Portman's POV:
#7. Les etudiants _________ a l'ecole a 7h demain matin.
a) arrivraient b) viennent c) sont arrives d) arrivront
What a stupid question. I mean seriously, who gave a flying fuck about foreign languages anyway? Come to think of it, probably almost everyone here. I took a look at the kids around me, and sure enough, they were all either thinking hard or scribbling furiously.
I supposed French would come in handy to some of them; those planning careers as politicians and diplomats, for example, which probably amounted to like 30% of the student body. For someone like me, however, it was both utterly useless and insufferably dull. Chances were I'd be working the drive-thru at Burger King until I died of an early heart attack anyway.
Remember what Fulton always said: Look busy. I dragged my eyes back to the loathsome packet of paper that was my French make-up exam. I doubted I had to worry too much about looking realistically occupied. Ms. Lacroix was terrified of Fulton and me, and it'd be a cold day in hell before she accused either of us of cheating, which was, of course, exactly what we were doing.
It was the last week of March, and normally I'd be ready to slit my wrists from all this school, but for some reason it wasn't bothering me like it usually did. And by "some reason," I meant Fulton Reed. We attended class when we felt like it, or when we figured it had been so long we ought to put in a token appearance.
Being on a winning hockey team may not give you a free ride at Eton Hall, but it came pretty close. As long as we passed our classes, no one really cared if we were absent a lot of the time. It was pretty sad really, how easily people's convictions flew out the window, like Orien's "no C policy," which went the way of the dodo when we beat Varsity. Don't think I was complaining though; I was far from above taking advantage of my team's new-found glory and success in order to shirk my responsibilities and above all, avoid work or studying of any kind.
This was where Fulton came in. He'd helped me cheat on almost every major test this year. We'd taken French last semester, but due to circumstances beyond our control (read: we were really stoned and wrote down the wrong exam date) we slept through the test and so we were making it up three months later, along with the chess and volleyball teams, who had both been away on a tournament.
I saw Fulton stand up and walk over to Ms. Lacroix's desk. "Je dois aller a la salle de bain."
"Bien sur, M. Reed."
I waited about five minutes after he came back before I asked to go as well. In the third stall, tucked behind the toilet paper dispenser, was the tiny crib sheet Fulton had written for me, small enough to be hidden in the palm of my hand. I read it over a few times to familiarise myself with the answers before going back to class and surreptitiously copying them out. Well, most of them. You see, the majority of cheaters are caught not in the act, but afterwards. I had no desire to get an A in the class, and no one expected it of a dumb jock like me, so I only got about 65%.
I wondered sometimes if I could do okay in school if I tried, but what would be the point? Fulton would always be a million times smarter than me anyway. My mom wouldn't care, and neither would the school; they just wanted me to keep smashing things, and I was happy to oblige. Let everyone else worry about grades, SAT's, and college acceptance letters. The truth was that school was dumb; Fulton knew it, I knew it, and so did most of the Ducks. We were just doing our time until graduation, and cheating was a means to the end.
***
"Hey Portman, pass me some more of that wax, would ya?"
I tossed him the can. He caught it deftly with one hand, stuck a lump of wax on his rag, and went back to buffing the floor with a sigh.
"What's it been now," I wondered aloud. "Six weeks in a row?"
"Seven," he responded with a chuckle. "Man, if the Ducks weren't kicking such ass, we'd have been expelled ages ago."
"Yeah, we have got to be setting some kind of record here. What were we in for last week, the lunchroom incident?"
"Nope, that was the week before. Don't you remember? You said I couldn't hit that garbage can at the end of the main hall."
"Oh yeah! I still can't believe you made that shot, you were like 100 feet out."
"Too bad the Dean wasn't as impressed," he said, laughing at the memory.
"Yeah, what's his damage? You'd think it was the first time any of the Ducks got caught playing hockey in the hallways before." I grinned. "I mean, just because the ricochet shattered that gigantic trophy case..."
