Picks & Pucks (4 page)

Of course, the stupid demons caught that small thought and brought back memories of cold days spent skating outdoors and sledding on the hill by the river. Times when we were all happy, before she left us.

My mom did some crazy things with us. One cold day, when the outside temperature was an astonishing forty below zero, my mom got tired of us whining about nothing to do. She refused to let us out on the outdoor rink, but she ordered us to put on our coats and gave us a pot of hot water and shooed us out the back door. We both complained about that because it was way uncool to hang out on the deck with a bucket of water. She told Jack to toss it over the edge. Jack looked at her like she was crazy but did as he was told. He threw the water up in the air, aiming toward me. Instead of getting doused with water, a huge cloud of white fog filled the air. We squealed like little kids and begged for more water. When my dad came home, we had to show him our neat trick. He laughed and kissed my mother, spinning her around the kitchen.

I shook the memory away. I had been twelve years old and Jack was fifteen. The winter was the first we’d spent here, and I thought everything was awesome. Jack liked me because I thought he walked on water. He still held the title of best hockey player in the family. He was happy. We were all happy. Little did we know our happiness would be upset when Jack and I went to a summer hockey camp.

When we arrived at the camp, everyone gravitated toward Jack. But as the first day progressed, I lit up everything, making everyone at the camp take notice and ignore Jack. The people who ran the camp took me out of my age group and moved me up to the next age group. When I destroyed them, they moved me into Jack’s group. The next day, I was with the elite players, and Jack was looking at me like he wanted me to disappear.

In some ways, I wished I’d never laced up a pair of skates. Maybe my mom would still be alive and Jack wouldn’t hate me. And even though Janae acted like things were cool between us, deep down, I knew she held some resentment for me. I had taken the spotlight off her skating career just as she was about to make it to Senior Nationals.

The memories were rolling over me like giant waves, and I could do nothing to stop them.

“Y
OU
LITTLE
prick,” my brother shouted at me when I shot a puck at his head. Like any other night for the past three months, we were hanging out at the arena, waiting for our mom to retrieve us. Janae was still on the ice, working on her long program for a regional event. She wanted to try one last time to qualify for the US Women’s Senior Nationals. If she didn’t make it this year, she was hanging up her skates at the age of twenty-two.

Since my sister’s car was in the shop, my mom said she would pick us all up at the same time. Mom thought it was nice for Jack and me to spend some quality time hanging out. All this fun was going to kill one of us. He raced after me, tossing his gloves at my head. His stick came next, but I swiveled around and shot another puck at him. It hit him in the shin.

“You fucker! When I get my hands on you….” Jack’s face flushed with anger, and if he caught me, he was going to punch me until I cried for mercy. Of course, he hadn’t been able to catch me since I was twelve years old.

“I’m telling mom you’re swearing,” I said, shooting another puck at him. It zinged by his ear.

“Ha, fuck you! You missed,” Jack said louder. He bent down and scooped the puck off the ground, then fired it at me. I laughed, caught it, and set it on the ground so I could smash it with my stick again. This time it smacked him in the elbow, and he swore so loud, my sister’s skating coach yelled at us to shut up or she was making us wait outside in the bitter cold.

Jack threw another puck at me, and I snagged it out of the air with my stick so it settled on the blade. Jack shook his head, trying to hide his awe.

He had another puck clutched in his hand, but he let it fall to the ground and hung his head. “I bet if you went to a tryout, they’d send you to the fucking pros.”

“Probably,” I said and stuck my tongue out at him while I continued to bounce the puck on my stick. “Did I tell you the coaches from Denver, Michigan State, and St. Cloud called me this past week?”

“You’re only fifteen fucking years old and you have college coaches scouting you? I’m going to end up playing hockey for a Division III school. Some days I really hate you.”

I shrugged and flipped the puck high in the air before I batted it at his head. “I hate you too.”

“Do you mind,” Janae shouted. “I can barely hear my music. Shut up so I can concentrate!”

The memories fogged a little, so I wasn’t really clear on what happened next, but somehow we got into a huge argument about figure skating and hockey. I remember opening my big mouth, proclaiming neither was very hard. Janae and her coach, Marina Kirolova, scoffed at me. Jack shook his head and looked like he wanted to stuff a puck down my throat.

Before I knew what was happening, Marina and Janae had me in figure skates. At first the toe picks messed me up, but after a few laps, I was racing around the rink. Out of the corner of my eye, I could feel Marina watching me closely.

Janae caught up to me and did a jump. I copied her and landed the jump. She stopped quickly, spraying snow everywhere and stared at me.

“That stupid jump took me six months to learn,” she said.

I shrugged and skated toward the boards.

“Do it again,” Janae’s coach barked at me with a sharp Russian accent.

I did it again and again and again, landing all the jumps perfectly. Marina had Janae demonstrate a few more jumps. I tried them all and landed them. Marina was frantically scribbling notes on a scrap piece of paper as she watched me. By the end of the makeshift lesson, I could do a single axel. Marina was so excited she could barely breathe, switching into Russian as she talked to my mom about setting me up with lessons. She’d never seen anyone with such raw talent. My mom sent a very pissed-off Janae and Jack to the car while we stayed in the rink to chat. She asked me if I wanted to try figure skating. If I was honest with myself, I was getting a little sick of hockey. It would be a nice distraction to try something else. So what started as a sideshow turned my life upside down.

“Fuck,” I mumbled after the memory dissipated.

