The Understatement of the Year

  With a furrowed brow, Rikker turned toward the dorms. He walked a couple of paces and then stopped. “You okay?” he asked.

  “Yap,” I said. Because my mouth couldn’t decide between “yeah” and “yup.” That happened sometimes, especially after I drank a shit-ton of whiskey and a pitcher of beer.

  He pointed up the street. “Prove it.”

  So I went. Or at least I tried. But my feet weren’t in the mood, really. I tripped on the curb. Rikker’s hand was at my elbow immediately, which kept me from pitching forward onto the asphalt. “Aw, crap,” I said as I swayed.

  He smirked in that patient way that people look at a drunk. But even that was enough of a smile to stir me. Since my defenses were for shit right then, I couldn’t help but stare at his mouth. I’d tasted that mouth so many times, and it had always left me wanting more. Every. Fricking. Time. Just remembering it filled my head with ideas. Bad ones. The playful curve of his lips… I was leaning towards them even now.

  “Whoa,” Rikker said, easing me by the arm down to sit on the curb.

  Crap. I almost made an ass of myself. No — I was making an ass of myself right now. I’d almost made a bigger ass of myself a minute ago. “What are you doing?” I asked him next. Because he had his phone in his hands and was tapping on the screen.

  “Calling Bella.”

  “Not Bella,” I said immediately. “Anyone but Bella. She’ll want to talk about my addiction. Thing is, she’s got it wrong. It isn’t the whiskey that’s making me crazy.” God, I could not shut up. In fact, I kept right on babbling about my problems. I rambled about Thanksgiving. I don’t even know all the shit I said to him. The only saving grace was that Rikker seemed to tune me out.

  “Yeah, Bella? Hey! I’m just outside, and I think Graham needs a little help. Yup. Pretty sloppy. He keeps mumbling about tight pants, or something.” He looked at me, frowning. “Sitting on the curb,” he said into the phone. “You can’t miss us.”

  “Turned me in to the cops?” I asked when he’d hung up. “Nice of you.”

  “You’d rather I leave you in the gutter?” he jammed his phone into his pocket.

  “I left you in the gutter.” Damn, that just popped out. “Oops,” I said. “Forgot our deal. Sorry. S’posed to not talk about that. Shit stays buried, you know? Easier that way…”

  “Shut it, Graham,” Rikker said, exasperated.

  I looked up to see Bella and Hartley jogging towards us. “Thanks,” Hartley said, relieving Rikker, as if I were a package that he’d signed for.

  Bella leaned down, her face in my face. “You smell like Jack,” she said.

  “Schmart girl,” I slurred.

  “Best of luck, and goodnight,” Rikker grunted.

  Hartley knelt down in front of me. “I’m only saying this once,” he began, his handsome face serious. “Lay off the sauce. Or I’m going to have to tell Coach that you have a problem.”

  I did have a problem, and he was walking away from me right now. And even though Bella decided that it was her turn to yell at me next, I tuned her out to watch Rikker’s muscular ass disappear up the street and into the night.

  — December —

  Gongshow: a rough, dirty game of maximum intensity.

  — Rikker

  The interview itself was not that bad.

  One morning, the week after Thanksgiving, I waited in Coach’s office with a young woman from the Harkness College press office. “You don’t have to answer any questions that make you uncomfortable,” she assured me. “Just look at me, and I’ll tell the reporter that you’re not going to answer.”

  That sounded easy enough, I guess.

  “I’ll go get her, if you’re ready.”

  I was never going to be ready. But I nodded anyway.

  A minute later, she returned with the reporter, a mild-looking mom type. “I’m Cyndi,” the reporter said, putting her digital recorder down on the table between us. “Thank you for meeting me, especially during exams. You must be busy.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Actually, I have my first exam next week. In Spanish. So if we could do this in Spanish, that would really help.”

  She grinned. “No can do. Not only do I not speak Spanish, I don’t really speak sports. I’ve never interviewed a hockey player before. Do you have any tips for me?” She was trying to put me at ease, I guess.

