The Man Who Can't Be Moved

February 11, 2009

**************

It’s been the longest five months of my entire life.

Professionally it’s been a nightmare. A promising start to the season quickly shit tanked and by the time Christmas break rolled around we’d somehow managed to sink as far a team could possibly go; straight into the fucking basement with all hopes for a birth in the post season slipping further and further out of reach. The atmosphere in the dressing room has been volatile at best; the clear separation between those that support Sid and those that support me have made coming to work a painful experience. I only have myself to blame for that; I’d made the conscious decision to poach my team mate’s -not to mention my captain and one time friend- girlfriend and I hadn’t expressed either guilt or regret for doing it. I’d offered up the customary apologies; I genuinely feel bad for Sid and while I’d never intentionally set out to hurt him, I’d manned up and accepted and admitted my role in the deterioration of the ‘team dynamic. I’d had enough balls to stand in front of Mario and Ray Shero and admit to the affair that had ultimately drove a massive, unmovable wedge between Sid and I and had turned the dressing room and practices into a virtual battle zone.

Tempers were short and everyone was on edge and there were no shortages of opinions being tossed around; vulgar, nasty shit was being said on the ice during practices and within the confines of the locker room and it wasn’t uncommon for things to turn physical. The majority of the time Sid and I weren’t even in the middle of it; save for a couple of shoving matches we’d had and the profanities we never seemed to refrain from tossing at one another, we’d manage to keep things relatively cool between us. He was hurting and I wasn’t going to deny him that; I wasn’t going to fault him for being a broody, nasty ass bastard because he’d had his heart broken and I certainly wasn’t going to tell him -like Pascal Dupuis, Geno and a couple of the older, married guys routinely do- that he needed to just ‘pull up his big boy pants and get the fuck on with his life’. He’d been dealt a huge blow and he’d been dealing with a lot of shit within a startling short period of time and he had every right in the world to hate me and wish for me to step off a curb and get hit by a Mack truck. But nothing was going to make me second guess my decision; no one was going to make me regret choosing a girl over a friend and nothing that anyone said was going to make me feel guilty for how I handled the situation.

I’d even told Mario to trade me. If that’s what he needed to do to improve the Pens on and off the ice, I was willing to accept full responsibility for the horrifically low employee morale and for the fact that the entire team was playing like complete and utter shit. If it meant he had to ship me out west and get me as far away from the ’Burgh as possible, so be it. I didn’t necessarily want to go; I fully believed that once Sid’s wounds started to heal and he finally pulled his ass and realized that he and Emma-Leigh were doomed from the start, all of the tension within the locker room would change. But I’d given the ownership group the opportunity to take the easy route; I’d offered myself up as the sacrificial lamb because I knew that regardless of how staunchly I defended myself and my choices, that Sid would always come out looking like the innocent angel in the end. He was the NHL’s prodigal son after all; the squeaky clean, boy next door poster child who could do no wrong and pissed and shit fucking gold as far as everyone in Pittsburgh was concerned. My off ice reputation hadn’t helped; my ‘after hours’ behaviour had left me tarnished and completely expendable and it wasn’t as if I was impact player on the team. If I had to be shipped out to help the Pens improve, then that was a sacrifice I’d been willing to take.

In the end Mario -after making me sweat it out for a couple of days as he ‘considered the offer’- had instead ordered an emergency ‘intervention’ of sorts between Sid and me. We’d been forced, for the first time since Emma-Leigh had officially broken up with him and I’d shipped her off to Montreal in order to keep her away from the media shit storm and the drama I knew would occur- to sit down face to face and talk about what had happened between us. There’s nothing worse than a guy having to talk about their feelings; we’d spent the better part of an hour sitting in chairs across from one another and not uttering a goddamn word as I stared intently at Sid and he’d done everything in his power to avoid looking at me. I wasn’t going to punk out; I wasn’t going to break and grovel on my hands and knees and beg him to forgive me, and I certainly wasn’t offering up any more apologies. I’d done everything I could to make things better save for kissing his and there was no fucking way I was going to bust my hump to patch things up. Eventually the team therapist had grown tired of the silence and he’d issued a heavy sigh and had turned to me and in all seriousness, asked:

“Don’t you think you have something to apologize for, Maxime?”

