Will Grayson, Will Grayson(59)
Author: John Green

What’s second base for a g*y man?

Is it tuning in Tokyo?

I can’t see how that would feel good

But maybe that’s how it should go?

Behind the two Tinys singing arm in arm, the guys in the chorus—including Ethan—pull off a hilariously elaborate old-fashioned, high-stepping, highly choreographed dance, their bats used as canes and their ball caps as top hats. Midway through, half the guys swing their bats toward the heads of half the others, and even though from my side view I can see it’s totally faked, when the other boys fall backward dramatically and the music cuts out, I gasp with the audience. Moments later, they all jump up in a single motion and the song starts up again. When it’s done, Tiny and the kid dance offstage to thunderous shouts from the crowd, and as the lights cut, Tiny damn near lands in my arms, bathed in sweat.

“Not bad,” he says.

I just shake my head, amazed. Jane helps him out of his shoes and says, “Tiny, you’re kind of a genius.” He rips off his baseball uniform to reveal a very Tiny purple polo shirt and chino shorts.

“I know, right?” he says. “Okay, time to come out to the folks,” he says, and hustles out onto the stage. Jane grabs my hand and kisses me on the neck.

It’s a quiet scene, as Tiny tells his parents he’s “probably kinda g*y.” His dad is sitting silent while his mom sings about unconditional love. The song is only funny because Tiny keeps cutting in with other comings-out each time his mom sings, “We’ll always love our Tiny,” like, “Also, I cheated in algebra,” and, “There’s a reason your vodka tastes watered down,” and “I feed my peas to the dog.”

When the song ends, the lights go down again, but Tiny doesn’t leave the stage. When the lights go back up, there’s no set, but judging from the elaborately costumed cast, I gather we’re at a Gay Pride Parade. Tiny and Phil Wrayson stand center stage as people march past, chanting their chants, waving dramatically. Gary looks so much like me it’s weird. He looks more like freshman-year me than Tiny looks like freshman-year Tiny.

They talk for a minute and then Tiny says, “Phil, I’m g*y.”

Stunned, I say, “No.”

And he says, “It’s true.”

I shake my head. “You mean, like, you’re happy?”

“No, I mean, like, that guy,” he points at Ethan, who’s wearing a skintight yellow wifebeater, “is hot and if I talked to him for a while and he had a good personality and respected me as a person I would let him kiss me on the mouth.”

“You’re g*y?” I say, seemingly uncomprehending.

“Yeah. I know. I know it’s a shock. But I wanted you to be the first to know. Other than my parents, I mean.”

And then Phil Wrayson breaks out into song, singing more or less exactly what I said when this really happened: “Next you’re gonna tell me the sky is blue, that you use girl shampoo, that critics don’t appreciate Blink 182. Oh, next you’re gonna tell me the Pope is Catholic, that hookers turn tricks, that Elton John sucks HEY.”

And then the song turns into a call and response, with Tiny singing his surprise that I knew he was g*y and me singing that it was obvious.

“But I’m a football player.”

“Dude, you couldn’t be g*yer.”

“I thought my straight-acting deserved a Tony.”

“But, Tiny, you own a thousand My Little Ponies!” And so on. I can’t stop laughing, but more than that, I can’t believe how well he remembers it all, how good—for all of our bad—we’ve always been to each other. And I sing, “You don’t want me, do you?” And he answers, “I would prefer a kangaroo,” and behind us the chorus high-kicks like the Rockettes.

Jane puts her hands on a shoulder to bend me down and whispers, “See? He loves you, too,” and I turn to her and kiss her in the quick dark moment between the end of the song and the beginning of the applause.

As the curtain closes for a set change, I can’t see the standing ovation, but I can hear it.

Tiny runs offstage, shouting “WOOOOOOOOOT!” “It could actually go to Broadway,” I tell him.

“It got a lot better when I made it about love.” He looks at me, smiling with half his mouth, and I know that’s as close as he’ll ever come. Tiny’s the g*y one, but I’m the sentimentalist. I nod and whisper thanks.

“Sorry if you come across a little annoying in this next part.” Tiny reaches up to touch his hair and Nick appears out of nowhere, diving over an amp to grab Tiny’s arm, screaming, “DO NOT TOUCH YOUR PERFECT HAIR.” The curtain rises, and the set is a hallway in our school. Tiny’s putting up posters. I’m annoying him, that catch in my voice. I don’t mind it, or at least I don’t mind it much—love is bound up in truth, after all. Just after that scene, there’s one with Tiny drunk at a party in which the character Janey gets her only time onstage—a duet with Phil Wrayson sung on opposite sides of a passed-out Tiny, the song culminating in Gary’s voice suddenly toughening into confidence and then Janey and me leaning over Tiny’s mumbling half-conscious body and kissing. I can only half watch the scene, because I keep wanting to see Jane’s smile as she watches.

The songs get better and better from there, until, in the last song before intermission, the whole audience is singing along as Oscar Wilde sings over a sleeping Tiny,

The pure and simple truth

Is rarely pure and never simple.

What’s a boy to do

When lies and truth are both sinful?

As that song ends, the curtain closes and the house lights come up for intermission. Tiny runs up to us and puts a paw on each of our shoulders and lets forth a yawp of joy. “It’s hilarious,” I tell him. “Really. It’s just . . . awesome.”

“Woot! The second half’s a lot darker, though. It’s the romantic part. Okay okay okay okay, see you after!” he says, and then races off to congratulate, and probably chastise, his cast. Jane takes me off into a corner backstage, secluded behind the set, and says, “You really did all that? You looked after him in Little League?”

“Eh, he looked after me, too,” I say.

“Compassion is hot,” she says as we kiss. After a while, I see the houselights dim and then come back up. Jane and I head back to our stage-side vantage point. The houselights go down again, signaling the end of intermission. And after a moment, a voice from on high says, “Love is the most common miracle.”