Darkroom: A Moo U Hockey Romance

by Kate Willoughby

  He was scowling at me, but I continued because he hadn’t heard the worst part.

  “There are two types of hearing loss associated with otosclerosis, conductive and sensorineural. Conductive hearing loss is the better of the two because with sensorineural, there’s a possibility of permanent hearing loss.”

  His face and turned the exact shade of red it had been after his argument with his father. “What the hell are you talking about? Are you saying I’m going deaf?”

  “Hudson, weren’t you listening?”

  “Maybe I didn’t hear you,” he said with a sarcastic smirk I didn’t appreciate.

  “Look, don’t kill the messenger. I’m just telling you what I know.”

  “What you know. Let’s talk about that,” he said. “You’re not even in medical school yet. Where do you get off telling me I’m going deaf?”

  “I didn’t say you were going deaf. See? You weren’t listening. Permanent hearing loss is only one of the outcomes, but I only told you that because you need to take this seriously. You need to go see an otolaryngologist and get examined.”

  “Fat chance.”

  “Hudson, please. I know you’re afraid, but you have to get over it. That thing that happened was when you were a kid…”

  He started laughing but it was a cruel sort of laughter. “Oh, that’s rich coming from you.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I mean, I’m not the one who’s afraid to even fucking go outside unless I spend an hour in front of the mirror.” Then he mockingly mimed me putting my makeup on. “‘I’m afraid someone will see my face and call me names.’ Talk about living in fear.”

  This time I was the one staring. Had he really said that, done that? I was trying to help him, damn it, and this was how he responded. I’d thought that saying about seeing red was just that, a saying, but right now, my vision did seem to be tinged with red. If I hadn’t been so infuriated, I might have looked up the reason behind that phenomenon.

  Tears threatened but I swore once to never let a bully see me cry and I wasn’t about to start now. With as much dignity as I could manage, I got my purse and left, somehow managing not to slam the door behind me.

  32

  Hudson

  When it rains, it pours. Everything in my life was in the shitter and I didn’t know how to fix it.

  It had all started with that disaster of a Thanksgiving where my dad demonstrated just how big a prick he could be. I’d wanted to look around for the reality show cameras. That’s how unreal it had felt. No one in the family had known how to react when he’d started in on Indi.

  Not wanting to continue making everyone uncomfortable, I’d waited until all the guests had left and then asked if I could have a moment with him in the cellar. I’d intended to call him out on his dickhead behavior but instead, he started in on me, on my erratic game play.

  I should have known that was coming. Every time I got on the ice lately it was like taking my chances on a slot machine. Sometimes, I’d hit the jackpot and be on fire. I’d nail my passes, win face-offs, assist, score… But other times, I’d stink. I’d be too late getting into position, misunderstand a teammate, or I’d fucking fall flat on my face.

  “It’s like some alien kidnapped my son and left a fake Forte in his place,” my dad had said. “I can only think of two reasons why this is going on. One, the draft went to your head and you think you've got it made and can kick back. Well, I have news for you, that ain’t the case. You cannot afford to slack off until you’ve signed that NHL contract.”

  “I’m not slacking off. I bust my ass every night and leave everything on the ice, just like I always have.”

  “I didn’t think so because it’s far more likely that you’re listening more to your little head than your big head.”

  “Jesus, Dad.”

  “How many times have I told you not to let a woman rule your life?”

  “She’s not ruling my life, Dad. She’s adding to it, making it better in every way.”

  “There’s your dick talking again.”

  “I’m not talking about sex. I’m talking about friendship and support, about being okay with my crazy schedule and how sometimes hockey has to come before she does.”

  “Exactly! You don’t realize it, but she’s playing a long game. She wants that golden ring, son.” He pointed to the band on his left hand. “She wants to marry you so she can live the life of luxury and never work another day in her life.”

