by Diana Wieler
Rudachuk was listening intently, the disbelief kindling into half hope. Lavalle was so convincing that even A.J. began rebuilding the scene in his head, wondering for the first time if it had been a great play that had gone awry.
Or is he trying to be nice, make Gord feel better, A.J. thought. He knew nothing about this guy, or what made him tick. “… and Pilka was open, just waiting to tip it into their net. It was a beautiful set-up …” Lavalle was almost whispering into Rudachuk’s face, “… that only a brain-damaged choke would ever try.”
Rudachuk straightened, his face white. Someone else might have sworn at Lavalle, or hammered him into the lockers, but that just wasn’t Gord, not even when he was bleeding. Lavalle was able to saunter away, unscathed.
A.J. hadn’t moved from his spot on the bench. But inside, the wheels were whirring.
So that’s what you are, he thought. Even inside his head the words were icy. He had known nothing about Lavalle, and now he knew a great deal. He had a label, another one. Manipulator.
“All right, all right, quit your bellyaching,” Landau’s voice rose over the din. “Let’s see what the hell we can do about it.”
It was a vivid lecture, short and not sweet at all. They weren’t playing the game they were good at. They were letting the Terriers rattle them. Under pressure, Landau was not a coach who gently coaxed and inspired. He was a ballbreaker.
When it was over, the guys slunk away to wait for the whistle that would start the second period. A.J. pulled himself up wearily and stopped. Landau was standing in front of him.
“How are your ribs?” he asked.
A.J. took a breath, testing. “Okay. Vic says I’m probably bruised.” He hurried to cover any cracks of doubt. “But I can play. I feel really good.”
The coach nodded absently. He had a toothpick in his mouth and moved it from one side to the other. The noise level was rising, everybody gearing up to face the ice again.
“I think it’s time you asked Mr. Fleury for a date,” Landau said quietly.
“What?” A.J. drew himself up. His head was so full of dark images that he could only interpret one way.
Landau looked directly into A.J.’s eyes.
“You’re a big boy,” the coach said slowly, deliberately. “I think you should go on a date with Mr. Fleury.” There was a second’s pause. “And ask him about his poor left knee.”
A.J. blinked. Fleury? Date?
Take him out. The answer thunked A.J. in the back of the head like a stray stick. Take him out of the game.
He looked up again, but all he saw was Landau’s back moving through the crowd to the door.
NINE
IT was Monday morning. At his school locker, A.J. shuffled through his books, trying to assemble what he needed for his first classes. “Hey, Bad Boy!”
The words zinged down the hallway, but A.J. didn’t look up.
“Yeah, Brandiosa. Bad Boy!” This time he did look, bewildered. Harold Doerkson loped up and slapped him solidly on the arm.
“Who would have thunk it!” Doerkson chortled happily. “Brandiosa, you don’t look the type. But all I knows is what I reads in the papers.”
Half of A.J.’s mouth turned up in a guarded grin. He had no idea what Doerkson was babbling about.
Then someone shoved A.J. from behind, playfully. He whirled around. Glen Rasmussen backed up in mock horror.
“Ooh, quick on the draw. Don’t hurt me, Bad Boy.”
A.J. flushed crimson. He didn’t know whether to get mad or shrug it off. What was going on?
Doerkson sighed. It was no fun trying to tease somebody who didn’t know it.
“Lloyl,” he explained, settling against the blue lockers. “Ted Lloyl, his column? You were hot press on Saturday. What’s the matter, you live in a cave or something?”
A.J. felt a small pang. This first weekend alone, he had lived in a cave, four walls and his bed.
Then the information began to register. Ted Lloyl was the sportswriter who reported on junior and minor hockey. It wouldn’t be considered a big-time column anywhere else, but Moose Jaw, with its near-cult following of the junior leagues, was a different matter. People read Ted Lloyl.
“Have you got one?” A.J. croaked suddenly, his vocal cords surprised to be in use.
Rasmussen looked down deliberately at his own crotch. “Well, it was there this morning.”
Doerkson guffawed, pounding the other boy on the back. A.J. grinned tiredly, waiting for the stupid joke to subside. The first buzzer cut in, blasting them, and the two boys started to troop off, still elbowing each other.
