By Nancy Coggeshall
The din continued. But all he heard was the clack of sticks engaging and his own involuntary grunt as he pushed off from his opponent. The crowd roared its approval.
Now the puck was his, and he reveled in that electric thrill he felt every time his stick met the rubber disc. He skated free of his opponents toward their goal. He was alone, his linemates behind him; he knew where he was. The crease was empty, and he aimed ready to shoot.
Suddenly a player emerged from the net. His uniform was different, and he didn’t wear a mask: only a macabre, toothless grin. He looked directly at Robbie Bauer and smiled. Then he took the puck.
Robbie Bauer woke up bewildered and disoriented; his blonde hair matted with sweat, his eyes wide. His heart pounded, then calmed as he recognized the hotel room and remembered where he was. And he remembered the dream.
It was always the same. After the unidentified player appeared, Robbie could never recover the puck, and the Lancers lost the game.
The humiliation of this nightmare was unbearable, and it was prolonged if he didn’t waken. Sometimes the unknown player brought him painfully to his knees, and the agony was twofold. Besides the physical pain he suffered, there was a sense of the most abiding shame. Robbie didn’t know who the unknown player was, a situation he found unnerving like some of the “Twilight Zone” reruns he watched when he was on the road. Occasionally he thought the mystery player bore a resemblance to some of the opponents he had known in Junior A. One morning he was sure it was Gretsky, and another time he thought it was a Russian. Those guys were real though. He’d shaken hands with them after games. Recovering the puck from them was possible. You had to play heads up, but it could be done.
This was never the case with the dream phantom. The ghostly opponent skated, checked, intercepted: as elusive as a breeze. He left Robbie with the same feeling of helplessness he had known when he played hockey for the first time against his brother and the other big boys on the school rink. That day he had walked home alone crying because he was so cold, because he didn’t like defeat.
The telephone rang, startling Bauer, and he groped for the receiver. “Your wake up call. It’s eight fifteen.”
“Thank you,” said Bauer groggily.
“Have a good day.” The programmed voice rang off.
Bauer lay back in bed with his arms folded on his chest and his eyes gazing at the ceiling. He blinked several times, exhaled heavily, and then rolled over on his side. Cautiously he sat up, throwing the covers back, then eased into an upright position, and sighed.
He stepped toward the window and scowled. Debris from Sam’s late night fest littered the table, the top of the television, and the bureau.
“Sam,” growled Bauer. The body under the covers of the second bed didn’t move. “Sam.” More loudly. “Sam. Sam, wake up.” Sam groaned to his pillow.
“Sam, come on. We’re supposed to be at the hospital at ten o’clock.” Bauer moved to the other bed and shoved Sam’s shoulder.
“Watch it,” warned the mound.
“I’ll take the first shower.”
Bauer used the new electric shaver Sherry had given him for Christmas, carefully moving the shaving head over the scar that marked his debut as an NHL player. He was finished when he inserted his partial plate and combed his hair.
“Sam,” he said curtly and picked up his watch and the Stanley Cup ring on the bedside table.
“I’m up,” said Sam, raising his head from the pillow.
“Do you want me to meet you downstairs?”
“No. Give me five minutes.” The dark haired defenseman stood up. He circled the bed yawning and padded through a patch of fried rice on the floor between the television set and the bathroom door.
Bauer went over the window and parted the drapes. “Are you making a long speech tonight?” shouted Sam, turning the shower on.
“No. Not really,” said Bauer.
“I still have a hard time with that. I’m glad I only have to stand up.”
“Try not to fall down.”
“Nice guy,” bellowed Sam above the noise of the shower. “If the public only knew what a rat you are, there wouldn’t be any appearances at kids’ hospitals. They’d have you visit prisons instead.”
Bauer opened the drapes completely and looked down. The streets were edged with dirty city snow, and the sidewalks were sloppy with slush. His gaze roamed, then settled on one pedestrian, an old man who was limping.
The man’s step, his whole manner was timorous, and he stopped in front of a newsstand. His shoulders slumped, and he shook his head. Tears welled in Robbie’s eyes, and he blinked hard, then bent over and started rubbing his knee.
Sam dashed out of the bathroom naked, crooning a more explicit version of “I Want to Be Loved by You.” He slapped his rock hard stomach and looked at his form in the mirror. “Hey,” he asked, snapping his towel in Robbie’s direction. “Your knee hurt?”
“No!” Bauer barked, and both men stepped back.
Sam stared at his teammate. “Touchy?” he asked.
“Come on,” said Bauer, looking away. “Hurry up.” Sam began dressing in front of the mirror.
“I really don’t like hospitals,” said Sam Todd, later that day, spooning mustard, relish, onions, and catsup on the two hamburgers in front of him. “I can’t stand them, even when I’m hurt. I hate being there. They stink. You want this?” he said to Bauer, indicating the condiment carousel.
“Just the catsup.” Bauer smeared catsup on his own hamburgers. “It’s part of the job.”
“I know. I feel sorry for those poor kids, but we always get stuck with this one. Did you see that little, little kid in the wheelchair? Why doesn’t the Office get someone else to do it?”
Bauer looked at his friend. “Because we’re from Canada, and Uncle Larry is from Canada, and we are here in Ontario for a banquet tonight. Uncle Larry gets two Toronto gigs out of us
–three if you count tomorrow night’s game—and all he has to pay is the price of one more night in the hotel for both of us.”
“Uncle Larry has short arms and deep pockets.”
“He has to pay the bills,” said Bauer, laughing. “Are you doing anything this afternoon?” and he speared the last of his french fries.
“No,” replied Sam. “You?”
“An interview back at the hotel.”
