I DIDN’T NEED my skates. Or my gloves or kneepads or any of the other fancy stuff. Just my stick and puck. And darkness. And the practice board. Last time I was at the lake knocking the puck into the board, I was trying to figure out Jennifer Wade. I’d never in a million years thought my sister would ever be the reason for me being there.
The cop hadn’t fooled me. I knew what had happened. Oh sure, she probably was just playing hooky at first. So she went out to West Chester Pike, walked along it. Then she decided to thumb a ride, run away, really show everybody she wasn’t kidding. So a car stops, picks her up. She’s already in the car before she realizes he’s a creep, and even she knows what happens to girls that get picked up by creeps. She tells him to stop the car, she wants to get out. He laughs, just laughs, and reaches over and grabs her. She opens the door, tries to get out, he won’t let her, she throws her books out, they land in front of the rug store, the car speeds off up the pike, the door swinging shut… And then, a couple days later, we meet. At the mall, the mall parking lot. He’s got her locked in a van. I see her face at the back window, silently calling, “Greg! Help me!” And there he is, coming out of the mall, with food, two pizzas. I kick the pizza boxes out of his hands (I’m Valducci). Another kick under the chin lifts him three feet off the ground. I snare him on the way down and sling him (I’m Poff) into the side of the van, and then as he crumples I’m pounding and kicking him and I’m all me and I’m kicking and kicking into the face that’s crying and begging for mercy, kicking, kicking… only for real, for cold ice real, it’s not my foot smashing his face to a pulp, but my stick smashing the puck into the board, and it’s not him crying, but me.
I thought about the donut fight in the kitchen. I thought about the time she locked me in a closet and tried to suck the air out with a straw. I laughed. Then I thought about the schoolbooks on the coffee table. It was my fault, no getting around it. There was nothing in the world she loved more than that hockey stick personally autographed by Wayne Gretzky. Nothing. If she still had her stick, she probably would never have taken off. But she didn’t have it. Because of me. And now I wasn’t even sure why I threw it away. Was it really because she smashed Camille? Or was it because she was the one, not me, who’d had the winning ticket number at the hockey game that night?
I turned and wound up and sent the puck across the lake. It shot out of sight, into the darkness. I heard it knock against the slatted fence, sending the whole thing into rattles. As it turned out, the darkness wasn’t so bad after all. By the time I got within five feet of the fence, I could see it fine. It was easy enough to climb over; they sure didn’t put it there to block people who really wanted to get to the other side. I stomped a couple times—the ice was firm. I couldn’t see the stick yet, but I knew about where it was. I moved out, slowly, sideways, arms out, ready to jump back at the first crack, the faintest crinkle. But the ice was solid, like a rock. Which figured. The last couple days the temperature never got much above twenty. In fact, looking at the stick that afternoon, I thought I noticed it jutting up a little higher, which would happen, thickening ice pushing it up. I crouched low, trying to place the stick against the distant, dim light of the street. Still couldn’t see it. I moved on. Sideways. Slow. Then—there it was, right in front of me, I had almost gone past it. Slow, slow, a couple steps, little steps—Don’t blow it now—reach—reach—I had it.