Page 27 of Omega’s Forward

He carries on. I watch number eight go back to the bench and shake his head at somebody and laugh at something. I sit here and think about his hands and what I want them to do with me.

There is something badly wrong with me.

He is graceful in a way. You don’t think of hockey as a graceful sport, and I still don’t, but Callahan has a grace to him despite his size. I am mesmerized.

There seems something wrong about watching him like this. I feel like a stalker, but I’m supposed to be here. I’m supposed to be watching.

He looks up at the box once. At least I think he does. It is so fleeting, just his head tilting slightly and then back again.

He knows I am there and I am watching him.

It’s because I am watching Callahan that I don’t see the exact moment that it goes wrong. Later, I watch the replay.

Berg, the youngest player, is on the ice. He has the puck along the far boards and he passes it away, then the whistle goes.

Berg straightens up and turns his head to look for the play. He gets hit from behind. It takes him off his feet into the boards face first.

I notice it only because Callahan straightens and his head snaps toward the boards where Berg has fallen.

I follow his gaze. Berg is down against the boards.

Someone boos. People start getting to their feet.

Down on the ice there are men standing in a rough circle with their hands on their hips and the referees are in the middle of it.

“Get up,” the man next to me whispers. First thing he has said in twenty minutes that was not about statistics.

I don’t want to say what I think. This shit is about the code. The code is what allows it. It’s what allows men to batter each other. It’s not just about being tough. It is dangerous.

They bring out a stretcher. They fit something round his neck first and carry him off.

The announcement takes an age: a five-minute major and a game misconduct. Dorn is thrown out of the game. The building howls at him, and he skates for his tunnel with his gloves still on, in no hurry whatsoever, and pats the glass twice on the way like a man pleased with his work.

They are lining up to start again. The benches shuffle, fresh men coming over the boards, and Callahan comes with them.

I see him do it. He steps on with the line change, and he does not go to the faceoff. He is not sent out, he goes. He crosses the ice in a straight line, dead at Dorn.

He catches him five feet short of the tunnel door.

I watch him drop his gloves on the ice. He does it deliberately, one and then the other. He says something, and the other man says something, and then they have hold of each other’s shirts and they are hitting each other in the face.

I want to roll my eyes. Should have seen that coming.

The building comes up like something detonating.

Every person in this box is on their feet. The man next to me is roaring. He has both arms in the air screaming something over and over. The twelve thousand people in the lower bowl are doing the same thing.

Even the guy on his phone looks up to watch.

Callahan takes a punch that turns his head sideways. He keeps hold and hits back twice and the other man goes down onto one knee with blood on him.

They pull him off. Two officials get an arm each and Callahan lets them, and he skates backwards down the ice with his head up and the whole building on its feet screaming for him. There is blood all over his face.

He looks up.

Not at the crowd. He turns his head as he goes past the blue line and looks straight up at the owner’s box, right at me.

It’s only then that I realize that I am standing too. I have been standing since Berg went down. I am gripping the brass rail with both hands, and the man next to me is shouting himself hoarse, and I have no idea, none, what I am on my feet for.