The Late Bloomer (12 page)

—

Dad is right: I am different. I am not like the rest—of my family or of the world. And no matter how intense the peer pressure, I am determined to carve my own path however I want. At least I've tried to have sex. Okay, so it wasn't all it was cracked up to be. But sex has only gotten people I know into trouble, anyway. Kevin, my oldest brother, already has a kid, with a sixteen-year-old girl. And, well, I know that having sex with my mom stands as my father's grandest error, at least according to his woeful version of history.

“How's it goin', Kenny?” Dad, now a three-hour drive away, asks in one of our nightly phone conversations.

“I like it a lot. But I haven't met many hockey players yet. We'll see.”

I don't tell Dad that I was so scared about leaving home that I cried on a bench in the quad after he dropped me off that first day of school. I don't tell him that I miss riding bikes with my little brother and playing catch at the park. I definitely don't tell him I miss Jenny, whom I can't even afford to call and so must write letters—at first, daily, now weekly.

“How's Kris doing?” I ask.

“Fine,” Dad says plaintively. The more emotional my dad gets, the less talkative he gets. “He's at the playground shooting hoops. I'll tell him you called.” And so the content-less conversations go on and on . . .

I'm not usually ultra-talkative because my roommate is eavesdropping from across my dorm room. He is a swimmer from San Diego named Kevin. He's the first person I have ever met from California, and here I am forced to sleep ten feet away from this surfer dude
who wears sandals in November. I wonder if he and I are the subjects of one of those college social psychology experiments, with the two-way mirrors and video surveillance.

Kevin is tan; I am pale. Kevin listens to hip West Coast bands I've never heard of, like Oingo Boingo; meanwhile, I think Supertramp is cool. Kevin has well-to-do parents who have never been divorced and his dad is a square-jawed Navy captain; my mom is scraping to pay the rent, my father hasn't worked for the last two months and leaves the top button of his pants undone because (a) he is too fat for them and (b) he is too poor to afford new ones.

Fatter than ever, Dad nearly went into a diabetic coma a few weeks ago. In fact, up until the day before my first day of freshman orientation, I thought I was taking the bus to Colgate. Dad has lost a third of his eyesight because, thanks to neglecting to take his insulin pills, his insulin level plummeted toward zero. He now has to inject himself with insulin twice a day and is doing telemarketing for a roofing and siding company (the pitch: “Buffalo winters are the harshest in the nation. Ma'am, have you or your husband thought about installing vinyl siding to protect your home from the elements?”) to pay the rent and to support my little brother Kris, who, since he's no longer speaking to Mom, is living with Dad in a two-bedroom duplex that abuts the railroad tracks.

The hardest thing about the day I left for Colgate was saying goodbye to my little bro.

He was twelve, and for most of his life I had acted as something of a surrogate father to him. When Dad left home, Kris could rely on me. When he was ten and being taunted by his classmates for being the new kid in school, he would come home every afternoon crying his eyes out and begging Mom to let him go back to his old school. Whenever Dad fell ill and couldn't give Kris a ride or make him lunch, I did. When my dad, who had remarried a Bulgarian immigrant who badly wanted a green card, was worried that Kris would freak out about his third marriage, I was the one who broke the news to Kris,
who had hated my dad's second wife, who in turn despised Kris, apparently because he wasn't hers.

Dad had been lonely and sick. I think he feared not having a woman around to take care of him. Who better than an Eastern European woman who would be indebted to him for his getting her U.S. citizenship?

This is how I informed Kris that Dad, who had been single for about a year after divorcing his second wife, planned on making the Bulgarian wife #3.

“Dad's getting married again,” I said.

“You're kidding,” Kris replied.

“No, Kris, I'm serious. Dad wanted me to tell you.”

His face turned whiter than the blade of a snow plow and he sighed, “Here we go again.”

I followed him outside.

“Don't you want to know who she is?”

“Fine. Who is she?”

“She's from Bulgaria.”

“How does Dad know her?”

“I guess they went out on a date last night.”

“What?”

“They went out last night.”

