The Western Light (20 page)

THE ICEBOX WINTER UNFOLDED THE WAY SAL SAID IT WOULD. IT snowed so much it covered up our backyard rink. Sal wouldn't let me go outside. Luckily, the snow hid the new pink flamingoes on our neighbour's lawn along with the eggshells and rotting banana peels that Sal heaved behind our garage when she didn't want the bother of taking the garbage out to the sidewalk. As for Morley, he worked day and night. Little Louie worked hard too. Every day she visited the mental hospital, researching her story, and every afternoon she came home with weird information like her description of the Total Encounter Capsule that Dr. Shulman was building for the men at Maple Ridge. It was going to be a windowless, soundproofed room, Little Louie told me, eight feet wide and ten feet long. Its walls would be painted green and it would be empty except for a sink and a toilet. The guards would stick straws through the door so the men could sip juice, milk, coffee, and eggnog, because they were locked in for three days once the therapy started. According to Little Louie, television cameras would be trained through holes in the walls so the men couldn't get away with anything. But strangest of all, the men were going to be locked up without their clothes on because Dr. Shulman believed nudity broke down their defences. When I asked if John Pilkie would take off his clothes too, she laughed. She said he would do anything if it would get a review of his case. I worried for him. The closest I could imagine to being in such a mortifying situation was having the Bug House boys catch me peeing standing up, which is what I did in the maple bush when I was caught short.

Then, one grey January afternoon after school, an envelope arrived with the familiar curly letters and the two I's dotted with smiling faces.

To my special friend, M.B.:M

 

Boy, have you got yourself in a funk! You sound so blue I had to sit down and whip off this letter. You are special, and that's why I used the word. You are also one heck of a letter writer and I would be lost without a friend like you on the outside. Nobody in this godforsaken dump understands and doesn't want to either. Even Jordie doesn't believe me when I say my concussion made me crazy. He says he does but I can tell by his smirk that he is just humouring me, the way he does the other nut cases. And it is not babyish to write a composition about your great-granddaddy. It is a grown-up thing to do. And who cares if your great-granddaddy's parents weren't married? I sure don't. I know you must be plenty upset or you wouldn't have used a swear word. Look here. Your great-granddaddy is your hero. And a hero doesn't get everything he wants although most of us can get a lot of what we want if we work hard and take ourselves seriously.

Now this may sound funny coming from somebody like me. I've made a mess of things. I know that. But I had some bad luck. Peggy used to say there is something in my nature that makes my bad luck. She understood me very well. That's one of the reasons I loved her. But I won't get into my troubles here. Don't you go giving up on your composition. Those old oilmen were an interesting bunch even if most of them were Yanks who didn't respect our Queen.

I'm glad you had a good Christmas. Your family are top drawer. Especially you, and your aunt Louisa. She's a fine figure of a woman and a career gal too. The Christmas holidays wore me down. I got into a little altercation with Sib Beaudry. Nothing serious. Doc Bradford said Mother Pilkie could bring me a turkey dinner but Sib wouldn't let her. And Dr. Schulman was in Florida. I sat with the rest of the nutcases and ate rubber turkey in the group therapy room. Afterwards, the cook from the main building sent over candy canes and little red candy Christmas trees. Then Jordie showed us
It's a Wonderful Life
with Jimmy Stewart. Sib shut down the movie projector halfway through and made us go back to our cells. The things I could tell you about this dump. Never mind. You're too young and sweet to hear what goes on. Hey, Jordie tells me you are learning to skate. Keep up the good work!

 

With fondest regards,
John

There was another letter in the envelope, under the first one. I read it as fast as I could and then I read it all over again, unable to believe my luck.

Dear Mary:

 

At the Beaudry farm, I said I would tell you and your pal about the old days when a has-been like myself started out. Well, here goes: my daddy said I was born with skates on so he didn't have to lace them for me. There was some truth to my daddy's boast. I always wanted to play hockey. Right from the start I wanted to fly down the ice, my blood on fire. I loved the chilly air coming off the rink and the fans' screams in my ears. When I was a tyke, my daddy would take me to the Ontario Hockey Association games and tell me I was going to be a star. He said I had the discipline or at least I did until that so-and-so tripped me and I fell head first into the boards.

If freeze up came early my daddy built a small ice rink out at the Light. He would strap pillows onto his shins. I would take shots at him until I fell down. Then he would pick me >up and set me down on my skates and we would go at it until the sun set. In late fall, it was pretty bitter out on the water. I never complained. Daddy Pilkie was a hard man. He was always at me to check the bejesus out of the other team. So I swung my stick like the best of them. Course, you never can avoid roughhousing. That's the way the fans want it.

