by Diana Wieler
Tully watched her go, waiting until she had reached the top and slammed the door. Then he returned the receiver carefully to his mouth.
“Yeah. Hi, A.J.”
ELEVEN
A.J. was leaning against the telephone table, the sharp edge digging into his thigh. There was a chair, but he didn’t sit. This was going to be a short call.
He cleared his throat to deepen his voice.
“Right. Uh. I’m calling about my weights,” he said.
“They’re still here,” Tully said.
“Well, I’m kinda starting to get back into it … you know, lifting and …” A.J. took a breath. “I want them back.”
There was a moment’s heavy silence. A.J. could feel the stillness of his own house around him. Decco and June had gone to a movie. He couldn’t have done this with anybody at home.
“Okay,” Tully said at last. “Whatever you want. You can come get them any time.”
Now it was A.J.’s turn to choke. He had no way of getting the set back to his house. Tully was supposed to offer to bring them by. But he didn’t, and A.J. couldn’t ask. He had to give Tully more time to suggest it.
“Right,” A.J. said, wrapping the telephone cord around his arm. “Too bad about the game tonight.”
“Yeah. It always burns to lose a close one. Good thing we had Weitzammer and Millyard, or it wouldn’t have been as close as it was.”
“Right. Good thing.” A.J. grappled. The cord was leaving little white marks on his bare arm. “Mendel had some sharp plays, too.”
“You should have seen him in the third,” Tully said.
A.J. had seen nothing but the locker room in the third period.
“Mendel’s having a good year,” A.J. said.
“Zarich, too,” Tully said. “And Kafke.” “And Lavalle.”
“Lavalle’s a jerk,” A.J. blurted, the heat gushing from his stomach up to his chest.
There was a startled silence, then, “He can skate all right …”
“You know what I mean. I’ve seen him in action. He’s a first-class, manipulating jerk.” The boy’s heart was thudding wildly now, but he couldn’t stop. All the things he’d been thinking this past week were cresting to the surface.
“It’s not your fault, Tul,” A.J. continued, his voice hushed. “Lavalle can twist things around so you don’t know what to think — I’ve seen him. But … but … don’t let one mistake screw up your whole life.”
“A.J #8221; Tully started.
“You can get counselling, Tul. You’re seventeen. They wouldn’t tell your parents or anything. Just cut him loose and you can get better. I know you can.”
“Look, I know what you’re getting at,” Tully said shortly. “But don’t sweat it, okay? You don’t know what you’re talking about …”
“Lavalle is bad news!” A.J. insisted.
“He isn’t my first lover.”
A.J. stood, his pulse striking his temples like a drum, a bass drum, big and loud and empty.
“What?” he whispered. This was Chicco’s all over again, only worse. This time there was no protective layer of doubt.
“You’re sick,” A.J. said.
Tully ignited. “What the hell century do you live in? We’re talking about a lifestyle, not a disease.”
“You’re nuts,” A.J. said. “You’re out of your freaking head.”
“You wanna talk about crazy? Going psycho on the ice, beating the crap out of some guy because it makes you feel like a bigshot — that’s crazy.”
There was no sound at the other end. Tully pushed ahead, steaming, only a trace of tremor in his voice.
“Anybody needs counselling, it’s you, A.J. I’m not hurting anybody. You’re the freaking menace. The cement heads at Riverview might think you’re something, but Christ, you’re embarrassing the whole—”
A.J. took the receiver away from his ear and replaced it in the cradle. Then he sat down in the waiting chair, carefully gripping the edge of the table.
Tully was lying, A.J. told himself. He just did it to cut me. What mattered to Landau, to everybody, was results, right? They weren’t kids anymore. They all skated out expecting to get hit. That’s how the league worked. And anyone who said different was a liar, or worse. That night he dreamed of the game against the Terriers. He dreamed it so vividly that he could hear the hoarse, wrung-out voice of the crowd and feel the anxiety coiling around him like a boa constrictor. A.J. was in his own zone — the whole game seemed to be in his zone — and he scuffled and dug his way through the mess of jerseys. Everywhere he turned someone was blocking him. The puck skittered dangerously around the net, but the players were like a web. He couldn’t see clearly or push them aside, and he was ready to scream in frustration when Bruce Fleury took the puck at the blue line. It was like a photograph, a perfect frame: Fleury and the puck and his own path of open ice.