Friday nights at Eton Hall usually meant one thing for Fulton and me: weekly detention. Small transgressions like being late for class or not doing your homework resulted in a daily detention, an hour of picking up trash around the school with those shoulder bags and grabby-sticks. More serious offences were punishable by a weekly detention, which meant you had to spend all afternoon, and often most of the evening too, doing some task the Dean handed down to you.
Fulton and I got way more daily D.T.'s than anyone else, but it was in the weeklies where we reigned supreme. We were on weekly duty three or four times a month, and though there was often another person with us, there weren't many who came back. Today, it was just the two of us, and our task was to clean up the gym after today's assembly. Clearing the chairs and microphones and shit had been easy, but waxing the floor was taking forever. Do you have any idea how many black scuff marks 1500 chairs leave behind? My arms felt like they were going to fall off, but we were nearly done.
"I am going to be so stiff tomorrow," I complained. "You need to learn to control your temper."
"WHAT?" he screamed at me, and it took me a moment to realise he was joking.
"Yeah man, telling a guidance councillor to go fuck himself rarely results in a lollipop," I teased.
"What about you, huh? You didn't need to actually fall to the ground in a fit of hysterical laughter when I did."
I chuckled. "I couldn't help it. We were so stoned, and the look on his face was priceless. He was actually scandalised." What exactly prompted my typically mild-mannered boyfriend to cuss out the guidance councillor? The story was a bit involved, but the gist of it was that when his mom showed up at the love-in with McNally and the Dean, she was, surprise, surprise, wasted eight ways to Sunday. McNally later called Fulton and me in to talk about it; he figured Fulton would feel less "threatened" with me there. And can you believe it, Fulton turned out to less than willing to discuss the finer points of his mother's personality with the man and we so landed in here. We stopped making plans to go out on Fridays long ago.
"Don't you think the fact that the assembly was for us would make us exempt from cleaning up after it?"
"Adults are irrational creatures, Portman. I gave up trying to understand them long ago."
Wednesday had been the final game in the Minnesota state Midget hockey championship, the winning of which proved to be even easier than last year. Our whole team was on fire, and we shut out Redwood Academy 10-0. Adam, Fulton, Kenny and Guy each scored two goals, Julie was a wall for three periods, and best of all, some serious Bash Brother action went down. There was blood on the ice tonight.
The assembly was called as a celebration for the Ducks being the first hockey team in Eton's 117-year history to finish the season undefeated. And most of the games weren't even close, I thought to myself as I dropped my rag for a minute to stretch my aching arms. Fulton sat down behind me and started rubbing my shoulders.
"You know, you were amazing on Wednesday," I murmured in between the little sighs of ecstasy his touch brought forth from me.
"You were no slouch yourself. Did you catch the Bash Brother fan club up in the stands? You really get them swinging."
I blushed. The quartet of 16-year old girls had popped up sometime in the mid-season, and for the past few months had been showing up at every game, waving enormous signs that said things like "Bash Brothers' bitches," and "Dean Portman rocks my world." "Hey man, they call for you too."
Fulton grinned that mischievous little grin of his. "Yeah, but they weren't calling for my clothes whenever I went to the box. So, should I be jealous? Are all these lovesick girls going to make a heterosexual out of you?"
"Not so long as you keep your figure."
"You mean you'll dump me if I get fat and ugly?"
"You'd better believe it." I turned around, pushed him gently down to the floor and climbed on top of him. I pulled off his t-shirt and threw it across the room, then began giving him little snuffle kisses on his bellybutton until he shrieked with laughter. I loved the feel of the soft white skin of his stomach against my lips. I worked my way up his chest, stopping at his neck and mouth, losing myself in his mass of silky black hair.
"What the hell--"
We both looked up at the sound of several voices. Gathered at the entrance to the gymnasium were Bombay, Orien and all of the Ducks. Those who already knew about us looked at us in sympathy and discomfort, while Orien, Bombay and the others wore identical expressions of shock. No one spoke for an eternity; the tension hung thick and palpable in the air.
