The Western Light

by Susan Swan

  According to the reporter, Malcolm Thomas, John was able to recognize his friends and talk with the other hockey players, but he often drifted into incoherent conversations. Twice he wandered from his room at the Royal York Hotel and came back minus his topcoat and wristwatch. He said he had given them to people he met on the street.

  Things grew more serious when he jumped out of a car going forty miles an hour and got in another automobile travelling in the opposite direction. How he managed to pull this off is beyond me, although I had seen him do some extraordinary things. He must have opened the door and timed his jump like a stuntman and then raced across the highway and flagged someone down before the nurse who was driving the first car had the chance to turn around. The nurse had been taking John to the Whitby nuthouse hospital for observation. After he fled her car, he disappeared for a week until he remembered who he was and turned himself in. Two police escorted him to Whitby, where he was diagnosed as suffering from a nervous breakdown caused by the strain of the hockey season and his head injuries. A Canadian surgeon performed “a major brain operation” by cutting an opening through John’s skull to relieve the pressure on his brain. But, when John tried to return to Detroit, even though a board of twelve medical examiners had given him a clean bill of health, he was informed by the United States immigration authorities that he would not be permitted to enter the country for a calendar year because he had been a patient at a psychiatric hospital.

  John went back to Windsor. Six weeks later, the terrible fire happened.

  I read Ben’s newspaper story with indignation. It made me see all over again how unjustly John had been treated, and why he’d turned to a child like me for comfort. I believed in him, and he’d needed that. Of course, I didn’t understand his feelings then. I was hoping that he would love me in the way I had begun to love him.

  To my special friend:

  First of all, you are not twisted and awful looking. You have the biggest, kindest eyes I’ve ever seen, and your long brown hair is pretty too. Second, learning to skate is hard for everyone, no matter who they are. So use your hockey stick to help you balance. You’ll see. Skating is easier than walking once you get used to it. And don’t you pay attention to what Jordie says about slapshots. Wrist shots may be slower but they’re more accurate. Look, here are Gentleman Jack’s rules for good hockey. Number one: Stick your elbows out wide. Number two: Make sure your elbows are the only thing the player skating behind you can see. Number three: Keep the blade flat on the ice and make sure it’s in line with your body. Slide it back and forth in a straight line.

  You follow my tips and you’ll be okay. By the way, I have pneumonia. Us Pilkie men have bad lungs. So I am stuck in the Bug House infirmary, popping pills to keep my fever down. I caught the bug five days ago in the Collingwood Arena. Your daddy was none too pleased. Collingwood has the biggest, coldest arena around and I’ll be darned if those cheapskates didn’t turn off the heat. After the first period, our dressing room was like an icebox. We were all hot and sweaty coming off the ice so we got chilled and played badly. Your father chewed us out. I was shaking like a leaf and couldn’t play the third period. Toby Walker and Kid McConkley scored a goal each, but we lost the game. Your father hasn’t been in to see me yet. That’s how I know he’s mad. He expects a lot of us boys.

  I was telling you about Mr. Lewis the scout. When Mr. Lewis saw me play, he phoned my daddy. Then he phoned the coach of the Maple Leafs. The next thing I knew I was off to hockey camp for a tryout. I didn’t get a contract with the Leafs. I signed with the Oshawa Colts and that led to the Detroit Red Wings. Those years went by in a blur and players like me made more money than our daddies. So we lived it up, throwing money around and getting into trouble. Maybe you read about my hijinks, lighting cigars with hundred-dollar bills, that type of thing.

  When I was playing for Detroit, I had the eyes of the country on me plus the attention of the towns south of the border. I was free but in another way I was not free at all. When I was a kid, it was only my daddy’s expectations I carried. Then my daddy drowned when I was fifteen, and I had Mother Pilkie’s expectations on me. When I was nineteen, it wasn’t just her expectations but the expectations of the coach and the owner of the Wings weighing on me. I also had the expectations of my teammates and the fans. I didn’t want to let anybody down. Then my hockey playing stopped after my own teammate took me down in a practice game. I don’t know why. He tripped me and I fell into the boards. When I came to, I was seeing stars. I kept saying the same thing over and over: Don’t tell the coach. That made my coach laugh. He said I’d had my bell rung. He held up his fingers and asked me to count them. I counted wrong so I had to go to the Detroit hospital.

