The Last of the Lumbermen Read online

  “You do it. We’ll double-shift Wendel, keep it simple. I’ll help.”

  Godin skates by Jack to take a look, then stops in front of us, arms folded. In spite of the referee posture, he’s got a guilty look on his face. “Five minutes,” he says to Gord.

  “Did you call five on JoMo’s hit?” Gord demands. “That was a deliberate attempt to injure.”

  Godin looks away, and repeats himself. “Five minutes. For fighting. Now get off the ice before I give you two more for instigating.”

  Gord skates after Godin. “You’re not calling a deliberate on JoMo?” he hisses, herding Godin into a corner and standing over him. “We’ve got a man lying on the ice with torn knee ligaments and you’re not calling it?”

  “I didn’t see it,” Godin answers, weakly. “I’m calling five minutes on you for fighting, and I could charge you for attempted murder. So get your ass over to the penalty box before I call a misconduct.”

  Gord doesn’t back off. “Listen, you cowardly prick,” he snarls, managing to crowd Godin against the boards without actually touching him. “If you don’t make the calls, I’ll pull your fucking arms out of their sockets and jam them up your ass, whistle and all. You got that?”

  “That’s enough for a misconduct,” Godin snaps, and tries to skate away.

  Gord circles around him and stops in his path. “Where’s the misconduct?” he says, reasonably. “I’m going to wait until after the game and do you in the parking lot. You drive that red Ford 250, right?”

  It’s a stand-off, but Gord has apparently made his point: Godin, when he skates shakily over to the timekeeper, doesn’t call instigating on him, or a misconduct, and JoMo gets five minutes, too.

  I skate over to the bench to explain what’s happening to the rest of the players. I can see they’d like to come off the bench for a brawl, but wiser heads — probably Wendel’s, since we’re not exactly deep in wise men — prevail.

  “We’ll just play the game,” I say. “Wendel, you can double-shift our line and we’ll see how it goes.”

  Indeed we will. We’ve still got fifty-nine more minutes of this horseshit to get through.

  FIFTEEN

  IT TAKES TEN MINUTES for the Roosters to scrape JoMo off the ice and cart him into the dressing room, and at least ten more for us to stretcher Jack off the ice and into the same ambulance they’ve got JoMo in. After that, the first period is pretty routine. When the buzzer sounds, we’re down three to one.

  The Roosters are banging on us like they usually do, and they’re shooting high on Junior, who is ducking like he usually does. His new white pads don’t help much — all three Rooster goals go in over his shoulder. Wendel scores our goal on a breakaway, sent in alone by a neat flip pass from Gord. I’m not being checked very hard, but it doesn’t seem to matter. After years of playing with two slow players, I can’t quite connect with Wendel. Every time I look, he’s two or three steps ahead of where I think he’s going to be.

  During the intermission I notice that Junior is looking more spooked than usual, and I suggest to Gord that we sub in Stan Lagace, who’s only played about thirty minutes all year. Gord looks at me like I’ve just crapped on the floor. “Junior’s our goalie,” he says.

  I understand what he’s saying. It’s a variation on his work- ing premise about everything: loyal and local. Junior’s our goalie because his father was the goalie before him. If Junior’s seven-year-old son wanted to play goalie, he’d be the backup if Gord had anything to say about it. Stan knows all about this, but he’s such a glue-sniffer I don’t think he cares. He gets his min- utes playing commercial league at three AM, and he sits on our bench game after game, waiting for his chance like a pilgrim waiting for the return of Jesus.

  Whether we win or lose doesn’t mean very much to Gord. He’d prefer to lose a hockey game the right way than win the wrong way. He gets his wish, too. Half of it, anyway: we lose and we lose.

  Who’s going to object? Not Jack. He believes that so long as we have that stupid Chief Wahoo crest on our jerseys we deserve to lose. I see Wendel get irritated with losing once in a while, but nobody listens to him anyway, and most of the rest of the players are so used to getting thumped by the Roosters they wouldn’t know what to do if we did win. Me? I like playing with Gord better than anyone I’ve ever played with, so doing things his way is fine with me. Hockey is supposed to be a game, remember?

