T HE TEAM M ICHAEL SHOULD have been on was doing well. They beat Bathurst 3–2, which was never supposed to happen. The little peewee they had brought up, Tony LeBlanc, who had scored against Boston, was scoring for them. He had scored on a breakaway against Bathurst with a minute and ten seconds left. He was no bigger than Stafford. Yet he could move about you as if you were standing cold; he slipped through checks all year long, and he came out of nowhere from behind the net, could always tuck the puck behind the goal tender, and then raise his stick with one hand as he glided into an embrace, his big Bantam A shirt down to his knees.
A dozen times in a game you thought he would be creamed, only to watch him slip through, and head towards the net. And the older boys seemed to be like big brothers to him.
I mentioned that they had brought Darren up from the Peewees as well and had put him on the wing. The team had jelled since its loss to Boston, and was waiting to go back to Boston in the spring to exact a terrible revenge. Even Phillip Luff knew enough to pass the puck so others could score.
The rink was becoming filled again for the Bantam As. Suddenly there was the idea that the town had a team again — kids who were giving everything they had, wearing ancient hockey sweaters and mismatched socks.
In the house league that Stafford and I still played in, we too had spectators — small children who had figure skating before us, the few rink rats who were obligated to be there, the woman who ran the concession stand, and a few mothers and fathers. Also the coach, who was the coach of the Bantam All-Stars also, and who Stafford was a terrible suck-up to. I suppose he knew I knew, and only wanted me to realize that he couldn’t help it.
Now and then, playing his heart out he would be castigated by the mother of one of the other players for allowing the team to fall behind.“Are you blind?” Sharon would yell at him. Stafford would wipe his eyes, would look over, smile and keep on going.
“Ah get off the ice and go sit down — who are you — the coach’s pet hang around the coach — don’t worry now boys you can just waa Ik in and score — walllk in and sc-OORE. Idiot arse is on the ice again. Ole Idiot Arse Piss the Bed is on the ice.”
And so it spread, and Stafford was known, secretly as Piss the Bed and Idiot Arse. If you went over and told people he was a sleepwalking, fall- down diabetic with a maniacal desire to participate in events normal children around the country did, it might have made a difference. But he did not do this. Nor would he want anyone else to.
Of all the people who ever yelled and screamed at the coach or children, or bullied, I found mothers to be by far the worst. The most vicious. Every moment on the ice must have been agony for some children. And Stafford was one of those children. Those who made it with ease, like his brothers, or those who refused to let it destroy them like Michael would not have much idea what Stafford went through.
odding now and again to the other players as they skated by. Once or twice when Stafford touched the puck, usually having it hit his stick he would yell out to the coach, his face gone mad with glee, “I touched the puck — I touched it.” “Ya, good — great,” the coach would say. “Keep up the good work.” Worse, was when Stafford’s sisters would arrive and yell out to us,
“There’s Rocket and Pocket — there’s Rocket and Pocket.” And we would skate a few blades, like grilse moving out of their position, nodding toward the bleachers, then try to skate backwards to our lay again.
But there were a few things I learned from those days. One was the viciousness certain adults have toward those who do not measure up. You are most often ridiculed by lesser men. We played from eight o’clock until about ten minutes to nine on
Saturday morning; then the Bantams would take over and then the Juveniles. The later in the day it was, the older the teams got, the more serious the players looked, until just before three o’clock you had players skating about with five o’clock shadows.
One morning we were playing the first place house-league team — theBruins. Stafford and I were at our blueline, watching the play develop up at the other end of the rink. It looked like we were going to score, but we didn’t. The puck tricked out and one of the Bruins grabbed it. Emmett, who looked like a small pitbull. Away he came towards us. And we stood there watching him. Quite politely we felt he would just wisshh by us. We would nod to him like we usually did. And that would be it. This had nothing to do with our not wanting to stop him. We wanted to stop him — we just weren’t sure how.
But this morning as he came down the ice towards us, he noticed me as I stood on the blueline, and putting his head down made a quick turn to his left — right in Stafford’s direction. “Get out of the way,” I yelled at Stafford. “Get out of the way.”
Emmett did not see Stafford of course. Most people did not see Stafford. Nor did Stafford move. Perhaps he did not have time. Perhaps he just said the hell with it. Everyone on both benches was yelling at him to get out of the way. Our coach, their coach. Sharon. But Stafford was frozen. At the very last second Emmett looked up. I saw Stafford close his eyes.
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