The Last Season

by Roy MacGregor

  By tradition, I went onto the ice first. Number seven was the first sound in the arena always, first scrape on the ice, first slice of the corner, first stick on the puck, first crash of puck against the boards. In a way I created the game, just as I so often finished the game. With my hands.

  I didn’t see Poppa until “God Save the Queen.” The record always skipped slightly and Al Willoughby, the arena manager, had piled so many pennies on the arm the record had slowed to a near growl. But no one sang along anyway, so it didn’t matter. I quickly scanned the seats, skinny Wilemena Bowles, Sugar’s wife, in her usual seat, clutching the gong of her cow bell so it wouldn’t sound, and behind her a plastic golf hat held over a heart. Poppa. And he was singing along, or trying to. The only one in the arena fool enough to even try.

  Powers won the first face-off and got it straight back to me. I circled slowly, shifted, then doubled back and cut across ice when the winger charged me. At their blueline I hit Powers with a perfect pass and he stopped, a give-and-go play. I followed through, slipping up the far wing and into the clear, and Powers put on the shift I figured he would, a shoulder dip, but when tried to thread the pass through the defenceman’s skates the puck was suddenly stopped and Powers was standing there looking like a fool.

  It was the kid! They’d started him for Christ’s sake, and on defence too. He looked like a mascot out there, but suddenly the puck was sailing off his stick high through the air and perfectly into the glove of the winger who’d originally rushed me. I was caught up ice. Parry Sound came in two on one, a deke, a flick pass and a stab and poor old Terry didn’t have a prayer. Parry Sound 1, Vernon 0.

  Sugar let into us on the bench. What had he said in the dressing room about floating? Why did Powers stop? What made me so sure I could just walk away from my position? We took it all, heads down, not saying a word. Sugar waited through ten minutes of stopped time before he tapped my shoulder again.

  At the start of the second period Danny got the puck back to me at the point and I slammed a low, hard one, and Danny, just like we used to practise back home, skated in front and let his stick dangle so it just ticked the shot straight down onto the ice and suddenly it was 1–1. I slapped Danny’s pads and went straight back toward the face-off circle, skating bent over, stick riding both knees, looking up from the ice just once to see how much time was left. I wanted to look at Poppa, but couldn’t. But I could imagine what he must have felt hearing his family name crackling out over the P.A. system. Had a Batterinski ever before known such glory?

  A minute left in the second period and I was last man back with the blond kid breaking over centre, intercepting a bad Bucky pass over to Powers. He looked like an optical illusion coming in on me, too small, too compact, rushing in a near sitting position, but still accelerating too fast for me to simply ride off into the corner. I forced him slightly to my left, then stepped right, where he came, and stopped and thrust out my hip with a little bit of knee I hoped the referee wouldn’t catch. I had him clean. But then I didn’t. All I felt was the wind from his sweater on my face as he somehow stepped yet another way and was gone. I turned and lunged sweeping his feet out from under him, but even that was too late. The red light came on even as he flew through the air past Terry, and before he landed I could see him smile and raise his hands in victory, as if he’d somehow had control even as he sailed through the air.

  MacLennan began the third period in my place, the ultimate humiliation, the first opening face-off I’d missed since arriving in Vernon, penalties excepted. I tried to convince myself it was because Sugar wanted to talk to me about stopping the blond kid. But of course it wasn’t. I knew Poppa would be looking for me at every player change, but Sugar’s hand never landed on my shoulder.

  And MacLennan was botching things. Danny was playing his heart out, twice carrying right through the team only to hit the goal post once and fan on his backhand the other time. He was playing his heart out for my Poppa. I sat, stick handle pressed between my eyes, staring over the boards. I could feel the heat rising. I could sense every one of the eight hundred or so spectators knew that I’d been benched because of some goddamn twelve-year-old kid. I’d been made a fool of; once I thought I heard laughter from behind the bench, and since there was nothing funny about the game I knew the one thing they could be laughing at was me.

