There's a Shark in My Hockey Pool

by Dave Belisle

  Derek cleared his throat.

  "I said, aren't you going to ask me where I was tonight?"

  "I'm just happy to have you home." She resigned herself to suffer minimal attrition in this minor skirmish that suddenly had great potential for escalating. She smiled her best "white flag" smile and went back to her book.

  "Of course." Derek wasn't about to let this one go. It was now or never. The hollow click of Sylvie hanging up after the Flin Flon phone call echoed in his head.

  "Go ahead, ask me where I was tonight."

  "What for?"

  "I said ..."

  Helen put down her book.

  "Where were you tonight?" She fairly mouthed the words.

  "Every stinking, sleazy, straight-to-hell dive you can name downtown."

  He was lying of course. Unfazed, Helen returned to her book.

  "Well?" Derek said. This wasn't going to work if he had to argue both sides.

  Helen looked back up at him.

  "Did you lose something?"

  "Geez, Helen. I've been bouncing off the walls of this apartment for years. Any other woman would have cut their losses and moved on. But you play interior decorator-psychologist ... and keep padding the walls for me. Another guy might appreciate you more. Let's face it. You're too good for me. I really don't deserve you."

  Derek lowered his head. There. He'd said it. There was no chapter in the Common Law Manifesto that covered this tough topic. Everybody was different, the degree of difficulty always changed ... but a purge was a purge was a purge. She should be crying by now. He looked back at her to see how she was taking it. The purge had turned to paradise.

  There were tears welled up in her eyes alright. But they were happy tears. The kind that rain down at wedding receptions and airport arrival gates ... massive cloudburst outbursts that don't dampen the proceedings or cancel flights.

  Helen felt a hot flash and hoped it wasn't menopause. He'd said he didn't deserve her. She couldn't remember the last time Derek had put her up on a pedestal. At the same time there was a low, nagging suspicion that somebody had some bad cheese from Copenhagen. But she'd been wasting away for years ... and Derek was now throwing compliments her way like sausage samples at the grocery store. This was an improvement, a small step for chapel chasers, but a giant leap for their relationship.

  She racked her brain to try and remember where she'd put her black lace teddy. She'd only worn it twice for Derek. Once after the opening of Derek's company ... and the other following a Mike Allison overtime goal in the 1987 Norris Division Final against Detroit. The Red Wings went on to win the series and Helen's teddy went into deep hibernation. Until tonight. She gleamed at Derek.

  "Sometimes you say the sweetest things."

  ... 4 ...

  Artie poured over a newspaper ad featuring a belly dancer with an hourglass figure. Her high cheekbones and higher forehead made her a dead ringer for his Aunt Mildred in Peterborough. His aunt also had a moustache that rivaled his own. The belly dancer's veiled face made this a moot point. Aunt Mildred's belly was bigger too. Artie wondered if this made his aunt the better dancer of the two. There was something about the jump-start jiggling of a belly dancer that blurred the line between looking erotic or ready to erupt.

  He turned back to the ad. There was more. In bold type it described an appearance scheduled for 8 o'clock that night at the Caravan Club by the great Maharishi Fishi, a spoon-bending psychic from India. To the right of the belly dancer in the ad, was the swarthy swami ... looking very smarmy. He had his chin cupped in one hand, with an expression on his face that reminded Artie of the split-level eyebrows that fell to the basement level with Don Adams every week during the 1970s aboard the Get Smart elevator.

  Derek sat nearby, reading the Hockey Bible. He was staring at the "Player Transactions" section and his heart skipped a beat when he thought he saw "Helen" in the copy. Closer inspection found the word to be "Helena".

  "Here we go," Artie said.

  "Eh? What's up?" Derek looked up from the tabloid and saw Artie and the newspaper.

  "Hey, I thought I told you we're not taking any players from the damn classifieds. This isn't some bloody house league team."

  "No, no. The Maharishi Fishi is in town tonight."

  Derek returned to his paper, nonplussed.

  "You can go if you want. I'm not into those foreign ballets."

  "He's a psychic," Artie said. "The guy can bend spoons."

