Anyway, in our old Volvo, we ramble up to what turns out to be Ryan’s freakin’ mansion, and Dad waits while I walk up to the front door holding a birthday card with ten bucks inside. I’m thinking I should have brought fifteen, but . . . priorities: I don’t know Ryan real well. He played for a different AAA club during the regular season, but he played for the Grizzlies during the spring session. I didn’t make the spring AAA team, though . . . that was another sad thing I forgot to tell you about. Spring’s not as important as regular season; still, it was a disappointment.
A smiling woman answers the door, holds her hand out, and says, “Hi, I’m Ryan’s mother. And you’re . . . ?”
“Conor MacRae.”
“From the team or school?”
“The team.”
“Go, team!” she says, kind of passionately. “Do you think it’s going to be a good season?”
“I hope so.”
“Yay! We hope so too. That’s why we came over to the Grizzlies. Go on in, sweetie.”
I glance back and nod at my dad, then follow Ryan’s mom. There’s a huge double staircase in the living room, like something out of a movie. The living room is about the size of our whole house. A really small dog with long hair is stuck to Mrs. Morgan’s leg. The dog is shaking like crazy and growls softly at me.
Mrs. Morgan picks him up. “She hates some people!” She rubs her nose on the dog’s. “Don’t you, cutie?” She looks at me. “Did you bring your swim trunks? We thought we’d start out with swimming.”
She leads me through the house. There are a few pillars on the border of the living room and dining room, plus a couple of pillars by the staircase to upstairs. Mrs. Morgan opens the door to a bathroom the size of my bedroom, and I change in there, stuffing my clothes into my backpack. When I get out, Ryan’s mom is gone, so I wander into the backyard. The yard is huge, but not super huge—we’re right in the city, so maybe there’s not that much space. The pool takes up a third of the yard, and it’s shaped like some kind of three-limbed jelly-monster. I don’t see anyone I know yet, but what the heck? I drop my backpack, run across the concrete, and jump into the water.
Then I spot Ryan and say, “Hey, Ryan. Happy birthday.”
“Hi, Conor. Thanks. You play D, right?”
“Yeah. I played forward in squirts, but the coach switched me over last year.”
He nods. “What’s Coach Dusan like?” he asks.
“I don’t know him real well, but everybody says he treats you like you’re already professional. He might not even know we’re still kids. I guess that’s good.” I pause, wipe water from my eyes, then add, “But it might just mean he’s really tough. His squirt team won CAHA two years in a row, and he also won a state championship with a bantam team in Michigan in 2006. They came in second in nationals. He’s never had a team miss the play-offs.” CAHA is the California Amateur Hockey Association, so winning that means you’ve won state.
“I’ve never made the play-offs before.”
I start to say, “Really?” but Ryan spots someone else, his face lighting up before he swims off. I take a few laps, then float on a plastic raft until I spot Jae-won. I wave, and he jumps into the water, then climbs on another raft. We lie in the sun together, not talking much at first. Then he paddles closer to me and says in a low voice, “This is the biggest house I’ve ever been in.”
“Me too.”
“Want to explore?”
“Sure.”
We spill off our rafts and clamber up the side of the pool. There’s a bunch of fluffy towels folded up on chairs, so we grab a couple. First we look around the backyard. It’s my dream backyard. Most of it is mowed, but it still has a wild feel, with trees and bushes arranged in a forest-like way. I know I said it’s not that big, but I just meant compared to how huge the house is.
“When we’re in the NHL, we’ll have a house like this,” Jae-won says.
Most guys don’t talk out loud about being in the NHL someday, even though we all secretly hope we will be. But Jae-won is like that, very honest about stuff. He wants to be in the NHL, so why shouldn’t he say so?
The grass is soft on my feet as we head back to the house. We go inside, our towels thrown over our shoulders. The floors are marble. Jae-won’s dad lays marble, so that’s how I know what it is. The company he works for gave us marble counters at a discount, ’cause Jenny wanted them. I guess it looks good. Fancy-like.
