Tough Day for the Army

by John Warner

  There is very little light in the weight/boiler room, just a sixty-watt bulb dangling from a single fixture. The sweat on Schmitty’s pectorals shines in this light. Schmitty can bench 305 for 12 reps, which is impressive. The floor is concrete slab with long cracks running through it, some of them patched. Schmitty is trying to blow the towel off his face, thrashing his head around, but we remedy this by grabbing the towel ends and pinning Schmitty’s head to the bench. The tendons in his neck flex memorably.

  It is hot in the boiler room because it is the boiler room. Generations of water stains that look like Rorschach blots mar the brick walls.

  We only have enough rope to tie Schmitty’s arms, so we decide to sit on his legs, which had been thrashing around like he is treading water, which we recognize is not an example of irony.

  Schmitty is making noises underneath the towel.

  Is that crying? we ask, and then decide no way because Schmitty would not cry.

  We ask ourselves How much water? We shrug because we figure that Schmitty’s reaction will tell us how much is enough, and how much is too much.

  It’s important to note that in this moment, we love Schmitty. We love each other. We love ourselves, but most of all we love Schmitty because he is one of us. We are brothers, all. We would never do anything to hurt Schmitty because that would be like cutting off our own legs. In fact, we maybe have never loved each other more. That we are waterboarding Schmitty is the proof.

  Under the cloth held over his face, Schmitty gags and retches. We pour the water in intervals, five seconds on, five seconds off. This, says the Internet, is how it must be done to avoid consequences like the subject being waterboarded passing out, which defeats the purpose of waterboarding them. Soon, Schmitty stops trying to kick us off his legs and no longer pulls at the ropes. He’s only gurgling now. His limbs are slack. The towel, taut over his face, is sucked into his mouth with his breath. His wrists are raw. They may scar, but no worse than a brand, for sure.

  We waterboard Schmitty until it is no longer interesting to water-board Schmitty, until we know what there is to know about water-boarding, which is astoundingly simple and doesn’t take all that much time, it turns out. We remove the towel from Schmitty’s face, and for a moment we worry that maybe we did it wrong, that we killed Schmitty, because his eyes are—how can we put this?—absent. They are open, but no one is present, like this is a life-sized Schmitty doll in front of us, eyes black and staring and lifeless, except we know Schmitty is not dead because his chest rises and falls.

  We say his name, Schmitty! Schmitty! We slap his cheeks and say his name, Schmitty! Schmitty! Some of us in the back giggle nervously. Holy fuck, we say.

  And then Schmitty returns, except that clearly it is Not Schmitty. It is Schmitty’s body and Schmitty’s face, but we know it is Not Schmitty because Not Schmitty raises his head up and looks us in the eyes and says: You motherfuckers better leave me tied up because if I ever get loose I’m going to kill every single one of you.

  Schmitty would never say that.

  We do the smart thing, the only thing, and leave Not Schmitty in the boiler room, lashed to the bench. We turn off the lights and shut the door and we go upstairs to our rooms; we brace a chair under the knob and we listen hard for the approach of Not Schmitty, because we’re assuming that like Schmitty, Not Schmitty can also bench 305 pounds for 12 reps, and unlike Schmitty, Not Schmitty has vowed to kill every one of us.

  We sit upright in our beds and consider how Not Schmitty might kill us. Bare hands is an option, Not Schmitty gripping our throats, squeezing. Or the ropes we used to tether him to the decline weight bench wound around our necks until our heads practically pop off our bodies. That’s a possibility. Not Schmitty could knock on our doors, and when we answer, he could bring a twenty-five-pound barbell down on our heads. He could get one of the large butcher’s knives from the kitchen and he could slip up behind us and ram the blade between our ribs into an organ like the spleen that will let loose our blood inside our bodies until there is not enough blood left for our hearts to continue pumping.

  We have one sleepless night, then another. When the boiler kicks in we listen for the clanks and clangs in the radiators and wonder if there is a rhythm to them, if Not Schmitty is tapping out a message of our dooms. We stop thinking about Not Schmitty so we can think more about ourselves, our vulnerable selves.

