Chapter 4

I was glad to see Tommy. I’d only been there three days and already I was sick of Larry and his sister. There was only one thing I wanted: for the hockey season to start, to hit the road and get out of that place as quick as I could. But he barely said hello as he came in, looking disdainfully over his new digs. He tossed his hockey bag down and threw his suitcase onto the bed. He turned to face me, hands on hips. His acne had spread and the pimples on his face were more swollen than before. His muscular arms threatened to burst through the sleeves of his light blue t-shirt. I asked him if he was all right, but he didn’t answer. He asked me if a guy named Vincent had been by to see him the night before.

“Yes.”

“Did he leave anything for me?” he asked.

“No.”

He seemed relieved. Not missing a beat he stuffed his gym clothes into a small backpack and left, saying he was off to the gym. It was nine in the evening. Larry reminded him that camp would start early next morning with tests designed to evaluate the new players’ condition and that it might be better for him to conserve his energy. He replied that he was going to keep doing what he had been doing, which so far had gotten results. And I swear, right then, he shot me a glance. As if to make a point.

I’d make him pay for that, for sure.

That first morning we met the coach, the manager and the coaching staff. Pictures of players and teams who had worn the club’s colours in earlier years hung on the locker room walls. We took turns introducing ourselves, like back in grade school. There was a lot of goofing around, some of it pretty funny. There were some serious comedians, real goofs. It lightened up the atmosphere, which was pretty heavy seeing as how we were all rookies. As usual, I didn’t have a lot to say when my turn came.

“Hello, I’m Alex. I’m a hockey player.”

When the assistant coach asked me if I had anything else to say, I shrugged my shoulders and said no. Everybody cracked up.

Actually, all the guys seemed friendly and easy-going; happy, in any event, just to be there. Everybody except Tommy that is. When his turn came, he blurted out some incomprehensible gibberish. The guys just stared at him. It was the first time I’d ever seen him like that; a guy who in all the time I’d known him had carried himself with supreme confidence, always on top of the situation and never letting anything get to him. Now, he was as red as a tomato and his glistening face made his unsightly acne stand out even more. He scratched his head vigorously, as if he was going to tear his hair out, as he introduced himself, so nervous it was like he was about to faint. The room was silent when he finished; no one could think of anything to say. The discomfort lasted until the assistant coach told us to head over to the weight room for the evaluations.

I did pretty well on the exercises. I was worried how I’d stack up against the other guys, but I could tell that Larry’s unorthodox training program had paid off. Because I finished well above average. But it was Tommy who came out on top, far and away. Growling like a demented animal, he worked the treadmill, the stationary bike and the weights longer, faster and with heavier loads than anybody else in camp. In fact, someone told Larry that none of the nineteen- and twenty-year-olds had racked up such impressive results. Really. And while the whole gang was admiring what seemed to them to be an exceptional athlete, when I looked at my buddy, I thought I was looking at the Incredible Hulk.

We were invited to a lunch prepared by volunteers at a banquet hall. The room was decorated with bunting and photos of players who had played for the old Nordiques, most of whom I barely knew since I was just two when the team moved to Colorado. Casually, I checked out the old photos, until my eye fell on one of the largest, my father’s favourite player. His hero was a guy from Péribonka, number sixteen, Michel Goulet. Louis, who was a Quebec City fan, told me with a gleam in his eye about the time when a Quebec-Montreal game would get the entire town all worked up. Now, by him, it just wasn’t the same anymore. Hockey players were money-making machines that managed their careers like businesses. “There’s no heart left in the game.”

Everyone was eating sandwiches, drinking sodas and talking. I didn’t talk much; mostly I listened. All the noise around me was giving me a headache. Like my father, crowds and tight spaces got on my nerves. But I was also kind of anxious about my upcoming interview with the newspaper. It seemed huge. Papers in Montreal and Quebec had already printed some short articles about me. But this would be the first time I’d be meeting face to face with a journalist, and not some guy from the Nord-Côtier or the other weeklies down home. This would be a real interview. I’d have to carry my weight. Except I felt like I didn’t really have anything to say. And I didn’t think that the newspaper guy was going to find my “hmms,” and shrugs terribly interesting for his article. I barely heard what people around me were saying, looking around me, trying to avoid focusing on anybody in particular. Now it was Tommy who was putting on a show; the same guy who was dying of anxiety a couple of minutes before was now speaking with a strong, self-assured voice. Proud of his achievements, he moved onto centre stage. Maybe a bit too much. Because the rudeness that had come over him in the past several months quickly came to the surface. In a loud voice he asked the guys who were listening to him if they’d like to find a place to knock back a couple of cool ones.

Again that feeling of discomfort settled over the room. I guess it was a specialty of his.

For sure the assistant coach and the rest of the coaching staff heard what he said. The guys all quickly shook their heads no; don’t count on me, I told him. These were sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds, the camp was their chance of a lifetime. You’d have to be a total jerk to think that after day one of training camp they’d want to go out boozing and partying. And it was on that sour note that our first day of rookie camp came to an end.

I left the banquet hall with him, sure that we’d be pegged as the two hicks from the Côte-Nord. When he asked if I was heading back to the apartment, I told him I was expecting a journalist. No sooner said than the journalist showed up, introduced himself and extended his hand. By the time I turned back around, Tommy had walked off without so much as a nod.

