Amazons: An Intimate Memoir by the First Woman Ever to Play in the National Hockey League

by Cleo Birdwell

  Sanders looked around the room, locking eyes with me for about an eighth of a second.

  “Good, good game tonight,” he said. “Good game. But of course I didn’t come all this way to say good game, good game. Yesterday, the new Ranger general manager was introduced at a press conference in New York. Here, tonight, it is my pleasure as Garden president to introduce him to you, the players. I’m referring, of course, to Ahmed ben Farouky.”

  Scraping of skates. Hooded looks.

  “Benny, unfortunately, couldn’t be in New York yesterday and can’t be here tonight. He’s attending a family function in Boulder, Colorado. Funeral, I believe. I’ve met Ben and he’s most eager to assume his duties. He is a sportsman of some standing back home. On the personal level, he’s no throwback in any sense of the word. The guy eats hot dogs, drinks beer, whatever. As you know, Ben has already made his presence felt by inaugurating a system of bed checks. This is not some kind of fanatical, disciplinary action. It is simply a means by which he hopes to foster team unity.”

  Veiled glances. Snickers.

  “I’ve told Ben we still have a mathematical chance to make the play-offs. As the season winds down, I think we ought to remind ourselves of that fact periodically. Now, thanking you in advance for the warm welcome I’m sure you’ll extend to Benny, I remain yours truly, etcetera etcetera.”

  Smirks. Hooded looks. Scraping of skates.

  The next day, we flew into Minneapolis-St. Paul in the midst of the worst ice storm in years. There was a split second of visibility just before we landed and I could see about a four-hundred-car pileup on a highway. From a couple of hundred feet up, it looked like a slow-motion cartoon. Cars climbing up each other’s backs. Cars spinning out into guardrails. The heartland.

  I stayed in my room all day writing letters to practically everyone I knew. Writing letters is an exotic activity to Americans, like breeding flamingos, and it takes a great, great effort for me to get started. It is always a shock to learn that I barely remember how to write by hand. I am also at a total loss when it comes to spelling certain everyday words. I am like a child or senile person. But once I get started, letter writing becomes a fever—a great, seething excitement in which I pour everything onto the page. Emotions, ideas, confessions, jokes, sorrows, joys. The pen seems to guide my hand instead of the reverse, and I can’t write fast enough to keep up with my thoughts. All these things I never knew I knew come flying out. I sit there saying where did that come from? And that, and that, and that. Even my handwriting changes. I go from laborious near printing to a huge, free, curvaceous scribble.

  I think it was this fever of letter writing on that icy day in the Twin Cities that gave me the notion of doing this book, for better or worse.

  The game with the North Stars was the following evening. I finished the last of the letters while sopping up the room-service remains of a roast beef dinner. Then I turned on a TV show called “American Alert” with Col. Danvers Price speaking from Tulsa. Colonel Price was an earnest, bespectacled man in a business suit.

  “I am now able to provide documented evidence,” he said, “that Lee Harvey Oswald was the son of Nelson Rockefeller and Eva Braun. Let’s begin by checking the relevant ages and dates.”

  I was asleep by ten. When the phone rang, the first thing I did was find my watch and squint into its little gleaming face. Three-twenty. What does it mean?

  I picked up the phone and made some drowsy noises.

  “It is Jean-Paul. You must forgive the hour.”

  He sounded urgent and worried.

  “Okay, I forgive the hour. What is it?”

  “You must tell me you are sure you forgive the hour, Cleo, because this is a terrible thing to do, one of my own players, she is a woman, with a game that is coming up, asleep in her bed.”

  “I forgive the hour.”

  “It is all right, then, to talk?”

  “It is all right,” I said.

  “I am a desperate man, which no one understands, this disaster, except this player, she is a woman.”

  “What disaster?”

  In my half-waking state, I didn’t realize what a naive question this was. He began speaking French. That disaster.

