Out of Position (27 page)

I turn the case over in my paws. “Thanks. I think.”

“Thank you,” Dev says with more enthusiasm. “Are there any in there that are really embarrassing to him?”

“Nothing but,” I say.

He turns to me with a grin. “Good.”

I manage a grin in return. “At least nobody’s videotaped this dinner.”

Father’s looking off toward the restrooms again, where Mother’s finally come out. She’s walking slowly towards our table. Dev and I follow his gaze. “Maybe,” Dev says, getting up, “I should wait outside.”

I start to protest, then I feel the tension of the miracle still around me, the threat of destroying it. “I’ll be out soon,” I say.

Father says, “Thanks. It’s a pleasure to meet you,” and shakes Dev’s paw. My tiger gives me a full-on warm smile, not the arousing kind, but the kind that makes me want to wrap my arms around him and kiss him, the kind that makes me thank whatever powers are watching out for me for going so far above and beyond the call of duty. I can’t help but watch his tail as he leaves, elegant in his suit. I watch him all the way out, until the door swings shut behind him.

“Well,” Father says just before Mother gets back to the table, “he’s not nearly as bad as I was expecting.”

I feel in my smile an echo of the one Dev gave me. “No,” I say. “He’s not.”

“Did your friend have to leave?” Mother sits down and smiles as though nothing had happened.

I nod. “He just wanted to say hi.”

“Are you feeling better?” Father reaches over to touch her arm. I know he knows it was all just bullshit, but he’s playing the game. Small sacrifices.

“Much.” She smiles at him, then at me. “Did you boys talk about Wiley’s plan for his future?”

Father nods. I hold up the DVD. “Thanks for this, too, Mother. I can’t wait to open it up.”

She smiles, picking up her sandwich and taking a big bite. Mayo drips onto the plate.

I don’t feel like eating my roast beef. I tell them I have to get back to finish up some work by the morning, and give them kisses on the muzzle to say good night. We make arrangements to meet for lunch the next day, before they have to leave, and Father says, “Maybe your friend can come by again for a short time.”

I balance the DVD in my paw as I walk through the restaurant. I will Watch it sometime, with Dev, but right now I want to think and focus about who I am, not who I used to be. Watching film is only useful when you can learn from it. The minute you start to live in it, to mistake it for the whole, that’s when it starts to be dangerous. I’m as guilty as my parents on that score, all of us mired in our pictures of how we used to be. It took Dev to bring us into the present, his love and sincerity to cut the Gordian knot we’d tangled ourselves in.

Maybe not cut it, exactly, I think as I pass the road sign saying “Chevali 1,255 mi” and the rusted “One Way” sign. But at least loosen it.

I can see him waiting outside for me, paws in the pockets of his suit, watching traffic go by. Just looking at him, I get that feeling again inside. Every time I think I know about love, every time I think I’ve figured this tiger out, he shows me another layer, gives me another gift. The sign over the entrance/exit to the restaurant is an old tobacco ad, for “Lucky Strikes.” How wonderful, I think, how appropriate. I tuck the DVD under one arm and walk outside to join him.

(Dev)

 
July, 2008

I wake up panting, paws clutching at the blankets. It’s the first night of training camp, in the dorm at White Sands University. I always get weird dreams my first night in a new place. This one is familiar, though, the “I didn’t get drafted because I’m gay” dream. It’s come back in one form or another a dozen times in the last year and a half, from before the draft through my rookie year. I didn’t have it so much in the offseason, but apparently coming back to camp set it off again.

So I do what I’ve learned to do, which is to sit up, breathe deeply, and remind myself of the night of the actual draft. Thanks to Lee, the Dragons did draft me, in the sixth round, and though Lee was with me, we both had our clothes on. For a while. Later that night, when the celebration became private, well, yeah.

