“Laudanum?”
“I would like you to put a cast on this.” Clinton waved his wrist in the air.
“A cast.” Grim Jim sucked on his stogie. “And why would you like me to do that, Clay?”
“I believe I sign your paycheck,” snarled Clay. “Please address me as Mr. Clinton.”
“Mr. Clinton” said Grim Jim, “a cast is warranted in the case of broken bones. It is a measure taken to ensure immobilization of the affected limb, you see. You have no broken bones, Mr. Clinton. You have a sore wrist. It will be better in the morning.”
“A cast,” repeated Clinton. He whacked his forearm up toward the elbow. “All the way to here.”
“The muscles will atrophy.”
“And you can be the first to sign it,” said Clay. “Just as I sign your paycheck.”
“Is he serious about this?” Dr. Grimm looked over to me.
“Couldn’t do any harm,” I ventured.
Grim Jim set about preparing the plaster.
TWENTY-FIVE
I HEAR A VOICE, a loud booming voice that seems to fill the air like thunder. “Ladies and gentlemen,” the voice says, “King Leary!!” Then there’s applause, thousands and thousands of people clapping for me.
Aha and hallelujah. I’ve done it. I’ve given up the ghost.
The King has died and gone to Glory.
Who’d have thought they’d give me a big intro like that? It’s going to be nice to see them all again. Manfred, how the hell are you, brother? You’re looking fine. You got some spark back in those coal black peepers of yours. Chloe, my wife. Are we feeling any better, Chloe? And lookee there, Jane, Jane, beautiful Janey. Clarence, you no-good so-and-so. Who taught you to drive? Drunk as a skunk you were, and don’t bother denying it, I’ve read the police reports. Oh, there he is. Clay. You bastard. Man, it’s good to see you.
The people are still clapping. I’m some sort of big deal, even up here. I had no idea. Someone whispers in my ear, “Wave.” How silly of me. The King starts to wave to the multitudes. Wait, wait! Oh, how perfect is my paradise! Heaven is a huge skating rink! There’s hockey players on it now, all the beautiful, golden-haired men. They are banging their sticks on the ice for me, hail, hail, all hail to the King!
A red carpet is laid at my feet. The King waves with both hands now, and every so often I’ll take a humble little bow. The crowd rises to its feet. The huge voice—do you think it’s Himself giving me the big play-up?—says, “King Leary!!” one more time, and now there is whistling and cheering. It seems to go on forever. I’m a trifle embarrassed.
“At this time,” says the huge voice (I’ve decided that it’s likely just one of the higher-up archangels), “we would like to ask the captains of both teams to step forward for the ritual opening face-off. King Leary will drop the puck.”
Oh, boy, gonna be a hockey game. All the old boys, all my friends. Newsy Lalonde will play. Dirty Joe Hall. Howie Morenz. In goal, maybe Vézina and Charlie Gardiner. All the former Kings. And—
Wait just one second here.
I’m still waving with my hand. It’s a wrinkled old claw, liver spotted and blurry with palsy. What gives? Why ain’t I the Dublin Hurricane, one hundred and forty-six pounds of fighting breezy Irishter?
And these two fellows skating toward me, I don’t recognize them. They’re just young puppies, and they got hair like girls’. Hold on, I do recognize one of them, from his pictures in the dailies. That there is Duane Killebrew. I think I jumped the gun here.
I take a look to my right. There’s Iain grinning at me. “You’re doing good, sire.” His breath is sharp and stale and snaps my head back as though a bottle of smelling salts was passed beneath my hooter.
I sigh wearily.
The two team captains get to me. The Toronto captain I don’t know from a hole. He takes off his hockey glove and offers his hand. I shake it. He winks. He’s chewing gum and winking, for Jesus’ sake. He’s got no sense of tradition.
Duane Killebrew is a lot more humble. He takes my hand and pumps it up and down, saying, “This is a real thrill for me, Mr. Leary. King. I’ve read all the books about you. When I was a kid I read all those Leary & Clinton adventure books.”
“What’s your favorite?”
Duane Killebrew shrugs, and his hair wiggles like a fat girl in a sideshow. “I dunno. Maybe Leary & Clinton Climb Mount Everest.”
Clay Clinton’s long fingers trembled and his grip on the sheer face loosened. “Well, Leary, my friend,” he said, “it looks like I might not get to watch you win that game after all.”
