The Man Who Can't Be Moved

“Sonofa-motherfucking-bitch!” the profanity easily explodes out of my mouth as one of the team trainers -a pair of medical gloves covering their hands and a pair of pliers in their possession- unceremoniously yanks the first of three remaining shards of teeth out of my lower gum.

Ten minutes ago I’d been lying in a crumpled heap behind the New York Rangers net; face down in a spreading puddle of my own blood as TK dropped the gloves with goalie Hendrik Lundqvist several feet away and the crowd roared in approval and called for the Swede’s head on a platter. I can’t even remember how I’d ended up in that predicament in the first place; one second the whistle had blown to mark a dead play and Hank the Skank (as the guys in the league like to call him for his apparently playboy lifestyle) started running his big mouth and the next I was being helped to my feet by a trainer holding a towel to my face. Judging by the chatter on the bench and the fact that Hank’s been handed a five minute major and a game misconduct, it’s safe to say that he’d been the fucker responsible for knocking out nearly all of my bottom front teeth. The rest are shattered beyond repair and the trainer is performing impromptu dentistry because I’m too much of a stubborn bastard to head to the dressing room and get taken care of properly.

“You’re a mess Max…a fucking mess…” the trainer shakes his head in dismay and then drops the shard of tooth into a plastic baggy that Mike Yeo is holding out for him. “…you’re going to have a serious date with the dentist’s chair tomorrow. More than one root canal for sure.”

“Just hurry the fuck up already!” I order, and steal a glance up at the clock as Sid, Geno, Tanger and their perspective penalty killing line mates hop over the boards and take over for Staalsy and his crew. There’s ten minutes left in the second and I’ve missed a chunk of shifts already; I may not be the most productive guy when it comes to notching assists or scoring big goals, but I bust my ass every time my skates hit the ice. And I hate feeling like a completely useless bastard. “It’s just a few fucking teeth!” I add, and then wince as the trainer pulls out yet another chunk from my gum. “What’s taking so fucking long?!”

“Good to see that it didn’t make you any uglier than you already are,” Gronk teases, and playfully nudges me in the side with his elbow as he plops down beside me. “In fact, that split lip and those missing chicklets might actually have improved things.”

“My wife’s going to throw a fucking fit,” I lament, as the trainer removes the last remaining piece of tooth and shoves cotton swabs into my mouth. “How much you wanna bet she’s freaking out right now?” I ask Staalsy, my voice muffled because of the foreign objects soaking up my blood. “How much you wanna bet she’s standing in front of the television screaming at it? I bet ya she’s threatening Hank the Skank with all sorts of bodily harm.”

“Well in his defence, you did tell him that you fucked his mother last night,” Brooks Orpik pipes up. “While eating out his sister. And that they both loved it and were begging for more.”

“I said that?” I can’t help but grin. I don’t remember those words ever leaving my mouth and to be honest, both my head and my jaw are pounding with a ferocious intensity and my brain is swimming in about ten different directions. I can’t remember anything that happened from the time the whistle blew to when I was being helped off the ice.

“You said it and he let you have it in the chops with his stick,” Orpik confirms. “You seriously don’t remember that?”

“Personally I thought it was fucking hilarious,” Staalsy says, and then snagging a bottle of water marked with his jersey number, squirts some into his mouth and then dumps the remaining amount over his face and the back of his neck.

“Talbot!” a fan from behind the bench screams and pounds his fists furiously against the glass. “TALBOT!”

I glance over my shoulder and then roll my eyes at the sight of not only the douche bag’s livid, bright red face, eyeballs that are practically protruding out of his head and vein that’s pulsating on the side of his neck, but the Rangers jersey he so proudly sports.