  “I’m sure you’ll be fine,” I told her. “We don’t like to see the words ‘bloodthirsty’ or ‘violent brutes,’ though.”

  She gave me a smile. “Tell me why you left Saint B's.”

  Straight to the point. Great. “Well, okay. On a Sunday night near the end of the regular season, that would have been last March, the head coach learned of my sexual orientation. He called me in Monday morning and told me to clear out my gear. He said, ‘I don’t want that in my locker room.’”

  She flinched. “That must have hurt.”

  She wanted to talk about my feelings, but I wasn’t going there. “Honestly, it’s about the most lukewarm hate speech ever written.”

  She tapped a pencil on her knee. “It doesn’t matter what words he used, though, does it? Were you surprised to be kicked off the team?”

  Yay. Now I would get to tell the reporter how stupid I was. “Yeah, actually I was surprised. Saint B's is a Catholic college, so I guess that makes me an idiot. But there’s a pretty active gay student group.” Not that I’d ever gone to an event. “And also, the college has ‘sexual orientation’ in its non-discrimination clause. I thought that would count for something.”

  “I saw that, too,” she said. “That’s fairly progressive for a school with religious roots.”

  I shrugged. I didn’t know whether it was or wasn’t. But when Saint B's started courting me, and offering me scholarship money, Skippy made me look it up. “You cannot play for them if they can toss you out for being gay,” he had said, grumpy that I wanted to go to school in Massachusetts instead of Vermont, where he’d be.

  Later, I’d wished that I’d listened.

  “What did your teammates think?” the reporter asked.

  “Um,” I cleared my throat. “I never got a chance to find out, you know? A few of them wrote slurs on my Facebook page.”

  Her eyes widened. “Did you document that?”

  Seriously? Who would want to save a screenshot of assholes writing: Faggot, I hope you die of AIDS. “Nope. I deleted my account instead.”

  “So, the team did not stick up for you.”

  Careful, I coached myself. “I got a couple of texts that were very supportive. The guy who I was actually rooming with on road trips called to say that he thought the whole thing sucked.” I didn’t tell her that when I saw his name come up on my phone, I chickened out and let it go to voicemail. Later, I screwed up my courage and listened to the nice things he had to say. I’ve never been any good at predicting who will turn out to be cool and who will be an ass. One of the faggot comments on my Facebook page was from the guy I used to lift with in the weight room. I’d thought of him as a friend.

  Called that one wrong.

  Still, I did not want this reporter writing that the Saint B's hockey team was a bunch of meatheads. “It’s important to remember that most of the team didn’t really get a chance to be supportive or not. The coach was a real Napoleon type. And he showed me the door so fast, I never saw most of those guys again.”

  The reporter chewed on her lip. “So you weren’t out to your teammates.”

  I shook my head. “I was a freshman. I wanted to prove myself. And I just wanted to play hockey.”

  She nodded slowly. “How did your coach find out, anyway?”

  Even though I’d been expecting this question, I still got a cold sweat when she asked it. “I’m not going to give details about that.”

  “Okay.” Her eyes lingered on me. “So, it wasn’t you who volunteered that information to your coach.”

  “Not in a million years.”

  “Did you plan to stay in the closet for
four years? Or were you waiting for the right moment?”

  Good question, lady. “I didn’t have a plan, yet,” I told her. “I thought I’d have a while to figure it out.”

  After that, it got easier. Cyndi went on to ask me about my transfer, and that was a less personal conversation. “Your uncle called the coaches and explained the situation?”

  “Yeah, he did that for me. And I’m ten kinds of lucky that it worked out. It’s not only that Coach didn’t mind the circus.” It was just dawning on me that Coach must have known reporters and news stories would happen. “But also that he needed a wing.”

  “So, the schools that said ‘no’ to you weren’t necessarily discriminating against you?” she asked.

  “Hell no. The entire Division One roster isn’t very large. And there are hundreds of guys who want to play.”

  “You must be a pretty valuable player.”

  I wasn’t touching that. “I guess we’ll find out.”

