This Is a Bust (23 page)

But I'
d be damned if I was going to get beat by a bunch 
of
hoseboys.

I
walked into the locker room with my bag over my shoulder
and my stick in my right hand. A bunch of the firemen were changing with us in our locker room.

“What are you
guys doing here?” I asked the first guy I didn't
know.

“The other room is locked and they can't find the key,” said
a white guy with curly brown hair and a bushy mustache. He was about six-two, 220. “We just figured we'd share with you guys. If you don't mind.”

“Oh, I don't mind,” I said, “but we don't have a place for
you
to plug in your curling iron.” The firemen and cops
all went, “Whoa!”

“I'm gonna plug you, pal,” curly head muttered, pulling on
his socks.

“C'mon, I'm only joking. I like men who play with fire.”

“What's really not funny is that we save more lives than
you guys do,” he said, smiling. “You guys are only good

for shooting unarmed suspects and taking drug money.” The firemen laughed uncomfortably, but none of the cops were smiling.

“Don't you guys have some liquor heirs to kidnap?” I asked.
Last August a fireman had gotten busted for kidnapping the
kid who was going to inherit the Seagram liquor fortune.

Teeter
walked in before any of the firemen could respond, but
I could tell from their cold stares that I was a marked man. Teeter clasped his hands together and addressed

the room.

“I hope all you guys are getting acquainted with each other.
My name's Teeter and I'm the coach for the NYPD. We're not expecting any rough stuff out there, but there's gonna be two referees on the ice and that's me and Art Block from the firefighters. Stand up so the guys can see you, Art.”

Who stands up but big and curly? My head felt like I was
in an elevator that was running express down to the basement. Teeter went on.

“So I want you all to know you're doing a great thing for the
kids, and a lot of them are out there watching. We also got a few people from
Newsday
who might do a story and a photo, so look pretty out there. It doesn't matter who scores more goals. It's the kids who win. Let's have a good game, guys.”

Before Teeter dropped the puck, the mayor of the town
made a little speech at center ice about how pleased he was to host the benefit for the Police Athletic League and some stupid firefighters organization. Spotty Spot, a Dalmatian that was the fire-safety mascot, ran around the stands. I'm sure the kids learned a lot from that.

Then they played “The Star-Spangled Banner.” During the
song, I kept an eye on Block. He had his right hand over his heart. With his left he drew a line through his neck and then pointed at me.

“Let's go,” I mouthed to him.

Miss New York came out and dropped
the puck in a
ceremonial face-off. She was wearing an Islanders jersey and sweatpants. The centers half-heartedly dueled for the puck. We won. Then Teeter dropped the puck for the real face-off and the firemen's captain pinned our guy's stick and kicked the puck back to his men with his skate.

The first period went badly for both teams. Some of the
mediocre skaters slipped and fell on their own. But once they got their legs going, the firemen were pretty quick. In the interests of not killing ourselves, we were playing three 10-minute periods instead of the standard 20 minutes. Near the end of the first, there was still no score. Then I saw a lane open up for me up the right side.

I jabbed my stick between the legs of a fireman defender to
trip him up and ran up the ice with the puck. Nobody could touch me. I drew back and slapped the biscuit home. One-nothing at the end of the first.

When I scored again at the start of the second, the going got
tougher for me. I got a few stick butts in the gut and a nice rap on the back of my leg, where there was no padding.

“Hey ref, you saw that!” I yelled at Block.

“I didn't see nothing,” he said. Teeter was at the other end of
the ice. I bit my lip and kept going. But whenever I saw any firemen coming at me, I put up my elbows up at nose-level.

The crowd came alive. The kids were screaming and even
the parents hooted. Now this was hockey. I could feel wind in my face as I went up and down the ice. Having the option to give in to violent impulses at any time freed a primitive instinct in me.

I shoved one guy's face into the glass wall and when he
dropped, who was sitting in the stand right there but that punk kid whom I'd given a bloody nose. Only he was cheering for me and pumping his arms. I nodded to him and Teeter came over.

“That's it, Chow. Two minutes in the penalty box for
roughing.” I couldn't argue. The fireman was clinging to the wall, trying to stand up. As I shuffled off to the penalty box, one of the cops swooped by and yelled, “Should've sent you after Serpico!” I raised one hand in triumph. I stepped off the ice and into the penalty box at the edge of the rink. I picked up a bottle and squirted cold water over my face that made my skin scream.

A few firemen skated by and shouted stuff. I saluted them.
Then Block came by, took his fingers and chinked his eyes at me. I looked for Teeter, but of course he was down at the other end again. I swatted my stick at the door to the penalty box. Then I dropped my gloves. I didn't want them to get in the way when I got out of the box.

When my two minutes were up, I skated the length of the
ice to get at Block. I grabbed him by the collar and hauled him down, face-first. I threw punches into his back. After a few seconds, the firemen dropped their sticks and slid over. The cops held them back and Teeter pulled me off Block, who looked like he was having a good dream.

“What the hell's wrong with you! This is a benefit game!
We've got goddamned kids here!” he screamed.

“He was making faces at me!” I yelled.

“Head for the showers, you're out of the game, Chow!”
Teeter said. Skating off the ice, I raised two bare fists as the audience roared. I was a fan favorite.

