Isolation Play (Dev and Lee) (2 page)

Okay, with Lee telling you what all the players are supposed to do, I can walk you through how an actual game goes. The teams flip a coin at the beginning of the game. Winner gets to pick whether they want to kick off or receive. To receive means you start on offense and have the first chance to score. But sometimes teams want to kick off, because if you start the first half on defense, you start the second half on offense. Also if you stop the other team right away on the first drive, it gives you a lot of energy going into your offense. The coaches all figure this out. I just know I liked being first on the field.

When a team gets the ball, they line up like Lee described. They get four chances to move the ball ten yards; those are “downs.” So there’s first down, second down, third down, fourth down. I don’t know why they’re called that, they just are. Anyway, on first down usually you try to run the ball. That means the QB hands it to the RB and he tries to get ten yards up the field. Actually, if he gets four or five, that’s pretty good, and then on second down you might try to run it again. If you can get three or four yards every time you run the ball, you can just run it all day long.

The thing is, though, if you don’t get your ten yards in four tries, the other team gets the ball. So most of the time you only take three tries, and if you don’t get ten yards, you punt. Punting is where the punter kicks the ball down the field and the other team gets to catch it and try to run back with it. Basically you do that so that they don’t get the ball at the spot where you didn’t get your ten yards. This is called “field position,” as in having good field position (near the other team’s goal) or bad field position (near your own).

The other thing you can do on fourth down, if you have good field position, is kick a field goal. If you’ve gotten close to the other team’s goal, but not actually into it, you have your kicker try to kick the ball through the goalposts (the uprights, we call the arms on either side), and you get three points if he makes it.

Once you get your ten yards, you get a whole new set of downs. This keeps up until you punt, or get a field goal, or score a touchdown by getting into the other team’s goal. Or—this is where I come in—until one of your players loses the ball and the other team gets it. It has to be a “live” ball, which is complicated and there are lots of rules around it but essentially it means that the play isn’t over yet. So if your running back drops the ball and I pick it up, or your quarterback is a crappy passer and I get the pass before his receiver does, then that’s a “change of possession” and the ball belongs to us. We can run it back as far as we can on that play, then our offense takes over on the next one.

That’s why I love playing defense. We get to be in on the big plays, the game-changing ones that “turn the tide,” “shift the momentum,” whatever you want to call it. There’s nothing like the feeling you get when you get your paws on the ball as a defender. Nothing.

Not to say there’s nothing better. Just nothing like it.

I’m not saying the Forester Universe cities are in the United States. But if they were, this is where they’d be.

9/7, week 1: at Crystal City (L, 24-35)

9/14, week 2: Kerina (W, 31-24)

9/21, week 3: New Kestle (W, 24-10)

9/28, week 4: at Hilltown (L, 0-3)

10/5, week 5: at Aventira (W, 10-3)

10/12, week 6: Millenport

10/19: bye

10/26, week 8: Gateway

11/2, week 9: Highbourne

11/9, week 10: at New Kestle

11/16, week 11: at Hellentown

11/23, week 12: at Port City

12/1 (Mon), week 13: Pelagia

12/8, week 14: at Yerba

12/15, week 15: Freestone

12/22, week 16: at Kerina

12/29, week 17: Hellentown

Every ending is also a beginning. It’s a pat kind of English-lit saying, but I really understand it today. I’m sitting in the back of the Chevali Firebirds media room, watching my boyfriend come out on national TV. Dev’s relief that his hiding is over shines from him like sunlight, in his golden eyes, his perked ears, his bright smile. I, on the opposite side of a small herd of reporters from him, am thinking more about what comes next.

But I wouldn’t ask him that right now, even if I wanted to pretend to be a reporter. Dev looks so good, so composed and happy, that I can’t believe he’s the same tiger who’s been agonizing over our secret for a month, ever since my ex-best friend Brian posted allegations about the two of us on the web. He’s been up there for over an hour, fur still smoothly in place, Firebirds tie still hanging neatly in front of his collared shirt. He smiles at the reporters, patiently answering questions that would have driven a smart-ass fox like me to savage sarcasm by now.

They started with the obvious, “do you have a boyfriend?” Dev said that he was only here to talk about himself. He had to repeat that four times before they stopped asking about his boyfriend and whether he knows any other gay players. They’re a bit lost about where to go from there, asking, “would you redesign the Firebirds uniforms?” and “do you look at your teammates in the shower?” (no to both). One of them asks, “What do your parents think of this?” and Dev does get a bit emotional at that.

