Only once, in August 1989, had Stan run across a situation with the Cup he felt he couldn’t handle on his own. The championship trophy had been booked for a party by a young left-winger named Dalton Gunn, in his hometown of Eganville, Ontario, a five-hour drive from Toronto. It was a standard weekend job—drive up on the Friday night and figure out the town, shepherd the Cup all the next day when an impromptu tour of the townsfolk would be begged of him, stand watch during the drunken Saturday night festivities trying not to get too in the bag himself, and sneak the trophy back out of town before sunrise and the mischievous hangovers of Sunday. He’d pulled this job countless times in countless small towns within a clear day’s drive of Toronto.
Stan packed the Cup in a League van, and took the northern route. He left Toronto at its top end, on the two-lane Highway 7, avoiding for the most part the bung of weekend cottage traffic that plagued the major highway routes. It was a slow drive all the same and, just before sunset, Stan pulled into a provincial park to eat the sandwiches and cookies he’d packed for himself. He parked the van as close to water as he could get, rolled down all the windows and ate looking out across a short expanse of lake to a massive stone bluff. The park brochure told him the cliff was home to First Nations petroglyphs carved high above the water, but he couldn’t see any such things from his seat. The cliff face caught the last light of day, and Stan sat on after his food, enjoying the reflected heat radiating down on him.
Eganville was two more hours to the north, and Stan kept a careful watch at the road edges for deer. Early evening was a restless time for deer, he knew, and more than once on his many summer drives Stan had been forced from the pavement by a wandering doe. Once, in thick fog, he had just missed a large buck that had lost its footing on the slick pavement and crashed to his haunches trying to escape Stan’s headlights. The desperate animal bucked and twisted in the middle of Stan’s lane and he had to watch carefully while he steered past, to make sure the poor thing didn’t bang a hoof or antler against his fender in terror. For the rest of the fog, Stan slowed the van below sixty kilometres an hour, and honked his horn at regular intervals. If he hit a mature buck at high speed, chances were they’d both be killed by the impact, and then who knows what would happen to the Cup, abandoned in favour of death on a deserted northern roadway.
Stan reached Eganville by ten o’clock, and checked into the hotel on the main street. Above a certain latitude, the Canadian towns Stan visited for his job pretty much followed the same plan. A central main street near either a river, lake or rail line, a compact collection of local businesses and services huddled together in a clump around the central intersection, a small school, usually at least one church (sometimes as many as three even for the smallest populations), a hockey arena, some kind of local diner, a gas station, and a hotel with a tavern on the main floor. Eganville followed the plan.
Stan secured the Cup in his room, tested the door lock several times and descended to the tavern by a creaking back staircase that smelled alarmingly of woodsmoke and grease.
“That better be the kitchen,” he mumbled. “I sure as hell don’t want to be jumping out a window in the middle of the night with that frickin’ Cup on my back.”
For a Friday night, the barroom was surprisingly empty. He hadn’t seen another bar of any kind on his quick circle around the town, which could only mean that this place was such a shithole not even those without options bothered with it. Yet this was the room scheduled for the Cup party the next night. Stan acquainted himself with all the exits, including the locked and barred emergency door at the end of the dark hallway to the washrooms. He expected a rough crowd. Dalton Gunn wasn’t much of a talent as a hockey player. His skill was hitting opponents in the face with his fists so hard they had to leave the game for stitches. A boy doesn’t just get that way on his own. In Stan’s experience, enforcers were not born, they were made by their upbringings—made by their towns. Stan checked out the small plywood podium built near one end of the pool table, obviously meant to hold the Cup and maybe a speaker. It was a clear four strides from that makeshift stage to the base of the back staircase, an easy escape from just about any trouble in the main barroom. The hotel owner had followed Stan’s written instructions. He relaxed, and wandered back to a bar stool where he intended to spend the rest of his evening.
Including Stan, there were exactly six people in the room. A group of three older men, longtime townsfolk by the looks of them, light plaid jackets and baseball caps sporting farm machinery logos, sat around a small table near the front door, watching the late news on the television above the bar. A woman in her early thirties worked the bar, and what looked to be either her boss or her husband sat at the bar’s far end, counting five-dollar bills into piles beside his drink. The old men smoked without a break, lighting new cigarettes from the last heat of their dying ones, and hardly said a word to each other. In fact, everyone was smoking, and Stan joined the party, pulling a pack of Export ‘A’ from the breast pocket of his shirt. They had all watched Stan checking out the bar, knew for certain he wasn’t from the town and figured out who he was right away. Stan caught the words “from the League” mumbled across the far table once or twice, but whenever he looked over at the old men, their heads were turned to the TV.
