Hard Knocks

by Ruby Lang

She swallowed hard.

  “No one told me that you’d be here,” Helen said.

  A pause.

  “No one told me you’d be here, either.”

  Well.

  She looked down in her lap because looking back in the mirror meant looking at him.

  She wasn’t going to talk about his radio call, and she wasn’t going apologize about the other night. Although now that she saw him in person, solid and gorgeous, she thought that maybe he deserved some sort of ... something more. Not an explanation, either. It wasn’t like she could even understand her own reasoning. The best she could do would be to put together a flowchart of her thought processes. They could bend their heads over it and study it together.

  But for now, she should probably say something that struck the notes somewhere between lack of hard feelings, contrition, supreme indifference, and respect of their basic shared humanity. “Nice pinstripes.”

  It was the best she could come up with.

  “Thanks. You look ... uh, you look camera-ready,” he said.

  To her credit, she did not touch her coif or lick her rouged lips. She did, however, clench her fists.

  • • •

  Another encounter, another version of Helen. He had seen professional, white-coat-clad Helen. He had seen flirting Helen in the bar; naked, powerful, gorgeous Helen; and sad, vulnerable Helen. Now in the mirror, she looked immovable. Her folding chair was like a throne. Only her hands, white and tense, gave her away.

  The hands made him want her.

  He was probably in deep trouble again.

  He held on to the back of her chair and let his fingers brush her back. She didn’t flinch. He wasn’t sure if this was good or bad.

  “About the radio show thing, and the other night ...”

  “I was out of line that night. I’m sorry. But I’m still kinda mad at you about that NPR thing.”

  “Helen,” he said.

  Marin, the producer and camera operator, breezed in.

  Helen turned around. “I wasn’t told there’d be a debate. I feel ambushed.”

  “So do I,” said Adam.

  Marin smiled apologetically, as if that made up for it. “It’s not a debate. It’s more of a chance for each of you to say your piece, and if you want to respond, you both can.”

  “So it’s a debate,” Adam said, flatly.

  Helen’s mouth twisted. Whether she was trying to laugh, or whether she would cry, he didn’t know.

  *

  “Welcome to the Declan Quail Show. I’m your host, Declan Quail, and today, we’ve got a segment we’d like to call ‘Doc Versus Jock.’”

  Helen may have whimpered.

  “As you know, the Oregon Wolves hockey team is no stranger to controversy. The new arena under construction by billionaire playboy Yevgeny Molotov, subsidized with taxpayer money to house the pucksters—” Quail paused to grin at the single camera “—has encountered significant resistance. But a new, hot controversy has arisen over whether hockey should even be played in Portland at all, and we at the Declan Quail Show have an exclusive. Our guests today are neurologist Helen Chang Frobisher, author of a recent piece calling for the end of the sport, and Adam Magnus, a defenseman for the Oregon Wolves hockey team.”

  They were seated in boxy chairs around a glass coffee table. It looked a little bit like the waiting room at the practice. Maybe it was supposed to give that sort of impression. But beyond the edges of their cramped space was a mess of wires, Marin, and two earnest interns. She took a deep breath. It was like an operating theater, she told herself, and she was the—not the surgeon, not the nurse, what? The anesthesiologist? Although, judging by the way Quail was still talking after the intro, she wouldn’t be the one to put people to sleep.

  She watched Quail’s mouth open and close. His head was unusually large. It was probably good for TV.

  She tried not to think of the fact that her left knee was suddenly itchy. She knew that it was just a trick of her nerves, but her hand wandered down to the hem of her skirt anyway.

  Declan Quail seemed to be asking a question, but it was taking a long time to get to the meat of it. Plus, he was gazing into the camera instead of at his guests, so she wasn’t sure to whom his query was addressed. She gave a surreptitious jab to the itchy spot and noticed that Adam was watching the movement.

  His eyes strolled up to that spot, up her thighs. She felt a zing through her belly just as he reached that point.

