Carry You Home

Everyone says the right things. They spew crap like 'you'll always be a Penguin, Max' or 'you'll always have a permanent place in Pittsburgh sports history' or 'nothing can take the Cup run away from us; your name's on that thing forever'. It's all bullshit. Every word is fake and so is the smiles and the handshakes and those fucking awkward one armed hugs that guys resort themselves to when shit gets so uncomfortable they don't know what to say or do next. Once a friend, now an enemy. That's exactly how they see me. And how I perceive myself. The guys talk a good game but the discomfort they feel around me is more than evident. They crack stupid ass jokes, pick on me about how -between my tan and the Flyers' orange jerseys- I'm going to look like Snooki and make sly, sexually laced comments about what I'm going to get myself into when the wife is five hours away.

“When the cat is away, the mouse will play,” Cookie had reasoned with a toothless grin, and nudged me in the ribs with his elbow. “Now that Carter's gone to Columbus, there's gonna be a lot of lonely pussy in Philly. They're gonna need someone to fill those lonely nights. You're used to that kind of shit.”

I'd laughed when all I'd really wanted to do was punch him in the face. Even the other guys huddled in our little group had been uncomfortable when he'd said it. Flower's eyes had widened and he'd shoved his hands in the pocket of his jeans and rocked back and forth on his heels, Engo had given a derisive snort, shook his head in a mixture of disgust and dismay and had downed the last of scotch and abruptly headed off to find another and Mark Letestu had given me a sympathetic smile and a pat on the shoulder. It had been way out of line. Even for Cookie. Although he's a passive aggressive shit head who -off the ice- never calls someone out directly and who makes cutting, hurtful remarks and then tries to pass them off as humour when someone gets defensive. And I had taken offence to his comment. I'd retired the manwhore side of me a long time ago. I've been a fucking boyscout. I could have easily succumbed to the overwhelming and seemingly endless amounts of temptation. Especially when we're out on the road for prolonged periods of time and the loneliness begins to eat away at you. When you're desperate for both emotional and physical comfort. Lord knows I could have cracked under all that pressure and reverted back to my old ways. And I probably could have gotten away with it, too. There's a certain 'bro code' that follows professional athletes around. Where the others turn a blind eye to shit like adultery because they're most likely doing the same goddamn thing.

I'd fucked up once. One time since -during the third year of our 'friends with benefits' stage- I'd realized I was in love with Sloan and wanted and needed, only her in my life. Never mind the boys that are filling their beds on a constant basis with random women. No one has ever held that over their heads or run back and squealed to their lives. I fuck one stranger bitch and I'm vilified for the rest of my life.

“Your ass still sore about what Cookie said?” Flower asks, as he sidles up alongside of me.

I'd long retreated to the end of the deck; back to the rest of the crowd as they mingled and chatted and grew more and more drunk with each passing minute. I appreciate the effort that my fellow French Canadian (and one of my truest, most treasured friends) had gone to make sure that my last night in town was a comfortable one. He's one of the few people that I've confided in about the forces that had driven me to make the decision I had regarding my career; he'd assured me that he didn't hold any ill feelings towards me and that he would support me a hundred percent. No matter where I went and what I did with my life.

“Just because there's a different logo on your chest, doesn't mean anything,” he'd said. “You're still Max. No matter team team you play for. Do what you you think is best. All that matters is doing what you have to do for your family.”

Out of all the guys, he's been the most positive and upbeat about the whole thing. Everyone else says all the right things but you can tell that they're not feeling them. Even Sid. That had been one of the most difficult phone calls I'd ever had to make. And after I'd practically poured out my entire heart and soul about having to leave Pittsburgh and how I was worried about how I'd be perceived for going to Philly, all he'd responded with was 'well this IS a business, Max'. I'm not exactly sure what I'd expected from him. But I know it had been more than that. I had thought maybe he'd take off his captain's hat and replace it with the friend one and actually assure me that I was doing the right thing.

He's a fucking robot, that one. And it's not even his fault. His old man had spent so long drilling hockey fundamentals into him that he'd forgotten how to teach him basic social skills.