“Don’t be so sure, me old son,” said Little Leary, his Irish blood at a boil. Leary took the rope from his hip and tossed it down the mountainside.
“Have you read Leary & Clinton Fight the Dogstar People?” I ask Killebrew. “Damn peculiar. These mooks from the Dogstar Sirius, they don’t got no bodies. They float around the galaxy like beerfarts.”
“You’re looking very well, sir, if I may so say. Very fit and all. I understand we’re going to be taping a commercial together tomorrow. I’m looking forward to that. Maybe we’ll get a chance to talk further.” Killebrew squeezes my hand, and with an imperceptible motion of his ankles he sails about five feet backwards and gives a tiny bow.
I look at Iain. “Nice lad,” I comment.
Lonny Chandrian appears and hands me a puck. The feel of a hockey puck has changed over the years, but I’d be hard-pressed to tell you exactly how. In front of me Killebrew and the Maple Leaves’ mook assume the traditional half crouch and poise their sticks above the ice. I hold out the puck and let it tumble. Killebrew bats it in the air, bouncing it upwards, and then he catches the rubber on the blade of his stick. It’s a fairly keen stunt. Then Killebrew flips it again, catching it in his glove. “I’ll keep this one,” he tells me. Killebrew turns around and skates back to his mates. His stride is long and leisurely. He looks like a fellow out for a Sunday pleasure skate on the canal. Duane has got the big double zero on the back of his jersey.
The Voice gives forth with another “King Leary!!” and the applause comes again. This time it’s halfhearted. The people are waiting for the game to begin. More to the point, they’re waiting for Killebrew to hit the ice in earnest. Truth to tell, I’m looking forward to that myself.
TWENTY-SIX
AROUND THAT TIME, ALL THOSE MANY YEARS AGO, a doctor diagnosed Chloe as possessing a heart flutter. This terrified the girl, she gave the impression that her poor heart was like a canary in a coal mine, a breath away from death. Chloe turned ever paler. Then she got pregnant. Having the baby inside made Chloe feel mighty poorly, the morning sickness lasting all day and all night. I was always having to tend for her, because Chloe was running fevers, throwing up, worried past sense that the baby was going to be stillborn. If she’d known she had Clifford in there she could have relaxed, I suppose, because Cliffy was his big gormless self even as a newborn, but all Chloe knew was that she was twenty-one years old and mostly felt like a bucket of homemade manure.
Now me, mind you, I was flying, I was playing like a son of a bitch. For one thing, I was pushing one-fifty weight-wise, something I never did again. And it seemed like everything that the monks taught me had become second nature. I didn’t have to think about bulldogging, I just bulldogged. When I skated for the net my inner eye would pop open automatic. My mind was blank when I played back then, as empty as a frozen lake. Sometimes I’d savor the cold sting on my skin, listen to the loof-weeda, song of the wind.
Don’t believe anything Blue Hermann might tell you contrariwise. Loof-weeda means “windsong.”
Here’s how I got my nickname. Manfred informed me, after a game, that his great-grandfather, Poppa Rivers, was there to see me.
As he told me this he was sitting naked on a bench trying to rub rum-sickness and bad sweat out of his eyes. Manfred was hitting the bottle hard, and I don’t believe he was having any fun doing it. Drinking appeared to be as much drudgery as working for the Eddy M
atch Co. or going down the mines.
“What’s he want to see me for?”
“How should I know? All I know is, he wants to talk to you.”
“Probably wants my autograph. The old P. H. Leary.” I was showered, I was drinking a bottle of Canada Dry, I felt like a fine piece of work. I started climbing into my civvies.
“Hey,” said Manfred, “how’s Chloe?”
Her tiny fluttering heart and ballooning tummy notwithstanding, Chloe was beset by any number of medical devilments. I was confused and confounded by them, so I gave Manfred a shrug, saying, “She’s all right.”
“You see Janey lately?” Manfred asked, assuming an air of nonchalance, a bit like a buzzard trying to look cute.
“She was over last night. We played cards. I beat her four games straight playing the old gin rummy.”
“Clay there?”
“Oh, yeah, he was over.” Holding Janey’s hand, rubbing the soft white skin, but I didn’t tell Manfred.
