by Dave Hill
“You’re a jerk!” I yelled at my assailant.
“No, you are!” he responded.
Tensions remained thick as both teams skated back toward their respective benches after the melee. Except for me, that is. I was determined to settle the score, so as soon as no one was looking, I skated back over to the guy who’d hit me and wound up on him as best I could, landing a solid blow that sent him crashing to the ice all over again. It was what some might call a “dick move,” but I was still pretty pleased with myself. The referee, however, wasn’t and decided to suspend me for what ended up being the rest of the season as there weren’t many games left to play that year anyway.
Disgraced, I spent the next few weeks thinking about what had happened on the ice that night while hoping I wouldn’t run into any of the guys from the league at the grocery store or elsewhere. Even if I were buying really manly stuff at the time, it would still be kind of embarrassing. In the end, though, it was my mother who ended up confronting me about what had gone down at the rink that night.
“I ran into Paul the other day,” my mom told me one morning at breakfast.
“That’s nice,” I said, trying not to arouse suspicion. “How is he doing?”
“He’s good,” my mom said. “He said you got into a little trouble down at the rink.”
“Really?” I said, trying to sound like I had no idea what she was talking about. “That’s weird. What did he say happened?”
“He said you beat some guy up.”
“Oh.”
I was totally busted, so, being a fully grown man, I decided to just stand there staring at my feet and saying nothing.
“Well, did you?” my mom pressed.
“Yeah, I guess I kind of did,” I told her.
I ended up giving my mom the play-by-play on what may have technically been the only real fight I had ever been in in my whole life.
“Are you mad at me?” I asked her when I finished.
“No,” she said. “It sounds like he deserved it.”
It was in that moment I remembered that while I may have been a quarter Canadian, my mother was twice the Canadian I was, so her tolerance for bullshit on the ice was even lower than mine. I both feared and admired her for that.
I’ve played hockey a few times since my controversial (to me and my mother anyway) expulsion all those years ago. But for the most part, I consider myself retired from the game. I still have all my equipment, though—it’s hard to miss sitting in the middle of the kitchen like that. Sometimes I think about coming out of retirement and making yet another triumphant return to the ice. Maybe it’ll happen, maybe it won’t. If it ever does, though, one thing I know for sure is that as soon as I hit the ice, I’ll hear that baritone-voiced sports announcer all over again.
“There he is—Dave Hill,” he’ll say as I drag my old bones to center ice. “He left the game completely years ago, leaving a trail of violence and destruction in his wake.… And while he very well might be a bit of a loose cannon, by golly if it doesn’t translate to pure magic out on that ice. He’s still got it, folks. He’s still got it.”
On Manliness
Masculinity is not something given to you, but something you gain.
—Norman Mailer (a very manly man)
I’m not the manliest of men. I condition, I moisturize, and I have worn a mud mask at least once more than most men who claim to prefer the company of women.1 Similarly, I struggle to name a professional athlete unless he has either dated Madonna, been publicly accused of rape, or—ideally—both. And, frankly, the amount of time I spend gossiping about Prince William, Kate Middleton, and the rest of the Royal Family just makes me sound like a fucking bitch.
Making matters worse, I’ve never been in a knife fight. Not even once. Think about it: if you get in at least one knife fight in your lifetime, no one will ever question your manhood again. Just ask one of the Sharks or the Jets from West Side Story. Those guys sang and danced around like a pack of raging queens 90 percent of the time, but when they broke out those knives there was no question about it—these were real men. Men with a keen interest in choreography, but men just the same.
Despite all this, when it comes to exuding sheer, unbridled machismo, the kind that cannot be tamed by bullets, prison bars, or even some of the most insensitive name-calling you’ve ever heard, I do have one considerable edge over most other men: a jagged scar running down my left cheek subtle enough so as not to send small children and house pets screaming into the night, yet rugged enough to let anyone who comes in for a closer look know that something really, really bad must have happened to me at some point. It’s something I use to my advantage whenever possible. As any decent crime, gangster, and/or action film will tell you, the guy with the scar is probably not to be messed with. And I don’t care if you are only in the sixth grade, you see a goddamn scar and you back the fuck off unless you’re hell-bent on waking up dead.
