Darius the Great Is Not Okay(28)

I didn’t know how to talk to people about being medicated back then. And Dad kept saying I just needed more discipline.

Mom finally put her foot down and insisted it was okay for me to quit, scuttling Stephen Kellner’s dreams of me playing professional soccer before they even made it out of dry dock.

It was another of Stephen Kellner’s many disappointments in me.

At least he eventually got used to them.



* * *





We only used half the field. For a simple two-on-two, using the entire thing would have been illogical.

Sohrab was our nominal forward, which left me de facto defender, but really, both of us played all over the field.

Ali-Reza was supposed to be the forward for his and Hossein’s team, but Sohrab played so aggressively, Ali-Reza spent most of his time helping Hossein ward off Sohrab’s relentless assaults on their goal.

Coach Henderson would have loved Sohrab’s aggressiveness.

Not that Ali-Reza wasn’t aggressive too. I had to fend off my share of goals, which I mostly did, through some combination of luck, coincidence, and latent memories of my pre-medication training.

It seemed I had misread the situation between Sohrab and Ali-Reza, who had acted like friends, but were clearly engaged in some sort of personal vendetta that could only be settled through soccer/non-American football.

They fought much more fiercely than Trent Bolger and Cyprian Cusumano, and I was shifting the balance of their vendetta by preventing Ali-Reza from scoring.

The best was when I executed a perfect sliding tackle, stealing the ball from Ali-Reza and passing it down to Sohrab.

I felt very Iranian in that moment, even covered in grass stains.

Ali-Reza hissed and ran back after Sohrab, who dodged Hossein and scored again.

“Pedar sag,” Ali-Reza spat as he followed Sohrab back toward center field.

Sohrab stopped and said something to Ali-Reza, which ended up with them shouting in Farsi so fast I couldn’t make out a single word. Ali-Reza shoved Sohrab, who shoved him back, and I thought things were going to escalate from there until Hossein started shouting too.

I didn’t catch much of that, either, except I could make out nakon, which means “don’t,” so I figured he was telling them to stop it.

Sohrab shook his head, ran over to me and slapped my shoulder. “Good job, Darioush.”

“Um. Thanks,” I said. “Uh.”

But Sohrab ran off again before I could ask what happened.



* * *





We played forever.

We played until I couldn’t run any more.

We played until my shirt was soaked and translucent with sweat, and my boxers were causing some Level Eight Chafing.

I once again wished for more supportive undergarments.

I hadn’t been keeping count, but Sohrab announced we won, by three goals.

He collided with me and gave me a sweaty hug and a slap on the back, then threw his arm over my shoulder as we headed back to the locker room.

“You were great, Darioush.”

“Not that good,” I said. “Not as good as you.”

“Yes,” Sohrab said. “You were.”

I almost believed him.

Almost.

“Thanks.”

I decided to put my arm over Sohrab’s shoulder too, even if I felt kind of weird doing it, and not just because of the sweat running down the back of Sohrab’s neck.

Sohrab was so comfortable touching me.

I liked how confident he was about that.

Hossein and Ali-Reza walked ahead of us, fingers intertwined behind their heads in what Coach Fortes liked to call Surrender Cobra. Huge ovals of sweat seeped through the backs of their shirts. They hadn’t said a thing since we called it quits.

“Uh.”

Sohrab squinted at me.

“You play with them a lot?”

“Yes.”

“They seem . . . um . . .”

“They do not like to lose.”

“Are you guys friends?”

Sohrab shrugged. “Ali-Reza is very prejudiced. Against Bahá’ís.”

I thought about that: How back home, all Persians—even Fractional Persians like me and Laleh—were united in our Persian-ness. We celebrated Nowruz and Chaharshanbeh Suri together in big parties, Bahá’ís and Muslims and Jews and Christians and Zoroastrians and even secular humanists like Stephen Kellner, and it didn’t matter. Not really.

Not when we were so few in number.

But here, surrounded by Persians, Sohrab was singled out for being Bahá’í.

He was a target.

“What does pedar sag mean?”

Sohrab’s jaw twitched. “It means ‘your father is a dog.’ It’s very rude.”

“Oh.”

I thought about that too: How in America, it was much worse to call someone’s mother a dog, rather than their father.

“Ali-Reza said that to you?”

“It’s fine,” Sohrab said. “Ali-Reza is like that. It doesn’t bother me so much.”

Usually, when I said something like that, I meant the opposite.

I let everything bother me too much. It was one of the reasons Stephen Kellner was always so disappointed in me.

“You know what, Sohrab?” I said. “I think Ali-Reza is just mad because you’re so much better than him.”