  At least it wasn’t another bed check. The man wants to speak his native tongue, far be it from me to deny him. I turned my head to the side and closed my eyes. The phone lay near my ear. Jeep’s words were barely audible. I faded into a shallow sleep.

  Time passed. His sad, lyrical, smoky voice flowed over me. I heard him rub his knuckles on his day-old beard. He was terrifically eloquent, I thought, for the middle of the night, and even though I was floating into a dream, I was still aware of the little drama of nouns and verbs that played softly from the phone on my pillow.

  His voice grew darker, almost tempestuous, I would say. I felt I was melting in the warm rush of this cascading French. It surged into my sleep and seemed to caress me physically.

  Suddenly, a commotion. I jerked awake, not knowing exactly what was happening. Turned on a light. Looked around. Got out of bed. Grabbed my robe.

  I realized the fuss, the disruption, was something I’d heard over the phone. I picked up the receiver and said “Jeep, Jeep, Jeep,” and other obvious things. I could hear more commotion, sounds of movement.

  I didn’t know J.P.’s room number, so I put down the receiver with the idea of calling the desk, but with his phone still off the hook, I couldn’t get a dial tone. I fastened my robe and went out into the corridor, barefoot, listening for sounds of any kind.

  Total, carpeted silence. I knew some of the other Rangers had rooms on the floor above this, so my choice was either go up one flight or zip down to the desk and inquire there, maybe returning with a security person.

  I decided to investigate on my own. I went quickly up the stairwell and then slowed down as I approached the corridor. Still no sound. When I was about halfway down the hall, I heard what sounded like a French-accented voice way down near the fire extinguisher. I hurried down there, and a door opened, and Jeep came out, a little white-looking and trembly, wearing pajama bottoms and a sweat shirt. He closed the door firmly and leaned against it, as if determined to prevent something from getting out.

  “What is it?” I said.

  “I don’t know. It was dark.”

  “It was dark?”

  “I wanted to speak French to a woman in the dark. I am in the dark, you are in the dark. It is the mood, the ambience. If I am in the light and you are in the dark, it is only half the ambience. This is simple arithmetic.”

  This is simple arithmetique.

  “Okay, but what happened?”

  “There is a movement. I see a shape.”

  I retightened my robe, opened the door and stepped inside. Jeep waited at the open door. Light from the hallway fell into the room. I advanced slowly toward the far window. There it was, a low, hulking shape in a corner of the room.

  “Stay away,” it said.

  The voice of color commentator Toby Scott.

  He squatted naked in the semidark, his eyes a pair of flattened dimes. It wasn’t until I’d spoken to Jeep out in the hall that I’d begun to suspect this was what I’d find.

  “Where are your hands, Toby? Get your hands away from your middle. I want to see your hands.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t want to talk to a man who’s playing with himself. I have nothing to say to such a man.”

  “We haven’t seen you in Bible-study, Cleo.”

  “Toby, you poor, miserable, squatting fool, what are you doing here?”

  “Same as usual.”

  “Squatting.”

  “I guess.”

  “Did you get in with a credit card?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Are you wearing it?”

  “I am, yes.”

  “You’re enough to make a Christian vomit.”

  “Well, I tried to stop. I tried so ha
rd, Cleo. I stayed in my room night after night. Five cities, ten nights. I haven’t squatted since Philadelphia. Not once. But the road is so lonely. You know that. It just wears down a person’s resistance.”

  “So you started doing it again.”

  “The Spirit’s been strong in me ever since we landed in Dallas-Fort Worth. That’s a real Christian area.”

  “You’re not only doing it, you’re doing it all wrong, slipping into a man’s room by mistake.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t want to misrepresent the circumstances.”

  “Toby, what are you saying?”

  “I’ve been so lonely.”

  “You intended to squat in a man’s room?”

  “It’s hard to explain what comes over a person. I’ve admired J.P. as a man and a hockey mind ever since I’ve known him, Cleo. He’s a figure of authority, which means a lot to someone like me who’s lost and helpless on the road and who never had a strong sense of identity anyway.”

