“And flushing your ten thousand gallons of vomit.”
“Sure, also that.” He takes a big breath and puffs out his cheeks, rendering his face almost perfectly circular. “I guess it’s time.”
Tiny gathers the cast and crew around him. He kneels in the center of a thick mass of people, everyone touching everyone because one of the laws of nature is that theater people love to be touchy. The cast is in the first circle around Tiny, everyone—guy and girl—dressed like White Sox. Then the chorus, dressed all in black for the moment. Jane and I lean in, too. Tiny says, “I just want to say thank you and you’re all amazing and it’s all about falling. Also I’m sorry I hurled earlier. I was hurling because I actually got awesome-poisoning from being around so many awesome people.” That gets a bit of nervous laughter. “I know you’re freaked out but just trust me: you’re fabulous. And anyway, it’s not about you. Let’s go make some dreams come true.”
Everyone kind of shouts and does this thing where we raise up one hand to the ceiling, and then there are a lot of jazz fingers. The light beneath the curtain is extinguished. Three football players push the set forward into its place. I step off to the side, standing in cave-darkness next to Jane, whose fingers interlace with mine. My heart pounds, and I can only imagine what it’s like to be Tiny now, praying that a quart of Pepto-Bismol will coat his vocal cords, that he won’t forget a line or fall or pass out or hurl. It’s bad enough in the wings, and I realize the courage it actually takes to get onstage and tell the truth. Worse, to sing the truth.
A disembodied voice says, “To prevent interruptions of the fabulousness, please turn off your cell phones.” I reach into a pocket with my free hand and click mine over to vibrate. I whisper to Jane, “I might puke,” and she says, “Shh,” and I whisper, “Hey, are my clothes always superwrinkly?” and she whispers, “Yes. Shh,” and squeezes my hand. The curtain parts. The applause is polite.
Everyone in the cast sits on the dugout bench except for Tiny, who walks nervously back and forth in front of the players. “Come on, Billy. Be patient, Billy. Wait for your pitch.” I realize that Tiny isn’t playing Tiny; he’s playing the coach.
Some pudgy freshman plays Tiny instead. He can’t stop moving his legs around; I can’t tell if he’s acting or nervous. He says, all exaggeratedly effeminate, “Hey, Batta Batta THWING batta.” It sounds like he’s flirting with the batter.
“Idiot,” someone on the bench says. “Our guy is batting.”
Gary says, “Tiny’s rubber. You’re glue. Whatever you say bounces off him and sticks to you.” I can tell from his sloping shoulders and meek look that Gary’s me.
“Tiny’s g*y,” adds someone else.
The coach wheels around to the bench and shouts. “Hey! HEY! No insulting teammates.”
“It’s not an insult,” Gary says. But he isn’t Gary anymore. It isn’t Gary talking. It’s me. “It’s just a thing. Like, some people are g*y. Some people have blue eyes.”
“Shut up, Wrayson,” the coach says.
The kid playing Tiny glances gratefully at the kid playing me, and then one of the bullies stage-whispers, “You’re so g*y for each other.”
And I say, “We’re not g*y. We’re eight.” This happened. I’d forgotten it, but seeing the moment resurrected, I remember.
And the kid says, “You want to go to second base . . . WITH TINY.”
The me onstage just rolls his eyes. And then the pudgy kid playing Tiny stands up and takes a step forward, in front of the coach and sings, “What’s second base for a g*y man?” And then Tiny takes a step forward and joins him, harmonizing, and they launch into the greatest musical song I’ve ever heard. The chorus goes:
What’s second base for a g*y man?
Is it tuning in Tokyo?
I can’t see how that would feel good
But maybe that’s how it should go?
Behind the two Tinys singing arm in arm, the guys in the chorus—including Ethan—pull off a hilariously elaborate old-fashioned, high-stepping, highly choreographed dance, their bats used as canes and their ball caps as top hats. Midway through, half the guys swing their bats toward the heads of half the others, and even though from my side view I can see it’s totally faked, when the other boys fall backward dramatically and the music cuts out, I gasp with the audience. Moments later, they all jump up in a single motion and the song starts up again. When it’s done, Tiny and the kid dance offstage to thunderous shouts from the crowd, and as the lights cut, Tiny damn near lands in my arms, bathed in sweat.
“Not bad,” he says.
I just shake my head, amazed. Jane helps him out of his shoes and says, “Tiny, you’re kind of a genius.” He rips off his baseball uniform to reveal a very Tiny purple polo shirt and chino shorts.
“I know, right?” he says. “Okay, time to come out to the folks,” he says, and hustles out onto the stage. Jane grabs my hand and kisses me on the neck.
It’s a quiet scene, as Tiny tells his parents he’s “probably kinda g*y.” His dad is sitting silent while his mom sings about unconditional love. The song is only funny because Tiny keeps cutting in with other comings-out each time his mom sings, “We’ll always love our Tiny,” like, “Also, I cheated in algebra,” and, “There’s a reason your vodka tastes watered down,” and “I feed my peas to the dog.”
When the song ends, the lights go down again, but Tiny doesn’t leave the stage. When the lights go back up, there’s no set, but judging from the elaborately costumed cast, I gather we’re at a Gay Pride Parade. Tiny and Phil Wrayson stand center stage as people march past, chanting their chants, waving dramatically. Gary looks so much like me it’s weird. He looks more like freshman-year me than Tiny looks like freshman-year Tiny.
They talk for a minute and then Tiny says, “Phil, I’m g*y.”
Stunned, I say, “No.”
And he says, “It’s true.”
I shake my head. “You mean, like, you’re happy?”
“No, I mean, like, that guy,” he points at Ethan, who’s wearing a skintight yellow wifebeater, “is hot and if I talked to him for a while and he had a good personality and respected me as a person I would let him kiss me on the mouth.”