"Ain't it good to know that you've got a friend when people can be so cold? They'll hurt you and desert you and take your soul if you let them. Oh, but don't you let them."—You've Got a Friend, Carole King, 1971.
Take Your Soul
"Delicious meatloaf, Buzz," Rizzo, back to his hearty self, shouted across the common room, where the entire team was assembled. It took creativity to fit them all, but they managed it, jamming into couches and chairs, perching on the wings of furniture, squeezing onto the windowsill and radiator, or sprawling on the shaggy carpet.
It wasn't exactly comfortable, being crammed together like eggs in a carton, but it was cozy. Even the flimsy paper plates laden with mashed potatoes and meatloaf that were balanced precariously on their knees and the bendy plastic forks they clutched in their hands felt right. Sometimes there was more pleasure to be found in eating a friend's culinary experiment in a room where most of the furniture could have been scavenged from a dump than in taking delicate bits of filet mignon off a porcelain platter in a gleaming dining room.
"Thanks." Buzz smiled. "It's my mom's recipe, but, of course, it didn't come out nearly as tasty as hers does."
"No son's best efforts at cooking can compete with his mother's," remarked Bah. "It's one of the greater tragedies of life, or at least mine. I'll try to follow Mom's directions on how to cook something, and I'll always end up with some black stuff nobody would want to eat if they were dying of hunger burned to the bottom of the pan."
"Yummy," observed Pav dryly, wrinkling his nose to indicate that he meant the total opposite of what he had just said and actually thought what Bah described revolting.
Rob couldn't help but stare at Pav, who was much more of an expert at communicating with gestures than with words. As a rule, he did not speak unless he was spoken to, and, even then, only if a non-verbal response wouldn't suffice. Of course, Buzz and Bah, the other players from Minnesota's northern mines known collectively as the Iron Range, did have a knack for drawing the tortoise that was Pav out of his shell. Sometimes Buzz or Bah could extract a whole sentence from Pav, which was the equivalent of getting anyone else to make an inspirational speech.
"At least we'll get a yummy dinner on Christmas," Silk put in, and beneath his cheery grin, Rob thought he saw how much the idea of having a lonely Christmas with poorly cooked food had been weighing on Silk's mind. "Or we should, anyway. Germans do know how to make a Christmas dinner, don't they?"
"Doc is Estonian." Verchota shot Silk his glare that announced louder than words his opinion that people who had no notion what they were talking about should remain silent, sparing everyone else the aggravation of listening to their stupidity. "But if you doubt that his wife can make a meal better than yours, just stay here by yourself and enjoy whatever you can cook up."
"You bet Germans like Christmas, Silky," added Buzz, his light tone making it hard to figure out if he was offended, but Rob supposed that he must be. The Iron Range was packed with families whose ancestors had immigrated from Germany and Yugoslavia, so Buzz would have to take Silk's question about Germans personally, the way Silk would have to be affronted on behalf of the Irish and Italian population of Boston if Buzz asked whether there were any Italians not affiliated with organized crimes or Irish not lost in their cups. "We invented the Christmas tree, don't you know?"
"That's better than anything the Scots-Irish came up with to celebrate the holiday," Rob commented, grateful that, in America, it was always acceptable to crack a joke at the expense of your own ethnicity. Awkward moments would stretch into infinity without that socially sanctioned bigotry. "We still can't figure out why haggis never caught on over here. To us, it's a real mystery why hot dogs and sausages are so popular, but everybody gages at the mere suggestion of eating haggis."
"What's haggis?" Silk sounded as if he already realized the answer would be disgusting but he couldn't prevent himself from seeking out the revulsion any more than a driver could stop rubbernecking a gruesome three car pile-up on the highway.
"You don't want to know," Bill Baker informed him firmly. "Especially not while you're eating. Bad for the digestion, if you take my meaning."
"You don't even want to find out a few hours later." Verchota, in the fashion of roommates and best friends everywhere, continued seamlessly where Bill had left his thought hanging. "You might revisit dinner in the most sickening way."
"You guys are so gross." O.C. snorted. "I'm just happy I'm near a window so I can make a quick escape from it all."
"That's so nice of you to say, Jack." Jim fixed his coldest blue stare on his old teammate from BU. "Jokes about suicide are never in bad taste, because it's always sensitive to laugh about leaving your friends and family when dying people everywhere are begging for just one more second with theirs."
"As you say, I was joking," O.C. snapped, stabbing at his meatloaf. "Maybe if you learned how to take a joke, you'd have more friends, Jim."
"Oh, and how do you make friends?" retorted Jim. "Do you just walk up to them and punch them in the face?"