"What are you doing?" Orien finally managed.
"Would you believe checking each other for head lice?" Fulton said dryly. "No? Then I guess we were kissing."
Averman was the next to recover his powers of speech. "See? This is what happens when two teenage boys share a bedroom."
"Ten percent of the population, my ass," said Goldberg.
Fulton and I disentangled ourselves from each other's arms and got to our feet. We straightened our respective bandannas and Fulton went to get his t- shirt while I stood there with my thumb up my ass, staring at everyone as they stared at me. .
"So," Charlie said, breaking the long silence that had fallen over the group once more. He spoke rapidly and nervously, not pausing even to take a breath: "So Coach Bombay came down here to give us some great news he already told all of us about it but we couldn't find you two anywhere but now we did and we're really sorry to walk in on you like this and damn this is awkward but it doesn't have to be--"
"Charlie and I are gay too," Adam broke in, looking squarely at Bombay and Orien, who both turned to look at him, their eyes wider than one would think physically possible.
"Wh-what?" Orien spluttered.
"He's kidding, right Charlie?" Bombay asked, turning to Conway, who only shook his head.
"Nope. Ask the other Ducks. They've known for awhile now."
The others nodded. "Yup, we know about THEM alright," Russ said, shaking his head. "But Fulton and Portman? That's something new."
I was really proud of Adam. It had taken guts to do what he did, and he did it to take the heat off Fulton and me. He was probably terrified one of the coaches would tell his dad, but he did it anyway. His courage must have been catching, as well as his altruism, because now Kenny stepped forward.
"Speaking of new, hey, did you know Julie and I have been going out?" He looked back and forth between Orien and Bombay. "Well, why aren't you shocked?"
Connie stepped up beside him. "As long as we're getting things out in the open, you should know that I elbowed that guy into the boards on purpose in Wednesday's game," she said.
"I'M the one who uses up all the hot water in the showers after games!" Guy yelled, raising his arms into the air.
"I ate a pot brownie! And I liked it!" Julie screamed.
"I'm allergic to dairy products," Averman said uncertainly.
"I'm afraid of pitbulls!" Goldberg called out.
"My cousin breeds Rottweilers," Russ put in.
"I'm dating two cheerleaders at once." Luis, of course.
"I'm double-jointed," said Dwayne, looking around for approval.
Wow. We all stood there, looking back and forth at each other. Thirteen mighty Ducks. Things were changing, we were growing up, but were still together. They didn't care about Fulton and me, or at least they were willing to look past it. "This is a hell of a hockey team," I said.
"You're right about that," said Bombay, though he still looked awful bewildered. "Look, maybe we should hold off till another night. I think we have some things we should talk about."
"Can't that wait until tomorrow?" Connie said impatiently. She was jumping up and down now, as if she had a wonderful secret she couldn't wait to share. "You said we were going out to dinner, and Fulton and Portman still don't know what this is all about."
She was right. "Yeah, what is this all about?"
***
"So when the tournament's founders approached me and asked if I was interested in trying out, you can imagine what I said."
We were all sitting at a huge table in the Old Spaghetti Factory while Bombay told us everything. We had been chosen to represent the United States once more, this time in the World Junior Hockey Championship, which honoured the best in the sport under the age of eighteen. It was meant to be a showcase of young talent where scouts could come to scope out the best in the world, and maybe sign them on to farm teams or something when they graduated. Next year, however, they had decided to try something different, and give the kids a chance to see other countries.
The deal was that we'd travel around the world for the entire hockey season, playing other countries' teams and amassing points before the final tournament, which would be held in Vancouver, and be set up just like the NHL playoffs. The winning team would win full university hockey scholarships to the school of their choice.
Obviously, this was an insanely cool piece of news, and it shed some light on why the Ducks took the scene in the gym so well. They were so excited about it that I doubt they'd have cared if Fulton and I said we wanted to adopt a baby.
"But don't they have to hold a national tournament first?" Julie asked. "I mean, what about the other state champs?"