I went through the junior leagues playing in the finals every Easter. In the summer I worked at Towonda Lodge building guest cabins for Old Man Beaudry. By the time I was nineteen, I wasn't scrawny any longer. I was tough although I never grew much after I was sixteen. My specialty was speed and ragging the puck. These skills got the attention of Mr. Lewis the scout who came up to Madoc's Landing. He found the best players north of Barrie, Ontario. Kids up here have nothing to do except play hockey. Hockey brings winter inside, eh? You could say hockey shrinks winter down into a rectangle of ice so us players can charge across it like gods of the timberland doing combat for our fans. It's a miracle the way we can enjoy ourselves all huddled together under the arena roof. Did you know hockey started in Brebeuf County? Those braves used to play stickball. Sometimes their games lasted for months. They got injuries that crippled or killed them. I learned this from a museum.

Do you know a poem by Poe called “Annabel Lee”? I found it last week in the hospital library. One of its lines reminds me of you because you have the brightest brown eyes of any gal I know. “And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes of the beautiful Annabel Lee.”

 

Yours truly,
J.P.

I was only half-satisfied by his explanation of special friend (i.e., I was glad he cared enough to write to me about what the term meant to him, although I had something else in mind). What did I want “special friend” to mean? That I was the only one who understood him, and that my understanding would make him appreciate me so much he couldn't help loving me. That night I dreamt about marrying him.

Mouse's Dream about Gentleman Jack Pilkie

 

In my dream John looks exactly like Edgar Allan Poe, except that he has on a Red Wings hockey sweater and John's cowlick hangs over his forehead the way it does in real life instead of being brushed back into a mop of dark curls, which is how the dead poet wore his hair. John looks as sad as Poe in his old sepiatoned photographs because we can't live in our kingdom by the sea. And John never tires of calling me “Annabel Lee” and he says love always works out, although you have to try as hard as you can, which is what the counsellor tells couples to do in
Ladies Home Journal
feature “Can This Marriage Be Saved?” “Yes, I know, darling,” I reply, resting my head on his chest and inhaling the hot fresh bread scent of his white shirt that I starched for him myself.

Naturally, we have problems like other couples, but we act quickly on the counsellor's advice since we love each other so much.
John was often away from Mary playing hockey but when she told him she was lonely, he was able to reschedule his games so they could have more time together. It was a successful resolution and our magazine considers this case closed.

 

The next morning I wrote him back.

Dear Mr. Pilkie:

 

Thank you for both your letters and for explaining why I am a special friend to you. You are my special friend too. And thank you for the compliment about my brown eyes even though I know you are just trying to be nice. “Annabel Lee” is one of my favourite poems. I especially like the line that says Poe loved Annabel Lee with a love that was more than love. It must be amazing to have someone love you like that. Not that anyone would want to love me. I am too twisted and awful looking.

Our teacher won't let us take Edgar Allan Poe in school. She says he's too gloomy. But I think she dislikes Poe because he married his cousin Virginia when she was only thirteen. Anyway, I saw Poe's picture in a book about English Literature and I couldn't get over how sad he looked, like a man without a friend to call his own. I guess that pretty much sums up his life because he died of drink and didn't get famous until after he dropped dead.

I also want to thank you for getting Jordie to make an ice rink for me. Morley is too busy to shovel it so Jordie came back yesterday and Ben and I watched him spray the ice with our garden hose. The ice froze even and smooth without the little bumps the other backyard rinks get because their parents don't flood their rinks enough. By the way, Jordie said he would teach me the slapshot. He said every hockey player has to know how to do it. I am still having trouble standing up in my skates although I try hard because I want Jordie to tell you I am doing my best.

 

With the very fondest wishes,
Mary

 

P.S. I hope you don't mind me signing off with the very fondest wishes. I wouldn't want anyone getting the wrong ideas about our friendship.

36

YEARS LATER, WHEN BEN WAS RESEARCHING A BOOK ABOUT THE NHL, he sent me an old newspaper story about John. It had been written by Malcolm Thomas, a reporter at
The Windsor Star
, and I was astonished at how closely the story followed John's account of his concussions. John may have told us some lies, but the information about his concussions has been backed up with fact. The reporter, too, was sympathetic to John's situation. He said that John's second concussion had happened during the second summer after the Detroit Red Wings won the Stanley Cup. Nobody noticed when John fell into the boards in a practice game and struck his head. The team doctor didn't bother to check out his injury. In the fall, John drove from Windsor to Toronto to play the Leafs, and it was here that things started to go badly for him. “Suffering from loss of memory, the result of injuries received several weeks ago in an NHL game, Pilkie was sent to the Whitby hospital for observation,” the
Globe and Mail
article said.

According to the reporter, Malcolm Thomas, John was able to recognize his friends and talk with the other hockey players, but he often drifted into incoherent conversations. Twice he wandered from his room at the Royal York Hotel and came back minus his topcoat and wristwatch. He said he had given them to people he met on the street.