  This was not the time to remember Adam’s hands playing at the hem of her green sweater that night. It was certainly not the time to recall the push of his body against her, and it was definitely not the time to shift in her chair.

  She focused her attention back on Declan Quail. Miraculously, he was still talking.

  “So Dr. Frobisher,” he was saying, “are you saying that based on your extensive studies, this House of Hockey would be founded, as it were, on the blood of these young men’s hopes and dreams? Are you saying that by building this structure, we are essentially dooming these athletes? Dr. Frobisher, I have one question for you: Do you think this arena should be built?”

  Oh dear, it seemed that she had missed quite a lot.

  “I don’t know enough to comment on the arena,” Helen said, as Declan Quail leaned toward her, hand on chin. “And it would probably not be up to code, you know, building an arena with blood.”

  She smiled weakly as she came to the end of that sentence. Declan Quail paused. She couldn’t even look over at Adam. He was probably wincing at her terrible joke. Fine! she thought. Let’s see if you can do better.

  “But what I think,” she said, raising her chin, “is that we need to concentrate on one issue here. Hockey leads to brain injury, and we need to prevent it. Lots of kids play it. Lots of them try to emulate hockey stars, who play hard because that’s what is demanded of them from the sport. Maybe calling for a ban isn’t helpful at all. Maybe we need to amend the way it’s played.”

  “But from what I understand,” Declan Quail said, “there are players whose function is simply to beat people up. Enforcers, they’re called. Wouldn’t you say that that would require a ... a sea change on the ice?” He looked pleased with that. “And who are these so-called enforcers, really?”

  “I’m one,” Adam said, easily.

  Despite her resolution, Helen caught his gaze full on. He quirked an eyebrow. He was enjoying this. Quail also switched directions and moved closer to him.

  “Fighting is a part of the game. It’s even sort of codified, if that makes sense. It’s funny to say it, but there are internal rules about how and when the altercations take place. So yes, I’ve punched people, I’ve drawn blood. But there are limits to how even we enforcers are supposed to do it. Dr. Frobisher shows a lack of understanding about just how the game works. It’s like using a sledgehammer to operate on a spine.” He turned to Helen. “You know, to use metaphors you might be familiar with.”

  She almost stuck her tongue out at him. He said, “But it’s also changing. The NHL—”

  Quail interrupted here. “NHL?”

  “The National Hockey League. The NHL has developed protocols, education, and policies in response to the danger of concussion. The sport is evolving. More pertinent to Portland, though, is the fact that this team hasn’t had a chance to prove itself, and we can’t if we aren’t given room to grow.”

  “Do they deserve a chance, though? And at what price? Several million taxpayer dollars paid over to a playboy billionaire Russian?” He paused and glowered at the camera. “We’ll be back after the break.”

  As soon as the light went off, all three of them slumped in their seats. “Thanks, good work so far,” Quail muttered. He closed his eyes.

  Helen began to tug at the microphone. “What are you doing?” whispered Adam.

  “I am trying to leave,” she said, not looking at him. “I should never have agreed to this. I’m done. I’m tired.” She stopped pulling and let her hands drop. “I said I changed my mind
about the issue on air. I don’t care either way about the arena, and I wish you didn’t have a job that gets you beat up, but I have no right to tell you what to do even though I want to all the time. I don’t think anyone’s paying attention to my crackpot editorial except our friends and a few anti-arena people trying to make this a story, so hopefully there’s limited damage. But you were right. It’s personal. I was wrong. I hurt you and I’m sorry. It was personal all along.”

  “Helen,” he said.

  “When you’re a doctor, people tell you to be objective. I have never been good at that and I don’t know why I thought I was with you. I’m not usually such a hothead. You’re supposed to be the fiery one, the one who gets into fights. But instead, you’re so ... so reasonable.”

  “What every man longs to hear about himself. Adam, you’re a hyena in the sack and you’re so, so ... reasonable.”

  She laughed, a short, soft bleat that sounded forlorn, even to her.

  He seemed to be about to say something, but one of the interns had come up and was fussing with the microphone that Helen had halfheartedly tried to remove.

