Bryan Gruley - The Hanging Tree

Tawny Jane asked him about the game-the Rats had won, 4-1-and he grinned and said it was a lot easier to be a goalie when the puck was in the other end most of the time. Good answer, I thought. She asked what he thought of the new rink going up and he said he hoped it would be ready for next season. Oops, wrong answer, I was thinking when I felt someone push past me: Laird Haskell. Felicia had him by a sleeve but he pulled away and pushed through the throng. Tawny Jane was asking the boy what had happened on that butt-bounce goal.

Taylor didn’t seem to mind. “I guess I wasn’t paying attention,” he said. He shrugged. “I was kind of bored.”

“Miss Reese,” Haskell said. “Please.”

Tawny Jane looked up. Taylor turned around, eyes wide with apprehension, looking like he had in the pro shop when I’d seen him shopping for regular sticks. I turned and saw Felicia standing with her hands clapped over her mouth, looking mortified.

“Please turn that off,” Laird Haskell said as he emerged into the camera light. “Miss Reese, I really wish you would have asked me about interviewing my son.”

Tawny Jane looked over her shoulder at her cameraman. The light stayed on. “Mr. Haskell,” she said, shoving the mike in his face. “Taylor tells us he hopes the new rink is ready for next season.” She smiled her widest fake smile. “Does he know something the rest of us don’t?”

Haskell shook his head no as he took Taylor by the shoulders and moved the boy behind him. “He’s fourteen years old, Miss Reese.” Beads of sweat had broken out on Haskell’s forehead, but he pasted on his own phony smile. “I worry about the rink, he worries about keeping pucks out of the net.”

“Yeah,” one of the mothers said. “Stick to hockey, lady.” Others chimed in. Tawny Jane glanced around, saw me. I was grinning, as much in sympathy as amusement. She lowered her mike. The light went off.

“Could we talk later, Mr. Haskell?” she said.

“Of course,” he said. “Call my attorney.”

I watched Felicia grab the boy, wrap an arm around his shoulders, and hurry him away, Laird Haskell trailing behind. “Bored?” Haskell snapped. “What do you mean, bored?” Over her shoulder his wife shot him a look of searing disdain as she ushered the boy through the lobby doors.

Whoa, I thought. Bet they’ll be having a chat tonight.

Now, as the fluttering shot from Marquette’s number 6 reached Taylor Haskell, I could see that he was in trouble. Because his initial reaction had been late, he had overcompensated, trying to catch up. He was off balance, his stick had come up from the ice, and his body wasn’t square to the puck. He should have snagged it easily with his catching glove, but instead it smacked him just under his mask on the left side and bounced up and over his shoulder while he flailed with his glove. The crowd groaned. The puck bounced in the crease and rolled toward the goal line and a 1–1 score. Taylor toppled over backward, twisting his body around, stretching his glove out for the puck.

He grabbed it just before it crossed the goal line. Players crashed into one another above him. Whistles blew. The stands exploded with a cheer of relief. I felt a sharp poke in the back of a shoulder and turned around.

“Got a minute?” Jason Esper said.

He threw the inside bolt on dressing room 3. I sat in the spot where I always sat for both the Rats and Soupy’s Chowder Heads, on a bench along the cinder-block wall. The tang of disinfectant stung the air. Johnny Ford must have just swabbed the shower mats.

Jason grabbed a folding chair. He spun it around in front of me so that he sat facing me with his elbows propped on the chair back.

“Not a bad little ’tender,” he said.

“The Haskell kid? Yeah.”

“But something ain’t right.”

“Gives up a softie now and then.”

“Got lucky on that last one. But it’s more than that. He doesn’t want to be out there.” Jason smirked at me. “Kind of like you, eh, Carp?”

“He’s fourteen, Meat. I’m thirty-five.”

“Fuck,” Jason said, and he guffawed. “He’s the fucking future of Starvation Lake. And you’re the past. God fucking help us all.”

“What do you want, Jason?”

“What do I want?”

I waited.

“What the fuck do you care what I want?” he said.

I didn’t want to have this discussion. “How the hell did you end up here anyway?”

Jason shrugged. “Ah, you know, this guy knew that guy. Hockey’s a pretty small world. You know.”

He hitched the chair forward a foot. I caught a whiff of whatever goop shined in his tight blond curls.

“Let me ask you something,” he said. “How the hell did Wilford fuck up his marriage? Wasn’t he married to that Brenda babe?”

“Brenda Mack.”

Why did Jason Esper care about Brad Wilford’s failed marriage?

“The calendar thing finally do him in?”

At the start of each season, Wilf dutifully noted all of his scheduled hockey games on a calendar hanging in his kitchen. He would add a fictitious game or two and, when those nights came, tell Brenda he didn’t really feel like playing, he’d rather just spend the time with her. This, he bragged to us, was the surest way to get laid without having to get his wife plastered.

Of course, this being Starvation Lake, Brenda found out.

“Among other things,” I said.

Jason studied his right hand, turning it around as if he were examining it for the first time. The stringy scars crisscrossing his knuckles made the hand look like he’d stuck it in a lawnmower. “You know,” he said, “I wasn’t just a goon. I wasn’t even a goon. I could skate. I had size. I had hands.”

“You played for the Pipefitters.”

“Yeah. But I got better after that. I had a real shot, did you know that?”

“At the pros?”

“The Flyers. Twenty-one years old. Bus gets me to Philly the afternoon of the game and I figure no way they’re putting me on the ice tonight-shit, they’re playing the Habs-so I’m getting something to eat. I go in a bar, get a couple beers and a cheesesteak, maybe another couple beers. Love those cheesesteaks with mushrooms. I walk over to the rink just to check out the locker room and I’ll be goddamned if my name isn’t on the lineup card. Dude, I’m penciled in on a line with fucking Zezel and Kerr.”

“Really.”

“I’m like, oh fuck, what do I do? I go out into the concourse because I don’t want anyone to see me in the locker room and I find a men’s room and lock myself in a stall and jam two fingers down my throat. Got a little out but the goddamn cheese just wouldn’t come up.”

“Did you play?”

“Yeah. Three shifts. Tripped a guy after he got by me because I was gassed. Stupid fucking penalty. Of course the Habs score on the power play. Coach moves me to the fourth line. I get one more shift. And that was it. One of the guys said I looked like Casper the Ghost.”

“And you never played in the bigs again.”

Jason didn’t like the way I said that.

“Always figured I would,” he said. “But that was it. One chance and I blew it. Bounced around in the minors. Started to fight, thinking I might get the call-up as a goon. Got my ass kicked a bunch but finally learned how to go and got a pretty good reputation as a hammer.” He looked at his hand again.

“Did you like fighting?”

“I don’t know. You like typing?”

“Depends what I’m typing.”

“Exactly,” he said. “Which brings us to what I’m about to tell you.”

In one quick motion he had my left wrist in his hand, squeezing the bones between his thumb and forefinger. It hurt. I tried to pull away but my arm stayed where it was. Jason leveled his eyes on mine.