Going Fast (17 page)

Ownie was holding up a pad, which Jonathon was punching with his right hand, the left hand extended as though he was holding onto an opponent's sweater in a fight. “You wanna get in three or four quick, straight punches, and then an upper cut, all while keeping your balance,” Ownie explained. “You can't get knocked off your feet. If you go down, you lose.”

Still boyish, Jonathon's shoulders were like coat hangers, metal edges that time would pad. From the corner of his eye, Ownie saw a jogger wired to a Walkman chugging around the top of the rink. The jogger veered around something that
was low and out of sight, probably, Ownie concluded, a kid salvaging errant pucks.

“That's beautiful. Now work on your balance, stay centred,” Ownie yelled. “Keep your legs spread, your ass down. You'll have it made.”

Ownie didn't know if Jonathon would make it. He'd give him his best shot: teach him how to fight, build up his confidence, and arm him for the next round of goons. That's all he could do. On his next lap, the jogger veered again, Ownie noticed.

“Ray Robinson had phenomenal balance; he was smooth and graceful with everything he did,” Ownie explained. “He was a dancer in Paris for a while.”

Jonathon had never been to Paris; he was a first-round draft pick: a power forward in the Ontario Hockey League who scored twenty-one goals and forty-three points in his rookie NHL season before he was taken out by a goon, a no-talent thug who fought his way up from East Coast league hockey, a scalp-collector who earned his bounty by knocking off kids.

“It's all balance and rhythm.”

Ownie checked the Pepsi clock with the puck-shaped puncture. When he did, he saw something flash behind row M, near the jogger's detour.

He'd been working with Jonathon for a week, a recurring sideline that started when the AHL came to town. The team called him a trainer and kept his real role secret, which was fine with him but gave Butch something to bitch about. “What are you, a leper?” demanded Butch, who tried to take the good out of everything. Ownie got his satisfaction not from recognition, but from resurrecting guys like Bryan McSweeney, another casualty who'd come to him shell-shocked. For an entire month after he'd arrived, McSweeney picked the skin off every finger on his hands, trying to get to the root of his fears. They worked on strength and fighting until, convinced
he was invincible, McSweeney skated circles around the dressing room, shredding the rubber mat, and yelling, “He's mine, man, he's mine.”

The jogger veered again.

Last week, Ownie had seen McSweeney on TV scoring two goals. He'd rather think about that, he decided, than Butch's bullshit.

Uuup. Ownie saw a flash of something above the seats. Holy Mary, Mother of God. Dooown. It was Turmoil. What the hell was he doing here?

Ownie packed his gear and headed outside the rink, confused. He banged the side window of a Delta 88, a beater with a sunshade stuck in the windshield, despite the fact that it was snowing. “Take that thing down, will you!” Ownie pointed to the sunshade, which was decorated with toothy squirrels lounging on lawn chairs and sipping margaritas. “Are you nuts? People will think you're a dope dealer or somethin'.”

From the driver's seat, Turmoil grabbed the squirrels and stuffed them into the backseat, rattling the rigid cardboard, jamming it past the headrest as though he was acting under protest. Ownie climbed inside, where the two men sat in sullen silence. Heavy flakes were falling, the kind that filled the Emergency Room with frantic wives and chest pains.

“Why you foolin round with them ole hockey players?” Turmoil demanded.

“Pardon me?”

“Them ole hockey players. You shudden have nothin to do with them.”

Ownie stared at the snow, insulted. First of all, he didn't like anybody telling him what to do. Secondly, he happened to like hockey, which would have been his sport if he had been any good, if he'd had speed, and a pair of hockey boots and skates that fit, shin pads instead of Eaton's catalogues.

“You should be lookin after
me!
” Turmoil banged the pile steering wheel for emphasis.

“Yooou?” Ownie stretched the word into disbelief.

“Ahm the one who got a fight comin up in two months.” Turmoil hit the wheel again. “Ahm the one you s'pose to be training.”

