Page 50 of Pickled
Now, I had to wait to get cleared to return to play. My physiotherapist and the team trainers all agreed that I needed to take some time off. I shouldn’t have watched the replays, but I’d spent the entire day analyzing every second of last night’s game. They’d kept me overnight for observation at the hospital, which was totally un-fucking-necessary. No matter what the sportscasters reported, I was only out for a second or two, not ten. I shook it off and skated off the ice without any help. At thetime, I didn’t think that I’d hit my head. I was ready to get back into the game, but… red tape. It was part of the team’s mandate that I get medical clearance to get back onto the ice.
I rubbed C.C.’s ear in between my fingers as Ace clanged around in the kitchen. I winced as pots clattered. “Sorry,” Ace shouted.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I told myself the headache had nothing to do with the hit. Ace’s voice hurt my brain because he was loud and annoying. My appetite was nonexistent because he was going to burn the sandwiches.
“Here.” Ace set a plate with a surprisingly good-looking grilled cheese sandwich on the arm of the chair. It was cut into four pieces, and Ace had made a smiley face on the side with ketchup.
“This actually looks good.” I forced myself to take a bite.
Ace grinned. “Wait until you try my deviled eggs. I’ve got two dozen of them boiling on the stove right now.”
Goldie had gone home to Toronto, but Ace stayed behind to keep me company. “There’s no way I’m going to let you make those fart bombs in this house.”
My brother’s eyes were distracted by the action on the TV screen, where the play from the game was looping. “McGuire’s a hothead, but I’ve never seen him do anything like that before.”
I paused the screen as the pair of orange gloves, both on the stick, was lined up with my shoulders. “I think he was retaliating for the Fridge’s hit on you,” I said.
“That hit was legit. Oh shit.” Ace hopped to his feet. The smell of burning butter wafted into the living room. He ran to the kitchen. Clattering and swearing were followed by a heavy pan dropping into the sink.
“Don’t turn on the—”
The hissing of the hot pan as Ace turned on the tap drowned out my voice. “What?” Ace shouted.
The smoke detector went off, sending a searing pain from one of my temples to the other. Each of my eyeballs felt like they were too big for my skull, like tennis balls stuffed into the sockets. Pressing the heels of my hands to my eyelids, I tried not to imagine what was happening in the kitchen. Grunting and a chair being dragged across the floor could barely be heard over the smoke alarm. He must have been fanning a tea towel in front of the detector. C.C. flattened his ears, his eyes as wide as saucers as he stared in the direction of the kitchen. “It’s okay, little guy. Ace is just an idiot.”
The high-pitched beeping stopped. “Sorry!” Ace shouted from the kitchen. He came into the living room with a blackened sandwich. “Do you want one that’s, um, well done?”
The first sandwich sat basically untouched on the armrest. “I’ll pass.”
“What time is your follow-up appointment? Hold on, I’m just going to throw this out and turn off the eggs.”
While he tended to the world’s worst cooking show, I pushed the Play button and watched the cross-check in slow motion. How could my head have been so in the game and so out of it at the same time? The team was on fire, in a good way, not a grilled cheese in my kitchen way.
Before I was medically kicked out of the game, we were up two nothing. I could feel a third goal so close that I could almost taste it. My line was tuned up in the best way possible. “It’s in forty-five minutes, and I don’t need you to come with me. I already told you that. Go home to your wife and dog.”
Ace returned to the living room, his arms crossed. “You aren’t cleared to drive. If the doctors give you the go-ahead, I’ll let you drive home. Otherwise, I’m your chauffeur today.” He looked at his watch, something I hadn’t seen him wear for a very long time.
“Is that your Timex from high school?”
He tapped on the plastic face and held his arm up to show me. “It still has the same band. I found yours too, you know.” The fraying blue Velcro band was faded from its original deep blue, and loose strands stuck out from the sides. “I can mail it to you if you want it. Mom was cleaning out my old room and was going to throw this away, can you believe it?”
“I can’t believe it still works.” Mom had kept every trophy I’d ever won, as well as all of our old hockey memorabilia. When we went home, the bedroom that we’d shared growing up was exactly the same. It was like a time warp back to our teenage years. “Why are you wearing it? Wait, why is Mom cleaning out your room?” The latter was a better question. I thought that our bedrooms were going to be memorialized in time eternal until… “Is Mom okay?”
“She’s fine,” Ace said quickly. He ran his hand through his hair. “I don’t know, I think she wants a sewing room or something. The last season I wore this, I set a record for points on the Mittens. I think it might still have some good juju left.”
The Mittens were the AAA team from Marquette. Any Upper Peninsula kid who was serious about hockey became a Mitten.“When I told Goldie about the watch, she insisted that I wear it this season. So far, it’s working.”
“We’re not even a month into the regular season, weirdo. And I bet you it stinks.”
He drew the band to his face and sniffed. “Whew. It kind of smells like wet dog, but I’m not taking it off now.” He consulted the watch again. “Your appointment is in forty-five minutes. How long does it take to get there?”
“Depends on who’s driving.” I pumped my eyebrows.
“No way, mister.”
I was the reckless driver. Ace, in his ancient pickup truck, could barely get up to the speed limit on a good day. “It’s about forty minutes away, and let’s take the Porsche. I’d like to get her out on the highway.”
“You can drive on the way home.” Ace’s tone turned serious. “Gideon, you know this could be a big deal.”