I knew being back in this town would bring the memories out, but I didn’t realize they were all going to try and come out at the same time. I frowned and finished my run, bowling over the demons as I raced up to my room. After a hot shower, the five-mile run had exhausted me enough and I was able to fall asleep without the demons sitting on my chest.

T
HE
MURMUR
of voices woke me from my nap. When I went downstairs, I stood outside the kitchen, listening to the strange collection of people gathered around a table enjoying a meal and, apparently, each other’s company. Jealousy flared in my chest, and the demons freaked out, laughing and shrieking like they were throwing a large party.

I shook the feeling away. I had no reason to be envious. I had moved to California and left them all behind. To Eli, I was the best friend who shut him out. To my sister, I was the little brother who stole our mother’s attention from her. And to Danny, I was a game, easily played and discarded.

“Holy shit,” I muttered. Inside my head, it seemed everyone hated
me.

“Justin?” Janae said.

“Yeah, hi,” I said as I quickly stepped into the kitchen, making it look like I’d just come downstairs and was not hiding in the shadows, eavesdropping. “Sorry I’m late.”

The only chair left was between Eli and Danny, but I was too hungry to complain about the seating arrangements. Eli pushed a steaming bowl of soup at me, and Danny set two slices of bread next to the bowl. Janae handed me a glass of milk, and everyone resumed talking while I ate in silence.

I eventually tuned in to the conversation and realized Eli and Janae were busy arguing over some music for a skater’s long program. My spoon clattered on the table and bounced to the floor.

“What is going on here?” I asked.

“What do you mean?” Janae and Eli asked.

“Are you involved with skating?” I asked Eli.

“He mixes music for me and also has started helping me with choreography,” Janae said.

I furrowed my brow. “He can’t even skate,” I said. “Or are you coaching him too?”

She laughed. “He is unteachable when it comes to skating, but he’s a great choreographer.”

This was insane.

“Any other questions?” Eli asked.

“Does he have anything to do with your students?” I asked and pointed at Danny.

“I’m a hockey player,” Danny said. I glared at him and shook my head. Danny handed me another spoon and I ripped it out of his hand.

“Do you have time to come to the rink tomorrow?” Janae asked Eli. “We’re doing run-throughs tomorrow, and Carly wants you to see the program. She absolutely loves the music.”

“What time are you skating tomorrow?” Eli asked me.

Janae scrolled through her phone. “He has the ice right after Carly, for the evening skate,” she said.

“There you go,” I said. I didn’t like to know my schedule too far in advance. It tended to overwhelm me.

Eli asked a few more questions about Carly and her program. I never knew Eli was interested in skating. Before I moved away, he used to watch me practice when he had time. He also came to a few of my competitions, but then I’d left town, and I figured he’d quit paying attention to skating. The demons smirked at me and told me things were better when I wasn’t here and that right now, I was upsetting the balance of everyone’s lives.

The conversation moved away from skating. When Eli and Danny started discussing a mutual class they were taking, I choked and almost spit soup all over the table. I knew about the class, but listening to them actually talk about an upcoming project made my stomach tip upside down. Eli wasn’t supposed to be nice to him. Danny was one of my demons. They weren’t allowed to be friends.

I refilled my soup bowl again and finished in record time. The past few days were catching up with me, and the resurgence of all my demons had exhausted me. Tomorrow was going to come too soon, and training started in the morning with a tour of the facilities. My dad was going to show me what spaces in the sacred building built for hockey I could occupy without upsetting any fucking hockey players.

I pushed my chair away from the table and stood. “Thanks for dinner,” I said to Janae as I brought my bowl to the sink. “I’m really tired, and I have to unpack.”

I kept my eyes focused on the floor. Maybe, if I didn’t look at any of them, the demons would take the night off and leave me the hell alone. I didn’t want to remember anything else tonight. I’d had enough of the past smacking me over the head.

“Justin, are you okay?” Eli asked.

“Yeah, I’m good. I’m exhausted. It’s been a long week, and sometimes I don’t deal with change well,” I admitted.

“Go to bed,” Janae said. “I’ll wake you in the morning.”

I nodded and slipped out of the room before anyone could say anything else. When I got upstairs, I closed my door and shut the shades, blocking out the world and, hopefully, the demons.

I busied myself by unpacking. The dresser in my room was empty, so I started filling the drawers with my clothing. In the bottom drawer, I found a red T-shirt balled in the corner. I dragged it out and gasped at the Detroit Red Wings logo. I immediately dropped it, watching it flutter to the ground.

Several demons crawled out from under my bed, so I kicked the shirt at them. The demons scurried after it. No way I was going to face that memory. I’d stared down enough memories today. One would think they would dull after so much time had passed. They didn’t.

With my clothes tucked away and all my bathroom stuff where I assumed they should go, I brushed my teeth and hid in my room for the rest of the evening. I was too tired to socialize. I opened the bathroom door and almost ran into a half-naked Danny. He had a towel wrapped around his waist.

“Sorry, I’m not used to sharing,” he mumbled as he stepped around me and shut the door before I could say anything.

“Shit, this was a terrible idea,” I said.

I slept fitfully, with demons dancing through my dreams, holding up flash cards with pictures from my past.

T
HE
SUN
hadn’t risen yet when my phone beeped. A few minutes after I shut the alarm off, Janae came into my room to make sure I got out of bed.

“Dad will be here in fifteen minutes,” she said.

I grunted at her. “Leave please, so I can get dressed.”

“Did you find the T-shirt I put in your drawer?”

“What shirt?” I asked.

“The Red Wings T-shirt. I found it tucked in the closet when we cleaned out your old room. You used to sleep in that shirt all the time.”