by Evan Balkan
What he did, no doubt, notice, what one would have no trouble noticing, was Caroline. One player, and one player only, had a short rope of brown hair tied back into a ponytail that swayed along the shoulders. She circled the lines from goal mouth to midpoint and Joseph watched her every move.
Surely the crowd noticed, too. But just as quickly as the obvious “she” skated her circles, she was back on the bench where she stayed the entire first period. And soon the novelty was gone, subsumed by the action on the ice.
It was a close game, a rare good performance for Caroline’s team. Only 1-0 down at the first intermission, and the crowd was excited about the close game.
“Is Caroline gonna play?” Sam asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t know,” Mrs. Panski answered, anxiousness lacing the edges of her voice. She kept her eyes on the ice, on the bench, on Coach, trying to glean any slight tip-off that her daughter would soon be out there, with her team, taking her rightful place. But she also occasionally cast a glance at Joseph, too, who kept his wide eyes on the rink. He’d told her he’d never seen a hockey game before. Mrs. Panski certainly believed that, even as she still had trouble believing that her daughter had hiked across town, found her old friend, and made him promise to come to her game. Moxie. That’s what they called it. So, what could Mrs. Panski do but bring Joseph along to the game?
By the middle of the second period, it was 3-0 with Caroline’s team trailing. And still no Caroline.
But with five minutes left in the period, she got the call from the coach and leapt onto the ice.
Mrs. Panski felt a slight pull on her sleeve. “Mrs. Panski, look.”
“Mama, it’s Caroline,” Sam squealed. He stood and pointed.
“I see her. I see her,” she said, a smile as broad as any she’d ever smiled stretching across her face. If she or Sam or Joseph had been listening for it, they would have heard, somewhere in the periphery of things, the murmurs in the crowd. Either that was a boy with long hair—simply not possible in this time and place—or, yes, there was a girl out there. There were sniggers, exclamations of disbelief. But to Caroline’s mother, brother, and friend, none of that mattered. To them, it felt not like some kind of odd spectacle, but instead like the culmination of something very large and very long in coming. Within the body of that girl on the ice was nothing less than a grand statement, a testament to will and fortitude.
And yet it was just a kid playing a game with other kids. The simplest thing in the world.
Instinct. That was all Caroline needed. She knew how to play. Just let go. Don’t think. Ignore the stares, the catcalls, the oafs on the other team mockingly calling her “Sweetheart.”
She floated across the surface. The puck knuckled toward her, skipping just over the edge of her stick. It was her first chance at affecting the game, and she’d missed it. She circled back toward the play, watching as the skittering puck that had bounced over the end of her stick was now controlled on the edge of an opponent’s wood.
The play moved in the other direction, down ice, the other team putting on the heat, threatening to score again. One of their players wound up, shot, and sizzled it wide, where it caromed around the boards to one of Caroline’s teammates, who scooped it out across the blue line.
Caroline sprinted toward center, her stick outstretched before her, ready to receive a pass. She banged her stick on the ice, alerting her teammate to her position. He looked up, saw, and shoveled the puck toward her. It was a weak pass and she had to slow her momentum, digging the heel of her blades into the ice, and cut toward the puck. But doing this stripped her not only of momentum but of balance, too, and as she reached out to meet the puck, one of the boys from the other team disrupted the play. In doing so, he stepped in front of Caroline and sent her tiptoeing across the line as she tried to avoid crashing into him. Her steps mincing and awkward, she fell over and slid headfirst into the boards.
It was one of the odd things about being on the ice, in the middle of the play. All you could hear was the crack of wood on rubber, the bang of stick on ice, the thud of a body careening into the boards. All other sounds melted away into an indistinguishable wash. The hoots and hollers of the spectators were individually indiscernible and instead melded into one low growl. But as Caroline lay there, performing a mental reckoning to assure herself that all her parts were still intact, she could hear the oohs and aahs of the crowd. As if every single exclamation had funneled through the air and landed, individually, in her ears. She heard the sighs of sympathy and concern, but she also heard the laughter and ridicule, the cowardly outbursts of delight that the girl had gotten what was coming to her.
She picked herself up, determined to shake it off, and slipped back into the flow of the play. The opposing team made a line change, but their timing was poor. They got caught shorthanded and the new line sprinted across the middle trying to catch one of Caroline’s teammates speeding down the flank and into the offensive zone. He skipped a pass across the middle, where a lone defenseman poked it out. But he didn’t clear the zone. The new line players continued their sprint and clogged the defensive side. The puck bounced around, off sticks, off skates, back and forth, no one in control, until it squirted loose, just to the right of the goal, where Caroline pounced and, without thinking, pulled her stick back and slotted the puck home, lower right corner, past the goaltender’s outstretched leg.
The bench erupted. Coach clenched his fist and whistled. “All right, Panski. All right.”
Caroline raised her arms in triumph. Her teammates mobbed her, batting her head in that rough affection reserved for athletes playing games of violent poetry.
Caroline looked to the stands, scanning. It wasn’t a huge crowd so they were pretty easy to spot. She saw her mom first, standing and shouting, doing little bunny hops in front of her seat. She was wiping tears from her cheeks and smiling, smiling, smiling. There, on either side of her, also smiling and cheering, stood Sam and Joseph. Joseph—he really was here. Back in her life. Caroline waved, and he waved back.
She stared at him and Sam and her mother a bit longer. They continued their cheering and it was only after her teammates had dispersed and the other team had made subs and was getting set to restart, did the head linesman come over. “Okay, little lady. You need to reset,” he said. Only then did Caroline finally feel able to move. She took her time heading back to the bench, taking it all in, looking around, seeing the crowd, seeing, again, her friend and her brother and her mother.
