Page 42 of Cleats and Pumps

I saved it, shut the laptop, and ate lunch. I’d restocked the kitchen since getting back to Texas. I looked around the cutekitchen and smiled. Grandma had done all the work without my knowledge after my grandpa had died.

It was still a small galley kitchen with no walls removed, but the new floors, the painted cabinets, and new appliances turned it into an adorable space.

The whole house was renovated in the same way, and knowing she’d done it for me made a big difference.

The house sat on over an acre of land, which, to be honest, I didn’t care much about. It was a ton of work to keep it up. One of the first things I did when Grandma moved into the nursing home was to hire a landscape company to clear it all out and discard anything that would make it difficult to maintain. It was a significant investment up front, but I knew we saved a bundle in maintenance costs now.

I plopped down on the porch swing, something I would never have the heart to get rid of, and looked out at the now mostly barren yard. I’d loved growing up here. Giant oak trees dotted the neighborhood, keeping it shaded in the heat of a Texas summer.

A nice breeze always seemed to flow under those trees. Grandma had flowers growing everywhere when I was young. The memory brought a smile to my lips. I didn’t have a green thumb, although I’d pulled more than a few weeds under her watchful gaze.

My neighbor was quite a distance from us, but she had a rosebush that bloomed this time of year, and the smell was so intense it reached where I was sitting. If I was to move back… Wow, where did that thought come from?

I had sworn I’d never come back to this part of the world. Texas was better about the gay thing than it had been, but that didn’t mean it was friendly. My little town wasn’t horrible, better than many places, but still.

Now, my grandparents no longer lived here, and Grandma’s mind was getting worse—it seemed fewer and fewer things drew me here. Where would I move to? I had no idea. New York? Maybe… Although it was too cold and crowded, it was where the jobs tended to be.

I leaned back in the swing and thought about Amos. Where would he end up? And, more importantly, why was I even wondering? So much for letting him go.

I popped the rest of the sandwich into my mouth and returned to the laptop. It was time to write about the drag show, the article, and how that had ended both of our careers. I’d been resisting that story, knowing how loaded it was for me to write.

I guess if I were really a journalist, someone who deserved that title, I’d have thrown Amos under the bus and saved my career. But I knew that would never be me. So here I was, unemployed, living alone in the suburbs of Houston, in basically Nowhere, Texas, and writing my memoirs at age twenty-eight.

Therapy… that’s what it was about, putting the demons I had about Amos to rest, so I could refocus on my life and my career and maybe have some hope of a future lover who lasted more than a couple of weeks.

28

Amos

IhadJakepairtheboys up with those who didn’t necessarily like one another, and if they were critical of the other boy, that would be even better.

Jake gave me a look, and I laughed. “Trust me, this is going to come back home and won’t be painful or bullying.”

Jake shrugged and did as I asked. As soon as we had the boys facing each other, I handed them a piece of paper and instructed them to write everything their partner needed to do to fix their game. “Keep it all on one page, and don’t spare any feelings. Spell it out. What does that person need to work on to make the team better?”

I stood back and watched the boys scribble detailed lists of their teammates’ flaws. “Okay, now, fold them until they are small enough to fit in your pocket. Got it? Awesome. Stick them in your pockets, and don’t lose them. We’re going to get back to them in a few minutes. Now, let’s head outside. I need the entire group to sit in a circle out on the field.”

“Wait,” one of them said, “are we going to practice?”

I nodded. “Yep, this is practice. Now, get out there and do what I said.”

The boys nodded, and I looked at Jake, who was smirking. I’d told him my plans to have the kids do some improv, and he told me I was nuts. But I had a feeling it would make a hell of a difference.

“Okay, Coach, keep good notes,” I whispered. “If a kid suggests something, write down the kid’s name and what they suggested. Just don’t let them see you doing that. It needs to be inconspicuous.”

Jake nodded, and although I hadn’t told him what I was up to, he didn’t question me. I wanted him to experience this firsthand too. Football was as much about the mental game as about ramming your body into other players.

“Now, quarterback, you’re first on the firing line. Come up to the middle of the circle. We’re going to do some stupid stuff to warm y’all up. I’m going to have you all take turns up here. Your teammates are going to holler out an animal name, and for thirty seconds, you’re going to act that animal out. Got it?”

They all laughed and nodded. “Okay, what’s it going to be?”

“Cow,” one of the kids said, and I looked over at Jake, who nodded, telling me he got who said that. “Okay, Tony, thirty seconds as a cow… Go!”

We did that over and over until each kid had a turn. Then I asked Jake to come up. “Got all those who made suggestions?” I asked, and Jake nodded.

“Great,” I said and took the roster with the checks by the kids’ names and the animals they suggested.

“Wow, Omar, you were on a roll. I guess you’re first up. The way this game works is that you now have to act out every animal you called out for your teammates, but instead of doing it for thirty seconds, you have to do each for a full minute.”

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