That had set me off. It had been an innocent question that had sent my blood pressure through the roof and had caused my last nerve to disintegrate. I’d unleashed a profanity laced English and French tirade that had nearly caused the counsellor to both wet and shit his pants; screaming about how he was supposed to be impartial and that I was sick and fucking tired of Sid being treated as the helpless victim while I was being vilified. I was through with making apologies and I wasn’t going to beg for forgiveness; what was done was done and I was in love with Emma-Leigh and there wasn’t one sonofabitch in the world who could take that away from me. Who could convince me to change my mind and give her up after I’d already lost so much just to be with her. And then I’d unleashed my fury at Sid; accusing him of putting Em up on an impossibly high pedestal and not being there for her when she came toppling down; for abandoning her during a period of grief and for all but forcing her into the arms of someone else. I’d called him an insensitive bastard and told him that he hadn’t been in love with her; he’d loved the idea of her that he’d created in his head and when she hadn’t lived up to that, he’d punked out and had cut her loose instead of being a fucking man and dealing with her issues head on. He’d lost her, plain and simple. And his loss was my gain and if he didn’t want to accept my apology that was his fucking issue, not mine.

Sid had behaved in his characteristic fashion; never batting an eyelash, never breaking a sweat, never interrupting me and never defending himself. I supposed that in some ways, my words cut deep and he’d realized that I’d been right on several of the counts I’d accused him off. But his lack of emotion and the way the tone of his voice and his facial expression never changed only pissed me off even more and I’d gone on the attack once again, declaring that if he’d ever loved her or still had feelings for her, he’d fight back; he’d call me a fucking bastard for what I did, he’d punch me in the face or wrap his hands around my throat and attempt to choke the life out of me. He wouldn’t just fucking sit there staring at me; he’d grow some goddamn balls and stop being so perfect and politically correct for once and actually lash out. And I’d told him that he wasn’t pissed off and hurt that he’d lost Emma-Leigh; he had his panties in a bunch because finally something had happened to him that he didn’t have full control of. He’d lost her and couldn’t get her back and he couldn’t stand it.

Oddly enough, the therapy session had been therapeutic for me. I’d gotten out a lot of my own anger and I’d finally stood up to boy wonder and had defended myself and Emma-Leigh. I had been through with taking shit from him and Mario and the fans and I wasn’t going to be anyone’s whipping boy anymore. At the end of it we’d come out of the intervention with at least some of the bridge repaired between us. Sid had accepted my apology but had told me that he’d never forget what happened and that it would take a hell of a long time to ever trust me and be friends with me again. We were team-mates now; nothing more, nothing less. And for the good of the Pens we both needed to move on and at least pretend we were a united front for the sake of the other guys. I don’t know if he’ll ever accept that Emma-Leigh and I are together; if he’ll ever fully recover from what went down and I certainly don’t expect him to ever be a hundred percent okay with it.

But while our truce had done wonders in the dressing room, it hadn’t improved anything out on the ice. As a collective whole, our team sucked complete and utter shit and a rash of injuries at all the wrong times fucked us royally and made every game a long and painful experience. Little did we know that big changes would be coming; Mario was already making all the right moves and putting things in place that he knew would help us for the better. Two nights ago in a meeting between the players and the GM and Mario, we’d been told that we’d be getting a new coach; Michel Terrien was out and Dan Bylsma -who’d been at the helm for our farm team in Wilkes-Barre- was in. He’d be taking over behind the bench on the fifteenth, giving us four days to let the news sink in and to prepare ourselves for ‘big changes’ once the new coach took over.

