The Last Season (14 page)

Bor-ring!
There is more, far more, but I am too tired of it to go on. I'm sorry, Poppa, but that's just the simple truth.

A nap, I guess, and then something to eat, maybe give the soggy pizzas from Davy's a last chance ... But I will not dream about what he looked like, Jaja, neither bleeding to death in that gutter or jumping across the border with a dumb poem hidden in a false heel, or whatever. I know what Torchy would say —
Shit, is that all they had to smoke in those days?

No, I will dream instead about Kristiina and how it might have been if I wasn't such a goddamn big jerk.

Two days later Kristiina phones. I've been thinking about her constantly, trying to figure out how I might call her and not have it sound awkward. All the way up on the team bus to Lahti I thought of ways I could get to her. Erkki Sundstrom was sitting beside me, the boss and the coach travelling side by side while the team slept and joked and played whist behind us. Erkki was biting his nails, as usual, undoubtedly sweating over our remarkable record of victories: none. He kept glancing over at me, trying to gather the nerve to interrupt. He must have figured I was deep in thought, perhaps engineering a solution to our dismal forechecking or coming up with a scheme to break up the long lead pass that's been killing us lately. I kept shifting my position in the seat, looping one left over, then back, then trying to stretch. As far as Erkki could tell, the team problems were eating me up, and he left me alone. My real problem was that I had an erection.

“Hello, Felix?”

“Yes. Who is this?”

“Kristiina …” she says hesitantly, as if I might not remember.

“Kristiina!” I shout. “Hi! How are you? I didn't recognize your voice.”

“You were expecting another call,” she says, still unsure.

“No. No. Of course not. I sometimes get crank calls though, and the odd switchboard screw-up.”

She laughs and I remember the sound. A laugh you could drink.

“Why do you stay there?” she asks.

“Here? Well, it's awfully convenient. Why?”

“A hotel is not an idea of a home.”

“It suits me. They wanted me to move out to Tapiola.”

The laugh again, delightful. “The assembly line.”

“Ticky-tack,” I say.

“Pardon?”

“It's a song.”

“Ahhh,” she says, not following, not bothering to pursue. “Pekka tells me that you play ice hockey on Saturday night.”

“Yah. Home against Tampere. They're in second place.”

“And on Sunday? Do you have an ice hockey practice?”

She wants to come to a practice?
“No. Nothing Sunday. We practice Monday.”

“Good,” she says. “If I come to the game, how would you like on Sunday to come up to my cottage?”

I'm shocked. “
You
are asking
me
out?”

“Yes. Is that all right?”

“Well, of course it's all right. Where is this cottage?”

“It is my parents' cottage, actually. It is north of Lahti, just beyond a small village called Kalkkinen. They are on the lake.”

“Sounds great,” I say. “But it's hardly cottage weather.”

The laugh. “It is if you are a Finn.”

“I'm Canadian.”

“Then you should feel right at home.”

Already it is Saturday, game today. Not even for the Stanley Cup have I ever been so tight before a match — and I am not talking here of hockey. It's Kristiina. And I'm as rattled as if my assignment was Lafleur. But it's not that easy: Lafleur's weak spots would be in the scouting reports; here, I'm on my own. And the weak spots, I fear, are all mine.

Deliberately, the route I take to the Ishallen is leisurely, so I will have time to gather my thoughts. Up Mannerheimvagen, turn right on Helsinginkatu, then onto the footpaths through the rock park. They're not shovelled, but enough Finns are fool enough to walk here that there's a crude path through the snow; it reminds me of the back trail over to Jazda's. Then off the rock path and onto Paavo Nurmentie, a park named after the Flying Finn of some long-forgotten Olympic glory — there's even a statue of him in the middle, and on up past the Olympiastadion to the rink.

