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When you were real little, nobody ever thought too much about how you followed your mother like a duckling — at church, around the house, in the kitchen. And when you were real little, nobody ever said much about you being her little helper — chatting with the ladies as readily as her, trailing after her with your own miniature sweeper, watching her bake with your eyes big as dinner plates. But then you started getting older, and you didn’t start taking after your daddy, and then—
The year you turned seven, America was hosting the Winter Olympics, so, like the patriots they were, your parents had the TV going every night, even for the weird stuff like curling. (Coach acquired a sort of fascination with it; he doesn’t get it, still doesn’t even really think of it as a real goddamn sport, but Lord, if he won’t talk about it any chance he gets.)
None of it really caught your attention (including the hockey, not that you’ll ever tell the boys this), until mens’ singles figure skating came on and a man dressed in the funniest black suit you’d ever seen was on the ice. Some Russian (“some goddamn Russian”), all by himself. No team behind him. No friends.
(Last part wasn’t true. You rewatched it a couple years later and damn near everyone was cheering. What you remember, though, is him looking awful lonesome and awful strange.)
The music started playing and he waved his arms about a bit, skating backwards, which, sorta cool. He kept on like that, and only that, Coach would’ve changed the channel, but then he jumped up, did a spin, then another, and then another, all one fluid, continuous motion.
Then, you were hooked.
Then, you wanted be just like that guy, that goddamn Russian.
Coach wasn’t particularly pleased with the idea; Mother was, however, so they rummaged up some skates for you (a size too big which meant a couple of extra socks) and found some ice rink about a half hour away from any damn thing and that was the beginning of “prancing around like some European”, as it was put.
Then, people stopped thinking you were cute, and set themselves to Worrying about you.
No, not actual concern about your actual well-being; just the sort of small town nosiness meant to shame you and snap up every nasty thing they could find, to crow over with other similarly-minded assholes. Always asking why they let you get up to what you did (e.g. cooking, figure skating, dancing), never talking about what they let their own shithead kids get up to (e.g. setting fires, throwing firecrackers at each other, beating you up).
Mother didn’t mind it none, but Coach? It ate at him, a bit. And by a bit, you mean he stuck you in junior pee-wee football when you hadn’t even done mitey-mite or tiny mite, when the closest you had come to a pigskin was plain ol’ catch in the yard. When you couldn’t handle that, he started Worrying, too. Didn’t matter you were the tiniest kid there, didn’t matter you’d never been tackled before, the fact that you cried when it happened meant something had gone terribly, horribly wrong. Maybe he should’ve started you younger or maybe he shouldn’t have kept the channel on those goddamn Russians.
Whatever had happened was as permanent as it was terrifying, but you know what? It was fine. It was all fine, because he didn’t stop you. Complained about all the time Mother spent driving you to practice, but he never out-and-out said, “No.” When Katya came along, his only bone to pick was money. So, it was fine. It was all fine.
He left you to the rink — specifically, to figure skating, so it was more than fine. It was great.
That Russian was like nothing you had ever seen; he was somebody out of a storybook, with a witch and a fairy godmother and a dashing, mysterious prince. Probably some shape shifting, too, the way he just twisted and turned in the air, as if he were part swan. It was nothing like you had ever seen, because you had never seen something as beautiful as that man and the way he moved.
You wanted that for yourself. You wanted to be beautiful like he was. Nobody was ever gonna cry at the way you threw a pigskin and nobody was ever gonna gasp at you gracefully dancing your way around linemen; that just wasn’t a part of your makeup. And you again, it was fine, it was all fine, because what you didn’t have on the field, you had on the ice.
From the moment you stepped on, it felt right in a way football never had.
Of course, you were as weak as a newborn doe at first — all skinny limbs and weak ankles, barely able to skate forward. But you got better. You got good, even. Not great, but good enough that Katya noticed you and decided you had potential to be — not Johnny Wier. Maybe somebody Figure Skating USA picks as their second backup for the Olympics which is fine. Second backup to greatness was more than what most people get and second backup to greatness was still a shot at greatness, still a way to launch yourself into the air and, for a moment, be nothing more than a figure on the ice.
