Last December (3 page)

And I guess that is what I mean about big things that happen almost like they were meant to, and there’s nothing you can do about them even when they seem like the last thing in the world you want to happen. It kind of feels like that was the moment that everything changed, when everything seemed to really start to connect to everything else and my life started really really
moving without me even doing it. And I wonder if there is something I could have done for this not to happen, like not stepping right through the skinhead with my hockey equipment or not telling him off after he jumped on me, or not walking into the classroom door and just going home and not going back to school, like Byron does. But it feels impossible. And I guess writing this letter to you feels like it was meant to happen too, like it’s the thing that’s in between me and doing something else that I really shouldn’t do but that I somehow can’t help doing anyway.

Okay, Sam, I know I’m still going all over the place and I haven’t really explained about Byron yet, but there are so many important things I want to tell you (I don’t want to miss ANYTHING) and I’m just trying to put everything in chronological order (i.e., Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc., etc., etc.) so that you can see all the connections or the causes and effects, because that’s sort of a big theme in my stupid letter. Just in case you don’t know, a theme is sort of like the main idea of a story, and Mrs. Reese taught us that, because not only is Mrs. Reese an English teacher, she also used to write novels for young people before she had to get a real job because she was flat broke. Anyways, she told us that every writer writes a lot of drafts and edits their work, so I was thinking about going back and moving all the stuff I said about Byron and about god with a small
g
and the universe, but I don’t want my writing to lose its balls-to-the-wall realness, and besides it wouldn’t be fair to Byron if I did.

Number 29

Well, I was able to go to tryouts that day, even though the vice principal called me down after lunch and asked me all these
questions about who hit me. The vice principal, Mr. Sherman, has a moustache that droops down the sides of his mouth, and he has beady eyes that pierce right through you and make your spine shiver. I just told him the same thing that I told Mr. Duncan, because I couldn’t imagine anything good happening to me if I told him the truth. What I could imagine was the skinhead beating my brains in with a baseball bat or breaking my leg with a lead pipe, because he knew I didn’t have any tough friends who would stick up for me. So I told the vice principal I had no idea who the guys were who beat me up, and he finally sighed and dismissed me, and I finished the rest of my day with my eyebrow swelling and my forehead getting all crusty, and I thought I must have looked liked Rocky Balboa from the first
Rocky
movie, which I watched with Ma in the summer on TV,and it made her cry for some stupid reason and then she gave me this big hug that embarrassed the hell out of me, even though no one else saw it.

Anyways, after school, I met all the other hockey players in the foyer of the school and then we all walked to the arena together. The two other guys with goalie equipment were twice my size and they sort of had stubble on their chins and they had all this new fancier equipment, and they laughed when they saw how small I was. Then we started walking over to the arena and all of the younger, smaller guys hung at the back, but no one talked to me, maybe because the older guys had been laughing at me or maybe because I looked mean and tough like Rocky Balboa or maybe because I looked stupid and pathetic and unpopular. When we finally got to the rink, I was so nervous that I forgot to
put my jockstrap on, and I didn’t even realize it until I had my pads and skates on, so then I had to quickly undo my pads, and then I tried to get the jockstrap over my skates but they were too long and it got all caught up in the blades, and I kept on whispering, “Jesus Murphy … Jesus Murphy” like Ma always does.

Anyways, I wasn’t even sure which way to go, because I had never played in the indoor arena, but as I stepped out of the dressing room, I could smell the ice, and I could hear the puck booming against the boards. So I went down a corridor and found the ramp up to the rink, and when I stepped on the ice, I saw the two older goalies were already stopping these blazing slap shots in net, so I just skated around the rink like an idiot and pretended my heart wasn’t beating a hundred miles an hour.