And, yes, she was sure of it then, and she’d swear it until the day she died, she saw him also. Her father. Front row, center. Smiling. Winking. Cheering.
You can do anything you want to do, Caroline Panski. Don’t ever believe otherwise.
After the game, Coach congratulated Caroline and handed her one of the team sticks. “Good job out there, Panski,” he said. “I can only imagine what you’ll be able to do for us with some proper gear.”
“Thanks, Coach.” She trudged off to the locker room, trailing her two sticks, one in each hand, behind her. She sat by herself on a bench in front of the lockers. It was hard to reflect on anything. Her mind was both a whir of too many thoughts and completely blank at the same time. So she got herself showered and dressed and walked out into the hallway where her mother, Sam, and Joseph stood waiting for her.
“Not bad, sis,” Sam said, shaking Caroline’s hand. They giggled at the formality of it.
“Thanks,” she said.
Mrs. Panski didn’t say anything. She couldn’t. Her eyes were shining and she blinked back tears of pride. Caroline just smiled at her, everything between them unspoken.
And then there was Joseph, looking shy and out of place.
“Thanks for coming,” Caroline said.
“Sure.”
Caroline noticed what hung around Joseph’s neck. “Nice scarf,” she said.
“Oh, yeah. I brought it along to give back.” He took it off and handed it to her. “Sorry I had it so long.”
“It’s okay. In fact,” she said, handing it back to him, “I want you to keep it.”
“I don’t need—”
“Please,” she said.
Joseph looked around and then, as if suddenly remembering something, reached into the sleeve of his shirt and pulled a thin piece of rope from his wrist. “Here,” he said, handing it to Caroline.
“What is it?”
“It’s from South Carolina. Someone gave it to me when I lived there. Well, my daddy did. I know it’s just a silly piece of rope, but—”
“I don’t think it’s silly at all. I love it. But you don’t have to give it to me.”
“I want you to have it.”
Caroline slipped the rope onto her wrist, and then looked up at her friend. “Thank you.” They both stood there awkwardly, no one saying anything. Until finally Mrs. Panski broke the silence. “Oh, go ahead,” she said, giving Caroline a slight push toward Joseph.
Caroline leaned in and gave Joseph a big hug.
“Nice game,” he muttered.
She just hugged him harder, and this time, he hugged her back.
CAROLINE WASHED FOR BED. She was spent, but exhilarated, the events of the day catching up to her. She placed her new stick in the corner of her room, near the closet, next to her pads and skates. It was a solid thing, thicker, heavier, and longer than what she had been using. It would take some getting used to, would probably prove difficult at first. But it was another step in the process and, besides, she worried about her Clippers stick. Just how much more use could it take anyway? She’d noticed the beginnings of a slight crack near the top. Just one more good whack—would it split in half? She couldn’t know.
But that wouldn’t be an issue. Her mother had a plan.
“Hooks,” Mrs. Panski said, holding out her hand.
Caroline handed them over, one at a time.
Mrs. Panski climbed the stepstool and placed the hooks two feet apart and just a foot or so to the right of Caroline’s bedroom window, on what had been a big blank space on the wall.
“Hammer.”
Caroline handed her mother the hammer, and Mrs. Panski tapped each of the hooks into the wall, tugging a bit on both to test their solidity. Satisfied, she climbed down off the stool. She handed Caroline’s stick to her. It was pretty well beaten up. She could see that now, now that it was being retired. Scrapes and scratches decorated both sides from tip to blade. A thick band of tape wound across one section. The Clippers man was still visible, but bits of his beard had been sheared off and he was now missing one of his hands, a small chunk of wood lost somewhere out on the ice. But it was still her stick. All those nicks and scrapes and dings and dents made her smile. In the end, it had held up.
“Go ahead,” Mrs. Panski said.
Caroline mounted the stool and placed the stick on the hooks. Then, she took the rope bracelet that Joseph had given her and looped it around the curved end of the stick. She took a step back and admired it, that wonderful stick, which meant so much to her, now retired forever and resting in a place where she’d see it every day. The last thing before going to sleep at night and the first thing when she woke up in the morning.
And there it would stay, the most prominent artifact from a childhood still in bloom but blossoming toward womanhood. A memory, a totem, a reminder and a symbol not only of the good times, but of the loss and the pain and the challenge and the struggle—and how, if we don’t give up, we can surmount all of those things.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to the following people: Kristina Makansi, for her editor’s eye; my agent, Emily Williamson, for her enthusiasm; and to the inimitable Gilbert Sandler, the new “Sage of Baltimore,” for the germ of the idea for Spitfire and for taking time on his 90th birthday to talk with me.
About the Author
Evan L. Balkan lives in Towson, Maryland and holds degrees in the humanities from Towson, George Mason, and Johns Hopkins Universities. He is the author of six books of nonfiction, including The Wrath of God: Lope de Aguirre; Revolutionary of the Americas (Univ. of New Mexico Press) as well as many essays and short stories. His screenplay Spitfire, adapted from the novel, won both the 2016 Baltimore Screenwriters Competition and a Saul Zaentz Innovation Fund Fellowship, and was a semifinalist in the Screencraft Family Friendly Screenplay Competition. His screenplay Children of Disobedience won the 2017 Baltimore Screenwriting Competition. He is a co-writer for the television series, Wayward Girls. Spitfire is his first novel.