As immensely cool as the draft was, as high as I felt that moment, with my dad clapping me on the back and all my friends joking about me buying them new cars and houses and the shine in Lee’s blue eyes and the way he just looked at me without saying anything, his smile reaching the back of his cheekruffs… where was I? Oh, right. As cool as that was, it quickly became — ordinary, I guess is the best word.

At the rookie orientation, even though it was cool to have been actually drafted, there were still over two hundred guys there. And that was just this year. That many guys come into the league every year. True, as the deputy commissioner reminded us, not all of them stick with their new teams, but that wasn’t exactly comforting. We attended seminars on talking to the media, listened to former players warn us about hanging with the right kind of friends, and got financial advice from a Meerkat Lynch bobcat in a stiff suit. And between panels and talks, I looked at the other rookies and wondered, how many of you are gay? Who else is hiding it?

The only guy I really knew there was Seito, the white wolf quarterback who beat us in the playoffs the previous year. We agreed that the two of us were going to make it, come hell or high water. He went to the Rocs, who were high on his arm and accuracy, and last I heard, he’s still there. Lee says he’s going to be their backup next year and he’s doing pretty well for himself.

I wish I could say the same for myself. It’s humbling to go from star starter to the third-string team. Lion Christ, the guys in the pros are
fast.
The coaches talked about moving me from corner to safety, so for a while I was practicing both positions and trying to learn two playbooks. I got to play in garbage time one game, fourth game of the season, when the Dragons were down 41-3 and had nothing to lose. I got burned for a touchdown by a coyote who caught me out of position. The next game, with the Dragons down 28-0, I got to go in with three minutes left in the game and got called for a pass interference penalty.

I guess it wasn’t much of a surprise when two weeks after that, they threw me in as part of a trade to shore up their offensive line. So I’m now playing for the Chevali Firebirds, in the hot, dry desert. I don’t mind the weather so much, and I don’t mind leaving the Dragons, cause it was pretty clear I wasn’t ever going to start there. The Firebirds were thin at corner, so I actually got in a couple games, near the end. But then over the summer they drafted this hot young fox at corner, and suddenly my position on the depth chart don’t look so good.

Fortunately, one of the other tigers on the team is a vet who’s actually got time to talk to me and help me out. You might know his name, or you might not: Fisher Kingston has two championship rings, from the Rocs’ teams about ten years ago. He calmed me down and got me through the season, and even if the team did finish 4-12 and most of the coaching staff got cut, at least I still have a job this year. It’s still not a starting job, but it’s a job. For now.

What I mind most about the trade is that it took me away from Lee. When I was in Hilltown, we could see each other evenings, go out to dinner fairly often, and spend the night on a regular basis. Chevali is as hot as Hilltown is cold, as flat as Hilltown is, well, hilly, and as far south as Hilltown is north. It’s a good four-hour plane ride, impossible for a weeknight, difficult even for a weekend. So our regular nights became three times a month, then twice a month by the end of the season. Chevali didn’t make the playoffs, sure as the sun rises in the east (one helpful thing my father told me when I got traded was “at least you’ll be home in January”), so for the last seven months or so I’ve been at my place in Hilltown and things got back to normal in a hurry.

Our last night together before I headed off to training camp was a little strained. I was nervous about camp, and he was feeling abandoned or something. But we managed to figure out a way to get through our worries and make the night enjoyable. I’m sure it won’t take much imagination to figure out how. I bought him plane tickets for the first weekend of camp, he promised to look up some good restaurants in Chevali for us to visit, and we parted with a kiss.

My bed right now is too small for Lee to share it, but that doesn’t stop me from imagining him draped over me. On the other bed is my bud from last year, and roommate for training camp: Charm, the six-foot-tall mustang who kicks for the Firebirds. He and Snaps, both second-year players like me, call me “Gramps” because I stayed in school all four years. They’re both 21 now, while I turned 23 in April. But the three of us spent hours playing Football ’08 on Charm’s Xbox last year, and we e-mailed over the summer. Occasionally. The only awkward thing is, well, like last night when we all arrived.