Rob expected Rizzo or Silk to intervene to end the squabble between the other BU boys, so he was rather surprised when it was Janny who said, "Could we please stop fighting? It's Christmas time. I don't expect world peace any time soon, but peace during a team dinner would be nice and doable."
"Better do what Janny says before he starts reciting the passages from Isaiah about the lion laying down with the lamb," teased Christoff, eyes gleaming. Since Janny's parents were evangelical Christians whose missions in life (as far as Rob understood) were to convince as many people as possible to accept Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior, he got a lot of ribbing from teammates who, like Rob, came from more traditional Christian backgrounds and couldn't imagine attending church out of enthusiasm instead of duty.
"Or the prophecy about the Prince of Peace being born to rule over a dominion that is vast and forever peaceful." Strobel chuckled. "That's a particular favorite of my pastor's. He worms it into every Christmas sermon."
"You can laugh." Janny sighed. "But all your parents wanted you to do in church was stand and sit at the right times, and sing along tunelessly to the responsorial psalms. My parents wanted me to be genuinely excited by the Scriptures and singing."
"That's rough." Mark winced in sympathy. "It's hard to listen to people who think God would rather spend a Sunday morning doing a responsorial reading from the Bible than playing pick-up hockey at the pond."
"You're such a rebel." Caught between admiration and horror at this radical statement that came dangerously close to disrespecting God, Who was probably going to hurl a lightning bolt into the room to show His displeasure any second now, Rob grinned nervously. "If I ever experience a crisis in faith, I'll blame you."
"I'm not a total heathen." Mark blushed. "I believe in God and heaven, but I just think that if God is a Father, He should have a sense of fun, and if heaven exists, it should be like a never-ending hockey game."
"I had enough experience with a never-ending hockey game in Norway." Rammer rolled his eyes. "If that's heaven, I'll take my chances with hell."
"Herbies are heavenly." Neal Broten wore an expression of exaggerated rapture. "I guess I really had died and gone to heaven when I was in Oslo, but I confused it with hell, so God kicked me out for my ingratitude and sent me back to earth."
"There are no more Herbies in heaven, and in heaven, no matter how long you skate, you don't get tired—you can skate forever as hard as you want and not grow exhausted." Mark fiddled with his fork. "You guys might not share my idea of heaven, but you don't have to mock it. I don't poke fun at any of your religious beliefs."
"Let's focus on the beliefs we share, not the ones we don't," Rizzo suggested before Neal or Rammer could reply. "I'm sure than Christmas means a lot to all of us, so why don't we do something to make it extra special this year?"
"A group reading of the Song of Solomon?" Cox smirked. "That book is steaming with hot images."
"Get your mind out of the gutter." Rizzo shook his head and went on, "I was thinking we should do a Secret Santa. You know, we'll just write our names down, dump them in a hat, pull them out, and then get a present for whoever we pick out of the hat. We can have the exchange at Doc's party."
"It has to be gag gifts," O.C. stipulated. "We don't want to do anything heart-warming, or people might start thinking we don't hate each other's guts."
"Gag gifts are always a riot." Cox snickered as if he were already plotting prank presents for everyone in the room.
"Who doesn't need a laugh these days?" Buzz shrugged. "Gag gifts sound good to me."
Rizzo paused for a moment, and, when nobody voiced a disagreement, announced, "All right. I'm going to pass around a pen, a stack of papers, and a hat. Write your name on a piece of paper, put the paper in the hat, and pass everything onto your neighbor. Remember to write a name that will differentiate you from anyone else on the team who shares your first name."
"So I'm Mark J.," Mark stated wryly. "Brings back happy memories of elementary school."
As the paper stack, hat, and pen made its slow progress around the room, Janny asked, "Are we going to get the coaches anything? I mean, we don't want to offend them, do we?"
"Herb might be more offended by getting a gag gift than not." Morrow's forehead furrowed. "Has there ever been any proof that Herb has a humorous bone in his body?"
"I've documented it myself," answered Silk smoothly. "Most of his Brookisms are hilarious in a twisted way. That's why I started preserving them for posterity. Maybe we should give him the journal of his favorite sayings."
"He'd murder us." Bah shook his head. "I'd like to live long enough to see the New Year, if it's all the same to you, Silky."
"It might be safer to get him a murder weapon." Christoff's face was all craftiness. "Like a belt. That's what my dad would break out when he said he was going to kill me."
Around the room, there were appreciative chuckles, and Rob forced himself to join in, although the concept of the belt as an implement for anything other than holding up pants terrified him more than it amused him. When he was younger, he had seen in the locker room enough of the welts a belt could leave on a teammate's thighs that if his father's hand drifted toward his belt during an argument, Rob would decide he wanted to do nothing more than apologize and banish himself to his room for however long it took for his parents to determine his punishment.
