Virgil was just about to put the car in gear but Fred slapped his hand across Virgil’s. “Hey, hey, hey, did you see that?”
“Yes I did.”
“What did you think?” asked Fred.
“Well, I figured you had someone you was gonna visit and then changed your mind.”
“What if I told you that when I left those doors I was a teenager in a coma and shipped special delivery to Winnipeg and when I was looking at the clouds this morning I thought how dynamite it would feel to walk out of that hospital, not bad, not bad.” Fred checked the note in his hand to be sure. “And you were a witness.”
“I sure was.” Virgil paused, mumbled, quickly turned the key and the engine shook to a stop. He took a deep breath. “Fred, can I tell you something?”
“Is this the part where you tell me you love me? Because if it is then I will walk the rest of the way.” Fred could see Virgil struggling. “Okay, okay, spit those devils out.”
“Do you remember the night you hit your head?”
Fred pulled down his sweater to show Virgil the ragged tracheotomy scar on his throat. “How could I forget?”
Virgil squeaked much louder than a mouse, closed his eyes and slapped his hands on the steering wheel. “You weren’t even supposed to be out there, you sons of bitches.”
“Um, um, I think I know what you’re getting at. You probably had to clean the ice again after we were done and I am sorry for making all that extra work for you because I know how hard it is to keep ice as smooth as a baby’s bottom. So I guess I owe you an apology, even if it is nineteen years too late.”
Fred patted Virgil on the arm. Virgil kept both hands on the steering wheel. His eyes squinted like he was driving at night into a blizzard. He opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out except a moan.
“Okay, okay, you need to get me to my hotel before you have a heart attack because then I will have to walk.”
Virgil turned the key, the engine exploded to life and the car started to shake and roll forward.
seventeen
Wally Chilton sat on the other bed in Fred’s hotel room and could not contain himself any longer. His voice was raspy, his breathing laboured, the tiny cross hanging from his neck jiggled. “It didn’t happen the way you were told.”
“Um, um, please talk English because I am no good at translating and decoding.”
“You didn’t trip on that hole in the ice.”
Fred circled his finger around his ear. “Cuckoo.”
Wally grabbed Fred’s hand and pulled it down. “No, no, listen to me. It was Tater, Brad Tate.” Fred yanked his hand free. “He crosschecked you into the post.”
Fred kept a brave smile on his face, waiting for a punchline. “Buh, buh, my father told me what happened.”
“Your dad told you what the hospital knew.” Fred’s smile started to fade. “The hospital knew what the police said. Tater was the one who gouged the hole in the ice and told the police that you tripped.”
Fred’s smile disappeared completely. A part of his history had just collapsed underneath him. “Um, um, Tater cross-checked me?”
“Yup.”
Fred was dizzy. He scratched his nose. “Why would he do that? We were playing shinny.” Fred touched his hockey bag.
“We thought you were dead. And even when you weren’t, you were as good as dead. Tater didn’t want to be the guy.”
“What guy?”
“The guy who crippled Fred Pickle.”
Fred stood up and walked to the window and stood for a long time. “Um, um, I think he was jealous because I was on my way and he couldn’t play any more because he got eaten by a wood shredder and I think he did it on purpose, I think he must have hated me more than anything in the world and just pretended to be my friend until he could get his revenge and now I know why he liked Judas Priest so much.”
“That’s nuts. There’s no way he meant to hurt you like that. It was an accident.”
Fred turned from the window. “Why are you telling me now?” he asked coldly.
“Because I never knew how to find you.”
“No, that is not what I mean,” said Fred, his voice rising. “Why are you telling me?”
“I found Christ, Freddy.”
“Where was he hiding?”
“I got the strength now. The strength to face my past. We shouldn’t have lied.”
“Buh, buh, you did and I don’t see what good it does to tell me now.”
“It’s the truth.”
