The Tao of Hockey (Vancouver Vice #1) (9 page)

“
H
i
, Eric. I have some forms for you to fill out.”

A lady from HR had found me during lunch in the crowded players’ lounge.

“Okay, sure. You want me to do them now, or bring them by later?”

“Why don’t you do them now? We can go out in the hall, since there’s no room here.”

A couple of the guys started nudging each other and whispering. I took a better look at the woman—she was a short, busty brunette. But a lot of the guys at the camp were total pigs when it came to women of any kind. We had a female physio, and a few guys had been claiming groin pulls to get a massage from her. Idiots.

I went out in the hall and started filling out the forms against the wall, since there was no table or anything.

“I’m Brenda, by the way.”

“You know, I’m pretty sure I did this already. All the questions seem familiar.” We ran a gauntlet on the first day, doing personnel forms, medical forms, and releases.

She blushed. “Oh, really? Your paperwork must have been misplaced then, because it’s not in the proper file now.”

“Okay.” I finished and handed the papers back to her. “Sorry you had to chase all this way after me.”

“Oh, no. I apologize if you had to do this twice.” She produced a business card. “If you ever have any questions about the human resources end of the team, please give me a call.” I looked at her card. It was a blank one with the Vice logo, but her name and number hand-printed on it.

“I better make the team first.”

She giggled. “I hear it’s not a problem. You’re one of the stars of camp.”

“Too bad you’re not a coach, Brenda.”

Now, she giggled even louder. I excused myself and went back to lunch.

“Oh Burner, you’re one of the stars of camp,” Jonesy trilled.

“Fuck off. You guys were listening?”

“She’s hot and she wants you,” Rams said. “Give it to her.”

I shrugged them off. After Josie, nobody else looked good to me.

T
oo bad Brenda
wasn’t a coach because the real coach didn’t think I was one of the stars of the camp. Yesterday he had been complaining that I was taking too many of the shots myself, so I made a real effort to set up my linemates today.

After one line rush, he called me over.

“What the hell was that, Fairburn?”

“What, Coach?”

“That pass at the end. You put Marky in a bad place there. He couldn’t shoot and he could have lost the puck.”

“So what should I have done?”

“You should have shot the fucking puck. That’s why we brought you into the camp, you’re supposed to be able to finish. You’re certainly not a defensive asset, so what else have you got?”

Was he fucking kidding me? He spent yesterday telling me to pass more and now he was complaining that I was wasn’t taking enough shots. I skated away, but it suddenly struck me that he wasn’t an equal opportunity hater.

“Hey, Rams.” I skated up to him along the boards where he was waiting for the next rush.

“S’up, Burner?”

“Do you think Coach Panner has it in for me?”

Even through a visor, his expression was clear—he did think so. “Naw, don’t worry. He picks someone every game to fuck with.”

That was hardly comforting. I wasn’t oversensitive when it came to hockey, but I hadn’t noticed the coach singling anyone else out. Sure, he yelled at all of us, but he really seemed to be doing a number on me.

At the end of the day, Foxy and Devo both asked if I wanted to go out for dinner, but I turned them down. I got into my truck and sat there without starting it. Reality sucked. The Vice were going to be crappy team with a coach who hated me. So even if I made the team, I wasn’t going to look good. No NHL scout was ever going to see some player who got buried on the fourth line and never played any special teams. My numbers were going to tank. I should have just gone back to Switzerland. Maybe after another excellent season there, I could have gone straight to an NHL tryout camp.

I put my arms on the steering wheel and looked at the interlock system. It symbolized all the ways I was a failure. I was a drunk driver. I had fucked up Gary’s life. Then I screwed up my chance at a hockey career. And my girlfriend wouldn’t even ride in the truck with me.

I rotated my head around and sighed. The essential shittiness of life struck me. I flexed my wrists and there was a familiar ache in my joints. That low-grade pain that would keep growing until I obliterated it by escaping everything in my head. I was so sure I was over all this shit, but right now I felt like getting wasted.

B
y the time
I got home and ate dinner, it was late. I went out and sat on the back patio, but I felt too twitchy to relax. Probably too late to call Josie, but I kept pulling my phone out and then shoving it back in my pocket.

Finally, I found myself punching up her number.

“Hey, Ricky.” Josie sounded tired.

“Oh hey, I was wondering if we could get together tonight.”

I heard her exhale loudly. “Look, I had a pretty long day. I’m not really up to it.” She had been doing stunt work today, which was always exhausting for her.

“Oh, okay. Well, how about just coffee or something?” I felt guilty pressuring her, but I couldn’t stop.

“You know, tomorrow I’m not working at all. Tomorrow would work.”

“We don’t need to have sex or anything. I’d just like to see you.”

There was a long pause.

“Please, Josie,” I said into the silence.

“Uh, okay. Why don’t you come over here?”

I felt a rush of relief. “Great. I won’t stay long either, I know you’re tired.”

Josie gave me her address and hung up. I grabbed my jean jacket and headed out right away. I was oddly excited at the prospect of finally going to her place. Since she never rode in my truck, I never had to pick her up like a normal date. Our relationship was so weird, but I had never felt closer to anyone in my life. Maybe Josie was right; it was better because we talked about different things instead of the normal crap.