  The countdown began again, and Quail sat up abruptly, as if he’d swallowed an elixir that reanimated his corpse. He smiled at the camera. “Hello and welcome back to the Declan Quail Show. I’m your host, Declan Quail.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  “Let me walk you to your car,” Adam said.

  The show was over. Quail had shaken hands and gone to scrub off his makeup. Martin offered them more water and made a threat to have them on again. Now it was just Adam and Helen and two interns rushing back and forth to clean up and leave.

  The last thing Helen wanted to do was talk. She had just spent the last forever yakking away. But Adam had splayed his hand on the small of her back and was guiding her through the hallway and out the door. And she just wanted to lean back into him and enjoy it. But, of course, she couldn’t.

  The air was cool and fresh, and Helen breathed it in deeply and gratefully. She noticed that Adam did the same.

  Now that it was over, she felt strange and hollow, as if she’d pushed herself to the edge of something important but that nothing in particular had happened. Nothing except that maybe instead of relaxing the way Joanie had coached her, Helen had stiffened progressively until she resembled her own shiny and shellacked TV hair.

  Joanie would be disappointed.

  Helen was going to have to get used to a lifetime of disappointing Joanie.

  Adam had pulled a dark knit hat over his head. His coat, she noted when her hand brushed him briefly, was soft wool. She paused just outside the door of the television studio and frowned as she tried to remember where she had parked her car.

  His hand dropped. “I’d feel better if you let me go with you,” he said.

  “Yes, I would, too. I ...” She laughed nervously. “I just need a minute.”

  His presence wasn’t helping her. It wasn’t that she was dying of lust. But she suddenly wanted to give him something, something that would have him remember her. She would probably never see him again after this.

  Then again, she’d had that thought before—a few times, at least.

  She decided on a direction, and they set out across the parking lot. He hadn’t tried to touch her again or speak to her. And despite her yearning to do something, she did not reach out, either.

  After a somewhat roundabout walk, which was partly due to the fact that Helen was usually absentminded about these things, and partly due to the fact that she found Adam’s presence distracting, they arrived in front of her car. It took another few minutes for her to find her car keys.

  “I’m curious,” he said, holding the door open for her.

  He had good manners, she thought again. He had sung in a choir. He beat people up, and his forehead was still scarred. Nothing about him made sense to her. Nothing about her reaction to him made sense.

  “Why this, Helen? And don’t put me off with talk about your duty as a doctor. Something about this makes you afraid.”

  “Like I said in front of a camera and two interns who were pretending to mind their own business, I care about what happens to you.”

  He laughed shortly and pushed his hands through his hair. “No, we both know that’s not it—or at least, it’s not the only thing.”

  She had hurt his feelings, she could tell by the flex of his jaw, the downturn of his mouth. Her answer had been too quick, too flippant. And he, the big man, was trying to cover it up.

  She could be brusque. She could tell him the interview was over, the cameras were off. She wanted to touch his shoulder, his cheek, run her finger along the bump on his nose. But it would hurt him more to pretend that they were to be that way with each other. It would never work.

  Honesty. That was what she owed him.

  “Get in the car,” she said.

  He was too big for her old Honda. He slid down immediately to try to make himself smaller, to make it seem like he wouldn’t burst out of the roof, shoulders first. He was often trying to make himself look smaller, she realized, except on the ice. It was probably nice to have one place where he wouldn’t have to try to make himself less—even if that place was a cold rink full of hostile men with sticks.

  She swallowed.

  “My father,” she began. Unexpectedly, tears welled up and she was mortified. “My dad doesn’t like sports,” she whispered. She turned toward the window so that he wouldn’t see. “I mean, not the way most people like sports. He didn’t golf; he barely tolerated my brother’s hockey games. He was doctor. Like me. I didn’t think he even knew anything about sports, aside from the injuries that you could get from it. He had this thing about trampolines, I remember. Hated them. Thought they should be banned. Like father like daughter, I guess.”

  Adam laughed softly, and it made Helen feel a little calmer.