  THE SECOND PERIOD BEGINS with a bang — literally. Neil Ratsloff gets away from me right off the face-off, skates across the blue line, winds up like he’s Brett Hull, and lets a slapshot go. It’s high, naturally, but he’s so close to the net that Junior doesn’t have time to duck. The puck catches him on the side of his fore- head, spins high into the crowd, and Junior crumples to the ice with blood spilling from a nasty gash.

  He comes to faster than JoMo Ratsloff did, but when he does he doesn’t have a clue where he is or what he’s supposed to be doing. While Geezo tries to staunch the flow of blood — Milgen- berger is still at the hospital with Jack and JoMo — Junior wanders up and down the ice, throwing his stick and gloves into the stands and trying, as far as I can figure out, to execute some quite compli- cated figure skating moves. The crowd thinks this is pretty funny, but the players — the Roosters included — understand it better. It’s one thing to get your bell rung, but the way Junior is acting that shot may have cracked it.

  We have to dragoon him off the ice and into the dressing room, where Gord and I help Geezo immobilize him so the cut can be worked on. That’s easier said than done because Junior won’t lie still, and even Gord has trouble holding him down. We lose another ten minutes trying to settle him enough that Geezo can patch him up, and by the time Gord and I return to the ice the crowd is getting bitchy.

  The same little bugger who was riding me Friday night is in his usual seat, leading the pack. As I skate back to the bench I catch his eye and motion him down. He surprises me and does what I ask. By the time I get there, he’s jumped up on the ledge and is leaning over the glass.

  “What’s your name, kid?” I growl.

  Again he surprises me, this time by answering politely. “James, sir.”

  “James what?”

  He delivers surprise number three: “James Bathgate, sir.”

  Is this kid hosing me? I whack my stick against the sideboards for effect. “So just exactly where are your parents, kid?”

  “At home, sir. They don’t approve of hockey.”

  “Well,” I say, pulling off my gloves and flexing my knuckles under his nose. “Listen up. If I hear any more out of you tonight I’m going to squeeze your head until your brains come squirting out of your ears.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “And stop calling me ‘sir’!”

  As he retreats back into the stands I hear his high, unmistakable voice. “Yes sir, you asshole, sir!”

  I’m laughing out loud when I sit back down, and so is everyone else on the bench. Even Wendel. The kid is good.

  OUR PLAY IN THE second period is looser, but it doesn’t seem to help. We’re in our end for most of it, and I still can’t locate Wendel. Twelve minutes in, they’re up on us five-two. But we’re lucky in one way. If Junior had been in the nets the Roosters would have had a dozen goals, because they keep shooting high. That doesn’t bother Stan Lagace in the least, even when one glances off his mask. It isn’t that his glove hand is quicker than Junior’s, just that he doesn’t flinch and duck.

  As the period begins to wane I find myself sitting on the bench next to Wendel. He looks right at me. “Speed it up a little, Weaver,” he says. You’re playing me like I’m in the next time zone.”

  My first impulse is to tell him to screw off. Then I remember I’m his father, and try to hear what he’s telling me. “What do you mean?” I ask.

  Wendel is visibly surprised. But after a hard look to ensure that I’m not setting hi
m up for some gag, he gives it a try. “Well,” he says, “Gord isn’t having any trouble adjusting. He’s seeing me where I am. But I see you looking behind me, expecting me to be where your clock puts Jack and Gord. Turn your time switch up a little bit, and see what’s there. Think of it as daylight saving.”

  He isn’t grinning when he tells me this, so he’s not just jiving me about being old and slow. He’s talking on terms that I under- stand. Gord and I have talked a lot about what allows us to play with players who are much faster than we are.

  I slap him on the shoulder as we’re clambering over the boards for our next shift. “I think I know what you’re talking about,” I tell him. “I’ll see if I can adjust.”

  About halfway into the shift, with only a minute or two left in the period, I find myself mucking along the boards for the puck. I hear a stick slap the ice; without looking, I know exactly where Wendel is, and what he’s going to do. I push away the Rooster who’s checking me, and backhand the puck hard through the air across centre. I duck an elbow, and up-ice I see Wendel folding himself behind the puck on a clean breakaway. He swoops in on Lenny Nakamoto and dekes left as Lenny sprawls across the crease. Lenny’s too late and too slow. It’s an easy, pretty goal.