“You just want a drink, or you looking for the show?” The woman smiled tiredly at Stan, and placed a napkin in front of him on the bar.
“What’s the show?”
The far table broke into a low rumble of laughter. “Get the show,” he heard mumbled from beneath a ball cap.
“You’re looking at the show,” the bartender said, glancing in a meaningful way down the length of her body. “It’s five bucks for the show. One song on the jukebox. I can go on the pool table or just standing there in front of you.”
“I’ll take an Export,” Stan said, “for now.”
The woman smiled again, turned and snatched a beer bottle from the fridge behind her.
“A double Ex man, eh? You’ll get the show,” she laughed. “I know people, and you’re the kind of guy who gets the show. Two more of those ought to do it.”
“You’re probably right,” Stan laughed.
At midnight the man at the end of the bar walked to the front door and locked it. He returned to the bar and everyone in the room kept drinking. An hour later there was banging at the door and the man walked over again, checked through the curtains and slipped the lock, locking it again behind a group of four young men, also all in plaid jackets and baseball caps.
“Shift’s over,” Stan heard from the old man’s table.
The young men ordered a table full of draft beer, delivered in small glasses by the trayful, in three runs. They called out for the show, and piled five-dollar bills on the edge of the pool table. In between songs the bar girl wandered the room in her G-string, making sure everyone had drinks. Her body showed signs of children, and was impossible to ignore. She stood beside Stan for a few minutes smoking a joint and laughing at the young men who howled from beside the pool table.
“Cooooome ooooon, Shelly. Put on that fucking Johnny Cash and get to it. I gotta get up early and work a whole damn shift before the party.”
“Hold this,” the woman said, handing Stan her half-finished joint. “These dicks will tear the fucking room apart if I don’t shake it some more. You all right, honey? You got enough to drink?”
“I’m just fine.”
Stan held the joint until it burned down too close to his skin, then he dropped it on the bar top. The man at the end of the bar walked over and scooped it up into the palm of his hand, ignoring that it was still lit. He popped it into his mouth and sat back down. The young men piled more five-dollar bills on the edge of the pool table. The three old men watched a black and white movie on the TV.
When Tony arrived the next evening, the victory party had been going for almost twelve hours. Pickup trucks lined the main street on both sides, clustered closer together near the hotel. The street was made impassable by partygoers a block in each direction from the front doors of the tavern. The town had been shut down, and the local police looked to have joined the celebration. Tony left his rental car on the nearest side street and pushed his way through the crowd into the hotel. The room was hot and smelled of sweat, beer and smoke. It was hard work pushing against the party, clearing a path for himself through bodies to the bar. He caught sight of Stan while still a good ten feet away. The older man was waving at him from the bar top, standing above the crowd.
“Some asshole.” Stan waved Tony’s attention past him to the wall behind the bar.
“Some asshole with a hate on for Gunn.”
Between two framed mirrors, surrounded by glass bar shelves full of liquor bottles, the unmistakable scalloped silver bowl of the trophy protruded from the back wall of the tavern. Tony stared hard, but couldn’t quite figure out what he was seeing.
“Where the hell’s the rest of it?” he yelled to Stan, still inching his way through the crush.
“That’s it—that’s the whole damn thing. Some asshole with a hate on for Gunn took the thing and shoved it into the vent. The fucking Cup is stuck all the way into the wall for Christ’s sake. I tried every goddamn thing I could think of before I called the office. I’ve been standing here just watching over it the entire time you been coming here.”
Tony reached the bar, and Stan reached a hand down to help him up onto the countertop. The two men surveyed the situation, Tony leaning right across the gap and bracing himself against the back wall. Two waitresses criss-crossed beneath him, grabbing beer bottles and flinging their caps off without worrying where they might land. With one hand, he grabbed the edge of the bowl and applied pressure, pulling it toward him. There was no give. The trophy had been wedged into a space not quite big enough to hold it. Tony pushed off from the wall and swung back to stand beside Stan.
