Finnie Walsh (12 page)

Roger Walsh crawled along the ice as fast as he could, flinching as it crackled, the sound reminding him of the time his grandfather had taken him hunting but had been forced to bring him home in tears, young Roger having been terrified by the sound of the rifle. Just as Roger Walsh got to the car, the ice gave way and the car slid into the river, the trunk disappearing and then the back doors and then the front doors and windshield and then the hood and finally the headlights, their faint light disappearing beneath the surface. Roger Walsh saw his wife’s eyes one last time just before she went under. At that moment help arrived from several motorists who had seen the accident. But, despite the heroic efforts of several men who risked their own lives and dove beneath the frozen surface, Mrs. Walsh could not be saved. Roger Walsh never really got over the feeling that maybe, if he had been a little faster, a little stronger, a little tougher, he could have saved his wife.

Finnie had inherited that feeling. From a very early age, he knew that he must be ready at all times, because disaster can strike at any moment. In his estimation goalies were the epitome of toughness and Pelle Lindbergh was the best of the lot. But, as tough and strong and fast as Lindbergh undeniably was, he still died a senseless death. It destroyed the way Finnie looked at the world.

The only other person who recognized that something was wrong with Finnie was Sarah. She set her mind to finding out what it was. “Why are you sad?” she asked him. It was April of 1986, five months after Pelle Lindbergh’s death, and our horrible season had finally ended. Sarah had just turned four.

“I’m not sad, Sarah,” Finnie said. He tried his best to keep his problems to himself when he was around her.

“What are you then?”

“I’m not anything. I’m Finnie.”

“No. What are you?”

“I’m nothing. I’m fine. Do you want some juice?” Juice usually worked when it came to distracting Sarah, but she was onto us and only let it work when she had nothing to lose.

“No. You’re sad.”

“All right, maybe I’m a little sad.”

“Why?”

“Because someone died.”

“Who died?”

“A hockey player.”

“Was he your friend?”

“No, I didn’t know him.”

“Then why are you sad?”

“I don’t know. I just am.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Really.”

Sarah was puzzled by this. As far as she was concerned, Finnie always had the answers. That night Finnie was going to stay for supper, but when we sat down at the table he was nowhere to be found.

“Where’s Finnie?” my mother asked.

“I guess he went home,” I said.

“He’s sad,” Sarah said.

“What’s wrong with him?” asked my father.

“A hockey player died,” Sarah answered.

My father’s eyebrows dropped. “He’s still upset about Pelle Lindbergh?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“But that was over five months ago.”

“I know, but he was Finnie’s hero.”

“Finnie’s put on a lot of weight,” my mother said.

“He won’t play hockey anymore,” I said.

“Because your coach benched him?”

“Not just that. He doesn’t even try in practice.” I didn’t tell them about the reservoir rink and his refusal to rebuild it.

“Finnie doesn’t try?” My father’s mouth hung open, full of food.

“No.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean he doesn’t care. He didn’t care that Coach Hunter benched him.”

“That’s not like Finnie,” my mother said.

“Damn right it’s not,” my father said.

“He has been acting strange lately.”

“I can’t believe he’s not trying.”

“And he has put on all that weight.”

“Someone had better have a talk with that boy.”

I wondered what good it would do; rocks weren’t going to work on Finnie this time.

One evening several days later, Finnie and I were sitting in the kitchen watching Sarah for my mother, who had a headache and wanted to lie down for a while, when my father came in and invited us to join him on the back deck. We went outside and Sarah ran to play on the tire swing my father had built for her. It was unusual for her to leave us alone like that when there was obviously going to be a conversation. I knew then that it was a setup.

My father wasted no time. “I hear you’ve lost interest in hockey, Finnie.”

“I guess I have,” Finnie answered, looking at me suspiciously. “It just isn’t what it used to be.”

“Because of Pelle Lindbergh?”

“Sort of. It’s bigger than that, though. Because what happened to Pelle Lindbergh can happen to anyone.”

“You mean dying?”

“No, it’s the way he died. Needlessly,” he looked at me, “like Bill Barilko.”

“I don’t know if I agree with that, Finnie,” my father said. “Death is death. Sometimes a death has a purpose, but most of the time people just die.”

“I know.”

“On the other hand, there’s Georges Vezina to consider.”

“Who?”

“Georges Vezina, the Chicoutimi Cucumber, the Silent Habitant. He was a goalie for the Montreal Canadiens in the first part of the century, back when goalies had to stay on their feet to make saves. He was the father of 22 children and won two Stanley Cups, once stopping 78 shots in one game. The Vezina Trophy for the most valuable goaltender, which I believe your boy Pelle Lindbergh won last season, is named after him.”

“Yeah. Lot of good the Vezina did Lindbergh.”

“I’m not finished, Finnie. They called him the Chicoutimi
Cucumber because he was as cool as a cucumber, or so the saying goes. They called him the Silent Habitant because he never, ever complained, which for a Frenchman is indeed a noteworthy feat.

“One night in November of 1925, Montreal was playing Pittsburgh. After the first period, having shut out Pittsburgh magnificently, Vezina left the ice bleeding from his mouth, even though no one remembered him having been hit with the puck. He collapsed in the dressing room during the intermission, but pulled himself together and started the second period. He made it through most of the period, but then he collapsed again. Four months later he died of tuberculosis. He had told no one, not even his family, that he was mortally ill. But he left that last game without having let a goal in. He went out with a shutout. He went out on a high note.”

Finnie was speechless.

“Lindbergh, he was a good goalie, right?” my father asked.

“He was one of the best,” Finnie said.

