"No, for the millionth time, no!"
Edwin Nash fought his first instinct to slam his mobile phone on the ground in the hotel room he shared with former reserve beater SaQuon Douglas. The otherwise Luddite had a mobile phone for reasons that harkened back to teenage years, but the team's public relations person had given Nash's mobile phone number to multiple media outlets and they were trying to get in contact with him to get his version of the events that led to Ken Flanagan's dismissal from the team.
He settled for placing the phone on the nightstand next to his bed. The sound of the room's shower shut off after Nash put the phone down. Douglas walked out into the room with a towel wrapped around his waist. Nash knew that was unusual for the normally extremely modest Douglas. He usually carried his clothes into the bathroom and got dressed in the room after finishing his shower. Nash also knew Douglas was very self-conscious about people seeing him in any stage of undress. Nash, and most of the team, thought he had no reason for it. He was chiseled and looked like he could have easily walked off a runway, and Nash noticed the eight-pack Douglas boasted with more than a little envy.
"What's wrong, Ed? Media again?"
"Yes, SaQuon. They keep calling looking for me to comment about Ken. I don't know why they're making such a big fucking deal about it."
Douglas gave him a quizzical look. Even though the two players didn't know each other all that long, Nash knew what that look meant. He found in the scant few days that they were roommates (after Flanagan's departure, Douglas was moved from a room with two other players into Nash's room) that Douglas seemed to know exactly what Nash was thinking before he said it.
You know why it's such a bid deal, Ed. You know why people are talking.
Many Sarzonians didn't have a whole lot of experience with people who considered themselves gender non-conforming. However, many of them grew up around people of various expressions of gender and sexuality, so someone not fitting "the norm" wasn't that big a deal. The fact that someone who was potentially a high-profile player, even for a sport that was little more than a curiosity, would have a problem with it, and would so blatantly flaunt his bigotry was a big deal.
For Nash, he simply did what he'd always done: Stand up for a teammate and speak out when he felt someone was in the wrong. He hadn't known Elynn very long and raised an eyebrow when he saw them wear a dress for the first time, but he thought the dress looked good on them. He remembered an incident four years ago when he got in the face of a much bigger man who was spouting off Islamophobic bullshit. He'd had to suppress his first instinct, which was concern that he'd get his ass beaten, only to find that the Islamophobe quickly backed down as if he were worried Nash would beat HIS ass. The fact that a locker room incident went from being the stuff that gets dealt with and resolved behind closed doors to one that got national attention was one other thing that bothered Nash.
As for Flanagan, Nash knew that he wouldn't escape the attention even in neighbouring Delaclava. He knew the Delaclavs would be even more merciless toward Flanagan. They readily accepted a Sarzonian footballer who was a hermaphrodite, and they had no problems with anyone who was gender non-conforming. It was clearly not anything that would have bothered them.
Nash's mobile vibrated once again. He rolled his eyes and saw the number on the ID. His eyes narrowed, then he slowly picked the phone up.
"Hello?"
"Traci! Hi!" Traci Laughton was a society columnist for a small, local paper in a Nicksia suburb, but was also a very longtime friend of Nash's. Their families grew up together on the same street, and their families frequently hosted each other for dinners and they often traveled together on holidays.
They spent a few minutes catching up since the last time the two of them spoke in person two weeks ago, just before the flight took the team to the city where they would play their first fixture against Starblaydia.
"Ed, I know this isn't a subject you want to talk about, but I have to because my editors are asking me," Traci said.
Nash cut in.
"I'll talk to you about it," he said. "No one else."
Nash then went into detail about what happened, how Ken Flanagan started verbally assaulting Elynn Davish about their changing from the team uniform into a dress. About his instinct to confront Flanagan, about the fight that broke out, and about Chris Entwistle's decision to boot Flanagan from the team.
Finally, one media outlet in Sarzonia would get the full picture directly from Edwin Nash.
