Out of Position (12 page)

“So I hear. They’re still doing good work though, right? Where was the picnic this year?”

Every fall, FLAG holds an outdoor picnic, just sort of a “hey, come look at the fags, we’re not scary” thing. This is the first year I didn’t go. I try to remember what the guys told me, or what Salim told me, about it. Because, I suddenly realize, he’s laid another trap for me, and if I confess to not knowing about it, he’s going to ask why. “It was outside of Booker Hall,” I say, which is where it’s been two of the three years I did go.

There’s only a slight pause, not enough for me to tell if I got it right or not. “Was it fun?” he says.

“It was okay. Missed you there, though.” I might as well play it to the hilt, right or wrong.

“Yeah. Wish I could’ve been there.” I relax a little bit. Either I got it right or he doesn’t know.

We exchange some more small talk and then he signs off with “Good to talk to you again, Wiley.”

“Good to talk to you, too,” I say, and we hang up. I try not to think too much about his tone when he said that last thing, about it being good to talk to me. It was sincere, and a little resigned. He knows I’m hiding something, and I think he thinks he knows what it is.

I wonder if I haven’t just made a huge mistake.

 
The spring after Brian left, I spent a lot of time with the FLAG guys and the theater group. That’s where all my friends were. I talked to Brian all the time that spring, but what I didn’t tell him was that I was formulating my own plan to get back at football players in general. And I certainly didn’t tell him when the plan succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. Or when it went further than that.

I should’ve told him about that first night with Dev. I was so proud of myself, putting one over on the big jock, giving him his first gay experience. But here’s the thing. I really expected him to get out as soon as he could.

He stayed the night.

I didn’t expect to see him again, but I knew it was different when I talked to Brian that week. I should’ve boasted, I should’ve crowed about it, but I couldn’t figure out what to say. I guess I was thinking something like, I’ll wait and see how it turns out. I knew I was an idiot. I didn’t even know why I wanted to see him again. It didn’t matter. It’d never happen except on the football field or in my dreams.

He came back.

It became something more than just a prank, and the more it went on, the more I couldn’t tell Brian about it. I stopped going to FLAG, too, because they all knew Brian; not only would they judge me, they’d tell him. The theater group, at least, never asked too much about my personal life. I started hanging out with Salim just to be able to talk to someone, to build a bridge between that part of my life and this one. I couldn’t talk to Dev about the activism stuff. I couldn’t talk to anyone else about him. I was having a lot of fun with Dev and his friends, sometimes at their expense and sometimes not, and I was really enjoying the theater group, but there was still something missing.

The thing was, I didn’t know what that was. Brian made sure to remind me. Big time.

 
My last final is brutal, three essays chosen out of six possible questions. I write up to the last minute, exchange weary grins of triumph with the other students, and walk out. I get to Goose’s ten minutes early. Of course, Brian’s not there yet.

Goose’s is the same as it always is. Even in the lull between lunch and dinner, there are students whose finals ended when mine did, relaxing over coffee, pie, sandwiches, cookies, Goose’s famous meatloaf, or just the free water. The pictures on the walls show virtually the same Goose’s I sit down at: packed with students of all species chattering over grey checked tablecloths, eating the same meals and served by, in some cases, the exact same waitresses.

“Hi, hon.” A tall ferret comes up. “Coffee?”

“Hi, Bev.” Bev’s one of the ones in one of the old pictures. She kind of knows me from when Brian and I used to hang out here. “Just a sparkling water.”

“You got it.” She scribbles something down and walks away.

I smell Brian before I see him. I cup my ears to follow him as he slides into the booth across from me.

Same old Brian. Black fur with white spots, physique hovering between slender and scrawny, silk shirt draped over his narrow shoulders, twill slacks. Slacks ’n’ jeans, they used to call us fall semester of sophomore year, a memory that dislodges and floats to the surface as I watch him sit down.

It’s so strange to be this close to him again. At Goose’s, with Bev bringing my water and looking down at Brian as though he’d just been in there the day before, saying, “Coffee?” and him nodding, it could be my freshman year, or sophomore year, or early junior year. But when Brian finally looks into my eyes and says, “Wiley Farrel,” I can see the chipped lower canine. When he turns his head, I can see the sun shine through the notch in his ear. He’s marked, just as marked as I am, and I know he can see the marks on me just as well.