“I spend plenty of time with you.” Ownie was impatient. “You get three hours at the gym every single day. What more do you want?” Christ, Ownie muttered to himself, he never had to deal with any of this shit with Tommy. He was family, and nothing ever changed; he was the same person every day of the week.

Turmoil mulled it over, staring ahead and then sideways; he fiddled with the dials on his radio, trying to escape the static and Ownie's stare. “Ahll drive you home.”

Even Turmoil had legroom in the outsized car he had recently purchased, noted Ownie, who was used to Louie's Jeep. Through the window, Ownie saw a Cougar in summer tires fishtailing up a hill, stopping, starting, then sliding back with a growl. “Gear down, will ya,” Ownie urged. “It's slick.”

“Do they make good money?” asked Turmoil as Ownie shifted in his seat, which was covered with acrylamb. “Them ole hockey players?”

“Yeah, not bad, depending on what kind of contract they have, who owns them, that stuff. You take a star like Lindros, a showstopper, he signed for three-point-six million.”

“Three million dollahs!” Turmoil spun his head sideways. “How come you nebber tole
me
bout this?”

“Why would I tell you?” Ownie asked as the Cougar slid into a lamp pole.

“
Ah
play hockey.”

“You do?”

“Yeah, mon.”

Ownie pursed his lips for a full twenty seconds. “Hockey?”

“
Ye-aaa-sss!
” As Turmoil extended the word to three excruciating syllables, Ownie shifted, suddenly feeling trapped. The side windows had been tinted by the snow, and the interior of the car felt as dark as a hearse.

“Well, with your size, they'd make a policeman out of you. You've got the horses to do it. You'd make big money.”

“Oh, mon, me a poleesemon.” Turmoil started to laugh, thin, frozen notes cracking in the air. “In the eye-lands, the poleesemon, they shoot you. You dohn do wha they wahn.
Bang!
In your howse, at the horse races, in the mahket. Oh, mon.”

“Well, you wouldn't get no gun.”

“You show me how we get one of them contracks.”

It was a clear, starched day, the kind of day that emptied houses of kids and sledders. For a fleeting moment, before the slush and the grease arrived, winter was, Ownie decided with unusual largesse, both white and inviting.

“How big is Lindro?” Turmoil asked, driving.

“Lindros?” Ownie blew out air while crunching numbers in his head. “Ummm, he's big, almost the biggest man in the league. He'd run about two-thirty, I'd say, but pure power. He drives you into the boards right, he'll separate your shoulder or break your collarbone. He don't care.”

“Ah cahn handle him.”

Ownie shrugged, making sure Turmoil didn't get his hopes up too high. “You could handle him in a
fight
.”

“Yeah, yeah, that's wot ah mean.”

They were two blocks from Ownie's house, nearing the lake, in a neighbourhood of single family homes with rec rooms and pets. They drove by a clothesline of frozen underwear and T-shirts. A snowman.

“When ah live in Trinidad, ah haf a pet duck,” Turmoil said as the car rattled on chains. “His name was Bob.” Turmoil smiled at the memory. “He use to follow me ebbywhere. One day he follow me to the rink, where his feet got stuck right to the ice.” Turmoil started to laugh. “Just like glue. Ah had to cut him out.”

“How were his feet after that?”

“Oh fine.” Still laughing. “Jus little bit sore.”

Two teenagers whizzed by, bodies low to the ice, licorice legs churning. Hellbent, they chased their hockey sticks like greyhounds pursuing a rabbit.
Zwish
.
Zwish
.
Zwish
. The boys raced by Ownie and Turmoil, braiding their legs as they turned in a blur of speed honed at power-skating camp.

Ownie looked up the lake. Enthusiasts had already shovelled several rinks for skating. “We won't bother with any plays,” he announced.

“Ah know lots of plays.”

“Well, that's not our concern at this point. What they're interested in is your size, your power, not your play-making ability. As I said before, they'd want you as an enforcer, a policeman.”

Turmoil nodded as a boy chased a loose puck, then jammed on the brakes, spraying powdered ice. “Okay, ah mek a good poleesemon.”

