Travis had no idea how long he’d been standing at the urinal. He’d come off the ice with the rest of the Owls – the silence crushing as they slouched their way back to the dressing room – and he’d set his stick against the wall, lopped off his helmet, dropped his gloves, and hurried off to the little washroom. He didn’t need to go. He’d just wanted to get away.
He stood there, waiting, all through the low rumble of Muck’s short post-game speech. He knew what Muck would be saying: Good effort, good work, lucky to come out of it with a tie, we’ll just have to be a little sharper next game … He could hear Mr. Dillinger putting away the skate sharpener and bundling up the sticks, lightly whistling as he worked, the way he always did when there was a bit of tension in the dressing room.
Travis felt terrible. He felt he’d failed the team. He felt he should rip the “C” off his sweater and hand it back. A captain was supposed to lead by example, or so Muck always said, and what an example Travis had set:
Give up the win when it is yours for the taking.
Choke under pressure.
Travis stood there until he knew he could put it off no longer. He buckled up and headed back in to face the jury.
As he came through the door, he pretended to be absorbed in lacing up his hockey pants. The Owls were all busy shedding their gear. There was the familiar smell of hockey in the air, a steely, damp, and sweaty smell found nowhere else on earth but a dressing room in the minutes following a hard-fought game.
Fahd looked up first, one of his ridiculous questions rising.
“Where were you?” Fahd asked accusingly.
“Going to the bathroom,” Travis said, trying to sound matter-of-fact.
Nish looked up, grinning like a red tomato.
“Did you miss that, too?” Nish giggled.
The dressing room exploded with laughter.
“Nish is a goof,” Fahd said to Travis as they backed out through the door with their equipment.
“You’re just realizing that?” Travis said. His voice made him sound angrier than he was. He wasn’t upset with Nish – at least, not as much as he was with himself.
The bus was parked behind the MCI Center, and the fastest way out was through the Zamboni chute. They pushed through a second door, neither one saying a word, and began to walk across the drainage grating alongside the Zamboni.
Travis and Fahd froze in their tracks. It was like being in a movie. Someone they couldn’t see had barked a command. What was next? Gunfire?
A shadow emerged from the far side of the Zamboni.
Earplug!
He was snapping his gum and had one hand just inside his jacket as if prepared to pull out his .38 snubnose Smith & Wesson and blow the two Screech Owls away.
“What’re you two doing here?” Earplug snapped.
“We just played a game,” said Fahd. “We’re leaving.”
“Door’s that way, smart fellow!” Earplug barked, nodding in the opposite direction.
“Our bus’s out back,” said Fahd.
Earplug seemed to think about that a moment. There was no sound at all in the room but the grind of his teeth and the periodic little snap-snap-snap as he flicked his tongue through the gum.
Like a snake! Travis thought. A gum-chewing snake!
Finally, it seemed to register on Earplug. The bus could be out back. The shortest route between dressing room and back parking lot was indeed through the Zamboni chute and out the back door.
He nodded to himself and stepped back for them to pass. He waved them along with his one free hand, as if directing traffic.
Travis could hardly believe how jumpy Earplug was. He seemed almost out of control – one hand waving two peewee hockey players through to the parking lot, the other hand on his concealed weapon as if, any second now, he’d be forced to blow them away.
“Th-thanks,” said Fahd.
The two Owls squeezed by. The Zamboni had been opened up so Earplug and his security force could check the insides. Travis could see the blades that sent the shaved ice up into the holding tank and the hydraulic pistons that dumped the snow out. What did he think? Travis wondered. That one of the Zamboni drivers might sneak out with the machine during play, slip up behind the President’s son during a faceoff, gobble him up, and then race out the back doors to hold him for ransom? Travis giggled to himself at the thought of the chase: police cars, fire engines, helicopters all chasing the chugging Zamboni down Pennsylvania Avenue.
Ludicrous, he thought.
But still, he had to give Earplug credit. He was thorough.