The entire locker room is looking forward to ‘out with the old and in with the new’; there’s not a single guy on the team that hadn’t grown tired of Terrien’s half assed way of coaching and his apparent indifference to us. Change is good; change is going to make us stronger and we’re all confidant that once Dan takes over we’ll all be much more relaxed and enjoy coming to the rink again. Most importantly, we’re looking forward to wining again; we’re looking forward to busting our asses in order to get our pride back and finding ways to put more pucks into the net and notch more wins. Our record is unacceptable for a team that got all the way to the Stanley Cup finals last year; who’d come so close and could almost taste the champagne and feel the metal of Lord Stanley’s mug against our lips.

And then there’s the personal side of my life. The past five months have been incredible yet bittersweet at the same time; sending Emma-Leigh to Montreal and having her admitted into an inpatient facility to concentrate on dealing with her bi-polar disorder had been the most difficult and heart wrenching decision I’d ever had to make. But what had been the worst situation for me had been what was best for her; she needed the help and I wanted her to get better and it wasn’t going to happen if she remained in Pittsburgh and was subject to all of the abuse from the fans and some of the guys and their respective wives and girlfriends. I had to sent her away in order to safe her; keeping her around for my own selfish reasons would have just made her depression worse and I’d been terrified of losing her completely to the illness.

So while I’d found love, in away I’d had to let it go; I’d had to protect her from the drama that would follow her around and threaten to choke the life out of her. We’ve somehow managed to survive the separation; we use Skype and long distance phone calls -and the rare trip to Montreal to play the Habs and my all too short Christmas break- to keep each other up to date on what’s going on in our lives and we never forget to tell one another how much we love and miss each other. She’d spent a month and a half in that treatment center and after ‘graduation’ had been released into my brother Francis’ care and had moved in with him and his wife and kids so they could keep an eye on her and monitor her progress. So far so good; the prescription drug cocktail she’s been taking since she’d been admitted has kept her moods stabilized and for the first time in a long time she’s genuinely happy.

She’s also ready to come back to Pittsburgh. Her flight arrives in less than two hours and I haven’t been able to contain my excitement; unable to eat or sleep properly for the past seven days and annoying the few team-mates that know of her imminent return with my perpetual giddy mood. It’s time for her to come home; she’s healthy and ready to face the consequences of what we’ve done. She’s finally strong enough to both admit her part in the entire sordid, twisted mess, and begin her new life. With me. A life that includes a house I’d purchased in Fox Chapel and a bright and exciting future looming in the distance. I’ve kept mum about how serious things had actually become between us; I rarely talk about Em to anyone else save for Dupers, Flower and TK.

And that’s about to change. In a big way.

************

“In a hurry there, Superstar?” Dupers asks as he wanders out of the showers with a towel wrapped tightly around in his waist, water glistening across his bare chest and shoulders and his nearly coal black hair sticking up in several different directions. All of the other guys are either still soaping up and rinsing off or stuck in the trainers’ room being treated for various aches and pains. It‘s the first time I‘ve ever been the first in the shower and the first out after a practice; where I haven‘t bothered to let the team doctor poke and prod at my poor excuse for a shoulder. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you haul ass that fast.”

“I’ve got to be at the airport in a couple of hours,” I reply, unable to keep a massive smile from spreading across my face at the thought of finally getting my girl back. Of finally being able to share a bed with her on a constant basis; succumb to exhaustion after a few rounds of intense love making with her wrapped securely in my arms and then have the joy and privilege of waking up beside her.

It’s been a long road and chatting via telephone or web cam simply doesn’t make up for the lack of physical connection between us. Not just necessarily the sex, but those moments after where we’re caught up in a tangled mess of limbs and sheets and she’s cuddled tightly into me and I have my face buried in her hair as I revel in her soft, feminine scent. I’ve missed the giggly, nonsensical afterglow conversations and the soft, lazy kisses and the feel of her fingertips dancing across my skin and combing through the dark, wiry hair that mats my chest. Moments that I’d never experienced before and that I now can’t live without.

