Page 128 of Puck the Coach's Son
I'm already crying.
“I'll wait.”
His jaw locks.
“Say it.”
“I'll wait for you.”
“Good.”
Then they turn him. And he walks. His hockey gear squeaks on the tile. His blood has run down his cheekbone and drippedonto the shoulder of his quarter-zip. He doesn't look back. He can't, because if he looks back I think he'll turn around and start a fight he can't finish.
Phoenix is at the end of the corridor with a towel around his neck, watching the whole thing. His jaw is going. As Maddox passes him, Phoenix says one word, low. I don't catch it. Maddox tips his head in a nod. Phoenix looks at me across the hallway and I watch him mouthI've got him.
Then they're gone.
The corridor is suddenly too quiet. The arena is still dumping out. I can hear cheers a hundred yards away through the walls, people who are still celebrating a win and have no idea what just happened in the staff wing. Somebody's kid is probably asking his dad for a game program and a pretzel. Somebody's dad is probably saying,After the goalie signing, buddy, we'll swing by the tunnel.The normal world is forty feet away and I don't know how to be in it anymore.
Paul comes out of the office. Callahan behind him. Paul's knuckles are split. His tie is loose. He doesn't look at me; he looks at Callahan.
“I'll take him home.”
Callahan nods once, slow.
“See that you do. And Paul, tomorrow. Nine. My office.”
“Yes, sir.”
Callahan looks at me one more time. His mouth does a small, tired thing. “Son. Do what your father tells you tonight. For your own sake.”
He leaves.
I am alone in the hallway with my father.
“Let's go,” Paul says.
I don't move.
“Theo. I will carry you out of this building if I have to.”
“You won't.”
“Try me.”
I look at him. Really look. His eyes are red. His nose is swollen where one of his own punches bounced off Maddox's pad and back into his face. There is a small cut in his upper lip he got from his own teeth. He looks destroyed.
I don't feel sorry for him.
That's the thing that lands first. That I look at my father in the worst state of his life, knuckles bleeding, mouth torn, and I don't feel sorry for him. I feelfree,for one bright second, and then the second ends and the fear comes back.
“Car,” he says.
I walk.
The car ride home is forty minutes of nothing. He doesn't speak. I don't speak. I watch the streetlights slide over the dashboard and try to slow my breathing down. I count them in sets of four, four in, four out, four in, four out, like the team trainer taught us to manage stress, because apparently the breath work for third-period deficits and the breath work for your father finding you post-fuck is the same breath work. I think about Maddox's face going red from the cut. I think about his hand loading and not throwing. I think aboutwait for me.I think about his blood on his own quarter-zip, soaking into the team logo. I try not to think about the word he almost said in the office and stopped.
The boy I—I am not going to hit you.
