Athletic Shorts (12 page)

Carter looked away, like he always does when he thinks I’m being a dumbshit. “Okay, Banks. Just remember I warned you, all right?”

“All right.” I was disappointed, having thought I could get through all this without losing anything. But what did I expect? Up until just a few weeks ago, when I walked the backwoods with Darren and his trusty 30.06 deer camera, learning to look at life for the last time, sucking in everything around him that smelled of mystery—and sharing it with me—a homosexual was just about the worst thing a guy could be. Homo. Switch hitter. Queer. Queen. Faggot. And some so bad I won’t say them.

But he was just Darren. When I didn’t have to worry about what anyone else was thinking, he was just a funny, sad guy with a chest bulging with the kind of courage I hoped to have someday. In the face of death he could hold steady and take a perfect shot. He never made anything that felt like a pass at me, and he liked animals. And God, he was going to die.

I wondered what it must be like to be called those names when you’re going to die. It would be bad enough if you were going to live. Maybe those names could make you
want
to die. Who knows? I sure didn’t want to get into it with my best friend, though, and what I thought was this: If I keep spending time with him, I could lose Carter. I’ve seen that look in his eye before, and it’s not one you argue with. Then Darren would be dead and my friend would be gone. Boy, nothin’ comes cheap.

I ran patterns for another half hour or so, until I was really bushed; but we didn’t talk much, and I could feel a thin wall going up between us, which scared me more than anything. I think when somebody important in your life dies, you get afraid to lose anyone else, and Carter was one of the few people who stuck with me through all the craziness of my last year, when I must have looked like the biggest bozo this side of Ringling Brothers. I was
so
afraid of losing him, hating to think of myself without someone as fine as Carter Sampson—or Becky Sanders—in my corner. One down…

I tried desperately the rest of that afternoon to catch every pass, as if that would help maintain our connection, because the look in Carter’s eye had been hard
when he said that word
faggot
, and I knew Darren’s sexual preference wasn’t a point Carter was willing to compromise on. I didn’t understand yet that Darren’s sexual preference required no compromise, that it was none of Carter Sampson’s business. But in one way I was no better because I hadn’t accepted it either. I just blocked it out, didn’t think about it.

Carter plopped on the grass next to the steel frame of the blocking sled and dug into his workout bag, drew out a large bottle of Gatorade, offered it to me.

I took a long swig and handed it back. “Look,” I said, “you might be right about Darren. I don’t know. But he’s okay. I mean, he’s not trying anything with me, and he’s kind of lonely, okay?”

Carter looked at me that way he does, without speaking, and took a long drink.

“Cart…”

“Better stay away from him, buddy.”

“Maybe you’re right,” I said, and at that moment believed I would simply avoid Darren for the rest of the summer. No way I could afford to lose Carter, and besides, if Carter thought he was gay, then so did a lot of other guys, and I didn’t need everyone thinking that about me. Not along with everything else.

“I am right,” he said back. “You’re my friend. I don’t give my friends bad advice.” He stood to walk to his car.

AIDS didn’t tarry. On the afternoon of July 19, two days after my birthday, I came home from my second job—pumping gas at Norm’s service station—to find a message on Mom’s answering machine: “Hey. Louie. Haven’t seen you for a while. Look, I’m up in the county hospital for a while. Why don’t you come up and see me if you get a chance?” There was no mistaking Darren’s voice. I mean, in one sense Carter was right: He did sound like what you think of as gay. Stereotype or not, that’s what he sounded like.

God, I didn’t want to go. My commitment to Carter aside, the remembrance of death was so fresh I could almost smell it, plus I’d seen enough news stories on TV and pictures in the paper to know some of the bad things AIDS usually does before it lets you go, and I was really afraid to see that up close. But
because
of last winter, I knew there isn’t any time to hesitate or be squeamish about death. It comes when it wants, and whether you’re the one going or the one staying, you better have your shit in order, or you’re going to wind up hating yourself for all you wish you’d done. A day
hasn’t gone by that I didn’t wish I’d said one more thing to Becky, or touched her one more time, or told her who she was to me.

