Escape From Norriswood

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

September, 1991:

Junior gazed out towards the bottom of the cul-de-sac from his parents' front door. He saw the way the sky was layered grey onto grey, the mill throwing smoke upward that met cloud and became cloud. Beneath this, the silver rings of Graham's Kings jersey flickered like tinsel as he jogged back and forth, an orange orb at the blade of his hockey stick.

Graham's dad, Kevin, had built the net himself; nailing together junks of wood the two of them had collected along the beach in Curling. The mesh itself was a fishing net, the kind that shed green fibers onto Junior's hand, his palm, when he ran his hand along it.

The screen door clasped behind Junior, and he picked up his own stick resting against the front of the house. He rolled the stick around in his hands as he jogged toward Graham; Junior knew by the way the stick weighed in his hands when he carried it, the way he still tripped over it sometimes when he ran, that he was not yet Canadian.

Graham blitzed a pass toward him as he neared him, and Junior halted, spread his feet apart, and picked up the orange ball with the blade of his stick. He moved the ball back and forth a second, hearing it smack against the wood, the plastic ball harder now, drawn in around itself from the cold.

"So how does your dad like being on the news?" Graham said.

Junior took another step toward him, and flicked him a backhand pass. "I don't really think it's his thing," he said.

"He likes the job, though?"

"Yeah," Junior said, and then he jutted his stick toward Graham's, stabbing the ball so that it rolled back to him. He kicked it up onto his stick, and then whisked a shot toward the goal, the plastic hitting the mesh with a whish.

"After getting some shot on ya," Graham said, and then plucked the ball out of the mesh. "Still can't believe you didn't watch hockey when you lived in LA, though."

Graham played the ball back and forth against the blade of his stick then, stickhandling. It was a move that Junior had been jealous of. Whenever he tried the rapid movements, he had to slow down, stop walking. The way Graham did it, the wooden blade of his stick quipped against the asphalt of the road, marking time.

He listened to that sound now as Graham inched around him. One, two, three raps of the stick and then a pause and a flick sound, like a release, and the ball sailed toward the goal. It struck the junk of wood serving as the crossbar, and ricocheted up and wide of the goal.

Graham went in after the ball, his head down, sprinting, and he picked it up at the edge of his stick. Junior read his movements, knew what was coming, and began to trot toward the front of the net.

"Here's Gretzky," Graham said, and spun around the net, stickhandling now from behind the goal. "Out front for Robitaille - " the ball was already gliding along the ground toward Junior's stick. He picked up the pass, feinted a deke on an invisible defensemen, and then snapped off a shot. The orange orb sailed toward goal, cranked the crossbar, and dropped, bouncing once off the pavement, before dribbling across the chalk-drawn goal line.

"Nice pass, Graham," a voice said from behind them. Junior tilted his head up to see Mr. Rose, Graham's dad, standing on their front deck, his elbows propped up and resting on it. But to Junior, Mr. Rose seemed a like a cotton-sewed, button-eyed puppet version of himself. Rose's glasses sat lopsided on his face, and Junior could see a thick bulge of black electrical tape wound around the corners, like he'd been struck in the conk, and they'd fallen off in the process.