This is me somewhere around the age of five, being really manly without even trying. That’s my grandfather behind me. He used to make very large, sharp knives for fun. Manliness runs in our family.
Unlike most other traditional cultural signifiers of masculinity—alcohol, tobacco, and firearms, for example—a scar isn’t something you can just go trying on for size one day when you’re at the mall like a damn woman. Generally speaking, it has to happen to you. And once it does, a scar lets those around you know that you have come face-to-face with adversity—a pair of wayward scissors, an aggressive patch of shrubbery, or a box cutter–wielding member of a secret underground society of mole people easily given to handing out their own swift brand of justice—and managed to rise above it. Regardless, you’ll definitely have a story to tell. Though, to be fair, you should probably never tell that story because, just as with sausage, drastically reduced consumer electronics, or motel carpet stains, you are almost always better off leaving others to speculate on its origin.
Scar or not, I realize at this point in my book there’s probably no question in your mind as to whether or not I’m one of the biggest badasses that ever walked the face of the planet.2 But as long as I’m on the topic, here’s what happened to me.
I was eleven years old and was staying up late to watch a Beatles movie on television after the rest of my family had gone to bed. I had seen it a year or two before, so I already knew that Stu Sutcliffe—the fifth, sixth, or seventh Beatle depending on whom you ask—would be dead by the next commercial break. Then they’d all get better haircuts and the rest would be history, so I figured I might as well pack it in for the night. I had a hockey game in the morning and wanted to be well rested so I’d be better equipped to handle the inevitable loss. I got up from my dad’s Barcalounger, clicked off the television, and headed for the family room door. In the doorway was Blazer, our ninety-five-pound golden retriever, sleeping peacefully, presumably dreaming about chasing some smaller living thing or licking his privates without interruption.
As I did most nights before bed, I got down on my knees to plant a great big, yet entirely masculine, kiss on Blazer’s snout. I can’t remember if my lips ever actually made contact with his fur, but I do remember Blazer quickly jerking his head and growling like one of those giant black and really pissed off bears I had seen on public television. His fangs tore through my left cheek like it was squirrel meat as my lips remained puckered and about as adorable as an eleven-year-old boy’s can—pretty adorable I imagine, even under the circumstances—sending me reeling backward onto the carpet as I howled in a mixture of pain, confusion, and general holyfuckingshitness. Blazer, for his part, now entirely awake and also in a state of general holyfuckingshitness, scurried off to the kitchen, maybe to build an alibi for himself but probably just to get the hell away from a screaming child.
Up until that fateful night, I had always thought the expression, “Let sleeping dogs lie” was just something people said when they wanted someone else to stop whining. But as I lay there on the floor, my tears mixing with my
blood to form a warm puddle on the carpet that would take a team of professionals to properly clean up, I got it. I totally, totally got it.
As is often the case when a human is attacked by an animal nearly twice his size, Blazer’s strategic hit earned me a trip to the hospital, where I expected to be quickly stitched up by the nearest doctor and sent home. Instead, my mother—perhaps knowing I’d one day wind up on basic cable—held out for the man suggested to be the best plastic surgeon in the hospital’s Rolodex,3 a French doctor with a mustache and, presumably, a taste for serious carnage.
By morning I was all sewn up and sleeping off the anesthesia in a hospital room I was forced to share with some kid who got his head stuck in an escalator at the local mall.
“I got my scalp ripped off on my way up to menswear,” he explained. “What happened to you?”
“My dog tried to rip my face off.”
“Oh.”
By that point in my life, I just assumed that escalators and most other machines existed to mangle, disfigure, or at least fall on top of children whenever possible, so—since I was the one who had suffered actual heartache by being maimed by my best friend—I figured I’d gotten it much worse.
