There's a Shark in My Hockey Pool (19 page)

Swanson paused to nudge his cap back and
scratch his flaking scalp. This pawn shop of numerous
non-perishables was in dire need of a very-perishable,
itchy-skin-conquering lotion.

"How do I know this thing ain't
counterfeit?"

Derek snatched the case off the counter and
turned in a huff. He started towards the door.

"Wait!"

" ... Ten, eleven, twelve hundred."

One by one, Swanson finished placing the
one-hundred-dollar bills into Marcotte's hand.

Derek stuffed the money in his pocket and
walked out of the pawn shop. Its collector's item ambiance suddenly
had all the charm of a funeral parlour. Halfway up the block, the
pit in Derek's stomach settled into his shoes, melding once more
into an unforgiving cement bucket.

Swanson's right arm extended out over the
water. It was stock still. A taut string stretched down from his
bony index finger. At the end of the string was the yo-yo --
Marcotte -- in the midst of a spinning free fall. A simple flick of
Swanson's wrist would have ended this dizzy display, but Swanson
had already "walked the dog" ... right off Pier 44.

Between revolutions, Derek glimpsed the
fast-approaching water. He searched for Sawchuk's face. It was
gone.

Marcotte stopped to gather his thoughts. He
leaned against a light pole plastered with bulletins promoting a
gig for a local band called Courtesy Flush.

Thinking about his dad, the card ... and how
this was no fun ... Derek didn't notice the figure sitting in a car
parked up the street. Slager took a slug from his can of Laratts
Lite and watched Marcotte disappear down the street.

... 2 ...

Sylvie opened her apartment door a crack.
Derek stood there, looking disconsolate.

"Derek? What's wrong?"

She opened the door and he trudged in.

"I did it," he said. "I can't believe it. I
really did it."

"You told Helen?"

She lunged at him, wrapping her arms around
him. At last it would be just the two of them. Her mind raced
through wedding catalogues and honeymoon hot spots before her
senses told her the body she was hugging remained stiff and
unyielding. She relaxed her embrace and looked into his eyes. They
met for a second, then Derek's trailed away.

"I sold my Terry Sawchuk rookie card. I feel
like a pimp." He wanted to take a long hot shower to wash off all
the caked-on guilt.

There was a pause as Sylvie's mind
back-pedaled through Rio de Janeiro and Spain, through place
settings and flower arrangements to focus on ... a ... Terry
Sawchuk hockey card.

"Oh. I'm sorry to hear that."

She looked at him again to get a read on how
she should be handling this. With no immediate answer forthcoming,
her biological clock -- number two with a bullet -- shot down the
hocked Sawchuk on today's Top Hysterics at Six.

"So. You ... didn't tell Helen you were
leaving her?

"I just died a thousand deaths at Swanson's
pawn shop. Have you no compassion?

"You hopeless romantic, you. Compassion? For
a card? It's not even a holiday. Compassion? I'll tell you what
compassion is. Compassion is what Montreal used to show the rest of
the league every four or five years, when they'd let someone else
win the Cup. Compassion is the swarm of moths that ate the Maple
Leafs jersey in Roch Carriere's The Hockey Sweater. Compassion is
Montreal allowing Chicago to take Denis Savard right from under
their noses with the third pick in the 1980 entry draft ... after
Montreal had used the first pick to take Doug Wickenheiser -- a
Regina Pat."

She fairly spat "Pat".

Derek stood there dumbfounded. His father had
warned him about sleeping with women who knew their sports. He
didn't know whether to argue, agree or just walk away.

"When you're right, you're right," he finally
said. "I guess my compassion is in fourth place today."

He put on his best "can't-win-for-trying"
face and turned to the door. As he opened it, Sylvie reached out,
clenching her fists ... hoping their no-strings-attached
relationship had suddenly developed a few. Imaginary strings that
she could pull, bringing him back into the room. She slowly pulled
her hands in, pressing them against her beating chest. But Derek
didn't stop dead in his tracks. The door opened and he slid
through.

"Derek. Wait."

The door closed. Her hands relaxed. He was
gone.

