Fred jammed two aluminum poles in the snow at the entrance to the rink. A bright red ribbon was tied across. Fred breathed a heavy sigh. His work was done.
With his hand resting on his log cabin, Fred peered out from his window at the gathering crowd. It looked like another good turnout—at least fifty people. Fred spied Mrs. Feniak, Kenton and Claudia. When he spotted Ryan, he glanced down at a note in his hand.
Fred was in his room because he liked to make a grand entrance. And, like Elvis, he heightened the anticipation by being just a little bit late.
At fifteen minutes past the hour Fred marched through the kitchen, out the back door and straight for Ryan Feniak. Fred reread his note before tucking it back into his pocket. “I saw you at the hockey game last night and I even held up my left hand for a high-five, um, um, I must have mistaken you for a neighbour because you ignored me.”
“I don’t remember,” said Ryan.
“That is my line, buh, buh, you looked the other way because you didn’t want to be seen talking to the crippled guy with your high-class hockey friends around. You have a lot of nerve showing up as if you were my best friend.”
Fred’s anger stayed with him until the sounds and smells made him forget. Wieners swirled in a tub of boiling water, hamburgers sizzled on a barbecue, bottles of beer and pop chilled in the snow and Tommy Dorsey scratched and popped on a gramophone. The gramophone came compliments of Mrs. Feniak and the old 78s had been favourites of Vera, who had collected them. Jack made sure he had an extra stock of Schweppes raspberry ginger ale for Fred.
Fred wore a tailcoat. Under this he had on a tuxedo shirt. On his head was a black top hat and in his left hand was an ivory-handled walking cane. The cane had had a practical purpose when Fred was just learning to walk, but its current application was for soliciting questions from strangers about his limp, his accident and his recovery.
A murmur spread through the small gathering as Fred hobbled his way to the official entrance. Fred leaned more heavily than usual on the cane. He was already wearing his skates and the plastic guards made walking precarious.
Several neighbours told Fred how good he looked, but it was the compliments about his rink that tickled his ears. And the neighbours were not just being kind. The rink looked fabulous. Friends of neighbours who were seeing one of Fred’s rinks for the first time were shocked that he had made it himself.
It was a tradition for Fred to select a boy or girl to cut the ribbon. Benjamin Tackaberry was Fred’s favourite child, but he had never before been to one of Fred’s rink openings. Benjamin was seven and had Down’s syndrome, which to Fred made him unique and priceless.
Fred spotted Benjamin sitting in a toboggan. He lumbered over and as soon as Benjamin heard Fred’s voice, his eyes lit up like sparklers. Fred blasted him with his double-barrelled laugh and Benjamin started crying and screaming.
After several apologies from Fred and a reassuring hug from his mother, Benjamin wrapped his arms around Fred’s thick leg as if it was the last tree stump keeping him from getting swept out to sea. Fred folded his big arm around the boy and led him to the ribbon.
It took Benjamin several tries but with Fred’s gentle assistance the ribbon finally split and everyone cheered. Everyone but Ryan. He grunted impatiently. Benjamin was so thrilled he looked as if he had just swung a bottle of champagne against the nose of an aircraft carrier.
“It’s about time,” said Ryan as he slipped in behind Fred and whispered. “What are you gonna do after Madison moves the team? All you’ll have is this stupid rink. So you better pray that global warming isn’t real, neighbour. Otherwise you’ll have nothing but a bare patch of dirt to play on.” Ryan jumped past Fred and onto the ice.
“Oh, Ryan, no,” said Mrs. Feniak.
Not only was Ryan unimpressed with the ribbon cutting, he was also not aware of the second and most important tradition of Fred’s rink opening—Fred skated first.
It was a breach of etiquette that in Fred’s eyes was not far removed from jumping into an open grave at a funeral. The inaugural skate around the pristine ice was Fred’s chance to show everyone how far he had come. To feel the wind blowing through his hair. To hear the applause.
Ryan skated a few laps around the rink and carved it up pretty good before he realized that no one else was joining him. He stopped at centre ice. Fred stood swaying from side to side. The vapour from his breath plumed in front of his face. Fred put a hand on Jack’s shoulder and removed his skate guards, slowly, like a gun-slinger releasing the safeties on his Smith & Wessons.