  WENDEL AND I IGNORE one another during the intermission, both of us wary of acknowledging that we co-operated on some- thing that was actually quite beautiful. I’ve got other fish to fry, anyway. Milgenberger is on the blower from the hospital telling us that Jack has probably torn every ligament in his right knee. It takes a while to get the medical explanation because Milgen- berger is so upset about it. The stupid dork keeps using the expression “shredded.”

  “It’s bad, eh?” I commiserate, simultaneously shaking my head at Gord.

  “Real bad,” Milgenberger confirms. “Shredded. He’s going to have trouble walking on this one after it’s healed, never mind playing hockey. I’d say his playing days are over.”

  “Well, don’t tell him that,” I say. “Let me and Gord break the news to him.”

  Milgenberger cheerfully agrees to that, and listens while I explain Junior’s antics to him. Junior, meanwhile, is still in Lulu-land, bouncing up and down on the table like a chimpanzee.

  “Have Geezo put an icebag on the swelling,” Milgenberger says, serious again. “There’s an outside chance of a subdural haematoma, and maybe a skull fracture. I’ll send an ambulance over to get him.” He explains that he’s still got to put JoMo’s nose back together, but that he’ll keep a sharp eye on Junior once he gets to the hospital. We hang up.

  As we troop back to the ice from the dressing room, I catch Wendel’s eye. He actually smiles at me.

  THE THIRD PERIOD IS a blast. I’m not just able to tune in on Wendel’s tempo, my own game jumps up a gear to follow it. A couple of minutes in, Gord straight-arms one of the Ratsloff twins and Godin calls him off for elbowing. As he skates to the penalty box, I tell him that Wendel and I will kill the penalty.

  “You?” he asks. “You don’t kill penalties.”

  “Why the hell not?” I say. “Can’t be an old man all my life.”

  “Suit yourself,” he answers, and, shaking his head, clambers into the box.

  Wendel scores two shorthanded goals in the first forty seconds. Both times I hit his stick with blind passes while he’s in full flight, one of them after using a fake stumble move to sucker the Roosters’ defenceman into committing to me. The game is tied, and I feel like I could play the rest of the game without coming off the ice.

  I don’t, but on the next shift I catch Neil Ratsloff cruising over our blueline, veering toward the slot with his head down, believing that he’s invulnerable. I decide to go for it. I put my hip into his thigh and suddenly two hundred and fifteen pounds of beef sausage is flying over my head. I haven’t laid a hit like that on anyone in ten years, and to tell the truth it feels kind of good: even though I caught Neil in the same spot JoMo caught Jack, I did it within the rules. Godin was leaning against the glass at the blueline when I did it, and he didn’t even blink.

  Even Neil recognizes that it was clean. As he gets to his feet he points a finger at me and grins. I’m going to have to keep my head up around him for a couple of games because, no matter what protection I may have been under before, I just gave him a licence, and we both know it.

  I don’t have to wait long, either. He catches me in the corner on the next shift and gives me the crunch. I’m back on my feet before he’s five feet away, and except for one quick, sharp pang in the middle of my chest, I’m none the worse for it.

  ABOUT MIDWAY THROUGH THE third, Wendel scores again, this one all on his own, and two or three shifts later Gord sends the two of us in on a two-on-one. I get to bury this one in the upper right corner, after an Alphonse and Gaston routine that has the Rooster defenceman’s head spinning.

  The final score is seven-six for us. Wendel has five goals and an assist, and I’ve got a goal and four. Not bad for a game that started off looking as if we were going to get eaten.

  As we’re headed off the ice I have a sudden generous instinct, no doubt brought on by having won the game. I spin around on my skates and gaze up into the departing crowd to see if the kid is still there.

  He is, sitting by himself as if waiting for someone. I wave my stick at him again. This time he hesitates, as if he thinks maybe this is it, that now I’m going to make his brains squirt out of his ears. I grin to assure him it’s okay, and he leaps across the benches to stand atop the boards as before.

