I felt I had Dad’s approval to be gay. Funny how loose and carefree that made me feel, when I hadn’t been worried about how he might feel about it at all before. I guess knowing you have support even if you hadn’t thought you needed it is so, well, it’s encouraging. Depressurizing even when you weren’t feeling pressure, or weren’t aware you were. Actually, depressurizing doesn’t seem like a strong enough word.
So, anyway, I was loose and calm, but there was still no way I was going to let Micah know my feelings. He kind of acted like he might be gay or at least be very accepting of having a gay friend, but I didn’t know that for sure and didn’t want to jeopardize my chances of having him as a great friend, if not the love of my life. I could love him and be with him even if he wasn’t gay, didn’t like me that way, and we never, ever, could get to the intimate stuff I found myself thinking about more and more.
The thought was awful that maybe he wasn’t gay and, if I were only his friend, I’d have to share him with a girl eventually. I wished I’d never thought of that.
He’d liked our movie date as much as I had. Well, it wasn’t a date. It was the two of us going to a movie together like friends do. I wanted to do more of that. And then one thing I’d never even considered doing kind of fell out of the sky into my lap.
Lina came over one evening while I was studying in my room and plopped down on my bed. I tried not to scowl. I was almost done reading my History chapter and hated being interrupted. She could do her homework in about half the time I could. I had to really concentrate to learn and remember this stuff. She seemed to just scan through her textbooks and it all stuck.
“So, you get to second base yet with Micah?”
“I haven’t even kissed him,” I said. “What’s second base, anyway?”
“Touching, caressing, any and everything above the waist. Naked above the waist. Includes kissing. You’re a slowpoke.”
“He doesn’t know I like him. I think if I kissed him, he might figure that out.”
“Hah!” she said. “Be as sarcastic as you want; you’re wasting time.”
“Easy for you. You and your friend know you like each other. I’ll bet you’re already rounding third and heading for home. What’s it like?”
“Great!”
“That it? Great?” I frowned at her. “I thought you were going to give me details. You like doing that. You think it gets me excited.”
“What, you want details? You? Everyone else does, but you always act innocent and above the fray.”
I laughed. “Actually, no. I have an imagination, and two girls going at it . . . I sort of wince and try to think about something else. That’s kind of nasty, isn’t it?”
“You have no idea. Anyway, I know you’re a non-passionate guy, and so when you do get around to it, you’ll probably even keep your clothes on. And avoid using tongue. Where’s the fun in that?”
“I can be passionate. Just not like you. I like to be in control of myself.”
“Well, you’re sure accomplishing that. You’re so in control and keeping everything on the down low that you haven’t even kissed him yet.”
“I told you why not. We’re in the process of becoming good friends. And I think that should come first. We went to a movie; we’re going to do other things. This is the way it’s supposed to work. Slowly getting to know each other. Finding out what each other likes to do.”
“Okay, well, that’s sort of why I came over. But busting your balls is so easy, I got sidetracked doing that. Thing is, my friend—her name is Linda—is sort of athletic. I am, too; you know that. Well, she likes to bowl, and there’s a teen bowling league she wants us to sign up for. It’s a couples’ league. I don’t know if they’re okay with gay couples or not, but we can sign up two girls and two guys as a team with no questions asked. I thought the four of us should do it. You in?”
I stared at her, blank-faced, and then began to grin.
“What?”
“Lina and Linda? You’re kidding, right?”
“What’s wrong with that? They’re both legitimate names.”
“I hope she doesn’t look like you, too. I’ll have a hard time remembering who’s who.”
“Screw you, Scottie! Anyway, I’ll tell her to sign us all up.”
“Uh, you need to wait till I ask Micah. He might not want to.”
“Screw that. Just tell him we’re signed up, and if he doesn’t want to bowl, too bad. Tell him if he doesn’t come, he’s a pussy and I’ll beat the snot out of him. Or tell him I’ll ask some other boy for you to be with. That’ll sort him out!”
“Yeah, sure, I’ll tell him just that. I’m sure that’ll persuade him.”
“Be as sarcastic as you want. He’ll say yes.”