Ownie sat down, savouring the Christmas-card lake in the heart of the city. It was the first thing he'd seen when he'd come to Dartmouth, and the best thing left. It was one of twenty-three lakes, an outdoor sports facility with a twelvemonth membership. Swimming and boating in the summer, skating in the winter.

“Whadya got on your hands?” Ownie asked.

“Gloves.”

“I can see that. What kinda gloves?”

“They run by batteries.” Turmoil opened a pouch on the wrist gauntlet, exposing a D-cell. “Keep mah hands nice and wahm. Ah bought them at C'nadian Tire.”

“I thought maybe you were the Bionic Man.”

Two women stared at Turmoil, who was dressed all in white. Sometimes, when Ownie walked through town with
Turmoil, he felt heads turning. At times, the heavyweight was so expansive, so full of life, Ownie noted, that people were drawn to him, his vast smile, his open-mouthed laugh, and the way that he touched your arm as though he was bestowing a blessing.

Ownie pulled out a pair of black CCM Ultra Tacks, borrowed from his son, Pat. For a man his size, Turmoil had unremarkable feet, size thirteen. Nostrils tingling, Ownie listened to the clicking of blades around him, cutting into the ice, mixing with the clack of sticks.
Click. Clack. Click. Clack.

“Are these like the ones you used to wear?”

“Lemme see them.” Turmoil studied the Tacks closely, turning them upside down, touching the blades, squeezing the DuraTex lining. Trying to show he knows quality, Ownie figured, stretching the full inspection to sixty seconds. “Yeah, only mine were nicer colour. Blue.”

Ownie thought about Turmoil's comment and then decided to let it pass. He bent down to lace his own skates, toe scuffs covered with tape. “I never had a pair of skates fit me right in my life.” He shook his head at the injustice. “My feet are too wide, they're webbed, so I can't get nothin' to fit around here. Maybe if I went to Montreal or Boston or someplace that carried more than one size, some place with better shopping than Moscow, I'd have some luck.”

“Your feet webbed?” Turmoil asked. “Cahn you swim?”

“Like a duck.”

Turmoil laughed. Two girls were trying to skate backwards, wiggling their behinds and hoping their skates would follow. A man zipped by, towing a red-cheeked baby in a sled that was moving at a frightening speed.

“Okay, show me what you can do,” Ownie said, standing up.

“Ah wish you had a camera to take a picture of me,” Turmoil
beamed. “Mah mooma would be so happy to see me back on skates.”

“Yeah, well, let's see what you can do,” repeated Ownie, who didn't know what to expect. If Turmoil could just skate and check, he could learn the rest.

Not everyone was like Jonathon, a commodity bred for hockey and shipped at age fourteen, already signed and packaged by a fast-talking agent, to a stark town that only spoke French. Turmoil could pick up the plays that Jonathon had mastered. He could learn when to fake, when to deke, when to drop the gloves and teach some meathead the meaning of respect. If he just had the basics, God, in all his mystery, had given him the rest.

“Okay, let's go.” Ownie squinted as Turmoil pushed off.

In his mind, Ownie could see two giants, one black, one white, stripped to pads and skates, as the crowd screamed for blood. In the picture, Ownie was in the good seats, next to a man in a sheepskin coat. “I figured he could handle Lindros,” Ownie told the man, who may have been a doctor. “I'm his trainer, you know.”

Turmoil took two half-steps, then slid forward, feet together, arms out like he was surfing a wave. What's he doing? Ownie wondered, as the women whizzed by, giggling. Turmoil lifted an arm to wave, and his feet shot out.

“Ah dohn like these skates,” Turmoil protested as Ownie hauled him up from the ice. “Ah think they dull.”

“There's nothing wrong with them skates.” Ownie strained under the huge man's weight, wincing as his bad shoulder creaked. It was the one he'd frigged up decades earlier when he swiped a two-hundred-pound buck from the roof of a Studebaker parked downtown. He made it four blocks with the buck on his back before he slipped on loose roofing shingles and lay there, pinned. “Give it another try.”