The interview went well. In fact, I had worried for nothing. The reporter, who could have been trying a little too hard to seem friendly, was actually very accommodating. His questions were simple and to the point, and he jotted down all my answers in his notebook. It was no big deal. We talked about one thing or another: my life on the Côte-Nord, my family and my Aboriginal roots. He took a couple of photos with the Colisée rink in the background, and that was it. The next morning, I found out that I was a star player carrying high expectations on my shoulders. In addition to hockey, I loved trout fishing and off-trail riding on my 4 x 4. Wow! What amazing news! I wondered who could be interested in such nonsense. Especially my face in big close-up that covered three quarters of the page.

I spent the rest of the day wandering around, hung out at the mall, then grabbed some poutine at a snackbar. I didn’t really feel like spending the evening with Tommy and Larry. It was dark when I got back to the apartment. As I came up the sidewalk to the house, I could hear a woman yelling. I immediately recognized Nathalie’s voice. I paused before opening the door; the living room window was open.

“If you ever pull a stunt like that again, you’re out of here! Do you hear me, Laurent?”

Laurent didn’t reply. But I could see him in my mind’s eye, with his head bowed whenever his older sister chewed him out. After I heard the kitchen door slam and felt sure that scary Nathalie wasn’t waiting in the wings, I decided to go in. One thing for sure, I didn’t feel at home in the tiny apartment.

Larry was slumped on the couch. He was holding a beer and seemed upset. I didn’t have to ask him what had happened. He volunteered.

“Did you hear that?”

“No.”

“Liar. I could see your head through the window.”

He sighed before taking a sip of beer. But it didn’t seem to do anything for him because he put the bottle on the floor and frowned. His red hair was sticking out in all directions. He’d traded his blue jogging suit for jeans and a t-shirt. Usually, when he wasn’t wearing sweats it meant he’d been out on a big date.

“I saw my little girl today,” he told me with a catch in his voice, like a child who had misbehaved.

“Your daughter? Isn’t she in Montreal?”

“Not any more. She lives near here, just a few streets over. I was hanging out close to the school hoping to see her, but her mother, my ex, spotted me. Since she and Nat are good friends, she called to tell her.”

Really, I didn’t know what to say to Larry. I knew he wasn’t allowed to see his daughter. Things like that really make me uncomfortable. All I could do was sit beside him on the couch, and offer him some support just by being there. I think he appreciated it, because he said so, giving me a tap on my thigh as he would have done to a good friend.

“She’s going to call the cops on me if I do it again. But I’m not sure I can stop myself.”

“You don’t have any choice, right?”

“Maybe I’d be better off going back to the Côte-Nord.”

I agreed. That’s why he’d come to the village in the first place. It’s true a coaching position had opened up, but it was mostly because a court order had prevented him from seeing his daughter, for reasons that nobody could understand. I wasn’t really in a position to press him for the details, but I could see that the situation— living with an overbearing sister who was also his ex’s friend, with his daughter not far away —was more than he could put up with. And I could understand the hangdog look. The shame. This wasn’t the same Larry I knew.

When I asked him where Tommy was, he looked at me as if to say, “where do you think?”

“At the gym?”

“Yeah. I went by the famous gym this morning. It’s not too clean, that place. I tried to tell him what I thought of it, but he just laughed in my face.”

“He broke all the records today.”

“He made sure I knew it, too. I don’t want you hanging around there. It’s bikers that run that dump. It’s nasty. I’d better phone his parents.”

I went into my room to pack up my gear. I passed back through the living room as quickly as I could. Larry was up on his feet.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going to work out at the gym.”

I was afraid he was about to freak out. As I closed the door behind me, I could hear him cursing from the other side. I took off on the run; no way I wanted to deal with him. I absolutely had to speak with my buddy.

On edge, I opened the door to the gym. A blast of moist air and music cranked up to the max hit me in the face. A video of some stupid pop group was playing on all the monitors. Monday was a busy day, it seemed; the place was humming. All the machines were in use. Sweat was oozing out of every pore and the big windows facing the street were all fogged up; all you could see were the headlights of the cars going by on Rue Saint-Joseph.

It was my second visit. When he saw me, the cranky little guy at the reception desk was surprisingly friendly. He even got up to shake my hand. Don’t worry about how crowded it was, he said. It was past nine o’clock, the place would soon empty out and I’d have the weight room to myself. Did I want an energy drink? It was on the house. I took a pass, thanked him, and walked slowly to the locker room, looking around the weight room as I passed through, but Tommy was nowhere to be seen. He wasn’t in the locker room, either. The guy at the reception desk was right. The gym emptied and everyone converged on the lockers. The small room was soon packed with muscular guys, fat guys, skinny guys. It was impossible to move. The place stank of cheap perfume and sweat. I wedged into a corner near three rusty old lockers, next to a steel door beneath a red Exit sign. I stood in my corner with my back to the crowd, facing the dirty yellow wall. Overhead hung neon lights, their electrical connections drooping from the missing tiles in the drop ceiling. What was I doing there, I wondered. I was suffocating, dizzy. The air was stale. There wasn’t any space. I closed my eyes and imagined tall black spruces at the summit of a large hill that I had to climb by grabbing hold of the roots protruding from the ground. A big oaf who was admiring his muscles pushed me aside as if I weren’t even there. I hadn’t noticed I was standing in front of a mirror; I felt totally ridiculous. Unable to tolerate my surroundings for another moment, I pushed on the exit-bar of the steel door, quickly closed it behind me and left.

