by Diana Wieler
Once he had it mastered, though, the aim and the rhythm, he was craving again. He watched the ball go zinging towards the ceiling, seem to pause, then fall back into his waiting hand. It was hypnotic, but not nearly enough.
He could feel the people below him — the vibration of their footsteps and voices — with his shoulder blades. He clenched his teeth.
He wanted a hard skating drill. Manmakers, even. Open ice and a reason to run that would turn his lungs to fire and wring the muscles in his legs like rags. Or something more.
A hundred pounds. He wanted to be benchpressing a hundred pounds. Fast at first, then slowing to a robot-like pace until the bar was so heavy it felt like someone was pushing back. But not stopping. Staring up at the ceiling, just like now, his shoulder sockets screaming and his stomach muscles tight enough to snap, sweat dribbling into his ears, the whole world sitting on that bar and the dim basement starting to sway thinking, oh, God … I can’t … not again …
“Come on, A.J.! Ten more. You can do it!”
He jerked, and the softball flipped awkwardly out of his hand. It hit the bureau, then bounced once or twice before it rolled to the wall.
A.J. sat up, his heart pounding. His eyes were fastened on the door. It couldn’t be, he wouldn’t dare …. Moments passed and the door stayed shut. The creaky stairway was silent.
A.J. lay shakily back on the floor again, and draped his arm across his eyes. They burned. His whole body burned, as if he really had been fighting under a hundred pounds of iron.
Get away from me, he pleaded with the ghost. Get the hell away from me.
TEN
A.J. knew he had to get the weights back, as quickly and painlessly as possible. Every time he closed his eyes he could see them — the bench, the bar, the plates, the bells — sitting silently in Tully’s house, gleaming the way a murder weapon must gleam. He had to have them back, in his own house, safe.
He decided to leave a note, one of those little yellow things with adhesive on the back, stuck to Tully’s locker. It would be short — “I need my weights” or something — and he wouldn’t sign it. He couldn’t bear to have his initials hanging on Tully’s locker for the whole school to see.
The only problem was how to physically get the set home. The two boys lived six blocks apart, not a comfortable distance to carry two hundred pounds of dead weight.
“Well, he can worry about it,” A.J. grumbled to himself. “He’s the one with the car.”
A.J. scribbled the note Wednesday, then cruised past Tully’s locker, waiting for the right moment. On his way to biology class there were too many people milling around. He tried again and again, but the hallways were crowded and he felt self-conscious.
Thursday morning he went to school early, thinking he would get there before the rush. The corridors were almost empty as A J. turned the corner beside the stairwell. Then he pulled up sharply, his wet runners squeaking on the polished floor.
Tully and Andrea were walking ahead of him, still in their coats. They were probably heading for Tully’s locker, but they ambled slowly. Tully had his arm around Andrea’s shoulders. The girl’s magnificent hair billowed and bowed, caught under his sleeve.
A small pulse of shock skipped through A.J. painfully. Get out of here before he sees you, he ordered himself. But he was rooted to the floor.
Tully turned his head then, leaned towards Andrea and whispered in her ear. She giggled and shoved him with her hip. A.J. didn’t have to see her face to know she was blushing. The next moment she was close to Tully again, her thumb hooked in the back belt loop of his jeans.
A.J. backed up; he willed himself to tear his eyes away. When he started to run, his footsteps echoed eerily in the empty halls.
A.J. walked numbly into his homeroom. A few other early students were scattered like islands, reading, studying. There was no danger of anyone talking to him, and he was glad.
He stared at his desk. The image was still crisp in his mind: Tully’s arm, Tully’s profile, and Andrea. So casual, so normal.
Maybe Tully just made a mistake. Once. Maybe Tully was confused. A.J. had read that somewhere, that adolescents were sexually confused. That they tried on identities like hats. A.J. couldn’t ever remember trying on an identity himself. The one he had was scary enough.
But Tully was such a goof. Game for anything. And he trusted people; the right person at the right time could sell Tully anything.
The first bell sounded and the rest of A.J.’s homeroom class began to wander in. Chairs scraped, desk lids banged, kids bantered back and forth. The noise was around A.J. like a fog.