It is so cold today I seem to be the only one bothering with the park. Even the hippie assholes Pekka calls
diinarit
must be indoors jerking off with barbed wire, or whatever it is those perverts do. Pekka says they take their name from James Dean, but, shit, Dean had class. He was an original. These Finn kids are all carbon copies: the kind of jeans they used to call dungarees in the old comics, black scuffed Wellingtons, filthy torn jean jackets with goofball buttons and confederate flags, another jacket or sweater tied around their waist — a lot of good that does you at ten below zero. Their hair is a roar: double parts, sides straight back over the ears, hair pushed up and rolled forward over the parts until they meet and hang down over the forehead like a tangled horse-mane. Sometimes Jazda's horses used to look like that in the summer if they'd been out all night in the wind. Batcha blamed it on the forest dwarves, naturally. She'd love these kids, the old bitch.
Zgrzidlok
, she'd call them. Evil. The devil's helpers.

Those goofy jerks have me thinking of home again, and it's got to be because so many of them have Mohawk cuts, three-inch shags down the centre of the skull with the rest shaved clean. Pekka says they're the punk rockers of Helsinki, that they even have this one hero they pay to see who plays electronic music on a chainsaw. Arrogant little fops. Christ, if I spoke Finnish I'd tell them Danny Shannon had a Mohawk cut twenty years ago in Vernon. And what he did with a chainsaw one night to poor Maurice Duschene's outhouse was a performance none of them are likely ever to see, no matter how much they pay.

Danny, Danny, Danny … You just peaked at the wrong time. If you'd been thirty instead of thirteen when the best moments rolled along you might have cashed in. You just peaked too soon. All that curly hair, nice clear skin, all that charm, the big smile, the great walk — what happened to it? One season in Vernon and the rest of your life in the minors in Pomerania, putting on so much weight they call you “Moose,” and then so much more weight that “Moose” gets embarrassing and you're back to Danny. If you still had the Mohawk cut it would look like a couple of passing lines. You'll be what, soon — thirty-six? And what do you have to show for it? A closet full of hockey jackets that no longer fit?

My God but I think of that silly bugger a lot. I must be getting homesick. But I shouldn't be. I never did in L.A., or Philly, or even goddamn Witchita. But here I keep thinking of home, and Danny and Poppa. It's got to be because of Jaja's history, not because of some damn mixed-up punks.

What was it Jaja said? A Pole walks alone? He does if he's in this park, anyway. I'm completely alone. There's only the wind shipping the large flakes of snow more up than down. Damn things, they catch in my eyelashes and blur the vision. I walk, wiping, and know that from a distance it must appear I am crying. I walk by the statue of Paavo Nurmi, and he looks unreal, all black and dark green contrasting against the snow, his shoulders and nose and one raised calf solidified in frozen pigeon droppings. Nurmi is in full stride, his empty eyes staring straight ahead beyond the stadium, and he is completely naked. His pecker looks too small in the summer, too large in winter. In this weather it should be sucked right up inside.

Pekka tells me that when Nurmi died they did an autopsy and discovered he had a very bad heart. Weak medically, perhaps, but he won nine gold medals for God's sake. That is the kind of heart Sugar Bowles would have loved. Nurmi must have been a great, great man. A story like that and they erect a hollow naked statue to him. At least I
think
it's hollow. There is no one around so I may as well find out. I step quickly up to the pedestal, pull off a glove, and ping him on the ass with my fingernail crokinole style, the way Poppa always settled Ig down. It rings. Hollow, as I thought.

I pat Nurmi's bum and move on, laughing at the sudden though that someone might have seen me.

I am standing in the centre of the dressing room, feeling all eyes on Batterinski the legendary coach, and while my tongue is tripping my brain is actually down on its knees, praying I had Sugar's ability to fire up players. But I haven't got it and I know it. I slam a stick against the equipment box, make them all shout
“Saa vuttaa!”
— something Timo offered up as a rough translation of the “Go for it!” we used to scream in Los Angeles — and then they get up and walk out as calmly as if class has just been dismissed at Vernon District High. Christ, if this was the old Flyers' dressing room they'd see something. Clarkie, snarling with his teeth out, screaming in their faces and slamming every player in the shins as they stepped out the door, Bill Barber with his sick-looking black eyes, Schultz like he should be wearing one of the chrome-plated Nazi helmets his fans have on in the crowd. Moose Dupont looking like he came to eat, not to play, the Watsons with their hired-killer stares. You wouldn't smell cologne in the dressing room of the Broad Street Bullies. But now, kissing the inside of my sweater as I pull it down, that is what I do smell: perfume. It makes me want to puke.