  The coach said my concussion was a badge of honour. He made me wear a helmet. It was just a few patches of leather tied together with an elastic band. I kept it on for a few games but my teammates called me a coward for wearing it so I threw it away and played bareheaded like the rest of the boys. Then I took a second hit. I had headaches for months after. I kept seeing lights feeling dizzy, that type of thing. The coach said he didn’t want any malingering. As long as he was the boss and I could move my arms and legs, I was going to play hockey. I went up to Toronto for a game. My headaches got worse up there. The coach said I had mood swings. He sent me to the Whitby nuthouse for observation. The sawbones told me I was suffering from a bleed and they put a plate in my left temple. You can’t see the scar because it’s under my hair. That was the start of my problems. The coach wouldn’t pay for my operation because my first injury happened in a practice. Then the American border guards wouldn’t let me back into the States because I had been in the Whitby hospital. They said a crazy person couldn’t play for the NHL. So Peggy and I moved to Windsor hoping I could play hockey with the Red Wings again.

  You know what happened next.

  A shrink from the Big Smoke is coming up to see me. If he likes me the doctors in Toronto will give me a review of my case. Mother Pilkie thinks it’s a done deal because your daddy promised to talk to the Toronto shrink on my behalf. So maybe I won’t be leaving here in a wicker casket like the rest of them.

  There is something you can do for me. Mother Pilkie has a cold. So I’m missing the Medonte honey she brings. The Bug House jam can’t hold a candle to it. Why don’t you and your aunt Louisa visit me in the infirmary and bring some along?

  Affectionately,

  Your special friend,

  J.P.

  37

  ON THE SAME DAY THAT FRANCE TESTED ITS FIRST ATOMIC BOMB, the seventh blizzard of our icebox winter blew in from the Bay. Its flakes were as fine as grains of rice. As silvery and light as dust motes floating in sunlight. I put on my snowsuit and galoshes and went outside to wait for the Bug House van. By that time the flakes were coming down hard and fast, and it took me longer than usual to climb aboard and take my place by Ben.

  “Snob, snob, Mary Bradford’s a snob,” the Bug House boys chanted as I sat down. Ben’s shoulder pressed mine. “Don’t listen,” he whispered as we bounced up and down, anxious looks on our faces. It was bad enough that Hindrance caused me problems, but now that it was winter and we had to take the van, Ben and I were stuck with our mortal enemies. Groan. Sigh. I wished John could scare them off the way he did that afternoon at the icehouse, but there was nothing he could do now to stop Sam and his friends calling me names.

  As soon as the boys grew quiet, I showed John’s letter to Ben. He read it twice, his eyes popping. John had never signed off “affectionately” before. I told Ben about the “Annabel Lee” poem with its line, “And we loved each other with a love that was more than love.” Did John love me, I whispered, with feelings stronger than love? I couldn’t help thinking I was puffing myself up. Ben shook his head.

  “He’s crazy about you,” Ben whispered. “You have to visit him, Mouse.”

  “You think I should?”

  “He asked you, didn’t he? I’ll come with you.”

&nbs
p; “What if we get caught?”

  “Now what are you two whisperin’ about?” Sam surprised us, breathing down our necks.

  “None of your beeswax. And it’s ‘whispering,’ not ‘whisperin’.’”

  “Is that so, Peg Leg?” Sam said. “Well, I know who you’re whisperin’ about. Pilkie! He nearly killed one of the guards last week.”

  “He did not!”

  “Did so! My dad told me, but nobody is supposed to know in case they stop Pilkie from playing hockey.”