  Eventually, life has to go on. We emerge from our rooms, blinking, seeing everything as it was, and we wonder if maybe it was a dream, if maybe we never decided to waterboard Schmitty, and therefore there is no Not Schmitty still tied to the decline bench in the weight/ boiler room.

  We do not go to look for ourselves, no. We put up plastic sheeting in front of the stairwell, and a sign warning of asbestos.

  We do not go to look because it is easier to move forward rather than to examine the past, if indeed the past even happened. We miss Schmitty for sure, but Schmitty remains in our hearts, so it is not like Schmitty is entirely gone. Remember that time Schmitty bet us he could gain twenty pounds in a day and he ate and ate and ate, spaghetti and stir-fry and chocolate pudding, and he actually did it, and we said, How about that fucking Schmitty?

  Of course we remember.

  But we move on. We go to class. We party. We go to more class. We wear shirts with the collars popped and boat shoes even though we don’t have boats, yet. We party. We graduate. We party. We get jobs. We start lives in apartments. We go to work. We participate in March Madness pools. We meet girls, whom we know enough to call women to their faces. We fall in love. We deny falling in love because being in love is kind of gay, even if it’s with a girl (woman). We know we are in love because when we say disgusting things about our girlfriends to our brothers, we feel regret. We go to work. We save money for a ring. We go to work. We propose. We have weddings at which we deny crying during the ceremony, after which we get shitty via open bars.

  We have families. We buy homes. We buy homes and have families of tiny, vulnerable children who grow into small, vulnerable children, and then slightly less small, but still vulnerable children. With the children, we fear Not Schmitty is everywhere, for example driving the car in front of us, waiting for an opportunity to stop short, causing us to rear-end him, which will launch our small, vulnerable children in their improperly secured car seats through the windshield.

  Not Schmitty could be anywhere. When we are in the office bathroom, solo in a stall taking a dump, and the bathroom door swings open and we hear footsteps, we think of Not Schmitty and his doll’s eyes and we wait for a shotgun blast through the stall door that will splatter us across the tile.

  After we make love to the girl (woman) we love and fall asleep— because the lovemaking is like a very strenuous sport—we awake with a start, thrashing our arms, certain Not Schmitty has come with a pillow meant for our faces. Even as we draw back our titanium driver, ready to send a laser down the fairway, we are certain that Not Schmitty is behind us with a nine iron, waiting to cave in our skulls.

  We miss the days we lived with our brothers, when we were young and strong and not vulnerable, but invulnerable.

  We grow older. We buy boats. We buy boats we don’t use all that often, and we complain that boats are just bottomless holes you pour money into, which tells people that we not only own boats, but also have wealth enough not to worry about pouring money into them.

  Our guts grow past our ability to suck them in. Our bench press maxes drop toward the double digits. The more money we make, the less work we seem to do. Sixty-five percent of us vote Republican; the rest of us must be gay or poor or something. Recessions happen in which we’re barely touched. We see our children graduate high school and then college, things they achieve despite our suspicion that some of them are dumb or defective, though we love them anyway, which is an astounding thing. Our wives spread in places we wish they wouldn’t. We achieve all the trappings of success. We are helpful to each other in innumerable ways at this, business referrals
, stock tips, sales leads, stock tips, football tickets, stock tips. This is what we were promised so many years ago by the brotherhood, and it has come true.

  When the kids leave the house for good we go to Europe.

  Why Europe? We don’t know. It’s just something we’re supposed to do. Some people it is Disneyland, others go to all-inclusive resorts in the Bahamas, we are supposed to go to Europe. It is as though we are trapped by this need, even though we have limited desire to go to Europe and are even a little afraid to go to Europe, the language barrier and all. When we go to Europe, in Europe in those European eyes we become what we know ourselves to be: rich, tacky, successful, fat.

  We have the trips of our lives, obviously, but are nonetheless happy to come home. It is evening, and the motion sensor snaps the light on as we approach, which always makes us freeze for a moment, like we are stealing our own luggage. There are ten steps from the flagstone walk to the portico, so that the house may loom over the yard, making its statement. Once inside, we have that sensation that someone has been here in our absence. The air-conditioning is too high. We smell popcorn. We whistle for the dog and then remember he is at the kennel until morning. Our wives go upstairs for a bath and we consider the possibility of joining them, something done in the past, but that past is awfully distant, and there is the matter of logistics in terms of fitting inside the tub, and so we discard the notion and feel sad that we can’t figure out how to make it work.

