man.” I looked across the room and saw a set of goalie equipment stacked on the bench facing me. I had seen it on my way in but paid it no mind. I realized that Soupy wanted me to put it on.
“No,” I said. “Are you crazy? I’m not playing goal.”
“I left you like sixty fucking messages.”
“My cell phone was dead. Where’s E.B.?”
Ernie Block had been our goaltender since I had retired. Soupy loved it that his name was Block. Like most goalies, E.B. had some games where he could stop anyone short of Gretzky on a breakaway and others where he couldn’t keep a beach ball from going between his legs. On the bad nights, he did a lot of yelling at his teammates, which was fine because it gave us fodder to make fun of him with at the bar afterward.
“E.B.’s in jail.”
“What?”
“Yeah. He was playing a pickup game in Gaylord and-brace yourself now-he got to screaming at one of his D. The guy turned around and popped him pretty good. E.B. goes down but then he comes up with his stick and shoves it halfway up the guy’s ass. Turns out the guy is a cop.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. So E.B.’s spending the night. I went up and got his gear.”
I imagined E.B. using his sole phone call to let Soupy know he wouldn’t be playing tonight. He was probably sick about it. Not only was it hard to win without a goalie, the fun of the game was ruined for both teams.
But I didn’t really care.
“Well, I’m not playing goal, man. I haven’t played in a year. I don’t have my goalie skates. I’d get killed out there.”
“Don’t pussy out on us now, Trap. We can beat these assholes. I don’t give a shit if they’ve got Meat.”
“Oh, great. Meat’s out there. And what’s his specialty aside from beating guys senseless? Steamrolling goalies.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Nothing. Forget it. I’m not playing.”
Soupy stood, his sticks gripped in his right glove. He popped in a mouthguard and snapped his chin strap.
“Fuck it, then, Trap. Don’t even bother getting suited up.”
“Fuck you. I’m playing. Wing.”
“We don’t need you on the wing. We got plenty of benders who can cough up the puck.” He pushed the door open. “We need you in between the pipes. Don’t bother coming over to the bar later either. We don’t serve pussies in Enright’s.”
Later, I thought. He had me. And he knew it.
“Wait,” I said.
Soupy let the door close. I looked over at the goalie stuff. I looked at Soupy. “What is it you need to talk to me about?”
“Nothing, man.”
“Don’t fuck with me.”
He grinned, the bastard. “Any more than I already am?”
“Goddammit. You will talk to me.”
“Later. Yeah.”
I got up and went over to E.B.’s goalie stuff. I picked up one of the leg pads. A hairy wad of cotton padding was spilling out through a tear along the stitched-on Cooper patch.
“Jesus,” I said. “Did he get these for his sixth birthday?”
“It ain’t about that, Trap,” Soupy said. “It’s about you.” He started out the door, then stopped and turned back to me. “And hey-better keep your head up, pal. Meat looks extra pissed-off tonight.”
I dressed in the silent room surrounded by emptied hockey bags and blue jeans hung on hooks. I stood and snatched up my goalie stick-E.B.’s goalie stick-and clumped out to the rink. Nothing felt right.
E.B.’s pants were too baggy. His cup was too tight. His shoulder and arm pads smelled like spoiled gravy. Worst of all, his goalie skates, with the protective hard-shell plastic along the sides, were at least two sizes too small. I couldn’t get into them. So I had to use my own regular skates, which had none of that extra padding. One hard shot off an instep and I’d be in the hospital.
The rink opened before me, two circles of guys skating counterclockwise at either end of the ice, flipping pucks from stick to stick, snapping them into the mesh at the backs of the nets. I pulled the mask down over my face. It was too tight; I jiggled it until my cheeks weren’t pinching my eyelids. I skated across the ice to the front of my net and began to slide sideways back and forth between the goalposts to scuff up the ice in my crease and pile snow at each post to bog down passes coming from the corners. Soupy and Wilf and Zilchy and Danny Lefebvre and my other teammates whacked me on my leg pads with their sticks as they glided past. Good game, Trap. Fuck ’em, Gus. I felt the old butterflies flutter.
I slapped the blade of my stick off one goalpost, swung it back off the other, did it again and again, counting to eleven, the ritual complete. The two referees skated to center ice. I took a quick look around the rink. Down at the other end, there was Jason Esper, a tree trunk on skates, his long crossover strides propelling him around the back of his net and up the boards. Past him through the glass I saw the crisscrossed police tape that obscured the Zamboni shed. In the bleachers, a dozen people in parkas and lap blankets sat in clumps of twos and threes, cradling foam cups of coffee.
My eyes fell on a woman sitting alone at the top of the stands behind the other team’s bench. She was talking into a cell phone, her head tucked into the collar of her navy pea jacket. It was the first time in more than a day that I had seen Darlene out of her deputy’s uniform. And the first time I had seen her at one of my hockey games in I couldn’t remember how long. I wanted her to look my way, but she kept talking into her phone.
One of the refs blew a short blast on his whistle. The Chowder Heads of Enright’s Pub and the Mighty Minnows of Jordan Bait and Tackle broke their huddles at their respective benches. I banged my gloves together in front of me and got into my ready squat, my shoulders square, my stick hard against the ice, my catching glove out to my left and open. What the hell is Darlene doing here? I thought. Why is she sitting way down there? All but one of the other skaters hunched over their sticks in face-off position. Jason Esper remained upright. He was still glaring at me when the ref dropped the puck.
Clem Linke of the Minnows won the face-off. He chipped the puck back to his twin brother Jake, who deked around Wilf and flipped the puck end over end into our zone, halfway between my left post and the corner. My heart thumped as I slid out of my crease and caught the puck on my stick blade. Soupy was coming fast with Jason on his heels.
“Leave it,” Soupy yelled.
I yanked my blade back, leaving the puck for Soupy, and started to pedal sideways and backward into my crease. But my skates were too sharp; wingers use sharper blades than goalies, who are constantly moving side to side. My right blade jammed. I lunged forward to keep myself from toppling over backward but overcompensated and fell forward.
“Fuck!” Soupy yelled as he tripped over my left leg and went flying, the puck dribbling away. Jason stopped hard. Shards of ice sprayed the left side of my face. I saw Jason’s stick blade collect the puck and flip it to his backhand. I got up on one leg and flailed with my catching glove. Way too late. The puck bounced through my crease and onto the stick of Jake Linke, who smacked it into the back of the net. The refs’ whistles shrieked. “Fuck yeah,” Jason yelled. He spun to skate backward as he whipped past Soupy sprawled behind the net. “Easiest hundred I’ll ever make,” he shouted.
“Fuck off, Meat,” Soupy yelled back.
I got to my feet. “You bet him?” I said.
“Fuck him,” Soupy said. He got to one knee and looked through the eyeholes of my mask. “I bet on you, Trap. Get your fucking game together.”
“What?” I said. “I didn’t want to play fucking net.”
“Do your job,” Soupy said, skating away.
Five minutes later, Frank D’Alessio slapped a sloppy pass out of the air, crossed into our zone, and let fly at me with a wobbly slap shot, shoulder high, not unlike the one Taylor Haskell had struggled with the night before. I
