18. Arlo

HARRISON: I might have sort of agreed to introduce my boyfriend to Gordon at the afterparty tonight.

He has to be joking, I think as I reread the message. No way would he agree to tell Gordon about us in front of a room full of his friends and teammates. Would he?

ARLO: I’m not sure if you are being serious or not. Didn’t we agree to wait until my dinner, when I get my cast off? When it is just us?

HARRISON: It wasn’t on purpose. Gordon said he wanted to do a double intro, his girlfriend and my boyfriend.

ARLO: Gordon has a girlfriend?

HARRISON: A DJ apparently. You haven’t met her yet either?

I haven’t. He hasn’t brought anyone to the house. Not that I’ve seen anyway, but I have spent a heap of time out with Harrison, so there is a chance she’s been there and we just never crossed paths.

ARLO: I don’t think tonight is the right time.

HARRISON: …

I watch the three dots appear and disappear a few times. He has to know I want everyone to know that we are together, but announcing it at a party at Gordon’s house in front of all his friends is not the right way to do it.

HARRISON: You’re right. I”ll tell him that he couldn’t make it. Are you coming today?

ARLO: Wouldn’t miss it!

HARRISON: It’s going to be the greatest performance ever.

I get to the stadium early enough that the OG players and mascots are chatting to the crowd, taking photos, and having fun on a super long trampoline that’s been set up on one side of the field. John is doing backflips down it to the cheers of spectators, and I find my seat.

I’m far higher up than I would be sitting normally, but I wanted to get a good view of it all. Of the whole spectacle that is Banana Ball and, hopefully, get in a few sketches that capture the incredible energy that”s radiating around me.

The speakers to my right come to life blasting the warm-up part of The Greatest Showman intro, and the players from both OG sides start to make their way down from the stands. The rehearsals I watched, they practiced to the choreographers calling out one, two, three, etc. and no music at all, so I watch on, as excited as the rest of the crowd to see what happens next.

When the beat hits that stomp noise, bursts of fire shoot out of pillars along the right fence. There are no seats along that whole side, the stands that were there once became too old and had to be pulled down. Who knows, with the new surge of people falling in love with the sport, maybe they’ll have enough to put new ones in. But for now, it makes the perfect setting for the pyrotechnics.

The stomp beat drops again and again, and the flames shoot even higher each time, the intro running longer than I remember from the movie, but the crowd is getting involved and they cheer and stomp their feet in the stands as best they can in time.

The OG players line up on the grass, facing each other, one team stomping their right foot with the first thump in the beat and the other team following up on the double drop. Then there’s a voice that comes out over the speaker.

“Ladies and gents, this is the moment we’ve waited for.”

No fucking way! As much as I want to think it’s a recording, it sounds different. I’ve watched the movie so many times, this is not a soundtrack blasting over the speakers, but how can it be anything else?

The song continues, the voice, his voice singing each line as the crowd grows more and more excited, and my heart races with the promise I am about to witness something truly incredible.

The beat gets quicker, and the players on the field start marching forward swinging their arms with each stride. They intersect, do a spin, and then the crowd erupts into a deafening cheer as the lead actor runs from the corridor singing the first line in full Banana Ball Uniform, but tweaked to look like his circus jacket.

I’m on my feet, like ninety percent of the crowd. The players group together as he takes his place on the mound and continues the song.

The OG teams dance behind him, and then when the song picks up at the height of the first verse, they all hold their arms out toward the corridor opening.

“Let’s officially welcome our two new teams to Banana Ball,” the lead actor says before continuing the actual lyrics to the song, and The Funky Monkeys and Animal Control jog out onto the field and join the OG teams in dancing, flipping, and even more circus stunts. It really is the greatest show out there, and I’m shaking as my gaze locks on my brother and boyfriend who are smiling and dancing away like they didn’t just keep a massive fucking secret from me all these weeks.

Why didn’t those fuckers tell me? They know how obsessed I am with this movie. I would have come to every training. Oh. Okay, maybe that’s why they kept it a secret.

The song ends, and the teams take positions on the field. Tonight, the OG teams are joining forces as are the Funky Monkeys and Animal Control in a head-to-head battle of old vs new, and each side is here to win. My hands shake as I try to sketch that opening number. I know I can’t use the actor in my story, not without a release, and there is like zero chance of getting one of those, but I can change what he looks like later on if it needs to make it into any of the stories coming up. For now, this sketch is for me. My hand works fast getting down the messy outlines of the players behind him in various positions, Harrison in his leg flips that I love so much, Gordon on the opposite side doing a star jump.

The first crack of the ball has the crowd on their feet again, cheering as it sails over third, and I glance up in time to see it hit the ground and roll away from the nearest OG player. Ryan’s at-bat, and he takes off running the bases, stopping on second to the loud cheers of the crowd. I quickly add a couple of things to the sketch I don’t want to forget, like the way the jacket swung to the side at the tails, and the stripes on the microphone, then flip the page and start on a bigger sketch of the whole field right now. The crowd cheering, a guy across the way with one arm up, holding his beer above him not caring that it is so close to tipping onto the head of the woman beside him. People holding up phones to take photos and videos, a woman lifting her child as they stretch out their little gloved hand, trying to catch the foul ball that’s now zooming their way.

I want to capture this kind of excitement in the stories I create. Get the children begging their parents to bring them to a game so they can see it for themselves. Maybe even get them dreaming of one day playing for one of these incredible teams.

“That looks so cool,” the woman beside me says, and I smile her way.

“Thanks.”

“Do you do anything with them or are you just drawing for fun?”

“I, ahh, I actually have a children”s book out with my drawings in them.”

Her face lights up. “Oh, you do? That’s wonderful. What’s it called?” she asks, her phone out in her hands, already clicking on her web browser app.

“Gordie Goes Bananas,” I say, and then watch as she types, clicks a link to my book, and hits buy now.

“Oh wow. It’s about this, about Banana Ball. That”s fabulous. Hey, Archie, look what mummy just bought you?” she says, turning to the small boy beside her. “This man here wrote a book about Banana Ball, see.”

“Cooooool,” Archie says, pulling her phone away to look at the cover image she’s enlarged for him.

“Do you think I could get an autograph so I can put it with the book when it comes?” she asks, and I feel the heat rising to my cheeks but not like it used to. Seeing her excitement, Archie’s excitement, it’s what I always wanted my books to do.

I flick back a few pages in my sketchbook to a drawing I did of Gordon pitching the ball, it’s similar to a few others I’ve already got, so I tear it out and sign, Maybe one day Archie can go Bananas, too, then add my name at the bottom and hand it to her.

“Oh, this is… thank you so much.”

“No worries,” I say, and she rolls it up and carefully slips it into a small pocket on the side of her bag.

It’s the easiest interaction with a reader or soon-to-be reader I’ve ever had, and I didn’t need Harrison there to do it. He was right all along. I can do this. I can talk to people about my book and my art and not be a rambling mess of nerves. Even though I just did it without Harrison, I know it is his support and having him in my life that has helped me to get here. He showed me who I could be, or as he puts it, who I always was. He said I had the confidence inside me all the time, but I’m pretty sure he somehow gave me some of his. Can confidence be a sexually transmitted disease? If it is, I don”t ever want to be cured because this feels amazing.