by R J Scott
Of course, by the end of the session both men were channeling Baryshnikov and jumping like pros. Every one of my muscles ached, and fishing out painkillers was mere muscle memory because my knee hurt. I had to schedule in some PT, and I should talk to the team about someone here, a local. I took double because two didn’t work for me anymore, and I tried not to think that I was lying to myself, but let’s be honest, my very clever and tricky brain had decided I needed as much as I could take and I had to get on taking them right now.
The sense of wellbeing was there nice and quick, and my knee muscles relaxed. Next session I would strap the damn thing up. If I’d done that, I wouldn’t be in pain right now.
“You’re up for the one-on-one interview,” Adler said, looking at his clipboard. He did that a lot – crossing and ticking and generally taking control of his skaters, as he liked to call us.
“Me? Really? Isn’t it Arvy’s turn?” I wasn’t in the mood, and Trent had caught my eye earlier and winked. I really wanted a piece of whatever he was teasing me about.
I must have sounded like I knew what I was talking about, because Adler looked back at his list with a frown. I felt the anticipation of leaving early and seeking out Trent. Then Adler looked at me over his clipboard.
“Nope. You’re up. Arvy is tomorrow, and no, I’m not swapping you out. Go talk nice.”
I cursed under my breath and saw Trent’s lips twitch. Asshole.
The interview was standard stuff. What was I hoping to learn, what had I learned already, and how was the training impacting me as a hockey player? I answered everything clearly, as much as I could, anyway, when my head began to feel like it was stuffed with cotton wool halfway through. I must have done okay, because they wrapped it all up quickly, and when I went back into the changing room to collect my bag, most people had gone.
“Beer back at the hotel,” Arvy announced as he left.
I nodded, the wooliness becoming something else – a dizzy sickness that had me sitting down in the stall I’d been assigned. I leaned back against the wall after everyone had gone, looking up at ceiling and willing the room to stop spinning. My head felt too big for my body, and a sensation as if fire ants crawled under my skin. I scratched at each point, my hands slipping in something wet. I looked down at where I’d been brushing at the ants I couldn’t see, and I saw scarlet. Blood on my skin. Where had that come from?
I closed my eyes, my fingers pressing at every itchy part.
“What the hell?”
I tried to open my eyes, but my brain was telling me not to look at Trent, who was likely standing there looking at me as if I was a moron. Who the hell scratched through their skin? Who would sit there with ants under their skin and their head spinning like a Catherine wheel?
“Dieter?” Trent said, and he’d moved. He was crouching between my legs. “What did you take? Talk to me, Dieter. Do I need to call 911?”
That had me opening my eyes, and after a few seconds I could focus on Trent’s face. His hair was wet, he didn’t have makeup on, and he looked so young. I wanted to touch him, but my hands wouldn’t move.
“No 911, I’m okay,” I enunciated carefully. Speaking normally when under the influence was a particular skill of mine, or so I liked to think.
“Dieter, what is it? What did you take?”
I shook my head, or my head shook me, or…I didn’t know what the hell was going on. This wasn’t right. The meds made me happy, relaxed my sore muscles – they didn’t make me feel like I was being turned inside out.
“Is it these?” Trent said, and waved something in front of my face. “How many? Two? Four? More?”
“Six,” I managed. That was right – two before, then two more, then another two…or was it more? No, it was six, so why was I feeling like this?”
“Okay,” I heard Trent say on a loud exhale. “We ride this one out.”
He sat next to me. I knew he was there, I felt his hand on my leg, and I wanted to hold his hand, but instinct told me I shouldn’t do that.
I don’t know how long it took, or how long we sat there. I heard voices, Trent explaining I was ill and we were waiting for a cab, another voice saying something about lights. I wasn’t following it all, just focusing on Trent.
Finally, the dizziness stopped, the fiery itching ceased, and I could focus on the cold towel he’d obviously placed over the worst of the scratches, and the fact that I was sitting next to Trent. He’d removed his hand from my leg and was checking his phone.
