The Game

Sidney Robichaud

We go to the game because that’s what we do on Saturday nights. My dad, Tyler, and me. We pile into my dad’s red Ford Ranger, me in the middle seat with my legs scrunched up against my chest. The faded upholstery smells like cigarettes, even though Dad quit smoking two years ago. Some things just hold on like that. 

Tyler’s sixteen, and leans against the window, staring out at the passing farmland. He’s working at the lobster plant in town, saving for his own truck. They pay him seventeen dollars an hour to put rubber bands around their claws. When he comes home, the plant’s fishy odour clings to his jacket, like the cigarette smell in Dad’s truck. I don’t think it will last as long though, because lobster season ends in May. I hope he buys the truck soon, because now that I’m thirteen, my legs are getting too long for the middle seat. Even though I like being squished in between the two of them, my knees start to hurt after fifteen minutes. We pull into the rink parking lot, Dad shifts down, his hand hitting my leg as the truck rocks into a spot close to the door. Some of the boys in Tyler’s grade are out in front of the building, smoking. 

It’s the kind of day in December in Nova Scotia where you can feel the differences in the cold. The air inside the rink is dry, brisk and familiar.  Every sound amplifies through it. The pop machine hums and from somewhere, the sound of a skate sharpener reaches us. A whistle blows on the ice and I can feel it on the back of my neck. The rink was built the seventies. There is a line of photos on the wall of MVPs throughout the rink’s long history. My dad smiles out from one of them, MVP from 1985. He was seventeen. There’s something about the openness of his face that makes me sad. It’s like he thought it would always be that way. He doesn’t look like that now.

The smell of the deep fryer drifts around us, and my stomach grumbles. Dad buys us french fries and Pepsi. The french fries are perfect, crispy and hot. Tyler always coats his in ketchup and vinegar. Dad says he has no business treating his fries like that, but Tyler just shrugs and adds more of both. He grabs an extra Pepsi cup, and I know when we find our seats,  he’ll pack a wad of tobacco under his bottom lip, and Dad will pretend not to notice as Tyler’s Pepsi cup slowly fills with a brown swill that looks like the bottom of a lake in August. 

The players are already on the ice, warming up. They skate in figure eights, firing pucks at the boards. The sound of the rubber hitting the hard plastic boards echoes through the rink. The players are all at the edge of adulthood. They have patchy facial hair and a look of eagerness about them. They move fluidly, their skates on the ice seemingly just an extension of their bodies. Like they were born there. They remind me of dancers. I say this to Dad and he laughs and says, “Dancing’s for girls, bud.”

Number 22 skates by, last name McNeil sewn onto his jersey, red square letters on a white rectangle patch. Hunter McNeil. Dad waves at him through the plexiglass. Hunter raises a glove at him. Hunter is the team captain, and our next-door neighbour. Dad sometimes gives him some one-on-one coaching. He does it for free. Dad says that Hunter’s got real talent, and could get picked up by the Mooseheads or maybe even get drafted to the NHL someday. Sometimes I go out and practice with them on the rink my dad built for us in the front yard. Hunter will pass the puck back and forth with me, showing me the different movements for wrist shots and slapshots. Hunter’s mom, when she’s home, will bring out hot chocolate in plastic cups. She usually will sit with us at the games, but today she’s at work. She’s a nurse and works night shifts, sometimes. So today, it’s just me, Dad, and Tyler, watching Hunter warm up. Hunter’s dad left when he was a baby.

 The seats start to fill up around us.  These guys are the real deal, the ones who might go somewhere with their hockey careers. The Junior A team. The only team the whole town comes out to watch. The players finish their warm up and skate off the ice. The doors to the zamboni room swing open, and the driver turns circles around the ice, leaving sluggish trails on its sliced up surface. The benches are cold and hard, and I know it’s only a matter of time before the chill sets into my body. I’ve already finished my Pepsi. I peel off the plastic lid and slip a piece of ice between my lips. The cold feels good on my tongue. People always tell Dad not to buy me Pepsi because it’ll give me too much energy, but he just says, “Beau’s a good kid. He doesn’t give me any trouble.” 

It must be true, because Dad never yells at me. He yells at Tyler a lot, though. 

Last week, Tyler was playing video games, slouched into the couch. I was sitting beside him, watching. His face was still and serious, blue eyes bright and concentrated. Lips pursed, his top lip starting to show signs of a moustache. Dad came into the living room and said,

“Ty, homework?”

Tyler didn’t look up, he was too focused on the dirt bikes on the screen. Dad tried again.

“Ty.”

“Yeah.” Tyler didn’t look away from the game. He moved his hands from side to side as he steered the bike over jumps. 

