Page 2 of Gross Misconduct

At that, he rips off his pants and throws them in my face.

* * *

I strollinto Summers Rink that night ready to kick ass and take names.

The massive facility has a dated quality to it with graying walls, a digital scoreboard made of bright red dots, and the same old banners advertising the same small businesses hanging on the walls. State of the art, Summers Rink is not.

But like your childhood home, it’s easy to find its flaws charming.

There are two rinks in the facility. On one is a free skate zone ranging from kids trying figure skating loops down to those hugging the wall to keep their balance. On the other rink, I find a familiar group of guys way past their prime trying to play hockey.

I charge up to them. We all played together at South Rock High School decades ago, back when we were unstoppable. That might as well have been a completely different life. The only thing that’s unstoppable is the march of time. As soon as they see me, Hank Rush signals to someone above the scoreboard.

“I Want You Back” blares through the sound system. The guys try to harmonize on the chorus, but it’s a patchwork of missed cues and garbled lyrics. I put my fingers in my ears toward the end.

“You fuckers,” I say.

“Griffdog!” Hank yells.

“We got your attention.” Bill Crandell skates up to me with my former teammates close behind. They take off their helmets. Sweat beads on their rugged faces.

“I thought I was actually getting arrested.”

“It was Hank’s idea,” Bill says. Corporate life has forced him to keep his beard and hair neatly trimmed, but no job is straightlaced enough to take the goon out of the man.

“Jasper’s good. I hired him to go to Des’s last chemotherapy session in a doctor’s coat and bedazzled thong.” Hank gives me a thumbs up, his goofy smile unchanged from high school. With his thinner but still shaggy blond hair and noticeable gut, he looks like Jesus’s deadbeat brother. Hank has always been on the huskier side, perfect for protecting the goal.

“Thank you for that. His rhinestone-covered junk will haunt me forever.” Des rolls his piercing eyes, a slight smile on his full lips, as if he’s perpetually in the middle of a photo shoot. Even in his forties, Max Desmond is still a pretty boy.

“Hank’s idea actually worked,” Bill says. “You’re here.”

“I’mhereto tell you guys it was a shitty idea.”

“A shitty idea that worked,” Hank calls out.

“You’ve been trying to get me to join the Comebacks since January, and it hasn’t worked. Take the hint.”

“You could’ve told us this via text.” Hank crosses his arms, a sense of vindication coming over him.

“Admit it, man. You’re curious. Marcy says you still come for free skate, sometimes even playing around with a stick,” Bill says. Marcy Summers took over the rink from her parents in the late 1980s and has been running it ever since. She knows everything that goes on here and apparently will back channel it to my old teammates.

“You love hockey. You’re still a goon at heart.” Des cocks an eyebrow at me.

I take a sharp inhale of the rink. There’s a common misconception that water, and by extension ice, has no smell. Perhaps that’s true on a scientific level, but for people who spend their life on the ice, it smells fresh, sharp, a bit bitter. For some of us, as much as we want to ignore the feeling, it can smell like home.

“My hockey days are behind me,” I tell them.

“Bullshit,” Des scoffs.

“It’s fun, Griff. It’s a beer league. We practice, we play, we go out to celebrate whether we win or lose,” says Tanner Chance, the only hockey player I know who is too sweet to trash talk. There’s a permanent weariness behind his kind eyes, but if I were raising four kids on my own, I’d be exhausted all the time, too.

“We can’t do it without you, especially now that Mitch is out for the season.” Bill sighs at the news.

“Shit. Is he okay?” I ask.

Bill seesaws his head. “He threw out his back. Sneezing.”

The guys and I burst into laughter at poor Mitch’s expense, the sound bouncing off the rink’s walls. We weren’t that far away from one big sneeze making us immobile. The magic of burgeoning middle age.

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