Marcotte ambled down Florence street. A light
breeze fluttered the leaves of the newly-planted trees lining the
sidewalk in their knee-high, drunk-resistant concrete planters. The
Drunkard's Red from Mac's Bar flooded his brain circuits. He
recalled a docu-cartoon he'd seen on TV when he was a kid. The
animated film showed how the brain worked.

The part that imbedded itself deep in Derek's
10-year-old subconscious like a mole's ass in molasses, was how the
brain reacted when a person was unconscious. The cartoon brain's
mission control center looked like NASA. A dozen identical little
men in lab coats walked around with clipboards, watching monitors
showing the flow of blood, oxygen, etc.

When the sample "accident" took place, the
red alert sounded and the little men began frantically running
around, pushing buttons, pulling levers, etc. Order was restored
for minor injuries, i.e., the white blood cells were sent out in
full force. For a serious injury, however, it was too great for all
the little men in lab coats. They tripped over one another, falling
unconscious themselves, with little "x"s for eyes.

Animation always cut through the confusion.
With one line -- a simple stroke of the pen -- one knew whether a
cartoon character's eyes signified sleep or serious difficulty. For
Derek, those "x"s for eyes meant danger.

Over the years he had pondered on the speed
with which the little guys had succumbed. Had they done their
homework? Had they tried hard enough? Was it a loose wire? A
screw?

It was the replication within the
docu-cartoon however, that stuck with him. Like the TV screen
within the TV screen within the TV screen, what was going on inside
the heads of the wee scientists themselves? Was another generation
of little men in lab coats collapsing in the brain's mission
control center of the little men in lab coats with "x"s for eyes?
What happened in all the heads of the little men's heads of the
little men's heads ...?

The little men in Derek's mission control
center were looking for something to hold onto. His head ached from
the lab coat-labyrinth within. He looked up and realized he was
standing in front of his apartment building. Kudos to the tom thumb
in his head who was manning the navigation controls.

Marcotte entered the apartment block,
mumbling to himself and wobbling unsteadily. The elevator was
constipated again, so he staggered toward the stairs. He trudged up
the three flights, planting one emphatic foot in front of the
other.

He fumbled with the lock on the door for a
few seconds before gaining access. He eased the door open and was
doing fine until Helen appeared in the entryway.

"Derek?"
She flicked on the light. The sixty-watt light bulb beamed down on
Derek. He threw his hands up in front of his face.

"Aggh! Head for cover, men! Somebody take out
that spotlight!"

"Derek! It's me, Helen. Hush. You'll wake up
the neighbours."

Helen dimmed the light. Derek lowered his
hands. Helen surveyed the damage standing before her. She knew
something was wrong. When he was holding up walls instead of
walking past them, something was bothering him. She was a nurse
however, and would tend to his second degree intoxication
first.

"You're drunk. I'll make some coffee."

Derek turned to his imaginary troops.

"Relax, fellas. It's a Red Cross worker."

Helen shook her head, turned and disappeared
into the kitchen.

Helen and Derek sat across from one another
at the round, bronze-topped kitchen table. Marcotte grimaced as he
drank his coffee. With each sip, Don Juan Valdez's mule landed a
well-placed hoof to Derek's temple. The kitchen -- as usual -- was
spotless. Helen's touch was evident with the many knick knacks that
gave the room its home sweet home decor. Large labeled jars of dry
goods bellied up to the wall on the kitchen counter. The cedar
spice rack's occupants lined up in alphabetical order. An
centerpiece vase of daisies and forget-me-nots was all that
separated Helen and Derek. He focused on one of the
forget-me-nots.

The petals of the plant were like potato
chips. You couldn't have just one. Not if your relationship was
failing. So you kept plowing through potato chips and pulling off
petals. When the bowl was empty and the petals were all plucked,
the second stage of second guessing began. Did it leave a bad taste
in your mouth? Would you hate yourself in the morning? Was it worth
it? Did you want more? Maybe next time you'd try a new flavor ...
brunette, perhaps.

Helen followed his gaze and picked out a
daisy. She purposely ignored the forget-me-nots. It was just
another typically blue flower from the temperate low-growing plants
of the mainly European boraginaceous genus Myosotis. Also called
scorpion grass.