Fred shrugged, lifted his right arm and let it drop again. He didn’t need to tell Wally that his damaged brain was the truth. Fred limped over to the door, opened it and patted Wally on the back as he was leaving. “I hope you feel better.” Fred slammed the door, crawled onto the bed and closed his eyes.
The hockey bag remained undisturbed on the bed. Fred sat motionless in a chair beside a steamed window, looking down at the barren trees on the street. The old butterflies were back. It was game night. He had already vomited twice. This wasn’t unusual for him during the afternoon before a game. But he didn’t know whether he was vomiting now because there was a game that night or because of what Wally had told him.
He had sat there for so long he knew when to expect the heating system to grumble to life and for how long warm air would gently sway the curtains.
As Fred’s anxiety spread through his body like a chemical fire, he reminded himself that he wasn’t playing in the game tonight. He also tried to forget the three hundred dollars he had wasted trying to find Brad Tate. But then he thought that maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to find Brad Tate again. Show him what life after hockey is like.
The shadows on the street grew longer and Fred’s anxiety became abject terror. Just as he felt his brain was going to explode, he was comforted by the image of Jiri bursting through the door, coming to his rescue, followed of course by Taillon, who would snuggle him to sleep. Fred also had a practical plan for escape. He could stay where he was, let the phone ring, let them knock, then fly back to Jack’s in the morning and say he had forgotten.
Fred had never told anyone what he missed about playing hockey. It wasn’t the goals or the attention or the puck bunnies. It was the sense of belonging, the sense that someone was watching your back, the sense that you were watching theirs. Comrades, mates. The sense that you were in it together come hell or high water. And Fred feared that sense wouldn’t be there when he limped into the Wheat Kings dressing room.
As the hour reached the point at which Fred would miss the opening faceoff, he found the strength to open his hockey bag. There, resting on top of his clothes, were six ounces of vulcanized rubber. The words: “The last puck for the last fan.” As Fred gripped the puck and looked to the speckled ceiling, Badger came a-calling. Doing something he only did at crucial times in a game. Walking down the steps to Fred’s seat. A pat on his back. Fred, turning slowly. Badger leaning to Fred’s ear, “We’re almost to the top of the mountain, boys.”
eighteen
The visiting team took to the ice accompanied by a low grumble of booing. They circled their end for much longer than usual. The delay in the arrival of the Wheat Kings caused a slight murmur in the crowd.
The Wheat Kings were in position in the tunnel leading to the ice, but they weren’t moving. Some of the players looked over their shoulders, waiting. The sold-out crowd began to pound their feet in the stands.
Finally, the Wheat Kings players stepped aside and let the player who had dressed in the referees’ room pass by them to the front of the line. Then and only then came the public address announcement. “Ladies and gentlemen, your Brandon Wheat Kings!”
The crowd stood and cheered as the player at the front of the line stepped onto the ice. It was a surprise, because the team’s goal-tender normally led the team.
The player veered toward the blue line, almost lost his balance, made a stumbling turn and led the other players on their first lap in their end. He was the only person
on the ice who did not wear a helmet. Players were bunched up behind him as he struggled to skate behind the net and ahead for another lap.
The player with no helmet attracted the attention of quite a few fans. He was an unusual sight. Big and somewhat lumbering.
Taking a position beside the net, the player flicked pucks at the others, who in turn wristed shots at the goalie. At last he was stationary enough for some of the fans behind the net to read the back of his jersey.
The name Pickle was known to all five thousand fans in the arena. A few knew the name from the old days. The rest knew it from the media coverage of the pie incident. They all knew he was there to drop the puck that night. They just hadn’t expected him in full equipment, on the ice, skating with their team. Neither had Fred.
Having Fred lead the team onto the ice was something Virgil had suggested to the coach, who in turn asked his players what they thought. They unanimously agreed. Fred thought it was crazy but he couldn’t very well tell them no. He did insist that he be allowed to dress with the referees, a request that raised a few eyebrows. But this was Fred’s night. He could do as he pleased.
