South

A Chapter by CookeCody

South

I loved football, but I loved Jace more. The other guys on the team were already crude enough on their own, so when my head started entertaining lush fields of grass instead of the gridiron, I knew it was time to leave. I say leave and not quit because the word quit sounds so....wimpy, pusillanimous, lazy. Even my mouth formed a sneer whenever I said it in the mirror during my announcement rehearsals. I informed my coach before practice that I wanted to talk to the whole team in the huddle before we were dismissed for the day. So, those next two and a half hours, the last two and half hours I would spend hearing arrogant f*g jokes from oblivious Neanderthals, I spent going through the athletic motions with my body and enjoying the intimate breath of freedom with my head.
I had met Jace in my freshman year of high school, which was his sophomore year of a different high school. We knew almost instantly there was something between us, and for the next few years that ember sparked and flamed in our hearts and now steadily blazed there, keeping us both warm. I tried at first to banish thoughts of him from my head, what with my town being on the poster for the typical southern-Baptist, conservative, close-minded suburbia. Eventually, however, I gave in, and ever since I accepted my feelings for that man I've been immeasurably happier. It's like I was swimming in a sea of uncertainty, bound by impending and empty horizons. I've been swimming with everyone else against the waves and the current and happiness, but Jace was a lone life raft. For almost two years I fought the urge to climb inside, but now I'm just rocking gently, gently, bobbing with my eyes to the sky and wafting along the flow of my life. He kept me dry and showed me what's above and around and under the water instead of just where my next stroke should land. This football team is the last weight on my ankles, and after today-
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING, MICHAELS?!" I heard my name on a jaguar's tongue. I must have lost my concentration, because all I saw when I regained focus was the titanous silk cloth in the sky that shielded the sun, my back to a congregation of boys who ironically seemed very interested in me. I jogged quickly to meet them.
"Sorry coach," I puffed as I unstrapped my helmet.
"I almost couldn't hear that 'sorry', what with your head being so far up your a*s." Moronic chuckles. A chorus of sludge-brained seal noises. God, I couldn't wait to look at these idiots for the last time. "Say what you have to say quick, before I make you run laps." I almost forgot about my farewell speech. I stammered to stall time, and in seconds I had an outline of what I would say. I took a deep breath and met everyone's empty gaze.
"I'm...leaving the team," I pretended to force this out. The harder it seemed for me to leave, the more devoted to this mundane, masculine man-fest I appeared. "I've been thinking about it for a while. I love this game, and I love y'all-" (I almost lost my face here) "but I have to do this." All eyes were on me, but not a single mouth twitched to my name, so I falsely elaborated further, "It's actually everything except the team, honestly. It just takes up too much time. Not saying that I regret that, I'm just saying....I'm just saying it's my senior year of high school, and I'd rather spend it outside of school doing other things than being here for half of my time." This wasn't entirely a lie. All I ever thought about anymore was leaving and being with Jace.
The only sound was the wind, the dusk-born insects, and the small clatter of plastic equipment on plastic equipment. One of the assistant coaches was the first to speak.
"You sure about this, Michaels?" He asked. I faked a sigh and acted out a shrug.
"I've put a lot of thought into it, coach. I wouldn't be saying this if I wasn't sure." He pursed his lips, and I could see him playing a part of his own-the reluctant mentor. The tapping of his finger against his clipboard and the slow movement in his eyelids all but told me his indifference to the matter. I wasn't surprised either, I had been nothing but trivial to the team since I joined.
"Is everyone else ok with this?" The jaguar coach liberally asked the crowd. A few murmurs of response was enough for him. "That settles it, then. We're sorry to see you go, Michael's. I respect that you told us all to our faces, that takes some serious balls. Bring it in, man." Finally, the church bells were about to ring, and my war was about to end. I thrust my arm high, and a skin tepee formed around me. With the most macho pride I could muster, I bellowed, "ONE TWO THREE TEAM!"
A clash of shoulder pads, the drag of rubber cleats on brown grass. That was my goodbye from the people who'd consumed nearly two thirds of my high school life. Suddenly my own pads felt lighter, my cleats felt looser, and the wind tasted sweeter and the sky seemed brighter, even though sunset was approaching. I was a free man, and that night, I knew exactly where I was going.

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