The Meaning Of Hockey, Chapter 25

The mood on the team bus as they drove south on Highway 2 was upbeat for the first time since the season began. A losing streak saps energy and creates negative thoughts that permeate every aspect of your being. Getting the win that ends the streak is like having an orgasm for the first time in a month. But like having an orgasm doesn’t make a good relationship, one win doesn’t make a good team.

And being called Dad twice doesn’t make me a good father. How could I blow it that badly?

As the team enjoyed the pleasant afterglow of their win, Bobby stewed in the juices of his conversation with Mike.

Should have gotten off the phone like I planned. He said I could think about.

Instead Bobby had reacted to his son’s question by telling him a story.

Inappropriate. At a minimum the story was inappropriate. He must think I’m completely weird.

From the moment he climbed aboard the bus, Bobby analyzed his words by playing and replaying bits as if the story existed on a DVD in his brain.

First time I ever saw a room full of naked men — I guess they were somewhere between boys and men — was when I moved to Moose Jaw when I was fourteen. Before that season of midget we’d always come to the rink dressed to play or just go down to our underwear before putting on our equipment. In Moose Jaw, all of a sudden, you were expected to take a shower after the game.

Wasn’t too bad. He probably is interested in details about his old man.

I remember being embarrassed at first. I averted my eyes from looking at their private parts, but then after a few times, curiosity got the better of me. At that age, you’re uncertain about how you rate with the rest of the boys in the length and shape department. As a hockey player you learn pretty quickly that there’s a wide variation in everything, even in color.

That’s just plain weird.

I remember that one of my midget teammates, he would have been fifteen or sixteen, had a cock and balls that were almost pitch black. I thought that was the weirdest thing on a white guy. Not that I ever had a black teammate. Anyhow, this kid’s tools really intrigued me and like the naïve 13-year-old rookie I was, I guess I stared. The team loudmouth, Billy Watson, catches me staring and next thing I know he’s shouting for everyone in the dressing room to hear. ‘Hey, Frenchy’s got a thing for Musgrove’s cock.’

Did Mike think I was questioning his sexuality?

‘Hey, Frenchy’s got a thing for Musgrove’s cock.’ Well, shit I almost died. I almost quit hockey then and there. I’ve never been so embarrassed in my entire life. Watson starts taunting me, yelling so everyone can hear, ‘what’s so special about Musgrove’s cock’ and ‘you got a thing for black meat’ and ‘go ahead suck it, he’ll pay you five bucks for it.’ Everyone is laughing and whistling and I don’t know what to do. Finally, I just dress and leave the room while everyone is still laughing at me.

He never said a word. Just listened. What was going through his brain?

That night, the next day, all I can think about is having to go back into that dressing room and taking my clothes off. I don’t want to do it. If I had been given a choice, I’d have picked an hour of electrical shocks to my testicles over undressing in front of those guys again. Going into that dressing room after practice the next night was one of the hardest things I ever did, but I did it. It was one of those defining moments in your life that you never forget.

He must have been thinking that I’m full of myself.

Looking back on it, it was pretty stupid. I mean, I took my equipment off and my underwear and I took my shower and I toweled off and put my clothes on and no one said a word. Watson looked my way at one point and I just stared straight at him. Some people said I had Rocket Richard’s eyes and I guess I must have looked like I was going to pull the tongue out of the first guy who said anything to me. It was a good lesson in mental toughness. You look back and think about all the things you had to go through on the road to making it in the NHL and that wrinkly black cock is one of the things that stands out for me.”

Not that it’s a bad story. Just that the point of it has nothing to do with what Mike was asking. What was he asking? Truth is I didn’t listen. Need to listen. Instead, I talk like I’m the featured guest at a never-ending banquet. Talk to overcome my nerves, that’s what I do. Talk so I don’t have to listen. Make every damn thing fit into some ridiculous tall tale. Some damn story I’ve told a hundred times. He wants a father, not an after-dinner speaker.

I’ve got to think of something else.

Bobby sucked in a fresh gulp of stale bus air. Think about your team. They won. You won.

Billy Weldon enjoyed the game against Red Deer enough that he agreed to also play against the Lethbridge Hurricanes. He made no permanent commitment, but both father and son seemed to be leaning towards the goalie’s return to the Western Hockey League. That was good enough, right now, for Bobby.

Running a hockey team is really a kind of confidence game, he thought. Fans, coaches, players and owners all want something different from the game, but they all need to be confident. The key to a successful team is inspiring a chain of confidence. For example, so long as Bobby was able to inspire confidence in Weldon that playing hockey would be enjoyable, not stressful, his performance in goal would inspire the rest of the team into believing that they could win any game. The team’s confidence would lead to improved performance, which in turn would lead to more confidence and even better performance. The team’s better performance would lead to more confidence among individual players and coaches and this would as well lead to more wins. The victories would inspire confidence in the fans that they could spend their hard-earned dollars and not be disappointed when they came to a game. And if the fans paid their dollars, he, as the owner, would be confident about the team’s future and he could spend some more money on better players and the team would improve even more.