  We drink a whisky. It is expensive and bitter. The house is large, so our bathing wives can’t even be heard. These are the times when we listen to the creak of the wood floors for Not Schmitty’s approach. We hold ourselves upright, hands pressed to the kitchen granite and refuse to turn around. Perhaps Not Schmitty has already made short work of our wives, their blood pinking the bath mat, which is what we would do if we were Not Schmitty, if we wanted to deliver maximum hurt. Once we picture our wives’ blood swirling through the bath water we can’t stop this vision, but we resist rushing upstairs because what if Not Schmitty is there, waiting? What if he is waiting, holding an ax with a chip in the blade from use?

  What if he holds an ax above his head, an ax that glints in the blue light through the parted curtains and he will use it to smite us in two and there’s nothing we can do about it?

  But he’s not here, is he?

  Is he?

  Second Careers

  I don’t think that Christ would be shy to shake off his gloves and protect his teammates.

  —STU GRIMSON, NHL enforcer/born-again Christian

  Jesus? Jesus Christ? Yeah, sure I remember him, a scrapper, a real character guy. I mean, Jesus Christ, he was Jesus Christ, you know?

  —BOB MORRISON, Jesus’s Coach with the Saskatoon Bear Trap of the Near Western Outpost Hockey League (NWOHL)

  He’d go to war for you for sure, always there to defend a guy, but once, when Scialabba pole-axed him, just clubbed the living shit out of Jesus right between the shoulder blades, Jesus didn’t do anything, that SOB just turned the other cheek. “Vengeance be not man’s but God’s,” he said… Course we couldn’t take any chances, so next shift, I got Scialabba with a nice hearty jab in the stones, if you know what I’m saying.

  —VINCENT DALMPIERRE, Jesus’s former Bear Trap teammate

  Yeah, Jesus always wanted to score more—who didn’t? But he knew that wasn’t his role. He used to say, “I know, I know, smite the wicked, dispatch the base.” He never enjoyed it like the real psychos did, though. He didn’t relish the job like some of them, like that freak Scialabba. I mean, you could tell it wore on Jesus sometimes, like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders.

  —RANDY DUCHESNE, Jesus’s former Bear Trap teammate

  Jesus always was a great one for stories, like on those awful bus trips between Hamilton and Saskatoon; you could always count on him to pass the time. He had this one about the traveling salesman, the milkmaid, and the fig tree. I never did figure out what the hell he meant, but oh man, that one always busted my gut.

  —CLAUDE LALONDE, Jesus’s former Bear Trap teammate

  Jesus was a cheap-shot, chickenshit life-ruining motherfucker.

  —RICH SCIALABBA, former player, Hamilton Force

  It’s not that he couldn’t score; I saw him do some amazing things sometimes, some real miracles with the puck, and he always had the good, hard slapper, but remember, we had guys like Conrad and Langlois on that team, so someone had to do the mucking in the corners. When the shit is heavy and you’ve gotta hack your way out of the jungle, you need a machete. Our machete was Jesus.

  —DALMPIERRE

  Never did care for the guy. Tough little player, but every time I called a penalty on him it was always, “Judge not lest ye be judged,” and I’d be like, “What the hell does that mean?” And well, yeah, there was that thing with Scialabba, that wasn’t too good. I saw the whole thing… not a memory I care for, for sure.

  —CONRAD GAULTHIER, referee, Near Western Outpost

  Hockey League

  I’m not going to say he didn’t have it coming, but you hate to see that kind of thing happen, even to a prick like Scialabba.

  —DUCHESNE

  Sure, I took some heat. They said I sent Jesus out there just to mess up Scialabba, but let me get a few things straight. First, this is hockey, not goddamn tiddlywinks. Second, Scialabba had been taking liberties all series and had to be stopped; the faint of heart don’t win the Richards Cup. Lastly, I didn’t have to say anything about what to do with Scialabba, not word one to Jesus. He knew what had to be done because he was all about what was good for the team.