I found myself in a dark hallway lit by a single red bulb. There was a large hamper full of towels. Off to the side were some black garbage bags, cardboard boxes, and tools scattered on a table. On my left, a door opened to the outside. As I headed for it I heard voices on my right, and noticed a staircase leading to the basement.

That was when I realized I’d left my backpack in the locker room. But the sound of voices from below diverted my attention. I edged down the stairs on tiptoe, my hand sliding along the steel handrail. At the very bottom, a narrow shaft of light shone through an open door. When I recognized Vincent’s unpleasant voice, I froze, unable to take another step, terrified of being caught by the sniffling brute who spoke like a retard. My heart began to hammer in my chest when, in answer to a question from Vincent, I heard the voice of my friend Tommy reply.

Right then, I couldn’t figure out the nature of their conversation nor what they were talking about exactly. But this is pretty much what I heard:

“It’s your liver. Your cousin gave you some pills to take. They’re hard on the system. With intramuscular injections, you’ll give your liver a break and your symptoms will disappear, you’ll see.”

“Okay,” answered Tommy. “Uh … Where are you going to stick that thing?”

“In your ass!” replied a gruff voice I didn’t recognize.

The same person broke into a booming laugh, which quickly transformed into a wracking cough that took a while to subside. Finally, the man cleared his throat and hawked. Vincent went on with what he was saying.

“The injection has to go into a large muscle so that your body can absorb the dose slowly. We could stick you in the shoulder or thigh if you want. But a shot in the butt is more discreet, when it comes to the marks.”

I’d heard everything they said, but I had to see it with my own eyes. I knew I would be taking a terrible risk by sticking my head into the room. But I couldn’t believe my ears. I had to get to the bottom of it. It all seemed so scary, so twisted. I just couldn’t believe that Tommy was mixed up in something like that.

I slid my arm through the crack of the door … halfway to my elbow. I figured if anyone saw my hand, I could scramble back up the stairs and escape through the exit. I slowly wiggled my arm and seeing as how Vincent continued talking as though he hadn’t noticed, I held my breath and peeked through the door.

The basement had a cement floor and there were things piled everywhere: furniture, rugs, old weight machines and exercise gear. There were different-shaped lockers, and on the ground, parts that seemed to have come from some gas-powered bicycles; a little bit as though someone had taken apart two or three Harleys and spread the parts out on the floor. In the centre of all the mess, under the murky glare of a flickering neon light, stood Vincent. Sitting in front of him on a chair was the bearded guy wearing a red, white and blue scarf. And, standing between the two nasties, one knee resting on an exercise bench, was Tommy.

He seemed hesitant, a bit lost. He loosened his belt and let his jeans fall loosely below his waist. Vincent took a small brown vial from a table next to him, stuck in the syringe and extracted the fluid. The black-bearded guy with the all-American scarf finished rolling a cigarette, sucking it into his mouth two or three times to moisten it. As Tommy leaned forward, exposing his right buttock to big Vincent who was eyeing the tip of the needle, the bearded man lit the cigarette, which turned out to be a very large joint. He exhaled the smoke, which began to curl upward under the neon light.

“You want a puff?” asked the man, handing the joint to Tommy, who didn’t know what to say, being on all fours and in a humiliating position.

“Hey, you brain-dead loser!” said Vincent to his friend. “The guy’s an athlete. He’s just started junior training camp and you want him to smoke some weed?”

The other guy shrugged his shoulders and took another puff, while Vincent jabbed the needle into Tommy’s backside. I saw my friend grip the exercise bench, grimacing slightly. Then, suddenly, he turned in my direction.

Our eyes met and immediately locked on one another. The horrible truth hit us, as if we both understood how serious, how grave it was; something had broken forever. I pulled my head back behind the door as Tommy let out a cry of astonishment, or maybe, of rage.

Petrified, I couldn’t move. And in the distance, I’m sure I heard wolves howling.

“What’s the matter?” said Vincent.

“Uh … nothing, it hurts, that’s all.”

“You’re crying over a shot in the bum? How are you going to handle playing in the juniors?”

And then, as the gruesome laughter of the guy with the beard burst out anew, I flew up the stairs four at a time and pushed open the steel door at the end of the hallway.

I emerged into a dark, quiet side street. The streetlights cast long shadows from the rubbish bins onto the grey asphalt. Without a moment’s hesitation, I took off running at full speed, up the street and then turning down the adjacent boulevard. Wolves were howling from every corner of the city, the sound rising up from the end of every alley, from every street around me. My heart was pounding deep in my chest. I ran with my head thrust back, my antlers thrust back, my warm breath steaming through my nostrils, my steps driven by the heart of a desperate animal running wild through the city. The moose I had become sprinted between the people on the sidewalk, as if dashing between the black spruce of a dense forest. And the wolves were getting closer and closer. Only at the last minute did I realize that I was about to crash into a red brick wall at the end of the street. I leaped, and extended one leg. Then I turned around, back against the wall. Looking for a way out, I spotted two police cars tearing down a side street to my right, sirens wailing.

The street stretched out before me; far off I saw a church steeple and lights twinkling in store windows. Every time I banged my head against the wall, memories of Tommy and me on the Côte-Nord tumbled down from the stars like a meteor shower. Riding on our skidoos in winter, lost on trails we had never been on before. Me on my quad trying to keep up with him as he drove his dirt bike at full speed along the dunes overlooking the sea. And above all, that unforgettable moment last winter in the school cafeteria when he came over and sat down beside me after I’d run my skidoo into the river at twenty below. He didn’t say a word. We just laughed, cracking jokes. Guys don’t talk about these things, ever. Yet everything was okay; there was nothing to worry about.