The rest of the guys have been sympathetic about my moral dilemma. Orpik's teased me about 'lowering the boom' on me our first game against each other and Cookie's -half joking- has told me that he's got an elbow with my name on it. Others have just ignored me and the entire situation entirely. Not returning the goodbye phone calls that I'd made and either not making eye contact or simple conversation with me since I'd arrived at Flower's or just not showing up all together. I'm glad that some have stayed away. And that Ray Shero thinks he's above all of us. There's no love lost there, that's for sure. A hell of a lot of bitterness and hurt, though. I didn't buy his 'we wish Max all the best wherever he goes' bullshit that spewed to the media. And I certainly didn't appreciate the 'we offered him what he's truly worth'.

At least Mario's been good about it. Sincere. He'd made a bee line for me the second he got here and embraced me tightly and apologized for the way things went down. That he was sorry that they couldn't make things worse and keep me in Pittsburgh. And that he hoped there were no hard feelings.

There isn't. He's Mario fucking Lemieux. My boyhood idol. I'm just grateful I'd been given the opportunity to work for him in the first place.

“Don't worry so fucking much about what one asshole says,” Flower claps me on the back of the neck. “It's only fucking Cookie. You can't take anything that guy says seriously. You think he's really one to judge and preach about morals and all that shit? Come on now...” he playfully tousles my hair. “...don't let the fucker get to you so easily.”

“It's not just that,” I sigh, and pound back half of my JD on the rocks. “It's a lot of things. Too many things.”

“This was your decision to make and you made it,” he reminds me, as he props his elbows on the deck railing and leans back against the wood. “None of these guys...none of the people judging you and saying shit about you...were in the position you were. Fuck them if they don't get it. Just fuck them. You don't owe anyone anything, Max. You already spend six years busting your hump for this team. Goes to show just how much you meant to them, huh?”

Aside from Sloan, he's probably the person that's taking my departure the hardest. He's a grown man...a professional athlete...and he completely understands that this is a business. That while it's a sport that we love and that we dreamed about playing since we were just kids, we are all nothing more than commodities to be shipped around and bargained for. Any player can be traded. For a number of different reasons. If it can happen to the Gretzky, it can happen to anyone. No one is safe. Not even the guys with the no trade clauses that they cling to like life rafts. It may take several attempts to get them to waive the damn things, but let's face it, your confidence goes down the shitter when you realize a team is that desperate to get rid of you. The organizations own us. Simple as that. And once all the collective bargaining bullshit and the players' union garbage is out of the way, they can do whatever the fuck they want.

Flower gets all of that. We'd had a two hour long conversation about the choices that lay ahead of me. And when the time had came to make the decision on who to sign with, it had been him that I'd called instead of my own wife. It had seemed a great idea at the time. He wouldn't get emotional and Sloan would have been a sobbing, blubbering mess. Especially when it came to Philly. Flower had said everything that I'd needed to hear to make myself feel better about what I was about to do. He hadn't dwelt on the 'why the Flyers?' and he'd assured me that it changed nothing.

“Friends are friends no matter what,” he'd told me. “No matter where you go or what you do. I've put up with your shit since high school, haven't I? What the hell is going to change now? Do what you have to do. For your family.”

That's the mature, professional side of him talking. Deep down I know that there's a butt hurt little kid that's sore about his best buddy moving away.

******

“How are things?” he asks. “Non hockey things?”

“Things are...” I hesitate on my answer. What am I supposed to say? Am I supposed to tell him how Sloan's moods are up and down like a toilet seat? One minute she's ready to rip my throat out and the next she's taking out all of her aggression on my dick? That the only time we're not fighting is because we're too busy fucking? It sounds dysfunctional to my own ears. “...things are getting there,” I hope that didn't sound as lame to him as it did to me. “...slowly but surely.”

“I guess there's no change? She's not going to go to Philly after all?”

“She's coming back when the three weeks are up,” I polish off the remains of my drink and then turn around, arms crossed over my chest as I rest against the deck railing. “Nothing I do or say is going to change her mind. This is where she wants to be. It's home to her. She's putting the baby in daycare and she's getting a job at UPMC.”