Doerkson turned around, and walking backwards called out, “Check the cafeteria. But you’d better hustle, Bad Boy.”
A.J. flew down the hallway to the cafeteria, plunked down his fifty cents, and slid into his Geometry 30 class moments after the second bell. He fidgeted through a fifteen-minute lecture on logarithms before the class settled into its assignment and the teacher, Mr. Pearson, left the room.
A.J. rattled through the newspaper quickly, then folded it so that he could slide it under his textbook. The headline almost leapt off the page at him.
BAD BOY ENDS FLEURY’S SEASON
A.J. blinked, then blinked again. And then he began to read.
The Terriers’ exceptional centre, Bruce Fleury, was back with a vengeance Friday. Fleury, out with stretched knee ligaments since the second game of the season, was in superb form as the Terriers took on the fifth-ranked Cyclones. By the end of the first, the centre had chalked up no less than a hat trick, effectively neutralizing the Cyclones’ strong defense. Even the Cyclones’ top scorers — Al Weitzammer and Grant Pilka — were pinned by an energized Terrier front line.
And then it all came apart. Midway through a scoreless second period, Fleury was assaulted by the heretofore also-ran of a defense, AJ. Brandiosa. Don’t be misled — this wasn’t a check. This wasn’t even a normal display of temper. This was a calculated running dive targeted for the side of Fleury’s left leg. And it hit the mark.
The Cyclones paid — Brandiosa was penalized with a five-minute major plus a match suspension — but Fleury paid a higher price. The shining centre is out for another six-week stretch, possibly longer.
A.J.’s fingers were blurring the newsprint. He remembered with frightening clarity the sensation of Fleury’s leg buckling.
A.J. skimmed over the next part of the article because he knew the plot — how the Cyclones rallied to kill the penalty, how the Terriers lost their focus without Fleury. Weitzammer’s two goals; Pilka and Brown one apiece.
He was just pushing the newspaper back under his book when his eyes caught on the tail of Lloyl’s column.
No one will argue that Junior is a particularly physical brand of hockey. Maybe these kids think they have to prove themselves. But the hit Fleury took Friday night wasn’t physical, it was brutal.
This is Brandiosa’s first year in Triple A. If the burly 16-year-old is bucking to establish himself as the league Bad Boy, he’s got my vote.
A.J. sat, the words fading to fuzz in front of him. He could still see Fleury vividly, how small his sweatsoaked head had seemed when they tore the helmet off him. How light he looked when they lifted him up. He wasn’t a big kid. A.J, could have carried Fleury alone.
I never meant to hurt him, A.J. reasoned silently. But he knew it was a lie. At that moment on the ice, he had meant to hurt Bruce Fleury. Take him out. And it had been so easy; despising Derek Lavalle, still reeling over Tully, mad as hell at himself for his own stupidity. It had been so easy it frightened him.
Bad Boy. The memory of Doerkson’s voice ringing down the hall made A.J. cringe. He wasn’t a goon. Attacking Fleury hadn’t even been his idea. But shifting blame was a crutch.
So just take it, he thought. It’s like a penalty. Take it and keep your mouth shut and pretty soon Fleury will be back on the ice and everyone will forget. You’ll get another shot at making good.
He picked up his pencil
and determinedly started scratching out the first equations. But he couldn’t keep from wondering, just briefly, if Tully ever read Ted Lloyl.
It seemed that everyone else in Riverview Collegiate did. A.J.’s new title was handed around like a torch. He heard it again and again — in the hallways, in class, going for lunch. At first he was defensive, then he was bewildered. Sympathy for Bruce Fleury was non-existent. The centre lived across town, but it might as well have been the other side of the world.
The kids at Riverview Collegiate liked A.J.’s notoriety, and the idea of having an antihero in their midst. It was excitement, it was news.
In the cafeteria at noon, A.J. found himself securely knit into the fabric of the crowd. The group seemed to gather at his table. He had been dreading the lunch hours. He and Tully always went somewhere to eat, or just cruised downtown in the Mustang. The empty hour had worried him; he lived too far away to walk home. He didn’t know how to eat alone in a crowded school.