To this day, he didn't know if that was cleverness or cowardice, but he did understand that being hit with a belt was no laughing matter. Yet, if he didn't laugh, he might end up admitting that he had never felt the sting of his father's belt, and that would probably mark him as a spoiled brat…He couldn't allow that. His parents had raised him with the perfect combination of high expectations and encouragement, freedom and restriction, sternness and gentleness. Any character flaws he had were his own fault, not an indictment. People could insult him all they liked, but they couldn't drag his parents into it. Dad worked too many hours a week in a stressful courtroom to make the money it took to provide a future for four sons, and Mom spent her days cooking, cleaning, and doing the myriad tasks required to make a home a refuge. They had done everything they could to raise four stubborn boys right, and they didn't deserve to be condemned by anyone for that.
"Too cliché." Buzz's sly voice cut into Rob's musings. "We can be more original than that. Let's give him a bullwhip."
"It invites all the obvious puns about whipping people into shape." Bill cocked his head in evaluation. "As a corny person, I approve."
"And it's so absurd that it's difficult not to crack a smile when you open it," agreed O.C. "That keeps with the spirit of gag gifts the world over."
"A bullwhip it is then," Rizzo declared when nobody raised any objections, and Rob thought that the fact he had ended up in a room full of boys who were convinced that quips about skinning them were funnier than any skit Saturday Night Live ever produced was probably a sign that he needed to hunt for new buddies. "So, what are we going to get for Coach Patrick?"
"A megaphone," said Christian after a moment's pensive silence. "That way we could hear him when he talks."
"A number line," Bah suggested, as the dwindling stack of papers, hat, and pen finally reached Rob, who scribbled his name on a sheet and dumped the paper into the hat before passing everything onto Cox. "You know, so he can use it to count to ten every time he wants to lose patience with somebody."
"A rubber." Cox looked up from filling out his paper with his name. "That will come in handy when all the ladies chase after him."
"A whistle." O.C.'s trademark smirk was entrenched in his features. "To remind him of Norway and how much he blows as a coach."
There was an outburst of laughter that echoed throughout the room, and this time, Rob really joined in. He might never be fully over what happened to him and his teammates in Norway, but he had reached the point where he could chuckle about it, at least with those who had shared the misery and the horror of that eternal marathon of Herbies.
No joke could diminish what they had endured, but they were resilient enough to find something funny out of a scene that would probably haunt their nightmares into senility, so the last laugh would be on Herb. They could turn something that should have destroyed them into what made them whole. That was the power they had discovered within and outside themselves when they lost control of their breathing, heartbeat, and leg muscles. Remembering, as he saw his teammates collapse with laughter, how they had all sagged against the ice in Oslo, Rob thought, Our strength was proven when it should have been gone, and we're either really well-adjusted or total basket cases to find any of this amusing.
Coach Patrick definitely had not found the endless procession of Herbies amusing. For the first few, he had been grimly approving of the discipline for the lack of effort that had characterized the debacle of the tie with Norway. However, when the boys had started vomiting, he had looked as if he were on the verge of throwing up himself. His face showing how wrong he had felt what he was doing was, Coach Patrick had continued to raise the whistle shrilly to his lips whenever Herb commanded.
That was why, for weeks after the Herbies episode, Rob had experienced a surge of resentment instead of respect every time he interacted with Coach Patrick. Coach Patrick might have seemed soft-spoken and compassionate, Rob had decided bitterly, but he was more dangerous to his players than Herb Brooks would ever be.
Agree or disagree with what Herb had done in that Oslo rink (and Rob could never choose which side of the fence he wanted to plant his feet upon), Herb's stony face and flinty gaze had demonstrated that he was utterly convinced he was the right thing for the right reasons, so he would remain as implacable as a boulder. Perhaps he was as deluded about the parade of Herbies being in the best interest of his players as Stalin had been about Communism saving the Russian people, but at least Herb hadn't thought that he was doing anything to seriously hurt his players.
On the other hand, Coach Patrick had obviously let himself be intimidated into doing something he perceived as wrong and abusive to those beneath him (whom he was supposed to protect), because he didn't have the nerve to stick to his convictions. As far as Rob was concerned, that made Coach Patrick weak and untrustworthy. Sure, he might act like he was a friend, but when you most needed him to defend you, he wouldn't do so with any degree of effectiveness and persistence. In Rob's view, Coach Patrick, not anyone on the wheezing and vomiting team, had been the weakest person in that Norwegian arena.