‘Cause, that’s what you found out about skating. Yes, it’s beautiful, you knew that. What you didn’t know was how, when you stepped on the ice and when you got into your routine, you couldn’t think about anything else but how you were gonna hit that next spin or how you needed to tighten up your landings. There wasn’t space to think about how Tyler called you a faggot and the teacher didn’t say nothin’ or the way Coach’s mouth tightened when you brought home a blue ribbon from the tri-county bake-off. Little things like that were just distractions, meaningless in the face of the perfect quad followed by the perfect triple followed by the perfect double with a clean, clean landing.
Out there, there was nobody else or, really, there was a separation between you and everyone else. It wasn’t a lonely sort of separation, like it was off the ice and in the muggy, Georgian heat, it was—
It was chosen. You chose this solitude and that was the difference.
And, really, maybe that loneliness out of the skates was chosen, too. You could’ve lowered your voice to a growl and chained yourself to some barbells; you could’ve slunk after girls like a hungry dog and you could’ve done track or something, if you couldn’t have done football, like your daddy would’ve wanted.
You could’ve laughed right in Mother’s face when she asked you if you wanted to help her in the kitchen or you could’ve acted the bad sort of embarrassed (as opposed to the humble sort) when she talked about how well your mini-pies turned out.
You didn’t, though. You were true to yourself, whatever that means. And so, you got shit on all throughout middle school — most memorably, getting locked in the utility closet by a bunch of fuckin’ seniors, a bunch of grown fuckin’ men when you were in seventh grade, but also, just the little things like getting called a fag/homo/whatever else they’d picked up from God knows where and getting shoved into lockers and getting your street clothes stolen during gym class and so on.
(Shitty will call it “fucking heteronormative bullshit”. You will call it “business as usual”.)
It was fine. It was okay. What time you didn’t spend on schoolwork you spent on training and what time you didn’t spend on that, you spent on baking, so it’s not like—
No. It wasn’t. Would’ve been tolerable if you had someone there. Katya didn’t count (nothing beyond skating mattered) and neither did Mother; you probably would’ve died without her (figuratively speaking, but, what the hell, probably spiritually speaking, too, and maybe even literally), but—
She was your mom. Mother couldn’t back you up in the hallway or save you a seat at lunch; she could only ask where’d that black eye had come from or what had happened, Dicky, why are you crying? And, she could only purse her lips when you said you had no idea or that it had been nothing, when the both of you knew better than that, knew that for whatever reason, the good people of Stone Mountain had decided not to let you exist in peace, had decided, for whatever reason, you deserved a sort of living hell.
‘Course, maybe they would’ve let it lie if the football team won more games, but that wasn’t on Coach. It was on their lazy-ass, good-for-nothing sons or the fact that every other team in the surrounding area was just better or, maybe, just maybe, bad luck they brought upon themselves by being complete shit weasels to a goddamn little boy.
(God, you hope it was the last one. Spiteful as it may be, you still checked up on them and, surprise, surprise, the team still ain’t shit and, God willing, it never will be.)
But, it doesn’t matter now; Coach sent in his resignation (maybe they asked him to, or maybe he got sick of them, or maybe she said something to him), Mother packed the bags, and you were all off to Madison. Slightly bigger than Stone Mountain, two rinks (instead of just the one), and closer to Katya — those were Madison’s good points. Coach was the head coach there, just as close-knit as Stone Mountain, and a distinct lack of tolerance — that was everything else.
You still skated after you moved to Madison, but—
You weren’t getting better, anymore. You weren’t as crisp as you needed to be, as smooth, as good. Didn’t matter how many rounds of calisthenics Katya put you through, it wasn’t gonna change what you were; you were never gonna be the best or even one of the great ones. You were just good, for some hick from some little town in Georgia.
Nobody ever said so; didn’t need them to. If you had been great, you would’ve made it past regionals.
So, you told Katya you were quitting. She just nodded which, yeah, it hurt, but it makes sense. Even if she thought there was something left, something that only needed a little kick and you’d make it, you had already lost the spirit and nobody could do anything about that. At the time, though, all you could think about was the part that hurt.
You still had baking, but skating had been half of your heart.
Spent two weeks crying over it; not where anyone could see; you had that much grace, at least. You went through a whole routine, too: wiped your nose, splashed water on your face, tried to look as composed as you possibly could. Didn’t fool anybody and after the two weeks, Coach got mighty sick of it.