Larry was in bed by the time I got home. I couldn’t be bothered to take a shower and plopped into bed. It was hot in my little room, but I closed the window anyway. It was like I didn’t want to hear anything, or maybe like I was afraid of something. When I closed the blinds, I saw eyes gleaming orange in the dark among the tomato plants and the beanstalks in Nathalie’s garden. Watching me. Waiting for me.

Tommy came in an hour later. I was still awake. Scrunched down under the covers, listening, I tracked his heavy footsteps in the kitchen, which was right next to my bedroom. He went to the bathroom to pee. Then to the fridge for a glass of milk. Through the opening at the bottom of my bedroom door, I saw the light go out. Everything fell still. Then, slowly, he came up to my door; then stopped in front of it.

What was he doing? Did he want to talk? I thought he was about to knock, but he didn’t, completely silent and motionless. I could almost hear him breathing on the other side. After a wait that seemed interminable, I began to sit up in bed, slowly, careful not to make a sound. A long bead of sweat trickled down my chest. I don’t know how much time passed while he stood outside my door, but it was crazy long. Sitting on the edge of my bed, my feet on the linoleum floor, I was ready to defend myself. But I was afraid. Afraid that he had talked with Vincent and his joint-smoking sidekick. And that they told him to settle accounts with me. Or that they were even actually out there, in the back yard, lurking in the shadows, hiding among the tomatoes, waiting for just the right moment to pounce on me.

Finally he moved. I was all set to jump to my feet to take away the advantage of surprise. But to my relief, he went back to his room. He closed the door gently, and then I heard him fooling around for a while before hitting the sack. I jammed a chair under the doorknob to bar the door. Was it possible that he just wanted to clear the air? Should I take the initiative and go to him? But what was there to say? There was no denying what had passed between us when our eyes met. The surprise and shame in his. The surprise and distress in mine.

I knew I’d never be able to fall asleep. After tossing and turning over a dozen times in the space of five minutes, I rose and grabbed my laptop. The screen was blinding and splashed its bright white light all over my body. My abs were sharply defined under the glowing light. I had changed. It was two o’clock in the morning. I wrote a short message to Chloé, saying I missed her and was thinking of her. It was only then that I fell asleep.

In the morning I awoke with a start, drenched in sweat. My window was closed and the heat was already overwhelming. Larry knocked on my door saying it was time. I dressed in a hurry and looked for my backpack. My heart sank when I realized I had left it at the gym the day before.

Not a word was spoken around the breakfast table. Tommy and I were avoiding eye contact. I expected Larry to say something about the hangdog look on our faces. But he seemed caught up in his own concerns, and said nothing.

“You’re not having anything to eat?” I finally asked, breaking the uneasy silence that prevailed in the small apartment.

“No,” he replied, leaning on the counter, a cup of coffee in one hand. “I’m not really hungry.”

It was hot. Through the window screen, I could hear Nathalie out in the garden yelling at her kids, who were already quarreling at half past seven in the morning. I imagined the neighbours who had to put up with those little loudmouths 365 days a year, shaking their heads and sighing in resignation. The linoleum in the apartment was disgusting: whole pieces had been torn out, showing the greasy particle board underneath. The refrigerator was leaking, forming a puddle on the floor that a grungy mop was waiting to swab up.

I could only think of one thing: find another place to live. There was no way it was going to work out for me here. I needed to concentrate on my game. That was all that mattered. I had to put Tommy and his cheating ways out of my mind. It turned my stomach to think that he was making himself sick, really sick, just to boost his performance. I needed to try to talk to him, I couldn’t just ignore it. Later on, we found ourselves alone in the locker room at the Colisée. The other guys were already on the ice. Without mentioning or planning anything, as if we both knew it was the right time, each of us lagged behind. Me by suddenly discovering that I needed to change my laces while Tommy had to retape the blade of his hockey stick.

There were just the two of us, plus a janitor who was cleaning the showers on the other side. Tommy still hadn’t looked at me. I could see he wasn’t going to make the first move. So I did. I went over to him. Concentrating on his hockey stick, looking for the best angle to apply the tape, he avoided looking at me. But he was listening. I felt nervous. Sweat was pouring off him. As usual, his face, covered with aggressive and purulent acne, was as red as ever. He was big, strong and more powerful than ever. But never had he seemed so fragile.

“Listen, Tom …”

“What?” he interjected, without giving me the chance to finish my sentence.

“… it’s just that, I’m worried about you.”

“Yeah, well I’m worried about you. You better watch out where you’re sticking your big nose.”

It was a threat. I couldn’t believe my ears. It was me that did something wrong. It was me that stuck my nose into his business.

“What are you doing? You were always a good hockey player. You don’t need….”

“Need what?”

“Umm …”

“What? What are you talking about?”

I couldn’t say it. I just couldn’t find the words. All of a sudden, it all seemed unreal; as if nothing ever happened. As if the sordid scene in the basement of the gym had never happened. And since I wasn’t talking, it was Tommy’s turn. He tossed the roll of tape into his locker and pointed his stick at me. All he could get past his lips was a groan. His light-coloured eyes were damp with tears that never fell. And he growled like a bear as he left, slamming the locker room door behind him.