Only the daze brought on by the high altitude of the trans-Atlantic flight back to the United States had made Rob recognize that he couldn't judge Coach Patrick harshly without condemning himself. After all, like Coach Patrick, he couldn't resist the voice of authority when it snapped at him to go just one step further, even if it meant killing himself, because he trusted Coach Brooks to know better than he did how far was too far. He believed what he had been told since he was a Pee Wee: that he couldn't achieve his full potential unless he was willing to keep pushing himself when his coach kept raising the bar. He accepted without questioning that the enemy of best was good and that he could never become the player he was meant to be if he stopped at the player he thought he could be.
"A whistle would show Coach Patrick that we really don't hold a grudge about Norway if we're willing to make a joke about it." That seemed important to do, because, with Herb, there might be nothing to forgive since Herb would never see anything wrong with what he did on that Oslo rink, but, with Coach Patrick there was. After all, what power did friendship have except forgiveness? What good would friendship be unless, by its interventions, what had been done could be undone? You had to forgive your friends, and if you forgave them enough, you belonged to them and they to you, whether either person liked it or not.
Unable to resist the chance to goad his former adversary from Boston, Rob added, "I suppose that the odds dictate that even someone like O.C. who gargled from the Fountain of Knowledge when everyone else drank can be right every once in a blue moon. The law of averages and all."
"I'd like to insult you, Mac, but the sad truth is that you wouldn't understand me," O.C. taunted back. "I'll just say that what you lack in charm you more than make up for in stupidity."
"One day, you guys will decide to act your age, and I'll try not to die of a heart attack." Rizzo rolled his eyes, and then asked, "Is everybody okay with getting Coach Patrick a whistle?"
Once again, there was a scattered murmur of confirmation from the boys around the room, and Rizzo went on, shoving the hat filled with the slits of paper that bore their names toward Verchota, "Everyone, pick a name out of the hat when it comes to you. If you get your own name, just put it back and choose another one."
The hat progressed quickly from waiting hand to waiting hand. Rob could see the anticipation on the faces of those who hadn't picked a name yet, and the cunning gleam that indicated the plotting of mischief in the eyes of those who had pulled a paper from the hat. When the hat reached him, he reached in, removed a paper, and, after passing the hat along to Cox, looked down at his paper to read: Dave Silk.
Silky, Rob thought, smirking. The nickname had always reminded him of a description of women's lingerie, so maybe Christmas would be the perfect time to share this association with his teammates…
"I'm going to get a start on the dishes," announced Buzz, standing as the hat finished its trip around the room and was returned to Rizzo.
"I'll help you," Mark, considerate as ever, volunteered, getting to his feet.
"I'll dry," put in Bah, trailing out of the room on the heels of Buzz and Mark.
That appeared to be the signal for their team dinner to end. Suddenly, the garbage can by the door was buried under an avalanche of used plates and utensils as the boys exited the common room and moved down the hallway back to their dorm rooms.
Grateful for the privacy that would come from the fact that Mark would be busy with the dishes for at least half an hour, Rob plopped on his bed, grabbed the phone out of its cradle, and dialed his home number. After two rings, the voice of Rob's younger brother, Stuart, came over the line, "Hello?"
"Hey, Stu," Rob answered. "How are you doing?"
"I'm swamped with dirty dishes and exams." As Stuart, a senior in high school, spoke, Rob could hear the sloshing sound of suds being scrubbed over dishes in a sink, and he could picture his little brother's petulant pout. Schoolwork and chores were two of Stu's least favorite things. "How do you think I'm doing, huh?"
"Ah, finals. Don't miss those." Torn between amusement and sympathy, Rob inquired, "So, what tests are on the schedule for tomorrow?"
"Trigonometry and physics," grumbled Stuart. "Also known as the multiple choice exams from hell designed as a form of mental torture by two demons disguised as teachers. The two tests that will give me a psychological butt-kicking and leave me crying among the remains of what used to be my sanity. I guarantee that within five seconds of starting either exam, I'll be thinking this question is the brainchild of evil."
"Yeah, that will happen as soon as you see the option all of the above," Rob remarked, remembering all too well how he had screamed inside every time he saw that option on a multiple choice test. Their grades suggested that neither he nor Stu were bad test-takers, but that didn't stop them from feeling like they were whenever they sat down to take a multiple choice exam.
"None of the above is worse," pointed out Stuart, all bitterness. "None of the above. Seriously, why would you bother inventing all those false options just to make your students tear their brains out?"
"The deluxe combination is when all of the above and none of the above are given as answers for the same question," Rob said dryly. "On the one hand, I'd always feel sorry for whatever happened to the teacher that made them feel the need to hurt innocent people in that way. On the other hand, I'd think they were a psychopath, and I should be leaving the room immediately."
"Between all those wonderful options, it's only a good three minutes before my selection logic boils down to the fact that I haven't chosen B in awhile." Stuart snorted into the phone. "Then, two moments after that, it occurs to me that my answers are all lining up, and there are four A's in a row, which is too many A's. Abort."
