Page 4 of Scoring Chance

"Dude. What happened?" I ask when he answers.

"It wasn’t my favorite day," Tanner says in his sweet voice. He doesn't sound sad, just tired. Or more tired than usual. "Last week, my manager and I were talking about back-to-school shopping, and today, he could barely look at me. He read off a script."

"God, I hate this," I say. “Don’t they know you have, like, a zillion kids," I say.

"I have four children."

"It feels like a zillion. I mean, how are you gonna afford diapers?"

"None of my kids are in diapers anymore." He chuckles.

“I was talking about you.”

That gets a full-fledged snort. I believe that if someone is able to laugh, then all hope isn’t lost. During the darkest days of my chemotherapy, if I could crack a joke, it meant I still had hope.

"What does the severance package look like?"

"Two weeks."

"Two weeks? That's it? That's nothing. Fuck those fucking pricks.” Since he won’t curse, I’m spewing f-bombs to cover the both of us.

"They said they loved me at my last quarterly review. I guess they didn't love me enough."

"Let me guess. They used to call the office a ‘family,’ right? ‘We’re one big family at Fuck Off Corp.’ I’ve been telling you, man. When companies merge, HR is hit. Accounting is hit. All these services where they don't need duplicates. But it's okay. We're gonna find you a new job."

I wish I could give him a hug over the phone. I'd pull him tight.

"Des, I'm scared," he says.

"Don't be," I tell him. "It'll be okay. I got you covered. I know a lot of people at a lot of different companies. We'll find you something really soon. Think of this as a two-week vacation. And you know, if you ever need a loan or anything..."

"Hopefully it won't come to that," he says.

Our financial situations are very different. I don’t know how Tanner affords four kids, but he makes it work. There are no priceless works of art in his house, just lots of crayon on the walls.

"Look, we've been through worse.” A loaded silence hangs between us. "But no matter what, we got each other's backs. This sucks, but you're gonna get through it. It's gonna be okay. We're gonna help you through it. Do you still want to come to hockey tonight?" I ask.

"I should be with the kids.”

“Have you told them yet?”

“No. Crap. How am I going to tell them?”

“We can tell them together, if you want. Come to practice. The guys will cheer you up, and you can let out your frustration on the ice.”

He heaves out a sigh. “Okay.”

"Good. I'll see you there tonight. And buddy, look up. It's gonna be okay."

2

DES

Once upon a time, way before losing wives and testicles, Tanner and I were hockey all-stars. We claimed back-to-back championships as part of the winning hockey team at South Rock High School a million years ago. Or more like the late '90s.

Last year, our old captain Bill had a crazy idea: we should come back together and join an adult recreational hockey league in town. Even though we're all in our mid-forties and not moving like we used to, I couldn’t resist the pull of getting back on the ice with my best friends. We call ourselves The Comebacks. I guess The Old Fucks was taken.

And hey, we still got it. We won the championship last season against a much younger and faster team led by Jack, a former NHL player who is now dating my teammate Griffin. With the fall session starting up, maybe we can clinch a back-to-back victory.