But he wasn’t alone now. The table ate and drank the game. A.J. was sitting beside Paul Treejack, a big-boned kid with shoulder-length, heavy-metal hair. Treejack was tearing apart last night’s game period by period. He was a big kid, but ungainly; A.J. knew Treejack didn’t have the co-ordination to make it around one of Landau’s pylon courses. Funny how the guys who didn’t play were all pros.
“Hey, listen. Fleury’s been begging for it for a long time,” Paul Treejack said, his forearm flexing as he sopped up gravy. “Every hotshot’s the same. He’ll fancy dance with the puck, but you show him a little elbow, and he’s cryin’ to the ref. Or worse, he’s flying the other way.” Treejack bit off half his dinner roll and chewed vigorously. “Fleury can shoot all right, but he’s got faggot skates.”
The group burst into sudden laughter. A.J. started; the word was a whip. But self-preservation gripped him quickly and he laughed along with them.
Table talk deteriorated then, into a cheerful discussion of faggot skates. Who had them and who didn’t. How you had to be careful because if you ever bought second-hand equipment, you might get a pair.
“And then you’re contaminated,” Paul Treejack said. He leaned back and grinned wickedly. “You can get your stick up, all right, you just can’t score …”
They all groaned. The whole lunch hour had been stupid and raunchy and blustery and the safest hour of the whole day. When the bell finally sounded, A.J. was reluctant to leave.
“See you ’round,” he said, turning abruptly so that it would look like it didn’t matter.
Then, on cue, the whole table sang out, “See you, Bad Boy!” He walked out of the cafeteria a lot taller than he had walked in. At least he wasn’t total human wreckage. Maybe slamming Fleury wasn’t right, but nobody seemed to think it was wrong.
Farther down, he felt a more specific relief. Doerkson and Treejack were good guys to be on friendly terms with. At Riverview, Treejack especially held a lot of sway. A.J. knew he might need that approval some time.
Insurance, he thought. For the day he couldn’t bear to think about — the day somebody else found out about Tulsa Brown and the dirt flew that A. J. Brandiosa had been friends with a queer. Or worse.
By 3:30 he felt safer, more settled. His ego had been padded all afternoon. He began to think that no matter what happened, he could ride it out.
Get out more, he told himself as he dumped his books in his locker. See more people. Date somebody, for Pete’s sake, and you’ll be okay.
Somebody was waiting for him on the school steps. Still paces from the door, A.J. stopped. His first impulse was to turn and hurry out another door.
But she saw him. She didn’t have to wave. Her hazel eyes locked into his and he was trapped.
A.J. began walking again, more slowly, but still forward. Blank, he thought. Just make your face blank.
“Hi,” he said.
“If you think I’m here to congratulate you on your big press break, you’re nuts,” Summer said. “The vicious streak of infantile violence that is inherent to your sex does not impress me.”
“It’s nice to see you, too,” A.J. said.
Her cheeks turned the faintest pink. “Okay. Hi. How are you.”
“Fine,” A.J. said.
“How’s your dad.”
A.J. felt a twinge. “Fine.”
“Now I’d like to talk to you. Please,” she added. The boy fell into step with her as she began to walk through the schoolyard. The overcast sky, a solid sheet of white turning grey, seemed low enough to press them to the ground.
“How was your ride the other night?” Summer asked.
He’d known it was coming to this. “It was all right,” A.J. said woodenly. “A bit cold.”
“I waited all weekend for you to call me. You said you’d tell me. You promised” He kept walking, staring at the frost-bitten ground.
“There wasn’t anything I could tell you,” he said. That wasn’t a lie.
Summer was persistent. She knew how small Moose Jaw was. “You didn’t find him?”
“No.”
“You didn’t even see his car somewhere?”
A.J. threw up his hands. “Look, I’m not his keeper, all right? He’s your brother, not mine. You want to know where he goes — ask him!”
They walked in silence until they reached the gate into the schoolyard. He would turn right to walk home; she would turn left towards her bus stop.