I could see what he was looking at, and it filled me with dread. Headlines about addiction, painkillers, hockey. I could see them as he scrolled through the Google search.
“Hey,” I said, softly, because I didn’t really want him to speak to me.
He looked at me, clearly startled, his brown eyes wide. He’d evidently not left my side, his once wet hair dry and in soft layers around his face. His expression was a strange mix of concerned and pissed.
“Tell me you didn’t know what dosage you were taking?” he said, without explanation.
Great, diving right on into my fucked up habit.
“They’re for my knee,” I said.
“Your knee?” he asked, like he doubted me.
“Yeah.”
“So your name isn’t Dieter, then, it’s actually Alain Poulin.” He shook the bottle in front of me. “Because if your name is Dieter, then these aren’t your pills.”
I was trapped. How did I explain that one away? Alain had been a teammate down in the AHL, and the Percocet had been left over from an operation on a herniated disc. I’d paid for them; post-op meds were easy to come by if you had the money or the connections.
I snatched the pills from Trent, which took two goes as my coordination was still for shit.
“They’re mine,” I stated, and poked them back into my bag, the damp cloth slipping from my arm and exposing the red raw scratches.
“Like ants crawling under your skin,” Trent said. “I know that because pumping yourself full of meds isn’t just a hockey thing, you know.”
A kernel of hope sat in my chest. Was it possible that I wouldn’t need to defend myself, that maybe Trent had experienced what I had? He blew that idea out of the water with his next words.
“I had a partner who wrecked his knee trying for a triple. He finally managed to kick the addiction.”
He looked at me accusingly, like I was a lesser person who relied on these fucking tablets.
“I’m not addicted,” I defended myself immediately. “I have pain and I must have taken too many.”
“Eight. You told me eight, and this is the strong stuff.”
“Six,” I amended. I was sure I’d only got to six.
Trent stood up, brushing his pants. “Okay, take care,” he said, his voice sounding a little off.
“What?” I stood up as well, using the wall to hold me.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he added, and left.
“Trent!” I called out as he reached the door.
“What?” he asked, but didn’t turn around.
“We should talk.”
At that point, he did turn and face me, but gone was the serious expression, and in its place was the mask he used for the press. That benign smile that hid so much.
“Another time, darling,” he drawled, and walked out.
“Then fuck you,” I called after him, before sitting down abruptly. What the hell had I called that out for?
I pulled the plastic bottle of pills out of the bag, looked at the label for the first time. I’d just assumed they were the standard shit, but these were extra strength – no wonder I’d felt like hell.
Well, I’d felt like shit after that amazing feeling of being able to conquer anything.
I gripped the bottle hard and walked into the shower area and over to the sinks. For the longest time, I held the bottle over the sink, imagining the pills vanishing down the plughole. Then I remembered how nice it had felt to take them, before Trent’s expression forc
ed its way right there into the front of my thoughts. Why did Trent’s opinion matter I didn’t know, but I knew one thing.
I’m not an addict.
“I’m fucking disgusting,” I snapped, and tipped every last one of them into the sink, forcing them down the plughole, crushing them with my room keycard, probably wrecking the damn thing in the process.
What fucking right did Trent have to look at me like that?
I’m not an addict.
Not anymore.
Seven
Trent
My gods, it was Jonah all over again.
I flew past the cameraman lounging by the locker rooms. I knew he was supposed to follow me around that afternoon. I was scheduled to visit my favorite spa, which I really couldn’t afford but, show business… and get my usual tidy up below the belt as well as a facial and a mani-pedi. That was not happening now. No way in hell could I flounce around spreading my rays of sunshine in this mood. I was frantic and manic and on the verge of a breakdown of biblical proportions.
“Hey, wait up,” Chet said. Was his name Chet? Rhett? Gomez? Who the fuck cared? I was growing to despise the cameras and the people associated with them. “I’m supposed to go with you. Ginger said we were doing the spa and then you were supposed to go to this gay fundraiser over at the Rittenhouse Manor Hotel.”