“But there’s more to it than that, right? Well, the rest of it is what makes the difference, Finnie. That’s what matters.”

After that, Finnie’s attitude toward hockey changed: it was more than a game, about more than stopping pucks, although that would always be his foremost concern. To Finnie hockey was about life and death and about every other player who had ever lived and died. It was a religion.

Once Finnie got his legs back, he was a far better goalie than he’d been before Pelle Lindbergh died, which was pretty damn good. The difference was that now he was playing for himself.

In the middle of 1987, my father finished reading every
National Geographic
ever printed and was reduced from a pace of three issues a week to one a month. At first he enjoyed the extra free
time, but then he began to get restless. My mother and Louise and I grew nervous; unlike Sarah, we remembered the week he had spent saving us from the garage. We knew it was only a matter of time before he found something else to occupy his time. The possibilities were frightening.

His only friend, Pal, was not the most stable influence we could have hoped for. His prosthetic arms had been disappearing fairly steadily over the years and at that point I believe he had gone through over 20 arms. We didn’t know whether he lost the arms or whether they were stolen; to be honest, I don’t think Pal knew either. What possible use would anyone else have for them? There was just no motive.

I thought that perhaps Pal was losing them on purpose, but Louise didn’t think so; if he didn’t want them, then why did he keep getting more? Sarah thought that maybe they were running away on their own, like the dish and the spoon, off to find their true loves, a sort of prosthetic-limb
Romeo and Juliet
. My mother didn’t know what to think. My father supported a wide array of theories, some completely bizarre, but he always believed Pal when he said he was sure he hadn’t just misplaced a claw. Not even one of the 20 arms had been recovered.

The range of hobbies available to a one-armed man is somewhat limited. Generally speaking, my father was drawn to cerebral activities rather than physical ones. He did not work well in groups and, with the exception of Mr. Palagopolis, did not seem to enjoy the company of other people. He hadn’t always been this way; before the accident he was a very sociable man, with many friends and interests. After he lost his arm, however, my father became reclusive. His exile was self-imposed, for reasons known only to him. It became more noticeable with each passing year.

Strangely enough, the more my father shuttered himself away, the more Louise ventured out. It was as if there was something
in our house, something very precious and very valuable, that the two of them were responsible for guarding. Apparently they took shifts; Louise’s shift had lasted for the first decade or so of her life and it was time now for my father to take over the task.

At the age of 17, Louise was making the most of her newfound freedom. What she had lacked in popularity and social poise when she was younger she made up for as a teen. She was in grade 12, her last year of high school, and she was one of the most well-liked and romantically pursued girls in school. Whereas before she had been completely incapable of conversation, she was now well respected and frequently sought after for advice. I unexpectedly found myself in the position of being known not as Paul Woodward the grade 10 student, or Paul Woodward the hockey player, or even just plain Paul Woodward, but as what’s his name, Louise Woodward’s little brother.

It’s hard to say what finally prompted Louise to make the leap. It was a normal day and Finnie, Sarah and I were sitting at the kitchen table playing Monopoly or some other stupid board game in which none of us had any real interest. This wasn’t long after Finnie had decided to play hockey again. It was raining outside, not hard, but hard enough to make us want to stay inside and Louise had been down in the basement by herself all afternoon doing whatever it was she did down there.

I was getting frustrated with Sarah, because she kept forgetting how to play the game. Finnie, by far the more patient of the two of us, and indeed one of the most patient people I have ever known, explained the rules to her again and again and again and still she would forget. Maybe she didn’t; maybe she just enjoyed listening to Finnie, I don’t know. Either way she was really annoying me, so I was just about to quit when Louise stomped up the stairs carrying a large cardboard box.

She plopped the box onto the table, upsetting our game and sending pieces careening onto the floor. “Here, Sarah, you can have this if you want,” she said.

“What is it?” Sarah asked, already clamouring to open the box.

“A bunch of useless junk.” Louise walked to the front door.

Finnie and I followed her, watching speechlessly as she put on her shoes and coat and opened the door.

“Where are you going?” I asked her.

“Outside, I guess.”

“It’s raining.”

“Yes, I can see that, Paul.”

“Do you want us to come?” Finnie asked.

“No, that’s okay. I’ve got a lot of stuff to do.”

Louise left and we went back into the kitchen. I thought the whole thing was a bit weird, but then I looked over at Finnie and saw that he was smiling. I asked him what he was smiling about.

“You’ll see,” he said.

Sarah was standing on the table wrestling with the lid of the box. Finnie laughed when he saw what was inside; I was shocked. Sarah was delighted; she had never been allowed to play with Louise’s toys before and as a result they were all in mint condition. Sarah had a tendency to be very hard on her belongings. She usually broke or wore out anything she was given within a matter of weeks, but Louise had kept the same stuff forever. I knew that if Louise had given her things to Sarah, then she had to be serious about abandoning them; she’d never get anything back in one piece.

Once freed, Louise was like a snowball rolling down a hill. It was only a matter of months before she had more friends than anyone I knew. She always had something to do, was always going somewhere. Finnie and I became nothing more than members of her ever-growing crowd.

In his own right, Finnie had also ascended to a position of social success. This was partly due to his last name, partly because he was genuinely a nice guy. He would go out of his way to help a friend and he never pushed anybody around. He could easily have been a bully; at 15 he was at least six inches taller than anyone else in our grade and he had girth as well as height. He had always been heavy-set, even overweight at times, but when he worked at it he commanded attention.

Finnie was one of those rare guys who, in junior high school, was realistically in a position to consider dating older girls. But Finnie rarely had girlfriends and seemed to be indifferent to the advances of girls regardless of their age or appearance.