“Talbot you fucking pussy!” he roars, and gives me the double middle finger salute. “You’re a piece of shit! A first class motherfucker! You deserve to choke on your own teeth and blood you sonofabitch! Betcha Crosby won’t find you so cute now! Betcha he’ll want to put a bag over your head when the two of you are…”

“Shut your fucking pie hole!” I growl in return, and grabbing my own bottle of water, squirt half of it at the glass before tearing off the lid, getting to my feet and reaching over the barrier to dump the remains over the asshole’s head. “Choke on that!” I yell, and then drop the empty bottle into the guy’s lap. The crowd loves it; not only is everyone in close proximity cheering me on and laughing at the idiot’s embarrassment, but one of the cameras has caught our exchange and is showing it on the scoreboard. The place becomes even more of a madhouse; a chant of ‘Rangers suck!’ booms throughout the arena and I get even more of an applause when I stand on the bench and bow and blow kisses to my adoring fans.

“Nice…” Staalsy nods his approval as I return to my spot nice to him. “…very nice.”

“Too harsh maybe?” I ask. “Think maybe I was a little too mean?”

“Here!” the trainer yanks the gauze from my mouth and shoves a bottle of water into my hand. “Gargle and spit!”

I do as I’m told; I dump half of the water into my mouth and swish it around with my tongue and move it to the back of my throat before leaning over the boards and depositing the now pinkish liquid onto the ice.

“Skate, Creature!” I scream at Sid as he bolts by; he’s hauling ass in order to catch up with Geno who has the puck several yards ahead. “Put those fucking legs to good use and move that big booty of yours!”

“Pass it, Geno!” Orpik’s eyes are nearly bulging out of his head as he screams at the tops of his lungs. “FUCKING PASS IT YOU GREEDY RUSSIAN BASTARD!”

I’m not exactly sure that either Geno or Sid heard us spurring them on, but the lanky Russian makes one hell of a drop pass just as he enters the Rangers’ zone and Sid lets loose a monster of a one timer; a blinding slap shot that not only has Chris Drury barely managing to duck out of the way, but sneaks underneath back up goalie Marty Biron’s left armpit and nearly decimates the twine.

There are no words to describe how beautiful the moment is when your team scores; the glow of the red light, the sound of the siren and the roar of the faithful crowd and the sight of your teammates -your boys- jumping into the glass and converging on each other in a massive group hug.

Hockey isn’t just a sport for us. It’s a religion. A way of life.

And we eat, sleep and breathe every goddamn second.

******

“How’s the teeth?” Sid asks fifteen minutes later, as he wanders over to where I lounge at my stall, a backwards ball cap covering my perspiration drenched hair and my bloody jersey discarded into a growing pile of dirty laundry in the corner of the room. The Tylenol I’d been given upon our return to the dressing room at intermission is barely making a dent on the throbbing that radiates through my jaw, neck and cranium.

“Missing,” I reply, and glancing up from the tape job I’d been giving the stick clasped tightly between my thighs, give him a perfect view of the gaping hole in my mouth. “Pretty huh?” I chuckle as his nose wrinkles in disgust and he shakes his head in disbelief and gives a long, low whistle. “I’m just such a sexy, beautiful bastard, huh?”

“Em’s going to pitch a shit fit,” he remarks, and plops down onto the bench in front of TK’s locker. “Doubt she’s going to be too thrilled about that.”

“She’s not going to be a happy camper at all,” I confirm. “Although…” I wind the black tape around the blade of my stick and use the teeth I do have to tear it off. “…the way her hormones are making her feel? She might find the whole toothless gruesome look appealing. I mean, if she can love someone with a crooked nose like mine…”

“Something tells me it has nothing to do with looks,” Sid muses. “Not that I’m calling you an ugly fuck or anything,” he adds quickly when I smirk at him. “I’m just saying that I think what you guys got going on extends far beyond physical shit. Know what I mean?”

“Absolutely,” I confirm, and smoothing the tape against my stick blade, inspect it at several different angles before giving a nod of approval and beginning the process of picking off the loose, miniscule threads. “Sounds like your girl is rubbing off on you,” I comment. “Sounds like being with a cougar is right up your alley.”

“She’s not exactly a cougar,” he says. “She’s only six years older than me. It’s not like she’s in her thirties or forties or anything.”

“Six years, huh? So she was already in high school by the time you hit kindergarten? She was already driving a car before you even managed to get the training wheels off your bike? Not to mention she was married and having a kid before you even hit your teens?”