On the ice, the coach and the coaching staff explained what we were going to be doing that week. The cuts would be coming soon. Pay close attention to instructions, they told us; they wouldn’t be cutting us any slack. The bottom line was that there were really only three forward and one defenceman’s slots open. I figured I had a good shot at it.

I dominated in the power skating exercises, handling them better than anyone. Except near the end when Tommy, never short of breath, began to get the upper hand. A guy from Abitibi, one of the clowns at the team lunch the day before, was pretty hard to beat in the skills tests. But again, I came out all right. Leaning against the boards while I caught my breath, I watched Tommy going through his paces, looking clumsy. It was definitely not his strong point. During the one-on-ones he had to shove a couple of guys in order to get where he was going, which earned him a couple of comments from the coaches. He lost his temper and whacked the boards two or three times with his stick.

I handled the one-timers with flying colours. I had a wicked shot, and was able to put the puck on the target wherever they asked me, no problem. There were guys up in the stands taking notes and I knew I was getting high marks. In fact, everything was going easier than I had expected.

Things went a little downhill for me when we started team exercises. I found myself playing against Tommy— a fate that was to dog me all the way to the end of training camp. Not only that, it turned out that he lined up right opposite me. At the faceoff, I felt his shoulder leaning heavily against mine. He was letting me know he wasn’t going to be holding back. I tried to push back, but he refused to budge. Okay, game on. Twice I went up the wing and turned up the jets just in time to avoid his check, and heard him hit the boards with a crash. On my third rush, I had to keep my eyes on the puck; it was bouncing and I had trouble controlling it. That’s when he got me. But good. Boom! I thought my head would pop. I could swear everybody in the stands watching the workout rose from their seats at the moment of impact. Stunned, I put one knee on the ice to get my bearings. I managed to pull myself together and finish the game with a couple of half-decent plays. But it was like I was running on empty. Plus I had a splitting headache.

In the locker room, I was seated on the bench. I could hardly move a muscle.

“McKenzie, keep your head up,” said one of the guys.

“You gave us a scare,” said Tommy, who was awkwardly trying to show some sympathy.

He was trying to show that it was just part of the game, that he was a decent guy. And even if he could get some people to swallow it, I wasn’t biting. I cut him a sideways glance and asked him how his right buttock was feeling. Nobody understood a word I was talking about. But Tom, his eyes darkening, knew exactly what I meant.

A trainer came to look me over. He sat next to me and asked if I was going to be okay. I told him I had a bit of a headache, but that was all. He said it would be better to go to the hospital and see a doctor. His name was François. He was a nurse studying physical fitness at Laval University. On the way to the hospital, he asked me if I’d known Tommy for long. I told him that we knew each other since we were six. We went to grade school and high school together, and we were always on the same hockey teams. Right into juniors.

“Quite an athlete, your friend.”

“Yeah …”

“A tough guy.”

I had never been so ready to tell someone the truth about what was going on. François looked like someone who might be able to help Tom out. I wanted to tell him that Tommy had always been cool, an easy-going kind of guy, the kind of guy who always came out on top, thanks to his love of the game and his desire to win. Now, what used to be pleasure or desire had morphed into a pure and senseless rage. He hadn’t been like this before. But, once again, I held my silence. I stood mutely beside the trainer, looking at my feet and the Saint-François Hospital waiting room floor.

The doctor examined my eyes and ears. He asked me some questions and sent me home. I didn’t have a concussion. I didn’t have any symptoms. But if, later in the day, I experienced dizziness, nausea or confusion, I was to come back and see him.

Larry was sitting on a lawn chair at the back of the yard reading the paper. After dropping my stuff off in my room, I glanced into Tommy’s. It was completely empty. His suitcase, his things, everything was gone. He’d even made the bed.

I pulled up a chair and sat down next to Larry. I took off my running shoes and socks and wriggled my feet in the fresh-cut grass. Laptop perched on my knees, I had to fight the glare in order to read the screen. There were a couple of emails in my Hotmail account, including one from Chloé. She was thinking of me too, she wrote. She added that she would try to make it to Quebec City in a couple of weeks, but she didn’t know exactly when. She might be able to take a couple of days off after school started. She signed off with a couple of xx’s, after asking me to say hi to Tommy for her.

“Where’d he go?” I asked.

“He left,” answered Larry.

“What do you mean, he left? Left for where?”

“I called his mom to say I was worried about him. But all she did was throw insults at me, like how I was a complete idiot who was ruining her kid’s chances of success. I don’t have a clue what Tommy told her. She just yelled at me and refused to listen to a thing I had to say. He packed up after I hung up and went to stay with a friend of his cousin’s.”

I had no doubt that the friend was Vincent.

When Larry got up to go inside, a piece of paper slid from the chair and landed in the grass at my feet. I picked it up. It was a pretty good crayon sketch of Larry’s face. It wasn’t hard to recognize his red hair, his peaked forehead, his glasses perched precariously on his stub nose. At the bottom, to the right, “I love you, papa” was written.