“This?” he yelled, motioning at the ridiculous scene. “This is why you told me to bring my tools?”
“We’ve got no choice,” Stan said. His face looked crumpled with worry. “These people don’t give a shit. Look at them. A couple of them tried to help me at first, but I had to stop them ’cause they’re all fucking drunk and I thought they were going to crack the thing apart trying to wrench it out of there.”
“Okay,” Tony said. “So, what am I supposed to do if a bunch of guys bigger than me couldn’t get it out of there?”
“We’re opening the wall—no way around it. The League’s just going to have to cover the damage.”
“The League? What about the dick who rammed it in there?”
Stan waved his hand at the room.
“Right. Go get his name. He was wearing a plaid jacket and a baseball cap with some farm logo on it.”
Tony looked out over the crowd, a sweaty, smoking mob of plaid coats and green caps. A young guy stood near the bar smiling up at him, like he was watching his favourite show. He winked when Tony’s eyes crossed his.
“Fine. We’re opening the wall. When?”
“Right now. Let’s get the fucking thing out, and get out of this town.”
“You want me to tear a wall apart in the middle of a party.”
“Like they’d notice. Just get your goddamn tools. I’ll help where I can, but I’m too fucking old to swing a sledge.”
It took the two men less than an hour to open a two-foot square hole beside the vent, digging back into the wood frame construction of the old building. The waitresses and bartender worked around them the entire time, after removing all the glass and bottles from the wall. Every swing of the hammer Tony took was followed by loud cheers from the crowd, and the jukebox played nonstop.
Balanced on a ladder that Stan held, Tony crawled into the hole to his waist and cut away the side of the vent with a pair of heavy snips, taking care not to nick the side of the trophy. He chewed on a small steel flashlight and breathed dust. When he pulled back the vent it sliced into his finger, but he just kept working, not wanting to pull out and then have to crawl right back into that godawful spot. When the light hit the trophy, Tony read the name Maurice Richard. He slid his hand down the silver and felt past the pedestal bottom. Getting leverage, he gave a gentle pull, and the whole trophy moved to his pressure.
“It’s loose,” he shouted, and felt Stan’s hands on his belt, pulling him back and supporting him while he gained his balance on the top of the ladder. Slowly, with Stan and the bartender below him bracing the trophy sides so it wouldn’t scrape against the sharp edges of the dismantled vent, Tony pulled at the bowl of the Cup from a position on the bar. They worked the trophy through the smoky air and placed it gently on the bar. The tavern exploded in cheering and the spraying of beer. One of the waitresses tossed Tony a bottle of beer and he drank long, washing down dust. He smiled down at Stan and made like he meant to pour some beer into the Cup in celebration.
It was only then that he noticed a long dark red streak of blood, his own blood, running the length of the trophy, from the edge of the scalloped bowl to the pedestal. He looked down at his hand, from which more blood dripped steadily onto his shoe. He felt suddenly weak, and crouched onto a knee. Stan helped him off the bar, and wrapped his hand in a bar towel soaked in old beer.
When Tony had his strength back, he and Stan each took a side of the trophy and worked their way through the front door and the crush of people in the street to the back lot of the tavern where Stan’s van was stashed. Tony watched over the Cup while Stan got the tool box, trophy case and his overnight stuff. They secured the trophy in its case and Stan climbed into the driver’s seat.
“What are you doing?” Tony asked, still stunned from exhaustion and blood loss.
“I’m not keeping this thing here another goddamn night. No telling what they’ll do to it next. I’ll give you a couple minutes to get to your car, but then I’m cutting out of here.”
“What about the wall?”
“Fuck the wall. I’m never gonna see the inside of that room again. I’m getting out of this town and if anyone gets in my way I’m knocking them down.”
Tony drove behind Stan down the black highway, his hand throbbing. At the juncture with Highway 7, Stan pulled the van into an all-night truck stop. They loaded up on coffee, and Stan stood a long time beside the van, smoking cigarette after cigarette.
“Can they do anything about the scratches?”
“They’ll do something. They got silversmiths.”
“You see that guy following us? He was on us for a hundred clicks before he turned around.”
“Must’ve run out of beer.”
“This kind of thing happen to you often?”
Stan sighed and coughed. He lit another smoke. “It’s too bad,” he said. “I think tonight I was going to get more than just the show.”