Saturday afternoon, the Cyclones played the Swift Current Vikings, in Swift Current. A.J. filed off the half-empty bus, stiff-legged and taciturn. Everyone seemed subdued. The uncomfortable two-hour bus ride and overcast sky were enough to dampen anyone’s spirits.
Conversation in the dressing room was low, sporadic. No one wanted to open his mouth. In an arena that old, you drew in twenty-five years of salt and sweat with every breath.
A.J. pulled on his pads wearily, shuddering against the initial stiffness. He had no idea how well he would play, didn’t know if he felt like playing at all. He’d spent Friday night holed up in his room, his radio turned up to drown out the sound of the television and the people below. June hadn’t left until 1:15 a.m. Ignoring someone was exhausting, A.J. thought.
As he was taping his stick, the rest of the team began to arrive. It was the players who had driven from Moose Jaw with their parents, or who simply preferred their own cars. Weitzammer, Kafke, Millyard, Lavalle, Tully and a handful of others burst in just minutes apart, all high spirits and pink cheeks. With the scent of outside still clinging to their clothes, they were literally a breath of fresh air.
“Hey!” Weitzammer called out. “We’ve got ourselves a cheering section today.”
Tully swung his duffle bag onto the bench, grinning. “A whole van full. Bunch of guys from Riverview.”
“And girls!” Millyard piped up. “Live ones. Lu-cious little beauties just dying to lay their hands on …”
“Watch it.” Tully elbowed him playfully. “My sister’s on that van.”
“… our sticks,” Millyard finished. The room exploded with laughter.
A.J. felt the eruption inside. Summer had come. With a van full of kids from Riverview. He hadn’t heard anything about the expedition being planned, but he could guess who was on it. The thought of Summer being jostled by Treejack or drooled over by Doerkson made his temperature flare. He ate lunch with that crew every day. He knew how sick they were.
He ripped off the white tape and smoothed the edge. It was funny. When he thought about Summer, he didn’t picture the few muted conversations they’d had on her front porch. He didn’t even see her on the basement stairs. Summer was fixed forever in the dark back seat of the Mustang, highlighted by street lamps, on the last night the world was right side up.
The noise in the locker room was rising. He tried not to let his eyes rest on Tully. It was like not watching the silver ball in a pinball machine.
Tully, strung out with his usual case of pre-game nerves, was everywhere, kidding, prodding. He leapt up onto a bench, half-dressed and barefoot, to airguitar with his stick. Onlookers whistled and hooted. They loved him. Everybody loved him.
A.J. turned his back to the show and pushed on his helmet, fumbling with the chin strap.
Oh, Tul. If you could just get over it. Back on track. You’ve gotten out of other things. One mistake doesn’t have to screw up your whole life. I’d never bring it up. I swear to God. And I’d be the friend I’m supposed to be. If you could just get over it.
A.J. had underestimated the van from Riverview, and how much noise nine people could make in a small arena. When the Cyclones skated out onto the ice, they were greeted by a thunderblast. Once he heard the cry, “Get ’em, Bad Boy!” Treejack.
At this level of hockey, you weren’t supposed to notice the crowd, weren’t supposed to
care. But A.J. soared through warm-ups.
All right, he thought, watching goalie Terry Frances scuff the ice in his crease. All right. Get ’em, Bad Boy.
Swift Current was not a team known for its finesse. The Vikings reminded A.J. of the scrub games that came together in the frozen back lanes — mismatched, unco-ordinated and desperately competitive.
It was near the end of the second period, in a game full of abrupt turn-arounds and wild dashes down the ice. A.J. knew his team was better than the Vikings; for skating and basic stickhandling, there was no contest.
Then why are we working so hard? he wondered, wiping his mouth on the sleeve of his jersey. The Cyclones’ 2-1 edge was precarious. They seemed to be in danger of losing it at any moment.
The answer was easy. Swift Current was a team full of muckers. They weren’t neat and they weren’t fast, but they dug in and hung on. If the chance came up, they were there. And sometimes they made their own chances. Bill Grummett took an elbow in his windpipe; Grant Pilka was slashed viciously above his ankles.