“You do your homework?”

He didn’t answer. Dad went over and pulled the plug out. The screen went black. 

“What the fuck?”

“Watch it.” Dad pointed his finger at him, the cord from the T.V. dangling limply from his fist. 

“Fuck you.” 

Tyler stood and stormed upstairs. A few minutes later a car honked outside. I peeked out the window and saw Tyler’s friend, Cody, waving from his car, the exhaust visible in the cold evening air. Tyler stomped down the stairs, passing us as he walked toward the door. As he passed us, Dad called out to him,

“When’re you gonna man up?” 

Tyler didn’t answer, just slammed the door so hard the coats fell off the rack. 

 Our mom died when I was six and Tyler was nine. It seems sometimes like Dad and Tyler have been yelling at each other ever since. 

Right after my mom died, Dad didn’t come out of his room for two days. The door was shut tight, and after knocking on it a few times, Tyler looked around the kitchen for something for us to eat. He poured us bowls of Cheerios and turned on the TV, just to fill the house with noise. The Cheerios ran out at the end of the second day and Tyler gave me the last bowl. He said he wasn’t hungry. 

Tyler shifts in his seat, his coat a few sizes too big for him. He’s looking at his phone, texting someone. I ask him if I can try one of his soggy fries and he gives me one, and I try to like it because I want to like everything Tyler likes. The zamboni is doing its circular route on the ice, leaving trails of wet, like a slug from our front garden. Tyler slouches over his phone and Dad says, 

“Ty, sit up straight bud.” 

Tyler rolls his eyes but sits up straighter. He and Dad look almost the same, with their blonde hair and sturdy builds. Everyone tells me I look like my mom. I have brown hair like her, and my legs are long and thin. Tyler remembers her better than I do. 

The zamboni leaves the ice. It lifts its back end over the edge of the door, leaving a small pile of snow. The driver comes back out and shovels the snow into the zamboni room. The double doors close and the players come out, lining up three at the center line and two at the blue line, both teams mirroring the other. Hunter is at the centerline. Even if his name wasn’t on his jersey, you can tell it’s him because of the way his dark hair curls around the bottom of his helmet. He’s the only one on the team with curly hair. Dad says that there’s a scout from the Mooseheads here tonight, just to see Hunter play. The whistle sounds and the puck drops. They’re off. 

Dad taught Tyler and I both how to skate when we were really young. He carefully maintained the in the backyard, spending night after night out there with the garden hose to keep the surface smooth. Mom was still alive then, and she would come out and watch. Even when she was sick. I can remember flashes of her in the evenings, wrapped up in a sleeping bag, sitting on a little bench Dad built. Her feathery hair hidden under a toque. Her grey skin lit up by the porch light.

Tyler hates hockey. He’d rather be out on his dirtbike, or playing video games with his friends. But he always comes to the game with us. Usually he leaves to go hang out with his friends outside. They all smoke cigarettes in the parking lot. But, he hangs out with us for the first period, anyway. Tonight he stands up a little before the period ends. Dad says, “Where are you going,” like he always does. 

“Cody’s here.”

I can see Dad is upset, and he’s considering fighting him on it. Then he sighs,

“Fine. Meet us out front when the game ends.”

Tyler stalks off. 

Our team scores. Dad leaps to his feet. “Way to go boys!” he calls. The whistle cuts through the applause. 

Cody was a regular fixture at our house until Tyler was fifteen. His parents didn’t seem to care where he was, so more often than not you’d see him hanging out at the gas station, or at the rink. When he wasn’t at one of those places, he was at our house. One afternoon, a couple of police officers showed up at the door. 

“Does Tyler Doucet live here?”

Dad looked shocked. Didn’t say anything. 

“We’ve got him in the back. He and that Jacobs kid were up spray painting the school.”

It was the first time Tyler didn’t look defiant when Dad was yelling at him. He looked at the floor the whole time, his face red. When Dad was done, Tyler turned without a word and went right up to his room, and slammed the door. Dad leaned against the counter with a hand over his eyes. The room was silent for a few minutes. Then, taking his hand off his eyes, he turned to me and said,

“Wanna go out on the rink?” 

“Okay.” 

Cody stopped coming around after that. But Dad couldn’t stop Tyler from hanging out with him. I guess you really can’t tell sixteen year olds what to do.  

Dad and I bundled up and took our skates out to the rink. Hunter was already out there. He was trying to pick the puck up off the ice with the blade of his stick. The three of us passed the puck back and forth for so long that my hands and feet went numb. Hunter was so graceful. I remember thinking that. The way he held himself. The way he skated. So different from the others. I wondered if that’s what made him better than all of them. He patted my shoulder when he left. “Great job, Beau.” Something warm moved inside me, blooming from the middle outward.

