Chapter 12 – The Ducks Are Dead

Ted thought about Hans's advice all week. Could he make himself vulnerable to those kids? He didn't think he could.

He'd promised himself from the beginning that he would keep everything strictly professional, that he wouldn't be anything more than a coach to those kids because he'd seen the consequences teachers faced when they tried to be a student's friend. Mrs. Summers, one of the English teachers who'd been Ted's guidance counselor in his senior year, had gotten fired a year ago because she'd hugged a male student, consoling him over the loss of his grandfather. If sweet, motherly Mrs. Summers, who'd been an Eden Hall staff member since Ted's senior year, could get penalized for comforting a male student, who was to say Ted wouldn't get in trouble for crossing professional lines?

The week leading up to the game against Coon Rapids High School, practices could've gone better, and that was putting it generously. In fact, their performance in practice was so poor that week that Ted scheduled an early Saturday morning practice with the team because they needed to get their heads back on their shoulders if they had any hope of defeating the Cardinals, who'd made it to the playoffs last season. And part of the reason why their practices had gone so poorly all week long had been because of Conway, who'd either skipped practice altogether or showed up tardy. Ted heard from the teaching faculty that Fulton and Conway were both cutting several classes. When he looked at their records, he saw several missing assignments for Algebra I, history, and biology. He even saw Conway had a "D" in gym class – how the hell did someone get a "D" in gym class when the only thing you needed to do was show up in sweatpants? It was ludicrous to him. Clearly, Conway was doing this as an act of defiance; that was the only reasonable logic Ted could devise.

He rose early that Saturday morning, even earlier than Bella. He went downstairs, opened Lucy's bedroom door, kissed her on the forehead, and then wandered to the kitchen to make himself coffee. He poured his black coffee into a travel mug and drove to the Eden Hall ice rink, thinking over Hans and Bella's advice about getting vulnerable with the kids.

On paper, it made sense. Conway didn't trust him. He mistook Ted's pushing him so hard as punishment or that Ted didn't think he was good enough, which was far from the case. Ted had watched Charlie play since Peewees, going from the youngest and smallest rookie to a skilled, confident teenager; it was easy for Charlie to be confident when he thought they were doing well, but the minute it was time for him to go defense, all of a sudden, he crumbled under pressure, which showed Conway had a false sense of confidence covering up insecurities . . . insecurities that came from not having a father.

Ted hadn't known about the kid being fatherless, much less that Gordon had been the only consistent father figure the boy had. Granted, Ted knew how Gordon felt about Charlie – he'd called Charlie the real Minnesota Miracle Man, the heart of the team, his son, his boy . . . Gordon said all those things with so much love in his voice that Ted knew it killed Bombay to pack his bags for California.

Still, as understanding as Ted was, he had minimal to no sympathy for whining and tantrums, especially from a fourteen-year-old who behaved like a spoiled baby, pouting because he didn't have Bombay coaching him.

Parking in front of the ice rink, Ted sipped his coffee, savoring the bitter taste before leaving his car. But what concerned him when he got out was that he saw the Varsity team's cars were parked in front of the rink; that was odd. Coach Wilson mentioned nothing about having his boys practice at the same time as J.V., primarily since Varsity had crushed the Blake Bears in their game from last Friday night.

When he went to open the door, though, he saw it was already unlocked; no surprise there. He'd asked the janitors to open the doors early so that J.V. could get changed in the locker room. However, when he stepped inside, he heard the sounds of angry yelling. Conway's voice stood out to him the most.

"GO CRY TO YOUR RICH PARENTS!"

"ALL RIGHT! FINE!" Banks's voice shouted.

Ted's blood ran cold as he quickly swapped his sneakers for his skates, and when he stepped out onto the ice, he saw J.V. and Varsity in a shoving match. Banks and Conway were fist-fighting; he wasn't quite sure, but he thought he heard Banks saying, "You're just pissed off because your precious coach bailed on you!"

"Shut up!"

"You don't have a dad! Get over it!"

"Take that back!"

Gaffney and Holland were shoving each other, and Riley and Cole were ganging up on Wu, Averman, Germaine, and Moreau. Worry flooded him, along with anger. He'd told the kids to stay away from the Varsity, but it was clear none of them had listened. In fact, he felt especially pissed when he saw they were wearing their old uniforms, a clear symbolism of separating themselves from the title "Warrior," determined to clutch onto the last thing that made them "Ducks." Watching the kids fighting, he wasn't thinking about who started it; all he cared about was keeping Varsity away from J.V. and getting his kids out of this pickle because the likelihood of someone getting hurt was high.

