Page 101 of Futbolista
“Okay, enough about that right now,” Ahmed nearly yells, his voice excited and rushed, holding up his phone. “We can come back to that in a second, but first, ESPN headline: Gabriel Piña: the Future of Soccer. ‘The freshman goalkeeper ended his first college season breaking a shutout record, taking home a respectable number of awards, and, as of earlier today via a post from his personal Instagram account, as one of the first—if not the first—openly bi, male, Mexican soccer players in the game. Maybe an oversight on their part, he’s not in the running for the MAC Hermann trophy this year, but it stands to reason that he’ll have at least one by the time he graduates. Remember his name, because, like he tells us in his Instagram video,I’m here. And I’m going to be around for a long while. All of me. I promise you that.’ ”
“What’s it like being famous, papi?” Pérez asks, his arm thrown around the back of my shoulders, shaking me.
“Like I have a lot to live up to. Worried I might’ve hit my peak too soon.”
“Nah, you’ve got a lot more ahead,” Ahmed says before letting out a yawn. “And we’re going to be right there with you, doing great things too. All of us.”
“And I’m grateful for that. But still terrified, honestly.”
“We see you, papi,” Pérez adds. “Out there giving ten, twenty, a hundred times more effort than anyone else when it comes to something you love. If tomorrow the world hasn’t figured out how to give you back that effort, don’t put yourself down for it, all right? For people like us, us brown-skinned boys trying to make our moms and dads proud, most of the time, we aren’t going to get back what we put in. That doesn’t make it not worth it. It doesn’t meanyou’renot worth it. You always are, Chivo. You always have been.”
“Pérez coming in with the anime monologue.”
“You like that, Nguyen?”
“Shut up.”
“Had me tearing up, for real,” Ahmed says, playfully pushing Pérez’s head.
“Oh.”Pérez sits up on his knees, grabs his phone, and pulls up his camera. “Ven pa’ca, putos. Come on. Get in here with me for a sec. We need to memorialize this moment. One day, we’ll look back on today and think about how far we’ve come.”
And, this time, we listen. Even Nguyen, after an eye roll, sits up, huddling in close to all of us, arms draped over shoulders. My boys. A semester older. A semester better.
He hits Record, making sure all four of us get in the screen, bare-chested, probably going to have this video taken down for all the nipples. “I wouldn’t want to be playing this game, on this team, with anyone else,” he says. “Let’s do a ‘¡Fantastic Four por vida!’ on three.No.On four. Alright?”
We nod and “Yeah” back, waiting on his count. One last time.
“One.”
“Two.”
“Three.”
“Four.”
36
I LET OUT Anervous breath as I pull up to the curb in front of my parents’ house. Pops is sitting outside, drinking orange juice straight from the bottle. We didn’t get a chance to talk after the game last night. By the time I had a minute alone, it was after midnight in Texas, and maybe part of me didn’t want to catch them that late, but I was also scared. I didn’t want to come back from such a great night—the greatest night of my life so far, debatably—and cap it off with hearing my parents say that they never want to talk to me again. That my Pops can’t have someone like me for a son and that my Mom can’t let go of all the futures she’s imagined for me that could look a lot different now.
I texted him earlier, my phone shaking in trembling fingers, telling him that I was back in Corpus and on my way over, and I never got a response back. My video, winning the championship, the Defensive MVP, all of the feelings about them are blended together, have been marinating through plane rides across the country, and, at this point, are not sitting real well in my stomach.
If the worst happens, it happens. I figure out what comes next.
But I’d also really like to not have to face the worst. How am I supposed to be brave enough to stand up to the whole world if one of the most important people in my life can’t look me in the eye? Won’t call me his son?
I climb out of my truck, close the door behind me, and take slow steps around the front of it, to the walkway. When I get closer, I realize Pops has got earphones in, the wired ones because he doesn’t trust AirPods, the white string going from his ears into his pocket. It’s not until I’m nearing the bottom of the steps leading up to the porch that he plucks them out, fishes for his phone, and puts it all down next to him. I stop as he stands up, watching as he walks my direction, down one step, and then another, and then one more, step by slow step until he’s on the concrete path in front of me, between me and the house, staring me down.
“Pops, I—”
He nearly lunges at me as he wraps his arms around me. I get caught on a breath, surprised, halfway into defensive mode, honestly. But then, when I realize what’s happening, when my brain clocks that I’m safe, I’m overwhelmed, all the fears I’d been holding in washing away in my Pops’s arms. And I hug him back, gripping his shirt, and whether from happiness or relief or both, I start crying. He just holds me tighter, a hand coming to the back of my head.
“I love you, boy.”
“You’re not ashamed of me?”
“Gabi—” He grabs hold of my shoulders, giving us an arm’s length of space, and he takes a long look at me. Sees so clearly on my face everything I was holding in, how hurt I’ve been, everything about myself I’ve been battling with, and everything I’ve been through in the last half year. Sees the person who made it through all of that.
But I see him too. The man who introduced me to the beautiful game. Who’s pushed me to be as good as I am. His eyes are red and wet, and he’s got a serious smile across his face.