  I was sweating harder on the bench than I would have on the ice. There was noise, a steady, rhythmic rap that seemed to fill the arena, until I realized it was me doing it, ramming my skate toes into the boards in front of me.

  Poor Poppa. He’d come all this way for nothing. Nothing. Up at three to catch the bus; money he didn’t have; and now nothing to show for it. I could see him sulking out of the Vernon arena not even waiting to see me, back by bus to Pomerania with a good word for Danny Shannon’s family, and then not able to lie about me to Father Schula or the Jazdas or Dombrowskis or Hatkoskis or even the old bitch herself, Batcha. I could see her smiling, knowing all along. I could hear her tongue cluck with the disgust that seemed to fill her mouth as easily as spit.

  I wanted to hit something. Bad.

  Sugar barely touched me and I was over the boards as dumb-ass MacLennan stepped off. The little blond kid was no fool, obviously; figuring to catch us on the line change he sent a long pass up my side to this skinny creep whipping along with his head down. I skated backwards just to the blueline, then cut sharply, forcing skinny toward the boards. I jumped from going backwards into an instant charge and caught him flush, stick rising just as he hit the boards, rising in just under his chin and ear, and lifted with all my strength. I could hear him groan. I could feel him cave and smell him sweat, frightened. The whistle was screaming even as I lifted, stick and knee, and thrust him on over the boards, sprawling and shooting into the front row of terrified spectators.

  Now I felt fine.

  Just as the linesmen arrived, Parry Sound’s big defenceman charged up and threw his stick down. I kept mine, which flustered him immediately. I could feel the linesman’s arms around my shoulder and neck in a half nelson: it was a feeling I enjoyed, the gentleman’s agreement that we would struggle, but within limits, that it would look like more than it was. I pulled angrily toward the defenceman and my linesman pulled back in agreement. The big defenceman, already toothless at sixteen, spit at me and I spit back, but the other linesman had moved in to pull on the defenceman and so neither of us landed our shots. I pulled; he pulled; they pulled; we shook; we circled. It was as if the players were heavy life-sized dolls and the linesmen were struggling to work them, unsuccessfully. I laughed at the defenceman, which made him puff up and charge like a goose. But he got nowhere.

  I could hear their coach screaming. He was up on the boards, balancing and calling for a major. Good — that meant blood. Their trainer was slipping across the ice on the arms of one of the Parry Sound players and he was carrying a white towel, deliberately chosen to show the blood.

  “How about somebody your own size, asshole!” the defenceman shouted. Without his teeth he lisped, so it came out “athole.”

  I spit, landing on his shoulder. “Faggot!” I shouted. And spit again.

  “Cool it, boys, or you’re both out of here,” the bigger linesman warned.

  I was willing to let things die, but not the defenceman. My spitting seemed to have him worked into a rage and he caught his linesman off guard by ducking and twisting out of his hold. He came at me swinging and my linesman wouldn’t let go, so I ducked and could hear the crack of the defenceman’s fist on my linesman’s head. I take things like that personally. My linesman released me, perhaps deliberately, but I had time only to follow through my duck with a bear hug around his middle. I lifted him but he pummeled my head. Not that it hurt, but it looked bad; so I lifted more and pushed forward, cracking his head on the ice like a .22 short, but it didn’t bother him much. He swung my face with one hand and tried to claw at my eyes with the other. I could feel the sting of a scratch. Pulling up his sweater over
his head so it tied his arms, I drilled him right through the Parry Sound Shamrock’s crest, a direct hit on the mouth. Twice more and I could see the sweater staining red through the crest and mercifully, both linesmen fell on me and pulled me away. My defenceman merely rolled over onto his side moaning. Finished.

  Naturally the referee threw us both out of the game. As I stepped off the ice a stretcher came through — the ultimate proof that I’d won. The leeches stood six deep along the corridor, but this time they were silent and did not touch. Silent with admiration. Not touching out of respect.