He blew his whistle shrilly and yelled, "FREEZE! HEY! HEY! BREAK IT UP!"

Suddenly, Varsity looked scared, like a deer in headlights. He didn't think Rick Riley or Bradley Cole had ever seen him truly pissed off before; this was a first for them as he raced in to break up the brawl, getting in the middle of Riley and Fulton.

"Break it up now! Hey!" He turned to Riley and seized the stuck-up senior by the collar of his jersey, glowering at him in anger and disgust. "It's a damn good thing I'm not your coach," he growled at Riley, grabbing the boy under his chin and forcing Riley to look him in the eye, but Riley didn't look scared; he looked smug, smirking and laughing as though this were all one colossal joke to him, and Ted's disgust somehow translated to sickness; his stomach twisted with nausea as the black coffee he'd had that morning threatened to crawl up his throat.

"Now, get your team out of here!" he snarled at Riley, shoving the senior back harshly before addressing the rest of the Varsity team. "Varsity team, out! Let's go! Outta here! Let's go! You! Out!"

He heard one of the Varsity players mocking J.V., telling them that "this wasn't over." What wasn't over? Watching the Varsity team leave, all of them except Banks looked smug, proud of themselves for what they'd done, but Ted continued glowering at them, hoping his eyes were so icy that they'd turn into shards and cut into every single one of those bullies; it would be fitting, seeing as the Varsity team thought it cool to pick on those they thought were weaker. He could see Rick Riley's face, how Riley was laughing hysterically, how Cole looked especially proud of what they'd done. But when Ted turned to glance at his kids, he saw them all looking vexed and hurt over what had happened; he noticed the expressions on Connie, Charlie, Ken, and Fulton's faces that said, "You're supposed to be on our side."

But he was on their side. If he weren't, he would've let them keep fist-fighting with those goons, all of whom were much larger, even meaner than the Iceland team they faced two years ago in the Junior Goodwill Games; Varsity wouldn't hesitate to crush them like bugs under their shoes, and Ted felt a swell of fatherly overprotectiveness wash over him as he looked at every single one of his team members, especially when he heard Riley mocking them, threatening that Varsity was going to destroy them, with the Varsity waving goodbye like a bunch of cowards. Even though he'd promised himself he wouldn't get close to these kids, he couldn't help it – they grew on you.

But that didn't negate the fact that his kids ignored his orders when he told them to stay away from the Varsity team, not interact with them, or give them any satisfaction because he knew this would happen.

"Well, congratulations," Ted said sarcastically. "You just forfeited whatever mental edge you might have had over the Varsity. Now they know that they own you."

Looking at the kids' faces, he knew they knew this. The only one who didn't look the least bit ashamed was Conway, who stood there defiantly.

"This isn't the Peewees. Your little Duck tricks are not gonna work at this level," Ted continued, watching as Moreau, Gaffney, and Averman looked down in shame. But Conway continued to look straight ahead at him, glowering, blue eyes storming with an even deeper rage than Ted ever thought possible. "Now, for the last time. Stay away from the Varsity!" He made sure to look at Conway when he said this before adding, "And get those Ducks jerseys off now. Let's go." Seeing the kids' hesitation, he said, "Now. Come on, let's go. Take them off! The Ducks are dead."

Conway and Fulton were the only ones who didn't start to remove their Ducks jerseys. In fact, Conway crossed his arms over his chest defiantly, defensively, as though he were determined to protect the one last thing that made him a Duck, the one last thing that had become part of his identity for the past four years, the very thing that made him . . . him, the thing that Gordon had given to him, the same hill that he was willing to die upon because if he wasn't a Duck and if he wasn't the captain, then what was he? Just Charlie? Ted knew that this had to be hurting the kid, and Conway thought it to be unfair. Still, Ted had to get these kids to break away and start getting used to playing under a different name because, truthfully, even though their new uniforms bore the name "Warrior," they were still a flock of ducks; they had to find a way to be both, somehow, and truthfully? Maybe Ted had to learn to find that balance, too, and he was willing to learn with them if they were willing to do the same with him.