  Derek's attention spanned the distance between them once more.

  "Now there's a way to get out of doing the dishes."

  "Hey," Artie said, "he could give our players the positive mental attitude they need to beat Herculean."

  Marcotte mulled it over. Hammond may have something. Derek had always been impressed by the motivation that Red Kelly had achieved when he used "pyramid power" with the Maple Leafs in the seventies. The players had stacked their sticks together under a makeshift shrine of Leafs towels, pucks and underarm deodorant that was topped off by a pyramid.

  The ease of this locker room exercise wasn't lost on the players. There were no tarot cards to memorize or the leg-locking yoga-nomics of transcendental meditation. All they had to do was sit back and ... believe. Darryl Sittler less so than others. He had achieved his own cosmic plane a few years previous in a game against the Bruins, when he'd scored six goals and assisted on four others.

  At each news conference Kelly would calmly relate to the media how the sticks usurped the synergy that effused from the base of the pyramid. The media was quickly entranced as the Leafs sailed on into the second round of the play-offs -- heady stuff for Toronto teams of the post-Keon era.

  Several other teams had employed psychiatrists to help the players focus. It made sense -- but it didn't. Hockey was a thinking man's game. It was also the world's fastest team sport. When a player stood beside the goal wondering whether to pass or shoot, there was always a third thought to consider. Will the net magnets release when the defenseman crunches my head into the post?

  Derek was sure these team psychiatrists liked to believe they were a little psychic. It came with the territory.

  "What time is the show?" Derek asked.

  The downtown Toronto street was lined with market stands and their fresh supply of produce. Derek and Artie strolled along the sidewalk. Artie stopped in front of one of the fish markets.

  "Wait a second. I'll be right back."

  Artie stepped inside the open air market, leaving Derek to look at the vast array of seafood. He hadn't eaten seafood in a long time. Shrimp was okay ... as long as it was breaded. The sight of seafood triggered memories of a hockey banquet he'd attended when he was 17. The ballroom his hockey league had rented adjoined another large room that was booked for a Japanese wedding. During the course of the evening, some of the hockey players had snuck out doors for a smoke or to grab a beer from a two-four in the trunk of a car. Derek covered all the bases, sneaking into the Japanese ballroom as well ... to partake in the sake and sushi spread.

  What followed was a night-long ascension to the porcelain thrown, during which he swore off all brands of beer, raw fish and Japanese baseball.

  Derek shuddered and watched as Artie approached the owner of the stand. Following a brief conversation, Hammond gave the middle-aged man a pair of tickets. He clapped the man on the shoulder and returned outside to Derek.

  "What was that all about?" Derek asked.

  "Oh. That's Louie, an old friend."

  "Old friend, eh? I thought we agreed any complimentary tickets we give away would be to relatives."

  Artie reached into a plastic bag-lined box filled with halibut and crushed ice ... and took out a handful of ice. He popped some of it into his mouth and gestured towards the traffic on the street. Derek's eyes never left Artie's half-full cheeks, swimming with fishy ice.

  "We lived over on Dundas when I was a kid. In the summer, my dad would go fishing every weekend. I, uh ... wasn't the outdoor type ... so I stayed home.
My mother would send me over here whenever dad came home empty handed."

  Artie grinned.

  "I saw a lot of Louie."

  "I hope your old man had a sense of humour." Derek said.

  "Oh, Ma wasn't trying to rub his nose in it. As a matter of fact, she always had me buy something exotic ... something that Dad wouldn't have been able to catch in any lake around here."

  "Exotic. Right," Derek said, exiting the stand between the Arctic char and Caspian squid.

  At the Caravan night club, a teal-turbaned doorman collected money from the patrons filing past him. The management of the Caravan recognized the hard economic times facing much of its East Indian clientele. Several cowbells had been accepted in lieu of funds. A sign beside the doorman read: "TONIGHT ONLY ... THE MAHARISHI FISHI". Beneath the sign was a metal rack that contained flyers for real estate and $99 Persian carpets.