I spun around and held up one finger. Just one. Damn, I really did need a manicure. “Do not follow me. I mean it, Gomez.”
“Chet,” mumbled the portly man in the Flyers cap.
“What. Ever. Do not follow me. I’m not in a good place.”
“But the show…”
“Fuck the show.”
With that, I twirled around and stormed out of my rink, the soft blue scarf I’d tied artfully around my throat wafting out behind me. My exit would have made Cher proud had my fucking scarf not gotten caught in the fucking door. The tug when I reached the end nearly garroted me. Chet stood on the other side of the glass doors, staring, camera in hand, wearing his orange ball cap as the door and I battled over my scarf.
“You’re a miserable sow-faced bitch!” I screamed at the door as I pulled and tugged.
Chet tentatively reached out and pushed the door open. I whipped my scarf free, twirled on my saucy booted heel, and stalked off, tears forming and blurring my departure. I could make out the shape of my yellow Yamaha scooter through the haze of unshed tears.
“Dammit to hell,” I coughed, then unlocked my helmet and shoved it down onto my head.
I probably shouldn’t be driving at all in this mental state, but I had to get away from Dieter and the pills and the whole addiction thing. I just could not do that again. Swiping at tears as I rode through city traffic, I purposefully blocked out all memories of Jonah, his struggles with prescription pills, and the agony of being part of that cycle.
“I barely know the man,” I told myself as I scooted to Liberty Nails & Manicures, the shop where my mother worked.
She and Lola knew all about Jonah. They’d gone through that with me. They’d seen the agony, gone through the t911 calls numerous times. They’d lived with the calls and the pleading, the fights, the weeping, the promises of going straight and the broken vows that had always followed.
I was so desperate to see her and talk to her that I didn’t even take off my yellow helmet to fluff up my hair. Gina, the owner, looked up from a customer’s soaking fingers when I blew into the busy shop. I gave the place a quick once-over and didn’t see my mother.
“Hello, Trent,” she called. All the women in the shop greeted me. “If you’re looking for your mother, she didn’t come in today.”
I hurried over to the petite blonde and dropped into a crouch. Her customer smiled warmly.
“What do you mean, she didn’t come in?”
“She went up to Mercer to see Clay.”
I simply crouched there, blinking, like an idiot.
“Thanks, Gina.”
I eventually pushed out, stood up, and exited the shop filled with curious women. My head was a complete wreck. I sat on my scooter parked by the curb and stared at the street. Shimmering heat waves were already rising from the blacktop. She’d gone to see him. Taken a day off to see the man who’d fucked us all over. Why? Why would she do that? Why would she skip work to see Clay – that fucktard – but not take a day to be on my show? Why? It made no sense. We hated Clay. My stepfather was a shitty man who had ruined us. Why was she there visiting him?
I started my scooter and went home. Not to my place. To Lola. As soon as my grandmother saw me, hair flat, eyeliner smudged across my cheeks, and hiccupping as I tried not to cry, she pulled me into a huge hug. And there we stood, in that tiny kitchen with the smells of soy, garlic and curry in the air. Me weeping like a tiny wee baby boy and her whispering soothing words in Pilipino.
“Come sit down, babes,” Lola murmured, leading me to a chair that creaked when I dropped into it. She pit-pattered around as I cried into my hands. “Here, here. Stop crying. What has you so bad upset?”
She lifted my face upward, then pressed a wet, cold dishcloth to my cheek.
“Everything. Just – everything.”
I grabbed the towel and shoved my face into it. The coolness felt good on my cheeks. It helped me calm down a bit. She was seated across from me when I emerged from the wet dishtowel. In front of me was a huge mug of ginger tea.
“Lola, I’m not sick. I don’t need salabat tea,” I coughed as I peeked at her.
“You sick at heart. Drink tea.” She folded her arms over her Flyers T-shirt. Different day, different Flyers shirt. This one had a 16 on it and the name CLARKE across the back. She’d had one like it since the mid-seventies.