I guess I have to admit, Sam, that I pretty much love playing goalie, because if you are a goalie, you don’t have to go off the ice for shifts or share the puck with other players or deal with puck hogs. But being a goalie is great only if you’re actually
playing
, which I wasn’t for most of the tryout. The team did all these skating drills, which were pretty hard for me to do in my goalie equipment, and puck-handling drills, which the goalies didn’t have to do. When it came to the shooting drills, the two big goalies, Mark and Donald, were told to take the net and I was sent to stretch on the sidelines.

Anyways, at the end of the practice part, there was a scrim-mage with everyone broken up into two teams, and the coach sent me to the bench and put Mark in one net and Donald in the other, and I was pretty pissed off because I basically got beat
up by a skinhead so that I could NOT play goal and then have to sit on the stupid bench and get slivers on my stinkin’ butt, so I slammed the door and threw my glove and blocker off and slumped on the bench, and the coach said, “Easy now, easy now,” like I was a horse or dog or something. Eight minutes later, it was 3–1 for Team Blue, and after they scored the third goal, the coach, who was reffing, skated to the bench and said, “Hey, Mike?” and I didn’t pay attention to him because my name isn’t Mike, but then he said it again, so I looked at him and he was staring right at me, and I said, “Who? Me?” and he nodded, “Yeah, Mike Palmateer, right?” (He said that because I was wearing my Mike Palmateer Leafs shirt, number 29, because it was the only one that would fit over my new used equipment.)

“My name is Steven,” I said, and then the coach smiled, “Well, Steven, go take Donald off the ice. Quick now.” So I opened the door and jumped out and skated toward the net, and Donald nodded his head and hit my pads with his stick as he skated past me, because there’s a sort of code between goalies (when we are on the ice) even though we don’t ever play together and we sort of compete against each other. When I got to the net, I touched both posts with my stick for good luck and then got into position as the puck was dropped at the center of the ice.

I didn’t have much time to sit back and relax, Sam, because the action came my way almost immediately because the white team won the face-off and then one of their best guys, who was wearing a yellow helmet with number 11 on the front in black marker, deked around a couple of players and I could just feel
in my stomach that he was going to get on a breakaway. I lifted my glove to the ready position and got my stick blade flat on the ice, but I felt totally uncomfortable and weird because I had never worn these bigger pads and heavy equipment on the ice before (only in my room, listening to the game on the radio) and I could suddenly feel my swollen eye against the inside padding of my helmet, which is weird but true.

I guess that’s why when, two seconds later, number 11 did get on a breakaway along the left-hand side that I did what I did. Actually, I don’t know why I did it. Really. Maybe it was because I thought I was Palmateer all of a sudden or maybe it was because I was feeling tough and invincible after my fight with the skin-head or maybe it was because I knew I had only one chance to prove that I could actually play. But as soon as I saw the guy’s blades cutting toward the net, I just flew out and slid on my side and he wasn’t even close to expecting this, so the puck and his stick blade got swallowed up in my stomach and then number 11 went flying right over me and into the net headfirst, and the coach blew the whistle quickly and skated over, and all the guys on the bench were hooting and hollering and the coach called it a game, even though forty-five seconds were left on the clock.

“Mike Bloody Palmateer,” he said, shaking his head as he skated passed me. “Okay, men, that’s a good place to stop. We don’t want anyone getting hurt in the first tryout.”

And the funny thing is that even though Mike Palmateer is my favorite goalie and he’s famous for leaving the net all the time, it’s not my style at all. I’m a butterfly goalie, like Tony Esposito of the Chicago Blackhawks, which means that when
someone shoots I drop and spread my legs out to the sides, and I NEVER EVER leave the net.