I noticed one thing right off about the Finn players. The way they smelled. Like room fresheners. It sure as hell wasn't like hockey players. Danny Shannon and I, back when we played together in Vernon, we used to say there were two absolutely distinctive smells in this world. Torchy Bender argued there was a third the day he showed up at practice with his right middle finger wrapped in gauze after a night with Juice Larocque, but our two were a brand-new car and hockey dressing room. Danny claimed one day he'd make a million bucks by bottling that arena odour and flogging it to older guys who were messing around behind their wives' backs on the nights they were supposed to be out playing shinny with the boys. Screw all night, splash on a dash of Danny Shannon's special sweat-and-stale-underwear smell, and head on home to a wife who'll actually be pleased to hear you scored.

You know something, Danny? I miss you.

I put on my helmet — ultimate suck symbol, law here — snap the chin tight, look slowly around the empty dressing room and head out — hard to believe I once had to be first on the ice and am now last — to discover half the crowd would fit comfortably into the penalty box. What can we do to draw? Helsinki IFK has been on fire since they dumped New York Rangers in exhibition play, and Jokerit are hanging on to their old fans and drawing new ones with the young kid, Petäjäaho. Why would anyone but wives and girlfriends bother with Tapiola Hauki? Erkki Sundstrom is already pacing and chewing his nails back of the north boards, undoubtedly praying enough lures are snagged and replaced next summer that the board of directors won't notice all the red numbers in the promotions budget.

I don't give a shit, quite frankly. All I know as I skate around is that there is nothing sweeter than the music of my own skates. I know that for the next two hours or so I am locked in, set. The lines have been set out and all I will have to do is shout out one of five numbers to get what I want, power play to penalty-killing unit. The puck will drop and I will know precisely what to do and when. I will be wearing exactly what I feel best in. I will not have to talk. I will hit once and feel the marvellous state of alertness that seems to wash from first contact. All the hits to follow will only increase that feeling until, as the game's intensity grows, I become calmer and calmer. When Erkki is at his worst, I will be at my best. Knowing what to do and doing it.

Kristiina
is
here! There, beside Pia, to the right of the home bench. I take my eyes off her instantly and will not look back again. I see Pekka doing his silly signal, removing his helmet and pulling his ear for Pia. Who does he think he is, Carol Burnett? Batterinski has never waved. Batterinski has never acknowledged any crowd, ever.

Erkki, in his growing terror, has arranged for a scouting report on Tampere. Kamppuri, the goaltender, has trouble clearing pucks. Lehtonen, at centre, likes to hold onto the puck. Sevon has a good slap shot. Susi checks well. I threw the report away. I could have written my own descriptions: chicken, hog, loafer, screw-up. Shorter, simpler and more to the point, but in the end useless. It applies to all Finn teams. What do I tell my players? They play like you, so imagine you're up against a mirror. All Finns play like they're made out of glass anyway.

We line up for the anthem, Timo to my left, Pekka to the right, and I stare up at the rafters listening to this strange song soaring and fluttering about. It sounds more like an opera than a hockey game. But I do not laugh. They have suffered enough for Tapiola Hauki.

I love the moment of the opening face-off, when the arena is full of held breath. There is silence as the puck slaps the ice and then, with luck, a stick will slap it quickly back to me and suddenly I am in command of time. If I hurry, they panic. If I look up and lazily stickhandle back and forth, waiting, they circle nervously, waiting too. No one wants to be the first to test Batterinski.

Sometimes along the boards I can hear my name, but not from Kristiina's mouth. I do not expect that. She is above that. She will notice me, and acknowledge me when I hit. Lehtonen has the puck at his own blueline now and Pekka misses with a fool's play, a poke check. Lehtonen has too much reach to fall for that. He sweeps wide and centre ice opens up for him.

Timo moves to head off Susi but he is wasting his time. I can see Lehtonen's eyes and I know that his thoughts are there for anyone to read. Lehtonen checks the puck and then Timo. He looks at Timo, not Susi, meaning he has no intention whatsoever of passing. He does not look at me but that is because there is no need. He knows precisely where I am. He is trying to dupe me with his eyes, getting me to bisect between him and Susi. But I do not. The ice cuts soft under my skates as I grind backwards, angling toward him.