The problem was, like any confidence game, success depended on conviction all along the chain. If the players lost confidence, or the coaches, or the fans, or most likely, the owner, then confidence would disappear everywhere. And nothing was as hard to reclaim as confidence lost. In fact, it was better never to have had confidence at all, than to lose it.

Bobby lay on his bed, staring at the walls of the concrete high rise Lethbridge hotel located on the highway south out of town. He knew, unless sleep came soon, the night would be like that classic Irish novel a goalie once told him he must read: pointless and full of endlessly boring, though also interesting, thoughts and images.

The clerk at the front desk was strikingly beautiful. Maybe the most gorgeous Indian woman he had ever seen.

What were the native people around here? Blackfeet?

She was too young for him. Probably in her early or mid-twenties. That would not have been too young only a few years ago.

Bobby was fairly certain she had given him a look of interest. It was a look that would have, once upon a time, kept him somewhere other than alone in his room.

He imagined what her body would look like. Undressing her. That blue dress with buttons down the front. Each one undone reveals another element of her beauty. The round smooth skin of her shoulder. The softness above each breast.

What Frida did not know would not hurt her.

The idea of sex was still stimulating. His imagination worked fine. The masturbation muse. Reality was the problem — actual existing women with their desires and needs to be fulfilled.

Sex is a hassle, that’s the truth. Too much work compared to what you get out of it. Dreaming and fantasizing and watching the porno channel is a whole lot easier.

But, thought Bobby, maybe he felt that way because the only kind of sex he knew was the casual, stress-inducing variety. Maybe if he felt really comfortable with someone it would be different.

Frida. How to get from terrified to comfortable?

When did single and free become without family and miserable? Somehow that had crept up on him. Why had he never settled down? How could he blame hockey when lots of the guys he played with had families? Some were even good husbands and fathers.

Truth hurts. Made choices. Noticed the looks from front desk clerks and acted on them. Or more often preferred the autonomy of fantasy to the duties of reality.

He had enjoyed the freedom and the fucking, but it had come at a price. The tab for too many good times was a life sentence of solitary confinement.

Frida.

He picked up the phone and dialed Vancouver.

“Hello,” said Frida.

“Hi,” said Bobby. “Did I wake you?”

“No, just reading in bed,” said Frida. “Where are you?”

“Lethbridge,” said Bobby. “I can’t sleep. It’s been months, I think.”

“You lose again?”

“No, we won,” said Bobby. “That goalie I told you about, Billy Weldon, had a great game.”

“That’s wonderful,” said Frida.

“Ya,” said Bobby.

“So why can’t you sleep?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I guess I’ve got too many things on my mind.”

“What sort of things?” she said.

“Mike, mostly.”

“What happened?”

“He agreed to give me a chance to be his Dad,” said Bobby.

“That’s terrific.”

“Ya, but he has one condition,” said Bobby. “I’ve got to be prepared to answer any questions he throws at me. Stuff about what it’s like to be a real man. You know, someone who didn’t grow up in a family of dykes.”

“That worries you?”

“Already blew his first question tonight,” he said. “He asked me something about how he was supposed to feel in a room full of naked guys and I got so nervous I babbled on and on.”

“Babbled?”

“Told him one of my stories. It’s like I can’t just have a conversation, I have to tell a story.”

“And?”

“It wasn’t really a story about what he was asking.”

“He said that?”

“I was too nervous to let him say anything. Told him I had to get on the bus.”

“So how do you know Mike didn’t like the story?”

“It was stupid.”

“But how do you know that’s what he thought?”

Bobby shrugged, even though that was a useless thing to do when you’re on the phone.

“Maybe he liked the story,” said Frida. “Maybe he just wants to hear his father talk. Maybe he doesn’t expect you to have all the answers. Maybe he’s nervous too and it would make him feel more at ease if he knew you felt the same.”

Wise woman. Stupid man.

“Why can’t I be smart like you?” said Bobby.

“Mike doesn’t want a psychologist. He wants a father.”

Maybe.

Bobby shrugged again, then another thought blew in like the chinook wind that had sent the temperature soaring in southern Alberta.

I’m the one who wants the psychologist. More than want. Desire. I desire this psychologist.

Next Chapter: Friday

The Meaning of Hockey runs three times a week for 16 weeks exclusively on The Tyee. To offer advice, to criticize or to reserve your printed copy of The Meaning of Hockey email Gary Engler.