"When they heard about your record, they decided to come down to the finals to see you in action, and that was enough for them. The head of the league, a guy named Gary Wiseman said, and I quote: "No other junior team in the country can hold a candle to the Ducks.""
Raucous cheers and hearty expressions of agreement followed Bombay's words. Winning the Goodwill Games, hell just playing in them, had been one of the best experiences any of us had ever had, and now we were going to get to do it again, and for an entire hockey season? An entire year spent flying from country to country, playing hockey with the best in the world? Sleeping in hotels, never going to school, just hanging with the Ducks? It sure put the whole gay/straight drama thing in perspective, didn't it?
***
"I can't believe it," Fulton said as we snuggled together in my bed, our stomachs so full of pasta we could barely move. "Did you see the way they all stepped up like that, even Luis? They were really great, weren't they?"
"Yeah, it was like in the Goodwill Games. And now we get to do it again. I feel like, what did we do to deserve this? I mean, that chick that won $20 million dollars last week? She don't got nothing on us."
Fulton sighed in perfect agreement. "Totally."
It was one of those amazingly overwhelming moments when you realised that everything was perfect, that all was right in our world. Or at least that's what I thought to myself on that Friday night as I lay in my bed, relishing the comforting weight of Fulton's head on my chest while Kurt Cobain sang us to sleep.
*Holy shit, can you believe this crazy hockey action? THE MIGHTY DUCKS HAVE BEATEN DETROIT THREE GAMES IN A ROW! One more win and the reigning champs are eliminated in the first round! It's a miracle! Of course, one mustn't forget last year, when my beloved Canucks beat them the first two games, only to lose the subsequent four. So everybody cross your fingers for the Ducks to shut out those geriatric Wings! My Canucks, on the other hand, are far from out of the running, but they need the big line to get back into it, and they could really use a win next game. Has anyone noticed that Ethan Moreau, who plays for the Oilers, is #18? Is that a crazy coincidence or what? Crazy.*
#7. Les etudiants _________ a l'ecole a 7h demain matin.
a) arrivraient b) viennent c) sont arrives d) arrivront
What a stupid question. I mean seriously, who gave a flying fuck about foreign languages anyway? Come to think of it, probably almost everyone here. I took a look at the kids around me, and sure enough, they were all either thinking hard or scribbling furiously.
I supposed French would come in handy to some of them; those planning careers as politicians and diplomats, for example, which probably amounted to like 30% of the student body. For someone like me, however, it was both utterly useless and insufferably dull. Chances were I'd be working the drive-thru at Burger King until I died of an early heart attack anyway.
Remember what Fulton always said: Look busy. I dragged my eyes back to the loathsome packet of paper that was my French make-up exam. I doubted I had to worry too much about looking realistically occupied. Ms. Lacroix was terrified of Fulton and me, and it'd be a cold day in hell before she accused either of us of cheating, which was, of course, exactly what we were doing.
It was the last week of March, and normally I'd be ready to slit my wrists from all this school, but for some reason it wasn't bothering me like it usually did. And by "some reason," I meant Fulton Reed. We attended class when we felt like it, or when we figured it had been so long we ought to put in a token appearance.
Being on a winning hockey team may not give you a free ride at Eton Hall, but it came pretty close. As long as we passed our classes, no one really cared if we were absent a lot of the time. It was pretty sad really, how easily people's convictions flew out the window, like Orien's "no C policy," which went the way of the dodo when we beat Varsity. Don't think I was complaining though; I was far from above taking advantage of my team's new-found glory and success in order to shirk my responsibilities and above all, avoid work or studying of any kind.
This was where Fulton came in. He'd helped me cheat on almost every major test this year. We'd taken French last semester, but due to circumstances beyond our control (read: we were really stoned and wrote down the wrong exam date) we slept through the test and so we were making it up three months later, along with the chess and volleyball teams, who had both been away on a tournament.
