Seven

Coward. Coward. Coward. The word pulsed in my head for a week and a half before I began to miss him. The pounding subsided, but didn’t stop. It still stayed, but only at the quiet times. The rest of the time I devoted myself to hockey and the techniques therein.

Recipe for instant media success: Go to the rink early, stay late. Skate endless laps. Fire puck after puck after puck into the open net, trying to see how loud I could make the net thock on contact. As a result, play better, harder, faster. Watch as the media swarms about you, declaring the Olympics “inspiring for performance” and the break itself “refreshing and invigorating.” As a result, watch helplessly as someone you think you might love pops into your thoughts at surreal times.

I’d sit around cooking myself dinner, and suddenly my mind’s eye would see him walking around his kitchen. Driving home from a game, thinking about my performance, and I would see him gliding around on the ice like he’d been born with skates. Lying in bed and thinking about how good he made me feel.

Days passed when I thought of watching him, wanting to be inside his mind and think and feel as he thought and felt, wondering. Nights passed with me soaked in sweat, wanting to satiate myself and my lust in his body. I have never wanted to badly to be allowed to proceed to Buffalo. Weeks passed.

On March fifteenth we flew to New York to play the Islanders, and it wasn’t until Coach mentioned his name that I realized who I would be playing.

Mariusz Czerkawski. Bells went off in my head when I realized that I would have the incredible chance to punish Mariusz so bad, he’d be back to Poland on the red-eye. I could knock him into next week, and I definitely would. If eye-gouging and other forms of torture hadn’t been long outlawed in the league, I would have been sharpening my nails.

We landed in New York an hour after my vows.

Ok, OK, I admit it. I was a chicken and a loser. Halfway through the first period, I suffered pangs of conscience so bad that I had to go to the locker room and sit down. I thought I was going to pass out after a particularly bad hit, so I had to kind of crumple down and act dazed in order to get a free do-not-pass-go-do-not-collect-$200 to the dressing room.

“Any pain, lightheadedness, sickness, dizziness, or anything of the like before the game?” the doctor asked cheerfully. Well, I got a little lightheaded when I thought about Miro, but I really didn’t think that’s what he was talking about.

“Uhh, no.”

“Statistically speaking, nothing is wrong with you. Go back out there,” he barked, in a cheerful tone. It’s hard to describe, but it’s kind of like he was telling me to get over my bad self, I was just faking it. Which, to be frank, I was.

I stalked back out onto the ice, and that was it. I had no more resolve left to hit Mariusz, or even go near him for the entire rest of the game. Result: I was chewed out royally at the end of the game.

“Good JOB Hoss, I doubt you could have been any MORE of a DAMN WUSS! You think that maybe if you WENT NEAR Czerkawski you could have gotten the puck and they wouldn’t have SCORED A GOAL? I THINK SO!” Combined with a thick Swedish accent that was getting heavier by the minute since he was so worked up, it was a frightening diatribe.

“I know.”

“And your excuse? Assuming, of course, that you actually have one?”

“I, uh,” I faltered. “I guess I don’t have one.

“Brilliance, Hossa. Absolutely excellent. Have fun if you get benched.” My dear captain Alfreddsson stalked off with a few things that I assumed were nasty Swedish epithets.

I crawled back to my locker, feeling very, very small. So apparently I had let not only myself but the team down. I peeled off my gear.

“Dude, that sucks. You going out for dinner? Or staying in our room?” Bonkie asked. I shrugged my shoulders.

“Room service again?”

“Nope, there’s a microwave in my room and I brought some of my spaghetti.” God, why does he enjoy tormenting me? Bonk adores Italian food, and he makes this spectacular spaghetti sauce with onions and peppers and cilantro that would make an Italian weep. He knows that I am powerless in front of it.

“Yes, of course then.” I followed him back to his room, where he promptly served spaghetti and meatballs that were, as always, to die for.

“And then he was all blabbity blabbity BLAH, what do you think you’re DOING, and I was fuck off you damn idiot! And then, it was horrible,” Bonk finished, mouth full. He also has this horrible knack for telling long, boring stories while eating. At least it lets you concentrate on his food.

“Hey, Radek?” He looked up at me, surprised, especially because I couldn’t remember the last time I’d called him by his first name. He has stories about me, when drunk, completely forgetting his name, but I’d like to let those slide.

“Yes? I hope this is a compliment about my incredible cooking.”

“Well, it’s not. See. Um. Oh God.”

“Please don’t tell me something really awful, like you belong to a terrorist group, or you rape little puppies, or are otherwise evil.” Instead of strengthening my resolve, Bonk kind of tumbled it down a little bit.

“Well, no.” I coughed. “What would you do if I, hypothetically, told you I was gay?” Damn. DAMN. How did I find that resolve? It certainly wasn’t with me at other times, like at that auspicious moment when I had been itching to tell Miro I loved him and couldn’t quite squeak the words out.

“Hypothetically? I don’t know. I’d probably say, ok, that’s nice, now can I get back to my story? And don’t tell me you’re in love with me.”

Thank God.

“Well, um, what if I told you that I was gay?”

“Dude. Did you NOT just hear me? I said, please don’t tell me you’re in love with me and then let me get back to my story, because it was really interesting,” he smiled. Cheerful. Because he could be normal and he didn’t have to think about things that were a little bit scary all the time.

“No, I, I have to make a phone call. You have to leave. Please, Bonkie? I swear I’m not in love with you.”

Bonk looked at me strangely, but picked up his paper plate and plastic fork and dumped them into the trash on the way out. “I’ll be in Marty’s room.” Martin Havlat. I prayed he wouldn’t tell him.

I dialed.

“Hello?”

Slovakian streamed out of my mouth. “I let you down, I let you down, I want you back, I want you with me, so badly.”

“I know.”

“I don’t know what to do.”

“I know. I want you too.”

“I think I love you.”

Silence on the other end. Please, no, Miro, please. I wanted him to say something back. I wanted it that badly.