I sat down in the locker room, my entire body dripping with
sweat and melted ice. I was by myself and that was fine by me. I threw off my helmet and screamed. Then I dug into our cooler and started drinking. I was on the fourth beer when the other guys started coming in.

The score was two-nothing when I left a
nd we ended up
winning two-one. I got a pat on the back from two police.

A fireman sat down and stuck his face at me. He was a
white male with black hair, five-nine, 180.

“You got a serious problem,” he told me.

“Yeah, something ugly next to me wants a few punches in
the face.”

“My son and daughter are out there. What am I going to tell
them after the game? How am I going to explain why some crazy cop out there was pummeling the ref?”

“You tell them that the Chinese people have stood up,” I said.

Block was waiting for me to leave before coming into the
locker room. I saw him in the hallway on my way out and blew him a kiss.

Teeter came over to me. “I'm not against having a physical
presence,” he said, sounding like he was on sedatives, “But you were just out of line. I couldn't let that go.”

“But we won because of me,” I said.

“There are more important things than winning.”

“What kind of sports fan are you?”

Teeter shook his head and rubbed his stomach. “God, I hope
those fights looked staged.”

“Fights?”

“After I took you out, a fireman took a shot at me.”

“Did you throw him out, too?” Teeter nodded.

“He went straight to his car — he didn't want to be in the
same locker room as you.”

“Those hoseboy
s are all cowards when it comes down to
it. They'd rather face a fire than another man because fires don't hit back.”

“Hell of a game,” said Teeter, shaking his head. “Hey,
you came on the train, right? You want a ride back to Manhattan? We still got room in the bus. I think the PAL kids would get a thrill out of riding with you.”

“Yeah, that would be great.”

We walked over to the bus, which was a half-sized job, the
kind for disabled kids.

Only one seat was left. I tossed in my bag and my stick and
dropped next to the punk kid.

“Since when have you been with the Police Athletic
League?”

“For about two years,” he said. “Nobody else I knew had bats
and mitts for softball.”

“Hey, speak English! This is America,” joked Teeter, but we
ignored him.

“I saw what that guy did,” said the kid.

“Which guy?”

“The guy who did the thing with his eyes.”

“Yeah.”

“I'm glad you hit him.”

“Me, too. Sometimes it's right to hit people.”

“It wasn't right for you to hit me.”

“I never hit you! I just shook you.”

“Maybe you hit me by accident, but you still hit me.”

“Okay, I'm sorry if I hit you. But I didn't, so. . .” I loo
ked out
the window. Long Island was a blur of highway lights and roadside garbage. “When I look at you, I see someone who's throwing away their life.”

“I'm not throwing anything away.”

“Listen to me. I was hanging out with the wrong crowd
when I was your age.” Then dropping my voice I asked, “You ever hear of the Continentals?”

“No.”

“Yeah? Well, we were the biggest gang in Chinatown.”

“I've never heard of it.”

“Anyway, we were a bunch of tough guys just like you and
your friends. Back in those days we had to fight Spanish and Italian kids.”

“Then you should know it's easier to be in a gang than not
to be in one. If you're going to get beat up anyway, you might as well have some people on your side.”

“That just means you're going to be doing even more
fighting. They'll get two more guys and you'll get three more. Someone gets popped. Then what?”

He shrugged.

“Listen,” I said. “You keep loitering around, the best thing
that can happen is you ruin your posture. Just go home and stay there.”

“I'm
hanging out in the street because I don't get along with
my parents.”

“What's going on?” I asked, rubbing my calves and
thinking
I really should work out regularly. I was going to be hurting tomorrow.

“They throw me out of the house.”

“For what?”

“Don't know. They think they're still in Hong Kong.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“They
think that if I'm not studying 24 hours a day, that I'm
not studying at all. I tell them school is easy for me, but they just yell at me and lock me out of the apartment.”

“You must have done something to them. They wouldn't
kick you out for nothing.”

“Look at this,” he said. He pulled down his shirt collar and
showed me slashes on his shoulder. “That's from a belt.”

“I'm sorry it's like this,” I told him. “You should see a
counselor at school.”

“I did. They t
old me I had to learn to communicate with 
my
parents.”

“That's it?”

“Yeah, you know, they only deal with more serious
problems, like sex abuse or drugs.”

Someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned and saw a
little boy with dark blond hair.

“What are you speaking?” he asked.

“It's Chinese.”

“Are you from China?”

“No.”

There was an awkward moment before the kid spoke again.

“Oh.
I just wanted to say that you were really great tonight.
You were my favorite player.”

“Thanks, kid.”

“Where did you learn to skate?”

“I first learned right here through the PAL and then I skated
at Wollman Rink when I was in the academy.”

“You smell like beer,” the little boy said.

“You get to drink beer when you're a winner,” I said. Then I
turned back to the punk kid.

“I'm sorry, I never got your name.”

“Paul.”

“My name's Robert.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Yo
u have to look at it this way, Paul. The way you dress and
the people you hang out with, everyone thinks you're trying to be a hood. What kind of life are you going to have?”

“I look like this because I'm tough and angry and I want
everyone to know.”

“If you were really tough and angry, you wouldn't try so
hard to look like it. No wonder you keep getting thrown out of the house. You know, if you ever came by my apartment, I'd frisk you before I'd let you in.”

“I don't carry weapons. My mind is my weapon.”

“Bruce Lee tell you that? Because your mind didn't help you
when I gave you that bloody nose.”