“So,” he says, looking up at the pictures. “Still the same.”

“Never changes.” I look steadily at him across the table. “So how you been?”

He shrugs. “Settled in. There’s a good theater group.”

“Really good?”

He grins. “Better, now.”

“Course they are.” Same old Brian. “So should we get this out of the way, or what?”

“Oh, Wiley. At least wait ’til I get my coffee.” He flashes me a coy smile, and right on cue, Bev comes up with his coffee and plunks it down. He saw her behind me, of course.

“Thanks,” he says to her. He blows on his coffee, takes his time stirring some sugar into it, then brings it to his lips. I take a drink of my water. He pretends not to notice me watching him.

Finally, he puts the cup down. “So,” he says, looking right at me. “I know what’s going on.”

“Really.” My heart pounds with fear and relief. It’ll be so much easier if I don’t have to tell him.

“You’re seeing a femme.”

I want to laugh, but it comes out as a half-laugh, half-choking hiccup. Brian looks at me strangely, but I wave him to go on. “It all fits,” he says, but less certainly. “You’re seeing someone you don’t want to tell me about. You’ve stopped going to the FLAG meetings. You’re trying to go straight because you’re scared of what happened to me.”

I can’t help it. My rear is still feeling the memory of Dev’s big cock. “Oh, sister,” I giggle. “I don’t think I’ve ever been less straight.”

Annoyance flickers across his muzzle; the realization, I know, that his prepared speech is out the window. I hear his tail thwap the seat. “So, what, you just stopped going to FLAG because it was boring?”

“Of course it was boring without you there.” My moment has been postponed, but only temporarily. “You told me it would be. Keith doesn’t have your sense of timing.”

“Nobody does, sister.”

“And he certainly doesn’t have your humility.”

Brian smirks. “So you joined some national activist group? Lambda?”

“Not really.”

“And you’re dating… a kangaroo?”

“You always hated kangaroos.”

“Still do.” He sips his coffee. “Is it something I did, Wiley?”

Oh, the guilt, the pain. “Yes, Spotty.” I put a paw to my chest. “You done broke mah poor foxy heart.”

“Don’t give me that,” he says. “Yo’ foxy heart ain’t never been cracked, much less broke.”

“Not for lack of trying.”

He sets down the cup. “All right. Cut the shit. What’s going on? Just tell me, already.”

Here it goes. “I’m seeing a guy.” I feel like I’m coming out to my parents all over again.

He waits, then says, “That’s a start. Does he have a name?”

“Yeah. Devlin. Devlin Miski.”

“Okay.” It takes him a second. “Wait a minute. Miski? The tiger?” He gapes. “From the football team?”

“Yeah.” I can’t tell how he’s going to react. He’s still stunned. The tension is killing me, so I say something inane. “He’s really nice.”

“Nice?” His voice is sharp. Not loud, just sharp. “That bundle of overmedicated hormonal muscle is nice?” He points to his cracked tooth. “Does this look nice?”

“He didn’t do that,” I say sharply.

“Oh, like it matters,” he snaps right back. “You think they’re not all cut from the same cloth? They hit people for a living. It’s bound to get into their lives. Didn’t you read the studies?”

“He’s not like that.”

“He’s too good not to be,” Brian shoots back. “One day, you’ll end up with worse than this.”

“I can take care of myself.” I fold my arms.

“Oh, yeah. Have you ever actually used your so-called fighting skills?”

“I passed the test for
nikyu
last year.”

“The real world doesn’t have pads, Tippy.”

“Then maybe I’ll have the good sense not to be drunk, Spotty.”

He glares. “If you had good sense, you wouldn’t be going around with a fucking jock.”

“He’s not just a jock.” People at the next table are staring curiously at us. I lower my voice. “I started out doing it for you.”

“For me?” He shakes his head. “What, so we could have matching scars? The hospital is not a bonding experience.”

“Forget it.” I suddenly don’t want to go there, remembering all my earlier fears. But Brian is far from done.

“Is this another stage of your eternal quest to prove you’re better than me? I hit on a couple football players, so you date one? How did you hook up with him, anyway? Personals? ‘Fox skilled at one-upsmanship seeking cock attached to hunk of muscle for self-validation’?”