A.J. felt the check, and for a brief second it was so solid, so satisfying. But Fleury buckled. He went down and he stayed down.
He’s hurt — I’ve got to get him up, A.J. thought. He lurched forward and tried to lift the boy, but to his horror, Bruce began to fall apart. An arm hit the ice, then a leg, then another. A.J. clutched for the pieces, tried desperately to gather them all into his arms, but they kept falling. Then, at the edge of his vision, he saw the other players skating towards him and the panic slit up his torso like a knife. They couldn’t see this!
“Get back!” he screamed. “I’ve got him — I’ll carry him!”
He awoke on clammy sheets, his jaw so tight his teeth hurt. The cry was still locked in his mouth, tasting of iron. A.J. rolled slowly onto his side and laid his face in the cradle of his arm. He would carry Bruce Fleury. He would carry him for a long time. November was a grey month. The snow fell and melted, then froze in the night, only to fall again the next day. Driving was treacherous and trucks sanded almost every day, until the entire city was the colour and texture of gravel.
A.J. could feel the grit under his feet when he walked. Sometimes he could feel it even when he was inside, on the smooth, polished floor of Riverview High, or the thin, tired carpet in his house. Even worse was when the wind blew the sand into his clothes. The crawly, itchy, gritty feeling was maddening.
Paul Treejack and the others came by the house often, draping themselves like orangutans in the doorway while A.J. put on his sneakers. Somebody usually had a car, and they spent Saturday nights hanging around in parking lots and restaurants, trying to pick up girls.
They didn’t usually do too well. For all his blustery arrogance with the guys, Paul Treejack turned to cardboard when confronted with the opposite sex. And Doerkson had the power to repel girls on contact.
“Hey!” he would call, approaching a prospective clutch of fifteen-year-old females. “Hey, didn’t I see you in the August issue of Stag?”
The night would disintegrate after that.
What Doerkson said in public, though, was nothing compared to what Treejack said in private. When there were just three or four of them, cruising around or playing cards in somebody’s basement, Treejack could hypnotize them with tales of what he’d done, of what he was going to do.
A.J. was no stranger to this stuff. Hockey locker rooms were renowned for it. But Treejack wasn’t just storytelling, he was challenging.
A.J. would sweat, listening to the round-robin of boasting. Nobody ever said, “Okay, A.J., your turn,” but he knew. The gaps in the conversation taunted him.
So when the pressure was on and A.J. could feel the quiet air pressed into a wedge on him, he delivered. He ran out of the truth quickly. After that, he stretched and shaped it. After that, he lied. Mostly about Jacquie, his old girlfriend.
When he listened to himself, he became faintly sick. Jacquie had been nice to him; he remembered how she hugged. But she had moved away and she was safe.
“What about Summer Brown?” Doerkson asked once, his eyes gleaming. “Geez, she’s a nice piece. Snotty, though; wouldn’t sit next to
me on the van to Swift Current.”
“Who would?” someone chortled in the background. “Doerkson, you smell like a wet dog.”
“Aw, come on,” Doerkson said, grinning slyly at A.J. “Don’t tell me you can’t score, Bad Boy. She’s stuck on you …” He trailed off expectantly. The whole room seemed to pause, listening.
What can I say? A.J. wondered wildly. There was nothing to tell. He couldn’t have even if there was. Summer was private. Very private.
But they were waiting, all of them. Doerkson’s ghastly ghost-blue eyes were drilling into him. A.J. knew he was pinned.
And so he smiled, forced his mouth into a slow, sly grin that felt like it was cracking his face.
Doerkson hooted and slapped his thigh. The room began to chatter again. Somebody cuffed A.J. on the shoulder. “Ooh, aren’t you bad, boy!”
A.J. leaned back in his chair, the stupid grin still frozen in place. I hate you, Doerkson, was all he could think. I hate your filthy guts.
November waned and December dug in its heels. The air cooled and a light powdery snow covered the ugly frozen mush underneath. On the first Saturday night of the month, A.J. drove to Regina with Doerkson, Treejack and Rasmussen. They were looking for a bar.