I should have parked around back, out of sight of the main road, but I pulled up directly in front of the main entrance. The rooms are small, and Darren was back by himself all the way at the end of the hall behind the front desk. There were probably only three or four other patients in the whole place. I remember wondering if they put him back there in case anyone in town figured out why he was in there, so nobody would have to go by his room.

The worst part is nobody touches you
.

“Hey, man,” I said at the doorway, “how you doin’?”

“Been better,” he said.

I stood there, nodding my head.

He said, “Come on in. I’m no more contagious than I ever was.”

“What happened?”

“Sometimes it just comes after you,” he said. “Any little old germ just has its way. You have nothing to fight back with.”

I knew Darren couldn’t have lost much weight in such a short time, but he looked like he’d dropped about fifteen pounds, most of it around his eyes. I
walked on into the room and sat in a metal chair beside his bed.

“Guess I don’t look so hot, huh?”

I shook my head. “Not so hot.”

He said, “Tell me about Becky.”

“What do you want to know?”

“I want to know what it’s like to be left behind, what happens to the people who don’t die. I’m worried about the people I love.”

No time for anything but the truth
. “Well, it hurts,” I said. “A lot. You get angry that you didn’t do every little thing just right when the person was alive, and you get angry at the person for dying. It’s crazy, I know, but you do. And sometimes you hate everybody in the world who isn’t feeling as much pain as you are, and as much as anything you hate God, if you can still believe in Him, for not stepping up and fixing things.”

Darren looked up at the ceiling, and there were tears in the corners of his eyes. “That’s not how I want it to be,” he said.

I remembered Dakota’s words to me and said, “Well, Darren, that’s the way it is.”

He was quiet a minute. Then he looked over at me and took a deep breath. He said, “Louie, would you hold my hand?”

To this day, I hate myself for what I almost said. I almost said no. And it wasn’t because I was afraid I’d get AIDS. It was the other reason. But I love myself for what I did say. I said yes. I said yes, and I reached over and put his hand between both of mine. It was real awkward, and I know he probably felt that; but I did it. And I’m glad because now I don’t have to look back and wish.

It’s funny. It’s almost as if we weren’t in Trout anymore. Nothing inside that room was like anything else in my life. As I sat with his fingers sandwiched in mine, I thought again about what it must be to go through the last part of your life without being touched. Especially if it happened when you were only twenty-five. Becky and I had touched each other all the time. I don’t know how I could live now if we hadn’t.

I told Darren about all the good memories I had of Becky and how I’d get together with her dad once in awhile and just talk about her—how we kept the good things about her alive by mentioning them, how people who die can actually stay alive through the people who cared about them and learned things from them. I told him I still talked to her. And I promised I would talk about him, too.

Then I looked up and saw Carter standing in the
doorway. He said, “I saw your car….”

Instinctively I jerked my hands free from Darren’s, but it was too late. Carter grimaced and shook his head, then walked away. Darren opened his eyes in time to see Carter’s back, and I think he sank a little. If there’s one thing I could change about all that happened, it would be that moment.

I saw Darren one more time before they transferred him to the hospital in Boise, though he didn’t see me. I went for a visit; but Dakota was there, and I didn’t want to interrupt, so I stood in the doorway. Dakota was up on the bed with him, his grizzled old arms around Darren’s shoulders, and he was kind of petting Darren’s head with his good hand.

“…really scared, Uncle Gene.
Really
scared.”

“You’d be damn fool not to be.”

“I wish I could clear things up with Mom and Dad.”

“Some things are just too hard,” Dakota said. “Your daddy just don’t have the heart for it. He’s gonna be real sorry, boy, an’ I’ll sure tell him what you wanted for him.”

“He just couldn’t understand about me being gay. I tried to tell him—”

“I don’t understand it neither,” Dakota said, “but it
ain’t the point. The point is you’re blood. An’ you’re sick. An’ you’re a good boy. Somebody oughta rap your daddy one alongside his head, but I don’t reckon it’d do much good.”