I growl softy. Gloves are off, now. “Maybe I was just looking for someone who wouldn’t run away from a fight.”

His jaw clicks shut, and then he chuckles grimly. “That’s a laugh. What have you been doing but running away? Really invested in ensuring your civil rights now that you’re getting fucked regularly, aren’t you, slut? Been taking your muscleboy to the FLAG meetings? Or is he keeping you in the closet with his uniforms?”

“He’s not ‘keeping me’ anywhere. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Understand what? How the fox I used to talk to about attending national marches is not even going to the local campus activities any more? How you didn’t even know where the picnic was this year? Hell, Wiley, I knew where it was! Because unlike you, I’ve been following FLAG and fighting for my rights.”

“Yeah, you’ve been a big help from East Bumfuck,” I say. “Pretty easy to back away and lob stones from a distance, isn’t it?”

“My parents…”

“Oh, fuck that.” I’m snarling, and I’m not just angry at him. I hate myself when I snarl, but I can’t help it. “You wanted to get out of here. You ran away.”

He leans forward. “Can you imagine me going through this year as ‘that fag who got beat up’?”

“Yeah, I can,” I say. “You’d be a symbol. You could do some good. You could speak out.”

“Easy for you to say,” he says, and his voice is bitter. “I don’t want to relive it over and over.”

“So you only want to fight in ways that you’re comfortable fighting. Never mind what might do the most good.”

His eyes gleam and sharpen, and my fur prickles. “What about you? Going to out your football player when he goes pro?”

“No,” I say flatly, “and neither are you.”

“But Tip, that would do the most good. What’s the matter? Only want to fight in ways you’re comfortable fighting?”

“That would hurt him. And it would hurt me.”

“He’s going to hurt you anyway. One way or another. When he gets to the pros, he’s going to be swimming in money and under pressure to be straight, from the rest of the primitives and from the drooling masses who follow them. You’ll be an inconvenience, an afterthought, a memory. If you believe otherwise, you’re an idiot.”

“Then I’m an idiot.” I pour the last of my water down my throat. “At least I’m an idiot with a boyfriend.”

“For now. Until he punches you.”

“Could you take ‘repeat’ off your ‘dire warning’ CD there, Spotty?”

“Hey, I know the signs, Tip. Cuts you off from your friends—check. Cuts you off from your support network—check.”

“He doesn’t give a shit about the FLAG meetings. That was my decision.”

“Because you thought he wouldn’t like it.”

“No. Because of you.”

He’s startled. For the first time, I think, a genuine reaction. “Me?”

I lean back. “Yeah, you. Because I knew you’d react this way, and I didn’t want anyone else getting the chance to see your drama queen act. It’s so entertaining.”

“Fuck you, Tip. I’m serious here. This guy’s no good for you.”

I am sick of this conversation. “You have absolutely no idea what’s good for me.”

“Oh, come on. I haven’t been away that long. If you’d talk to me more…”

“Are you going to act like this every time we talk?”

Bev appears with a refill for his coffee. We clam up immediately. She asks if I want another water and I say, “Just tap.”

She looks back and forth between us and says, “How about a pipe of peace?”

“I don’t smoke,” Brian says tightly, and Bev shrugs and leaves. She’s broken the rhythm of the conversation. We stare at each other in silence, and I finally say, “So how are the classes there?”

“Oh,” he says as Bev comes back with the water, “the teachers all suck. But the students are worse. At least the theater is good.”

We talk about school for a while, circling each other warily, and manage to finish the conversation without resuming the argument. But we both know it’s still there, and around six, when I check the clock and say I need to get going soon, he takes a step back into the ring.

“So, will I get to meet him?”

I study his muzzle. “Not yet. I don’t think I’m ready for that.”

“It’s okay,” he says, his ears going down. “Probably all cramped in your closet, anyway.”

If I start in on him again, I’ll miss dinner with Dev. So I just stand up and say, “I’ll be in touch,” and grab his paw to shake it as he starts to get up. No hug. I know it’s bitchy, but I can’t bring myself to do it.

“Thanks for meeting. And for telling me,” he says.

“Thanks for taking it so well.”

We stare at each other another moment, and then I walk out with a wave, leaving him sitting at a grey checkered table in Goose’s, with Bev ready to bring him a plate of Goose’s famous meatloaf.