14. “All Happy Families Are Alike” #3
They line up, and Dub calls a running play.
He might not throw the ball to Hakeem for the rest of the game, Dub doesn’t care if they lose, he doesn’t care about Mr. Pryce giving Hakeem a hard time, Hakeem should just be grateful that his parents made the effort to show up, they’re in the front row of the bleachers wearing (Dub notes) not Tiffin green and gold but Dartmouth green and white.
They’ve already moved on to their Ivy League era.
What does today’s game even matter? Dub’s father is back in Telluride ministering to his new, more important family.
Who is Dub kidding? The reason Dub’s father didn’t come is because he’s gay.
He’s an openly gay high school quarterback, and Derrick Austin wouldn’t know how to handle that so he stayed home.
Dub is so preoccupied that he fumbles the handoff to Reed Wheeler, the fourth-form running back.
The ball bounces around in the mud and a Colbert kid pounces on it, but the ball squirts out from under him and is scooped up by Benj, who takes off down the field toward the end zone.
It’s almost comical to watch—Benj is so big and the Colbert players chasing him are so puny.
One particularly scrappy kid tries to pull on Benj’s arm, but Benj swats him away… and scores!
The Tiffin stands go crazy, people are stomping on the metal bleachers, shaking green-and-gold pom-poms. In the broadcasting booth, Royce Stringfellow cries out, “Tiffin, six; Colbert, zero!” and Tilly Benbow plays “Whatever It Takes” by Imagine Dragons.
Dub runs to the end zone to congratulate Benj.
As he heads off the field so special teams can set up for the extra point, he searches the bleachers for Benj’s moms. They must be thrilled—it’s not every day an offensive lineman scores a touchdown.
Dub sees the moms with their phones out, videoing. Standing beside them is a figure in a green raincoat with the hood drawn tight.
Dub can’t quite see the figure’s face, but he doesn’t need to. He would know her anywhere.
“Mom?” he calls out.
Karen Austin waves. “Hey, bud. Let’s keep it going, okay?”
Dub wants to jump the fence, pick his mother up, and swing her around. She must have traveled all night to see that play.
A thumbs-up will have to suffice. And he’ll do what his mother asked. He’ll keep it going.
That night, Dub and his mother do what they did the year before and have dinner at the Alibi in Haydensboro. Karen orders a beer because, she says, the Alibi is the kind of place where one should probably avoid the wine, and Dub gets a Coke. When their drinks come, they clink bottle to glass.
Tiffin won the game 21–0. After Benj’s touchdown, Reed Wheeler scored and then Dub scored on a quarterback sneak. Dub threw three good, on-target passes to Hakeem, and he dropped them all. Hakeem was lucky it was just his parents watching and not the coach from Dartmouth.
“So how does it feel?” Karen asks. “With everyone knowing?”
Dub shrugs. “Fine. It’s not a big deal.”
Karen cocks an eyebrow.
“Seriously. Nobody treats me differently.”
“Except Hakeem,” Karen says.
“He’s been a little remote, yeah.”
“He’ll come around. You just have to be patient.”
Desperate to change the subject, Dub peruses the sticky laminated menu. “Three-way roast beef sandwich, two of them, and the loaded tater tots.”
“If I recall, we’d better order you three sandwiches,” Karen says. She flags their server, then takes a long sip of her beer and sets the bottle down with intention. Here comes the next big, uncomfortable topic, Dub thinks.
“How’s Calhoun?” she asks. “Are you two still… talking?”
“Still together,” Dub says. “Yes.”
Karen nods slowly and spins her beer bottle, which is all she needs to do to convey her… what? Wariness? Disapproval?
“I still can’t believe…” She trails off.
Dub can’t quite believe it either. On the first day of his summer job as a neophyte zip-lining guide with Durango Outdoor Adventures (the business that purchased Derrick’s failed excursion company), Dub met the team he’d be working with all summer—a second-year guide named Viola and the head guide, Calhoun Royal.
Dub had nearly quit on the spot.
Calhoun Royal had been three years ahead of Dub at school, and when Dub was in eighth grade playing on the high school JV team, Calhoun jacked Dub up against the lockers, called him a “pole choker,” threw him to the ground, then swung his leg back and kicked Dub like he was a football on a tee, breaking two of Dub’s ribs.
Dub told his mother that he got hurt at practice, but Karen sussed out the real story.
It was because of this incident with Calhoun that Dub left the following year for Tiffin.
Back then, Calhoun was a monster. He had four inches and fifty pounds on Dub, and he’d shaved his head as all the upperclassmen did during the season.
