Sprout

leaves shook as he scratched the first red speck of an itch-ivy rash. “That was mean. You’re gay. I’m an alcoholic. Now toss me a beer so I can go get these in the ground.”
    I aimed for my dad’s head, but you know drunks: they can’t jerk the wheel of their car to avoid hitting a four-year-old running into the street, but they never drop a cold one.
    Just before he went outside, my dad said, “Just promise me you won’t tell anyone. I don’t want to have to identify my son at the morgue.”
    “Does anyone else know … ?” Again Mrs. Miller’s voice trailed off.
    “That I’m gay?”
    “That you’re gay,” she repeated, or, I dunno, echoed, since she didn’t really repeat what I said. Paraphrased.
    I wasn’t forcing Mrs. Miller to say it just to be mean, by the way. The more you say something, the less strange it seems. The first time Mrs. Miller said the word “gay,” it sounded like she was describing, I dunno, a new species of elephant, with six legs and pink and green polka dots, which for some reason was window shopping on Main Street. By the second or third time she could’ve been describing something much less weird, a deer with only one antler growing out the side of its head, say, or a high school writing coach who likes to get a little toasted while conducting time trials with her best-and-brightest.
    “Sprout? You’re kind of drifting over the center line.”
    I nudged the wheel to the right.
    “Ruthie knows. And my dad.”
    “Ruthie.” Mrs. Miller nodded. “Your dad. Mr. Sprout.” She forced a laugh. “And, um … ?” There was that ellipsis again, the vague hand gesture.
    “Ye-es?”
    “Well, uh. I mean, have you, you know? Acted on your, um, feelings ?”
    Think about that for a minute. Do you honestly believe Mrs. M. would ever ask, oh, let’s say Ian Abernathy, if he was having sex? So, Ian, I hear you’ve joined the ranks of card-carrying heterosexuals. Gotten any action yet? Yeah, me neither. So, in keeping with my “Ask a stupid question” philosophy, all I did was look over and run a hand through my dark green hair.
    “Ruthie’s the actress, Mrs. M.”
    “Eyes front, Sprout.” Mrs. Miller summoned the kind of instant authority that only someone who’s been administering pop quizzes for the past fifteen years can muster. “Both hands on the wheel.” I turned back to the road and waited for her to say something else, but all she did was repeat my name. “Sprout,” she said. Only this time it came out the way she’d said gay . Like the word had lost all meaning. “Sprout Sprout Sprout .” She looked down at the pages in her hand, then pushed them away as if they, too, had lost meaning. Lost worth. After a moment, though, she took one of those deep calming breaths and twisted in her seat to face me.
    “Look, Sprout, I know where you’re coming from. You see your friends dating and engaging in extracurricular activities my colleagues and I pretend we don’t know about, and you want some of that for yourself.”
    My mind flashed on Stacy McTaverty and Troy Bellows. Troy’s locker was close to mine, so I was treated several times a day to the sight of his tongue probing Stacy’s mouth, apparently in search of a lost piece of gum or, I dunno, her tonsils, while his hands squeezed her breasts so tightly you’d’ve thought it was a football he was about to throw down a field. I didn’t want anything like that.
    “Love is a special experience,” Mrs. Miller continued, “and everyone deserves their shot at it.”
    I knew Mrs. Miller didn’t think that what was going on between Troy and Stacy had anything to do with love, but all I said was, “Are we talking about coming out at school, or writing about it?”
    Long, frustrated sigh; vague hand gesture. Then: “I just don’t want you to get sidetracked, Sprout. Kids who come out in school have a hard time. They get singled out. Their whole life becomes about being gay. By keeping your private life to yourself you can focus on your future. Your grades, getting into a good college, building a career. And this contest is part of that. I would hate to see you overlooked because some of the more conservative judges were incapable of seeing past your choice of subject matter to your talent.” And then, as if I’d protested, she threw in, “This is Kansas, Sprout. Kansas .”
    Well. Even I knew what she meant that time.
    Kansas: the first state to officially mandate the teaching of Intelligent