His eyes widen but he doesn't say a word. He's old fashioned like me in that respect; feels that we make enough money for our women to stay home and take care of the house and raise a family. Vero's never worked a day in her life aside from a job scooping ice cream she'd had in high school. And Flower likes it that way. He likes having her home and all to herself. A clean house and warm meals waiting for him when he walks through the door. And one day he wants her barefoot and pregnant and playing mommy to a brood of kids. It'll happen soon. Probably a lot sooner than anyone expects -even them- it to It may have taken them years to get engaged, but I don't see the baby making process lasting past a year.

“It's what she wants,” I reason with a shrug, and watch as Sloan chats amicably with Craig Adams and his new girlfriend Mykayla.

Nothing has changed for her. Aside from Orpik's girlfriend Erin (who treats everyone around her like complete and utter shit), everyone acts as if Sloan's still part of the 'Penguins family'. She's more than welcome here. She's not being judged because of my decision. And it's pretty evident by the way she laughs and teases Adsy about his recently acquired brush cut -rubbing her palms over his head and talking about how it feels like a porcupine'- that she's as comfortable now as she's ever been.

I had known as soon as Adsy got signed that time was running out for me. That my chances of coming back were dwindling. Especially when I kept hearing about all the WBS boys that were inking contracts. Adsy's the only one that I feel happy for. He'd deserved that extension. A somewhat long term deal that gave him stability for his kids. God knows they needed some of that in their lives. No one had known that his marriage was on the rocks for the past year and a half and that he'd been in the process of filing for divorce when the HBO crew was filming us for the 24/7 series. It had taken us all by surprise when he'd announced shortly before the beginning of the playoffs that he and Anne were no longer together. She was leaving the kids with him and heading back to Boston to live with her folks. He hadn't seemed to torn up about it. Something tells me that that young lady -a student at Penn State that's nearly ten years his junior with piercings and tattoos and fuchsia and blue highlights in her coal black hair- is the reason for that.

“Is it what she wants or is it what she's doing 'cause she wants to punish you?” he asks. “Seems weird that she wants all of that all of a sudden. I mean, she never talked about getting a job before. She was always happy to just be at home taking care of the baby and doing work on the website and with your foundation, non? Now all of a sudden she wants to work? Knowing how you feel about it? Sounds like she just wants to get back at you.”

“She says that she needs to 'find herself',” I make air quotes around the last two words. “That somehow in the past couple of years, she lost all grasp on who she really is. That she became nothing more than Max Talbot's wife. That she wants to feel like she's more than that. But she is more than that, Flower. She's more than that to me.”

“Listen to the cavemen,” Pheebs gives a derisive snort as she mounts the deck steps. She's been steadily downing glasses of vodka and lemonade since she and Staalsy had arrived a couple of hours ago; she's already well on the way to being drunk. And an intoxicated Phoebe is a brutally honest Phoebe. And she's come for me. No doubt about it. A showdown was inevitable. “I swear, my IQ drops a thousand points just listening to the two of you. She's not a fucking object...” her eyes narrow as she glares at me. “...don't you get tired of treating her like that? Like you own her? Like you've got these ownership papers tucked away somewhere? She's a fucking human being.”

“Well so is he,” Flower reminds her. “So maybe you should be telling Sloan to treat him like one, too.”

Nothing good can come of this. And while I deserve the tongue lashing that I'm about to get, Flower's an innocent bystander. He doesn't need to get wrapped up in the drama. Not when he's got his own issues to deal with. So I'm thankful it doesn't take too much effort to get him to toss in the towel and just walk away.

“So what's it going to be?” I ask Pheebs. “You going to just give it to me right here? Right in front of everyone? Don't act like you don't want to. Don't act like you haven't been wanting to flip out on me and embarrass me in front of everyone. So how are we going to do this? You going to cause a big old thing and humiliate Jordy in front of Mario and make yourself the laughing stock of the organization? Or are you going to...”

The smack catches me off guard; an open hand slap that makes my eyes water and my cheek feel as if it's on fire. No one else is even aware that it's happened. Everyone has moved away and farther back into the yard and the music blaring through the speakers around the pool mixed with the chatter and the laughter drowns out anything that's going on up near the house.

“What the fuck?!” I snarl, a hand clasped to the side of my face. “Are you fucking crazy? What is wrong with you? What...?”