“Yeah…I guess….but…”

“She’s a cougar, Sid. A legit, bonafide cougar. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Or that I mean it in a disrespectful way. There’s nothing wrong about being with someone older and you certainly don’t have anything to be embarrassed about. I’ve seen her, remember? She’s amazingly hot. And if you think what you guys having going on is the legit deal and you’re genuinely happy with her….”

“It’s legit,” he confirms. “We’re moving in together next month. We found a place in Sewickley Heights.”

“Sounds like things are going pretty good for you. Not to mention they’ve moving pretty quick. You feel good about it? You feel like it’s the right thing to do? You don’t have any second thoughts or cold feet or…?”

“It’s the right thing to do,” he confidently informs me. “And I do feel good about it. Better than good, actually. It feels like I’ve never made a better decision in my entire life. Did you have any second thoughts about Em?” he curiously inquires. For the first time I feel as if he’s not trying to stick his nose into my personal life and cause issues, but as if he’s searching for someone to relate to. That he’s hoping I’m either feeling the same thing he is or I’ve experienced what he’s going through. “About marrying her so soon? Did you ever wonder if you were doing the right thing? Do you ever think that now?”

“Marrying Em was the smartest thing I ever did,” I reply. “I never had any doubts. Never any misgivings. I knew that it was what I wanted to do and I never thought twice about it. I knew she was it; the one woman I could change for. And I’m still changing for her, you know? Every day I try to be a better man for her. I try to be the type of husband she needs. That she deserves.”

“You know, a couple of months ago I would have laughed in your face if you’d told me that and I would have called you a lying bastard and giving you a few months until you totally fucked up and reverted back to your old ways,” Sid admits. “And now…well now that things are…better…between us and I can see things differently, I actually can see how much you love her. You gave her what I couldn’t Max. You took care of her and put her above yourself. And I couldn’t do that.”

“We’re two totally different people, Sid. You’ve got way more stress and responsibility than I do. You’ve got so much other shit going on that you have to worry about. It’s not that you couldn’t be that way and that you didn’t want to be. It’s more that your lifestyle didn’t let you be. And that’s okay, you know? ‘Cause Em is…I don’t know…I love her to death but the illness makes her needy. Very needy. And you just don’t have the time to deal with that. Doesn’t make you any less of a man. Just means that your life can’t accommodate something like that.”

“Some people just can’t be together,” he reasons with a shrug. “Some people can love each other but hate one another at the same time. That’s what it was like with me and Em. Sometimes I think she legitimately hated me. Because I didn’t understand what it was that she wanted and needed and I couldn’t just drop everything for her.”

“She never hated you. It was the illness. That’s not the real Em. The real Emma-Leigh isn’t irrational and manic. She isn’t hyper and on top of the world one minute and then bawling her eyes out and ranting and raving and throwing temper tantrums the next. She doesn’t say the nasty, god awful, hurtful shit that spews out of her mouth. That’s not the real Em. The real Em is incapable of being like that. She’s sick. It’s a legit illness. And as fine as she seems now, she’ll battle this for the rest of her life. There’s always going to be meds to take and there’s always going to be the worry that she’s going to have a breakdown. But you know what? I love her too much to walk away from her. I love her too much to help her battle those demons.”

“Well…” Sid claps me on the shoulder. “…as hurt and pissed off as I still am sometimes and as much as I’ll probably never be able to totally forgive and forget, at least it was you that she turned to. At least you grew up really quick and helped her. ‘Cause a lesser man would have taken off and never looked back.”

“Taking off was never an option,” I say. “Not even once.”

“Looks like she found her knight in shining armour after all,” he muses.

“Knight in slightly tarnished armour,” I correct. “It’s what she always says. Because I’m not perfect and I’ve got my own faults and my own weaknesses, you know? She calls me her knight in slightly tarnished armour and says that polishing me up and repairing me isn’t on her to do list. She doesn’t expect me to be perfect.”

“Doesn’t matter if the girl is perfect or the guy is perfect, as long as they’re perfect for each other,” Sid muses, and than laughs when I stare at him incredulously. “Em told me that once,” he explains. “I didn’t just make that up off the top of my head. It’s not like I’ve been watching girly movies or reading Nicholas Sparks books or anything like that.”