“
My father was the one who taught me to play football. He taught me to give it everything I have, and not hold anything back. I think he would be proud that I’m applying that in my life as I am on the field.”

That he says, ‘I think he would be’ and not ‘he is’ speaks volumes to me. His father’s been only moderately more supportive than my own, which is kind of like being moderately more damp than the Chevali desert. The stock answer is enough to satisfy the reporters, who move on to ask him whether he uses any particular brand of fur conditioner (“whatever they have in the locker room”). But the real questions, the serious questions, are only being asked in my head.

Like: what now? When his sexuality was just a rumor on Brian’s blog, the crowds at Aventira spit and jeered. When he visits the enlightened town of Millenport, there might be more. And that’s just the fans. Will the other players go after him out of fear of being beaten by a faggot? Football’s a violent enough game that if someone really wanted to hurt him, they could.

At least he has the support of a few teammates. The other Firebirds behind him have stayed pretty upbeat throughout, from star quarterback Aston York, the grey wolf who keeps grinning and looking around as though he’s the center of attention, to Fisher Kingston, Dev’s best friend on the team and one of the few other tigers, who manages to smile and look grim all at once. Coach Samuelson, a tall grey wolf, stands on the other side from Fisher, with about the same determined, tight smile. He’s the kind of coach who’d come out and support his players in public no matter what. Behind closed doors, who knows? He’s a good guy, from what Dev tells me, but I don’t want to take anything for granted.

The other people on the podium were his pretend girlfriend Caroll, a black panther and minor movie star, and his agent Ogleby, a twitchy ferret. Caroll is still sitting beside him smiling, but then, she’s a professional. Who knows how she feels or what she’s going to say when the cameras are off. Certainly their engagement is off now. Ogleby bolted as soon as Dev said those magic words about the rumors he was gay: “Completely true.” I’m sure he’ll only stay away until he gets the first phone call from a prospective sponsor. And this is kind of his fault anyway. If he’d just ignored Brian’s blog, not made a big deal about it, chances are nobody would have noticed it and Dev wouldn’t have had to call this press conference.

The one question I think I have answered is about poor, sad, angry Brian. He strutted into the press conference talking about how he knew the truth, hoping Dev would deny the rumors so that he could have his ‘Liar, liar’ moment in front of all the reporters. I wasn’t watching him when Dev cut off his plan; the next time I looked over, he was gone. I got his text message, five minutes later. All it said was:
Have a nice life
. It’d be nice to think that he means it.

It’s a very Brian sort of ending, a dramatic exit, stage right, even if it is several beats after the spotlight’s left him. For all the work he put into outing Dev, you’d think he’d stick around to see the aftermath. But you wouldn’t think that if you knew Brian. Once Dev upstaged him, nobody needed to talk to Brian anymore. And Brian hates to be marginalized.

Not that Dev did it for that reason. I’m as sure as I can be that he did it because it was the right thing to do. I dressed up in drag for the conference to show him my support if he wanted to keep our relationship secret. He’s the one risking his life out there on the field.

He’ll never believe me if I tell him I didn’t know what he was going to do, but I didn’t. I suspected, because I know him. But I didn’t
know
, and I certainly didn’t expect the flood of emotion and tears that came with his announcement. I never doubted his commitment to me, but coming out the way he did was an affirmation, the closest he could come to saying, ‘I love you’ in public. And, well, that got to me.

The reporters sitting around me shot sympathetic looks my way while I was crying, completely misinterpreting my tears. “Girlfriend,” a cougar muttered to his pal. The leopard nodded, looking back. A lean swift fox with a sharp muzzle sitting two seats to my left stared, but didn’t say anything.

An hour and a half after Dev spoke the words, “Completely true,” the team’s press liaison, Vince, steps forward to cut everything off. “That’s it, boys,” he says. “Thanks for coming.” He leans back and mutters something to Dev that makes my big tiger grin.

I sit in the back and try to relax as they file out Dev and the other players. As they pass my row, I give him a huge smile. He acknowledges it with the slightest creasing of his eyes, and then he’s gone, his coach and teammates disappearing after him.

The reporters up front, the well-paid ones with laptops and satellite links, they stick around to file their stories from the press room. The ones in the back mostly file out, slowly enough that I can catch their words: an armadillo saying, “he’s got guts,” a coyote telling a fox, “they’re gonna flatten him next game,” a cougar saying, “fucking faggots” into his phone.

The cougar and leopard in front of me stick around, though, leaning back over their seats. “Life ain’t fair,” the leopard says. “Fake-dating an actress and dating a vixen and shit, turns out he’s queer. I can’t get that kind of action.”