  “I didn’t come up here barefoot to examine the Roots of Anxiety.”

  “I know, Cleo, but he can be compelling, the way he prowls back and forth behind the bench, changing the flow of play with some uncanny maneuver, barking instructions to his men. I like the way he gestures with his cigarette.”

  “This is pathetic. This is a deviation of a deviation. I don’t want to hear this.”

  “I’ve always looked up to take-charge guys. When Jeep stands in the locker room after a tough game, stroking his day-old stubble, I think I’d do just about anything for him.”

  “Shut up. Just shut up, all right?”

  “You weren’t this short tempered in Philadelphia,” he said.

  “I was pretty damn short tempered.”

  “Not this short tempered. You’re really cross with me. I think you have to take a good, long look at your sexual prejudices, Cleo.”

  I peered into the dimness.

  “Where are your hands?”

  “At my sides.”

  “I want to see them.”

  “Go ahead, be snappish. But I don’t play with myself and that’s that.”

  “You just squat.”

  “When people stop making distinctions, it means dark days ahead for us all. We might as well be friends. We’ll be doing a little traveling, the two of us.”

  “We will?”

  “I’ve arranged for us to visit Death Row in San Quentin when we get to the Coast. I think you’ll find it a tremendously rewarding experience, Cleo. There are some real good Christians scheduled to die out there.”

  “I won’t have time for Death Row. I’m doing a junk food commercial when we get to the Coast.”

  “That’s a little disappointing if you don’t mind my saying so.”

  “Why should I mind, Squatting Bear?”

  “You’re getting snappish again.”

  “Look, Toby, I’m just not interested in Death Row. Those people don’t want or need a hockey player coming by to chat.”

  “Athletes are symbols.”

  “Instead of trying to convince me to go to San Quentin, you ought to be trying to think of ways to get back to your room unseen.”

  “I know. You’re right.”

  “Where is your room?”

  “Two floors down.”

  “Stay here. I’ll talk to Jeep.”

  “I appreciate that,” he said.

  I stepped outside. J.P. was standing against the wall, looking sleepy and grim.

  “Did you see my cigarettes?” he said.

  “No. Look, there’s someone in there, but it was all a mistake. What we ought to do is just let him go back to his room.”

  “What was he doing in there?”

  “Squatting in the dark.”

  “What kind of mistake do you call this?”

  “Never mind. He’s willing to go back to his room without any trouble, but you’re not allowed to be here when he leaves.”

  “You don’t smoke?” Jeep said.

  “No.”

  “Look in your robe. There might be some cigarettes that you left them in there a long time ago, when you smoked.”

  “I never smoked.”

  “What does it mean when you say I am not allowed to be here?”

  “It’s better you don’t see him. Why do you want to see him? What purpose does it serve?”

  “This is supposed to be hockey, Cleo.”

  “I agree with you.”

  “We are a hockey team.”

  “I couldn’t agree more. All I want to do is play hockey.”

  “In a way it is the most romantic game. What do you think? There is a lightness, a speed without effort. It is the skates.”

  “The ice. It’s true. Can you go stand in the fire exit there for just a couple of seconds. Jeep, and can we borrow your robe, which I promise will be returned to you first thing in the morning.”

  “I don’t have a robe. Why do I need a robe? I put my cigarettes in my pajama tops. Tonight, unfortunately, I wore a sweat shirt, it has no pockets.”

  It has no pockettes.

  I made J.P. go stand on the other side of the fire door. Then I went back inside and got a bath towel. Toby was in the same spot, crouched down.

  “Are we set?” he said.

  “Here. Wear this.”

  “I love it when he speaks French. Tonight was only the third time I’ve heard him speak French, but it was the longest stretch by far. Something just happens to me. I get the nicest, tingliest feeling.”

  “Shut up. Just keep your mealy mouth shut.”