But now, four years later, Dub was bigger than Calhoun in both height and girth.
Calhoun had slimmed down, and he’d grown his hair back—it was jet black and curled up under his baseball cap.
He had an earring now, Dub noticed, and he wore a Struts T-shirt with his cargo shorts.
But the biggest difference was the expression in his ice-blue eyes.
If Dub wasn’t mistaken, it was Calhoun who looked scared, and Dub thought, That’s right, motherfucker, I grew up.
Dub was big enough to take Calhoun over his knee and spank him like a child.
Dub glowered at him. Calhoun held up his palms and said, “Hey, Dub, it’s Cal.” He reached out a hand; he wore at least a dozen colorful friendship bracelets on his wrist, both beaded and woven, like a twelve-year-old girl at the Eras tour. “Long time.”
Reluctantly, Dub shook his hand. Not long enough, he thought. “Calhoun.”
“I go by just Cal now,” Calhoun said. “ ‘Calhoun’ makes me sound like I wave the Confederate flag.”
Viola said, “It really sort of does.”
Dub gazed down at his new Merrells, for which he’d paid 120 dollars, just to wear to this job. If he was going to quit, he would have to do it now; he could still return the shoes.
Calhoun said, “Vi, would you please bring the van around? We’ll take Dub through the course. Can you grab Dub a harness and a helmet?” He ran his eyes up and down Dub’s body. “Extra large.”
Once Viola had gone, Cal took a step closer and Dub, to his complete mortification, flinched.
Cal rested a hand on Dub’s shoulder, allowing Dub a closer look at the friendship bracelets.
One of them was rainbow-beaded and spelled out PRIDE.
“Listen, man, I want to apologize for all the shit I said and did when we were in school. You didn’t deserve it.
I was dealing with denial and self-loathing, and I took it out on you. ”
Denial? Dub thought. Self-loathing?
“I’m gay,” Cal said. “I came out once I got to Boulder.”
Dub couldn’t keep the surprise out of his expression. “You’re kidding me.”
“Not kidding,” Cal said. “I hope you can accept my apology. And I hope you’ll still be comfortable working with me…”
“Yeah, of course,” Dub said. “Congratulations. On figuring it all out, I mean.”
Cal took a theatrical bow, doffing his baseball cap. Then he flipped his bangs out of his eyes.
Wow, Dub thought.
They were together all summer. At work, they led groups through the twelve-line course, tightening harnesses, double-checking carabiners, soothing nerves, pointing out bald eagles, streams teeming with trout, and swaths of blue columbine, Indian paintbrush, blanketflower.
Cal was an outstanding guide, he was funny and self-effacing, his enthusiasm with their sixth group of the day was the same as for their first group.
Dub watched and absorbed. He reassured folks trying zip-lining for the first time, he secured helmet straps and joked with the kids.
He assumed he’d have a nightmare or two about a three-hundred-pound man breaking a line and plummeting to the ground, or about strapping an infant into a harness.
But Dub dreamed only of Cal.
Now, Dub eyes his mother over the first of his three sandwiches. “I don’t want you to worry about me getting hurt.”
“I’m not worried about you getting hurt,” Karen says, popping a tot in her mouth. “I’m worried about the opposite. You belong at a small liberal arts college, Dub.”
“That’s still the plan,” Dub says. The plan is for Dub to play Division III football somewhere in the Northeast. Middlebury, Amherst, Colby.
Those schools don’t grant “athletic scholarships,” but they put together financial packages in other ways.
Dub’s backup plan, which he announced to his mother at the end of the summer a few days before he said goodbye to Cal, was to apply to CU Boulder, where Cal was now a junior.
“I didn’t send you all the way out here just so you could end up back home,” Karen says.
“Boulder is a good school,” Dub says.
“It’s an excellent school,” Karen says. “But…”
“Mom,” he says. “I know what you’re going to say. Don’t forget, I’m your sensitive child.”
She grants him a quarter smile, which allows him to change the subject.
“Besides, I want to talk about you.” Dub raises his Coke.
“You left work early, booked an overpriced plane ticket, and sat on a Greyhound for two and a half hours just so I would have a parent at my senior year Family Weekend. You’ve always taught me that the most important thing in life is showing up, and today, that’s what you did.
You showed up for me, and I’ll never forget it. ”
Karen’s eyes shine with tears. If she talks, she’ll cry, and Dub knows she doesn’t want to cry in public, so she won’t ask any more questions for a while. He digs into his second sandwich.
During his time at Tiffin, Andrew Eastman has established himself as a man of few words; remaining mysterious has been his currency.
But now, in his final year of high school, East is ready to break his silence.