Fourth and Long Scully, New folder 1
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Fourth and Long * Chris Scully
2
Fourth and Long
T
ICK
, tick, tick
. The antique clock on the credenza counted
out the seconds with perfect rhythm. Usually I found the
steady march calming, but not today. Today I could not stop
fidgeting; each precise beat seemed like a countdown, but to
what, I didn’t know. It hit me suddenly that time, which can
be measured down to the smallest standard unithours,
minutes, secondsis anything but standard and exact. In
reality it’s fluid; years are gone in a flash, a few minutes can
seem like a lifetime. I gave myself a mental shake. My
thoughts weren’t usually so deep.
Recrossing my legs for the umpteenth time, I turned my
attention to something simpler, like the leafy maple tree
outside the window, its limbs heavy with bundles of seeds
about to drop and spin to the ground. A fluffy gray squirrel
ran along the closest branch and came to perch on the ledge.
He peered in at me with his beady little eyes as if I were
some curious oddity behind glass.
“So, how are you, Eric?”
“Fine,” I replied automatically, then I caught the lie.
“Well, obviously I’m not fine or I wouldn’t be here.”
Dr. Evelyn Kessler regarded me stone-faced over the
tops of her expensive Gucci glasses. I’d quickly learned she
had no sense of humor. I also knew she’d beat me hands
down in any staring contest so I looked away, back out the
window at my new friend the squirrel.
It was my mom who first suggested that I try therapy.
We’d grown closer in the years since my dad died, although
the relationship was still strained at times. At first I
resistedno way was I going to pay someone to listen to me
talk for an hourbut after another miserable year, I figured
if she could get her life back on track after the hell my dad
put her through then I could at least give it a shot.
Fourth and Long * Chris Scully
3
“The last time we spoke you had just started seeing
someone new. How is that going?”
She knew perfectly well how it was going. “It didn’t work
out.”
“I see.” Dr. Kessler jotted down something in her
notebook. I wondered how many identical entries detailing
my love life she had made over the past six months.
“And yes, I do know that it’s all part of a pattern,” I
sighed. “I fall for beautiful young men who never stick
around precisely because I’m neither beautiful nor young.”
“I doubt that’s why your relationships fail.”
She was probably right on that score but wouldn’t hear
it from me. Since finally coming to terms with being gay
more than a decade ago, I’d certainly had my share of lovers,
but I’d never had a relationship that lasted more than two
weeks. Usually they left long before that. I could never quite
escape the feeling that I didn’t deserve to be happy.
Dr. Kessler crossed her legs and rested her leather-
bound notebook in her lap. “You seem even more hostile
than usual, Eric. Is there something particular that has
happened?”
Reluctantly I pulled out the invitation that had arrived
in the mail yesterday from my bag and handed it to her. She
turned the old-fashioned, crisp cream paper over in her
fingers and read. “Hmm, your high school reunion. Are you
going?” she asked.
“Of course not.”
“Why not? I thought you told me high school was the
best time of your life.”
“It was,” I said, although privately I admitted I might be
lying a bit. “It’s been downhill ever since.” That part was
entirely true.
“I imagine your friends would like to see you. Do you
keep in touch with any of them?”
Fourth and Long * Chris Scully
4
I hesitated and looked down at my hands. “No.”
Dr. Kessler raised a perfectly arched eyebrow and jotted
something in her book. “Why the aversion to going?”
I gripped the arms of my chair until my knuckles turned
white. “Because I’m a fucking cliché, that’s why.”
“How so?”
“Well, I’m him, aren’t I? The washed-up prom king. The
high school football star who bottoms out and winds up a
miserable bastard. Jesus, I may as well be a used car
salesman.”
“I don’t think you’re washed up at all, Eric.”
I disagreed with her on that point. I was nearly forty,
painfully single with a dead-end job as manager of a local
grocery store. That didn’t sound too upbeat to me. Then
again, what did I knowI didn’t have a fancy college
diploma, either.
“Eric.” Dr. Kessler put aside her notebook and leaned
forward in her leather chair. “It seems to me that everything
leads back to your last year in high school. This is a pivotal
period in your developmentyour sexual confusion, your
father kicking you out of the house, the end of your football
career….”
I looked up, shocked. Was all that in her notebook? Had
I really revealed so much? When I first decided to enter
therapy, I was sure I wouldn’t give up my secrets, but
without even realizing it, over the past six months I’d
blabbed more than I thought. Apparently, we had covered a
lot of ground.
I supposed I had confessed how I left home the week
after high school graduation, only to return a few months
later with my tail between my legs when an injury in the
third quarter of the season opener ended my football career.
Without my football scholarship, college had been
impossible. But I hadn’t told her everything about that time.
Fourth and Long * Chris Scully
5
I hadn’t told her about Jake. To my astonishment, I felt the
unfamiliar sting of tears in my eyes. I hadn’t cried in ages.
“Eric, what really happened your senior year?”
There was a boy….
The alarm on her watch chimed discreetly. She actually
seemed disappointed. “I’m afraid our time is up for today,
but I would really like to resume this discussion next time.”
I grunted noncommittally as I gathered up my jacket
and bag. She handed the invitation back. “You should go to
the reunion,” she said simply. “It might be just what you
need.”
After our session ended, I sat in the car in the parking
lot with the engine running for a long time. I withdrew the
invitation from my jacket pocket and ran it through my
fingers.
Parkside High School
Class of ’91
Come have fun with us as we
get caught up on the past 20 years
It conjured up memories I’d spent half my life trying to
forget. I couldn’t think about high school without thinking
about Jake. I leaned back against the headrest.
Jake
.
Heart’s “What About Love?” came on the radio, and my
hand shot out to turn it offthat was definitely a reminder I
didn’t need right nowbut something made my finger
hesitate on the button. “Something’s missing and you got to
look back on your life. You know something here just ain’t
right,” Ann Wilson sang. I couldn’t shake the feeling there
was a message there somewhere. The thought made me
laugh out loud as I punched in another station and pulled
out of the lot. I really had to be messed up to look for
meaning in eighties rock.
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