Down the bench, Thompson bumps my knee with his. Doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t need to.
The game goes on. Ten minutes left in the second. Our cycle in their zone, the puck moving, the shifts grinding. The building on its feet.
Twelve minutes in. Their power play. A penalty I didn’t see called, and the ice tilts. Four on five. Their point shot goesthrough traffic and Lundy gets a piece but the rebound comes out to the slot and there is a man in a Miami jersey whose name is stitched across his shoulders and I read it as the puck hits his stick.
Mercer.
The shot is a wrister, high glove, and Lundy doesn’t get there. The mesh catches it and the away team’s bench erupts and the building absorbs the sound the way a body absorbs a hit. Not silence. The particular quiet of eighteen thousand people recalibrating.
1-1.
The whistle. The game. I pull my helmet down and my mouth guard in and my legs are under me and my ribs are sore and the score is tied and the second period has eight minutes left and the season is alive.
I go over the boards. The ice is heavy and the building is loud and somewhere behind the bench the man who rebuilt my shoulder is standing with his hands at his sides and his face back in place and every piece of what he showed the world already absorbed into the ordinary. The game is tied and there is hockey left to play and I put my stick on the ice and skate into the noise.
SECOND INTERMISSION:
1-1 TIED ATLANTA FIREBIRDS - MIAMI
Five Hole Fiction #4
Kowalski
i would like to formally revisit my notes on “Off the Record”
Thompson
oh no
Kowalski
oh yes
Kowalski
i have been keeping notes. i would like to present them now as a case study in life imitating fiction
Marchetti
i don’t like where this is going
Kowalski
you shouldn’t. Exhibit A. Berger proposes “Off the Record.” a workplace romance between two people who meet anonymously, hook up, and then discover they work together. Marchetti’s response to this premise, and i am reading directly from the chat: “that sounds... fine. sure. whatever. i’m in”
Thompson
...oh
Kowalski
“fine. sure. whatever.” three words of performed indifference followed immediately by “i’m in.” i noted this at the time. i noted it and i moved on
Marchetti
that is a NORMAL RESPONSE to a book club pick
Kowalski