We stumble into a room with a big screen on one end and really comfortable-looking leather chairs in front of the screen. We look at each other and laugh. “I watch movies on my computer,” I say, then remember that Jae-won doesn’t even have his own computer. If he wants to watch a movie, he uses the TV in his parents’ room.
There’re twelve chairs in the dining room, eight chairs in the movie room, six chairs at a table next to the kitchen, three chairs at a counter in the kitchen, two couches in a room with a pool table, two couches in the living room, and two couches in a room with a big painting over a fireplace. “They got lots of chairs,” I say.
We count three bathrooms on the ground floor, then go upstairs. I kind of look around guiltily, like maybe we shouldn’t be exploring. But Jae-won’s face is all lit up, like he’s six years old. We open one door, and there’s a guy who looks like he’s about sixteen lounging in front of an Xbox, playing Call of Duty. He frowns at us. “What do you want?”
“Just exploring,” Jae-won says totally honestly. That makes me laugh, and then we both start giggling like little kids and close the door. We don’t open any more closed doors, just peer into the rooms that are already open. There are seven bedrooms, all of them big and one of them humongous. We count three more bathrooms, but Jae-won says there are probably more attached to the bedrooms.
When we get downstairs, everybody’s singing “Happy Birthday” on the patio, so we hurry out and join in. Most people eat cake, but Jae-won and I don’t ’cause we’ve made an agreement to start avoiding sugar, even though the season hasn’t started yet. Last year the team got nutritional guidelines, and most of the players followed them during the season. Some of the other guys from the team are here now, so we stand around eating these round sandwiches that I’ve seen at Costco. My dad says there’s almost nobody who doesn’t shop at Costco. It’s a national religion.
A kid named Naveen says, “Hey, did you hear we’re playing pond hockey in Minnesota next season?”
“Really?” I say. That’s kind of cool, I think. Then I think of something less cool. “What if I fall in?”
“You can’t fall in. They make sure the pond’s frozen all the way through.”
“Is that before or after the tournament in Chicago?” Lucas asks.
“After.”
“I can’t wait to go to Chicago,” I say. “My dad says it’s one of the biggest hockey tournaments in the world. He went there when he played hockey as a kid.”
Then we spend the next hour standing around stuffing our faces and talking about hockey. We don’t go swimming again on account of the pool’s so crowded, so we play Ping-Pong at a table that’s been set up in the sun until we get so sweaty we can hardly hold the paddles. After about an hour of that, Mrs. Morgan comes by and tells me that my dad’s here.
“See you, man,” I say to the guys.
“You gonna be at stick time Monday?” Roberto asks.
“Nah,” I say.
“Why not? You used to always be there on Mondays.”
“Yeah . . . I’m focusing on dryland right now, so not skating much.”
“Oh, okay. See you, man.”
“Yeah, see you. Later, Jae-won.”
“Yeah.”
I go outside, but before I can get the door closed, another dog runs out. It’s a puffy little white cloud-thing that I have to chase for about five minutes as it barks hysterically before it finally decides to run back toward the front door. I flip the door open, and it rushes in, stopping once to bark at me.
In the car, Dad says, “A dog like
that bit Russ once on a domestic dispute call. We made fun of him about it all year.”
“Why did you make fun of him?”
“I dunno. The look on his face.” He chuckles. “You just have to laugh at stuff sometimes, you know? Memories . . .”
And he smiles kind of sadly, like he’s remembering good times—good times that are gone. I sort of understand, ’cause I love good times, although they never seem quite gone to me. Could be ’cause I’m just a kid. Could be this memories stuff is related to Dad crying. Could be a lot of things. But I can’t think of a thing to say.
So I just go, “Good times!”
And he smiles. And he’s back to the present.
CHAPTER 18
* * *
ON THE DRIVE home, I think about taking Sinbad for a walk, but it’s over ninety degrees. Dad and I each have air conditioners in our room, though we don’t use them unless it’s over ninety-five. Then I think, since it’s gonna be practically as hot inside as it is out, maybe I should take him for a walk after all if he seems up for it.