Your father was and is a gentleman, however, so he showed it by asking: “You ever think about ice hockey, son?”
Of course, you said, “Coach, I don’t—”
“There’s a co-ed league at the rink. No checking but a helluva lot of skating.”
"I don’t know.”
“ Dicky, even if you’re no good at it, can’t hurt to try.”
“...Is there a sign-up sheet? Somebody I can call? Or do I just go down to the rink and slug somebody in the face?”
And he smiled, because hockey wasn’t football, but it sure as hell wasn’t figure skating.
There was a sign-up sheet and there was somebody to call — a nice Swedish lady who used to goaltend for a national team that won gold a couple of times. (Not at the Olympics, but gold was gold, as far as you were concerned.) After that, she got a degree in agriculture and moved on over to the States, somehow ending up in Madison.
(You asked once her why she didn’t still play — she wasn’t too old and she didn’t have any kids or any apparent injuries.
“Oh, I couldn’t make a living off it.”
“Really?”
“Mm-hm. It’s not like anyone pays to see women play and...well, you have to be practical.” And she sighed and you felt terribly guilty. For what, you weren’t sure.)
But, she missed hockey and couldn’t give a damn about football — thus, the Madison Tigers. Thus, making you promise to at least show up to a practice, because you’d probably outskate nearly everybody else and no, it didn’t matter you were only 5’4”, and yes, she’d definitely loan you some equipment, no problem.
And you did outskate everyone else, and it didn’t matter that Mother had given you the worst genes, and the equipment fit you perfectly, so, you had no excuse. You stayed on and you didn’t think about how cluttered the ice felt now that there were so many bodies on it or how you couldn’t see a damn thing with the helmet on or how heavy it all felt because Mother was happy and Coach seemed relieved.
You didn’t love hockey, at first. It was fun and you liked your teammates (they weren’t the boys, not yet) well enough, but it wasn’t quads and triple loops’ it didn’t take your breath away like figure skating did. Then —
Then, like before, the Olympics happened, halfway through your first season. Johnny Miller (1B goalie, cute as a button, kissed you once on New Year’s senior year but nothing further) had everyone at his house for the men’s games and Ashley Robinson (first line d-man, almost too beautiful, team captain until she graduated your junior year) had everyone at hers for the women’s; between the two, the game became as beautiful and as graceful as any skater you’d ever seen. The deke was as sweet as a Lutz, a well-executed breakaway as exciting as a triple Axel.
The team became the boys (girls included); you became—
Well. You were still you (baker, best friends with his momma, voice like a Southern belle, sweet as could be, almost completely divorced from aggro masculinity, gay as the day is long), but with the edges sanded down (bakes sometimes, kinda close to his momma, high voice, real nice, just a real nice, real sweet kid, don’t fuckin’ talk shit, man, we’ll fuck you up). Maybe they suspected (God, like it’s a crime), but they liked you too much to say it or think real hard about it.
‘It’ being inclined towards men. Didn’t make the locker room difficult (not that it would’ve in the first place) except for the fact that not a single boy on that team thought twice about throwing around “faggot”, barring you and Johnny Miller. You never had the guts to call them on it (what if they knew? what if that’s how you were found out?) but Johnny—
Johnny didn’t give a shit. At the end of the freshman year, Johnny chewed them all out and some of them actually looked a little ashamed. Johnny was also 6’0” and 180 pounds by sophomore year, so, it wasn’t like anyone was too eager to fight him over it and nobody wanted to start something by asking him why, so.
You don’t know if he’s gay or bi or whatever; just that one time, as the clock struck midnight, you looked at each other and leaned in and, well, you’re not one to kiss and tell, but it was nice.
Never talked about it again, but it was nice. He was nice.
Nice graduated sophomore year and with him went an oasis. A really vague, kinda ambiguous oasis, but an oasis nonetheless. And your edges stayed sanded down and you panicked, sometimes, that the boys would catch on, so you never talked about boys beyond “he’s a jerk”” or “seems alright” and you tried to give the impression that you were too focused on school and hockey to think about girls beyond recruiting them for the team or studying with them.