I saw Fulton stand up and walk over to Ms. Lacroix's desk. "Je dois aller a la salle de bain."
"Bien sur, M. Reed."
I waited about five minutes after he came back before I asked to go as well. In the third stall, tucked behind the toilet paper dispenser, was the tiny crib sheet Fulton had written for me, small enough to be hidden in the palm of my hand. I read it over a few times to familiarise myself with the answers before going back to class and surreptitiously copying them out. Well, most of them. You see, the majority of cheaters are caught not in the act, but afterwards. I had no desire to get an A in the class, and no one expected it of a dumb jock like me, so I only got about 65%.
I wondered sometimes if I could do okay in school if I tried, but what would be the point? Fulton would always be a million times smarter than me anyway. My mom wouldn't care, and neither would the school; they just wanted me to keep smashing things, and I was happy to oblige. Let everyone else worry about grades, SAT's, and college acceptance letters. The truth was that school was dumb; Fulton knew it, I knew it, and so did most of the Ducks. We were just doing our time until graduation, and cheating was a means to the end.
***
"Hey Portman, pass me some more of that wax, would ya?"
I tossed him the can. He caught it deftly with one hand, stuck a lump of wax on his rag, and went back to buffing the floor with a sigh.
"What's it been now," I wondered aloud. "Six weeks in a row?"
"Seven," he responded with a chuckle. "Man, if the Ducks weren't kicking such ass, we'd have been expelled ages ago."
"Yeah, we have got to be setting some kind of record here. What were we in for last week, the lunchroom incident?"
"Nope, that was the week before. Don't you remember? You said I couldn't hit that garbage can at the end of the main hall."
"Oh yeah! I still can't believe you made that shot, you were like 100 feet out."
"Too bad the Dean wasn't as impressed," he said, laughing at the memory.
"Yeah, what's his damage? You'd think it was the first time any of the Ducks got caught playing hockey in the hallways before." I grinned. "I mean, just because the ricochet shattered that gigantic trophy case..."
Friday nights at Eton Hall usually meant one thing for Fulton and me: weekly detention. Small transgressions like being late for class or not doing your homework resulted in a daily detention, an hour of picking up trash around the school with those shoulder bags and grabby-sticks. More serious offences were punishable by a weekly detention, which meant you had to spend all afternoon, and often most of the evening too, doing some task the Dean handed down to you.
Fulton and I got way more daily D.T.'s than anyone else, but it was in the weeklies where we reigned supreme. We were on weekly duty three or four times a month, and though there was often another person with us, there weren't many who came back. Today, it was just the two of us, and our task was to clean up the gym after today's assembly. Clearing the chairs and microphones and shit had been easy, but waxing the floor was taking forever. Do you have any idea how many black scuff marks 1500 chairs leave behind? My arms felt like they were going to fall off, but we were nearly done.
"I am going to be so stiff tomorrow," I complained. "You need to learn to control your temper."
"WHAT?" he screamed at me, and it took me a moment to realise he was joking.
"Yeah man, telling a guidance councillor to go fuck himself rarely results in a lollipop," I teased.
"What about you, huh? You didn't need to actually fall to the ground in a fit of hysterical laughter when I did."
I chuckled. "I couldn't help it. We were so stoned, and the look on his face was priceless. He was actually scandalised." What exactly prompted my typically mild-mannered boyfriend to cuss out the guidance councillor? The story was a bit involved, but the gist of it was that when his mom showed up at the love-in with McNally and the Dean, she was, surprise, surprise, wasted eight ways to Sunday. McNally later called Fulton and me in to talk about it; he figured Fulton would feel less "threatened" with me there. And can you believe it, Fulton turned out to less than willing to discuss the finer points of his mother's personality with the man and we so landed in here. We stopped making plans to go out on Fridays long ago.
"Don't you think the fact that the assembly was for us would make us exempt from cleaning up after it?"
"Adults are irrational creatures, Portman. I gave up trying to understand them long ago."