  “Who was the guard?”

  “Sib Beaudry. John choked him with a sheet when Sib came into his cell. My dad says Sib went out cold for one whole minute.”

  “Well, Sib was asking for it. He picks on John.”

  “John! She calls him John!” Waving his arms like a conductor, Sam chanted: “Mouse Bradford is sweet on the hockey killer!” The Bug House boys chanted in the same singsong voice: “Mouse Bradford is sweet on the hockey killer.” They were still chanting after the driver dropped us off. I walked into the schoolyard, holding my hands over my ears.

  In current affairs class, I talked about the Rats making the Pickering Cup semi-finals. While the Bug House boys blew raspberries at me behind the teacher’s back, I explained how John had led the Rats to victory over the Orillia Warriors during his first game back with the team. Generally, the Warriors played so cautiously the other team went to sleep on their skates, but this time their shutdown brand of hockey didn’t work. Instead of playing slower, John skated harder and faster until he was outskating every player on the rink. Reading from The Chronicle, I quoted Kelsey Farrow: “It was a cleanly played game with the referee handing out only eleven penalties.” Before Sam could put John down for getting six of the eleven penalties, I repeated what Kelsey had told us at the Dollartown Arena: “A player who can’t get physical is no use to his team.” Everybody, even the teacher, grinned.

  By noon, the snow was a solid white wall, shutting out the street. We had to be let out early. The hospital van was waiting near the front door. The chant started again as I struggled up its steps. “Mouse Bradford is sweet on the hockey killer.” I didn’t bother covering my ears. Our van crept along behind the snowplow as we passed Dollartown Arena and the shops on the Main Street. In the falling snow, Maple Ridge was a yellow glow behind the skeleton shapes of the trees on Bug House hill. I imagined John all by himself in the hospital infirmary. Was he thinking about me? More likely, he was being bullied by Sib Beaudry. Sib deserved to be choked as far as I was concerned. I put Sam’s story in a part of my mind where I didn’t have to look at it.

  When the bus dropped me off, I told Little Louie about John inviting us to visit him.

  “Do you think they’ll let us see him, Little Louie?” I asked.

  She frowned. “Probably not, Mouse.”

  “But he’s down in the dumps.”

  “Well, you’re right about that. But there’s nothing I can do.”

  “Really? Oh, can’t you help us, Little Louie?” I cried. “I’ll just die if I can’t see him.”

  She stared at me, surprised. Then the muscles in her face relaxed. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt,” she replied. “A visit from you might do John some good. He’s pretty wound up about getting a review of his case.”

  “Will we have to throw bedsheets up to his window? And then climb up them?”

  She laughed. “Nothing so dramatic, Mouse. I’ll sneak you in the next time I do research at the hospital.”

  She grinned at my astonished face. Then she pulled out her date book and marked two Fridays from now with a big “X” and the initials “J.P.”

  38

  ON SATURDAY, TO PLEASE JOHN, I PUT ON MY SNOWSUIT AND my skates and met Ben outside. The wind was cool and damp on my cheeks and I had to talk turkey to get myself down the kitchen steps: Come on, Hindrance. Do it for John, your special friend.

  Although Hindrance hurt like anything, Ben helped me over to the rink, where both legs slid out from under me and I went face down into the wet packing snow. Ben bent over me, apologizing as if it was his fault that I couldn’t stand on my own two skates. The kitchen door burst open. My aunt rushed out and helped me up, brushing the snow off my hair and shoulders. She said she would put on some cocoa if Ben and I came back inside. I didn’t need to be asked twice.

  LATER, I TORE A CLEAN page out of my schoolbook and wrote: John wants me to learn to skate and I am trying my best. The sentence looked too long, so I crossed it out and wrote: I can’t skate very well. Next, I crossed out very well out so the shorter sentence said, I can’t skate.

  The shorter sentence didn’t feel right either so I crossed out I can’t skate and wrote: I am a failure.

  Then I took out some notepaper and wrote him a letter.