“That’s nice.” Manfred pulled on his trousers. They were shit-stained from a drunken tumble.
Poppa Rivers was standing down the hallway.
He was as ancient a bugger as I’d ever seen. He looked like God Almighty had forgot to punch his time clock.
“Christ,” I muttered.
“He’s old,” said Manfred. He was wont to say that sort of thing.
“Old? If his life flashed in front of his eyes there’d have to be an intermission.”
Poppa Rivers smiled, that is, he pulled the corners of his mouth apart and demonstrated the fact that not only did he lack teeth, he didn’t even have much gum to speak of.
“Are you going to introduce us?”
“No,” Manny told me. “The thing of it is, he’s not speaking to me.”
“How’s come?”
Manfred shrugged. “Just go talk to him, Percival. He won’t bite.”
“No, I can see that. Where are you off to?”
“I have to see a man about some land.” Manfred liked to give his drinking expeditions an air of business and enterprise, and was constantly claiming that he had to see a man about some land.
Poppa Rivers lifted this bird’s-claw jobbie that he was using for a hand and waved at me. I nodded, but stuff was stirring around inside me that was best left unstirred.
“Go,” said Manfred, pushing me forward.
Despite his decrepitude, Poppa Rivers was a big man, largeness seeming to run in the Ozikean family. He held himself upright with a cane that was more like a totem pole, birds and animals carved the whole length of it. His hair, and he had plenty of it, was gossamer, and represented the stage in the graying process that comes after white as can be.
Manny ducked out the other way, leaving me alone in the hallway with the graying specter. I swaggered over, hitching my drawers and giving my dragon-head walking stick a little Chaplin twirl. I was pretty good at that. “Evening.”
“We have to get out of here,” Poppa Rivers said urgently. “Loof-weeda.”
“How’s come we have to clear out, and what’s this loof-weeda?”
All of a sudden a smell grabbed hold of my nose. It was like someone had made a stew with potatoes, death, and cow dung.
Poppa Rivers was fanning the air and grinning sheepishly. “Let’s go,” he croaked. “Sorry about that.”
We managed to escape the hallway, and although I’m sure you think I exaggerate, that was the closest I been to death, certainly up to that point in my history. Blue Hermann can let loose some beauties, it’s true, but even he’s got nothing on Poppa Rivers. It was a nice night, almost balmy despite the time of year, and I thought it would be best if me and Poppa Rivers just walked the streets. I wanted to keep him outside in case he decided to float another.
“When I was a boy,” Poppa Rivers told me, “we used to play hockey. Except we didn’t call it ‘hockey’ back then. And we played with a ball. And the sticks were different. We played on the river, with the soldiers. We had one goal at one end of the river, and the other goal would be maybe two, three miles down the way.” Poppa Rivers waved his bird’s-claw jobbie, indicating great distance. “I remember one time, I had a breakaway. And I remember thinking, ‘Oh, no, a fucking breakaway.’ ” Poppa Rivers laughed. “I skated and skated and skated, all alone on the river. Then I see the man between the stones. The goal, I guess you would call it. I shot the ball at him. He caught it.” Poppa Rivers shrugged and sighed.
We walked in silence for a few minutes. Poppa Rivers seemed to be baffled by something in the sky. He kept taking peeks up toward the stars as if their alignment was wacky.
Poppa Rivers said, “Tell Manfred to stop drinking.”
“Come again?”
“Say to him, Manfred, stop drinking liquor. Do not drink it anymore.”
“A lot of people have said that to him.”
“No.” Poppa Rivers shook his head. “No one that he loves and is part of his life has said that to him.”
“We’re all the time saying—”
Poppa Rivers wasn’t a great one for waiting on the end of sentences. “You say things like, Manfred, you drink too much. Or, Manfred, you should cut down. But no one has said this to him: because you love me I’m asking you for this promise, that you will stop drinking this liquor that hurts you so badly.”
“Why not Jane?”
“Someone else should shoulder this one. If Jane and Manfred marry, there will be many promises made between them, and promises need some looking after.”
“How about Clay?”
Poppa Rivers looked at me, cocked a single eyebrow. “I don’t think so. Clay has many schemes and plans to separate Manfred and Jane. No, Clay Clinton won’t do it. And now you won’t either.”