“It’s okay, Fred, he didn’t know.”
Fred had not a moment’s thought for what Ryan knew or didn’t know. All he knew was that Ryan had said some pretty mean things, but more important, had violated a code. And in hockey a code is sacrosanct, handed down from generation to generation. So Fred did what any normal hockey player would do. He grabbed a stick and went after Ryan.
At first Ryan thought Fred was joking. Surely he couldn’t be that upset. Surely that stick he was lifting up in his left hand was a bluff.
The blade of Fred’s stick swung down like an axe on Ryan’s ankle. Ryan screamed and fell to the ice. Jack, who had chased after Fred in vain, grabbed him from behind and like a referee muscled him away to the other end of the ice.
Ryan tried to get up but he could put no weight on his left ankle. A few neighbours came out and helped him. Once he was up, he made his way awkwardly and painfully to Fred. “You fucking prick!” he yelled.
Jack spun around and stood between the two. “Easy!”
Ryan took a swipe at Fred. Someone grabbed Ryan’s jersey and pulled him back. Fred tried to wriggle free. Jack pushed him away. “No more!”
Ryan was helped off the ice, his left skate trailing weakly behind. Jack stood with his back to Fred. Everyone crowded around the rink’s entrance was silent. They opened a path so Ryan could pass through. “Jesus Christ,” said Jack.
expecting
one
“I just can’t tell you how much I appreciate all you’ve done.” The voice on the other end of the line was slurred.
Jack Pickle sat in his kitchen, his hands busy with a tin of tobacco and a small pile of empty cigarette tubes. “It’s not a big deal, George.”
“Goddamn, it is a big deal. If he didn’t have you he’d be locked up.” Jack could hear George take a sip of Captain Morgan rum. Jack knew he was sailing with the Captain because that’s what his brother drank when he was all riled up. “I failed him, Jack.”
“All right, you know what? I got a sick ewe in the barn and you need to go to bed.”
“Seven years, Jack. You’re a goddamn miracle worker. What do you do that I don’t? I want to know.”
“I got my farm. I don’t have time to worry about him.”
“He calls you Papa Joe. I’m his goddamn father.”
Jack inserted a tube into his tobacco punch, added a pinch of tobacco, turned a knob and out popped a cigarette. He lit it and started on another. “Do you know he’s never forgotten your phone number?”
“There’s times when I hate your goddamn guts. Everyone says, well look at old Jack, he’s got this thing pretty much licked. What’s wrong with ole Georgie boy? What’s his problem?”
“There’s not a single person on this planet who says that.”
“But you know what, Jack? It’s not gonna last. You’re gonna fall out of favour and he’s gonna start roaming the country like a ticking time bomb.”
“He busted a kid’s ankle. It’s done.”
Jack heard George take another sip. “I was there at the beginning, little brother. Everyone forgets that. Right there when he was born. And I was there when he died.”
“I know you were.”
“I flew out as soon as I heard.”
“I know you did.” Jack punched another cigarette and did a quick count of how many he’d made.
“The doctor told me he hit his head on the goddamn goalpost. How is it possible
, I asked. Well, right there on the corner where the post meets the crossbar. You remember the nets back then, Jack? They had that sharp point.”
“They finally figured out they weren’t too safe.”
“Right away,” said George, as Jack heard him snap his fingers, “there was damage to the brain. But the thing that did it was all the blood and, something else, I can’t remember …”
“Edema.”
“That’s it, it all rushed to the hole in Fred’s head and this is what the doctors said done most of the damage.”
Jack heard George lick his lips. “He’s in a coma. He’s got tubes everywhere. The doctor told me he wasn’t gonna make it. I picked out a thousand-dollar casket. I had just talked to him two days before. The Boston Bruins had seen him. He was gonna be a third-round draft pick.”
“Probably a second.”
“Jesus Christ, Jack, I was sitting there at two o’clock in the morning, holding his hand, saying goodbye.”
Jack heard George take a deep breath. “Three months later the son of bitch wakes up. We’re all crying and holding each other. Mutt was screaming and hugging the nurses. Then they tell us. Fred can’t walk. Fred can’t talk. He can’t shit or piss on his own. He’s gonna need someone watching him twenty-four hours a day. I went from having one problem to having a thousand. I could have dealt with a dead son. Christ, I did deal with a dead son.”