The French doctor ended up going to work on my cheek once a year for the next three years like I was some sort of modern art project.
“Today, we’re just going to apply an electric sander to your face to help smooth things out a bit more,” he’d say before jabbing me in the cheek with a giant needle.
“What?” I’d reply.
After the second round of surgery, I was no longer marked by the Beast, but instead looked more like an exceptionally young villain from a James Bond movie. After the third, I looked like I might be that villain’s sidekick or something. And after the fourth, I looked like I might just answer the phone at the villain’s office. Still, despite the French doctor’s best efforts, it was hard not to notice the rather large, pitchfork-shaped scar on my face, something most kids at my school simply didn’t have. Not wanting to put the blame on Blazer (whom, for the record, I never saw again), I usually made things up whenever anyone would ask about it, thus adding to my mystique and overall street credibility in the process.
“Oh, that.” I’d laugh. “You ever do that thing where you fall down a flight of stairs and end up catching your face on a rusty nail on the way down? It sucks, right?”
“What?”
The look of horror on people’s faces never got old. Other times I’d say I’d gone skiing and accidentally stuck a pole in my cheek while doing a sweet jump. Or tell them I’d simply been attacked by a pack of wild animals (which, given Blazer’s lack of formal training, was kind of true, I guess). I tried to make the explanations as gruesome as possible so my classmates wouldn’t have the stomach to investigate further and find out my own sweet Blazer was the culprit. But eventually the questions died down and I simply became known as “that one kid with the crazy scar on his face that no one wants to sit with at lunch.”
All these years later, my scar still earns me plenty of tough guy points, especially under the right light, but rather than rest on my laurels, I’ve tried to declare my manliness through other, non-maiming-related means. The problem is, I’m generally pretty bad at it. I don’t play in any recreational basketball leagues, I’m often accused of being too knowledgeable or (even worse) enthusiastic about women’s handbags, and I’m the last guy any of my friends or family would call for advice on cars, lawnmowers, or anything else one might store in a garage.
More recently, I’m ashamed to admit that my manliness is rather frequently and directly called into question, specifically in the form of people actually mistaking me for a woman. I don’t know if it’s because of my delicate features, my penchant for wearing really fun, floral patterns, or because I have what some might categorize as “mom hair” (longish without being truly long, wispy, and generally well-suited for the on-the-go lifestyle). Whatever the reason, it happens every couple of months or so, often when I’m out to dinner with one of my sisters, a female friend, or even a romantic date (who is also a woman).
“Can I get you ladies anything to drink?” the waiter will ask.
Or I might be at a grocery store and, as I approach checkout counter, the cashier will ask, “Did you find everything you were looking for ma’am?”
In either case, the person making the mistake quickly catches themselves once they get a better look at me.
“Um … sir?” he or she will say.
There’s no apology, though. They just call me “sir” as if I somehow hadn’t noticed that up until a second ago, they were under the impression that I live my life as a woman. And to be honest, it’s fine—I’m not mad. It doesn’t hurt my feelings or anything. But I do feel sorry for the woman they imagine me to be—this lonely, dateless woman. Check out my photo on the jacket of this book and imagine I’m a woman who lives on your street or in your apartment building. Maybe my name is Peg or Jan or something equally unglamorous.4
“Hi, Peg,” you say to me as I shuffle toward my door, juggling my keys and take-out as some old sugar and ketchup packets I carry with me at all times for some reason spill out of my bag onto the floor.
“Oh, hi,” I mumble back to you as I slowly push open my creaky apartment door, a fog of cat piss practically tackling you to the ground.
Any way you slice it the female me is destined to die alone.
The case of my mistaken sexual identity came to a head recently when I found myself in Washington, D.C., and craving a bit of Chinese food. So I headed to D.C.’s Chinatown, which seemed like a perfectly reasonable plan.