  The idea was so preposterous, I couldn’t even formulate a response. Indi was as laser-focused on her medical career as I was on hockey. I was usually the one wanting to blow off workouts and extra training so I could spend time with her instead of the other way around. But my dad was on a roll.

  “That’s why she’s going along with everything you want, accepting that she’s a lower priority and fucking your brains out every chance she—”

  “STOP!” I yelled, every muscle in my body rigid with rage. “You need to shut your mouth right now or I swear to God I’m going to shut it for you.”

  My dad looked shocked. I’d never threatened him with physical violence before. Could I go through with it? I had no idea. Those words just exploded out of my mouth like buckshot.

  “I have listened to every bit of advice you’ve ever given me and most of it has been solid, but what you just said is not only over the line, it’s flat-out wrong.

  “You only met Indi a few hours ago. How could you possibly know what her motives are? Is it so hard to believe that she might just like me as a person? Because I am a person, Dad, not just a hockey player. There’s more to me than what I can do on the ice and I have to tell you it’s a fucking relief to finally have one person in my life who understands that because you certainly don’t.”

  My dad lifted his chin at me. “I know what her motives are because I know women. I know how their minds work.”

  “You don’t know my woman and unfortunately, you’re not going to get a chance to because we’re leaving.”

  My dad crossed his arms over his broad chest and nodded. “Yeah, go on back to school. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. College might teach you some things, but it won’t teach you jack about shit that matters, like how to avoid gold-diggers.”

  I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Indi wasn’t after me for my earning potential. While she had been impressed with the place on State Street, she’d never once asked me about how much I stood to make if I made it to the NHL. With the exception of her expensive makeup, she didn’t splurge on fancy things for herself. She never talked about how she wanted of this kind of house or car or lavish lifestyle. Her medical degree represented a dream of helping children, not of making big bucks.

  She wasn’t without faults, though. Case in point, her tendency to treat me like I was her patient. To have her throw all these multi-syllabic words at me because she thought I had some weird ass condition was ridiculous. It had been like my girlfriend had suddenly transformed into the Nostradamus of the NHL, predicting my imminent doom like it was written in the stars.

  Even so, I loved her and felt like the lowest of the low for what I’d said to her. Maybe the apple hadn’t fallen too far from the tree. Maybe I’d inherited or learned how to verbally lash out at people from my dad’s example. I hated that idea. I hated the defeated look on her face when she’d left the apartment. And yet, in the moment, I had felt a horrible, fierce satisfaction at having hit the mark.

  I’d been an asshole of the first water.

  I knew I had to apologize, but the relationship reboot wasn’t going to hack it this time. I needed to do some major groveling but I was too much of a chickenshit to face her yet. Besides, I knew she was taking that MCAT practice test today, so I told myself she wouldn’t want to hear from me until that was over anyway.

  As for me, I had something to prove to Coach Keller after Friday night’s shit show. I still wasn’t completely convinced my problems on the ice were physical and n
ot mental. I had stopped enacting Mac’s five step pregame routine four games ago because the nausea and vomiting had gone away, but maybe I needed to start that back up again. Maybe his routine magically corrected more than the anxiety. Maybe it aligned something in my head so I could think during the game more clearly.

  I decided to try it tonight in the game against Merrimack. After I had my gear on, I leaned back in my stall and breathed deeply while listening to some relaxing music on my noise-cancelling headphones. I had a little trouble conjuring up my “happy place,” a place where I felt zero stress. I used to think about being in bed with Indi immediately after sex, but that didn’t feel right when we weren’t on speaking terms. So I imagined I was Deke on his wheel, running for the sheer joy of running. Step four, challenging and rejecting all the negativity in my head, was just as challenging. I’d recently seen an article about me online that said I had great hockey sense but wasn’t demonstrating the skating skills I’d shown in the past.

  No shit.

  The comments below the article were even worse.