≈≈ ≈≈
The bowling alley sounded like I supposed they always did when they were busy. We were assaulted by the crash of balls against pins, machines sweeping fallen pins off the alleys and resetting the ones still standing, of balls hitting the alleys with loud thumps after being released by the bowlers, the thunder of the balls as they rolled their way toward the pins, cheering and laughter, and the general ruckus of a large crowd of teens. It was Saturday afternoon when the league had the alley, a time when most teens had the freedom and time to bowl.
Micah had been excited when I’d invited him, even about being part of our small group. I mentioned it was a couples’ league, but he didn’t seem to pay any attention to that. His eyes lit up just about the bowling part, and he asked if I was any good.
“Ha! I’ve never been bowling in my life. That’s how good I am.”
“How could you never have bowled?”
We were walking home after choir practice. He lived in the same direction from school that I did. Not close to each other but not far, either. We would walk together for about fifteen minutes, then part. I had another five-minute walk from there. His was about ten minutes. He lived in a nicer neighborhood than I did. I was waiting for him to invite me over one of these days. So far, we hadn’t been to each other’s house, and that worried me a little. Was he having second thoughts about being best friends?
I wasn’t thinking of inviting him to my house. I had no desire for him to meet my mom or for her to meet him. She’d never liked Troy, nor did he like her.
Micah was enthusiastic about bowling. That was easy enough to read.
“Why should I have bowled? That isn’t something everyone does, you know. I guess maybe I didn’t because my old best friend, Troy, hated anything the least athletic. Bowling’s athletic, isn’t it?”
“You really don’t know anything about it? Well, you’re lucky because I love bowling, and I’ll show you all you need to know.”
So now we were inside the bowling alley, and I was having my ears blasted by sounds I’d never encountered before. The place was immense. It had forty-eight alleys—I knew that because it said so on the sign out front—and was a gigantic wide-open room with the alleys all next to each other in a row running from one side of the building all the way to the other side. I discovered there was more to the place than just the alleys. It had a separate room with six pool tables; there were locker rooms for both men and women, a large bar, a snack area with kitchen, and a play area for smaller kids.
“You have to rent shoes,” Micah told me, “unless you want to bowl in your socks. You don’t want to look like a doofus, so renting shoes is the way to go. You know what size you wear, don’t you?”
“Well, duh!”
He went with me and the girls to the main desk where you paid to bowl and got an alley assignment. That was also where you rented shoes. I told the guy what I needed and he passed me a pair of gaudy red and white shoes. We all got a pair except Micah. He was carrying a bowling bag. He had his own ball and shoes.
Lina found our league group and was told which pair of lanes we were on and whom we’d be bowling against. We still had twenty minutes till when we’d start. We sat down and all put on our special shoes, then the girls said they were going to find balls.
“You have your own ball,” I said to him as we were tying our shoes. “You must bowl a lot.”
“I did where we lived before. This is my first time in a while, first time since we moved. I’ll enjoy this. Come on, we need to find you a ball.”
The first thing I noticed was they had balls of all colors, some completely black, some in other solid colors, and a lot that were multi-colored. I picked up one of the black ones and almost dropped it. It was heavy!
Micah grinned. “The black ones will mostly be sixteen-pound balls. That’s what the professionals and most adult men use. There are other weight balls, too, all the way down to 12 pounds. What do you think, maybe a fourteen-pound one? You want it light enough that you’re comfortable swinging and releasing it.”
I had no idea what weight I wanted, so he showed me balls of all weights, explaining that the heavier the ball, the more pins it was likely to mow down. I decide he was right; a fourteen-pound ball felt fine to me.
Then he showed me how to get the right fit for my fingers. “The holes have to be the right size for your fingers and thumb. They should be just slightly bigger than snug—but only slightly— so your fingers won’t stick in the ball when you release it but be snug enough so the ball doesn’t drop when you’re swinging it.”
The alley had racks and racks of balls, several racks behind each of the forty-eight alleys. It didn’t take long to find a ball that felt good on my fingers and thumb.
But that wasn’t enough. “The span between the fingers and thumb holes has to fit your hand. The way to tell is to insert your thumb all the way into its hole and lay your palm on the ball.” He stood behind me, helping me do as he’d said.
“Now straighten out your fingers and lay them across the ball so your middle and ring fingers are lying over the finger holes.” He took my hand and moved it to where my fingers were placed just so.
