Chapter 8 #4
But he didn’t answer me in Spanish. Instead, he just disconnected.
After I hung up with Graham, shit got serious.
My phone started ringing again, and it never stopped. By the next morning, I didn’t even recognize the bulk of the incoming numbers. One of them said ESPN on it. What athlete doesn’t want to take a call from ESPN, right?
This guy.
I kept my cell phone powered down most of the time. I logged into the Harkness College directory and unlisted my telephone number and email address. Everybody who mattered in my life (all four of them, or whatever) knew how to reach me on Gran’s house phone, anyway.
Hunkering down on my bed with an old Kurt Vonnegut novel, I tried to shut out the world.
“John?” my grandmother called up the stairs to me around noon.
“Yeah?”
“Your coach is on the land line.”
“Thanks, Gran! I got it!” I picked up the house phone. “Hi, Coach.”
“Rikker! Quite a stir you’re causing on the interwebs. Is your phone ringing?”
“Yeah, but I don’t answer.”
He chuckled. “The press office wanted me to wake you up at dawn with instructions. But I told them there was no way you’d speak to another reporter if you could help it.”
“This is true.”
“Look, kid, the timing of this is good for you. Outside the rink right now there’s three news vans.”
“What? Why?” I felt nauseous all of a sudden. Hopefully, my teammates were all too busy leaving town to notice.
“First Division One hockey player to come out, yada yada. That, and it’s a slow news day in sports.”
“So you’re saying I should pray for some NFL player to get arrested for something.”
Coach laughed. “Yeah, but until one does, you need to call the Harkness press office and have a chat with them. They’re expecting you.”
“What for?”
“They’re going to work on answering some questions from the press. It’s either that or you’re doing a press conference.”
“…Or I’m changing my name and moving to Fiji.”
“Shitty hockey teams in Fiji, kid. Now write down this phone number.”
When I called the press office, I didn’t get the same young woman who had sat through the interview with me. It seemed I’d moved up the ranks to the head of the press office. “Call me Bob,” the guy said. “My question for you is this — would you rather sit down with ESPN or Sports Illustrated?”
“None of the above?”
Bob chuckled. “Now, that’s no fun. You have a chance to make a difference, Mr. Rikker. What if there’s another athlete somewhere, too afraid to tell his teammates the truth? What do you say to that guy?”
I’d say he’s not crazy. Because this was no fun.
“I don’t have anything new to add,” I pointed out. “I’m not going to talk about my personal life to a reporter. And the first reporter already printed everything I told her.”
“That’s not how it works,” Bob argued. “She didn’t print your conversation verbatim. So even if you say exactly the same things, the next reporter puts his own spin on it.”
But I didn’t want to be spun. “Sir, here’s the problem. Since I gave that interview, all my teammates were called ‘faggots’ to their faces by the Saint B’s team. And then I was ejected from a home game for punching one of my ex-teammates. How do you think the press will spin that?”
There was a silence on the line. “Who saw this happen?”
“Like, a few hundred spectators.”
He actually cursed under his breath. “All right. Maybe we should wait on the interviews. We can do a personal statement instead. We’ve got to give them something, though. The beast is hungry, and it wants you.”
How encouraging. “What’s a personal statement?”
“A letter, basically. ‘Dear journalists, I am humbled and overwhelmed by your interest in the story of my transfer. While I need to keep my focus on my game and my schoolwork at this time, I’d like to thank Coach James for his faith in me, and my teammates for their patience with their new teammate.’”
I stifled a snort.
“…Then you just recount what you told the Connecticut Standard. Just the facts. ‘The coach let me go. My uncle pointed out that it was against ACAA regulations. Coach James offered me a spot. The end.’”
“Okay. I can do that.”
“Great. Put some words on a page, and send me what you’ve got in an hour. We’ll help you work the kinks out of it, and then we’ll get this puppy out to all your new fans.”
I wrote down his email address and got the hell off that call. It was only after we hung up that I realized I’d let Bob from the press office assign me homework. Over Christmas break.
Shoot me.
By mid afternoon, it was all done. My new BFF Bob had edited my original two-pager to make it sound like it had been written by a happy-go-lucky boy scout.
It had an “aw, shucks” quality to it that didn’t sound like me.
But I wanted to be done with it, so I’d approved all but the stupidest of his changes and shut down my computer.
Downstairs, I found Gran rolling out Christmas cookies at the kitchen table. “When you’re famous, you’ll still remember the little people, won’t you John?” She peered over her glasses at me.
“If there are cookies, I think I can fit you into my busy schedule.” I helped myself to another cup of coffee. “You know, a cookie would go really well with this.”
“Check that batch in the oven, would you? I always burn at least one batch. If the phone keeps ringing, it could get ugly.”
“I’m sorry about this,” I said quickly. “I have a feeling that it’s going to get worse before it gets better. Maybe we should just let every call go to the machine. I just can’t answer the phone today.”
She waved a floury hand, dismissing the idea. “It’s mostly my friends who call on this line. It’s very exciting, really. Gertie saw it on Facebook already.”
“Gertie is on Facebook?” I opened the oven door. With Gran’s oven mitt, I slid the tray of cookies out of the oven and set them on the cooling rack. They looked done to me. So I scraped one off the sheet with the spatula, and then flipped the blazing hot thing into my mouth.
That was a mistake.
“Owrrh,” I yelped as my tongue got singed.
Gran watched this foolishness with one eyebrow cocked. “Should I be worried how you’re doing at that school for geniuses?”
And that made me laugh, which made me choke a little bit. I had to set down my coffee mug to get a grip on myself.
“It’s a good thing you’re handsome,” Gran said, turning back to her rolling pin. “At least you have that going for you.”
The phone rang again. Gran adjusted her glasses and peered at the caller ID. With a little sigh, she picked it up. “Good afternoon, Rebekkah.”
Uh oh. My mother. I’d seen her name on my cell phone earlier, too. But I didn’t check to see if she’d left a voicemail. I couldn’t handle her today.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Gran said to her.
“Why? Because I can hear in your voice that you’re not in the proper frame of mind to speak to him right now.
It would be best if you could calm down first.” As I watched, Gran winced.
“Why would you assume that the press coverage was his idea in the first place?” she asked.
“You do not sound entirely sensible right now, my dear. I’m going to hang up now, and perhaps we can talk later, when you’re feeling more relaxed.
” At that, Gran set the phone back into its cradle.
Her tone had been remarkably composed while she spoke to my mother. But now she was glaring at the phone as if hoping that lasers might shoot from her eyes and incinerate it.
“Gran?” I said lightly. “If there’s a chance that my parents won’t send me my Hallmark card this Christmas, I’ll carry on somehow.”
Her shoulders slumped. “That’s not funny, John.”
“It isn’t?” I was pretty sure it was. Because my parents had already done their worst to me. Now they were freaking out because I’d made the news, and their church friends would see it.
Whatever. Not my problem.
“It’s sad is what it is,” Gran said, turning around.
“Because some day your mother is going to be an old woman. And old age has a way of stripping away the distractions, and making you see the big picture of your life. So she’ll be sitting alone in some nursing home asking herself ‘what have I done?’ And it will be too late for her to fix it. ”
That did sound depressing. Except that Gran probably overestimated my mother. As an old lady, she would probably pat herself on the back for doing everything the Bible told her to. And she’d probably be feeling pretty smug about it.
Again, not my problem. As long as my parents still paid the portion of my school fees that financial aid did not cover, then I could live with their rejection. “Let’s just eat more cookies,” I suggested.
“Let’s,” Gran agreed.