A.J. was playing hard, trying to shove the Vikings’ force back at them. Underneath, he knew he should be concentrating more, trying to move the puck more, being more of a player than a bodyguard.
But nobody’s telling me any different, he thought petulantly. Landau hadn’t given him any instructions, seemed content with the slam-bang defense. And there was no missing the sudden whoop from the Riverview section every time he took a player down. He would never have admitted how strong that noise made him feel, how it wrapped around and lifted him like an embrace.
As soon as we get a little more ahead, I’ll cool down, A.J. told himself. When we secure our edge I’ll start playing right again.
And then at the beginning of the third period, a Viking winger nailed Terry Frances.
It was a stupid, frustrated hit, more like a solid cuff on the side of the head than a blow. But goalies are never prepared to be hit by players, and Terry went down hard.
A.J. was at the blue line when it happened. The unprovoked attack seemed to explode in his vision. The referee whistled the play dead, but A.J. lost his gloves and stick in one quick thrust. Two strides and he had the Viking winger against the boards.
He’d only meant to grab him, shake a little sense into him. But when A.J. took hold of the Viking jersey, the winger threw his arms around him, a bear hug to stall A.J.’s swing. Panic drove through the boy like a white-hot spear.
Don’t touch me! his mind shrieked. His arms shot up, breaking the hold, slamming the winger hard into the boards.
“Shithead,” the other spat at him. A.J.’s fingers closed around the metal of the player’s face cage. He yanked up and the grill snapped off, broken. Then his hand was full of jersey again.
The winger was struggling, trying to protect his face. But A.J. was strong. His heart was thumping and the adrenaline was singing and he knew he could have lifted the winger off the ice. Easy. As easy as curling five pounds, again and again and again. He couldn’t stop. Even when his hand came back wet he couldn’t stop. He felt the linesmen pulling at him, no more important than leaves falling on his back. The whole world was the rhythm of his arm and the love song descending from the stands.
Tully liked driving at night. He liked the way streetlights slid over the gleaming red hood; he liked the whisper-soft glow of the dash.
On the highway it was even better. He could lose himself in his car on the prairie at night — pretend that he and the Mustang were one metal creature gunning into the darkness.
Tully and Derek were on the highway, driving back from Swift Current. The needle was nudging eighty, on a speedometer that had never heard of metric. Derek was resting his hand on the back of the driver’s seat, but he was silent. Tully was relieved. He had a lot to think about.
He was still reeling with the images of the fight. Tully had played hockey with A.J. for three years, and he’d seen him in every mood imaginable. But never like that.
A.J. was a physical defenseman. He could get angry on the ice, angrier than he usually allowed himself, and he could hit hard. He wasn’t afraid to mix it up now and then. But not like that. Not ripping off somebody’s face mask and pounding and pounding until the blood sprayed. When they’d finally pulled him off, he was still swinging, like a wind-up toy that couldn’t run down.
But the frightening part was that he didn’t look angry. Tully had expected him to be blistering, redfaced and swearing a blue streak. He wasn’t. When A.J. skated off the ice, suspended for the game, he was white. As blank as a tin soldier.
Something’s really wrong, was all Tully could think. A.J. was in trouble and he needed help. No one knew better than Tully that A.J. wouldn’t ask for it.
Tully gripped the steering wheel tightly, staring at the white lines that blurred on the asphalt. His insides felt like crumpled paper. These past ten days he had forced himself to live in a tunnel; he’d shut his vision down to a very narrow perspective that did not include A.J. Brandiosa. It had kept him from feeling angry, and other things.
Except A.J. was in trouble. Tully was overwhelmed by the intensity of that thought, and how inside his chest it felt, very much, like something else.
“How come you never let me drive?” Derek said suddenly.
The intrusion jarred Tully, then grated on him.
“It’s my car. Nobody drives it but me,” he said, his eyes never leaving the road.
“Oh, come on.” Derek’s hand closed in the back of Tully’s hair, a loose fist.