  The Maharishi's show had just ended. Artie and Derek made their way down the hallway backstage. The carpet beneath their feet stank of cigarette butts and Southern Contort. The dim glow from the lone light bulb in the hallway minimized the extent of carpet damage. Artie remembered the rack of rug ads at the front door. He recalled how the car of a mechanic also usually went lacking for repairs.

  Derek stopped in front of a door with a yellow piece of foolscap taped eye level to it. On the paper was a list of six names. The top five had been crossed out. The name at the bottom read, "Maharishi Fishi".

  "This must be the place, " Derek said. "He's all yours, Artie. Go ahead, knock."

  Artie looked a little nervous.

  "What does one say to a Maharishi?"

  "I'd advise against playing twenty questions."

  Artie knocked twice on the door. It opened almost immediately. The Maharishi Fishi stepped into the doorway, wearing a gold turban and maroon silk cape. Derek hadn't seen so many tassels since his high school graduation.

  "Excuse me, your ... uh, excellency," Artie said. "My name is Arthur Hammond and this is my business associate, Derek Marcotte."

  "You two are scampering around the country like decapitated chickens, so you can save your sausage ... in this game called hockey?

  "Uh ... how'd you know?" Derek asked.

  "It is my nine-to-five working day to know." The Maharishi took a quick look down the hallway in either direction, then gestured to Derek and Artie to enter.

  "Come in. Come in quickly. Please dirty my welcome mat."

  Artie and Derek ducked into the Maharishi's dressing room behind him. Derek closed the door behind him.

  "Expecting someone?" Derek asked.

  "You are wrong and right at the same time. I am not expecting someone, but someone may be looking for me ... and I am not wanting this person to find me.

  As the Maharishi spoke, his left eye narrowed while his right eye opened wider.

  You see, some one with my statue is not without difficulties. No, siree, bobby. Every city I visit ... every town my hat hangs up in ... gives me much problems. They tax me like tomorrow will never happen. Little problems that keep growing."

  "Damn GST will kill ya," Artie said.

  "No," corrected the Maharishi. "I mean little ... as in ..." He reached out with his hand and measured a height about three feet from the floor.

  "Oh, boy," said Derek and Artie in unison.

  The Maharishi collapsed into a refurbished mauve easy chair and wallowed in guilt.

  "The women of your country were heels over head in love with the Beatles ... and rolling rock ..."

  "That's, uh ... rock'n roll," corrected Artie.

  "Thank you very much. These ladies are as lonely as pencil pals and chasing willy-nilly after Willie Nelson and middle-of-the-street gurus like me. At first I paid no money to attention. It was life in the very quick lane ... and when I make my curry, I always cook for two."

  The Maharishi winked at Artie.

  "But before I believed my eyes, I was making so much curry for so many, many people ... I felt like a Mister Mickey Dee's drive-thru-this-way. These horny housewives wanted to know everything. Who shot JFK? Where was Elvis? Was there Hog-in-a-Daze in heaven? I was concentrating so much for them, my turban was tightening around my head like a cobra with a cuckoo bird."

  "I was running my onions through the check-out line one day at the Wiggly Piggies ... and I picked up one of those garbage can magazines. I could not imagine what I was seeing ... when I read a story about a psychic's head exploding. Then and there ... 4 o'clock at 152 Landmark Street ... I built up my mind to never cook curry for more than six."

  He ran his hand through his thinning hair.

  "I went home and told four of the women that they would have to hit the freeway. They called me all the words in the textbook. Then they wrote me a naughty letter with many four letter words ... and one word that was nine letters long. It was paternity. I was standing beside myself with surprise ... because two of them had never seen Mr. Winkie."

  The Maharishi paused with one eye shut, mentally counting.

  "The women say five of the children belong to me because of D-N-A. Put a cross in my heart, I only put M-S-G in my curry. I think they are giving me the negligee, I mean slip. I must warn you. We are only itching the surface of the scary stories that never get the daylight turned on them."

  "The two women who did not see Mr. Winkie then said I had used my mystic powers to ... how did they put it like poets? ... to fog up their feminist viewpoint. I promise you I am bending spoons, not making rain. One of their hairdressers knew an entertainment lawyer who was very rich. I was shaking in my galoshes."

