Bryan Gruley - The Hanging Tree

Dozens of photographs, plaques, pennants, and certificates crowded the plaster wall behind Wally’s wooden desk. Most of the pictures hung in cheap black frames at haphazard angles: Wally posing on a rink with his hockey pals; Wally on the tee with his hockey pals; Wally hoisting a frosted mug of beer in a bowling alley with his hockey pals. A row of plaques pronounced him Melvindale Chamber of Commerce Businessperson of the Year from 1992 to 1996. At the center of it all were professionally framed photos of his wife, Sheryl, and their kids, Joe and Roy.

“What happened to the jersey?” I said.

I was sitting in a cushioned folding chair across from his desk, nursing a Labatt Blue and still feeling the hurt Wally had put on my ribs when he had hugged me in the reception area. The last time I’d been in his office, drinking Scotch after a late-night hockey game a few years before I’d left Detroit, the centerpiece of the wall had been a framed display of his old gold-on-black jersey with the name PIPEFITTERS running diagonally down from the shoulder. Wally had been the star defenseman on the team that had beaten us in the 1981 state final, a six-foot-six, 225-pound bruiser with agile feet and pretty fair hands for a big man.

“Ah, you know, time to grow up,” he said. He was sitting on the front edge of his desk, which I could barely see for his bulk. He grinned and winked. “Got it hanging behind my bar at home. The wife never goes down there.”

I smiled. “Looks like you’re doing OK, Wall.”

“Can’t complain. Wife’s good, boys good, life’s good.” He thrust his right hand forward again. It swallowed mine. “Always good to see you, buddy. What brings you to town? You bring your gear? I got a nine forty skate now every Tuesday at the Yack. I can tell one of the ’tenders to stay home tonight.”

“Nah, gotta get back. Got a game. And I’m not playing goal anymore.”

“I thought I heard that. What the hell?”

“Like you said, gotta grow up some time.”

I’d gotten to know Wally playing late-night hockey against him during my years at the Times. He sponsored a thirty-and-over team in Melvindale called Wally’s Wonders. On the ice we’d scrap and bitch and try to beat the hell out of one another. Then we’d have a beer in the parking lot before closing Nasty Melvin’s. We got to be friends over bad Buffalo wings and worse nine-ball.

Wally had only teased me once or twice about the state title game. I’d only teased him about a thousand times about his ballooning up to three hundred pounds. I noticed he’d grown another chin since I’d last seen him.

“Hell,” he said, “maybe I’ll bring the boys up there for a couple of games some weekend.” He’d been talking about coming up for years. Thinking of my liver, I hadn’t encouraged it. “Hell, the hockey, I don’t even care. Seeing all the boys, having a few pops, that’s the thing, right, man?”

“Absolutely.”

“How’s old Soup?”

“Still skating.”

“Still dangling? That fucker could play, boy. He went by me once like I was a turnstile. I think he grabbed a token.” It was an old hockey line, but Wally laughed like he’d just thought of it. He lifted the Blue to his mouth and drank half the bottle in one long pull.

“Yeah. He bought the bar on Main Street.”

“You’ve got to be kidding. Now there’s trouble. You know, I’ve done some work for his ex. She’s got a nice little business in Lincoln Park.”

“Didn’t know she’d moved there,” I said. “Small world. Speaking of which, I’ve been working on this little feature story and came across a guy I think might’ve played for you or played in your league a while back.”

Wally was leaning over his fridge again. “Ready?” he said.

“I’m good.”

“Pussy.”

“No news there, pal.”

“Which guy?”

“I don’t remember his name, but his nickname was something like, I don’t know, Knobs or Knobby or Knobbo?”

“Oh, fuck. That guy.” Wally twisted the cap off the fresh Blue and snapped it at the plastic wastebasket behind me, missing. “Fucking Knobbo, man.”

“Jarek Vend.”

“I’ve seen him in the paper. He’s mixed up in all sorts of shit now. Ever been to one of his strip joints?”

“No. Didn’t know the guy.”

“I dropped like seven hundred in one of them once. That was some high-end foo foo, boy. Thank God I’m married. It’s cheaper.”

“He played goalie for the Wonders?”

“Yeah.” Wally shut his eyes, thinking. “Ninety-one. You in the league then?”

“No. I was still playing in St. Clair Shores.”

“East side homos. Anyway, we made the finals and lost to Paxton Van Lines, best of three. We win five to one the first night, Blummer gets a hat trick. Next game we shit the bed, blow a two-goal lead, lose four to three in OT. Paxton comes out in the rubber with this ringer, played at ND, guy named Schneider-his brother played for the gold medal team in eighty-and just fucking swamps us, four-zip.”

He had a memory like that. I was sure he could have told me the starting lineups on each team and where each guy played his kid hockey.

“And Knobbo was in the net? Why do they call him Knobbo?”

Wally cracked a big smile. “If you don’t know, I ain’t telling you.”

“Fuck you then.”

“Hey, maybe the knob on his goalie stick, eh? Anyway, he could play, too. And he was like, I don’t know, forty. Played for the Junior Wings way back when Gordie Howe’s kids were still playing.” Wally stood and waved his arms around like a goalie stopping shots, beer slopping out of his bottle and onto his carpet. “Total flopper. But, man, what a weirdo. Always with the blow in the dressing room.”

“Cocaine?”

“Yeah. One line before the first period, two before the second, three before the third. A little superstitious, are we? Some nights he’d be the life of the damn party; other nights, not a word. You definitely didn’t want to fuck with him, though. I know all you goalies are crazy, but this guy took the cake.”

“Really.”

“Oh, man.” His face burst into a smile. “You heard about Antonoff.”

“No.”

Wally told me. Antonoff played for a team called the Gray Hawks sponsored by a mortgage company in Southgate. Everybody mistook him for a Russian because of his name and because he talked funny, but he was just some East Coast guy in for a year to consult with Chrysler on some manufacturing stuff. It took him only a few games to establish himself as a major asshole on the ice, always chopping guys, kicking legs out, running goalies. Always after the whistle.

One night, late in a game, the Wonders were blowing out the Gray Hawks when Vend-Knobbo-made a save and smothered the puck with his stick-hand glove. Antonoff came flying in after the refs had blown the play dead, sprayed Knobbo’s head with ice, then slapped the side of Knobbo’s mask with his stick blade. Knobbo jumped up, said something to Antonoff in a language other than English. Antonoff told him, Go back to your worthless fucking country.

As Antonoff skated away, laughing, Knobbo pulled his mask back on his head and said something else and looked up into the stands where he had two buddies with three young women dolled up in furs and silk scarves, smoking, drinking something that probably wasn’t 7Up from giant 7Up cups. Knobbo gave them a furious nod and waggled his big flat goalie stick in the direction of Antonoff. Both guys nodded back. The chicks giggled.

“Late that night, man,” Wally said, “they fucked him up.”

“Antonoff?”

“Yeah. He was always the last guy out of Nasty’s. Those jag-offs were waiting.”

“Knobbo?”

“No. The guys from the stands, talking in Polish or Ukrainian or whatever the hell it was. They beat the shit out of him, messed up his face so bad he had to have reconstructive surgery. Left him in a Dumpster back of Nasty’s. Supposedly Knobbo showed up at the very end and got up on the Dumpster and pissed all over him.”