  The linesman escorted me to the home dressing room, waited till I sat down, then closed the door carefully, leaving me entirely alone with the sucking of the urinals and the flutter of the rubber vents over the hot air duct. I slouched back and let the sweat run freely down over my forehead, over my nose, down onto my lips, and here I drew it back inside, getting back what I’d given out. I tasted like a man.

  I knew it wasn’t right, but it felt great. I could feel my defenceman on my knuckles and when I touched them they stung with his jaw, just as I knew when he moved this week he would feel me and I would be with him, his better, for weeks to follow. He had my mark on him. I too had swelling and redness, but on the knuckles it shone with pride. Where he was swelling made him less, mine made me more. I tried to feel his fear of me, and in trying this, my respect for myself grew. I went to the half-shattered mirror but saw no pimples. Just Batterinski, hulking in his pads, solid from blade to brushcut, a man oddly at ease while others about him panic.

  Danny always talked about how quickly things take place. “He never even saw the puck,” he’d say. But it was never so with me. I was like Willoughby’s recording of “The Queen.” When attention was on me, time slowed down. In a fight, I relaxed. I could sit in the dressing room in the hours before a game and twitch so bad sometimes a foot would jump right off the floor. But when my defenceman charged I was aware even of my own breathing. He came in flailing, but to me it was like watching someone swim toward me doing the crawl. I could sense his intention and I could feel his blind fury. When I had him about the waist it almost felt as if I was comforting him. That I didn’t just keep squeezing until his own insides poured out his mouth was an act of charity. I put him down and I ended his humiliation quickly for him, even hiding his face under his sweater when it happened. He should have thanked me.

  The horn went to signal the end of the game and Danny was first to confirm what I already knew

  “Ugga-bugga!” Danny shouted. His victory call. “Five-four for us, Bats.”

  I smiled. The rest poured in, shouting, slapping, tossing sticks and gloves. As they passed by they looked with the respect of the leeches but had no fear in touching, which I was glad for. I felt their hands and their sticks praising me.

  “You fucking near killed that twit, Bats!”

  “I heard the ambulance.”

  “Best check of the season.”

  “You turned it around, Bats old fart.”

  I said nothing in return. I sat there, completely dressed but for my gloves at my feet and felt no different than if I was lying in bed on a Saturday morning. The trainer, Biff, came in with a tray of Pepsi and made sure I got mine first. Then came Sugar, making like he was scribbling the final score down on his clipboard in case he’d somehow forget. He stopped, looked with the good black eye and winked it.

  “Teddy Roosevelt,” he said.

  I said nothing, just smiled and looked down and began undressing slowly. Not undressing, more like dismantling: sweater, elbow pads, shoulder pads, lift off the braces, take off the skates, pants, undo garter, socks, shin pads, jock. Each piece dropped off with reluctance. If only the people who saw me on the street could see me in full uniform, the big “A” over the heart, the number “7,” the tuck of my sweater into the back of my pants. I knew the uniform spoke better for me than I did myself.

  Coming out of the shower Sugar reached out and caught my arm, turning me toward him. He whispered:

  “That your dad waiting out there?”

  Danny! The son-of-a-bitch.

  “Yes.”

  “You want me to call him in?”

  I shook my head. Sugar hung his thick lower lip out and nodded his understanding.

  When I was dressed though, Sugar insisted on leaving the dressing room with me. Poppa was outside, leaning on the nearest edge of the snack counter, chewing on a Coffee Crisp like a little kid. There were chocolate and wafer crumbs all over his chin and front.

  “Mr. Batterinski?” Sugar said before I could say a word.

  Poppa looked like he was about to get into trouble with the law.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m Ted Bowles, sir. Felix’s coach. Delighted to meet you.”

  Poppa took Sugar’s hand like it was some sort of trick. I began praying he would say nothing with “th” in it.

  “How’d you like the game?” Sugar asked.

  “Yes.” Poppa said, brushing the crumbs off his chin like he hadn’t properly heard the questions. “Some of it.”

  “Your boy here,” Sugar said, smiling, “he turned it around for us.”

  Poppa looked startled. “He did?”