Later that evening, I had to return an urgent call from my father. Tommy’s mother was stirring up the village, claiming that Larry had gone crazy and was taking it out on us. I tried to calm things down, pointing out that it wasn’t really working out for Tommy at training camp and that he had it in for everybody. He was convinced that his problems were due to Larry’s negative influence. When my father heard what I had to say, he seemed reassured. He made a few suggestions which I immediately forgot, and passed the phone to Sylvie. It made me a little sad to hear my aunt’s voice. Right at that moment, I would have given anything to be with her. Because with her, nothing was really complicated; she took it all with a grain of salt. Were things going good? For sure. Was everything okay? Yeah, yeah, okay. Are you happy? For sure, Sylvie, I’m really happy. I’m having a good camp. I’m confident I’ll make the team. Maybe that’s why Tommy was so angry at Larry. Maybe it’s because things weren’t going the way he wanted.

“Can’t you help him? Talk to him?”

“I’ve tried. But he’s pretty thick-headed. I can’t skate and score for him.”

“Just the same, Alex…”

I could stay with a girlfriend of hers in Charlesbourg, a suburb north of Quebec City. There was a room in the basement. I’d have all the privacy I needed. And it would certainly be quieter than being downtown, wouldn’t it?

That was exactly what I’d been wishing for the day before. But everything had changed. Tommy had split, and I really thought that Larry needed my help, and more than that, my presence. While my friend had gone over the line, having steroids injected in his bum by a handful of bikers, my coach was standing right on that line, spying on his own daughter at her school. I imagined Larry decked out in a grey raincoat, a fake beard and oversized sunglasses, being pulled over in his Jeep by the police. That’s the reason I turned down Sylvie’s offer. But I did promise her I’d think about it, and that maybe, once the season was over, I’d take her up on it. But not before. I didn’t have time for that right now. I had to concentrate on hockey.

After I hung up I noticed that Larry had made himself scarce. Maybe he was afraid he’d have to talk to my father and that’d he’d get another earful.

I spent the rest of the evening slouched on the sofa, watching television and surfing the Internet. I tried to find Chloé on Skype or MSN, but she wasn’t on-line on either one.

No, Larry hadn’t gone crazy. He was sure that something was out of synch with Tom. Especially after he paid a visit to the gym and got a look at the seedy guys who ran the place. He just tried to do the right thing. What’s more, finding out that people in the village were talking behind his back, and that Tommy’s mother was bad-mouthing him was unbearable. There already wasn’t much left of his reputation after his various run-ins with the law and his employers; if people were going to think he was a lousy coach and an unworthy mentor, there wouldn’t be anything left for him to do except go back into the army and disappear forever into the mountains of Afghanistan.

That’s why, that very evening, he headed over to the gym to have it out with Tommy. He wanted to confront him in front of the guys who were leading him down the road to ruin. And who, in doing so, were destroying him forever by turning him into a monster.

Monday was a busy night. Tuesday was even more so. The music was thumping, the atmosphere stifling, and people were lined up in front of the machines. Larry quickly spotted Tommy at the back of the room, in the corner where the weights and dumbbells were stacked. Vincent was beside him, egging him on as he power lifted.

Our coach wasn’t a big guy. But he wasn’t afraid of anybody. He’d been to war, and no doped-up body builder was going to intimidate him. Without a glance at the jittery little guy at the reception desk, Larry marched with a determined stride to the back of the room.

Vincent immediately spotted the bizarre individual heading straight for him. Of course, Larry was decked out in his pale blue jogging suit. With his blue shades and his unkempt red hair sticking out in all directions, he was hard to miss. A man of action who was used to all sorts of nasty business, Vincent hurriedly helped Tommy lower the steel bar and its enormous cast iron plates. He knew exactly who he was dealing with.

“Tom,” said Larry, “I know what’s going on here. I want to talk to you.”

Tommy was about to reply, but Vincent abruptly cut him off.

“Hey, my friend, none of this concerns you. Butt out. Just a bit of friendly advice.”

“I’m not talking to you, fat ass. Which means … just shut your mouth!” During his stint in the Canadian armed forces, Larry had taken some judo courses. When Vincent, spitting nails, moved in to grab him, Larry flipped him over his hip with a lightning-fast move. The body builder with the bulging biceps went crashing to the mat. Cool as a cucumber, our coach turned to Tommy and pointed his finger at him, commanding him to get out of this dump. Immediately!

No talking back. And I think Tom just might have obeyed him, and that Larry might have been able to get through to him. It was just possible that all he needed was an authority figure who stood taller than him, and could upend with a single judo throw the man in whom Tom had placed all his trust. But with Vincent still writhing on the floor in pain after crushing his weak and undersized hips beneath the weight of his top heavy mass, Larry had imprudently turned his back on the guy at the front desk. The thug, himself a martial arts enthusiast, had grabbed a pair of nunchucks from under the counter. He exploded into the air and delivered a violent kick between Larry’s shoulders, sending him to the floor. After a dozen nunchuck blows, Larry found himself being dragged across the gym carpet and tossed outside by a couple of brutes who outdid each other finishing him off. They left him there, unconscious, between two dumpsters on Rue Notre-Dame-des-Anges.

“But I didn’t really lose consciousness,” he said, sitting on a chair in front of me, his face battered, one eye swollen under his blue shades, a bag of ice on his head. “I was faking.”

He was faking… What a strategy. But one that had served him well. Because the toughs, afraid they had gone too far and worried about having a death on their consciences, had finally left him alone.

I’d been asleep on the couch when he stumbled in somewhere around 11 p.m. As soon as I saw him, I leapt to my feet to give him a place to sit down. But he asked for a chair because his kidneys were hurting. He gingerly sat down, while I went to get some ice. A lot of good it did me to ask him questions; he could only moan in response. He sat there a long moment unable to speak, legs stretched out on the coffee table. Then he opened his eyes, as if it was all coming back to him.