“Who says I won’t?”
“If you were going to do it, you would have said yes. But you haven’t. So you won’t.” Poppa Rivers was really quite perplexed by something in the heavens. He walked with his neck craned backwards, staring at the inky sky. “Oh, I suppose you might say, ‘Hey Manny, go easy on the boozing,’ but you won’t make him promise, and it won’t work. You won’t do it, you loof-weeda.”
“What is this loof-weeda business?”
“It is what I have decided to call you.”
“An Indian name, huh?”
“Right.”
“What does it mean?”
“Oh, a literal translation would be something like ‘wind music’ or ‘windsong.’ ”
“Because of the way I skate?”
“For sure.” Whatever was wrong with the sky, it was making Poppa Rivers tired and sad. “The way you fucking skate.”
“Loof-weeda.”
Then there was a hint of that smell again.
TWENTY-SEVEN
LORD, LORD, THE PUPPY HAS IT ALL! He’s got the Brother Simon Ice Dance, he’s got the Theodorian Inner-Eye Fling, he’s got the Brother Andrew Bulldog and Hardstep, he’s got Brother Isaiah the Blind’s Mystery. That is, every time Killebrew does something, you say to yourself, “How in the world did he do that?”
The fans is going wild in the stands. After one period the score is one-zip for the Ottawa Pats, so low mostly because of the Maple Leave goalie, a Czechoslovakian player with a name that has no vowels. He stops Killebrew at point-black range a couple of times. The lone tally belongs to Duane-o, of course. It was a beautiful backhander, hard as shit. My own backhand, I have to admit, was a trifle weak.
The Maple Leave big gunner is a Russian defector name of Serge Mikaloff. He’s fancy and sneaky as hell, and he manages to pot a goal early in the second period, tying up the game. Then Killebrew feeds one of his own teammates. This makes me giggle, because Duane sets up behind the net and passes out to his man. I’ve heard that on account of Killebrew this has become a fairly common practice, but we certainly didn’t do it, matter of fact, it never even occurred to us. Anyway, its two-one for Ottawa, three-one for Ottawa, and then Toronto scores late in the period to come within a tally.
Between frames Lonny takes me into the private hallway where we can chat without being disturbed. Except he and I don’t have much to say to each other. Even with his executive baldness, Lonny still looks to me like head usher material. He smokes huge stogies and wears an expression of consternation. Lonny asks me a lot of questions about my health. I just shrug, not wanting to get technical.
In the first minute of the third period the Maple Leaves get lucky. The Leave number 27, that uppity captain who has the name of Dickie Dauphin, a poncey monicker if ever there was one, he throws the rubber near the Ottawa goal and it bounces into the net off one of the Bytown backenders. Now she’s tied up like a sneaker, and the stands are buzzing, maybe the Leaves will even win this one. But Duane hits the ice with a glowing in his eyes. Then I know he’s the right man, because he’s got the cold fire. The Rocket had it, Sprague had it, Manny had it, Newsy Lalonde had it, and now I see that the Killebrew puppy has it. Duane-o gets the puck in his own end and it looks like he’s starting upriver, because his hair’s blowing and he’s grinning and hardstepping like a six-year-old.
Now, what does Duane do here?
The goddamn St. Louis Whirlygig!!!
The crowd cheers, and I wonder how many of them know it’s my patented move, and I wonder also if maybe Duane didn’t do it because I was in the stands. It’s a thing of unutterable exquisiteness, that St. Louis Whirlygig, and I certainly am glad I got an opportunity to see the damn thing.
The other Leave defender has to come a-sprawling, and Duane simply jumps over him. Now it’s just Duane-o and the Czech goaler, whose name sounds like Blue Hermann coughing. The goaler stays with Killebrew, and then Duane pulls off one of his feats of sorcery, one I seen Manny execute, the stoppage of time. Shutting down, freezing out the whole factory. It’s like Duane has stopped dead as coffin nails with just the tip of one skate holding the ice. The whole world comes to a standstill, and then the Czech net minder keels. Duane Killebrew flips the puck into a net that is gaping like a dragon’s maw. Killebrew flips his stick and cradles it like a guitar. He strums it a few times and looks momentarily pixilated. Then he unflips the stick, grins sheepishly at the cheers, cruises back to his own end.
King Leary Page 14