The night crackled with potential. A.J. could feel it in the hum of the highway underneath Rasmussen’s gas-guzzling Delta 88. The car was garbage compared to the Mustang, of course, but it was powerful, in a raw, brainless way, and the roar of the big V-8 was like music to A.J.
He was still flying high from the night before. The Cyclones had chalked up their third straight win, and against the second-ranked team in the league, too. A.J. had played his regular game, pushing, moving, agitating, but he’d had two assists — one while the team was short-handed.
How’s that for a freaking menace? he wanted to shout. Yeah, I really embarrassed the team. Not bad for a cement head, huh?
The other cement heads were bouncing around the car like Doberman Pinschers straining at their chains.
Rowdy, A.J. thought, grinning. Doerkson was almost comical tonight, and A.J. found himself laughing occasionally at the boy’s sick jokes.
So he’s a jerk, A.J. shrugged to himself. At least he’s a normal jerk. A.J. looked out at the dark prairie and passing power poles that flickered in the strong light of the Delta’s high beams. He had two assists behind him and these safe friends mortared like bricks around him. Bad Boy. It was the best thing that could have happened. His shoulders felt six feet wide in his denim and sheepskin jacket.
They picked a sagging cardboard box of a bar called The Ranchman, because Rasmussen had heard that the bouncers never asked for I.D. There were pool tables and dart boards, chubby barmaids and truckers, all glazed by a blanket of yellow light. A.J. counted fifteen black cigarette burns in the tabletop before the glasses started coming.
“To a godawful Sunday morning and a helluva Saturday night!” Doerkson cried, struggling to be heard over the blaring cowboy music. He raised his glass, slopping draft.
This was a different kind of drinking, A.J. discovered. This was nothing like wedding receptions — where you danced — or house parties — where you played cards and found people to talk to. This was line ’em up, belt ’em back, and don’t be the one with beer in your glass when the waitress comes by again.
By ten o’clock his cheeks and mouth felt shot full of novocaine. He tried to keep up with the conversation, but he caught himself drifting, staring at the shiny rim of a glass or a button on Treejack’s shirt, and listening intently to the songs that slithered out of the sound system.
He hated country and western, but tonight the music seemed to seep into his skin. They were such simple songs, raw with loneliness. Somebody was always hurting somebody else, or loving the wrong person, or loving the right person, too late.
Why don’t they just change things? A.J. wondered, turning his glass slowly in its own wet ring. Why don’t they just find somebody new and start over? But he could hear why, he could hear it in every haunting note. Futility.
“Hey,” Rasmussen said, jogging A.J.’s arm. “Aren’t you a ball of fire tonight. You dead or what?”
A.J. looked up and tried to smile, but he wasn’t sure if he succeeded. His face was too frozen.
“Treejack and I are going to shoot a game,” Rasmussen said, starting to walk towards the pool tables. He looked at Doerkson. “Keep him breathing, hey?” Rasmussen said, jerking his head towards A.J.
Whatever tolerance A.J. had felt towards Doerkson earlier evaporated quickly. The gangly boy was in a talkative stage of drinking — eager, bold, stupid. He was sober enough to form sentences, but drunk enough not to care what he said.
“I cannot believe you,” Doerkson said, his voice heavy with conspiracy. “I cannot believe you’re so freakin’ lucky. I mean she is just hot — so hot.” He stopped and giggled. “Summer — hot? Get it? Get it?”
A.J. stared, a statue. Doerkson pressed on blithely.
“You really gotta have something — know what I mean? She’s just a kid, right? I seen her on the van and I think — whoa, that’s a piece. But she’s just a kid. Fourteen? Fifteen? And you’re buddies with her brother, too. Christ!” Doerkson banged the table, laughing. “Her brother!”
From somewhere inside a pit, A.J. watched. All week he’d felt sick about the unspoken lie they’d wrung out of him, but now he couldn’t move a muscle to set it right.