“And now he wants to marry her?”

“I guess so. Or at least that's what he said.”

“You're kidding.”

“Nope.”

“What an idiot.”

“Yep.”

—

I wish Dad is kidding when he calls me at Colgate occasionally and tells me the latest mischief that Kris, now sixteen, living alone with a sick, burned-out father and his Bulgarian wife, has gotten himself into.

Kris got caught stealing a cassette tape from the drug store today . . .

Kris got picked up by the cops this morning for mooning a bunch of old ladies at the library . . .

Kris's girlfriend might be pregnant . . .

I feel somewhat responsible for Kris's teenage missteps. Mom and Dad might not have always been there for him—and Kyle, Keith and Kevin certainly were not—but I always was. Until now, that is. What kind of role model am I? I am so caught up in my college life and all my anxiety that I don't have time to call him.

My family becomes an ugly stepchild I don't like to talk about. I don't want anyone to know the whole sordid tale of the dysfunctional disaster that awaits me back home.

I can't tell any of my college friends; they won't understand. They seem to have perfect families, with fat-ass bank accounts and designer wardrobes and European vacations. They're probably just trust-fund babies who have had everything handed to them. Although I wouldn't mind the luxury they enjoy, I keep telling myself that at least I possess a scholarship, not to mention
character.

In my first week of college, for example, I have witnessed things that Kiss Ass Kenny would never do: The guy down the hall who chugged a can of Milwaukee's Best while being dangled upside down by his ankles; some drunken girl who flashed her bare breasts for a free beer. And I saw someone snort coke in the basement of a frat house.

Up until now, everything I've done in my life has been focused on living as squeaky-clean and disciplined a life as possible, in order to play for a Division I college hockey team and, with enough hard work, someday make it to the National Hockey League. I had assumed everyone—that is, except for the losers back in Hamburg—would do whatever they could to have a better life. Yet, most everyone around me, it seems, is doing everything they can to piss this golden opportunity away.

Except, much to my surprise, for my roommate, Kevin. It turns
out that despite his neon beachwear and surfer-boy looks, despite his private-school background, Kevin the Californian also feels like something of a freak among Colgate's 2,700 students.

I conclude that Kevin's not so bad on one of the first Friday nights of the semester. It's around midnight and the entire fourth floor of our dorm is empty; most everyone is either at frat parties or in one of the pickup joints in downtown Hamilton. Having decided that if I don't start studying I will fail out of school before the first game of the season, I am lying in bed reading, as fate would have it,
The Odyssey,
required for my Roots of Western Civilization class.

Kevin blurts out from across the room, “That guy Tom is a total chump.” Tom is one of our neighbors, a spiked-hair rich kid straight out of a northeastern prep school and the pretty-boy grandson of the founder of a famous frozen-food company who likes to strut naked down the hallway, probably just to show everyone how big his cock is.

“Yeah,” I reply. “He's probably gay too.”

“Probably?” Kevin asks. “I'd say
definitely.
”

We spend the next few hours talking about how spoiled so many of the guys in our dorm are acting. I like his attitude; he's not one of
them.
It turns out that Kevin is as monkish in his dedication to swimming as I am to hockey. Although I've technically had sex, I'm not exactly Don Juan. Neither is Kevin; I suspect he's not very sexually experienced either. Like me, he's not a big drinker. I have never seen him barf from alcohol poisoning, which, judging from the behavior we've been observing around us the first couple of weeks of college, must be an admission requirement to Colgate. Kevin attended a private school in the coastal city of La Jolla. He has swum in the Pacific, has seen ocean sunsets I've seen only in pictures. Yet, I relate to him because he is not from a privileged northeastern prep school and is proud of it. “These chumps act like they're in Grade Thirteen or something,” he sighs.

The following night, Kevin and I again are hanging out late in our dorm room. Kevin is practicing his Russian while listening to a mix
tape of his favorite tunes. A short guy with short-cropped black hair pokes his head through the doorway.