“I tried talking to Tommy, but it didn’t do any good.”

That much was clear. Then he gave me a blow-by-blow account. He seemed proud of pretending to be close to death, throwing the guys who had beaten him into a bit of a panic. As if he had gotten the best of them.

“Should we call the cops?”

“The police?” he said. “What’s the use?”

He didn’t like the police. In fact, he was afraid of them. What he hadn’t mentioned was that they’d paid him a visit, a couple of days before. His ex had called the police after seeing him watching his daughter, Melissa, in the schoolyard. Which was why his sister had blown her stack.

Larry got up with a long sigh, his face twisted with pain, and shuffled off to his room. But before he did, he reached for the handset on the small end-table beside the couch. He held it to his ear, and then handed it to me.

“There’s a message. You listen to it. I don’t have the heart to hear it. It’s probably Tommy’s mother threatening to sue me for harassing her kid.”

As he disappeared into his room, I played back the recording and listened to the message. It had probably come in during the afternoon. I recognized Vincent’s disagreeable voice right away.

“Hey, champ. Someone found your backpack in the locker room yesterday evening. You can come by anytime. It’s in my office.”

The next day, I woke up in a bad mood. Another night spent tossing and turning, wondering how I was going to retrieve my backpack. After what I’d witnessed in the gym basement— that is, if Tommy had even mentioned seeing me —and with the beating Larry had taken, I figured I was less than welcome. If I showed up, I might even end up in a dumpster myself.

Despite his wretched appearance and his aching body, Larry insisted on driving me to the Colisée. I could have grabbed a taxi, but he said he felt it was his responsibility. We drove in silence in his Jeep, stuck in traffic, blocked by some road pavers. Every time he stepped on the clutch to change gears, he leaned slightly to his left and clenched his teeth. When he left me off at the door, he asked if I minded if he skipped the workout. He wanted to go to the clinic to see a doctor. He thought he might have a broken rib. Not to worry I told him, everything was going to be okay.

“You should call Nathalie. She’ll pick you up.”

I declined, insisting that I’d figure something out.

Even though my legs were wooden and my breath was shorter than usual, I did pretty well. My passes were sharp, right on the stick, my shots on the net, and even if I was a step slower than usual, I was pretty fluid on my skates.

And that was how things stayed all week, until Thursday, the second-to-last day of rookie camp.

Over those three days, I battled Tommy as hard as I could. I kept my eye on him and gave him as little space as possible. And I seized every opportunity to make him look bad. When they put him out on my line, I’d zip him a wicked pass right on the money, but with enough on it that I knew he wouldn’t be able to handle it; stick-handling just wasn’t his strength. When he was lined up against me, I took a great deal of pleasure blowing past him on the left, knowing that he couldn’t pivot on that leg. Easy moves for me that really got under his skin. We exchanged a few hits, and even though he was too strong for me, a sense of rage would well up in me whenever I spotted him anywhere near me. I was developing quite a burn.

“Hey, Jolly Green Giant. Take the right pills this morning?”

He lost his head trying to tear mine off and I came out of the corner with the puck looking for the pass. It clicked every time. At wit’s end, he took it out on anybody he could find, serving up a dangerous cross-check that just about got him tossed. The coach took him aside for a talking to. Tommy, sweat dripping down, listened attentively, nervously nodding his head. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other like an animal set to pounce. After the tête-à-tête we all thought he’d step it down a notch. But no. He fought twice, inflicting some serious damage on a couple of guys who came after him after he taunted them.

It was clear that if he wasn’t going to win a spot on the strength of his play, he’d win it on strength alone, even if it meant becoming a goon. Besides, everyone— coaches and players —now clearly saw him in that role. Some of the guys were scared enough to keep a healthy distance, even after practice, as if he was a grizzly in a cage.

Partly, that made me feel better. Too bad for him. I continued to play my game. I was there to score goals and I was the best. I put five in the net including two on breakaways to lead my team to a 7-2 victory. There weren’t many people in the stands, but quite a few were yelling my name every time I touched the puck. And real training camp hadn’t even started yet. No doubt I’d be making the place explode this winter. A couple of good-looking blondes caught my eye.

The coaches didn’t have much to say. Which seemed like a good sign. If they came up to me, it was to congratulate me or to give me some very specific technical advice: on how to position myself when we were practicing one of their game systems.

“Do you understand what I’m trying to say?” asked Carl, the assistant. “If you quit your position too soon, all it takes is a quick turnover and you’re out of the game. Look for the pass, but stay closer to the blue line. Stay on your man, got it?”

He was speaking to me, but all I could hear were the girls yelling my name.

Tommy and a few others were being watched more closely. And obviously, that was also a good thing. If they had the coach’s eye, it was for good reasons. You could tell most of the rest of the guys knew they weren’t going to make it. I felt a slight tug at my heart when stick-handling around them as if they were orange cones. But I knew only too well that I had to be ruthless. For at the first opportunity, they’d be the same way towards me.

Practice was over and I was coming out of the showers when I saw Tommy coming in from the rink. As usual, he’d been putting in overtime. He was all red, out of breath. He sat down on the bench in front of his locker. Then he doubled over, clutching his stomach. Carl and François were talking in a corner, and some other guys were still getting dressed. I approached him.

“Is everything okay, Tom?”

