When You Need
Him Most, God is
Watching From
the Bleachers
—
Nova Grant
THE ORANGE LIGHT, NEXT TO the cherry slurpee, is blinking. The blue one is soft, stirring smoothly through the see-through slurpee window. Francine’s wool gloves connect onto the sticky side of the cup, fibers coming off when she shifts her cup from red to blue.
She laps around the feminine section of the leftmost aisle. Her head weaving around the four parallel aisles. In between aisles, she grabs a peppermint chapstick. And on her third lap she grabs the box.
The cashier is a bleach blonde forty-something. Francine likes that she’s got one of those beauty-mark style piercings. She sips her slurpee and puts the test on the counter. Per usual, the 7/11 Marilyn Monroe says good luck.
She’s got that thick, fake, southern, bubble-gum snapping drawl.
“good luck, sweetheart.”
Francine takes back her cash and shoves it into her left jacket pocket, wadded-up in between straw wrappers and receipt papers.
Outside, Francine stands next to the air pump, ripping off her glove with her teeth and stripping the test out of its huge box. She places the box on top of the over-filled trashcan only for it to fall over on the ground. She bends over, picking it back up, and squishes it down on top again. It only propels itself upward, using the other trash as some sort of trampoline. Francine yells quietly to herself, kicks the trashcan, and leaves.
On her walk back home, hands in pockets, her blue-painted mouth muscle moves freely around as she pools up her sticky candy spit in her mouth. Every couple of minutes she spits it out onto the pavement. She stops once it catches wind, stringing itself against her own face.
With every step the stick jabs Francine’s hip, and then her stomach. She keeps shifting it only for it to fall back into jabbing-position. When she passes the field, she sees that the boys are out practicing. She sits, fingers interlocked onto the fence loops, like she’s seen in prison shows, and watches for a moment.
She spots #82, who she knows as Eric from intro to bio.
Francine is used to watching the back of his neck turn red when he asks a question. All she knows about Eric is that he’s a freshman starter, and a really bad biologist.
It’s alarmingly silent despite the yelling, whistles, and Francine sipping the last drops of her slurpee with her straw. She watches Eric for some time. Sitting on the edge of the fence and thinking about the fact that there are plenty heteronormative excuses for men to get intimate with other men. How lucky was she to experience it here today on this very field.
After a while, she comes to the conclusion that it’s not really about the ball. It’s about who’s holding it. Eric yells, and he runs. Often he has the ball. But, even after he’s thrown it, the rest of the team won’t stop touching him.
The cold, frozen ground begins to seep through the fabric of Francine’s pants right when the boys start heading into the locker rooms. Francine imagines all of them going back, waiting to be the first to help Eric take his helmet off, then his cleats, then his pants, until they’ve stripped him into pure masculinity.
Francine pictures the offensive line, bent over and waiting for Eric’s defense. He’s the most masculine. So, it’s not gay when he approaches each of them, shoving himself into the wide gap of the helmet.
The boys take too long to come out, so Francine leaves. She needs to get home at some point. She leaves the boys right in the locker room with pants around their ankles, tracking the sodium intake of a bead of sweat that rolls from the forehead and down into the mouth.
Francine throws her slurpee cup into the trashcan in her kitchen. She lays in her bed for just a moment, stomach facing upward. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she’s birthing Eric right onto her fitted sheet. Shoulder pads following the crowning of his helmet while he kicks at her uterus with his cleats. The thought, now at the forefront of her mind, begins to travel down her body.
Her hand matches the movement of her thought. Down the front of her stomach and past the top of her underwear. She pulls her hand away, observing her fingers and the sloppy, sticky, red shit connecting them. •
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Nova Grant is a writer from Maine. Her accomplishments will go here when she accomplishes them.
She laps around the feminine section of the leftmost aisle. Her head weaving around the four parallel aisles. In between aisles, she grabs a peppermint chapstick. And on her third lap she grabs the box.
The cashier is a bleach blonde forty-something. Francine likes that she’s got one of those beauty-mark style piercings. She sips her slurpee and puts the test on the counter. Per usual, the 7/11 Marilyn Monroe says good luck.
She’s got that thick, fake, southern, bubble-gum snapping drawl.
“good luck, sweetheart.”
Francine takes back her cash and shoves it into her left jacket pocket, wadded-up in between straw wrappers and receipt papers.
Outside, Francine stands next to the air pump, ripping off her glove with her teeth and stripping the test out of its huge box. She places the box on top of the over-filled trashcan only for it to fall over on the ground. She bends over, picking it back up, and squishes it down on top again. It only propels itself upward, using the other trash as some sort of trampoline. Francine yells quietly to herself, kicks the trashcan, and leaves.
On her walk back home, hands in pockets, her blue-painted mouth muscle moves freely around as she pools up her sticky candy spit in her mouth. Every couple of minutes she spits it out onto the pavement. She stops once it catches wind, stringing itself against her own face.
With every step the stick jabs Francine’s hip, and then her stomach. She keeps shifting it only for it to fall back into jabbing-position. When she passes the field, she sees that the boys are out practicing. She sits, fingers interlocked onto the fence loops, like she’s seen in prison shows, and watches for a moment.
She spots #82, who she knows as Eric from intro to bio.
Francine is used to watching the back of his neck turn red when he asks a question. All she knows about Eric is that he’s a freshman starter, and a really bad biologist.
It’s alarmingly silent despite the yelling, whistles, and Francine sipping the last drops of her slurpee with her straw. She watches Eric for some time. Sitting on the edge of the fence and thinking about the fact that there are plenty heteronormative excuses for men to get intimate with other men. How lucky was she to experience it here today on this very field.
After a while, she comes to the conclusion that it’s not really about the ball. It’s about who’s holding it. Eric yells, and he runs. Often he has the ball. But, even after he’s thrown it, the rest of the team won’t stop touching him.
The cold, frozen ground begins to seep through the fabric of Francine’s pants right when the boys start heading into the locker rooms. Francine imagines all of them going back, waiting to be the first to help Eric take his helmet off, then his cleats, then his pants, until they’ve stripped him into pure masculinity.
Francine pictures the offensive line, bent over and waiting for Eric’s defense. He’s the most masculine. So, it’s not gay when he approaches each of them, shoving himself into the wide gap of the helmet.
The boys take too long to come out, so Francine leaves. She needs to get home at some point. She leaves the boys right in the locker room with pants around their ankles, tracking the sodium intake of a bead of sweat that rolls from the forehead and down into the mouth.
Francine throws her slurpee cup into the trashcan in her kitchen. She lays in her bed for just a moment, stomach facing upward. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she’s birthing Eric right onto her fitted sheet. Shoulder pads following the crowning of his helmet while he kicks at her uterus with his cleats. The thought, now at the forefront of her mind, begins to travel down her body.
Her hand matches the movement of her thought. Down the front of her stomach and past the top of her underwear. She pulls her hand away, observing her fingers and the sloppy, sticky, red shit connecting them. •
Nova Grant is a writer from Maine. Her accomplishments will go here when she accomplishes them.