"And two minutes after that, there's a pattern—A,B,C,D—which will probably open a portal to doom right there in the classroom." Rob chuckled.
"Not long after that, I'm ripping my hair out over another question because I guessed C before, but now I'm thinking it's A, but now I'm thinking it actually was C, and my brain is collapsing in on itself, so it would probably best if I scribbled all over my answer sheet like the lawless dissident I am." Stuart's laugh floated across the line. "I'm just a hopeless failure."
"That's how I'd always feel when my pencil was too dark and the eraser too smeary, and now the teacher was going to mark my hard work incorrect, so my ambitions would be reduced to nothing but dust in the wind." Rob wrinkled his nose. "So many stressful, traumatic memories."
"That's how I feel when time is running out during a test, so the last ten answers will be an interesting product of last-minute desperation and an overarching inability to feel the things I used to feel." Stuart sighed. "I'm paralyzed just imagining that."
"Just don't make the mistake of skipping a question on the test but not on the answer sheet, so none of the answers line up," teased Rob. "If you do that, all you can really do is sob, cackle, cause a minor disturbance, jump out the window, and ultimately fade from the public eye."
"You're speaking from experience, of course," Stuart fired back. "Anyway, it's reassuring to me that you messed up so consistently. It means that, no matter how badly I do at anything, at least I'll still have done better than you."
"Just trying to set a fine example," replied Rob with exaggerated seriousness.
"I appreciate it." Stuart snickered. "By the way, I've got messages to pass along to you from some of your old high school admirers. Coach Wegleitner asked me to tell you that you're still the fastest skater he has ever met, and Coach Manley wanted me to remind you if you get a pass from slightly behind the net and wait for the goalie to drop, you have a nice opportunity to score a five-hole."
"I remember him teaching me that maneuver," Rob observed dryly, trying to conceal how happy it made him that his high school head and assistant hockey coaches had not forgotten him and still tried to give him advice. When he had graduated from high school so many years ago now, he had hoped that they would miss his shot, speed, and determination. Every player wanted to feel indispensable and irreplaceable to his coach and team, even after his days with the coach or on the team had officially concluded. The hallmark of an excellent coach was that his words rang in your head years after you were done playing for him, so it followed logically that a player could not be great unless his coach felt his absence in a line-up years in the future. "Next time you see them, tell them I said thanks."
And that will assure them that I still think of them and if they still regard me as their player, then that is enough to make it true, Rob finished internally. After all, even if you try to take yourself away from a coach who holds you fast, if that coach still believes you are his player, you always will be. Herb taught me that.
"All right." Stu gave a long-suffering sigh. "One day I'll have the sense to demand a tip for my delivery services. If you're going to treat me like a telegraph boy, you should have to pay me like one."
"Study hard, and you can have a more glamorous career than delivering messages, I promise." Rob laughed, and then wanted to know, "Is Mom or Dad around?"
"Yeah. One second." There was a pause in which Stu could be heard shouting loudly enough for the neighbors to hear that Rob was on the telephone. Then, Stuart's voice came back on the line to announce, "Mom will be down in a minute to speak to you. Feel free to hold your breath while you're waiting."
As promised, a moment later, Rob's mother's voice drifted through the receiver. "Hi, Robbie. How are you doing?"
"Surviving," Rob responded, thinking that was the most positive twist on his emotional state when he was dealing with Tim's presence in practice. The more negative answer was potentially homicidal, but he didn't think that Mom wanted to hear about him battling his urges to commit assault with his hockey stick. She might not have understood the difference between icing and boarding, since her hockey knowledge was limited to the fact that the black disc sailing into the net meant a goal, but even she could comprehend that sounded like bad news.
"I see." His mom hesitated, and then proceeded delicately, "I don't suppose that Herb's given any updates about his final roster, has he?"
"You suppose right." His jaw clenching, Rob twirled the phone cord around his fingers, cutting off his circulation and not caring, because, when he was snapping from feeling too much, it was a blessing to have one part of his body be numb. "Since you ask that every time we speak, Mom, and I do have a better long-term memory than a gnat, why don't you just trust me to tell you about that when I actually have something to report? That would save us both a lot of trouble and awkwardness."
"Don't take that tone with me, Robert," she reprimanded, and Rob still found it unsettling how she could shift from coddling to scolding in a blink. "I understand that you're under a lot of stress now, but that doesn't give you the right to disrespect anyone, especially your family members."
"You're right." Rob bit his lip, ashamed at his tendency to lash out at those closest to him when he was feeling vulnerable. All too often a friend or family member who tried to support him when he was going through a rough patch would be the victim of his sarcasm. It was probably a mercy that he had anyone willing to talk to him at all by this point, given his propensity toward verbal abuse. "I'm sorry, Mom. I shouldn't take my temper out on you."