The second I open the door when we get home, Sinbad flings himself at me so hard he pushes me back. “Hi, boy!” I say, bracing myself for the next hit. When it comes, it’s just as hard as the first one. Dad says, “You got a letter. No stamp.” He waves an envelope at me. I take the letter and tear it open.
Dear Conor,
Got another job for you. Stop by when you have a chance.
Mr. Edwin Reynolds
So I leash Sinbad and we head out. At Mr. Reynolds’s house, I knock and wait a long time, on account of how slow Mr. Reynolds is. When he opens the door, he says, “Conor MacRae! Don’t you ever go anywhere without your dog?”
“Not really. Well, I play ice hockey, so I don’t take him to games or practice. Otherwise I’m with him all the time. He has cancer!” I blurt out.
“Oh!” He reaches down and pets Sinbad, who kind of ignores him—he’s only friendly to selected people.
The house looks small, and it’s kind of empty, like no decoration or anything. There’s a big pile of the blue plastic in a corner in the living room. I think about how Mr. Reynolds might be the only person in the whole big world with a pile of blue tarp in a corner of his living room. “Did you want me to help you?” I ask.
But he’s studying Sinbad. “Cancer, you say? Is he going to die?”
“No, he’s going to live for five years, but the chemo costs a lot of money.” I don’t know why I say that, but I guess I do believe it’s true.
“Good! Good! Sit down, let me get you scissors.”
So I guess he wants me to cut something?
There’s a couch, but it’s full of notebooks or albums or something, so I sit on a recliner, even though I have a feeling it’s Mr. Reynolds’s chair.
When Mr. Reynolds returns, he offers me the scissors, then brings over two albums. “I’m transferring all the pictures in this album into this new album I bought. It’s hard for me to cut perfectly because of my arthritis. I can cut, but not perfect. I want to give the new album to my grandniece for her birthday. She’s turning five.”
“Sure, no problem.” I sit on the floor, so he can have his chair. But he stands over me while I open up the old album. It’s all pictures of a chimp.
“That’s Mack,” Mr. Reynolds says proudly. “He was like our son when he was a baby! My wife and I loved that chimp like he was our flesh and blood. Then he got too wild to handle, and we didn’t know what to do with him. We had to give him away to a lab, and we know they did medical research on him.” His eyes go far away, then come back. “I’ll never forgive myself for giving him away, but I thought he might hurt my wife while I was out of the house one day. Dropping him off at the lab was the worst day of our lives. . . .” He presses his lips together and frowns, then after a big breath adds, “Fortunately, the lab eventually gave him to a wildlife sanctuary, so the end of his life was good.”
The pictures are glued onto the pages, so I carefully cut around them and place them into the pockets of the new album.
“That’s Mack when he was still a baby,” Mr. Reynolds says. “Cutest baby I ever saw, human or chimp or anything.”
There are pictures of Mack on the bus, at the beach, lying on a human bed in a bedroom. Mr. Reynolds says, “He looks like he’s having fun, but in truth he didn’t really like the beach much. That’s the only time we ever took him.”
Then he goes to the corner, picks up a huge sheet of blue plastic, and pulls it out of the room toward the back. I work steadily, Sinbad pressed up next to me. The chimp is supercute, with a really emotional face. In the final picture, he’s quite big. He must have been really strong by then. He looks as happy as Sinbad at his happiest. I think of him being experimented on, and I have to shut the album so I can’t see his face anymore. Dad texts me: What’s going on? And I realize it’s been two and a half hours. Almost done, I text him back. I place both albums on the crowded coffee table. The table is covered with stuff that all looks old: mugs that aren’t shaped like mugs are today, coasters that say LAS VEGAS 1963, dusty Christmas ornaments with angels on them. I wipe the dust off with my shirt, then say, “Come on, Sinbad, let’s tell him we’re done.”