“No.” Tully tried to shrug him off. “Don’t.”
“You don’t mean it. You never do.” The fist tightened; Tully could feel his scalp pull. It was a familiar move, familiar enough to make Tully draw in his breath, but he was determined to fight it. He was not in the mood.
He leaned forward to break contact. Derek yanked him back so hard Tully’s shoulders slammed the seat. The Mustang swerved into the oncoming lane, back across the gravel shoulder, before he could right it.
“Jesus Christ!” Tully lashed out blindly with his right hand, an angry reflex. Lightning quick, Derek caught his wrist and pinned it against the backrest.
Tully’s heart was shaking his whole body. The grip on his hair was tighter; his chin angled upwards. His arm seemed nailed to the upholstery. Derek was a winger, too. He did all the same exercises to strengthen his wrist shots. Tully struggled to keep his voice even.
“Grow up, Lavalle. You could make me roll this thing.”
Hypnotically calm, the words seemed disembodied in the night. “You worship this car, Tulsa. You won’t roll it, not if you drive carefully. Besides, you love this. Look at you.”
Tully didn’t need to look. The speed and darkness and adrenaline had worked on him, despite himself. He was almost touching the steering wheel.
Tully’s face burned. This was too far. This was arousal taken over the edge, a sudden, dizzying drop into something else. He was frightened. And yet … and yet …
“You jerk,” he said, his own breath cutting him to a whisper.
“I always drive, Tulsa,” Derek said, and he gently released his grip.
“You’re home early,” Mrs. Brown said, her arms folded over her chest. “The sun isn’t up yet.”
Tully didn’t take the joke. He tried to hang his coat on the closet doorknob. It slid to the floor and lay there. Mrs. Brown followed as Tully wandered towards the kitchen.
“There was no reason Summer couldn’t have driven down with you,” she said. “Especially if you knew you weren’t going to be late. You shouldn’t have made her go down with a bunch of kids she doesn’t know. That’s just plain thoughtless …”
Summer was playing solitaire at the kitchen table. She wasn’t in a good mood. A.J. had completely ignored her after the game. He’d drifted onto the bus like a zombie while she’d stood there, painfully self-conscious.
“He’s afraid to show up with me. I cramp his style, Mom,” Summer said acidly, snapping down a card. “All hi
s drug dealer friends think I’m a narc.”
But Tully just descended into the basement like a wraith. Summer stared at the black rectangle of the doorway. He hadn’t even bothered to turn on the light.
She didn’t, either. On the third step from the bottom, she sat down in darkness.
“Don’t brood, Tully. Mom and Dad will drag you to their meditation sessions again.” She’d meant to flip the words out, but the heavy air caught them like a quilt. The only other sound was the faint sloshing from Tully’s waterbed. It needed filling again.
Oh, what’s with you? she wondered, her hands clenched on top of her lap. Even on drugs he used to talk to her. Not coherently, but he would. She could take him wild, even blistering mad. She could take him cutting her, but not shutting her out.
“Summer,” he said. She jumped. The noise seemed to come out of a hollow pit.
“What?”
There was a pause. Summer’s short fingernails dug into her knuckles. Then the words started, a soft, strangled torrent.
“Did you ever get into something that wasn’t what you expected … and it turned out to be better than anything and sometimes worse than anything, and you were scared because … because you knew maybe you should get out of it but you didn’t think you could?”
For a moment Summer just sat, trying to untangle what he’d said.
“Is Andrea pregnant?” she blurted, the worst fear first.
“What? Oh, hell, no.”
“Are you in trouble with the police?” Summer heard the waterbed gurgle as he shook his head.
“Well, what? Tell me!” She was frightened now, and frustrated. “I can’t help you if I don’t know what it is.”
Again the gurgle.
“Tulsa!”
The telephone cut into her cry, saving him. Tully rolled, reaching for it.
“Hello?” He listened, then sat up abruptly. “Just a second.” Tully pressed the mouthpiece against his chest.
“Get out,” he said sharply. The order piqued Summer. He didn’t have to be so mean. But his tone told her it was no time to pick a fight. She huffed up the stairs.