"You got two choices, Conway," Ted said, mimicking Conway, crossing his arms over his chest. "Take off the jersey right now, or you don't play."

Conway uncrossed his arms. "You're breaking up the best thing any of us ever had," he said hotly.

"Well, it's time to grow up," Ted said, mirroring him, which seemed to anger Conway even more.

Conway skated up to him, spitting out, "Grow up? Like you, huh? A washed-up pro who has to show off to a bunch of kids. Real grown up."

The words "washed-up pro" hurt worse than anything; suddenly, Ted wasn't in the rink anymore, but back in the car with his wife and daughter almost five and a half years ago, the impact of the other car slamming into his as an unimaginable pain he'd never felt before smacked into him. Hearing Conway call him a "washed-up pro" made him think of his playing career he gave up, all for his little girl – it was true that Ted could've chosen to return to the NHL, but he chose his family over hockey, even though he didn't regret choosing his family, part of him would always miss playing pro. For Conway to rub that right in his face and sneer at him, it hurt worse than when he'd been in that car accident that ended his whole playing career. He felt like someone had punched him in the stomach; he remembered one time when he got into a fight with a Buffalo Sabres defenseman, Colin Cole, the impact of the man's fists hitting him everywhere. Getting hit by Colin Cole's fists hurt less than this, and he suddenly felt his nausea return, but he swallowed it back just as quickly.

"Okay, goodbye, Conway," Ted said, suddenly unable to look at the boy's face. "Anybody else?"

He watched as Fulton left next. Of course, Fulton and Conway were attached to the hip. Ted recalled a story Gordon had told him of what happened when Banks got brought into the flock: the entire team forfeited their match against the Flames, the only two who didn't were Fulton and Conway because of how close they'd grown, and Ted could see how Conway influenced Fulton, how Fulton followed the Ducks captain around like a lost puppy, either scared to not follow the leader or so unswervingly loyal to his best friend. Now, Ted was seeing a mirror of that happening all over again, this time with Conway and Fulton leaving the flock while the rest of them stayed behind with him.

"All right," Ted said. "Goodbye, Fulton." Ted turned to the rest of the kids, saying, "No one's forcing any of you to be here. It's your lives. You decide what to make of them." When he saw the kids were unwavering, he said, "All right. Twenty laps, then hit the showers."

After the kids finished, he cut them loose. After twenty laps, he decided that practice was over because he needed to get inside his office to think straight. Now that Conway and Fulton were gone from the team, he needed to strategize a whole new game plan for the game later that night. But while the kids went off to hit the showers in the J.V. locker room, Ted needed to use the bathroom first; he headed to the men's room, only to hear whispered threats and tearful whimpering from inside the bathroom.

"Just leave them alone. They haven't done anything to you!" He recognized Banks's voice. The fear in his tone was palpable.

"Nah, Banksy, it's more the fact that they exist," came Rick Riley's sneer. "If you don't wanna be a Warrior, then go crawling back to those little wussies and see what happens to you, you little punk! You know, I really should've taught you your lesson last night when you tried sneaking off like a little rat to pay that bill! 'Cause you know what happens to rats? They live in sewers! And when you hang around trash like that long enough, you start to stink."

"Besides," came Cole's voice, "nobody's stopping you. If you wanna leave, leave. We don't need you. We never did, you little wimp!"

There came the sound of someone's fist connecting, a cry of pain, and a whispered demand, "Come on, drink it! Aren't you thirsty?"

"No . . . No!"

"Come on, open your mouth and drink!"

"Fuck you!"

Another punch, and then, "Watch your fucking mouth. Maybe you should rinse it out!"

Ted shoved the door to the bathroom open, finding Banks pressed against the tile wall, white-faced and petrified with a black eye already forming, and Cole and Riley cornering him, their hands gripping his shoulders and keeping him caged there as he stood there shaking in terror. Riley was holding a spring water bottle and was forcing Banks to drink from it, but Ted suspected that that water was not fresh, based on the twisted look on Banks's face, as though he were tasting something particularly nasty. Ted was willing to bet that water had come out of the toilet.

Ted stormed in and ripped Riley and Cole away, water spilling from the bottle, and Banks leaned over, coughing up water along with whatever little he had to eat the night before. "And just what the hell do you two think you're doing? Huh?"

"Nothing, we're just messing around," Cole said.