“The span is correct if the middle- and ring-finger knuckles are centered over the finger holes in the ball. You can see on this ball that the span is too short. Put your fingers in and pick it up.”
I did and almost dropped it. I had to pinch my thumb and fingers hard toward each other to hold the ball.
“See? With a larger span you’ll find holding the ball will be much easier. Let’s keep looking.”
I hadn’t known that bowling was going to be quite as intimate as it was turning out to be. He’d been standing behind me for the ball selection process, and then his body was up against mine as he placed my fingers on the ball. Damn, that felt good—but too good. The effect he had on me was outrageous. It didn’t take much of anything for him to arouse me; just a grin could still to it. Holding my hand? Rubbing against my backside with his front? Pretty much full-body contact?
Sure, he was just helping me select a ball, but me, I was a goner. No question. I did have one thing on my side, however. I’d known I’d be spending the afternoon with him. I’d assumed we’d be active, and even visualized him showing me how to bowl by sometimes being up close and personal with me, touching me, maybe even putting an arm around me. Who knew? I sure didn’t; I’d never bowled so had no idea. I certainly hadn’t considered ball selection. Didn’t know about that at all. But I had thought that sometime during the afternoon, maybe more than once, something might, well, cause boner time. If he rolled a strike and smiled and pumped his arm, maybe high-fived me—yeah, I’d definitely be visiting boner village.
I’d dressed accordingly. With foresight, I’d put on a jockstrap, one that very snugly held me in place. Holding me in check was vital. I was getting my money’s worth from it right then; it was struggling and barely doing its job. Because, while we were finding a ball that was the right fit, he was so close that his breath was tickling my ear and he was rubbing against me, and he arousal process had begun. And been complete moments later. The jockstrap was the only thing keeping me from death by embarrassment. I was thinking I should have gotten one that was wire-reinforced.
We found a ball eventually with the correct hole sizes and span, and I found he was right. Just the hole span being right made the ball much easier to manage.
This was a teenager league, and was for teens who were couples. There was a lot more going on than just bowling, and it was easy to see that how many pins were being knocked down wasn’t the main concern of a lot of the kids. Also, I saw many styles of delivering the ball down the alley. Some of the kids were in their socks, and Micah was right again: they did look nerdy.
Some kids walked up to the line where the alley began, stopped, and threw the ball down the alley using two hands. Some ran from the back of the apron, slid toward the line and rolled the ball forward. There were many variations on those two techniques.
What I marveled at was watching Micah. He looked amazing. He started from a position standing about two-thirds of the way back from the alley starting line in the middle of the approach apron, holding the ball up to his chest. He stepped forward with a small step with his right foot, bringing the ball down to stomach height as he did.
His steps forward were smooth, not too fast, not too slow, sort of a slow, very rhythmic trot. In all, he took four steps, in the process bringing the ball from his chest into a full backswing with the ball behind him and his arm holding it straight. On his fourth step, a small slide forward, he brought the ball from behind him and rolled it out onto the alley, kicking his right foot up and behind him for balance. There was hardly any thump as his ball hit the alley. He seemed to lay it onto the alley as gently as a mother laying her newborn in its crib.
He also brought his right hand up out of the ball as he released it, raising it high in the air with its back toward the ceiling. Somehow, he’d twisted it while releasing he ball. As a result, as the ball traveled down the alley, it began to curve, and just before hitting the pins, the curve became sharper.
I asked him how he did that.
“For you, that’ll come later. The pros all throw hooks—balls that curve into the pins—because you get more pin action that way; the spin gets transferred to the pins themselves. But it takes a lot of practice to control the spin. Today, concentrate on learning your approach and release and throwing the ball with accuracy. Just doing that is enough. More than enough.”
I loved his commanding presence. He knew what he was doing, he seemed in his element, and, well, wow!
I tried a few practice balls before we were ready to begin. We also met our opponents. They were two boy-girl couples from another middle school in town. They were four eighth-graders like us. They were much more interested in what they were able to do while sitting and waiting their turn to bowl than the actual bowling itself. I thought it was hilarious because it was so obvious that the boys both were sporting boners quite often when getting up to bowl. They didn’t try to hide the tents in their trousers. Maybe they were proud of them.