Tyler was waiting for us in the kitchen. His eyes were puffy and red, and he stood in silence for a minute. Then he said, “I’m sorry.”

Dad nodded, and patted him on the arm.

“Me too, bud.”

The game is tied one-one. A fight breaks out. No one knows who starts it. It’s not really much of one, just a couple of players holding onto each other’s jerseys, pulling at the fabric, their hands dwarfed by their shoulder-pads. The ref breaks it up after a few minutes and sends both players to their respective penalty boxes. Dad leans back in his seat and laughs.

“Jesus, they really don’t let ‘em just go for it anymore.” 

The play resumes, with each team short a player. Our team is short a defenceman, and the other team’s forward manages to sneak around our remaining one and score a goal. The red light behind the net lights up. Hunter slams the blade of his stick on the ice and the players skate back to the centerline with their heads down. Dad stamps his foot on the bleacher. 

“Shit.” 

Tyler started bringing me with him to hang out at Cody’s sometimes. They mostly just smoke weed and play video games. Tyler said I couldn’t try weed because Dad would kill him if he found out. Tyler was in the bathroom last week when Cody said, 

“Hey Beau,  c’mere.”

I walked over to him hesitantly; more often than not, Cody just wants to punch me when Tyler isn’t looking. But instead, that day, he held a lit joint out to me. 

“Try while your pussy brother’s not looking.” 

I took the joint and sucked back. Cody showed me how to hold it in. My chest burned and I started coughing, my own breath felt like it was tearing me apart. Tyler came out of the bathroom.

“Fuck, Cody, don’t give Beau that shit.”

“You’re such a cunt. He likes it. Right?” He shoved me, and I kept coughing, gasping for air. Tears ran down my cheeks. Cody laughed. 

“Fuck, Ty, you gotta teach this kid to be a man. He’s fucking soft.” He disappeared, for a moment. I’d finally stopped coughing. Sweat was pouring down my back. The world had taken on a thick, slow feeling, and my mouth felt dry. Cody came back.

“You like Playboy?” 

“Jesus, Cody,” Tyler made to grab at the magazine. Cody held it away. 

“Someone’s gotta teach him. What, you think your dad’s gonna?” He put the magazine down on the coffee table and started flipping through it. I didn’t really feel like I was there. I was somewhere else, watching. 

“Okay, see these women, that’s for guys like us to jerk off to. You’ve jerked off, right?” I nodded. A woman stared out of a glossy page, her lips and legs parted. I could feel heat creep up the back of my neck. I thought of the thing that I do when I’m alone, in bed. That I use my boxers to wipe up afterward. Cody continued, 

“So what you do is you take the magazine and find a girl you like in there, and then you grab your dick and start -” 

“He said he knows, fuck’s sake Cody.” 

Afterwards, Tyler took me through the McDonald’s drive-thru and bought me two McDoubles and a Junior Chicken. I ate the first two and put the third in my backpack, its hot, sweaty wrapper nestled close to the Playboy. We drove home. In the driveway, Tyler paused before taking the key out of the ignition. 

“Don’t tell Dad about any of this, okay?”

I promised I wouldn’t. 

That evening, in my room, I opened the backpack and pulled out the Junior Chicken. I really wasn’t hungry anymore. The magazine peered up at me, the woman on the cover’s eyes locked in mine. I slid it out and put it on my bed. There was a spot where the sandwich had rested, where the condensation had left the glossy paper moist, and warped. I flipped through the pages. I settled on a page with a blonde woman lying on her back. She had huge, round breasts and small, puckered nipples. My mom’s weren’t like that. I remember, once when she didn’t know I was there, her asking my dad to feel one. Is that a lump? She’d said. The woman in the magazine’s hips were thrusting upward, her legs parted, everything in clear view. Her edges were blurry, like she wasn’t meant to be real. I put my hand on my penis and started to move it up and down. I looked down at the page and the woman seemed to be staring out of it, looking right through me. I closed my eyes so I couldn’t see her anymore. I didn’t like that I felt like she was watching me. I tried to picture her body in my mind, the parts of her that were bared on the page. Instead, as my breath quickened and I felt a stiffening in my hands, her body shifted and flickered into dark, curly hair falling beneath a plastic helmet. Just like every other time. Her breasts became a smile and a hand on my shoulder. Great job, Beau. He crowded out everything else, until, finally, breaking like a crack of thunder, unfurling ecstasy fading into softness, I laid down on my bed. My heart pounded in my body. The magazine was still open, covered in my mess. I felt like I should leave it there, as some kind of evidence. Of what, I’m still not entirely sure.