“Tell me,” Doerkson said, leaning so close that his gamey scent stung A.J.’s nose. “Is she as good as she looks? You know, clothes hide so much. And they can fake it, too. But when I saw her ass I thought, yeah, that’s the real —”
A.J. stood up abruptly, his chair scraping. “I’ll be back,” he mumbled. He turned and headed for the men’s room, banging his thigh on a table but not stopping, not even for a moment, to register the pain.
There were three sinks and six stalls, and a line of urinals against one green-tiled wall. It was a fair-sized room, but grimy. The floor was suspiciously damp. No one else was there, but A.J. was too self-conscious to use a urinal. He went into a stall and closed the door.
He caught himself swaying as he stood there. Time seemed to be a ribbon, full of loops and knots. How much had passed? One minute? Ten? He didn’t know and it didn’t matter. He was just zipping up his fly when he heard the dripping faucet.
A.J. put his hand on the grey cubicle wall, listening. A sink was plugged and had filled with water. The steady drip, drip distorted in the hollow room. The echo was metallic. The longer he listened, the louder it got, and the more it sounded like a hammer hitting a tin roof, or the beating of his own metal heart.
It came on him suddenly. It came on him so fast he almost betrayed himself with a sound. One mo ment he was just listening and the next he was suffocating, his eyes scalding and his throat in a tourniquet.
It frightened him. For the first time all night he knew exactly what he was feeling and who he was feeling it about, and it scared him to death.
Oh, for Christ’s sake, he swore at himself, brushing at his eyes with the heel of his palm. Oh, just don’t. But alone in the cubicle, with no one to judge him, he couldn’t fight the rush of memory, and sensation, and loss.
Then the men’s room door opened, and a gust of bar room noise blew in.
“A.J.?” Treejack called softly.
The boy closed his burning eyes. Go away, he pleaded.
Treejack’s sneakers squeaked over the wet floor. Only one stall was closed, only one had feet under it. Treejack grabbed the top of A.J.’s door and rattled it loudly.
“Hey! Are you okay in there?”
Leave me alone, A.J. begged. Get the hell away from me. For a moment there was only Treejack’s rapid breath, and the dripping tap.
Treejack swore out loud, certain that A.J. had passed out. He stepped back and kicked violently at the door. The feeble lock gave, and the door blasted into the cubicle.
Backed up against the side wall, A.J. felt the slam of
air. Then Treejack had him by the shoulders.
“You nimrod,” Treejack muttered, pushing A.J. out of the cubicle. “What were you doing? We left twenty minutes ago.”
It was too much, too close. A.J. turned hard, his elbow up. Treejack caught it across the shoulder and chest, and went staggering back. He was no hockey player; he didn’t know how to duck a check.
Treejack stared, furious, bewildered. “What the …?”
“Don’t touch me,” A.J. said, his big arms still up, ready. “Don’t you ever touch me.”
Treejack opened his mouth, then shut it. He was no match for A.J. Brandiosa, drunk or sober. He dropped his angry glare and pushed past A.J. roughly.
“Save it for the ice, Bad Boy,” he muttered.
TWELVE
A.J. was trying not to save it for the ice. Every practice, every game, he skated out thinking, Be smart, A.J. Move the puck. Get your head up. But it was so hard.
The problem was that they were winning. In the last six games, the Cyclones had won four, tied one, and lost one. Habits became ceremonies, quirks became intense rituals. If you’d worn a certain T-shirt the night the streak began, you wore it every time you played — unwashed. If you’d skated on dull blades, they stayed dull.
A.J. knew his own talisman. He wished it were something as simple as a T-shirt. He would tape his stick as methodically, as precisely as ever, promising that this game he would play smart and straight and show those jerks who was a goon and who wasn’t.
But even as he made the vow he would feel a clutch of panic in his chest. What if he did let up, and they lost? What if this game, they really needed an enforcer?
Landau had called him that — enforcer. It had been two games ago, the night they’d come up against the second-ranked Tri-Stars. In his pre-game briefing, Landau had said, “… and Grummett and Rudachuk, I want you all over this Daniels. Keep him buried. If he gets out in front, he’s deadly. And enforcer,” Landau had looked directly at A.J., “enforce. They’re running a real goon squad this year. Don’t wait — push back first.” The coach had closed up his notes. “We could be in for a wild ride tonight.”