"Your dad and I love you very much," his mom murmured soothingly, as if Rob had run wailing to her with a skinned knee like the five-year-old he could barely recall ever being. "We've always been so proud of your achievements, and we just want to be able to support you no matter what happens."
"I know, Mom." Rob's throat constricted. He knew that he was indescribably fortunate to have been born to parents who had always provided for him in every sense imaginable. They pushed him to do his best, but comforted him whenever he felt that his best hadn't been good enough. They taught him the skills and beliefs he needed to be successful. They filled him with faith in himself because they never gave up on him. They made him keep his grades up if he wanted to play sports, and then attended as many games as they could. They had celebrated with him when his Pee Wee team won states and his Bantam team nationals. They had consoled him when his high school team lost in the state tournament. If he made it to the Olympics, and, even more dangerous to imagine for fear of heartbreak, got a medal with his team, it would be because of them. They had been his first coaches—the ones who taught him the values of hard work, respect, determination, and discipline better than anyone else could have—and he would always try to make them proud by playing in the most important game, life, as they had shown him. "I am grateful for all that you and Dad have done to encourage me."
"Your dad and I just want to make sure that, if you are in the Olympics, we're there to cheer you on," his mother went on, all gentleness. "Since many other people in America and the rest of the world plan on attending the Olympics, we have to buy plane tickets and book hotel rooms. That's stressful, but we don't mean to pile any more pressure on you."
"I wish that Herb would announce his roster already," muttered Rob, mentally amending, And by that I mean the right roster, the one with Rizzo and not Tim. "I guess he's afraid that we'll start slacking off if we're not worried about losing our spots."
"Don't worry about losing your spot on the team, Robbie." His mom adopted her most reassuring tone. "That's not going to happen."
In the background, there was the sound of Rob's father entering the kitchen, demanding what this talk about losing a spot on the team was about. A second later, Rob's mom said, "Your dad wants to speak to you. I'm putting him on now."
"What's this, son, about losing your spot on the team?" Rob's dad asked after a second's intermission in the same manner he would assume when cross-examining a witness.
"Tim Harrer has been at practice the past two days, Dad," explained Rob, aiming a kick at his bedpost. "Now everyone is more anxious than ever about being cut."
"Harrer is a right-winger, and you play left wing and center," his father pointed out, as if Rob needed reminding. "I don't see how he can be meant to replace you when you don't even play the same positions."
"Dad, if Harrer can replace some unlucky right-winger at the last minute, what's to stop Herb from bringing in another left-winger to take my place just before the Olympics?" answered Rob, wishing that he didn't have to state the obvious. "Harrer joining the team so late would set a bad precedent. That's why everybody is so concerned. It's all of our necks that could be on the block."
"If you're worried about a bad precedent being set, what are you doing to ensure a favorable ruling?" Rob's father asked, and Rob almost groaned, wondering if Dad had been born with the knack of posing just the wrong—or right, depending on one's perspective—question.
"Um, I tried sarcasm, but that backfired quite spectacularly, denting my confidence," Rob admitted, glad that his rueful expression could not be glimpsed through the telephone wires. "Then I attempted to convince Mark Johnson to help me sabotage Tim by messing up our passes to him, but Mark ended up persuading me that would just be undermining ourselves, not Tim, because Herb would be able to see through what we were doing. Since then, I haven't had any more bright ideas, unfortunately."
"Sometimes you make things too complicated, Robbie." Rob didn't have to see his dad to know that he was shaking his head in mild reproof. "Did it ever occur to you that you could simply talk to Herb about your concern over Harrer's presence at practices?"
"Herb is difficult to talk to, Dad, so that's easier said than done." Exasperated, Rob took advantage of the fact that he couldn't be seen through phone lines to roll his eyes. "Banging my head against a brick wall repeatedly would be less painful and more productive than a one-on-one chat with him."
"If everybody on the team is upset about Harrer's presence, then you don't have to confront Herb alone," Rob's father reasoned patiently, as if the problem were talking to Herb alone rather than speaking with him at all. "You just need to gather up a handful of teammates you'd trust to have your back in an argument and speak to Herb about Harrer in private. That private part is very important, though. People in authority can get nasty if you do anything that could be perceived as challenging them in public."
"Herb is always nasty," commented Rob, pressing his lips together grimly. "It's his default state. He was probably born arguing with people and trying to disprove the stereotype about Minnesotans being nice folks."
"Part of life is learning to deal with people you find terrifying and disagreeable," his dad told him, and Rob knew that Dad was speaking from experience that started with Rob's paternal grandfather.