Wednesday had been the final game in the Minnesota state Midget hockey championship, the winning of which proved to be even easier than last year. Our whole team was on fire, and we shut out Redwood Academy 10-0. Adam, Fulton, Kenny and Guy each scored two goals, Julie was a wall for three periods, and best of all, some serious Bash Brother action went down. There was blood on the ice tonight.
The assembly was called as a celebration for the Ducks being the first hockey team in Eton's 117-year history to finish the season undefeated. And most of the games weren't even close, I thought to myself as I dropped my rag for a minute to stretch my aching arms. Fulton sat down behind me and started rubbing my shoulders.
"You know, you were amazing on Wednesday," I murmured in between the little sighs of ecstasy his touch brought forth from me.
"You were no slouch yourself. Did you catch the Bash Brother fan club up in the stands? You really get them swinging."
I blushed. The quartet of 16-year old girls had popped up sometime in the mid-season, and for the past few months had been showing up at every game, waving enormous signs that said things like "Bash Brothers' bitches," and "Dean Portman rocks my world." "Hey man, they call for you too."
Fulton grinned that mischievous little grin of his. "Yeah, but they weren't calling for my clothes whenever I went to the box. So, should I be jealous? Are all these lovesick girls going to make a heterosexual out of you?"
"Not so long as you keep your figure."
"You mean you'll dump me if I get fat and ugly?"
"You'd better believe it." I turned around, pushed him gently down to the floor and climbed on top of him. I pulled off his t-shirt and threw it across the room, then began giving him little snuffle kisses on his bellybutton until he shrieked with laughter. I loved the feel of the soft white skin of his stomach against my lips. I worked my way up his chest, stopping at his neck and mouth, losing myself in his mass of silky black hair.
"What the hell--"
We both looked up at the sound of several voices. Gathered at the entrance to the gymnasium were Bombay, Orien and all of the Ducks. Those who already knew about us looked at us in sympathy and discomfort, while Orien, Bombay and the others wore identical expressions of shock. No one spoke for an eternity; the tension hung thick and palpable in the air.
"What are you doing?" Orien finally managed.
"Would you believe checking each other for head lice?" Fulton said dryly. "No? Then I guess we were kissing."
Averman was the next to recover his powers of speech. "See? This is what happens when two teenage boys share a bedroom."
"Ten percent of the population, my ass," said Goldberg.
Fulton and I disentangled ourselves from each other's arms and got to our feet. We straightened our respective bandannas and Fulton went to get his t- shirt while I stood there with my thumb up my ass, staring at everyone as they stared at me. .
"So," Charlie said, breaking the long silence that had fallen over the group once more. He spoke rapidly and nervously, not pausing even to take a breath: "So Coach Bombay came down here to give us some great news he already told all of us about it but we couldn't find you two anywhere but now we did and we're really sorry to walk in on you like this and damn this is awkward but it doesn't have to be--"
"Charlie and I are gay too," Adam broke in, looking squarely at Bombay and Orien, who both turned to look at him, their eyes wider than one would think physically possible.
"Wh-what?" Orien spluttered.
"He's kidding, right Charlie?" Bombay asked, turning to Conway, who only shook his head.
"Nope. Ask the other Ducks. They've known for awhile now."
The others nodded. "Yup, we know about THEM alright," Russ said, shaking his head. "But Fulton and Portman? That's something new."
I was really proud of Adam. It had taken guts to do what he did, and he did it to take the heat off Fulton and me. He was probably terrified one of the coaches would tell his dad, but he did it anyway. His courage must have been catching, as well as his altruism, because now Kenny stepped forward.
"Speaking of new, hey, did you know Julie and I have been going out?" He looked back and forth between Orien and Bombay. "Well, why aren't you shocked?"
Connie stepped up beside him. "As long as we're getting things out in the open, you should know that I elbowed that guy into the boards on purpose in Wednesday's game," she said.
"I'M the one who uses up all the hot water in the showers after games!" Guy yelled, raising his arms into the air.
