Page 46 of Puck You Both

Line rushes reset, and there he is again in black practice gear where my jersey usually moves. A crowded fourth line is hardly a press release. Guys come up, coaches test combinations. It’s not a big deal, really.

Still, I take notice the way you notice pressure dropping before a storm.

I have things going for me, I know that. I’m fast, and I’m loud, and I’m cheap.

Useful in all the ways that become replaceable the second somebody younger supplies the same electricity for less money.

I’ve made a career out of being the player a team loves having around. Which is a dangerous sentence because around covers a lot of exits.

So I don’t dwell. I call the call-up a stretched-out garden gnome, beat him to the next puck, and check harder.

By the time Berg ends the skate, the kid is panting with both hands on his knees and grinning at me. Good. If management wants to crowd my line, they can at least send somebody fun.

In the locker room, Dziedzic stands in the threshold and turns one of Patrick’s freshly repaired gloves under the fluorescent light for final inspection. “Grześkowiak,” he calls, every consonant polished. Our equipment manager is the only man on the team who can actually pronounce Patrick’s name.

Half the room turns just to enjoy it.

Patrick steps over and accepts the glove. “Thanks, D.”

The name hangs in the air for two more seconds, perfect and briefly miraculous. Then our assistant coach walks past, claps Patrick on the shoulder, and says, “Looking good, Grezzy,” restoring the natural order.

I give Dziedzic a respectful nod while the man mourns in silence.

Twenty minutes later, I’m in the gym halfway through a set of split squats when my phone lights up on the floor.

Nothing from Wall. Obviously. The group thread has remained silent since the night of the call. Patrick’s recap email arrived the next morning, but it contained an attachment named FINAL_VENDOR_COMPARISON_v6 and therefore qualifies as a cry for help rather than communication.

Wall hasn’t acknowledged the call. He also hasn’t fled the country or blocked us, and after listening to him breathe while he came, I am choosing to interpret this as positive momentum.

My leg starts shaking. I finish the rep, drop the weights, and open Wall’s contact directly before good judgment can recover from whatever hit it took this morning.

Someone has to do it, and it’s becoming brutally clear it won’t be either of them.

Pride, or some shit. I wouldn’t know.

The photograph is already in my favorites. Patrick asleep, two days ago, flat on his back, hair pushed up on one side and both hands folded over his stomach. I took the photo at 6:14 a.m. while sitting naked on his chest, which failed to wake him and remains offensive.

I attach it to my message.

Me: your nemesis, neutralized

My next set starts immediately, because staring at a screen does not make a man answer faster. Or so they say.

Seven reps later, nothing. By the end of the set, I’ve walked one lap around the bench, finished my water, and checked again five times.

Patrick is across the room doing pull-ups with a plate hanging from his waist. He lowers himself under perfect control, dark shirt stretching over his back, and glances at me on the way down.

I’m busy drooling when my phone buzzes in my hand, and I nearly drop it.

Wall: He sleeps like he saves. Aggressively still.

I stare at the message, all seven words, then look at Patrick again. He is hanging motionless from the bar while Lindqvist adds another plate to the belt, which proves Wall’s scouting remains elite across state lines and consciousness levels.

It quickly becomes apparent that texting Wall is like feeding quarters into a vending machine that mostly does nothing and then, once, drops a switchblade in your lap.

I keep feeding it quarters.

The next one goes in from the trainer’s room. I’m facedown on a massage table with a compression sleeve around my left calf while game film runs on the television bolted to the corner. Tonight’s opponent fills the screen in red and black. A Hawk forward scores on an old clip, and the room responds with the low, automatic disgust of thirty men watching property values decline.