Page 31 of The Poster Boy
“What’s the fastest shot you’ve ever stopped?”
“Did your other team really trade you because you’re gay?”
The explosion of questions reminded me a bit of what it was like inside my head on a daily basis.
“I don’t have a pen, but I have an extra stick if you guys need a player.” The whole lot of them started talking all at once again. They unanimously decided that I could play. It made the teams uneven, but the team that didn’t have me got the extra player to compensate.
Sometimes I played goal in little scrub matches like this, but today I didn’t. Not only did I not have any gear with me, but the best way to get me out of my head was for me to play. This was hockey in its purest form. You didn’t need ice or legions of fans. All you needed were some sticks and some nets. It was hockey for the joy of playing. These kids weren’t running daily drills to try and make the league. They were just a bunch of kids with sticks and an outdoor rink in a neighborhood they might never leave.
None of these kids were going to the NHL, but that didn’t stop them from playing their hearts out. Maybe it helped fuel their fire. Because for them, it wasn’t serious. For them, it was a break from whatever might be going on outside this rink. Here, it was just them and the game. And for a few minutes, I got to be part of that.
At first, the rain didn’t deter us from playing, but when the drizzle turned into a downpour, we sprinted to the gazebo for cover.
“What are you doing here anyway?” one of the kids asked.
“What’s your name?” I asked him. They’d introduced me, but I already forgotten most of their names.
“Tanner.”
“Well, Tanner, I was looking for a hockey game to join, and I found one.”
Tanner had the look of a kid who had a lot of questions. I knew the type because I used to be one of the kids with a million questions. It came with the territory of having brainchemistry that fired off in all directions at once. I’d wanted to know the why of everything. I wanted answers to questions that no one had a way of answering for me.
When I was a kid, it was about things like the sky or why people drove blue cars when red was the better color. Stuff like that. I’d wanted to know why people made the choices they made and how things worked. And later, I wanted to know why my parents stopped loving me because I was gay.
And then I decided that I didn’t necessarily need my every question answered. The point wasn’t why they stopped; it was the fact that they had to begin with. The why of it didn’t matter when the end result left me reeling. Sometimes I still felt like the rug was going to be pulled out from under me.
It’s why I’d stayed single. If I didn’t get close to anyone, they couldn’t leave. I hadn’t intended to come out, but I couldn’t unring that bell. I’d made the best of the aftermath, but at times I wondered if I’d done the right thing. Clark, the celebrity I’d been spotted with, had been mute on the whole issue. He’d barely been seen in public since, and when he was, he was alone.
At least I wasn’t alone. I might not have Kelsey nearby anymore, but I still had her. And I had the guys. And I had a group of curious teenagers.
I stuck around for a while answering their inane questions. An alarm went off on my phone, alerting me to the fact that I had an hour until I had to be at the rink. I quickly booked an Uber, much to the kids’ dismay.
The rain stopped then, and most of them decided that they wanted to get back to their game. Tanner hung back and leaned on the boards with me, watching the rest of the kids play.
“Is it hard?” he asked, in a small voice. “Being gay?”
“In general or?”
Tanner shrugged.
“Most things are hard sometimes. People haven’t always had the best reaction to my coming out, but those people aren’t around me anymore.”
“Are people mean to you about it?”
I glanced over at Tanner. “How old are you?”
“Seventeen.”
I’d been years younger than him when I figured myself out. By the time I was his age, I’d already been kicked out of my parents’ house.
“Seventeen is a hard age.”
Tanner exhaled. “No shit.”
“Listen, Tanner. No matter who you are, there are going to be people who don’t like you. People who should like you, and love you, but sometimes they turn their back on you because of something you can’t control. And it sucks ass, but it’s their loss. Find the people who let you be yourself. They're the ones who matter most.”
“You’re pretty smart for an old guy.”