It was a good thing Fred had his name on the back of his jersey, because nobody would have recognized him. Not even Virgil, who was standing beside his ice resurfacer.
The reason the Brandon players had had to wait so long in the tunnel was because Fred was still metamorphosing in the bathroom. He had clipped and then shaved his beard, and his face, although a little plumper, was handsomely restored to how it had been before his accident.
Word spread from fans behind the net down the sides of the arena, until it reached the other end where people began standing to catch a glimpse of Fred, off in the distance, passing pucks back to the Wheat Kings players.
A trained spotlight found a pair of seats where two fans had shown up in costume. A man was dressed in a suit with a pig’s head. He had a sign that said Madison hanging from his neck. Beside him was a woman dressed up as the Statue of Liberty, but her dress was cut high and she was intentionally made up to look like a whore. The spotlight brought several cheers and a few whoops and hollers.
While both teams continued their warmup, a red carpet was rolled out at centre ice, and the Wheat Kings players stopped shooting pucks. “Ladies and gentlemen,” said the announcer, “may I please direct your attention to centre ice.”
Both teams skated forward and each formed a line along the two blue lines. The general manager of the Wheat Kings was introduced amid the few scattered boos that all general managers must endure, and he walked out on the red carpet to a microphone. “Nineteen years ago there was a player in this organization …”
“Give ’em hell, Pickle!” yelled someone in the crowd.
“…who lifted our spirits with his tenacity, a player who always talked about his teammates first, who scored goals only when there was no one to pass to, who never backed down from a fight, including the most important fight of all, the fight for his life, and who has recently returned from a successful road tilt in the United States of America …”
The crowd began clapping. Fred stood sandwiched between the Wheat Kings players, his head bowed, staring at his skates. The spotlight found him, which brought the fans to their feet. Small Canadian flags flickered and the applause swelled.
Some of the fans were applauding the revenge exacted upon Andrew Madison. Most, like Virgil, were applauding the return of Fred Pickle to Brandon.
For Fred, the applause was like waking up from a nightmare of being trapped in a hockey arena and opening a door and seeing the sky filled with the Northern Lights, everything contracting, melding, then bursting into swirling incandescent colours: emerging from his coma, learning to talk, to walk, to skate, standing in his oval with a seven-inch icicle hanging from the nozzle, swinging the breath into Lucky Lucy, slamming the boysenberry pie into Madison’s face, seeing his fingers disappear inside Taillon’s thick coat.
The players began banging their sticks on the ice. It was this sound more than anything else that seized Fred’s heart. He was a Wheat King again. It was a good thing Fred had shaved. Burly men with beards were not supposed to cry. His tears spilled over his radiant smile and dotted the Wheat Kings logo on the front of his jersey.
The voice of the general manager could barely be heard. “Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome back, number ten, Fred Pickle!” The ovation thundered. The stands shook. Fred stepped forward. He made one push with his left leg, lost control of his right, and fell face-first onto the ice.
Such was the aura surrounding Fred that nobody rushed forward to help him. He was the conquering hero and it would have been presumptuous to assume he wouldn’t jump back onto his skates. But Fred didn’t. He rolled onto his side. And lay where he was, as helpless as a turtle. There was only one person who knew he couldn’t get up off the ice by himself.
The other number ten in a Wheat Kings uniform dropped his stick and left the line of players. Ryan arrived beside Fred, scooped him into his arms and hoisted him up. “Nice entrance, Pickle,” he whispered.
Fred yanked a note from inside his skate and read it slowly to himself, then told Ryan, “Um, um, I brought underwear and socks from your mom. She says hi.”
Fred ignored the temptation to wave or bow. He was too angry. Instead, he skated toward the red carpet, then around it. Down to the other end, and around the other side.