Located near a bus depot and the Verizon Center, Chinatown is often populated by drifters, vagrants, and other people who really seem to like hanging out and drinking in the streets for weeks and weeks at a time. And this time around, I had the Kung Pao chicken but for whatever reason couldn’t finish it. So I asked the waiter to wrap my leftovers so I could give them to someone in need of a meal.
“This will be my good deed for the day,” I thought. “Gosh, I’m a decent person.”
Once I got outside of the restaurant, the first person I saw was a fortyish woman with a tallboy of Budweiser in one hand and an orange traffic cone in the other. She was dancing in place, cackling hysterically to herself, and seemingly having a really nice time.
“We have a winner,” I thought.
“Excuse me, ma’am. Would you like some Chinese food?” I asked.
“Yes, I would like some Chinese food,” she answered, momentarily taking a break from the action.
“Wow, this is working out great,” I thought.
I began walking toward the woman while holding the bag of Chinese food out for the handoff. She, in turn, began walking toward me with her hand out, seemingly about to grab it. Then just as we were about to complete the transaction, the lady lunged at me with her other hand and tried to stab me in the chest with the traffic cone. Exceptionally lithe and catlike in nature, I quickly jumped out of the way.
“Hey!” I yelled at her. “Do you want the Chinese food or not?”
“Yeah, I want the Chinese food,” she said as if she thought I had some serious hang-ups.
I decided to try giving her the Chinese food again, and again she approached me with her hand outstretched. And then, just as I totally swore I was about to make a successful handover, she lunged at me again, trying a second time to stab me with the traffic cone. Needless to say, it was all starting to seem a bit weird. I guess the thing to do then would have been to just give my leftover Kung Pao chicken to someone else, someone more grateful, someone who might not try to stab me. But this woman was really pissing me off so I decided I was going to make her take my Chinese food, just to teach her a lesson. So, for what felt like the remainder of the afternoon, we continued our bizarre tango. I held out the food, she reached for it with one hand while trying to stab me with the other. On one side of our bodies, we were working as a team. On the other, I was under
attack. Then finally, on my eighth or ninth attempt, the woman graciously and surprisingly accepted the Chinese food.
“Thank you, nice man,” she said.
“You’re welcome, nice lady,” I replied, happy to finally be able to get on with my day.
I started to walk away as if nothing had happened, but I only got about ten feet before I looked over my shoulder to discover the woman was suddenly chasing after me.
“I’m a grown man,” I thought. “I don’t need to run from this woman.”
Even so, she was coming at me pretty quickly, so I figured I should probably start running just to be safe. And before long, I found myself running as fast as I could. Even though the lady was carrying a tallboy of Bud, an orange traffic cone, and my Chinese food, she still caught up to me pretty easily. I made one last gasp at an escape, but it was too late; she drew back the orange traffic cone like it was a medieval sword and lunged at me once more, this time fully connecting with what I guess would technically be known as my anus.
“Ow!” I screamed (because it really, really hurt). “Why’d you do that?”
At that she stopped dancing and cackling and looked me right in the eye.
“Your pussy stinks,” she told me, three words a man almost never expects to hear about himself.
“Excuse me?” I replied while cleaning the wax from my ears and trying to think what else she could have possibly just said to me.
“Your pussy stinks,” the woman repeated before resuming her dancing and cackling.
As I tried to make sense of it all, that’s when it hit me. It’s fine if a lot of people think I’m a woman. But apparently all of a sudden I was a woman with some sort of condition I needed to address. And as much as I’d like to think that lady with the orange traffic cone had no idea what she was saying, and as much as the fact that I am recognized by the American Medical Association as male should be reason enough to dismiss her words entirely, the more I roll them around in my head, it’s hard not to start to thinking that maybe she had a point. Maybe my lady parts do stink a little bit. And to be honest, I’m not sure how to even begin dealing with that. The mind boggles. And presumably my lady parts continue to stink.