huh.”

I wag my tail and we finish dinner together, with me pretty sure I’m going to get some tiger tonight. So I don’t think that’s in danger when I tell him about the call with Brian.

He gets quiet when I mention the name and looks down at the table, and his claws come out as he stabs the last piece of chicken with his fork. But he notices just after I do and pulls the claws back in, then lifts the chicken to eat it in a quick bite. “So he’s going to help you.”

“Sounds like it. At least he’s on the same page.”

“I never said I wasn’t,” he says, taking my comment the wrong way. “I just have to focus on football.”

“I know, I know. That’s not what I mean. I mean, even if the rest of the group isn’t that excited, he is. And he has a way of talking people into things.”

“Except you, right?” Now he looks up, with a gleam in his eye that bounces between dangerous and playful.

“I told you, we want the same thing.”

“Sure.” He relaxes a little; his tail uncurls, but it flips back and forth over the floor. “So what’s going to happen?”

“I hope I’ll get to work on a campaign of some sort, maybe aiming at college students. Even if it’s not exactly what I want, it’ll keep me out of trouble and at the very least it’ll do some good.”

His eyes glint. “Anything that can do that is okay in my book. So what’s involved in a campaign?”

I chew on some lettuce and think about how to frame it. “Could be a lot of things. Probably a TV spot, maybe some messaging to local news media, billboards, things like that. You could be on billboards.”

“Whoa, wait. Me?” He frowns.

“It’d all be very tasteful. We wouldn’t do anything you wouldn’t agree to.”

“Lee, I have to focus on football. I can’t take time off.”

I’ve barely asked him for anything. “I haven’t even talked specifics. It might be like a one-hour photo shoot.”