The best indicator of the health that characterized the relationship between Rob's father and grandfather was the fact that Dad's decision to become a lawyer was irrevocably sealed when he realized that his own father hated the legal profession. Dad had been a young teenager, clumsy, embarrassed by his own awkwardness in his body, aggravated with life, horrified by puberty, and in danger of being shipped off to a military school by Rob's grandfather, an ex-Marine who believed boys should live by the crack of a whip. In adolescence, Dad, by his own account, had developed a quick tongue and an aversion to discipline, and Grandpa's solution had simply been to threaten to send him away. Rob still wasn't sure that Dad had forgiven Grandpa for that.
Grandpa had also been an industrial engineer who worked seventy hours a week for a company that made, among many other items, ladders. Since by their nature ladders are perilous devices that become more of a menace as the intelligence of the user declines, his company became a frequent target of lawsuits. And because he handled design, Grandpa was the favorite choice to speak for the company in depositions and trials. Rob couldn't say that he blamed his grandfather for hating lawyers, but he also understood how his dad had come to admire them because they made Grandpa's life so miserable. Grandpa would spend eight hours haggling with them, and then hit the martinis as soon as he walked in the front door. No hellos. No hugs. No family dinner. Just an hour or so of continuous whining while he slugged down four martinis then passed out in his battered recliner.
Rob was just hoping that alcoholism did not run in his family when his dad finished whatever advice he had been offering with the simple statement, "Trust me. As a lawyer, I have to do that all the time."
"Do you have to convince someone who is the prosecuting attorney, jury, judge, and executioner to come around to your point of view?" demanded Rob. His stomach was knotting, because, in the absence of any better strategy and in no doubt that he would go crazy if he didn't take some action (no matter how hopeless or ill-advised), he was already planning who he would ask to confront Herb with him, and what he would say when he was facing Herb to make his case against Harrer. He suspected that the words would slip from his mind and tongue the second he opened his mouth, but it was better to be prepared and hope that one word of the speech he planned would stick in his brain than to have to invent everything when his wits had stranded him. "That's what my teammates and I will have to do, Dad."
"You're smart, stubborn, and stronger than you realize, Rob," his father informed him calmly. "As long as you don't lose your confidence or your temper, you can win an argument with Herb or anyone else."
"What if Herb cuts me for making a fuss over the Harrer issue?" The question Rob had been trying not to think about since Tim's arrival burst out of his mouth.
"Then he doesn't deserve to coach a player as good as you," his dad replied in the tone he would probably use if he was convincing the jury that everyone except the defendant was guilty. "If he's petty enough to cut someone for being concerned about the team's welfare, he deserves a team full of selfish people who put their individual needs above the group's. With a team like that at the Olympics, he won't have much success."
"Dad." Rob swallowed, and then admitted quietly, "I want to make this team more than I've wanted anything in my life. The thought of working so hard and not making it sickens me."
"When Herb picked you for the team in Colorado, he knew how stubborn you are after four years of coaching you," his father assured him. "You were probably selected more because of your determination than in spite of it."
"There are plenty of determined people on this team," muttered Rob, taking an unexpected and intense interest in his cuticles. "Being stubborn hardly makes me indispensable around here."
"You're a fast skater, a strong two-way player, you have a solid penalty kill, and you've been a top scorer throughout the exhibitation games," his father pointed out. "You're on the team because Herb wants you on it."
"I know he chose me because he thought I could do well on the team." Rob nudged his cuticles back. "But sometimes it feels like all I do is let him down, you know. Yesterday I had a shot that skidded three inches wide of the left goal post like I was aiming at the boards instead of the net. It was horrible, and Herb said that I looked like a chicken with its head cut off. He wasn't that far off, and I wanted to cut off my own head I was so ashamed."
"Listen to me, Robbie." Rob's dad paused, as if to ensure that he had Rob's complete attention, and Rob reluctantly ceased pushing at his cuticles as his father resumed, "Don't torture yourself by telling yourself after every mistake that Herb is going to cut you for it. Herb's blunt. If he'd decided that you didn't belong on the team, I'm sure he'd tell you that in no uncertain terms."
"Like the ones he used when he told Mark and me yesterday that he'd get a different first line if we didn't listen to him better?" Rob asked listlessly, going back to fiddling with his cuticles.