We were two gay couples. Well, I wished that were true. In fact, we were a gay couple and two friends. The girls were both athletic and didn’t show any signs of wanting to make out at the alleys. They both wanted to bowl well, and I knew Lina well enough to realize her main goal was to score higher than Linda did. Linda seemed to realize that as well, and was up for the challenge. Competitive, that was what they were. Maybe that would make them a good couple. Or not. Time would tell.
There was no way I could match Micah, and I didn’t try. I did try to have fun, not embarrass myself, listen to and follow the advice Micah was giving me—and admire him. The last was easy to do. Even if he hadn’t rolled anything but gutter balls, I’d still have admired his form and grace. But he didn’t bowl gutter balls, not even one.
I did. At first, I rolled several of those. But with his simple advice and encouragement, I got better. By the time we were done, I’d even rolled two strikes and made a few spares. We played three games, and my scores averaged out a hundred and one, with a high score of one-seventeen. I felt good that I’d broken a hundred twice.
We slaughtered the other team. Micah beat half of their team all by himself, averaging one-sixty for the three games. Both girls beat me, but I didn’t mind that at all. They were both trying hard to beat each other, and I was mostly trying not to look silly. I wanted to make Micah proud that I was listening to him and trying.
Really trying hard at something that didn’t matter all that much to me wasn’t how I was built, generally. I always wanted to do well, but if I didn’t, it wasn’t all that bothersome. Now, with Micah, I wanted to do better than just okay. He was a great singer, and now I saw he was a great bowler, too. Both activities took effort, and he expended the effort needed to be good.
I couldn’t tell how competitive Micah was. He had no competition with the other seven of us. I could tell he was trying to do well, but he never got angry when he missed. I certainly wasn’t very competitive. Lina considered that a weakness of mine. I wished I could get a better feel for that quality in him. There was still so much I didn’t know about him.
When we were through, Lina said we were all going to the snack bar. I saw Micah grin. He somehow got a kick out of her take-no-prisoners attitude toward life.
We put in our orders and found a table. We chatted about the bowling and quite a bit about the making-out the other team was doing. Lina, being Lina, mentioned the boys’ boners.
“You’d think they’d be embarrassed, but no. I’d swear one of them was looking at me when he was picking up his ball. He rubbed his crotch, actually pushing his boner up a little. I wasn’t impressed, if that’s what his intention was. But come on! I guess that’s what he wanted: me to faint or something or maybe ask for a phone number.”
“He didn’t realize you were mine,” Linda said, sounding a bit overly possessive to me.
“At least you two weren’t making out like they were,” I said.
“Neither were you two,” Linda said, “and I must say, you make a very cute couple.”
I gulped. I had no idea what to say. Micah did. “I know. Scottie just doesn’t go in for public displays of affection. Saves it for the bedroom. But there? Wow!” Then he broke out in laughter. And while laughing, he looked at me and winked.
What was that all about?
≈≈ ≈≈
When I got home, my mom was there waiting for me. “Where have you been? I didn’t give you permission to be gone all afternoon. You should have been back an hour ago.” Her voice was sharp, her anger ever-present.
“I told you I was going bowling. I went with three other kids from school. We bowled, then stopped for a snack after we were done. It’s only five-thirty. What’s the problem?”
Okay, I might have been affected by her anger. She had no reason to be angry with me, and I was getting more and more bothered by her attitude towards me. Sure, she could rightfully say she owned me and controlled me when I was eight. But not at thirteen.
“Do not take that tone of voice with me, young man. Not now, not ever. You’re not going out any more tonight or tomorrow. You’re grounded. You can spend time in your room doing homework. You will obey me.”
“I have plans tomorrow. Micah—he’s a new friend and was one of the kids I bowled with—invited me to his house. He has a new video game, and I told him I’d come.”
“You’ll just have to tell him you can’t. Who do you think you are, making plans without clearing them with me? You’re very close to losing next weekend as well. Now get to your room.”
I felt like screaming back at her. I was furious, something that was so strange for me that I had to take a moment to realize what I was feeling. I knew yelling at her would just make things worse. I knew I should go upstairs, cool off, and later, if necessary, speak to my dad.
But it was getting harder and harder to do the right thing with my mother. I’m sure my face was bright red. I wanted so much to scream at her. Defy her. Say all the mean, vicious, hurtful things that were in my head. But I didn’t. I went upstairs instead.