Josie’s building turned out to be a really nice modern one. I wasn’t quite sure what I had expected, but it looked pretty expensive. She buzzed me in. The lobby was all polished marble and furnished with square leather chairs and a giant metallic disc on the wall. I took the elevator up to the fourteenth floor and found her apartment.

The door swung open as soon as I knocked once. Josie stood there. She was wearing jeans and a t-shirt with the sleeves cut off. Her feet were bare.

I put my arms around her and pulled her to me. The comfort of seeing her and feeling her body next to mine was enormous.

“Um, did you want to actually come in?” Josie finally asked.

I released her and looked around me. I was in a hallway that led in two directions. One way went towards her bedroom where I could see a low bed and not much else. We walked the other way, passed the entrance to a silvery kitchen, and entered a wide-open living room. It was furnished with only a large sectional and a slab-like coffee table. The couch faced a wide set of windows where the city and the mountain background were laid out in front of us. Her home gave me a feeling of light and space.

“Your place is really nice,” I told her. We sat down on the couch side-by-side and faced the view. “It’s pretty much the opposite of my home in Nelson.”

“How so?”

“My mom has a lot of stuff—fabrics, nature stuff, souvenirs, art. And crystals, she’s really into crystals.”

Josie was naturally quiet, and I sometimes found myself blabbing away to fill the silence. I longed to be as serene as her—the whole point of meditation was to achieve a state of calm relaxation, but too often I found my mind wandering. Ironically, while I was the yoga and meditation expert, Josie was the more zen of the two of us.

“Did you want something to drink?” Josie’s glass of white wine was sitting on the coffee table. Her whole life looked like a page ripped out of a lifestyle magazine.

“Have you got mineral water?”

She nodded and padded off to get it. Josie moved with the fluid grace that was even more noticeable here at home. I looked around the room. The wood floors were polished and stained dark. Even though she didn’t have a ton of furniture, everything looked expensive and special. I thought that coming here would tell me more about her, but I understood less. How could Josie afford a place like this working two part-time jobs? Stunt work might pay a lot, but she didn’t even work full-time at it. Maybe she came from money, but in all the time I’d known her, she’d never bragged about her family. She’d barely mentioned them.

Still, I knew better than to ask her a million questions. With Josie, I took whatever she was willing to give me and accepted that. Because she didn’t ask me questions either, unlike everyone else in my life who wanted to tell me what I should be doing, thinking, and saying.

But tonight, I needed to be with someone and Josie was that person. She handed me a glass of sparkling water and sat down on the other corner of the couch.

“So, what’s up, Ricky?”

“I don’t know. Camp isn’t going that great.”

She took a sip of wine and waited.

“I mean, I think I’m doing the right thing, but at the end of day, the coach rips into me. But then, the next day I try to do what he says and then he rips into me for something else.”

“Sounds like he’s doing something psychological. It’s not personal, the guy’s probably a jerk.”

“That’s the weird part, it
is
personal. He really seems to hate me.” It felt good to be able to admit that to someone. Like putting the truth out there would lessen it.

“That’s weird. Did you know him before?”

I shook my head. “No. There are a lot of reasons for people to hate me, but I’ve never done anything to him personally.”

Josie smiled. “You? You’re a guy who catches and releases spiders. Why would people hate you?”

I couldn’t meet the clear gaze of her brown eyes. “I’ve done bad shit. I’m fixed now, but that doesn’t change everything I did before.”

She didn’t say a word, but she reached out and held my hand.

“My best friend got injured—badly—that night when I got my DUI.”

“Details. I knew you had done something like that the night I met you.”

“Oh, when you saw my truck.” Did I think that if I never told her stuff, she didn’t know? Josie was too smart for that. “But that didn’t stop me from drinking. It only stopped me from drinking and driving.”

“A fine distinction that M.A.D.D. would be happy to hear,” she replied.

“Look, Josie, could you stop joking around? I’m trying to tell you stuff that’s important here.”

“Why do you want to tell me everything bad about yourself? We know each other on an essential level—to me that’s better.” She let go of my hand. “Besides, I know exactly what happens next. You’re going to expect me to share all my shit too.”

“No, I won’t. I know you better than that. I came here because I felt shitty and I needed to be with you. But now that I see how nice your apartment is, I feel like—I don’t know—I don’t have anything to offer you.” She would be the perfect girlfriend for a guy in the NHL. A guy with money, fame, and a future. Like Bomber: he loved her motorcycle, and he would be a way better match for her.

She took a sip of wine and frowned. “You don’t have to offer me anything other than what we have now.”

“You could do way better than me.”

Josie exhaled in frustration. “You are all over the place tonight. Where is this pity party coming from?”

She was right, I was throwing up all my defences. What was the real problem? Maybe I had been overconfident, but I was sure I was going to make the Vice. They were a crappy team, and I was one of the best players at camp.

“It’s just… I feel like I’m not going to make the team—not because I’m not good enough—but because Panner doesn’t like me.