“You’ll tell him, though.”

“I’ll tell him.”

Darren shifted a bit to get more comfortable, his eyes still closed. “About Louie…”

Dakota looked up at me in the doorway. He’d known I was there all along. “Louie’ll be fine,” he said. “That’s not a boy you need to worry about.”

Darren relaxed. “See that he gets the camera, okay?”

“Done.”

“Tell him if he gets tired of talking to Becky, he can talk to me.”

Confusion passed briefly over Dakota’s face, but he said, “I’ll tell him.”

“Uncle Gene, I wish I understood this. I only learned I was gay a couple of years ago, and then, before I even got to deal with that, I was sick, and now I’m almost gone. I’ve been a Christian all my life and a pretty good person, I think. I haven’t stolen, or lied more than the next guy, or cheated anyone out of much. There are all these things I was supposed to learn, and
it just feels like I need more time to learn them, but I’m not going to be here.”

From across the room I saw Dakota smile. “You’re gettin’ the crash course,” he said. “I think there’s only one lesson if you want the truth. I think we’re just supposed to see how far we can go in whatever time we get. I figure a lesson you learn on the last day of your life is as good as one you learn on your tenth birthday. It don’t much matter when you step up and face things. It just matters that you do. I guess your time’s here for that.”

Darren was strangely quiet then, for what seemed like minutes. Just when I thought he must have gone to sleep, he opened his eyes and looked at Dakota. “You’re right,” he said. “That’s all there is left: to see how far I can get. I need to experience every minute of it, no matter how scared I am.” He was quiet a moment more. Then he smiled. “In that second before I go, I’ll know something almost nobody else knows.” He closed his eyes. “Will you stay with me, Uncle Gene?”

Dakota held him tight, and it’s the only time ever that I saw a tear in his eye. He told me later it was an honor to walk to the edge with a true hero.

Darren silently cried himself to sleep; but he was still smiling, and Dakota stayed. I went to my pickup and drove to the woods.

“Long time,” I said, stepping from the pickup. I reached into the bag in the back and pulled out a football, flipping it to Carter.

“Yeah,” he said.

“You quit throwing for a while?”

He looked right at me. “Nope. Been throwin’ to Mark Robeson some. A little to Boomer.”

“Boomer. You must really be pissed at me.”

“I told you that Darren guy was a fag,” he said.

“I already knew it.”

Carter shook his head. “Now we all find out he had AIDS. I suppose you knew that, too.”

“Yup.”

“Man, Banks, I don’t get you. I thought we were supposed to be friends.”

“We are supposed to be friends,” I said.

“So what kind of a guy hangs out with a homo with AIDS and doesn’t tell his friends? AIDS is serious shit, man. When it’s around, everybody should know it. What if somebody caught it somehow?”

I started to answer. I started to say I wasn’t doing anything that could give me AIDS and neither was Carter so he didn’t have to worry. I started to say how being careful is one thing, but being crazy is another—
and to tell Carter what it was like to look a dying man in the eye, how much bigger my heart was. But I didn’t. I didn’t say any of those things because I was getting ready to lose him. “Look, Cart, I don’t have AIDS, okay? Let’s just throw some balls.”

He was steamed, and the first four or five passes came so hard they almost went through me, but I held on to every one, jogging back and flipping him the ball as if he’d just floated another feather onto my fingertips. We didn’t talk anymore, and that was the last time we worked out before leaving for our respective colleges.

I think I passed Carter up that day. All my life I’ve wanted to be like him, be able to throw a football fifty yards through a tire or pop a twenty-five-foot jumper or drive through the streets of Trout leaning back in my bucket seat with an elbow out the window, people on the sidewalk truly believing I owned the town. But that day
I
was bigger. That was the day, knowing all I had to lose, I quietly turned and stood my ground.

I’m in college now. I made the cross-country team. I’m not the best they’ve got, not the worst. But I’m going to do what I heard Dakota tell my dead friend Darren. I’m going to see how far I can go in the time I get.