  Derek and Artie looked at him, hoping their concern appeared genuine.

  "I got out of there like a bat escaping hell. For six years I have been outside the lighted spot, playing banana number two on the psychic circuit. Next year will be very lucky for me, I am sure. I am feeling much better, thank you very much. I even picked up my sitar for the first time last week since Allah knows when. I was practising the Beatles White Album. Would you like to hear it?"

  Derek looked at his watch.

  "Perhaps next time. We're pushed for time and ... were, uh ... wondering if you might take us up on this ... hockey thing."

  Derek couldn't believe what he'd just said. Yet there was something in the air and it wasn't Southern Contort. It was a strange aura that suggested, while this psychic may be a few hundred bricks short of a pyramid ... Marcotte hated leaving any of those bricks unturned. If speaking in tongues at center ice would help him beat Erskine, he'd do it.

  The Maharishi leaned forward intently as Derek filled in the few remaining blanks of the silk-robed psychic's knowledge of their struggle with Herculean. The psychic filled in a few blanks for Derek as well, including how to turn negative thoughts into high protein health food for the brain ... and the names of a few early Manitoban map-makers.

  "I'll bet you're hell on wheels at charades," said Derek.

  "That's what got me into this gooey mess, my friend."

  Half an hour passed. The conversation between the three men had started amicably enough, but had yet to reach an agreement in principle, lump sum payment or parking privileges. Artie and the Maharishi sat at a round table. Derek paced the floor.

  "Five thousand dollars?" asked Artie.

  "That is correct, Mr. Hammond. My services do not come cheaply. Mind you, I haven't raised my price since I correctly predicted the winners of 12 consecutive Mensa Mania game shows."

  "But we don't have that kind of money," Derek said.

  "Mr. Marcotte. Mine is not a college-degree profession. It is in my blood. I get bumpy geese when I walk by a drawer full of silverware. But it is far away from me to say that our deal can't be done for less than five thousand dollars. You see, I have everything a man resembling me could want ... from spiritual freedom to knowing how cows think."

  "So you'll work with us then," said Derek.

  "I will," the Maharishi said. "Because there is something for me where you may combine your hea
ds."

  The chauffeur leaned back against the limousine with diplomatic license plates and flipped to the next page in his newspaper. The limousine was parked in front of King's Building. The 12-storey government office building was originally dedicated in 1948 to Mackenzie King. King had just retired from the public spotlight and the building was to house the country's headquarters for customs and immigration. During a tour six months after the building opened, an 8th-grade student pointed out that King had been knee deep in corruption charges in the very same service twenty-two years before. Shortly thereafter, "Mackenzie" disappeared from the sign.

  A small plaque beside the entrance bore the French translation, "Edifice Roi". A spray-painting vandal had changed "Roi" to "Rex". The chauffeur turned and threw his newspaper through the open passenger's window onto the front seat. He opened the back door, reached in ... and pulled out another newspaper.

  Inside Edifice Rex, the immigration official handed the Maharishi Fishi a certificate. A triple-layer chocolate cake sat on a nearby table. It had ten miniature Canadian flags planted in the surface. Derek waited for the psychic to wipe the icing off his hands before extending his own for the congratulatory shake.

  "Welcome to Canada. Uh ... any problems with the paternity suits?"

  "Oh, no. I put a check mark in the box beside 'Divorced' and thanked my fortunate stars that there was only one box asking for this."

  "Well, Canada is not exactly a haven for men with half a dozen wives. The women in this country eat bigamists for dinner."

  "Hmmm. Thank you very much for putting your input in me."

  The Maharishi shook Artie's hand and turned to the table for more cake.

  "Thank you a million times. How do you North Americans say it? I'm having my cake and putting it in my belly too."

  "Something like that," said Marcotte.

  He and Artie watched the psychic devour the devil's food cake.

  "Wow," said Artie. "That was fast."

  "Well, he's self-supportive and this country still has a ways to go to before exhausting its yearly limit of psychic immigrants."