Things grew more serious when he jumped out of a car going forty miles an hour and got in another automobile travelling in the opposite direction. How he managed to pull this off is beyond me, although I had seen him do some extraordinary things. He must have opened the door and timed his jump like a stuntman and then raced across the highway and flagged someone down before the nurse who was driving the first car had the chance to turn around. The nurse had been taking John to the Whitby nuthouse hospital for observation. After he fled her car, he disappeared for a week until he remembered who he was and turned himself in. Two police escorted him to Whitby, where he was diagnosed as suffering from a nervous breakdown caused by the strain of the hockey season and his head injuries. A Canadian surgeon performed “a major brain operation” by cutting an opening through John's skull to relieve the pressure on his brain. But, when John tried to return to Detroit, even though a board of twelve medical examiners had given him a clean bill of health, he was informed by the United States immigration authorities that he would not be permitted to enter the country for a calendar year because he had been a patient at a psychiatric hospital.

John went back to Windsor. Six weeks later, the terrible fire happened.

I read Ben's newspaper story with indignation. It made me see all over again how unjustly John had been treated, and why he'd turned to a child like me for comfort. I believed in him, and he'd needed that. Of course, I didn't understand his feelings then. I was hoping that he would love me in the way I had begun to love him.

To my special friend:

 

First of all, you are not twisted and awful looking. You have the biggest, kindest eyes I've ever seen, and your long brown hair is pretty too. Second, learning to skate is hard for everyone, no matter who they are. So use your hockey stick to help you balance. You'll see. Skating is easier than walking once you get used to it. And don't you pay attention to what Jordie says about slapshots. Wrist shots may be slower but they're more accurate. Look, here are Gentleman Jack's rules for good hockey. Number one: Stick your elbows out wide. Number two: Make sure your elbows are the only thing the player skating behind you can see. Number three: Keep the blade flat on the ice and make sure it's in line with your body. Slide it back and forth in a straight line.

You follow my tips and you'll be okay. By the way, I have pneumonia. Us Pilkie men have bad lungs. So I am stuck in the Bug House infirmary, popping pills to keep my fever down. I caught the bug five days ago in the Collingwood Arena. Your daddy was none too pleased. Collingwood has the biggest, coldest arena around and I'll be darned if those cheapskates didn't turn off the heat. After the first period, our dressing room was like an icebox. We were all hot and sweaty coming off the ice so we got chilled and played badly. Your father chewed us out. I was shaking like a leaf and couldn't play the third period. Toby Walker and Kid McConkley scored a goal each, but we lost the game. Your father hasn't been in to see me yet. That's how I know he's mad. He expects a lot of us boys.

I was telling you about Mr. Lewis the scout. When Mr. Lewis saw me play, he phoned my daddy. Then he phoned the coach of the Maple Leafs. The next thing I knew I was off to hockey camp for a tryout. I didn't get a contract with the Leafs. I signed with the Oshawa Colts and that led to the Detroit Red Wings. Those years went by in a blur and players like me made more money than our daddies. So we lived it up, throwing money around and getting into trouble. Maybe you read about my hijinks, lighting cigars with hundred-dollar bills, that type of thing.

When I was playing for Detroit, I had the eyes of the country on me plus the attention of the towns south of the border. I was free but in another way I was not free at all. When I was a kid, it was only my daddy's expectations I carried. Then my daddy drowned when I was fifteen, and I had Mother Pilkie's expectations on me. When I was nineteen, it wasn't just her expectations but the expectations of the coach and the owner of the Wings weighing on me. I also had the expectations of my teammates and the fans. I didn't want to let anybody down. Then my hockey playing stopped after my own teammate took me down in a practice game. I don't know why. He tripped me and I fell into the boards. When I came to, I was seeing stars. I kept saying the same thing over and over: Don't tell the coach. That made my coach laugh. He said I'd had my bell rung. He held up his fingers and asked me to count them. I counted wrong so I had to go to the Detroit hospital.

The coach said my concussion was a badge of honour. He made me wear a helmet. It was just a few patches of leather tied together with an elastic band. I kept it on for a few games but my teammates called me a coward for wearing it so I threw it away and played bareheaded like the rest of the boys. Then I took a second hit. I had headaches for months after. I kept seeing lights feeling dizzy, that type of thing. The coach said he didn't want any malingering. As long as he was the boss and I could move my arms and legs, I was going to play hockey. I went up to Toronto for a game. My headaches got worse up there. The coach said I had mood swings. He sent me to the Whitby nuthouse for observation. The sawbones told me I was suffering from a bleed and they put a plate in my left temple. You can't see the scar because it's under my hair. That was the start of my problems. The coach wouldn't pay for my operation because my first injury happened in a practice. Then the American border guards wouldn't let me back into the States because I had been in the Whitby hospital. They said a crazy person couldn't play for the NHL. So Peggy and I moved to Windsor hoping I could play hockey with the Red Wings again.

You know what happened next.

A shrink from the Big Smoke is coming up to see me. If he likes me the doctors in Toronto will give me a review of my case. Mother Pilkie thinks it's a done deal because your daddy promised to talk to the Toronto shrink on my behalf. So maybe I won't be leaving here in a wicker casket like the rest of them.

There is something you can do for me. Mother Pilkie has a cold. So I'm missing the Medonte honey she brings. The Bug House jam can't hold a candle to it. Why don't you and your aunt Louisa visit me in the infirmary and bring some along?

 

Affectionately,
Your special friend,
J.P.