“I can see that,” he teased, just lightly, but it was enough to show me he had a sense of humor, gentle as it was, under all that pretty.
He put me at ease—something few people other than my sister and my therapist could do. He was special. Sweet. Tender.
“I saw this thing online last week—” I began to say, but then snapped my mouth shut as the other bozos rolled into class, joshing and shoving, and Arnaud singing what sounded like “Jingle Bells” in French.
Finn tipped his head as if waiting for me to continue. No way was I giving it to him with those butt-scratching baboons in thevicinity. They would make fun of me. Poke. Prod. Call me a girly boy.
“It was this farting fish,” I hurried to lie. The others were instantly drawn to the farting fish conversation. Finn, being the teacher, got us into place in front of our easels while leading the discussion from flatulence to using different brushes to create diverse textures that would open us up to a wider range of emotions.
Nope. I was not emoting in front of my fellow Copperheads. Hockey players did not emote in such floofy ways. We knew only two emotions. Happiness when we won, and sadness when we lost. Oh, and anger. We knew three acceptable emotions. Anything else was for limp-wristed queers.
Ugh. Dad showed up at the worst times. Finn watched from behind me as I threw some colors on the canvas. Deep browns with a splash of green that I smeared about to look like a pine tree before slapping a glob of gold atop the ugly tree. Then, I slathered the words Merry Shitmas, which got a few snorts from the guys but only a look of concern from Finn.
Class was not fun at all that night. Coffee and donuts in a shop that was decorated to the damn rafters was not fun. Eating donuts with red and green icing was so very much not fun. I left early and walked to the nearest bus stop, snow falling at a goodly clip, and took a bus home.
My tiny present for Finn was still in my pocket. I ripped off the paper, then tore the small box into bits before I chucked it into the dumpster outside our complex.
I went inside, kicked the door shut, toed off my wet sneakers, removed my damp socks, and then raced to the window to stare down at the dumpster. An epic battle took place inside my head. Dad vs Walker. This time, amazingly, Walker won the fight and let himself feel things. Real things. Good things. Kind things. Things guys were allowed to feel…
“Fuck off, old man,” I snarled to the lingering snarl of a man lying in his grave, yet still able to torment me. Shaking like a leaf, I threw the door open and ran back to the trash can, climbed inside, and pawed around until I located the little statue of a man holding an apple in one hand and a slate in the other that read “World’s Best Teacher.”.”
I’ll give it to him next week. No backing down. Holding the little ceramic figurine to my chest, my bare feet carried me into my apartment, and I placed it on my nightstand before unfolding the drawings Finn had made of us over the past few weeks. My ass found the floor. I drew my feet in to run the cold out of them and felt a serenity settle over me that had nothing to do with meds or facing down the demons that clung to me like burdocks.
“Next week,” I vowed to the statuette.
Four daysafter the snowy smiley face, I was sitting in the Copperheads video room, being a good little puck pusher, and watching vids of the team we were playing next. I came in daily, skated with the offensive coach -- a nice guy named Bill Pawlowski -- then worked out or watched videos. Due to the meds, I was not allowed to skate with the team. Or hadn’t been. Last session, I had badgered Dr. Quackers to lower the restrictions to let me skate with the team. Even if it was just in a no-contact jersey. It was BS making us art boys -- as Arnaud was so thrilled to call us, like it was a damn after-school club -- fiddle with our schlongs as we worked out our shit.
“If I don’t get back to doing the one thing I do well soon, I am going to go totally batshit,” I confessed as he tugged on his pointy goatee while some sort of berry tea steeped. “I’m better.The side effects are less. I need to do something productive,” I’d said as he studied his teapot as if he were expecting it to talk like that one inBeauty and the Beast. Yes, I knew all the Disney princesses. I’d grown up watching them with my little sister. Come at me, motherfuckers. Boys can enjoy singing candelabra.
“You don’t find therapy productive?” he asked because of course he had.
I chuckled appreciatively. “Clever.” I wagged a finger at him. He seemed pleased with himself. The whiskery jerk. “Yeah, of course it’s productive, but I’m a hockey player. It’s what I do. It’s me. It’s like asking… ” I scoured my brain for an example. Amazingly or not, Finn popped up. “Like asking an artist not to paint when he’s struggling through hard times.”
“So, you express yourself on the ice?” he enquired, then leaned up to pour the tea. Fruity fumes tickled my nose. I nodded. “Do you plan to express yourself on the ice in an acceptable way or with your fists?”
“Doc, it’s hockey. I mean, if someone runs my goalie, I will go after him. If someone cross-checks our best scorer, I will go after him. It’s part of the game. But no, I won’t do anything too violent unless someone asks for it.”
He snickered softly. I cocked an eyebrow.
“I’m not sure that’s the positive reply you seem to think it is, but I will consider running some tests.”
He’d passed me a cup of coffee, and I had thanked him. And now here I am, watching videos after spending the morning on the ice with the team. It had beeneverything. I mean, Jesus H. Christ, it had been good. No one really knew me. They knew of me, obviously, but they’d all been decent. Chatting me up as if I’d not wailed on a phone-thieving twink like I was Georges St. Pierre just a few months ago. The ice had been crisp. The air brittle. I’d knocked a few pucks past the startinggoalie, a bruising Russian named Matvey, who liked to call out derogatory animal names to people shooting at him.
“Your shot is weak like ferret piss.”
“You are as feeble as a skinny weasel.”
“Your slap shot is stinky like mink shit.”
Mustelids seemed to be Matvey’s mammal of choice. It was all good. He could call me a fucking smelly stoat all day if that made him happy. I was just thrilled to be on the ice, stick in hand, feeling I was doing something. Anything was better than sitting around my apartment as my sister worked, jerking off to mental images of Finn kissing his way down my dick as soap operas played in the background. Stir-crazy was a thing.
Yeah, things were okay. Not great. Not even close, but okay. My head still ached at times, and I was still peeling off mental scabs in therapy that bled for days afterward, but overall, life was okay. I could even look at the blue spruce in the corner of our living room and not be overwhelmed with the need to light it afire, then chuck it into the lake. Progress.
It was slow and hurt like an infected toe, but it was being made.
Now, all I had to do was work up the courage to give Finn his little gift.
It was beyond ridiculous for a big, tough asshole hockey player to be so scared to give a guy a present. Maybe there was something extra special about Finn that needed a little more time to cure or whatever word artists used to call a painting that was in progress. That was me. An unfinished oil. A maquette of a sculpture. A rough draft of a novel.