  —MORRISON

  No, I didn’t see it. I’m glad I didn’t. Who wants that memory?

  —LALONDE

  I’ll tell you something about Jesus, what he was like as a player. After-ward, after the thing with Scialabba, Jesus went back into the locker room and wept. Jesus wept.

  —DUCHESNE

  You might call it a moment of truth, you could call it that, and yeah, maybe in that moment I felt some fear. You’ve got Jesus coming at you with a hockey stick, and you’d be a little afraid, wouldn’t you?

  —SCIALABBA

  I saw most of it. Scialabba had just planted Scully into the boards from behind, after the whistle, messed Scully up pretty bad, and so Jesus went after him. I mean, that’s what he was supposed to do.

  —DUCHESNE

  It was a lot of blood. The screams were tough. It even almost made me feel bad for Scialabba, but that miserable fuck had to be dealt with. It’s part of the game.

  —DALMPIERRE

  I’m just thankful that Janice was at home with the kids.

  —SCIALABBA

  Jesus just kept saying “An eye for an eye, an eye for an eye.” To his credit, Scialabba didn’t run, but he was plenty scared all right, anyone could see that.

  —GAULTHIER

  The incision was really quite clean, extending several centimeters along the orbital ridge and ending just above the maxillary. There wasn’t much left for us to do but fit Mr. Scialabba for the prosthetic.

  —DR. PAUL DUFRESNE, Chief of Retinal Surgery,

  Blessed Heart of St. Mary Hospital

  The suspension was for life, all leagues, organized hockey, period. I didn’t want to see him in the Moose Jaw over-35 no-check Wednesday- night church league. Mr. Christ had to find another line of work.

  —JEAN-PIERRE VALMONT, Commissioner NWOHL

  Nights are toughest. It’s a dry cold up here, and that makes the socket ache. The painkillers stopped working years ago, and Rich Scialabba is not going to be some kind of dope fiend.

  —SCIALABBA

  I know it hurts him some when I have to clean the socket. He’s not careful enough about it, so it’s up to me to take the swab and some alcohol and work around the edges. It’s all pretty healed, but I know it still stings sometimes. Instead of wincing, though, he smiles at me. That’s how I know when it hurts him, when he smiles. It’s like when we
first started dating and Rich was working his way up through the minors and he had to do a lot of fighting. He would come over after a game, his hair wet and slicked back from a shower, always wearing a tie. I would wait for him, watching through a part in the curtains. Sometimes he limped a little, and sometimes I could see a fresh shiner under his eye as he passed under a streetlight and came up the drive. Most days he’d ring the doorbell with his elbow because his hands were so sore. For a long time he insisted on shaking my father’s hand when it was held out to him, until I told Daddy to stop doing that because of how much it hurt Rich. After that, Daddy just sort of waved, and Rich would do the same and then stand and talk to my father, hiding his hands clasped behind his back.

  —JANICE SCIALABBA

  People think I should be bitter, but I try to be thankful for some things; it doesn’t pay not to be. The settlement left us comfortable, and Janice and the kids are great. I miss the game, sure I do, but the game doesn’t define who you are unless you let it. I think that’s what happened to Jesus. He just let it get too far into him. You do a job for your team, but that’s all it is. My job was to fight, his too. I loved the game, still do, but you can’t let it be your religion. I’ve got other things… like for instance, days with Janice and Richie and Meagan are mostly long and slow and good here. Meagan says she’s going to be a dancer, ballet. I don’t know where she gets that, but sometimes she begs me to be her partner, and I do it to make her happy. I cradle her across the room like I’m some kind of Baryshnikov. Meg stretches out her arms and points her toes and keeps a super-serious look on her face. It’s funny, but she likes to perform dying scenes the most. She hugs herself as she folds to the floor, very graceful, very beautiful. She has long fingers, from her mother. Most afternoons, I head out to the ponds to skate with little Richie. He’s good, fast like I never was, nice touch with the stick. He’s only eight, but still, when he really gets moving his coat cracks behind him in the wind like some sort of cape. I can only skate in circles now. I chase after him making one long left turn. My arm waves around for balance and I know I look like some kind of clown. As he skates away, Richie sometimes looks over his shoulder and laughs at me, but not in a bad way.