“Again, why does he not like you?”

“I don’t really know. I mean, he’s in a negative space generally, so I thought he was that way to everyone. But I started noticing that he was calling me out for stuff way more. And if I did what he told me, he’d switch it up to something new.”

“Sometimes people are harder on you if you’re really good. Are you?”

I shook my head. “Nobody ever admits that, it’s not the hockey way. You’re supposed to be humble.”

She faked a look around the room. “Don’t worry, there’s nobody here to tell the God of Hockey. And I don’t really care if you suck—at hockey, anyway.”

I laughed. I knew Josie would make me feel better. “I am really good—at least at the levels I’ve been playing at.”

“Whatever that means.”

“It means that I was really good in Switzerland. But the AHL will be harder. From what I’ve seen in camp, I’m still pretty good. That’s why this situation is so frustrating.”

“Can you still go back to Switzerland?”

“Yeah, maybe.” It wasn’t a sure thing, but pretty likely.

“So, then you’ll still be playing hockey. Sounds like you can’t lose.”

Did it not bother Josie that if I didn’t make the Vice, we wouldn’t see each other anymore? I searched her face for clues, but she only looked a little tired. Besides, going back meant I would have failed.

“It’s my last chance to make the NHL.” Although I thought this constantly, I never said the words aloud. They sounded naked and desperate.

“You need to make the AHL first?”

I nodded. “It’s a chance for NHL scouts to see me, to see if I’ve changed from my first go-round.”

Josie sipped her wine. She waited.

“I was in the AHL before, and I fucked it up royally. It’s taken me years to straighten up and get back in shape.” I slid closer to Josie, and put my arm around her. Feeling her body next to mine was comforting, but not in a sexual way for once. “So many people have helped me—even when I didn’t deserve it—and I don’t want to let them down.”

“What people?”

“My mom and my dad. Well, really my dad. I’m an only child and he’s always expected so much from me. The guy calls me every other day to make sure I’m working hard enough. You know how hard I work, right?”

She nodded. She didn’t offer any reassurance, but she was listening.

“And there’s other people—Lance, Tony, Mike Guildford, all my coaches ever, and tons of people back in Nelson. I used to be this sure thing. This is how I can prove they weren’t wrong.”

Josie was frowning. “Is it what you want?”

“Yeah, of course. It’s what every hockey player wants. And I’ve made it back this far.”

“Why, though? If you can play in Switzerland and be a star, why wouldn’t that be enough? Is it about money?”

I shook my head. “It’s not the money. Everyone wants to measure themselves against the best. Even if you only play a few games, you made it.” But I knew that a few games wouldn’t be enough for me. What would be? One season or two? Winning the Cup? I had never allowed myself to think that far ahead.

“If you make the Vice, how good are your chances to make the NHL?”

“Honestly—not good at all. But this process is a stairway—one step at a time.” Because if I didn’t make the next step, my chances went to zero.

“That sounds more like Zen Master Fairburn.”

I put both arms around her and squeezed. “Thank you, Josie, for letting me unload on you.”

“It’s okay. I could tell on the phone that you were upset.”

That kindness was unexpected. I kissed Josie and tasted the alcohol on her lips. She opened up her mouth, and I pressed mine harder against hers. Kissing her was like this gateway into ecstasy and escape. But I had promised not to stay too long. I pulled away.

“I’m sorry. I’ll go now.”

Josie looked up at me. “You don’t have to. Why don’t you stay?”

“But aren’t you tired?”

“Yup. I’m just going to lie there while you do all the work.”

I chuckled. “Isn’t that what you do normally?”

She whacked me with a cushion. Then she got up and headed straight for the bedroom.

She didn’t lie there, of course. Josie met my every move with one of her own, and the sex between us was intense. But she did fall asleep immediately afterwards.

I lay there with Josie’s head on my chest and enjoyed the moment. We had finally achieved a new level of trust and caring. That Josie had finally let me into her life was huge. But she had done it because she sensed it was what I needed, and that was the important part.

Her bedroom was as minimal as the rest of the apartment. There was this large photograph on the wall: a black and white aerial view of fields and lakes. Sliding closet doors took up a side wall. We were lying in a large bed with soft white sheets and a duvet. The bed was luxurious and comfortable. It reminded me of my bed in Switzerland.

Josie was so self-contained. Her apartment was exactly like her—sleek and beautiful. I realized that I’d never had a place of my own; I had lived in furnished rentals, sublets, and at home. I didn’t even have a vision of my dream home.

And maybe that was the key to overcoming my anxieties, knowing that life could be good outside hockey or after hockey. If I had a place like this to come home to, would I be less stressed about the end? Well, a home like this was perfect with Josie in it. She made me realize there was a life beyond hockey. I spent so much time with people who thought about hockey 24/7.

That’s where my dad and Joe were wrong. Women weren’t a distraction—they helped you put hockey in perspective. Sure, it had been a challenge to get to this point, but stuff that got handed to me wasn’t worth having.

Still, that meant I had to make the team. Lying here and feeling so good only showed me how important Josie already was in my life. And if I left Vancouver, we’d never get to see how good things could be.