He looked up at me. It was the first time I noticed how yellow he looked. He took a deep breath, as though trying to stifle his pain, then he shook his head left to right in a clear no.

“Are you sure?”

Once again he nodded his head to say he was all right.

“Maybe you should see François.”

And with that, he exploded, slamming the bench with his fist, and telling me to mind my own business.

“Everything okay, guys?” asked François, with Carl at his side.

I nodded that it was. We were just fooling around. Right, Tom? Right, he mumbled.

I got dressed, leaving Tommy alone in his corner, and left, accompanied by the two guys from Abitibi. I was pretty sure one of them, Danny, was going to make the team. He was a tall, skinny defenceman who handled his position quite well. He read my fakes better than anybody else and forced me to pass the puck, preventing me from going to the net. When a forward sees a defenceman and already has it in his head that it’ll be hard to beat him, it gives the defence a distinct advantage in the game of momentum that we call hockey.

The other guy, Yannick, was probably going to be cut. He hung a few steps behind us as we walked, silent; probably realizing that his beautiful dream of making it in juniors would be nothing but a dream for yet another year. He was nineteen. For sure, it must have been discouraging to watch a sixteen-year-old like myself totally in command on the ice while he had to struggle just to stay in the game. Competition, in all its forms, is a cold-hearted beast. But it can also be a real motivator. Like what I was facing in Tommy. Someone, somewhere, must have an idea of what he was doing, because never had I felt such a rage, such a desire to outdo myself. And it came from the desire to annihilate the other. Disturbing, but terribly effective.

Yannick made a comment about two girls who were headed our way: short skirts, tank tops and bright loafers. Very sexy. I immediately recognized the two girls in the bleachers who had been hollering my name and, in my usual way— super cool, kind of embarrassed —I was about to move past them, my hands in my pockets, eyes to the ground, when one of them spoke to me with a great deal of familiarity.

I looked up and immediately recognized her. But she had changed so much that I would have needed binoculars to have known it was her up in the stands. A flood of emotions welled up in me, I couldn’t say a word.

“What’s the big deal? … It’s me, Jess!”

It really was Jessie. Except that with her frizzy hair, short skirt and wearing a ton of makeup, I didn’t know how to react. I held out my arms. She leapt into my embrace and squeezed me tight.

“Umm… Hi,” I said.

“Umm… Umm… Umm. You’re still the same!” she exclaimed, laughing and pushing away from me with both hands.

She was very pretty. And her friend, every bit as much. I had earned my teammates’ admiration for my on-ice exploits. But now they were burning with pure envy, and I had to laugh. Danny and Yannick hung back a few steps, waiting for me to make the introductions. They seemed just as intimidated as I was. And when time came for them to leave, I could tell how unhappy they were.

Jessie’s friend was named Vicky. She was tall, slender, and seemed really laid-back. She stood with her shoulders relaxed, one hand on her hip, the other holding a pink leather handbag. The sun beat down on us in the Colisée’s huge parking lot.

Jess took me by the arm.

“I’m happy to see you,” she said.

“Me, too,” I replied.

“I couldn’t believe it when I saw you in the paper! I told Vicky, ‘Hey, I know him! We’ve got to go see him.’”

The far end of a dirt road on the Côte-Nord and Quebec City’s Limoilou district were worlds apart. And Jessie seemed to embrace both those disparate and contrasting worlds. I had known her as someone quiet and reserved. After all the craziness of the previous winter I had given up hope of ever seeing her again. In spite of her drinking, and the bitter taste that remained from our one and only kiss, I still had fond memories of her, even if they were a bit idealized. Now, I found her completely different, as if she had jumped straight out of a YouTube clip. A little too ordinary for my liking. But ever since I had arrived in town I had been bored out of my mind. Larry was pitiful and Tommy even more so. It seemed like Chloé was at the other end of the world. In fact, I didn’t have any friends and I spent most of my time, at least when I wasn’t working out, completely alone with nothing to do. The three previous evenings I had spent in the little five and a half on Rue du Roi had been the worst. After watching every hockey and street fighting video I could find on the Internet and then watching any old movie I could find on TV, I was ready to fall for somebody from back home.

She seemed truly happy to see me. She was sincere, in any case. And perhaps, deep down, she was bored herself. She asked after just about everyone she knew, even Chloé.

“She’s doing all right,” I reassured her.

“Are you guys going out together? I heard it on the grapevine.”

“A few times, over the summer. But it didn’t really click.”

I had Jessie in my arms, but I couldn’t help discreetly glancing over at big tall Vicky, walking along on my left. She gave an extra little swing of her hips as she moved, constantly fiddling with her oversized sunglasses in their white plastic frames.

We walked on until we came to an old grey rusted-over Tercel, waiting in a parking lot.

“You want a ride? It’s her mother’s car.”

I said yes, and climbed into the back. It smelled like bubble gum and gas fumes. Vicky started the motor, which coughed and sputtered while Jess turned around in the front seat to continue our conversation. It seemed strange that since we had met at the Colisée exit, Vicky hadn’t spoken a word.

“What are you doing this afternoon?” asked Jessie.

“I’m going running.”

“Running? Didn’t you just finish practice?”

“Yes. But I run after.”

“You athletes are nuts. Where do you run?”

“Victoria Park. Then I take the path to Cartier-Brébeuf and circle across the river to Marie-de-l’Incarnation.”

“Cartier-Brébeuf… The park in Limoilou? That’s near where we live. We were just headed over there to work on our tans.”