The ginger tea was so strong I gagged, but the taste made me feel somewhat better even if it was killing me slowly. It brought back simpler days when I was a kid and had a cold. Anytime you sneezed, you got a mug of salabat tea.
“I feel like my whole life is upside-down,” I sniffled into my tea. The mug was warm and soothing between my palms.
“What makes it upside-down? Man trouble?”
Lola pushed a plate of store-bought cookies toward me. I shook my head but took one anyway. What difference did it make if I gained weight? Not like I’d ever be skating again. That last show in Harrisburg had been the finale of my contracted appearances. Guessed that dream of doing an eighties ice extravaganza show would die now along with all my other hopes and dreams.
“I barely know the man. I mean, we shared one blow— intimate moment, and a few kisses. Why should I go there again?”
“Go where?”
“Into the hell that is a drug-addict boyfriend.”
I dunked my cookie in my tea, then shoved it whole into my face. The sugar tasted amazing. So I grabbed another cookie and did the same. It melted on my tongue. Hot, yes, but so incredible and forbidden for so many years that I didn’t care if I scalded all my taste buds.
“You have a new boyfriend?” She pouted.
I hurried to explain – or try to explain – before her heart broke in two. “No, we’re not that. At all. We’re attracted and we kissed once or twice.”
“And made blowjobs.”
“Lola!”
“What? You think I don’t know two gay boys suck dick?”
I grabbed two more cookies and ate them as my grandmother patiently waited.
“No, I know you know what gay boys do. It’s just…” I sighed and told her the story of Dieter and me, sparing no detail aside from sexual ones. “And then I left. No, please, don’t give me bad looks.”
“You leave man who needs help? You okay to suck his dick but not be his friend when he needs you?” Her silver eyebrows were tangled. I lowered my head, then ate another cookie. “Trenton, we raise you better.”
“I know, but I can’t do that again. I can’t suffer with another addict. Jonah nearly killed me.”
“Jonah nearly kill himself. Four times I know.”
I peeked up through my flat bangs.
She was showing me four fingers.
“So you run off from Dieter because he makes you scared? When does being scared make you run?”
“Since my world is in tatters. I don’t think I can fight anymore, Lola.” I ate another cookie.
“Shit balls. You fight since you were eight and Clay tell you only sissy boys sew skating clothes.” She leaned over the table, her substantial breasts resting on her age-spotted forearms. I met her gaze. “You remember what you tell asshole Clay when he tell you boys no sew?”
I did recall that moment. I just didn’t want to admit that I did. I shook my head.
“You tell Clay that boys can sew if they want. You stood up to him and you been fighting bigot people ever since. You want to tell skater kids to no fight?”
“Lola, that’s different,” I whined. And ate another cookie.
She leaned back in her chair, her mouth pulled into a tight pucker. Damn. She was upset with me now. I knew that face.
“I never think I see the day that my famous gay grandson would stop fighting. All the kids will be sad.” She shook her head, and shame swept over me.
“It scares me,” I whispered. “I look at this man and I think I could care about him. People who care do stupid things. Look at Mom!” I waved a finger at her. “She went to see Clay; did you know that?”
“I know. I tell her not to, but she loves him.”
“How? How can she love a man who did that to her? How can she go see the man who robbed us and left us teetering on the verge of financial ruin? It makes no sense!” I ate two more cookies, chewing angrily.
Lola shrugged. “People in love do stupid things.” She took a sip of her ginger tea and sighed as if in bliss. Her eyes met mine over my mug. “Do you love this man?”
“No, no, it’s nothing near that yet.” I reached for a cookie and was shocked to find the plate empty. Well, hell. Right to my ass was where all of those would go. “It could be something, though. I’m incredibly attracted to him. We’re just sort of friends. Yes, friends. We’re just friends. Mostly. He has lovely eyes, Lola. Green with bursts of amber around the pupils. Such a stunning man.” I could see Dieter in my mind’s eye, a smile playing on his usually brooding face. A shiver of something primal and powerful traveled over me. There could be something there. Oh yes. “But then there’s the pills…”