  “Sure he did. We were flat as pancakes before he shook things up.” Sugar smacked me on the back of the head, reaching up to rub his knuckles into my brushcut. I knew I was turning red. “You got anymore like this back at home, Mr. Batterinski?” Sugar asked.

  “No. Sorry.” Poppa said it as if he was actually at fault. He shifted restlessly, anxious for dismissal. I kicked a Pepsi cup, then looked up to see Mr. Riley’s shock of red hair just off to the side behind Poppa, he and his nervous wife both standing there, grinning widely and waiting to meet the bumpkin.

  “Way to go there, Felix,” Mr. Riley shouted, but not looking at me, at Poppa. Poppa turned, startled.

  “Des Riley, Mr. Batterinski,” Mr. Riley said, introducing himself. “This here’s the wife.”

  Poppa nodded at Mrs. Riley and tentatively shook hands with Mr. Riley. The Rileys looked as if they were dressed for church his suit and tie indicative of his rising position on the local hockey executive. She had on her black wool coat with the beaver collar and her knitted hat. She was offering one of her tight smiles and nodding, but as I knew from past experience, not listening. Her only true interest lay in the church and Mary Maxim patterns.

  “You should be very proud of Felix,” said Mr. Riley. “He’s a fine young man.”

  “Felix should not fight.”

  “Ah,” Mr. Riley snorted, as if it were a point of utter insignificance.

  “He never started it. But he sure as heck finished it, eh?” Mr. Riley laughed loudly and looked around for approval.

  “He’s a good boy,” Poppa said, and that seemed to satisfy everyone. But he meant it, I thought, in argument.

  Sugar gave me another whack, reached over and shook Poppa’s hand again and moved on into the leeches who were waiting to go over the game with him, as if the game could not be fact until they all agreed they’d seen the same thing. Well, at least this time I knew they’d have a good fight to talk about. I began to move away myself, but Poppa surprised me by starting up again.

  “He goes to mass?” he asked Mrs. Riley directly. She tried to speak but her mouth wouldn’t work. No one in the arena had ever spoken to her in preference to her husband before. He spoke for her anyway.

  “Sure he does. You’ve no worries there, Mr. Batterinski.”

  “His first coach,” Poppa said, “Father Schula, he wants Felix and Danny Shannon to serve Christmas Mass.”

  “Wonderful,” Mr. Riley said, looking at me with pride. “They’re both fine boys.”

  “I know.”

  “No trouble with them two.”

  School was to let out December 21, a day so bitterly cold the smoke rose above the boiler room like toothpaste from the tube. The windows in geography class were thick with frost so that at first we could only hear the ambulance siren
as it bounced around the skinny pass between the shop entrance and the main building. The sound was so loud that Mrs. Hay couldn’t continue, and eventually even she went to the windows and began rubbing with her hand to see what all the fuss was about.

  It was a bit like looking underwater when the frost melted, but I was able to see the ambulance pull up just beyond the shop by the teachers’ parking lot and cut the siren. And I could see both Old Man Morgan and the vice principal, Biggins, holding what seemed to be a pail of steaming water. They were standing near the rear of Morgan’s three-tone Ford Fairlane, and they were bending over looking at something.

  It was Danny Shannon.

  He was right up to the side of the car like he was leaning into it. And he was screeching. I could hear him all that distance, his own siren wailing away. I thought at first Morgan must have driven over his foot and stopped on top of it, but that didn’t make sense. He would have moved the car by now.

  “Away from the windows, class,” Mrs. Hay called, her voice rising shrilly. “Immmmeeeed-iately!”

  “I still got the bastard,” Danny said later when I went to visit him in the hospital. It seemed like a foolish boast, considering months of detentions he’d picked up and the great bandage that lay between his legs.

  “It was pretty dumb,” I said.

  “I didn’t figure on the cold,” he said. “All I meant to do was piss in his gas tank and get out of there. How’d I know I’d stick to his goddamn gas tank. It was colder’n I thought, eh?”

  “I still say it was pretty stupid.”

  “It’ll ruin his engine,” Danny said, forcing a smile.