Best Canadian Stories 2018 by Russel Smith

Author:Russel Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Biblioasis
Published: 2018-09-06T16:05:25+00:00

Six Six Two Fifty

David Huebert

There’s a tap on my shoulder and Coach tells me I’m up. I ask who but he just nods out towards the ice where Scab Benoit’s lining up on the left wing. So I hop the boards, skate out into the crowd’s feral purr. Scab opens his busted picket fence mouth into a grin and wiggles his mitts as if we needed a signal to start what’s about to happen. Eyeing his teeth, I ask if he’ll get some implants with this year’s PIM bonus and he starts beaking faster than a ravenous seagull. Starts about my skating, saying I’m dragging my knees on the ice, saying I’ve got a stride like a lame jackrabbit, asking whether I need to borrow some tape for my ankles. I tell him to cool his jet stream, tell him to wait until Stripes drops the biscuit before he lets his hairy knuckles fly. Scab says something about the snatch of the sister I don’t have and the ref drops the puck and we’re tossing mitts and cocking elbows and squaring up in the bright white open.

The arena a seashell, conjuring oceans. The strange hissing emptiness of twenty thousand screams.

Scab keeps his fists close but I can see they’re yellow and bloated from his scrap last night in Buffalo. He’s taking his time so I unclip my helmet and toss it off. Then I tell him he’d be wise to keep his bucket on for this one. When he reaches for his chinstrap I clutch his sweater and wail, clap his jaw once, twice, glance his helmet on the third swing.

The crowd whistling and shrieking and my heart pattering wild. That glow in my fist meaning pain later and strength now, and Scab still standing, breathing hard.

“You’re a fuckin’ jizzrag,” Scab yells over the crowd and then he fakes one and lands one, opens the old wound above my left eye. Quicker than I remembered. Scab keeps hailing and hailing and it’s all I can do to grab his sweater and hold him off with a stiff-arm and thank fuck I have reach on him because my socket is fast filling with hot bright darkness.

That stun ended by another: Scab’s fist clacking my chin. Half the world red and missing as Scab keeps hammering, the refs closing in to stop it. I tug him in and turn my face away and we both land a few more body shots and then I drop, yank him down to the ice, pull him close and hold him there.

The sweet cool balm of the ice under me while the crowd howls above. Scab’s body curls into mine and the heave of our lungs gradually merges. We hold each other, breathing in synch. A drool of my blood leaks down onto the white of his sweater. The lovely warm clarity of it.

“Good fight,” Scab pants, and I tell him same.

I’m sitting at the bar with a beer and a bourbon and my right fist stuffed in a wine chiller, the ice melted into salty gazspacho.

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