  He draped the towel around his body, shooting me a hurt look.

  “I’m not going to ask you to make any promises,” I told him. “It’s your life, your credit card etcetera. But this is the last time I help. No more Cleo. The next time you’re trapped, you get out on your own.”

  “The Birdwells are Christians and that’s a fact.” He hunched further into the towel. I stood in the doorway watching him walk down the hall toward the far stairwell. Not the slightest hurry or worry in his stride. He might have been shopping for sandals in some tropical town.

  In Los Angeles, a man named Jeremy Phillips met my plane. We got into his Mercedes and off we went. It was early in the day.

  Jeremy Phillips was young and crisp-looking in a blue blazer, tan trousers, and a pair of expensive sunglasses. He was an account executive in the Los Angeles office of the ad agency that handled the new Kelloid snack food.

  No snow, no rain, no ice or high winds.

  “I hate hockey, but my little girl’s a fan of yours,” he said. “She’ll kill me if I don’t bring back an autograph. There’s a pad and pencil in the glove compartment.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Becky. We did the New England thing. Becky, Jonathan, Abigail. They’re holding steady. I’d hate to be one of those people who invested everything in Kim, Kelly, Tracy, and Stacy. Peaked about ten years ago. Looking like shit ever since.”

  Five minutes later, he began slowing down, right on the freeway.

  “I’m dropping you at that interchange, Cleo. You’re in good shape, so there shouldn’t be a problem making the transfer sort of on the run. Look for a red BMW. That’ll be Larry Berman.”

  “Why didn’t Larry Berman pick me up at the airport?”

  “He’s kind of high up, totemically, to be picking people up at the airport. Larry’s my boss. He heads the West Coast operation.”

  Sure enough, Jeremy Phillips came to a near stop at a busy interchange and out of nowhere a BMW came roaring alongside. Jeremy said, “Go, go,” and I leaped out, with my suitcase, into about seven lanes of careening, madcap traffic, and picked out the red car, and this Berman fellow leaned over to open the door on the passenger’s side, the BMW doing about twenty-five, the Mercedes long gone, horns blowing and amazed faces passing me like a cargo of human heads on their way to be glazed and sold to tourists. I ran alongside the target vehic
le, caught up, and jumped inside, my suitcase getting wedged briefly so that I had to pummel and knead it before getting it inside.

  “You’re doing terrific,” Larry Berman said. “Now if you’ll just reach out there and grab the door before it detaches, we’ll be okay.”

  He was about forty, this one, and wore an expensive, ultra-casual, sort of half-shaggy pullover sweater, with designer jeans and a pair of sun-gradient glasses.

  “I prefer the Alfa for this,” he said. “Leap over the top. Easy as picking cherries. But I sold the Alfa to the Shah’s sister.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Straight to the set. Get your segment done, then off to the Forum for your game.”

  We drove through a very opulent, very leafy, very well-maintained suburb. Birds twittering. Glimpses of turquoise swimming pools. Chauffeurs in pin-striped suits. Lawn sprinklers hissing. The little popping sound of tennis balls being hit.

  “This year you have a pool, a hot tub and a tennis court, but you only use one out of three. Being chic is knowing which one.”

  We passed an area full of expensive shops. Powerful cars throbbed at the curbstone. People shopped in jogging suits and sneakers. The whole thing seemed a little dreamlike.

  “One thing I’ve been mulling over,” I said. “If Jeremy had to be the one who picked me up at the airport, why couldn’t he also take me to the set?”

  “Hierarchically, it wouldn’t work.”

  “Why not?”

  “Spike Mallory’s waiting for us on the set. Flew in from New York yesterday. Spike’s the agency chairman. I deliver you to Spike.”

  “So, hierarchically, as you put it, you can’t go to the airport and Jeremy can’t go to the set.”

  “He can go all right. But he can’t deliver the goods. I deliver the goods.”

  “So in order to deliver the goods, as you call it, you’ve worked out this transfer.”