  “Hey, kid,” I say, making it up as I go along. “You come to all the games, right?”

  “Yes,” he answers. “Every one.” There’s no smartass “sir” tagged onto it.

  “How’d you like to be our stickboy? You’d get to see the games for free, and you’d have the best seat in the place.” And, I say to myself, it might get you off my case.

  For a second, his eyes light up. Then I see a calculating look cross them.

  “Can I practise with the players?”

  “Why not? Sure. You keep the sticks in good order, pack some equipment around for us, and you can do whatever you want. Be here Tuesday night at five.”

  For a moment I think he’s going to leap over the boards into my arms.

  SIXTEEN

  YOU’D HAVE THOUGHT WE’D just won the Stanley Cup the way the guys whoop it up in the dressing room. The beer box empties in thirty seconds, and, while they’re not pretending it’s champagne and squirting it over one another’s heads or talking about going off to Disneyland, the joy is palpable. When I look around and see that every player under thirty-five — Wendel included — has a Molson’s stuck down his throat, it’s simple to predict what’s next: Chinese food and a major league parking lot puke-o-rama. Stan Lagace, with his first Senior win, is so high he’s bouncing off the ceiling.

  I’m pretty pleased myself, and so is Gord. But we’ve got Jack and Junior in the hospital, and that comes before any celebrating. As the players start to stream out, I grab Bobby Bell by the collar and jerk him into Jack’s office.

  “Keep your eye on Stan, will you?” I say. “He’s underage, and we don’t want him getting mouthy and having someone beat the shit out him. We’ve got two games next weekend, and from the way Junior was looking we’re probably going to need him for a while.”

  Bobby reluctantly agrees to chaperone Stan, and off he goes with the little goalie in tow. I call the hospital to tell them we’re on our way, and as I’m leaving the office I see Wendel still walking around the dressing room, half-dressed.

  “Aren’t you going with them?” I ask. “We don’t beat the Roosters every day.”

  “Nah, I’ve won hockey games before, you know?” he explains. “Besides, I’m pretty bagged. Mind if I come up to the hospital with you guys?”

  “Suit yourself,” I answer, more pleased than I let on.

  Esther comes in as the
last players leave. “You guys were something else tonight,” she says, cheerfully.

  “Weren’t we?” I agree. “We haven’t beaten those suckers in a coon’s age.”

  “Ready to get out of here?”

  I’ve still got my equipment to clean up, and since Jack isn’t here it’ll be up to me or Gord to help Geezo bag the uniforms so they can go to the cleaners. I decide to do it myself — Gord will have other matters to attend to, like making sure we’ve got our share of the gate receipts.

  Esther helps me stuff the uniforms into the big transparent plastic bags, chattering away at me as she does. I only half listen, because as I lean over one of the benches to pick up a sweater something grabs me around the ribs and squeezes. At first I think it’s Gord fooling around, but he doesn’t let go, and it isn’t him. Then it changes again. This time three or four hot steel rods are being rammed into my chest. I try to take a breath but can’t.

  I’m having a goddamned heart attack. It’s an unbelievable thing to think, so I don’t. Then the rods go deeper, and I change my mind. Oh, shit, I think. No. Not me.

  I lift one knee up onto a bench, lean on it, and try not to move, hoping it’ll go away. My brain continues to insist that nothing is happening, but my body doesn’t believe it. I still haven’t gotten a breath, but I’m determined to not let anybody see it. If I’m going to kick the bucket, I’m going to hold the pose until I keel over. No writhing around on the floor or whining for divine intervention. I may not have lived my life with enough dignity, but I damned well want to die with a little.

  It occurs to me that my life is supposed to be passing before my eyes, but it isn’t. The only visuals I’m getting are of the concrete floor in front of me, and there’s no soundtrack at all. Maybe I’m too busy fuming about the lousy timing: this is wrong, the wrong moment to be dying. I’ve just found out I have a son, and instead of dying in front of his mother I ought to be getting married to her, and now, goddamn it to hell, I’m not going to be able to …