“Let me guess. The first question will be, ‘Tell me, Robbie, how’s the knee?’”
Bauer’s eyes over the rim of his glass of beer hardened, their blue the color of a prairie winter sky.
Sam stopped chewing and gulped. “I thought something was wrong. The other day at practice you were gray when we were doing the bends.”
“The kids have had the flu.”
“Have you talked to Bones?” Bauer looked down at his empty plate. “Have you seen your doctor?” Bauer remained silent, and Sam looked at the imitation hand hewn beams that contributed to the restaurant’s rustic interior. “Did it happen when you were tripped in the St. Louis game?”
Bauer shook his head. “Maybe.” He hesitated. “When I got home, I couldn’t put any weight on my knee when Sherry and I got into bed.”
Their waitress appeared before Bauer could continue. “Can I get you something else?” she asked. Sam smiled broadly. She was a pretty brunette with white, almost translucent skin. Her willowy form and posture invited.
“No. Not for me. Thank you,” said Bauer, and he took his napkin and put it on the table beside his plate.
“Not for me either,” said Sam, leaning back in his chair while his eyes roved over her body.
“Listen,” said Bauer to his companion, who was still smiling, now at the young woman’s backside. “You don’t have to say anything about this.”
“What are you going to tell the reporter?”
“The usual.”
“What about Coach?”
“I’ll have to see. At practice tomorrow.”
“He’ll love that. Good luck.” The waitress returned to the table more timidly than before.
Three hundred voices murmured, “Amen,” and as many chairs were pulled back from the rows of tables that filled the banquet room. Robbie held the chair for the woman on this right while his eyes searched for Sam.
“Thank you so much,” she said as the room erupted with conversation. The waiter serving the head table set a tossed salad in front of the woman, giving Robbie a chance to read the place card in front of her plate. “Do you come to Toronto very often,” she asked.
She looked directly at Robbie Bauer and smiled. The face was pleasant, attractive, carefully made up. Her hair was light blonde, and her eyes an unexpected brown.
“For games. A banquet. The Children’s Hospital. Maybe a players’ meeting. About six times a year.” As he spoke, he picked up his knife to butter a roll. The knife clacked against the dessert spoon when he reached across his plate.
Mrs. Bradshaw reached for a roll too, and as she did her arm touched Robbie’s. The diamond ring she wore caught the light from all around, and her bracelets jangled as she placed the roll on her bread and butter plate. She leaned toward him, “Do you miss Canada?” she asked.
Robbie picked up his spoon and pushed it into a tired fruit cocktail. “No. Not really,” he replied, and he looked to Sam’s table in time to catch his buddy’s mocking gaze.
“I know this is silly,” she said with her hand on his arm, “But would you mind signing my program?”
Robbie swallowed a piece of sour grapefruit and a dry maraschino cherry and rested his spoon on his plate. “Should I sign it ‘To Lydia’?”
“Oh, no,” she tittered. “It’s for my son. Tim. He’s a great fan of yours,” and she withdrew a ballpoint pen from the white satin evening bag she had propped against the sugar bowl.
“He’s followed your career since the Team Canada games. When he found out I was going to be sitting beside you, he was more excited than I was. My husband was miffed. He’s introducing you. But, as far as Tim’s concerned, I’ll have special status. And with this,” she said, brushing Robbie’s fingers with hers as he handed her the pen and program, “Maybe, I can get him to clean his room.”
“Does he play hockey?” asked Robbie, picking at the salad with his fork. The din in the room was giving him a headache, and his stomach told him he should have skipped the grapefruit.
“Yes, but he’s never played organized hockey. Just on the team at the neighborhood rink.” She paused, wiping her mouth with her napkin, then genteelly replaced in her lap. “How did you like Russia?”
Robbie thought his head was in a vise. Like the one on his father’s workbench where he used to work on his hockey sticks. “It was very interesting.” He took a drink of water and shifted uncomfortably in his seat. When he settled, something fluttered on his knee.
“It must have been so exciting,” Mrs. Bradshaw intoned.
Robbie patted the pocket of his tuxedo. “I suppose so.” He exhaled heavily. The notes were still there. “It was like any other away game. It took longer to get there.” The pressure on Robbie’s knee became firmer.
“So exciting,” repeated Mrs. Bradshaw, her voice tremulous.
Robbie looked across the crowded room, wondering how long the speeches would be. Suddenly, he gasped. His face flushed. A waiter presented him with the main course, but someone else was stroking his knee.
“She what?” shrieked Sam as the two men approached the hotel entrance.
“She had her hand on my knee,” mumbled Bauer, red-faced, looking down at the sidewalk slush.
“At the head table? What next?” and Sam Todd laughed until he had to lean against the hotel wall.
“It’s not funny,” shouted Bauer.
Todd bent forward holding his arm across his chest. “It is too,” he croaked.
“It is not,” Bauer shouted again. And he cuffed his long-time roommate behind the ear.
Todd brought his torso up and swung back.
The two friends pummeled each other ineffectually until Bauer grunted involuntarily and pushed off from Sam, only to collapse against the man with one brief sob.
“Come on,” said Sam, recovering, and he supported his friend as they entered the hotel lobby.
Bauer slumped against the elevator wall with his eyes closed while Todd pushed the button for their floor, closing the doors. “How bad is it?”
“Bad enough.”
“Another operation?”
Bauer nodded his head.
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’ll be all right,” said Sam.
Bauer shook his head.
“Sure you will. You’ll be back on the ice in no time.”
“No,” said Bauer as the elevator doors opened. “This time it’s different.” He raised his eyes so that his eyes were level with Sam’s. “This time I’m afraid.”