  I didn’t need that crap clouding my brain, so I pictured the article, printed on paper, then mentally lit it on fire and watched it burn. Then I concentrated the rest of the time on visualizing myself owning the ice, executing plays with crisp precision, assisting my teammates in achieving their own highlight moments, and performing so well that Coach Keller took me aside for some words of praise.

  Turned out, after the game, the coach pulled me aside all right, but not for praise.

  “Forte, what in the ever-loving fuck is going on with you? If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were deliberately fucking with me. Just when I’m fed up and ready to mark you down as a healthy scratch, you pull something out of your ass to change my mind. Then the very next day, you’re back to your old tricks. Your teammates complain that you don’t listen to them, that you see yourself as some kind of wunderkind who can carry the team all by yourself and I didn’t want to believe it. But tonight in the third period, I told you to get the puck to Daniels and you flat out ignored me.”

  I swallowed hard. “Coach, I…I didn’t hear you.”

  “How the hell could you not hear me? I was literally right behind you. Get the fucking cotton out of your ears, will you? And pay attention!”

  Getting chewed out by Coach Keller was my come to Jesus moment. I couldn’t sit on my ass anymore and pretend things would get better if I tried harder. Maybe my ears really were fucked-up, like Indi had suggested, or maybe it was something worse like an inoperable brain tumor. Regardless, if something was medically wrong with me, I had no idea how the Dragons would react. Worst case scenario, they’d neglect to offer me a contract when I graduated.

  Thinking Booth MacDonald might be able to help, I called him up. It was late, but the Barracudas had come east for a road trip, so he was in the same time zone at least.

  “Young Forte! Good to hear from you. How’s that pregame routine working for you?”

  “Am I on speaker?” I asked, calling back to his prank from the last time I called.

  “Ah ha ha ha ha ha. No, you’re not on speaker. I’m in my hotel room.”

  “The routine is working great, thanks,” I said, feeling a little guilty about the white lie. “But now I have another problem and I don’t know what to do about it.”

  “This is why you should always wear a condom.”

  “Mac, I didn’t get anyone pregnant.”

  “I knew you were too smart for that. Now that we have that out of the way, lay it on me. What’s your problem?”

  As matter-of-factly as I could, I told him about the tinnitus, the dizzy spells and the fact that I was having trouble hearing, that I’d been having trouble for months. I even told him about Indi’s shot-in-the-dark “diagnosis” of otosclerosis.

  “Jesus, kid. You need to see a doctor. You guys have a team doc at Burlington? When I was at Dartmouth, there was a team doc for all the school athletes. Can you go to him and tell him what’s going on?”

  I did a mental double take. In my brain, the team physician was there for game related injuries like pulled muscles or dislocated joints. Consulting him about something that didn’t originate from hockey hadn’t even occurred to me.

  “That’s actually a great idea,” I said hesitantly. “But…”

  “But what?”

  I hesitated, reluctant to share my deepest fear, the one that threatened to throw me into panic mode.

  “What if he tells me I’m going deaf, Mac? I can’t play hockey if I can’t hear. The Dragons will drop me like a hot potato and my career will be over before it even started.”

  Which would make me a pariah in my family. I’d be the one who broke the family’s unbroken line of NHL players. I could well imagine my dad disowning me.

  Mac said, “First of all, you’re not going deaf. You don’t know that for sure, not until you see a professional. I looked up otosclerosis while we’ve been talking and everything I’m seeing says it’s a pretty rare condition. So don’t get ahead of yourself. Secondly…hold on a sec. Just checking one more thing. There. I knew it. You ever hear of Jim Kyte?”

  “No.”

  “Look him up later. He was the first legally deaf NHL player. Played almost 600 games in the NHL.”

  “This better not be one of your pranks,” I said. My heart was pounding.