I don’t really remember getting off the ice or getting changed or anything, but later when we were walking back to school, this blond guy with kind of crooked eyebrows who was in my history class with strict Mrs. Vallette (but on the other side of the room) came up to me and said, “Nice save, Mike,” and I looked at him, thinking he knew my name wasn’t Mike, but he just smiled at me sort of nicely, so I said, “Thanks,” and he said, “That took a lot of balls,” and I just shrugged, and then he said, “What happened to your forehead?” and I said, “I got in a fight, I guess,” and he said, “With Bobby McIntyre,” like he already knew all about it, and I said, “Is that the name of the skinhead guy?” and his eyes went big and he put his finger at the side of his head and did a circle and said, “Yeah, that guy’s seriously crazy. He took a two-by-four to some guy’s head last weekend at a party,” and then he said, “I’m Trevor,” and then another guy came up and the three of us started talking about stuff that I also don’t really remember. When we said good-bye, I was walking alone along the street, and I remember seeing my breath like smoke and feeling good, like there was something exciting happening even though I didn’t even know what the hell it was.

I put my hockey bag in the apartment furnace room when I got home, and then I walked upstairs, and I felt sort of like a warrior with my cut head and my heavy legs. When I finally walked into our apartment, I said hello but no one answered, so I went into
the living room and flopped on the couch and closed my eyes. And then I heard Ma in her room, but I felt so tired that I didn’t even open my eyes, and then all of a sudden Ma said, “Oh, my gosh! What happened to your face?”

And she rushed over, sat down beside me, and brushed my hair from my forehead, which just sort of bugged me, so I leaned back and said, “Nothing,” and she said, “Nothing? That is not nothing, honey,” and then I shrugged and looked away, because I didn’t want to talk about it, and she demanded, “Tell me what happened,” and I said, “Um … I slipped on the ice … and I didn’t have my helmet on,” which was sort of true, right, Sam? And she said, “That wasn’t very smart, was it?” and I said, “Duh!” and she said, “Steven, you’ve been Mr. Snappy these days. Is everything a-okay with my number one guy?” and I stared at her for like an hour and finally said, “I’m
not
your number one guy,” and I could tell that this was a mean thing to say, because she looked down and she didn’t say anything for a bit, and then there was this awkward silence until I said, “You’re getting fat.”

“Steven!” she snapped, slapping me on the leg. “That’s what happens when a woman is pregnant,” and I said, “Are you sure you really
are
pregnant?” and her eyes bulged like she was looking at a Martian and she said, “Of course I’m sure, Steven. Look at my belly!” and I shrugged and said, “Why DID you get pregnant again?” and she threw back her head and huffed, “Steven … we’ve been over this a million times,” and I said, “Yeah, but why did Mike not want to have a baby with you?”

And I knew this would get her mad, because she already told me that Mike wasn’t the
kid
kind of guy, but I couldn’t help
saying it, and I was right about her getting mad, because her face went really red and she started scratching her arm like she does when she’s pissed and then she put her hand on her forehead like she had a headache.

“So in tryouts,” I said, “I made a great save on this guy, number 11, and he went flying into the net and the coach stopped the game because he didn’t want anyone to get hurt,” and she just looked at me like I was a Martian again, and then her shoulders sort of dropped and she sighed and said, “That’s great, hon.”

And she fell back on the couch and blew her hair out of her face and put her hands on her tummy and said, “I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be able to work at the office. … Wow! She just moved,” and I couldn’t believe my ears, so I said, “How do you know it’s a she?” and Ma looked at me frustrated for a second but then her face went nicer, “You wouldn’t understand. It’s a maternal thing. I just
do
,” and then I said, “Well,
that’s
not scientific proof. It’s pretty much fifty-fifty, and I bet it’sa stupid boy,” and then I got up and went to the bathroom before she had a chance to give me crap.

Okay, Sam, so that’s who your dad is, Mike, even though he didn’t want to stick around. But don’t worry, because my dad didn’t stick around, either. He died in a car accident when I was one, which was basically the best thing that ever happened to me, because I didn’t even know him and that’s when I became Ma’s number one guy. And maybe now that I think about it, Sam (and I’m really sorry about writing this), but you might be the worst thing that
hasn’t
even happened to me yet. And the
thing is if you
do
happen to me, maybe it really would be better for you (and everyone) if I’m not around when you get here.

And if you don’t happen, then it will be all my fault, and then to be honest, I just wouldn’t want to live another day.