Ted glowered at him. He'd been around long enough to know that this was just the sort of hazing the Varsity team liked to do to someone new.

He'd been on the receiving end of Dennis Cole's hazing after being recruited during his freshman year. He remembered himself and Basil being forced into drinking from urine-filled water bottles by means to "initiate" them. He also recalled Tom Riley's way of hazing new Varsity players: whoever pulled the most assists or scored more goals during the game, that person was rewarded with a beer that Tom snuck in (it was the early eighties; everyone drank underage at one time or another; it was something nobody thought of at the time), but the unfortunate ones who didn't get any playing time or even worse, missed a wide-open shot on an empty net, was forced into swallowing a spoonful of a hot sauce made from ghost peppers. Neither Ted nor Basil spoke up about the bullying because they didn't want to be rats, but seeing what Cole and Riley were doing to Banks filled Ted with pangs of regret, his stomach feeling sick.

"After what I saw out there earlier, you're lying. Do I look stupid to you?" he gritted out.

"Yes," said Cole, to which Ted got into his face, gripping his hands on the collar of the boy's shirt.

"Then you're sadly mistaken," he whispered coldly. "I've been around a long time, Cole. I know your kind. And I know the sort of shit you think you can get away with! You might've been able to stay at this place because Daddy's on the school board, but you are not gonna pick on anyone else ever again! Not on my watch! You two make me sick! Now, get the hell out of here! Both of you! Out!"

"Yeah, sure, whatever, Dad!" sneered Riley, and he spat right in Ted's face on his way out, with Cole following closely behind.

Ted slowly wiped the spit off his face before turning to Banks, who'd sunk to the ground, shaking like a leaf. His face was wet with tears as his black eye swelled up slowly, going from a pale green to a shade of blue.

Ted walked over to Banks and held his hand out. "Are you all right?" he asked, concerned.

Banks shook his head, wiping his face.

"What were they threatening you over?"

"Last night, they took the J.V. team to the Minnesota Club for dinner," Banks replied, sniffling. "They told Charlie and the others that it was a tradition: the seniors treat the freshmen to dinner. I believed them when they said it. But I found out last minute that it would be a dine-and-dash; I tried to warn them, but Rick grabbed my wrist and he . . . he threatened to kill me if I said anything to them. But I couldn't just leave them there; I snuck off and paid half of it, but Rick found out, and now he's gonna make my life hell on earth, and Charlie hates my guts, and I can't do anything to fix this!"

Hearing this, Ted wasn't surprised. He'd seen it happen before; the dine-and-dash thing occurred whenever scholarship kids were on the J.V. team. It had been done when he'd been at Eden Hall, except he considered himself lucky that he hadn't been stuck alone with the bill because he made the Varsity team as a freshman.

Looking at Banks, Ted could see the palpable guilt on the kid's face; the boy looked as though he were about to be sick, thinking about how his old team had to work all night long to pay off that bill at the Minnesota Club, a bill that Ted knew from experience did not come cheap. But the fact that he wasn't surprised made him feel terrible, worse than he already felt; no wonder Conway had been so defensive and why J.V. kept responding to the Varsity. They were sick of being looked down upon and spat on for not coming from money, not wearing the right clothes, or not owning fancy equipment. It made him wonder what else Varsity had been doing to his kids. And it made him wonder if things would be different if he'd stood up to the Varsity team a lot more when he'd been Banks's age – if he had, would this bullying still be going on today?

"I heard what you said to Conway," Ted said, and he watched as Banks's face reddened in shame. "That was out of line. You had no right to say that to him."

"I know," Banks sobbed, more tears rolling down his face. "I screwed everything up. He's never gonna forgive me."

"Hans told me about Varsity picking on your friends," Ted said. "What else have they done? I know Wu has been getting his lunch stolen, but that's about it."

"During the Bears game, they . . . they threw J.V.'s clothes into the shower," Banks said roughly. "I didn't know anything until Monday when Julie told me about it in biology – she's the only one not pissed at me for it. I gave her the idea to ice the Varsity jackets with liquid nitrogen while Varsity was practicing."

Somehow, Ted hadn't heard about that. But knowing what he knew now, there was no mystery why J.V. hadn't stayed away from the Varsity – the Varsity had made them feel that they needed to protect themselves, thus the prank war.