  Dear John:

  I would have written sooner except that I hoped I could say I have learned to skate. Well, I can’t stand up not even holding on to the hockey stick you made me. I wish it wasn’t true but there is no way around it. The more I try the more my leg hurts. The other night Ben tried to push me from behind but I went over on my ankles. Ben goes way too fast but then it might not matter how slow he went because I can’t get my balance. This afternoon, I tried skating without anyone around to make me nervous and I fell again. Little Louie thinks I shouldn’t skate in case I hurt my left leg.

  Maybe I will do better the next time. I am very sorry for letting you down. You don’t deserve to be treated this way when you are helping me learn what any ordinary kid can do without thinking.

  With fond regrets,

  Your special friend,

  Annabel Lee (alias Mary Bradford)

  P.S. Do you know why fathers are so mean to their daughters in old stories? We have to write a school composition about Iphigenia, the daughter of Agamemnon. He sacrificed her to get a good wind for his ship. That started me thinking about fairy tales where the daughters get the lousy jobs. Sons in fairy tales don’t have to do that, do they?

  John’s letter arrived three days later. Did he know how much I wanted to wring affection out of his words? Or maybe he did understand and pretended not to notice how eager I was for proof that he had romantic feelings for me. He was gallant that way. Or maybe he was just plain oblivious because he was becoming more and more desperate. My father and I didn’t realize what was going on, although Little Louie knew. Yes, she knew but she didn’t let on she did.

  Dear Mary:

  So you think of yourself as Annabel Lee. You have a big imagination. But look here, I’m not disappointed in you. I know you’re doing your best and your best is better than most people’s. So don’t blame yourself because you’re having trouble learning to skate. It takes more time than you’d think.

  As for daughters in old stories, I reckon their daddies were only thinking of themselves and they didn’t understand how precious their girls were to them until it was too late. Of course, daddies are hard on their boys too. Look at your great-granddaddy who got his hopes dashed because his daddy didn’t marry his mother. I figure most of us love our daddies, but one way or another we think they don’t love us. Take my daddy, for instance. I was never good enough for him. I waited for him to say he was proud of me. He never did. Your daddy is too busy to play with you. It makes me feel bad every time I think about it. And Sal’s daddy has too much fun throwing back beers to pay attention to her but don’t tell Sal I said that.

  Well now, I didn’t mean to get serious on you. Here’s hoping I’ll be up and at it soon so I can play hockey again.

  Your special friend,

  J.P.

  39

  RIGHT AFTER JOHN’S LETTER, I GOT THE CHANCE TO SEE FOR myself how Sal’s father treated her. Morley was throwing a party for his hockey team. To save money, Sal took me with her to buy bootleg beer. Afterwards, she wouldn’t admit she had done anything wrong by taking me along. She was so used to men dropping by for their bottles of Zing that she didn’t think my father would care. Maybe he didn’t. It was a lapse she would
conveniently forget, when she started drinking in earnest herself.

  Sal Takes Me to a Bootlegger

  Sal liked to call French Town “a den of iniquity,” and I’d noted in my book of true facts that this was a term for an opium den. So I was surprised that afternoon when she drove me over in our station wagon. I knew that things had changed between my father and Sal; letting her drive my mother’s old car was a sign of what would follow. And that day, Sal wanted to show off the station wagon to Tubby Dault. When we pulled in, Tubby was shovelling snow on his driveway. It was a cold day and the snowbanks rose above the top of his toqued head. Behind him stood the original cabin, which had been made out of big old wide, whitewashed logs with plaster between the logs. The Daults had lived in the log house since they paddled all the way to Madoc’s Landing from Drummond Island after the War of 1812. In the early days, their ancestors had been French-Canadian voyageurs and later soldiers with the British army. In exchange for fighting on the British side, the Daults were given lots in French Town and the log cabin had been put up by Dault men in 1822, forty years before the poor, overworked delinquent boys laid the foundation stones at the Bug House.