“How in the hell do you even know who Nicholas Sparks is?” I tease.

“Autumn reads his stuff, alright? She’s got his damn books all over the place! On the kitchen table, on the dashboard of her car, in the bedroom and in the bathroom! They’re everywhere! And when there’s nothing else to read when you’re taking a shit…”

“Say no more,” I chuckle. “I keep a whole shit load of Sports Illustrated magazines in the bathroom for the exact same reason. You need to get yourself some guy shit to read Sid. You shouldn’t be reading the Notebook and crap like that.”

“The Notebook,” he gives a sly grin and nudges me with his elbow. “Em’s made ya watch it, huh? You wouldn’t even know Nicholas Sparks wrote that if she hadn’t have made you watch it already.”

“Ten fucking times Sid,” I sigh in exasperation. “Ten! How much more can one man take? Although I gotta admit, between me and you..” I lower my voice and lean into him. “…you know that one part where Ryan Gosling leaves all the paper arrows around that lead Rachel McAdams to her surprise?”

He nods in confirmation.

“I may or may not be copying that for Em’s birthday. But you didn’t hear that from me, okay? You never heard me admit to that. ‘Cause I swear if it gets around this dressing room, I’ll not only staunchly deny it, but beat the living shit out of you. Comprendre?”

“Mes lèvres sont scellées,” he promises.

“Good…’cause I’d hate to have to mess up that pretty face of yours,” I chide. “So what about you? What about you and your girl? What’s her name again? Summer?”

“Autumn,” he corrects. “Her name is Autumn. And she’s…I don’t know how to describe her…she’s…”

I patiently wait for him to wrack his brain for an acceptable word.

“She’s magical,” he finally finishes, and I watch as a slow blush creeps into his cheeks. “I love her,” he admits. “More than I ever thought I could ever love another human being. I mean, don’t get me wrong; I loved Emma-Leigh. But what I have with Autumn and what I have with her is different. I don’t know why or how and I don’t know how to describe it. I just know I feel it.”

I open my mouth to respond but I’m abruptly cut short by Mario’s booming voice as it cuts through the useless dressing room chatter and easily reverberates off the walls and ceiling despite the music that’s blaring from the iPod docking station.

“Max!” he crooks a finger and motions for me to join him. “A word, s'il vous plaît.”

Sid arches his eyebrows and pats me on the shoulder in a silent show of solidarity and support before I shove my feet into my Crocs, stand up and head over to where the Commander and Chief is waiting for me. My first initial thought is that the league has descended to suspend me for my actions against the Rangers fan. Or at the very least that Mario’s going to reprimand me for my behaviour by benching me for a couple games or sending me down to Wilkes-Barre. And a brief thought enters my mind that maybe the fan decided to press charges against me. Some assholes would consider dumping water on them and tossing the empty bottle in their lap assault, I guess.

“Out here,” Mario nods towards the hallway and I respectfully and obediently follow.

“Look I can explain,” I begin. “I know it wasn’t the right thing to do and that I shouldn’t have dumped water on the guy or threw the bottle at him afterwards, but I was all caught up in the moment. I was still kinda woozy from what Lundqvist did to me and I wasn’t thinking straight and the fan was riding my ass. I’ve got no problem apologizing if that’s what you want. I have no issue with whatever you want me to do.”

“This isn’t about what happened with the fan,” Mario says, and the intensity in his eyes and the seriousness in his voice makes me incredibly unsettled. “This is about Emma-Leigh.”

“What about her?” Dread and panic immediately stampeded through me. “What’s wrong with her? Is it the babies? Did something happen? Is something wrong with my wife? What…?”

“You need to get to UPMC,” he says, and gives me a sympathetic smile. “I already have a car waiting to take you there and I’ll get one of the boys to bring you a fresh change of clothes. You need to go and see your wife, Max. I don’t know exactly what’s wrong or how serious it is, but you need to…”

He doesn’t need to say anything more. I’m already half way to the nearest exit.