Since Herb made that ultimatum, Rob had been trying not to think about it. After the constant line-shuffling that defined Herb's tactics at the U, he should have been accustomed to never really knowing where he ranked in the locker room pecking order, never certain whether he was a first liner or a fourth. It wasn't that Rob minded being moved from one line to another—although the thought of being demoted permanently did make him want to hide under his bed until he could bear to face the world again—because in the exhibitation games only the Conehead line had been kept intact throughout them all and that was mainly because any forward who tried to replace Buzz, Bah, or Pav could do nothing more than try not to block the passes between the other two Coneheads. No, it was just that Rob was afraid that once he started his fall from the grace of the first line, nothing could stop him from plummeting off the team. When it came down to it, Rob wasn't good enough to play on an Olympic team, especially not on the first line, and eventually, Herb would realize that and send Rob home…At least, that was Rob's biggest fear.
"There's no reason for Herb to replace you." His father's voice was stern now. "He knows you and what you can do on the ice. If you weren't living up to your potential, it would make sense for him to consider other options, but since you are, there is no cause for him to take a chance with someone whose capabilities he doesn't know as well."
"Yes, Dad." Rob nodded, still not entirely convinced by this logic.
"Seriously, Robbie." His dad obviously detected his dubiousness. "Herb was just trying to spur you and Mark onto greater heights. He doesn't push you and Mark because he wants to see you two fail, but because he knows what you both are capable of and wants to see you reach your full potential."
"I know that." Rob sighed, and then went on sheepishly, "Most of the time. It's just that sometimes I feel like such an idiot when I can't do something, or I can't do it fast enough or well enough to satisfy him. It feels like I'm only pretending to be a hockey player, so I just should stop wasting everyone's time with my delusion about actually having a clue how to hit the puck with a stick."
"Ever since you touched the ice, you've skated like the wind." His father's tone was husky now. "If you skate like that when you were four, you can make the Olympic team now."
Rob wanted to remind his dad that many hockey parents had probably made similar predictions before the trials in Colorado, and, in the end, only twenty sets of parents would be right about their son being good enough to make the roster. However, he found himself suddenly thrust back in time and unable to comment in the present conversation.
He was four—almost five—and standing beside the neighborhood pond two hundred yards from his house. Skates were tied around his ankles, and he hated how wobbly they made him in the snow. He didn't want to go skating, because he didn't like the idea of how off-balance and uncontrolled he could become on ice, but his father had insisted that he attempt it, since he couldn't truly know that he disliked something until he tried it. Scowling, Rob had resolved that he would detest skating just as he loathed spinach and broccoli and all the other vegetables Dad had used similar logic to goad him into eating.
That rebellious plot had slid off the tracks as soon as Rob skated onto the pond beside his father, clinging onto the end of a hockey stick. He had loved the sound of the blades slicing crisply through the ice. He had enjoyed being able to push on the hard surface and still feel himself bounce forward. The cold wind whipping against his cheeks and teeth made him want to go faster and be freer than he had ever been before, so, before he could think about what he was doing, he had released the stick and was speeding away from his dad.
He had expected Dad to yell at him to stop or to race up behind him, snatch him up, and give him a lecture about skating safety, but his father seemed to sense that it would hurt Rob more to be made to stop than to be allowed to fall. Rob had skated faster and faster and smoother and smoother until it occurred to him that he was nearing the end of the pond, where the pine trees were, and he didn't know how to stop. He jerked his arms and legs around frantically, but nothing happened except he wheeled about, lost his balance, and began to fall.
He had been bracing himself for the freezing smash of his body banging against the icy pond when Coach Wegleitner, who had always been a giant of Rob's childhood because he coached the high school hockey team that was as revered in North Oaks as a football team would have been in Texas, shocked him by catching him by the elbow at the last second before he made contact with the ice, teaching him that whenever a coach caught you, it was by surprise.
Chuckling, Coach Wegleitner had remarked that Rob was the fastest little skater he had ever seen, but he needed to learn how to stop. Then the high school hockey coach whom Rob was convinced was some sort of minor deity had leaned over and shown him how to position his skates so that they would cut into the ice at the right angle to stop his movement. After that, whenever Coach Wegleitner told Rob that he was a fast skater, Rob's mind would inevitably return to this moment, and he would feel secure, confident that his strengths would be praised with a smile and his weaknesses would be corrected briskly but not cruelly.
The stopping hadn't come as quickly and naturally to him as the speeding had, and, coming out of his reverie at last, Rob thought that, if he were an airplane, he would have fifty propellers and only an afterthought of landing gear that he would cobble together just before he realized he was about to crash and burn onto the runway.
"I'm still picking up speed, Dad." Rob grinned devilishly, knowing his father could hear his smile through the phone lines as any good parent could. "I guess I'll leave it to Herb to figure out whether I come with brakes."
After all, Rob concluded mentally, I am the player who takes it as a personal challenge when Herb points out that a puck travels faster than anyone can skate. To me, the fact that you can stop in an instant on a sheet of solid ice will always seem like more of a defiance of the laws of physics than the idea that you can skate faster than a little black disc.