  “I wouldn’t joke about something like this,” Mac said. “According to his Wiki page, he was born with perfect hearing but lost it by the time he was three. So there you go. If you do have otosclerosis, and that’s a big if, it’s not a death knell for your hockey career. And besides, the Dragons aren’t going to just drop you. A hearing problem or any other kind of physical problem isn’t the deal breaker you think it is. It’s all about your performance.”

  This wasn’t exactly reassuring. Even so, I thanked him and he said, “Let me know how it works out, Forte. I’ll be crossing my fingers for you.”

  Immediately after hanging up, I checked out Jim Kyte and got chills. Kyte had been drafted in the first round, number 30 overall, just like me, which was a was a weird fucking coincidence. But that was about the only thing we had in common. Kyte had spent most of his life without hearing, so he had a long time to adapt, to develop tricks to compensate. For instance, because he couldn’t hear the players behind him, he sometimes used the Plexiglass as a mirror. He also did a lot of lipreading.

  I was glad to see he’d been inducted into the Ottawa Sport Hall of Fame, but he only accumulated sixty-six points in his fifteen-year career. Even for a defenseman, that was not very good. However, I also learned that he wore hearing aids in both ears and had a special helmet to accommodate them. Good to know, considering a hearing aid was apparently one of the first things they tried when it came to otosclerosis.

  Unfortunately, the only way to know if I had it or not was to get checked out by a doctor, like Mac said. The idea of going to someone I’d never met before made me break out in a cold sweat. But the team physician, Dr. Neufeld, or Newfie as we all called him, was a great guy with a calm bedside manner. I’d been afraid to talk to him when I was a freshman, but now, three years later, he didn’t scare me at all. If after seeing him I needed to see an ear specialist, so be it. I’d have to grow a pair and deal with it because I had momentum now and was done with the torture of uncertainty.

  Even though it was after midnight by now, I sent him an email. Right after that I texted Indi.

  Hudson: Can we talk?

  But I didn’t get a reply.

  33

  Indi

  When Hudson pretended to be me at the mirror, putting on my makeup, it was like when you stub your toe hard and the message takes a few seconds to get to your brain.

  It was so far out of character for him I literally couldn’t believe it was happening at the time. I remember thinking, he’ll realize the crossed the line any second now. Any…second…now…

  But he didn’t.

  And when I realized he wasn�
��t going to take it back, I couldn’t even breathe.

  In shock, I’d managed to hold the tears back until I was a couple of blocks away, but once the floodgates opened, I had to pull over because I couldn’t see through the tears. I cried, alone in my car, for a good long while. I sobbed until my throat was sore and my eyes felt like I’d gone a couple of rounds with a heavyweight boxer.

  When I got home, Ruby knew immediately something catastrophic had happened. Somehow my body managed to produce more tears even though I would have sworn that was impossible. I told Ruby what had happened and when I was finished, she was ready to commit murder. She ranted for a good fifteen minutes about what a horrible person Hudson was and how she didn’t think he could have gotten any lower. It really helped. So did the bottle of schnapps she kept in the cupboard for emergencies.

  “I want to call him a name but ‘bully’ just doesn’t cut it,” I said.

  “Ha! We can look some up.”

  We ended up finding an insult generator and I have to admit, the random creativity of some of the insults, along with the schnapps, made me laugh, despite my broken heart.

  Saturday morning, to say I was disappointed to not get a text from Hudson was an understatement. Ruby was outraged.

  “You’d think after he had the night to think it over, he’d realize what a…what was it? Insecure cock waffle he’d been.”

  “Once an insecure cock waffle, always an insecure cock waffle,” I said.

  I tried to sound like I didn’t care one way or the other whether he texted or called or not, but I checked my phone constantly all day. No word that day or the day after. And when he didn’t come to class either, I eventually moved from despair to anger, which pleased Ruby. She didn’t think he deserved my tears.

  “He doesn’t deserve to smell your shit. You should block him. Block his number. If he wants to apologize, he should have to do it in person anyway. Don’t give him the easy way out. Make him come to you to do his groveling.”