Derek sighed, cocked one eye above the
foliage, and zeroed in on her.

"I can't wait for this day to end," he said.
"I don't know where to begin. But it's something I'll have to deal
with. I only wish I knew how."

Marcotte pulled his chair closer to the table
and clamped both elbows to the tabletop.

"Bear with me here. This isn't easy. Let's
just say ... there's a certain someone ... someone who I've spent a
lot of time with. A lot of time ..."

"Yes?" Helen's breath shortened and her knees
gained weight. He had her rapt attention, yet he leaned forward on
his chair and looked deeper into her eyes. He felt being a foot
closer and the extra eye strain would help get his message
across.

"I mean ... this person has done it all ...
and has been doing it for a long time. They've been my prized
possession. Literally. A real all-star ..."

"Yes, yes?" Helen looked on anxiously. The
daisies had threaded themselves together. She suddenly felt tied to
her chair by a long, heart-stopping daisy chain.

"... Been there with me when things looked
bad. Look, I don't expect you to understand. I really don't."

Helen was so mortified she could only mouth
the word, "Me?"

Her reaction went unseen by Derek. Head down,
he pondered his next words. He wasn't used to displaying this kind
of grief.

"Well, today I decided it was time for us to
part ways."

One tear, then another ... rolled down
Helen's cheeks. The trickle soon turned into a torrent. She lowered
her head into her palms and sobbed freely. Derek looked up at
her.

His face was a myriad of expressions,
changing from consternation ... to happiness ... to sorrow.

At first, he wasn't sure what she was crying
about. Then he realized she had mistaken him talking about her, not
the hockey card.

This was too easy. All he had to do was shut
up, get up and tiptoe out the door. It would be over. He could go
back to Sylvie and tell her the news she'd been dying to hear.

A second wave of tears splashed down her
cheeks. With floodwaters rising, the sandbag alarm went off. A
hitching sob quickly followed. There was nothing worse than the
sight of a woman crying. Except perhaps the Leafs blowing a
four-goal lead.

Marcotte considered the irony of the
situation. Women worried more than men, but man's worst worry was
being caught downwind of a bawling broad -- especially their
significant other. Sobbing women would tell a male stranger why
they were crying. Spouses however, preferred that their man
guess.

When women fell off the pier of Undying
Concern into the salty brine of tears, it was a difficult rescue.
Half of the married men would swim away, deciding the relationship
was on the rocks and not worth saving.

Derek shuddered. Her weeping waters could
douse the fires of hell. He had seen enough. Sentimentality's
spotlight wasn't big enough for the both of them. He was minus his
Terry Sawchuk ... but this was not the way to cast adrift Helen.
Her eight years with him suddenly seemed more important than the
twenty Sawchuk had toiled in the league. He wouldn't put it in
writing, though. Make her tap her female intuition to read between
the lines. He rose from his chair.

"Dammit! I'm talking about Terry Sawchuk. I
sold his rookie card today. Lighten up, eh?"

Marcotte marched out of the room.

... 3 ...

On the #401 somewhere west of the Quebec
border, Sylvie's car raced in the fast lane. Other east bound
traffic steadily receded in her rear view mirror. Her face was
grim. Def Leppard's Bringin' on the Heartbreak blaring from the CD
player did little to ease the death-grip she had on the steering
wheel. She was going back to Montreal for a breather. Just long
enough to flush out Toronto -- and flesh out the situation with
Derek. If only it was as easy as separating laundry.

Sylvie knocked on the front door of the
large, upscale, four-bedroom, Quebecois colonial home. Sylvie's
mother, a handsome woman in her fifties, answered the door. Madame
Desjardin's face lit up and she threw her hands to her face.

"Sylvie!"

"Mama!"

They hugged. The warm, pillowy arms of her
mother swooped Sylvie into the house.

Soon they were drinking coffee, sitting in
the living room on a plush, flower-print sofa. The room was
ornately decorated, with dark mahoganies accenting a roll-top desk,
coffee and end tables. A framed seascape, with the surf crashing
upon a rocky Gaspe shore, hung behind them.

"Tell me about Toronto ..." said Madame
Desjardins.