“Good evening, boys,” the little bespectacled guy says with almost British formality. He's wearing a pair of Bermuda shorts, flip-flops and a white tank top. “Hmm,” he adds. “Looks like you two boys and I are the only ones studying tonight.”

“You're from California, aren't you,” Kevin says.

“East Los Angeles, actually,” Sean admits, sipping from his (gourmet) coffee mug. “I'm Sean.”

We shake hands. I get the feeling Sean is a normal guy too.

I've now made two friends at Colgate. They're both from California and, like me, not in the social mainstream.

—

If I could pick one word that sums up my first year at Colgate, it would be the nickname my teammates slap on me: “Pear,” as in my body resembles a pear: round at the waist, narrow at the shoulders. I would prefer “Boom Boom” or “The Rocket” or “The Great One,” but my underdeveloped physique precludes such macho monikers. As a result, from the very first time I stand naked in the team shower, my conspicuous midsection and sloping shoulders earn me this most unflattering nickname. There's “Boomer.” Mike Bishop is “Bish.” Scott Young is “Younger.” Craig Woodcroft is “Woody.” Dave Gagnon is “Davie” or “Gags.” As for Ken Baker? Well, a few of the nicer guys, like Karl and Jeff from Buffalo, call me “Bakes.” Yet, the majority of the Canadian upperclassmen prefer “Pear.” This wasn't the Big Man on Campus treatment I had been told to expect, and I hate it.

Actually, in the first few months of my freshman year there are things about the Colgate hockey team I don't like very much . . .

Let's start with
Coach Slater
. . . .

No matter how well I play in practice, which is usually quite well—not to mention equal to or better than the team's other two goalies—Slater never plays me in a game or even lets me dress in my equipment,
nor does he ever offer any explanation. Instead he ignores me and I spend the first few games sitting in the press box chewing pencils, and my fingers, as I watch Dave Gagnon become the starting goalie and all-around campus superstar while I am left to wonder why I fell for Slater's bullshit and came to this school in the first place. Even though Dad insists that I confront Slater about my bench-warming, I am too fearful that he will take away my scholarship if I dare rock the boat. As he screams in the locker room, he is “The General” and we are “the Good Soldiers.” Finally, a couple months into the season, Slater puts me in the starting lineup and I back up Dave in a game against Princeton, another school that had recruited me and that, along with most every other college in our league, I'm thinking of defecting to if I don't start playing soon.

A year ago everyone thought I was the shit, a stud, a demigod in American junior hockey circles. I played all the big games on my team. In 1986, I had won a gold medal for my country, the first U.S. hockey victory in a world championships since the storied 1980 Olympics. Pro scouts came to see me play. Just a few months ago, in fact, the assistant coach of the Buffalo Sabres came to see me play. My dad made sure to introduce himself and talk his ear off about how great I was (which annoyed most parents to no end and probably didn't help my chances with the Sabres either). I was the subject of glowing feature stories in my local paper.

Now I'm in college and riding the pines, pulling splinters out of my ass while clinging to the hope that the first-string goalie will get hit in the balls and Slater will have no choice but to put me in. Then, as my plan goes, I will play unbelievably and take over the job.

Sadly, it doesn't happen—despite clearly outplaying and out-hustling Dave in practice. And despite Dave being a partier.

In fact, Dave's frat-boy partying gets so out of hand that, by the second semester, Slater forces Dave, a native of western Ontario (of course he is Canadian), to move out of the Beta Theta Pi house and into a dorm, up on the hill, away from the shenanigans on Frat Row.
By chance, and by the sick humor of fate's hand, Dave ends up moving into the single room next door to me and Kevin. From the start, his room becomes a fraternity annex, where his Beta brothers and his girlfriend, Laurie, come for nightly visits to party, smoke, screw and generally keep Kevin and me up all night.

Then there's the
Three Other Freshman Players
. . . .

Three of the four new recruits are Canadians. Jamie and Jason, from Toronto, and Dale, from Ottawa. They play in every game and, despite their rookie mistakes, Slater never benches them. I and Dave Doherty, a funny Irish guy from outside of
Bah
ston, are the Americans. Neither of us plays.