“I know.”
“I paid my dues, Jack. I changed his diapers when he was a baby. To be asked to do that again for the rest of his goddamn life. You know what I did?” Jack heard George slam something. “I put my fist through the wall right there in the hospital.” George had dropped the phone. He picked it up again. “Is that selfish?”
“No, George.”
George’s voice began cracking. “You say all you want about someone born with a disability. That’s terrible enough. But to be what he was. All the guys wanting to be like him and all the girls wanting to be with him and then you look at him now. You know the worst part? The thing that makes it so goddamn cruel? He remembers.”
“I know he does.”
“He goddamn well remembers.” Jack could hear George choking up and then clearing his throat. “Where is he?”
“At the hockey game.”
“You should have told him he couldn’t go.”
“That’s not the way to do it.”
“He’s got to realize there’s consequences. Make him miss a few games.”
Jack punched another cigarette. “I’m dealing with it.”
“Have him call me tomorrow.”
“He won’t be home.”
“Why not?”
“The fella that took him to the game’s gonna let him stay over a few nights.”
“Who’s the fella?”
“Badger, the old guy we swapped our seats with.”
A pause. All Jack could hear was George breathing, obviously thinking, albeit slowly. “He’s the crazy son of a bitch that ran that terrorist gang.”
“Yes, the notorious Flin Flon Five. But, George, they called themselves environmental activists.”
“The goddamn Flin Flon Five. They blew up that truck in Saskatchewan.”
“It was northern Alberta. And Badger didn’t blow it up. He put a mattress soaked in gasoline underneath it and set it on fire. He was protesting a uranium mine,” said Jack, unable to control a wheezing laugh. But it was a nervous laugh. Jack didn’t like being reminded about Badger’s past when Fred was staying with him.
“I don’t think this is funny.”
“That was a long time ago. He’s eighty-one years old. He couldn’t get into trouble now if he tried.” Jack replenished his case with fresh cigarettes and blew tobacco crumbs off the table. “This kid’s a hockey star in the making here.”
“Who is?”
“This Ryan Feniak fella, the one Fred clobbered. He just got listed with Brandon.”
“Jesus H. Christ.”
“Don’t get all twisted up.”
“I’m dead serious, Jack, I’ll fly out first thing in the morning.”
The crunching of tires on snow brought Jack to the kitchen window. “Well, listen there, ole Georgie boy, I gotta run. Don’t you worry, we’re holding our own.”
George heard the click and could say no more. Jack’s farewell was not comforting at all. We’re holding our own. George remembered that these were the last words from the skipper of the Edmund Fitzgerald before Lake Superior swallowed her whole.
—
As an aged attorney, Badger didn’t take on many clients any more but he remained an imposing presence as an advocate in the city’s courts. His knowledge of law was almost as sharp as Fred’s knowledge of hockey. He was a pain in the ass to the city’s prosecutors, whom he would accost in hallways during recess.
When this didn’t satisfy his lust for justice, he wrote letters to the editor, mostly to the local tabloid paper that made fun of his leftist leanings in their snappy retorts. Badger had even run for mayor. His dogged determination and honesty brought in three hundred and seven votes. Out of just over four hundred thousand ballots cast, he had come in last.
Badger never backed down from a fight, though. Sometimes he was inventive and other times he was brutish but coldly efficient.
A friend of one of Badger’s neighbours used to honk his horn at five in the morning to let the neighbour know he had arrived to drive him to work. The jarring sound almost gave Badger a heart attack. He reminded the driver that mornings were prime time for cardiac arrest and was told by the unimpressed driver to “start looking for a burial casket.” Instead, Badger looked for and found an old pneumatic train whistle at Mrs. Feniak’s salvage yard and hid it in some bushes. Now, every time the driver honked his horn, Badger tugged on a line from the comfort of his bed and blasted the man halfway out of his seat. After four mornings of this, the neighbours called the police and Badger was forced to dismantle his train whistle.
On another occasion, a roofer, working on a nearby home, parked his new truck in such a way that Badger could not get his motorhome out. When Badger asked the roofer, who was on the roof, to please move his truck, the roofer told Badger he’d move it when he was ready. Badger scooped a shovelful of wet cement mixed with caustic lime mortar and dumped it on the hood of the roofer’s truck. Badger had to pay for a new paint job, but the roofer never blocked the motorhome again.