"I ate a pot brownie! And I liked it!" Julie screamed.
"I'm allergic to dairy products," Averman said uncertainly.
"I'm afraid of pitbulls!" Goldberg called out.
"My cousin breeds Rottweilers," Russ put in.
"I'm dating two cheerleaders at once." Luis, of course.
"I'm double-jointed," said Dwayne, looking around for approval.
Wow. We all stood there, looking back and forth at each other. Thirteen mighty Ducks. Things were changing, we were growing up, but were still together. They didn't care about Fulton and me, or at least they were willing to look past it. "This is a hell of a hockey team," I said.
"You're right about that," said Bombay, though he still looked awful bewildered. "Look, maybe we should hold off till another night. I think we have some things we should talk about."
"Can't that wait until tomorrow?" Connie said impatiently. She was jumping up and down now, as if she had a wonderful secret she couldn't wait to share. "You said we were going out to dinner, and Fulton and Portman still don't know what this is all about."
She was right. "Yeah, what is this all about?"
***
"So when the tournament's founders approached me and asked if I was interested in trying out, you can imagine what I said."
We were all sitting at a huge table in the Old Spaghetti Factory while Bombay told us everything. We had been chosen to represent the United States once more, this time in the World Junior Hockey Championship, which honoured the best in the sport under the age of eighteen. It was meant to be a showcase of young talent where scouts could come to scope out the best in the world, and maybe sign them on to farm teams or something when they graduated. Next year, however, they had decided to try something different, and give the kids a chance to see other countries.
The deal was that we'd travel around the world for the entire hockey season, playing other countries' teams and amassing points before the final tournament, which would be held in Vancouver, and be set up just like the NHL playoffs. The winning team would win full university hockey scholarships to the school of their choice.
Obviously, this was an insanely cool piece of news, and it shed some light on why the Ducks took the scene in the gym so well. They were so excited about it that I doubt they'd have cared if Fulton and I said we wanted to adopt a baby.
"But don't they have to hold a national tournament first?" Julie asked. "I mean, what about the other state champs?"
"When they heard about your record, they decided to come down to the finals to see you in action, and that was enough for them. The head of the league, a guy named Gary Wiseman said, and I quote: "No other junior team in the country can hold a candle to the Ducks.""
Raucous cheers and hearty expressions of agreement followed Bombay's words. Winning the Goodwill Games, hell just playing in them, had been one of the best experiences any of us had ever had, and now we were going to get to do it again, and for an entire hockey season? An entire year spent flying from country to country, playing hockey with the best in the world? Sleeping in hotels, never going to school, just hanging with the Ducks? It sure put the whole gay/straight drama thing in perspective, didn't it?
***
"I can't believe it," Fulton said as we snuggled together in my bed, our stomachs so full of pasta we could barely move. "Did you see the way they all stepped up like that, even Luis? They were really great, weren't they?"
"Yeah, it was like in the Goodwill Games. And now we get to do it again. I feel like, what did we do to deserve this? I mean, that chick that won $20 million dollars last week? She don't got nothing on us."
Fulton sighed in perfect agreement. "Totally."
It was one of those amazingly overwhelming moments when you realised that everything was perfect, that all was right in our world. Or at least that's what I thought to myself on that Friday night as I lay in my bed, relishing the comforting weight of Fulton's head on my chest while Kurt Cobain sang us to sleep.
*Holy shit, can you believe this crazy hockey action? THE MIGHTY DUCKS HAVE BEATEN DETROIT THREE GAMES IN A ROW! One more win and the reigning champs are eliminated in the first round! It's a miracle! Of course, one mustn't forget last year, when my beloved Canucks beat them the first two games, only to lose the subsequent four. So everybody cross your fingers for the Ducks to shut out those geriatric Wings! My Canucks, on the other hand, are far from out of the running, but they need the big line to get back into it, and they could really use a win next game. Has anyone noticed that Ethan Moreau, who plays for the Oilers, is #18? Is that a crazy coincidence or what? Crazy.*