  “But I remember watching the opening ceremonies of the Atlanta Olympics. I thought he was reading or maybe eating dinner, or something, I don’t know. But when it came time to light the torch, I remember that they brought out the boxer, the former heavyweight champion of the world, Muhammad Ali. And beside me, I heard my dad breathe in this awed voice, Cassius Clay. It was ... striking to hear my dad say that, for him to know that. I’d never heard him speak that way about anyone. I don’t even know how to describe it to you. But at some point, he had followed boxing. At some point, he had watched Ali before he changed his name from Cassius Clay, and clearly, my dad had idolized the man when he was a kid, when he was the age that I was. It was like I had discovered something completely different about my father, like there was something clandestine that he had kept from us. It was like he’d announced he had a secret second family or something. Or maybe, it was the first time that I figured out that my dad had a whole life that didn’t involve me. That he was a person. And worse, that cherished memory of Muhammad Ali was now ... well, the man had become frail.”

  “I think I remember that,” Adam said. “Ali was shaking as he lit the torch. His limbs, his face. He has Parkinson’s or a form of it. It was ...” He hesitated. “Maybe brought on by all those hits he took, right?”

  “Parkinsonism,” said Helen, distantly. “Atypical Parkinson’s. And who knows if it was because of the boxing or a car accident, or anything. Some people take hard hits and are fine. Some take a few low-impact ones and develop CTE. But you can’t prove anything unless you perform an autopsy. And even then ... There’s this vast middle stretch when someone is alive, when the body is there and it is failing and the mind is locked in, becoming frailer. And you don’t know what to do—there’s nothing you can do to stop it. You can only watch.”

  A pause. “So not only was I discovering something about my dad that I’d never imagined, I was watching something that had maybe crushed him, changed his worldview. He really grieved to see Ali—Cassius Clay—in that condition. And I, well, I found that that opened up the door to ask questions about other parts of his life, his past. It turned out he wa
s a boxer when he was younger. I should have seen it, probably, the scars, the broken nose. I never really questioned him before that point. And then I had a lot of other questions after that, not just about sports but also about how strange we were—how strange our family seemed compared to everyone else. I never thought of the fact that even though my dad’s parents—my grandparents—lived in the same small town, we never really saw them or talked about them or that it was because they were upset that he’d married my mom, who is of Chinese descent. There’s so much I don’t know about what happened to my dad, and the worst is not knowing what gave him this disease or knowing what to do about it. I’ve turned it over in my head so often, and I suspect it was a series of minor hits over the years from boxing, from accidents. But it could have been stress, or genetics could play a part, too. I’ll never know for sure, and that kills me.”

  • • •

  Adam saw her tears in the reflection of the window. He resisted reaching for her.

  “My dad’s disease makes him go in and out,” she said. “Maybe that’s worse because it makes me think that something will just click back into place and he will be back. Sometimes, we’re on the telephone and he’ll be asking me about my practice, how many patients I see, how old most of them are, what do they do. We’ll have a professional conversation. And then I’ll forget. I’ll start asking him for advice on something or another, how to handle a difficult patient, what to do when someone gets too personal, how I should talk to someone’s family, and I’ll realize that he’s hung up the phone or he’s simply left it or he’s dropped it. That he has lost control of his muscles and can’t move his jaw or his tongue. I’ve forgotten that he can’t do things. That’s almost cruel. And the worst thing is, I know. I’m a doctor. I know exactly what this is, what this is going to be, and still, I forget.”

  He did touch her this time, once, his fingers to her elbow.

  “He was always there when I needed him,” she said. “That’s such a cliché. It’s not even accurate—he was busy. But he always had a solution to problems, some that hadn’t even been formulated. He thought about the things that I told him. When I went away to school, he’d send me notes that he’d written in the middle of the night when everyone else was asleep, just things that occurred to him that he hadn’t told me before then. He had pretty good handwriting and very bad eating habits. He wrote on a lot of fast food napkins. I wish I’d saved them. I never thought I’d have to.”