And nobody ever blocked Badger’s path between periods when he barreled outside to what was affectionately and known as Badger’s Burrow, and sometimes derisively known as Weasel’s Wallow, the hockey arena’s answer to Speaker’s Corner in London’s Hyde Park.
Badger was a fixture at the far end of the concrete walkway that was strewn with crushed cigarettes and dented, plastic beer cups. All he was missing was a cold Russian night, a platform to stand on and an angry crowd of Bolsheviks. He did, however, have a cold Canadian night, smoke swirling from his cigar, an angry crowd of Canadian hockey fans and a chance to do what he enjoyed best—orate, like he used to do in court.
“You know who the problem is?” asked one of the fans before Badger could get started. “It’s that short, hebe commissioner in New York.”
“Now, now,” said Badger, irritated. “The fact that he’s a short Jew and you’re an ignorant hillbilly isn’t particularly relevant. What does matter is that we have a predatory prick who’s had his eye on moving this team since he bought it.”
Fred stood beside Badger’s ten-year-old guest. Both stuffed their mouths with Pocket Dawgs. Fred only ventured outside with the smokers when Badger took him to a game. Which meant he hadn’t seen Badger between periods since last season. And he was transfixed, as much by Badger’s booming voice as by the small crowd that stood and listened. Some were regulars. Others had wandered over to see what was going on.
And what was going on, contrary to what some thought, was not an addled pensioner ranting, raving, impressed by the sound of his own voice or choosing words he thought
his listeners wanted to hear. This could never be true of a man who threw a stick of lit dynamite at a McDonald’s. The words blasted from Badger’s soul as passionately as bullets from the gun of Che Guevara.
“‘In the East a new star is risen!’” yelled Badger. “‘With pain and anguish the old order has given birth to the new, and behold in the East a man-child is born! Onward, comrades, all together! Onward to the campfires of Russia! Onward to the coming dawn!’”
“What the hell?” asked a fan who had wandered over to ask someone for a light.
“After the Russian Revolution she sang the praises of the new communist nation,” explained Badger. “Who was she?”
Badger coughed furiously and then stared at the baffled faces through eyes that had clouded with tears. Fred thought Badger was crying because nobody knew the answer, so he raised his hand. “Um, um, Helen Keller?”
“Goddamn it, Fred,” said Badger, wiping his eyes with a handkerchief. “Give them a chance.”
“Sorry.”
“Does anyone remember when the boards were white?” asked Badger. “When we didn’t have those goddamn advertisements? I used to watch games from Europe and see those ads and think, You cheap, greedy sons of bitches.”
“Ah, you’re crazy,” said a fan. “It’s just a hockey team. And a bad hockey team. Who cares if they move?”
“Today it’s the hockey team. Next week it’s the airlines, the railroads. And then the trees and water. And a week after that we’re walking around with American money jingling in our pockets, stuffing our faces with Big Macs and singing the ‘Star Spangled Banner.’”
Two of the fans smiled and waved goodbye. They had heard enough.
“Turn your backs if you want. This is the new empire, folks. This isn’t about tanks rolling into Prague. This is about General Electric and Britney Spears and Chevron and Baywatch and Ford Motor Company and Burger King and Larry King and Andrew T Madison. This is a blitzkrieg disguised as a Palmolive commercial. Eat our fast food. Watch our shows. Think like us. Be like us. Embrace our superior values. Accept our freedom. It was handed down by God. Forget the suffering. Be happy. Buy a pair of two-hundred-dollar running shoes to work off all that fat in the Big Mac. Go jogging. Buy a forty-thousand-dollar sport-utility vehicle with side-curtain air bags. Poison the planet but feel safe doing it. Be happy. Forget about being Canadian. Climb onto Uncle Sam’s lap and he’ll tell you a story about the pilgrims who weren’t really religious nuts but brave men and women fleeing the tyranny of a repressive empire. He’ll hold you in his strong arms and gently rock you to sleep. And by morning you’ll forget about the defining moment that gave birth to a nation, a moment that will cleanse and save you from seduction and intimidation.” Badger swayed back and forth and tried puffing on his cigar but it had gone out. Fred raised his hand.
The Horn of a Lamb Page 8