Because, here’s the thing: you loved your team. They weren’t the most enlightened bunch and you couldn’t trust them with yourself, but they were there. On the ice, they had your back like nobody else; off the ice, they—
Sometimes, there’d be a long stretch where you could almost pretend that they knew what you couldn’t even say to yourself, that they were fine with it, that they were more than fine with it, they loved it and accepted it and thought it was goddamn marvelous. Then, somebody would say something and you’d have to put on your captain face and the illusion would be broken.
Even then, that half-friendship was better than what you had before; before, nobody was gonna stick out their neck for you. Hell, before, nobody spoke to you if it wasn’t to strike someplace sticks and stones could never reach. The boys, flawed as they were, were better than nothing, because, for the first time, you had backup: twenty-two teenagers of varying size, color, gender, and disposition who had, for some reason, decided they wanted to follow you.
Which was the other thing: nobody had ever respected you like that, before. Nobody had ever seen any reason to, before, but, suddenly, you were one of the best skaters on the ice, if not the best. Your skating, your “prancing”, your lightness — all of it suddenly became respectable. You became respectable; you weren’t a punchline.
(Here’s how it happens, you think: again, you’re the best skater by far, but everything else is new to you. You keep up with it, though. You don’t give up. You’re at every optional skate and you never hesitate to help somebody with their form. You bring in “healthy” snacks you made yourself. Eventually, you actually start scoring and when that happens—
You’re the Georgian Ovechkin. Shitty could probably make some geopolitical joke out of that but as far as you’re concerned it’s just what Kimmi Brown called you and when you looked up Ovechkin, you made her some of that rhubarb pie she liked so much and pretended, of course, that your mother had made too many for the church sale and she had given you extras.
Coincidentally, that was how you knew she didn’t go to church. There has never been such a thing as extras at a church sale when a Bittle’s involved; it just isn’t done.)
It was almost enough.
Almost.
Vlogging (you and Mother both agree it’s clunky and disagree on whether it’s in a cute way or not) helped with the gap. Didn’t bridge it totally (made half a bridge at most), but it was the place you let go. No deepening of your voice, no reining it in, just you venting or talking or, hell, actually showing off some recipe you’d come up with or perfected. You edited, of course; you hadn’t skated all those years to throw away any sense of decency or aesthetic. What mattered is that the editing came after and usually the editing just threw some fitting graphic on top of what you were saying.
You never re-watched any of the videos. Oh, you could, if you wanted to; you didn’t delete a single one. It’s just that, you don’t need to. (The first ones you did back in junior year, though? Lord, what travesties.) It was the expression that mattered and the expression was what got you through another long silence at the dinner table because you couldn’t talk to Mother about some new pie you’d found, because you couldn’t manage football talk with Coach and you didn’t feel like seeing him frown about it or yet another round of speculation regarding the sexuality of some opposing player you all hated for one reason or another.
(“Christ, he went down like I meant to hit him.”
“What a fuckin’—” You know what he’s gonna say and it’s been a long day and you lost—
“Bobby, shut the hell up. And, Colby, if you wanna fuckin’ run people down, better pack your bags for some godforsaken Midwestern pisshole, ‘cause that’s about the only place they’ll let you check in these United States. If you don’t wanna run people down, though, better learn how to actually fuckin’ stop, like I keep tellin’ ya to do. Jesus Christ Almighty, I am just about done with you and your nonsense.”
An embarrassed silence. You feel terrible. But you’re the Captain, right now, so you don’t apologize. You have to mean it.)
So, all in all, you survived high school. Made a team’s worth of friends, got good grades, won plenty of games, won plenty of ribbons for your baking. (You’re still not sure what you’re more proud of.) Did all the things you had to do to make your application look appetizing enough for colleges to bite and planned your escape in the meantime. Coach told you to look for hockey scholarships, giving you an out of in-state schools or, Hell, the entire South, really. And you narrowed it down by looking for liberal schools, specifically schools with a good LGBT presence, specifically schools that made a point to have more than two options for gender. (Not that you needed them, it’s just you figured that’s how you’d find the ones that weren’t bullshitting.) Narrowed it down to four or five and of the bunch, Samwell was your favorite. Wasn’t really anything special about it; just as pretty and redbrick as the other ones. No, it was the name that made it the frontrunner.
Samwell. Bland as oatmeal but hopefully just as nourishing.
(“For fuck’s sake, did you think we were gonna beat you up or something?”
“Well.” A sheepish grin and you relax, for the first time in forever.)