“Big day,” Dupers shares in my enthusiasm and gives a grin of his own. “It’s the start of a whole new life for you. Are you excited? Are you ready for this? Are you ready for letting everyone know what’s going on?”

“More than ready,” I declare, as I yank on a simple black Henley style shirt and slip into a pair of well worn and tattered jeans.

“Well whatever happens, whatever gets said and however certain people react, I’ve got your back, okay? Don’t ever worry about that. Don’t ever think I’d abandon you in a lurch. There’s a few of us in here that will defend you to the death. You know what, right?”

I nod and slide my feet into a pair of scuffed and weathered black Doc Marten boots I’ve had for years. Dupers has been my rock during all of the bullshit and drama; he’s helped me keep my chin up and my head in the game when it sometimes seemed as if I was danger of cracking under all the hate and pressure. He’s a family man; mature and responsible and completely trustworthy. There’s been a couple of others too that have stepped up and stood behind me; some were expected, some were a surprise. Flower had never been a question mark; we’d defend each other to the death if the need ever arose. TK had been a shock only because of how he’d been dead set against his sister being with Sid; he’s been trying to turn over a new leaf since Em and him patched things up and part of his penance is making nice with me. Geno is the one that shocks me. He usually stays out of peoples’ personal lives and when he’d publicly declared that I was his best friend and that he’d support me a hundred percent with whatever decision I’d made with my life, I’d been both surprised and touched. And then there’s Tanger; quiet and unassuming Tanger who rarely says ‘boo’ to anyone and is so soft spoken that sometimes you don’t even know he’s even in the room. For a long time he’d stayed neutral -a difficult feat considering Em and his girl Peyton are best friends- and now he’s finally starting to come around.

“You want me to tag along?” Dupers asks, as I finish tying my laces and then stand up and rummage through the front pockets of the black and red plaid hunting jacket that hangs on a hook inside of my stall. “Want some company? I don’t have to rush home or anything and if you don’t feel like being alone…”

“Thanks, mon ami. But this is something that I need to do by myself. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen her. Two months almost; since the Christmas break. I just want to be alone with her. I think we deserve that.”

“Most definitely,” he agrees, and then plops down onto the bench in front of his stall -he’d changed places with Sid the day after the shit had hit the proverbial fan- and vigorously towel dries his hair. “Besides, you guys are still newlyweds. I remember what it was like to be a newlywed; to want to bang twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.”

Dupers is one of only four people that know my secret. One that I’ve kept closely guarded for the past two months and I’m finally ready to unleash not only on the dressing room, but on the entire world. And I finally locate the item I’d been searching my coat for; a black velvet ring box that I’d tucked into the pocket before I’d left the house. I’d attempted to keep it safe and sound until I got to the airport. But suddenly the moment just seems so right. So perfect.

“About time,” Dupers says with a grin, as I pop open the box and remove it’s contents; a thick platinum band with yellow gold on the edges that I slip onto my left ring finger. So far I’ve only worn it in private or around the select few that even know that I’m a married man and the ring feels foreign against my skin and I open and close my fingers several times before it finally settles into place and fits snugly and comfortably.

“I gotta go,” I say, and toss the empty box onto the top shelf of my stall. I won’t be needing it anymore. There’s no reason left to hide something and someone I’m so proud of. “I’ve got some errands to run before I pick up my wife.”

“Sounds good to say it out loud, huh?” Dupers asks as he gets to his feet and offers a hand. “Feels good to finally be able to come out with it.”

I nod and shake his hand, then chuckle as he pulls me into tight, affectionate hug.

“Go and get her, Superstar,” he says, and tousles my hair. “Go and get that pretty little wife of yours. And this time…” he takes my face in both his hands and stares me dead in the eyes. “And this time don’t you ever fucking let her go, you hear me?”

He doesn’t ever have to worry about that.