“Gramps!” Charm’s hugs are borderline life-threatening, even though he only has half the strength in his arms that he does in his legs. “Ain’t you retired yet?”

When I got my breath back, I punched him in the arm. “Yeah, who’d keep you whippersnappers in line if I did?”

He laughed and grabbed Snaps, lifting him in the air. I think I saw his eyes bug out when Charm put him down.

“So,” Charm said, looking from one to the other of us, “I know what I been dyin’ to do for four months.”

Snap waved a paw in front of his nose. “Shower?”

When Charm looks down his nose at you, it’s a lot more nose than most people can put into it. “Gramps, you bring that girlfriend of yours along?”

Just like that, the warm familiar welcoming feeling got that warm familiar sour taste. I shook my head and hope they didn’t notice the automatic curl of my tail. “She’s got, ah, work. Couldn’t get away. Besides, once we start practice we won’t have any time.”

“How about you, Snaps? Ball and chain?”

The wolverine shook his head, pantomiming wings. “Free as a boid.”

“Great! Three for the Pink Poodle.” He put an arm around both of our shoulders and squeezed. “Great to see you guys again. We’re goin’ to the cham-peen-ship this year, I know it. If Hellentown can make the playoffs, anyone can. All the talent we got, that new coach…”

“Samuelson?” I grasped at any straw to get off the subject of girlfriends and strip clubs. “Two-and-six-in-the-playoffs Samuelson?”

“At least he got there,” Charm said. “He’s a player’s coach, ’swhat I hear.”

“
You’ll be
in the champ game,” Snaps said. His whole posture slumped at the mention of the team. “You see that new kid they got at halfback? And you, Gramps, they picked up a hotshot corner, where’s that leave you?”

“At least we can drive around together looking for jobs after we get cut.” I tried to joke, though Snaps’s comment knifed to the central worry of every player, young or old. Except Charm.

“Don’t be fuckin’ nervous nellies, you two. You got experience and brains on your side. Gramps has whole years of experience on that kid, what’s his name?”

“Colin Smith,” I said. “He ran a 4.2 at the combine. Sixteen tackles and five interceptions last year.”

Charm blew a snort, but his eyes widened a bit. “Someone been doing his homework. You worried, Gramps?”

“Nah,” I said. “I scored ten points higher than him on the WannaLick.”

The “WannaLick” is our nickname for the intelligence test they administer at the combine, largely considered to be a huge waste of time by everyone. Out of a hundred, I actually scored pretty high, in the seventies. Charm scored thirty-two, which is where the nickname comes from, as in, “Thirty-two? I got my starting job. Wanna lick my balls?”

He’s not sophisticated, but he’s fun. He hooted and slapped me on the back. “That’s the spirit. Now, who’s drivin’? Snaps, you got your truck? Mine’s low on gas.”

So I went to the strip club with them, and tucked a few dollars into the waistbands of some strippers, and came back to the room two minutes before curfew. The only thing I didn’t do with them is get horny and go jerk off in the bathroom. Not that they told me that’s what they were doing, but in a dorm of seventy guys, you figure these things out. There’s a reason the rooms all smell like disinfectant every morning when we go to shower, and it ain’t because the school keeps ’em clean.

It’s times like this, waking up from my paranoid dream in the middle of the night, that make me look over at Charm’s muscular outline under the covers and wish I could have as uncomplicated a life. He barely even worries about making the team. Not that he needs to—there’s only two or three other kickers in the league who can boot it as far as he can. With that range, he doesn’t even need to be accurate. But like I said, I don’t hang out with him much on the playing field.

I can’t get back to sleep after the dream. I sit there and think about Lee, fifteen hundred miles away. I wish there were a club I could go to that would offer me the same pick-me-up that Charm gets. It’s not a gay-straight thing; it’s a single-not single thing. Though I get the feeling that even if Charm had a girlfriend, he’d still have fun going out to clubs. I used to, but now it just makes me feel awkward and out of place, and I get enough of that in the locker room.