Summer leaned against the chain-link fence. “You could have called just to say hello,” she said, staring at the traffic. “I mean, we don’t see a lot of you anymore. For three years you’re around the house like the wallpaper, and then you’re not around at all.”
A.J. was dumbfounded. Was she trying to say she missed him?
Summer shrugged and laughed nervously. “We keep setting the table for five …”
“Why don’t you come out to a game sometime?” he blurted.
Her mouth twisted. “Get serious. I hate hockey.” His thoughts were racing. Don’t do this, A.J. It can’t ever work — not now. But he said, “It’s not so bad. I could meet you after. We could talk or something.”
Summer shrugged again. “Maybe. Sometime.”
It was vague, but the words settled inside him, as warm as hot chocolate. Why was it like this with her? How could she make him feel defensive and protective and hopeful, all in the same conversation?
“My bus’ll be coming in a minute,” she said, pushing off the fence. “I have to go.”
“See you,” A.J. said.
Summer glanced up, but then she stopped and her face broke into a surprised, unabashed smile. She pointed at him. A.J. craned his neck to see.
The first fragile snowflake of the year was sitting on his shoulder.
By the time he got home, the powder was swirling around him dizzily. Visibility was bad, but not altogether gone. A.J. didn’t miss the big brown pickup truck parked in the driveway. His buoyant mood clunked back to earth. She was here, again.
The subject of June had not come up with his father. On Friday night, when A.J. had arrived home from the game, she had been gone.
Maybe it was just a one-time thing, A.J. had thought, but he knew he was rationalizing. He just hadn’t been ready for a confrontation, not that night.
But tonight was different. A.J. opened the door and went inside.
They were in the kitchen together, cooking something. Through the doorway he could see them puttering around. Passing Decco, June touched his arm, a familiar, absent-minded touch that sent a shot running through A.J.’s chest. She’s so goddamned at ease, the boy thought. So goddamned at home. He stamped the snow off his runners loudly.
“So— you’re home,” Decco called. He wandered out of the kitchen wearing the chef’s apron A.J. had given him one Christmas. It was a funny apron, vertical blue and white stripes that would have made someone else look comical. But Decco never looked comical.
A.J. leaned against the wall, still in his jacket, the snow melting on his sneakers. He
let the accusation glimmer in his eyes.
Decco meandered towards him. “Take off your coat and stay awhile,” he said. He was smiling, but the words were not flippant; they were a warning.
“I don’t know if I’m staying,” A.J. said. He had absolutely nowhere to go, but his father couldn’t know that. “I wouldn’t want to break up anything cosy. You know, three’s a crowd?”
Decco was closer now. They were standing in the same hallway, the same dangerous air space. The muscles in the man’s cheek twitched.
“Grow up,” he said flatly. “You’re acting like a ten-year-old.”
“Just about your speed, hey, Dad? Grown-up women are too smart, but it’s not hard to pull the strings on some kid.”
“That’s enough.” Decco caught the boy’s arm.
“No, it isn’t enough!” A.J.’s eyes were glittering. “You go ahead and have your mid-life crisis or whatever, but don’t parade it in front of me. My God, you should be embarrassed —”
“The sauce is ready,” June interrupted, appearing suddenly in the kitchen doorway. She was holding a wooden spoon and staring at them with the most even, unruffled gaze. “Are you two going to fight or eat?”
In the awkward silence, Decco let go his grip and A.J. felt his own rush of temper deflate. But it didn’t disappear.
“I’m not hungry,” he muttered, turning away from them and moving blindly up the stairs.
In fifteen minutes he was sorry. Not because he wanted to be downstairs; God, just listening to the sound of them made him ill. The occasional bang of pots, the faint rattle of cutlery. Once he heard Decco laugh, and his skin almost crawled off his bones.
Of course the worst sound was no sound — long stretches of ten or twelve seconds when he could vividly imagine them pressed together in the kitchen or the dining room.
There was a softball on the dresser, left over from summer. He began to toss it lightly into the air, but the ceiling was far too low for any kind of a throw. The ball didn’t even sting his hands.
A.J. lay back on the floor beside his bed and began throwing, straight up. For a little while he was absorbed in learning how to pitch so that the ball wouldn’t arc foward or backward out of his reach.