One Last Play — Excerpt 1

Feb 5, 2012

One Last Play — Excerpt 1

Perry took a swig from the bottle, lifted it high into the air and let the tangy cheap wine splash into his mouth. He swallowed. He’d swiped the bottle from the linen closet, where he could always count on his Mom having tucked away a bottle. He looked down at his cell phone. 12:14 AM he read.

He sat in the middle of the football field, home to the Dunway Dragons. The grass was cold and wet beneath his ass. He could already feel the moisture soaking through his shorts and his underwear. A light, chilly breeze made the grass dance around him, but Perry was warm enough in his hoodie. He took another drink of wine and checked his phone again. 12:15 AM.

Thirty minutes ago he’d received a text-message: “Meet us down at the field.” His buddy and former teammate, Tim, had sent it. He started typing in a new text — “where the fuck r u?” — but before he hit send, he heard footsteps behind him.

“Perry!” Tim shouted, drawing the name out like a foghorn in the night. His voice echoed off of the empty bleachers. Tim carried a six-pack of beer in one hand, a football in the other.

Logan followed closely behind Tim. The two guys were dressed similar to Perry: shorts, tennis shoes, and school-issued hoodies. Logan had the green hood pulled up over his head, but Perry had no trouble recognizing him. Tim and Logan were damn near inseparable.

Perry pushed himself off of the ground, careful not to spill any wine as he did so. He locked hands with Tim and they pulled each other into a half-hug. Perry did the same with Logan and handed off his wine bottle. “What’s up, boys?”

Tim pulled a beer free from the plastic rings and handed it to Perry. Tim’s older brother worked at a convenience store off of Main, so cheap beer was easy to come by despite the fact that the three guys on the field were only eighteen. “We figured we’d come down here and play some ball.” Tim handed a can to Perry. “Last chance any of us will have to play here together. Figured this field brought us all together, we should give it a proper goodbye.”

Perry popped the tab on his beer can and raised it into a toast. “Here, here,” he said.

Tim opened a beer for himself. They each drank deeply, Tim and Perry from their cans, Logan from the wine bottle.

The three guys sat down. Tim and Logan sat close, their bare legs touching one another. Perry tried hard not to be jealous, and it was difficult to distinguish that feeling from the others that were suddenly mixing with the wine in his stomach. Nostalgia and a little bit of sadness that their reign at Dunway was coming to an end. Uncertainty at the future. Jealousy fit right in.

When Perry had first moved to the small Missouri town from his home state of Texas just two years earlier, he’d been thrown off by the fact that two of the football team’s players were a couple. Like, a couple-couple. His first instinct had been to pick on them just like the other boys. This served a double duty; it was an easy way to entrench himself with some of his new teammates—tyranny loves company—and it helped him lie to himself about how he really felt.

It didn’t take him long, though, to realize that his new friends were assholes, and maybe those two homos were pretty damned cool. While it would be some time before he’d let himself acknowledge anything more than friendship, Tim and Logan were sweet and funny and damned good football players. Halfway through the season, the boys were hanging out at lunch, and soon after, they were together most weekends, too. Tim and Logan showed Perry all of their stomping grounds and brought him along to house parties. Perry took some flak for hanging out with a couple of homos, but he didn’t care. Cool was cool.

Senior year, the three of them were among the best players Dunway had seen in decades. That made it pretty hard to pick on any of them.

That was all in the past, though. Graduation had come and gone, and in a few weeks the three of them were off to college; Tim and Logan to St. Louis University, while Perry was hanging back at the local Community College. Perry’s grades weren’t so great and he was intimidated by the thought of taking a partial football scholarship that he might lose if his grades dropped. No way his Mom could afford to keep paying tuition without assistance.

“Hey pretty boy,” Logan said, tapping Perry on the arm. “What’re you thinking about?”
Perry smiled. Two empty cans sat next to him. “Stuff. You guys, football.” He wanted to say more. Tonight had taken on an air of finality. Looking back meant something was over, and Perry wasn’t sure he was ready to let it go.

“Why so serious?” Tim asked. He took a swig of beer. “Fuck that. Why don’t we play some ball?”

Without waiting for either Perry or Logan, Tim hopped up. He slapped the football between his hands and started to run away from them.

“You up for this?” Logan asked.