“You deserve way more than that!” she hisses. “You deserve way more. You make me fucking sick, Max. You make me want to vomit all over the fucking place. Just looking at you...knowing what you've done...how you saunter around like you're God's gift to the fucking universe, acting like you haven't done anything wrong.”

“I know what I've done wrong, Pheebs. I know how bad I've fucked things up. You don't know the half of what goes on between me and Sloan. And you know what? It's none of your fucking business. So I'm going to just walk away and give you a chance to sober up and...”

“Sloan is my fucking business,” she informs me, and snags me by the forearm when I try to slip past her. “She's my best friend. She's like a sister to me. I love her more than my own family. And you...” she jams a finger into my chest. “...and you just keep hurting her and hurting her. And you're going to hurt her again and...”

“Pheebs...you know I love you...but right now you're a drunk, irrational bitch and you need to just back the fuck off. What goes on with me and Sloan has nothing to do with you. We don't get mixed up in your shit with Staalsy, so you need to keep your nose out of our business. Just get out of my face and...”

“...you think you can just keep treating her like complete and utter shit,” she ignores me entirely. “She keeps taking you back and you keep hurting her. You keep doing her wrong and you keep laughing about it behind her back and you...”

“I'd never, ever do something like that. Ever. She's my wife. The mother of my kid. I love her. I'd never...”

“You love her,” she scoffs. “No...no...you love the fucking convenience of her. That's what you love. You love having her under your fucking thumb where you can control her. Keep her all to yourself. How can you love her, Max? How can you stand there and say you love her when you know what you've done. You don't do that to someone you love!”

“Look...” I hold my hands up in a plea for peace. “...you've been drinking and you're pissed off and I know you think I deserve this. And you know what? I probably do. But you're talking a whole lot of ridiculous shit right now. I don't control her or act like I own her, okay? I don't do shit like that. You can go over there and ask her yourself. You can go over there and...”

“And what? Have her defend you? Have her spew some shit about how you've changed and won't fuck up again? I get that she loves you. I know what it's like to love someone that much. Where it's enough to convince yourself that things are perfect and that there's nothing wrong and that they love you the exact same way. I know what that kind of love is like. But you...” she shakes her head. “...you use that against her. You use it because you know that no matter what you do, she'll forgive you and take you back.”

“Jesus Christ, Pheebs. All I did was sign with fucking Philly. You act like I kicked her fucking puppy or killed her best friend or that I beat her on a regular basis. You're acting a little crazy, don't you think? Over signing with the Flyers? I get that you're butt hurt that I'm taking your best friend away, but...”

“You stupid fucking asshole!” she snarls. “I'm not talking about signing with the goddamn Flyers! I'm talking about the fact you fucked another woman! A stripper! Some nasty ass bitch that could have had some gross disease that you could have brought home!”

My stomach clenches. An invisible, iron fist closes around my heart. “You know about that?”

“Of course I fucking know about it. You really thought she wouldn't tell me? You really thought that...?”

“We agreed not to tell anyone. That we'd keep it between us. That we'd...”

“She's my best friend. We're closer than even that. You destroyed her. You tore her heart out of her chest and you stomped all over it. She had the right to be hurt and angry and to want to rip your balls off and shove them up your ass. Who do you think she came to? Who do you think had to comfort her? Wipe away her tears? Do you have any idea what that's like? Having to listen to someone you love cry like that? How it fucking tears you apart inside? You did that to her. You hurt her like that. And you keep hurting her and you keep getting away with it. But you know what? One day she's going to wake up. One day she's not going to take your bullshit anymore. You're going to screw up and she's going to walk away for good. What will you do then, Max? When she isn't around? Would you even really give a shit? Or would you just find someone else to fill your bed?”

“Of course I'd give a shit. She's my wife. I'd do anything to get her back.”

“I notice you didn't say you'd do anything to make sure you never screwed up again,” she gives a derisive snort. “Why am I not surprised? Why does it not surprise me that you'd think that way? That you seriously think you can do whatever the hell you want and that enough begging and pleading and empty promises will get her back?”

“Hey...” Staalsy greets as he mounts the steps, completely oblivious to the tirade his common law wife has been on. “...what's going on? Am I interrupting something important here or...?”

“It's nothing,” Pheebs answers. “He's nothing.”

And with that, she turns on her heel and stomps away.