We step into the hallway, and I call out, “Mr. Reynolds?”
He calls something back, and I wait as he comes out of a room and moves slowly toward me, calling out, “Conor MacRae! All done?”
“Yep.”
He reaches into his pocket, draws out a dollar, and hands it to me. I figure I should take it so as not to insult him. “Thank you,” I say.
“No—thank you! Before you go, I was thinking I wanted to tell you something. Just because of your dog having cancer, I thought you might be interested in this. One night when Mack was living in the sanctuary, I woke up at night and I was wide awake. I wasn’t dreaming. And I saw some electricity, right there in the room, in the shape of Mack. It was sparkling. It sounds crazy, and I know people already think I’m crazy. But that was Mack. I know it was. He just came by to tell me he was okay, and that he forgave me, and then he died and went to heaven. The sanctuary called me the next day to tell me that he had died.”
I stand there looking at him. I mean, I don’t want to think of me ever waking up in the middle of the night and seeing Sinbad as a bunch of electricity! So I try to get the image out of my head. Also, I feel like I know Mack by now, and for some reason what Mr. Reynolds just told me really messes with my mind.
I say, “I guess I better get going. Call me if you need anything. It’s no problem.”
“Thank you, thank you, you’re a good boy. My grandniece will be very happy with her picture album. She loves animals.”
We say bye, and Sinbad and I step outside into the setting sun. I text Dad that we’re going to walk a bit, and then we go for a long stroll through the neighborhood. At first Sinbad has fun, but he seems to get tired when we’re several blocks away. I even think about calling my dad to pick us up, even though not long ago several blocks would be nothing to Sinbad. Instead we sit on the curb for a few minutes while Sinbad rests his head in my lap. He’s panting hard, so finally I do call Dad, and he drives over to get us. When we get home, he says, “Why don’t you go ahead and turn on your air conditioner?”
“Thanks, Dad.” I switch it on, and Sinbad has enough energy to hop onto the bed to rest. He doesn’t even come out when I go into the kitchen for food. Dad has made our go-to dinner of boiled chicken with potatoes and vegetables, so I take a big bowl and carry it into my bedroom to eat at my desk. In the middle of eating, I open up a drawer and take five of my precious dollars and place them in an envelope to send to PETA. Like I mentioned, they don’t do invasive experiments on chimps anymore in the United States. But I can’t get Mack out of my mind, so I write out the envelope, stamp it, and print This is for Mack on the outside. They won’t know what that means, but who cares? Then I go to the front porch and clothespin the envelope to the mailbox. I hesitate, think about how I could get a dog bone with
that five dollars. That’s the thing about money, man. There are a million good things to spend it on. I just stand there for a few minutes. But you can’t use up your whole life standing around. You gotta make choices. So I go inside and try to forget about it.
CHAPTER 19
* * *
DAD AND I start working out six days a week, jogging with Sinbad when he’s up to it, or doing muscle work at the park. Neighbors call me to wash their cars, and I wander farther into new neighborhoods to find customers. It’s all great, but at the same time I feel like I’m going to lose my mind if I don’t skate soon. I feel caged!
Dad can tell, so one night he decides to take me to do stick time at Ice House, since it only costs thirty dollars for the both of us. We load up our gear—we have identical bags—and climb into the car. We both own high-end gear, ’cause we’re extremely picky. Like we can spend hours at a hockey shop when we only need to grab a few minor things like mouth guards, socks, tape, etc. You gotta always get the right socks so you look lit on the ice. Plus, what happens is we also get involved in looking at the stuff we don’t need. Dad wears nine-hundred-dollar skates, and mine cost five hundred ’cause they’re not senior size yet. Yeah, it’s crazy, the prices. But expensive skates are stiffer than cheaper skates and hold up better to all the work you put in when you play tier hockey. Also, there can be a four- or five-ounce difference in weight between a high-end and low-end skate. An extra five ounces would feel like lead on the feet of a top skater.