And it was only then, after a full length of ice, that Fred was able to get up a good head of steam. The breeze blew his tangled hair back just like Guy Lafleur’s. It felt unfamiliar but refreshing upon his bare face. He skated so strongly and gracefully that the arena fell silent. And the arena remained silent as Fred, face beaming, arrived back at the red carpet, sending a spray of ice across it.
The captains were called and the general manager offered Fred a puck. “Buh, buh, I have brought my own.” Fred fished his hand into his hockey pants, snooped around for a while and finally brought it out with a shit-eating grin no less triumphant than if he’d pulled a sword from a stone.
Nobody but Fred knew the significance of the puck. It said that no owners, no amount of money or greedy players were greater than the game itself.
Fred bent over and dropped the puck Badger had given him from the last shift of the last game of his home team onto the Keystone ice surface. The Brandon captain gently tapped it back with his stick, picked it up and handed it to Fred, who shook hands with the two captains and returned to his place on the blue line.
The announcer didn’t need to ask anyone to rise. They were already standing. What followed was talked about in Brandon barbershops, bars and coffee shops for days. It was prefaced, at least by younger fans, with a disclaimer about not wanting to sound corny but it was still “pretty neat” and one of those “you had to be there” moments.
The singing of the national anthem at the Keystone Centre had never sounded so beautiful. Those who were there said it felt like a choir. On a good night you were lucky to hear anyone singing. On this night, everyone sang as loud as they could, with a pride so elusive and private that it couldn’t be anything but genuine.
And when they were done, they applauded. And the players applauded. And Fred applauded. It’s doubtful anyone knew exactly what they were clapping for, but it felt good so they did it for so long that the vibrations eventually made some people dizzy enough that they had to sit down.
Once the game started, the mood in the arena was subdued. The fans were spent. Fred took his place at the end of the bench beside the backup goalie. He watched the game from there. And joined the team in the dressing room during both intermissions.
With a minute left in the third period and the game tied 4–4, Ryan felt a tap on the arm from the head coach. Ryan had not played much. He had been a healthy scratch for the past three games, and he had been used sparingly in this one. He hurtled onto the ice like a four-month-old border collie off its leash for the first time.
The puck skittered behind the Wheat Kings
net. The Brandon defenceman corralled it, looked up at the clock and saw only fifteen seconds left. He appeared content to let the game go into overtime. Then, as the crowd booed, Ryan raced in and snatched the puck from his own defenceman.
He flew around the net and when he reached his own blue line a simple juke lost the first defender. Another was eluded at centre ice, but an opposing defenceman had Ryan lined up for a crushing hit at the other blue line. Fred stood up. He knew what was coming. Ryan executed a breathtaking three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turn, leaving the defenceman sliding helplessly on his back and bringing a collective murmur of appreciation from the fans, who now rose to their feet.
Ryan burned a path to the net. The other defenceman swiped his stick at Ryan’s. Ryan pulled the puck back deftly and raised his stick to shoot. The defenceman and the goalie both dropped in anticipation of the shot. Ryan could taste the roar of the crowd, the hugs from his teammates.
But Ryan did not shoot. Instead, he flicked the puck ever-so-gently over the legs of the sprawling defenceman. The puck landed flat and slid to within a foot of the net, where all the Wheat Kings centreman had to do was tap it into the open net. And he did. And then was mobbed by his happy teammates, including Ryan Feniak, who looked up at the scoreboard to see one second left on the clock.
The centreman raced along the Brandon bench, knocking gloves with this teammates. Ryan took his place on the bench. The Brandon coach leaned down and whispered something in Ryan’s ear. Whatever he said made Ryan smile a little. But what made Ryan smile a lot was when he looked all the way down the bench and saw Fred. Although Ryan couldn’t hear the double-barrelled laugh above the noise of the crowd, he could see Fred’s left hand bobbing up and down.
The arena horn sounded. Ryan yelled a jubilant obscenity and joined his teammates as they congratulated their goalie. When Ryan looked around for Fred, he was gone.
The Horn of a Lamb Page 36