  She grinned. “And how have your new teammates treated you?”

  “They’ve been great,” I said immediately. “The season is going well. No problems.”

  Unfortunately, I spoke too soon.

  As luck would have it, our next scheduled game was against Saint B's. Coach called me into his office again before practice on Friday to discuss it.

  “How is this game going to go, do you think?” he asked.

  “We can beat them,” I said. “The first line is tight but their bench isn’t very deep.”

  Coach looked out the window for a moment and then back at me. “Do you think you should play?”

  What? “Of course I’ll play. Why wouldn’t I?”

  He sighed. “The article didn’t publish yet, at least. It’s going to make Saint B’s look bad.”

  “If anybody reads it.”

  He swiveled his chair toward me again. “They will. And you’re going to get even more attention.”

  God, I hoped he was wrong. “Let’s just beat Saint B’s.”

  Coach grinned. “I like your style, kid. I really do. So I’m putting you on the first line for the Saint B’s game. Make me proud.”

  Awesome. “I will, Coach.” I really thought I could.

  I was wrong.

  — Graham

  I was not at all prepared for what happened at the Saint B’s game. It was a home game against a so-so team. What could go wrong?

  Just everything.

  The first sign of trouble came a half an hour before faceoff. During that last thirty minutes in the locker room, every guy was busy getting amped up in his own special way. Some people sat quietly in a corner, thinking calm thoughts. But there was a lot of joking around and smack talk, too. The place was crowded, with everyone strapping on their gear. There were two trainers in the room, too, taping up muscles and helping to stretch out tetchy limbs.

  I went into the hallway supply cabinet for some orange hockey tape. Don’t laugh when I tell you that I play better with orange tape. Hockey players are some of the most superstitious people you’ll ever meet. (Just ask Hartley about his lucky underwear.)

  At the distant end of the hallway, I saw Coach come out of his office. But before he got very far, a gray-haired guy in a Saint B’s jacket came wheeling out of the visitors’ locker room. He got up in Coach’s face. “There’s a reporter up my ass, and it’s your fucking fault,” he barked.

  There was a tense silence, and then I heard Coach chuckle. “Really?” He stood his ground, even though the other guy was practically spitting into his mouth. “That can’t be true. Because I thought you had a team policy against taking anything up the ass.”

  Although the other coach’s back was to me, I could hear the fury in his voice. “You want this bitch asking me questions, do you? You think you can make my team look bad?”

  Again, Coach chuckled. “You don’t need my help with that.”

  I jammed the tape into my hockey shorts, freeing up my hands in case the other guy threw a punch at Coach. But the bastard only yanked the visitors’ locker room door open and disappeared inside again.

  With a pounding pulse, I ducked back into our room to finish taping up my stick. A minute later, Coach stalked in looking tense. “Listen up!” he barked.

  The room got quiet immediately.

  “Your opponents want to win tonight. But we want it more, right?”

  “YEAH!” everyone shouted as one.

  Coach was pacing near the door. “Look. Their coach is a blowhard with a nasty temper. And his offensive line is sketchy this year, because we stole one of their best players. We didn’t play this team last year, but you saw how it is on the tapes. To win this thing, they need to get under your skin. Are you going to let them?”

  “NO!” we hollered together.

  “Good. Because I need you to remember that you’re bigger than that. This game isn’t going to be about finessing the puck. This game is going to be all about attitude. And the team that keeps the coolest head is gonna win. So I need you to repeat after me: Attitude is destiny!”

  “Attitude is destiny!”

  “Okay. Let’s kill ‘em. Get out there.” Coach’s face looked as tense as I’d ever seen it.

  Bella put a hand on my shoulder. “I’m pretty sure that quote is supposed to be, ‘character is destiny.’”

  “Yeah? I think I’d keep that critique to myself.”

  “I was planning on it.”

  “Hey, Bella?” I gave my skate laces one more tug and stood up.

  “Yeah?”

  “Any reason Coach would be talking to reporters?”

  She frowned. “No idea. Why do you ask?”

