Page 55 of Omega’s Forward

I hit him anyway.

It’s clean. Shoulder to chest, half a step after the pass, close enough to the whistle that their bench comes up screaming for a call they’re not going to get. He goes into the glass and comes down on all fours, and the boards are still booming when I skate out of the corner. The crowd is on its feet roaring, and for about four seconds the inside of my head goes quiet.

Four seconds is roughly what a hit buys me these days. I’ve been buying a lot of them.

Their defenseman leans in over the next faceoff and says something. I don’t catch it and I don’t ask him to repeat it. He’s the third guy tonight to try me, and all three of them are losing, so it can’t be going that well.

Sacco keeps sending my line out. He’s not stupid. Whatever’s wrong with me is winning hockey games.

On the bench Ozzy leans over, cage to cage, sweat running off his nose. “Whoever you’re mad at,” he says, “I hope you two never make up.”

He grins. I don’t grin back.

Late in the second, one of their guys finally answers for it, shoving at me in front of our net at the whistle with his gloves half off, and the crowd gets loud, hoping. He thinks better of it with his sweater half over his elbow. Smart.

I serve my two minutes staring at the ice between my feet.

Eleven games into the new season, and I still catch myself doing last spring’s math. Two points. That’s what we missed the playoffs by while I sat out four games in the heart of the push in my living room. Four games of me, two points. I ran those numbers all summer and they never once came out anywhere good.

Midway through the third I pin their center to the wall behind his own net, dig the puck off his stick, and shovel it out front.

Linus one-times it in before their goalie is even set. The kid has had months of rehab and a whole summer of watching from his couch, and the shot came back like it never left.

He hits the glass with both gloves in the air. He’s fine. He’s better than fine. He scored, and Dorn can rot.

During the TV timeout, I look up at the owner’s box.

I don’t decide to. It’s a thing my neck does now, a habit I can’t seem to break.

The lights are on up there. Belanger is front and center with a sponsor on either side, all of them laughing at something. Everybody loves Belanger. Same way that everyone loved Gordie. I wonder if Belanger has any secret children.

Everett only sat in that box once. I know all that. I look up anyway, every home game, like one of these nights he’ll be standing at the rail instead of an ocean away — looking down at the ice he hates, and then at me — and I don’t know what I think comes after that.

The horn goes.

We win 4–1. I couldn’t tell you a single thing about the fourth goal.

I do the lap with my stick up, half a wave to the seats, and I’m down the tunnel before the song changes.

The room after a win is supposed to be the best place on earth. The music is always too loud. Tape balls fly. Everyone’s buzzing. I used to live for it.

But the volume dips when I walk in. It’s only half a beat, like a skip in a song, and then everybody’s loud again and very interested in their own gear. That’s mine, that half-beat.

I strip my gear and head for the showers without talking to anybody. Nobody tries me.

I stand under the water too long. I know exactly what I’ve been since I got back. I know I’ve been a moody son of a bitch since last spring. I just don’t know how to smack myself out of it.

The boys blamed the suspension at first — figured the hearing knocked something loose — and gave me space. The space never closed back up.

When I come out, the club’s media guy puts his head around the door and gives me a hopeful look.

I give him one back with nothing in it. He takes Marchetti instead, and everybody will go home happy.

I pull my shirt on and don’t look at anybody.

The schedule is on the whiteboard by the door, next week blocked out in Sacco’s handwriting.

Tuesday. Home. The Marauders.