“Guy has no idea what he’s in for.” Chili had a huge grin on his face, watching the scene with rapt attention.
How right he was. Ted shoved the guy twice, trying to gain line of sight on the puck as it cycled between the other team’s defenders. Then one of their other forwards took possession at the half boards, angling for a shot, and the jerk moved back into Ted’s line of sight, his big ass sticking into the crease and right on top of Ted. Ted clumped him in the back of the head with his stick hand, nearly knocking him flat.
That got the jerk’s attention. He snarled over his shoulder at Ted, then resumed jostling for position in front of the net. One of our guys came over to help out, but he couldn’t budge the big guy. A shot came in, low to the near side. Ted snapped his knees down into a butterfly and the puck ricocheted into the corner. But our defenceman was too slow, and they regained possession. This time the jerk backed right into the crease in front of Ted, who had to peer around him to see the play.
Ted slashed at the back of the jerk’s legs just as a weak shot floated in. He caught it and stood, a wicked grin on his face.
“Whataya doing, man?”
Chili and a bunch of the other guys on the bench erupted into laughter. Big Jerk was crouched over, holding the back of his knee where Ted had laid on the lumber. I knew that feeling. Stung like a rusty nail through the sole of your boot.
Ted snorted, dropped the puck on the ice, and skated off to the corner so he could cool down. But the jerk didn’t know when to let things be. He skated towards our bench with the puck, then launched a hard wrist shot over the boards.
A little lesson on the game of hockey. A hockey puck is a vulcanized rubber disk, one inch thick and weighing a little under half a pound. A topnotch pro can shoot a puck at over a hundred miles an hour. Even at half that speed a puck can break bone or leave a purple and black bruise on sore flesh. And we were no pros. Most of us wore helmets but no facemasks, some with plastic face shields that covered the face from the forehead to nose.
So when Mr. Asshole fired into our bench, he knew there was a good chance someone was going to get hurt. As it happened, it was Denny Mills who took the shot right in the mouth.
Split lip and a lot of blood. Thank God he had been wearing a mouthguard, or he would have lost a few teeth for sure.
I went over the boards.
The game came to a sudden close after my tussle with Mr. Asshole. No big deal — we only had ten minutes of ice left anyways.
“Thanks, man.”
I glanced up from untying my laces to see Denny with a towel to his mouth. The bleeding had stopped, but you could see a half inch V cut into his upper lip. That was going to take two or three stitches to close, for sure.
“No problem, Denny. You going to be alright?”
“Yeah. My wife’s going to kill me though. I’m supposed to be going to my sister-in-law’s wedding this weekend. In all the photos.” He tried to smile, but it came out as a grimace.
“Guy was a complete jerk.”
“No kidding. Well, thanks for standing up for me.”
I nodded and watched as he slung his bag over his shoulder and headed out.
“Who was that guy, anyway?”
Chili had been talking to a few guys on the other team, who had stood by and watched when I went after Mr. Asshole. Apparently he didn’t rate a lot of loyalty from his teammates.
“Real estate agent. Cokehead. Went to Laurier with some of their guys.”
“Well if he shows up again, I’m going to break my stick over his head.” Chili glanced at Ted, then back at me. He knew Ted as well as I did. If Mr. Asshole hit the ice with us again, he was going home with a broken helmet and a skull fracture.
Ted was waiting for me in the hall when I emerged, his pads, bag and sticks in a mound blocking traffic in all directions.
My timing was impeccable as always. Just as I stepped out of the dressing room, Mr. Asshole emerged from the room next to us.
I stared up at him, a good four inches taller than me and with muscles on his muscles. A vivid welt shone under his left eye, and another on his chin, both remnants of our little battle on the ice. The knuckles on my right hand throbbed, reminding me that my first two punches had landed on the top of his helmet. I really did not want to go again, and I hoped he didn’t start something.
He stared down at me, anger flashing for a moment in his slate grey eyes, then his face relaxed.
“Sorry about that. Your friend okay?”
“Yeah. He’ll be fine.”
“Good.” He stepped past me gingerly, worked around Ted’s bag, and headed for the exit. As he passed Ted, he called back. “You throw a mean punch for a little guy.”
I looked at Ted, and we both shrugged.
“Let’s get outta here.”
“Hang on a sec, I’m just gonna grab something to eat.”
Good idea. I was starving. Normally we would hit a bar with the team after a night game, and on a night like tonight I might have joined them. However, half of the guys couldn’t make it, so they had postponed. The result was that there were no chicken wings or nachos in the immediate horizon, a discouraging thought.
“Grab me some fries, willya?” If I was going to drive for fifty minutes just to get him home, he could cough up for some carbo sticks.
A Peewee team was heading in for a practice, the kids staggering under their bags like miniature sherpas. I dragged our equipment out of the way, to avoid a pileup of twelve year olds.
“Two hot dogs, two plates of fries and a Coke, please. You want one?”
I nodded.
“Sorry, make that two Cokes.”
The Chinese lady behind the counter had been smiling and shaking her head up and down while Ted placed the order. Unfortunately, the smile was replaced by a look of confusion.
“Hot dog?” It came out as “haw dawk?”
“Yeah.” Ted pointed at the steamer cabinet to her left, where two plump dogs were turning next to a bag of buns.
“Ah! Hot dog!” Same “haw dawk”, but apparently she had caught on.
After a strange flurry of action involving paper plates mysteriously stored behind the candy rack, Cokes grabbed from a Styrofoam cooler on the floor rather than the standup glass-front refrigerator behind her, and a single napkin selected from the top of a five inch stack of napkins just out of my reach, we had our food.
“Ketchup?”
I glanced around the lobby, to see if they had set up a separate table for condiments.
She stared at Ted blankly, so he asked again.
“Ketchup?” That came out as “ketta.”
“Ketchup? Mustard?”
She couldn’t have looked more mystified if we had flown in on a UFO and asked to see her leader. Ted glanced at me, his left eye twitching just slightly.
“Heinz?” He mimed pouring ketchup across the top of his hot dog.
“Sauce?”
“Yeah. Sauce.” He glanced back at me, eyebrows raised and shoulders shrugged. What the hell.
“Yes, yes!”
With that she turned and headed to the refrigerator cabinet filled with pop that was apparently not suitable for distribution. At least not as compared to the pop in that classy Styrofoam container. Opened the door and leaned way down, reaching into the back of the bottom shelf. From where I stood, that shelf appeared to contain several industrial sized bottles of unknown origin, a bunch of paper plates and napkins (did they have several caches, in case of emergency?), and a very large piece of cheddar poorly wrapped in plastic.
“Christ’s sake.” Ted was muttering now, while I turned and smiled gamely at one of the Peewee moms.
“Ah!” That cry of triumph was accompanied by the site of serving lady hauling a magnum-sized plastic bottle of no-name mustard from the fridge, and thumping it down on the counter.
Ted nodded his head and smiled. She nodded and smiled back.
“Ketchup?”
“No, no ketchup. Sauce OK?”
Big sigh. Ted turned to me, then ripped into the bare hot dog with his teeth, mumbling throughout.