He shook his head, sighing as he gave Banks a once-over; aside from the now-forming black eye, he noticed Banks's right wrist looked a little swollen; no doubt, Riley knew Banks's right wrist was his weakness since that was the wrist that got hurt in the Junior Goodwill Games; for Riley to grab Banks like that, he irritated an old injury. Ted could see where Rick's handprint was; it left a colorful bruise around Banks's skin, purpling with an outline of green and looking relatively fresh. Riley had to have grabbed Banks's wrist in quite a grip to twist and bruise it the way he did.

"Have they been doing anything else to you?" he asked Banks.

Banks nodded, more tears rolling down his face. "I didn't play at all in the Bears game. Not once. But Brown, Mullin, Kabine, Riley, Avery, and Cole scored a lot – Mullin and Cole got the hat trick, and Riley and Avery scored a lot when we were on the offense. But Mabina, Labine, Bard, Hart, Darrow and I . . . we weren't so lucky. Riley and Cole gave all those who scored the most a beer. But those of us who didn't . . ."

"Let me guess," Ted said gently. "Did they force-feed you boys ghost pepper sauce?"

Banks looked at him in surprise, more tears glassing in his eyes. "How'd you know?"

"Riley's borrowing from his old man's playbook," Ted explained sympathetically. "Come on, then. Let's get you to the nurse. We should get that wrist checked out." He reached down and grabbed Banks's left hand, pulling him to his feet.

"No." Banks gulped, shaking his head. "No one can know! They'll kill me if I say anything!"

"And if you don't get that wrist looked at, you could injure yourself permanently," Ted said gently. "Now, come on. Let's get out of here."

Banks stared back at him, mouth gaped open. "Why are you being nice to me?"

"I'm doing my job," Ted said firmly. "Besides, for you, I'm sympathetic. I know how it feels. It was the same way for me."

"Really? You?"

"Yeah. Trust me. I've been there before. I've dealt with my share of bullies."

"I've been sick over it all morning. I tried to tell Charlie I didn't know anything until it was too late. As far as he's concerned, I'm a turncoat." Ted watched as more tears flooded Banks's eyes; he could see all over the boy's face how deeply this hurt, knowing the kid's best friend now resented him even more. Looking at Banks, Ted could see the similarities between him and Bombay, but he also saw a mirror of himself; it was odd, but Banks and Conway both reminded him so much of himself.

"I can't make any decisions for you, Banks," Ted said as they left the bathroom. "But I can see you're different from the rest of them. Do you think anybody on the Varsity team feels bad for what they've done?"

"No, maybe Scooter, but definitely not Rick and Cole."

"Well, then you need to decide what kind of person you wanna be. Because the only way you'll set things right with your friends is if you take a step forward and assess what's important to you: do you be what everyone expects you to be? Or do you be your own man?"

Banks nodded, swallowing. "I'm no Warrior. I'm a Duck."

Ted nodded along gently. "Then I'll see what I can do. But I know Wilson will put up a fight to keep you on his team."

"I don't care how long it takes to fight. I miss my friends." More tears rolled down Banks's face as they left the rink together, and Ted swore to himself that he'd find some way to fix this, as he was partially responsible for this mess and needed to clean it up. He knew he couldn't repair the friendship between Banks and Conway, but he had to try to get Banks back on J.V.

Some of the dialogue was quoted from the D3 novelization; I never read it, but I did read in a comment section on one story on A03 quoting that Adam said something along those lines to Charlie - "You're just pissed off because your precious coach bailed on you." That tells me something about Adam's character: he can be downright passive-aggressive, and he can play under almost any coach, and he's more open to change and adapting than Charlie is.

And I have no reason to doubt that the Varsity team bullied people in the past and that they were not above hazing and bullying one of their own; they had this aura that they could get away with anything with absolutely no consequences, and I wanted to show that this kind of bullying dated back to when Ted and Gordon had been in school because when bullying behavior is done to that extent and it's left to continue onto the next generation, it's like cancer. And the mentioning of the ghost pepper stuff, that's a reference to an episode of this old hidden-camera show called Mystery Diners, where they caught the manager hazing new employees with this: whoever made the most sales got a beer and could drink on the job, the loser got a mouthful of a super-hot, ghost chili-infused barbeque sauce. I don't know what kinds of anti-hazing laws there were back in the '90s, but I know if any of that happened today, it would be a zoo, especially since we live in a world with cellphone cameras, something that didn't exist thirty years ago.