  “Just something he said.” My teammates had begun to stream out the door, cat calling and whooping it up. “Let’s go.”

  “Kill ‘em tonight, Graham.”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  But… yeah. Not so much.

  For the first eight minutes of play, I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. In the first place, Hartley was kicking ass, so the D-men like me didn’t have a whole lot to worry about. My teammate Trevi, a junior wing, fed Hartley an early goal, and all seemed well.

  Things deteriorated very quickly about nine minutes in.

  On the next faceoff, I watched one of the Saint B’s wings — a giant with the name EROS printed on his back — yapping into Trevi’s face. I couldn’t hear what was said, but the look on Trevi was far past ordinary annoyance. His face turned the color of raw meat.

  The next time I noticed Eros, he was leaning over Orson, who was minding the goal tonight. And Orson’s jaw was as hard as concrete, though he didn’t remove his eyes from the field of play.

  So I knew this Eros must be a real piece of work. But I didn’t get to witness his assholery firsthand until a little later. Saint B’s had the puck, and it was my job to get it back. As I flew behind our net on the backcheck, I heard the guy ragging on Orson. “You’re Rikker’s favorite, right? ‘Cause you’re already wearing knee pads.”

  Holy crap.

  Distracted by the comment, I didn’t get to the puck fast enough. Their other wing flung it to the Saint B’s center, who flipped it to Eros. The asshole took a shot. But Orson butterflied himself in the crease, saving it.

  Play moved down the ice, but not before I heard Eros lob another one of his gems into Orson’s face. “Faggot! I bet you like it when Rikker comes in your crease.”

  “Go fuck yourself,” Orson growled.

  A minute later my shift was over, and I swung myself over the wall. A row of tense faces greeted me. The snarl on Big-D’s lips was as ugly as I’d ever seen it. Eros’s poison had begun to spread.

  Rikker was living out my nightmare tonight. Because it’s one thing to tolerate the gay guy when everything is going well. And it’s another thing to have some red-faced asshole yelling “faggot” into your face.

  Trust me. I’d know.

  The upshot was that my team began playing a sloppy game of hockey. And that meant that Coach g
ot pissed off. Which meant that Hartley got pissed, too. The players, not to be outdone, got pissed off that Coach and Hartley were pissed off.

  And nobody would even look at Rikker.

  Meanwhile, Eros took long shifts, asking his toxic little questions. “How many to a bed on your road trips?” And, “do y’all usually jerk together before practice, or after?”

  Each of these little ditties had the effect of exploding my teammates’ ability to concentrate. Their passes stopped connecting, and our offensive strategy broke down.

  Theirs didn’t.

  Orson got shelled, saving shot after shot. Each time he fell onto the puck, stopping the action, our team might have had a chance to regroup. Instead, Eros or one of his cronies, shoulder to shoulder in the faceoff circle, started the taunts anew.

  Inevitably, Eros and Rikker ended up helmet to helmet on a faceoff. I could not look away. From the bench, I could see Eros’s mouth moving. And Rikker’s eyes were angry slits. After the puck dropped, I saw Rikker haul off and shove his former teammate in the gut. The refs didn’t see it, because Hartley had won the faceoff and play rocketed toward Saint B’s goal.

  Rikker didn’t get away with it though. Not really. Because when Hartley passed him the puck a few seconds later, Eros saw his chance.

  The next two seconds seemed to last a week. Rikker skimmed the boards and scouted for his opening. I saw him adjust the angle of his stick in preparation to take a shot. But I also saw Eros dig in his edges, accelerating toward Rikker like a torpedo. And it didn’t matter that Rikker got his pass off. There was no stopping the bigger guy’s momentum. Because recovering the puck was no longer the point.

  The hit was brutal. Eros slammed Rikker into the plexi, and I watched my teammate crumple like a bag of rocks onto the ice.

  Eros stumbled, too. That’s why it wasn’t really efficient to hit another player so hard. Like they taught you in physics, for every action, there was an equal and opposite reaction. So if you go around flattening people, you’re going to get knocked around, too, losing precious seconds with the puck.