restaurant on the upper deck. The stands were mostly empty, just some women watching us. None of them looked like they were on our side. I pulled the mask away from my face, wiped away the sweat. The catcher’s gear I wore a million years ago-the chest protector and the shin pads-was nothing compared to these goalie pads. It felt like I had a mattress tied to each leg.
The game started to get a little “chippy,” as the hockey announcers like to say. The elbows were coming up in the corners, the sticks were hitting other sticks, maybe even a leg or two. There was only one referee, a little old guy skating around with a whistle in his hand, never daring to blow it. He was probably retired from a civil service job, never got in anybody’s way his whole life and wasn’t going to start now.
I finally stopped a couple shots. It wasn’t like catching a baseball at all, I realized. A pitch in the dirt, you become a human wall. The glove goes down between your legs. You don’t even try to catch it. You let it bounce off you, you throw the mask off, and then you pick it up. A hockey goalie can be more aggressive, move out of the net, cut off the angle.
“Att’sa way, Alex,” Vinnie said. He was breathing hard. He bounced his stick off my pads. “Now you’re getting it.”
Toward the end of the first period, there was a loose puck in front of the net. I dove on it. The blue center came at me hard, stopping right in front of me. He cut his skates into the ice, sending a full spray right into my face. The old shower trick. I had seen it on television a thousand times, now I got to experience it in person.
As I got up I stuck my stick into the hollow behind his knee. He turned around and cross-checked me. Two hands on his stick and wham, right across my shoulders.
I looked into his eyes. A cold blue. Pupils dilated, as wide as pennies. My God, I thought, this guy is either stone crazy or high. Or both.
The referee skated between us. “Easy does it, boys,” he said. “None of that.”
“Hey, ref,” I said. “That metal thing in your hand, when you blow in it, it makes the little pea vibrate and a loud sound comes out. You should try it. And then you can send this clown to the penalty box for two minutes.”
“Let’s just play some hockey, boys,” he said, skating off with the puck.
The center kept looking at me. Those crazy eyes. I took my mask off. “You got a problem?”
He smiled when he saw my face. “Sorry, didn’t realize you were an old man. I’ll try to take it easy on you.”
When the first period was over, we all got to sit on the bench and wipe our faces off for a few minutes. Nobody said anything. We could hear the other team on their bench, laughing, yelling at each other. Just a little too loud, I thought. A little too happy. Then they started making these noises. It sounded like that stupid chant you hear them do down in Atlanta at the Braves games. The Indian war chant.
Vinnie stood up and looked at them over the partition. Then he looked at us. Eight faces, all Bay Mills Ojibwa. And one old white man. Nobody said a word. They didn’t have to.
Here it comes, I thought. I’ve seen this look before. I’ve never met an Ojibwa who wasn’t a gentle person at heart, who didn’t have a fuse about three miles long. But when you finally gave that fuse enough time to burn, watch out. You see it in the casinos every couple months. Some drunken white man makes a scene, starts yelling at the pit boss about how the no-good Indian dealer is cheating him. Doesn’t even realize that the pit boss himself is a member of the tribe. If he pushes it far enough he goes right through a window.
I felt a little looser in the second period, watching my Red Sky Raiders take it to the blue team. Vinnie was right about one thing-it felt good to use my body again. For something other than cutting wood or shoveling snow, anyway. If this was a mistake, it certainly wasn’t a big one. It wouldn’t rank up there with the other major mistakes of my life. Like getting married when I was twenty-three years old, just out of baseball, not sure what I was going to do with my life. Not a good reason to get married.
Or letting myself get talked into becoming a private eye. And everything that happened after that.
Or Sylvia. Letting myself fall in love with her. Yes, I’ll say it. The puck is in the other end. I’m skating back and forth in front of my net, wondering why I’m thinking of these things. But yes, I’ll say it. I loved her. “I’ve been hiding up here,” she told me. “I’ve been hiding from the world. I think you are, too, whether you admit it or not.” And then she left. Just like that. “I hope I’ve touched your life.” The last thing she said to me. What a melodramatic college-girl thing to say. I hope I’ve touched your life.
Yeah, Sylvia. You touched my life. You touched my life the same way a tornado touches a trailer park.
The puck coming this way. The blue center behind it. The sound of his skates in the empty arena. Snick snick snick snick.
Funny how things come into your mind at a time like this. It used to happen in baseball. I’d be settling under a pop fly and I’d think of something else in my life with a sudden clarity like it was the first time I’d ever thought of it.
Like my biggest mistake of all. A madman’s apartment in Detroit. Aluminum foil on the walls. My partner and I frozen with fear, watching the gun in his hand.
Snick snick snick snick.
Sylvia. I am in her bed and she is looking down at me. We have just finished making love in the bed she shares every night with her husband. He is my friend, but I don’t care. She owns me.
The skater is fast. He’s the best player on the ice, probably the best player this little Thursday night hockey league will ever see. He looks up at me. A peek over his shoulder. The other players are far behind. Time slows down. It’s something every athlete knows, an unspoken understanding between us. It’s just him and me.
I didn’t pull my gun in time. I waited too long. I am shot and my partner is shot and we are both on the ground. There is so much blood. It all comes back to me. Not as urgently as it once did. I don’t dream about it much anymore. I don’t need the pills to make it through the nights. But it still comes back. I am lying on the floor and my partner is next to me.
I come out of the net to cut off the angle. He shoots. No! It’s a fake. He pulls the puck back. I can feel myself falling backward. He’s going to skate right around me and slip the puck into the open net. Unless I can knock the puck away. My only chance. I jab at it with my stick as I fall.
I hit the puck and my stick goes between his legs. He trips and slides face first into the boards. Then he is up, his gloves thrown to the ice. I take off my gloves, my mask. He throws a punch at me and misses. I grab him by the jersey and we dance the hockey fight dance. You can’t find any leverage to throw a good punch when you’re on skates. You just hold on and try to pull the other guy’s shirt over his head. It’s a funny thing to watch when you’re not one of the guys dancing.
The man’s eyes were wide with bloodlust and whatever the hell chemicals he was flying on. “Take it easy,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“The fuck you’re sorry,” he said. Spit and sweat hitting me in the face. All around us the other players in the same dance, every man picking his own partner according to how much they really felt like fighting. The old referee was skating around us, blowing his whistle. I guess he finally remembered how it works.
“I didn’t mean to trip you,” I said. “Just calm down.”
“Fucking Indians,” he said.
“I’m not an Indian,” I said.
“Yeah, fuck that,” he said. “I know, you’re a Native fucking American.”
I started laughing. I couldn’t help it.
“What’s so funny?” he said. “Did I say something funny?”
“You always get high when you play hockey?” I said.
“The fuck you talking about?”
“You’re higher than the space shuttle,” I said. “If I were still a cop I’d have to arrest you. Skating while impaired.”
He gave me a good push and skated away. The dance was over. “Fucking Indians,” he said.
We finished the game. Vinnie scored once in that period. Another of his teammates scored in the third period to tie the game at 2-2. I made a couple nice saves to keep us tied.
In the last minute of the game, my new friend the blue center had an open shot at me. He wound up and launched a rocket. No slapshots, my ass. I got a glove on it, knocked it just high enough to hit the crossbar with a loud ringing sound that reverberated through the entire arena.
The game ended. There would be no overtime. The next game was ready to start, as soon as they got us
