“Yeah. But I got better after that. I had a real shot, did you know that?”
“At the pros?”
“The Flyers. Twenty-one years old. Bus gets me to Philly the afternoon of the game and I figure no way they’re putting me on the ice tonight-shit, they’re playing the Habs-so I’m getting something to eat. I go in a bar, get a couple beers and a cheesesteak, maybe another couple beers. Love those cheesesteaks with mushrooms. I walk over to the rink just to check out the locker room and I’ll be goddamned if my name isn’t on the lineup card. Dude, I’m penciled in on a line with fucking Zezel and Kerr.”
“Really.”
“I’m like, oh fuck, what do I do? I go out into the concourse because I don’t want anyone to see me in the locker room and I find a men’s room and lock myself in a stall and jam two fingers down my throat. Got a little out but the goddamn cheese just wouldn’t come up.”
“Did you play?”
“Yeah. Three shifts. Tripped a guy after he got by me because I was gassed. Stupid fucking penalty. Of course the Habs score on the power play. Coach moves me to the fourth line. I get one more shift. And that was it. One of the guys said I looked like Casper the Ghost.”
“And you never played in the bigs again.”
Jason didn’t like the way I said that.
“Always figured I would,” he said. “But that was it. One chance and I blew it. Bounced around in the minors. Started to fight, thinking I might get the call-up as a goon. Got my ass kicked a bunch but finally learned how to go and got a pretty good reputation as a hammer.” He looked at his hand again.
“Did you like fighting?”
“I don’t know. You like typing?”
“Depends what I’m typing.”
“Exactly,” he said. “Which brings us to what I’m about to tell you.”
In one quick motion he had my left wrist in his hand, squeezing the bones between his thumb and forefinger. It hurt. I tried to pull away but my arm stayed where it was. Jason leveled his eyes on mine.
“I’m done fucking up my life,” he said. “And you are done fucking my wife.”
A shiver rippled down the backs of my arms. Not because I was afraid; Jason Esper, coach-to-be of the River Rats, wasn’t about to kick my ass in a dressing room in the middle of a game with half the town in the arena. But the certainty with which he said what he said made me wonder: Had he told Darlene the same when they spoke in the parking lot behind the sheriff’s department? Had she told him to go to hell? Or had she said something that made him think he could succeed in scaring me away? Or winning her back?
“She’s only your wife,” I said, “on a piece of paper.”
Jason let go of my wrist. He stood. He picked up his chair in one hand and set it back against the wall near the shower. Then he came back and stood over me. “Maybe I should’ve got a prenup like the one old Laird stuck his old lady with, eh? Now that’s one happy fucking household. If she wants out-and believe you me, she wants out-she gets her panties back dirty, that’s about it.”
“Serves her right for negotiating with a scumbag lawyer.”
Jason leaned back and considered me.
“You know,” he said, “I had the hots for Darl way back when we were in high school. But I wasn’t one of the hotshots on the River Rats.”
He stepped forward and angled his face in close to mine.
“Now I’m the coach, motherfucker.”
“Good for you. Beat the Pipefitters, will you?”
“Uh-huh. And that piece of paper? It says we’re married. If she wanted to get divorced, she could’ve gotten divorced. I wasn’t stopping her. Now I am.”
“Sorry, Jason, but-”
“Listen,” he said. “Listen fucking good. Whatever you did with her up to this minute, count yourself lucky, because I ain’t holding it against you. But from now on, she’s my wife, and I’m going to make amends, and you goddamn better well respect that.” He showed me his cleverest smile. “Man, I’m the new coach of the new River Rats. For the sake of the team, for the sake of the town, I can’t have my wife running around with some shithead reporter who doesn’t even want a new rink built around here.”
“The rink has nothing to do with your fucked-up marriage.”
“It does now. You heard me. I ain’t fucking this up anymore. If I hear-”
It sounded like a firecracker. A huge firecracker, out in the arena. There was one booming pop, then nothing, then the screams, the women loudest and shrillest, Oh my baby my baby… “What the fuck?” Jason and I said in unison. He threw the bolt on the door and we scrambled out.
My nostrils filled with the smell of gasoline cut with something bitter that I did not recognize. I saw a cloud of black smoke turning to gray obscuring the bay where the Zamboni was stored. On both benches, coaches were yelling, “Down, get down!” and pushing their players to the floor. Parents were rushing out of the bleachers and around the boards to get at their boys. Some of the kids in the sweatshirts followed them into the lobby while others hung in the stands, hugging one another, staring across at the Zam shed.
Oh Jesus, Darlene was down there, I thought. I couldn’t see her for the smoke and the chaos of people running back and forth, so I pushed past Jason and ran down the aisle behind the benches, clambering over the young skaters cowering on the floor. Jason followed me. “Darlene,” I heard him yell and then I yelled myself, “Darlene, where are you?” I glanced up at the scoreboard. The game clock read 1:14 left in the first period; above the scoreboard, a real clock showed the time was 8:01. I slammed into Poppy Popovich, the outgoing Rats coach. “What the hell’s going on around here?” he said as Jason grabbed me by the back of my coat, tossed me aside, and hurried past.
“Halt.” Deputy Skip Catledge stopped Jason and me with both hands held high. We were about thirty feet from the Zam shed. Smoke billowed out both sides of the Zamboni’s flat snout. I saw Darlene on one knee near the back wall of the rink, her hat off, holding her head in one hand. A man I recognized as Doc Joe knelt down beside her.
“One more step and you’re going to jail,” Catledge told Jason and me.
“Is she all right?” I said, the stink burning my sinuses.
Darlene heard me, lifted her head.
“A little shaken up. She should be OK.”
“What happened? Did the Zam explode?”
Jason took another step forward, then another, until he was almost touching Catledge. “That’s my wife.”
Catledge placed a hand on Jason’s coach jacket. “Stand back, sir.”
“I’m the new coach. That’s my goddamn wife. Let me through.”
Catledge looked around at Darlene. He looked at me. “Quickly,” he said, letting Jason pass. Jason gave me a glance over his shoulder as he trotted to Darlene. I started to follow him but Catledge stopped me.
“No.”
“Come on, Skip.” What was I supposed to say? I’m sleeping with her?
“Sorry.”
“Darlene,” I shouted, but now her face was obscured behind Jason’s wide back as he moved toward her. “Darlene!”
Now she half stood. Her cheeks were streaked black with soot or motor oil. Jason put his arms around her. I didn’t see her arms wrap around him but neither did she push him away. Then she caught my eye. She shook her head no, glanced up at Jason, turned around, and disappeared into the smoke.
My mother answered on the fourth ring. I pictured her sitting in her chair in the living room. I hoped she wasn’t still grieving to Robert Goulet.
I was sitting in my idling truck in the road in front of the rink. Police tape ringed the parking lot, filled now with flashing police cruisers, fire trucks, and ambulances. Locals huddled in small groups up and down the road, trying to comprehend the possibility that someone had set off a bomb in their quiet little town with its sole traffic light at Main and Estelle, its willow-lined streets, its cozy family diner, the clear blue lake where they had learned to swim and fish and drive a speedboat. I’d jotted everything I could recall in a notebook, even though we wouldn’t
