Boston is Funny...

Charlie Wrigley wrote this in the early morning:

I’ve stated before, that I write for www.thephatphree.com (check it out sometime - they have 5 new articles updated Monday - Friday) Occasionally an article I write gets rejected by the editor… And here is one.

Now I realize that it was rejected for a good reason, and posting it here might be in poor form, but who cares?

The premise is “the Weekend Warrior” which is a series of articles depicting the guy who is quite a sad little milquetoast man, whose weekend sporting activities never go quite as imagined…

It’s long, but if you’re having a slow day, it’s not a bad read…

The Weekend Warrior: Pond Hockey

The chilled air rolls down from Canada slowly this year, but it’s here. This pond left by glaciers millions of years ago, once again, is frozen in time allowing man to walk on water, if only for a few months.

Meanwhile, in a run-down Dutch Colonial near the lake, a man squeaks down the stairs into his cold musty basement. Not just any man… a Warrior. He hastily pushes aside a rusty can brimming with bolts and nails. He reaches his meaty paw for the pegboard where the skates hang.

“Come here, steely dans,” summons the Warrior.

Bauer’s latest model may be 8000, but these are just plain old Bauer. He holds the skates and looks down at them. The name “Dan” is written on the inside tongue of each skate in permanant black marker. He smirks at his clever allusion to the jazzy rock band from way back when.

Just then the Warrior is hit with a realization, and needs to sit. He sees a bit of himself in these skates: worn and leathery, chipped and nicked. Full of character, but with an edge that was lost long ago.

“Edges can be sharpened,” he whispers.

A salty tear of lost opportunity culminates from a thirty-eight year drought. Before he can realize it, the teardrop emancipates from the corner of his eye and slowly climbs the slope of his fleshy cheek like a roller coaster. The drop picks up enough momentum at the apex of the slope to go airborne. Falling fast, the wet drop makes an audible splat on his recently acquired diver’s watch paid for in Marlboro Miles.

He snaps out of his trance.

He looks up at a pipe in the cellar rafter. “Must be a leak” he denies himself. “Old Goddamn pipes.”

Without missing a beat he begins to lace up.

Before he stands up, the Warrior sheaths his blades with white plastic skate guards. He’s ready to roll, but not before slipping into his red and black flannel that smells of stale schwag: a flannel he bought around the time of the debut of Pearl Jam’s Vitalogy; in fact, it may have come free with the band’s concept album.

“Can’t Find a Better Man, is fucking right” the Weekend Warrior demands of his reflection in the mirror with all the bravada he can muster, fooling neither himself nor his reflection.

His new lumber, nicknamed Betsy, is a white Koho stick, with a curved blade so fierce it would be illegal in any organized game, but the pond game is anything but organized.

“You got any assists in you today Betsy?” The Warrior’s got a penchant for personification, but even is his rich imagination does not demand goals from his trusty stick. Today the Warrior is about under-promising and over-delivering.

He grabs Betsy and heads for the door, ungloved and unmasked, skate guards clanking all the way down his dead end street to the path that leads to the pond. He takes his time, pondering strategy.

So deep in thought, he doesn’t even hear one of the neighborhood kids tease, “Nice fucking skates, Messier!”

Maybe he did hear. Regardless he drives on to the pond taking off the skate guards at the ice’s edge. The Warrior hops on to the ice “on the fly” and sprints to center ice pulling up for a hockey stop that sprays snow up to Jimmy’s knee.

“Hey Jimmy, sup?”

“What’s up dude? Nice Koho,” Jimmy replies unfazed by the ice shavings on his snow pants.

“Thanks, man.”

“White Koho,” Jimmy repeats as if he’s trying to commit it to memory.

Jimmy calls the rest of the guys over to pick the teams. Jimmy always picks the teams. The sticks go in the middle and Jimmy separates the sticks randomly. If the teams are unbalanced, trades could technically be negotiated, but it has never happened. To do so would be an admission of cowardice. This is not the stuff of which hockey players are made.

The teams look fair. The other team may have an edge in speed and in youth and in talent, but the Warrior’s squad more than makes up for it in experience.

“It’s funny, Jimmy. I can’t remember us ever being on the same team.”

“Yeah, that is funny,” Jimmy deadpans.

The man-made rink is as symmetrical as God would allow, a perfect oval inlet. The nets are made up of a pair of sneakers on each side separated by a couple feet. In back of each net is frozen earth about a foot higher than the water level which serves as a convenient backstop. This is ideal for the Warrior’s powerful-enough slap-shot that does not dare defy gravity and leave the ice.

The puck is dropped at center ice and the game begins.

Defense wins games, and that’s what the Warriors job is. He never lets anyone from the opposing team behind him. If there is a floater near his net waiting for a rebound, his job is to make sure that floater’s stick never touches the ice. He executes his defensive play flawlessly.

Unfortunately, his offensive play is not as grand. the Warrior’s first pass is a dire mistake. A weak pass in front of his own net, which is intercepted and is put in for an easy goal.

One of his forwards scolds, “Jesus Christ! Never pass the puck right in front of the net like that! You’re fucking lucky we aren’t playing soccer in Colombia, you fat fuck.”

Maybe I just won’t pass again at all, he thinks, starting to pity himself. How did it go so wrong so fast?

Ten solid minutes of uninterupted play passes, and the Warrior doesn’t touch the puck, because he doesn’t deserve to touch the puck. And then it happens. The Weekend Warrior sees a window for redemption.

Their sure-handed defensemen, known only as Lefty, rushes the puck on the right side. As Lefty moves forward, the puck does not. Our hero sees his chance to capitalize on the mistake. Betsy grabs the puck instinctively. The Warrior sees there is no one in between him and the goal. He picks up speed and remains calm. Still, no one has seen what has happened; the lane is clear. He pushes with all his the strength left in his neglected muscles. His left blade, rusty and dull as it is, catches a small stone frozen in the ice. He tries to balance himself in vain. As he falls backwards the Warrior looks, eyes open, to the sky for help.

Betsy breaks his fall only for a moment but is snapped in two like a string bean because of the tension and the inertia and the sheer awesome weight of the Warrior. Not only the weight of his mass made up mostly of muscle wrapped in a thick protective layer of blubber like our mammal friends of the aquatic deep, but also the weight of the world; the weight of the common man. The weight of a Warrior. He lands on the unforgiving ice tailbone first, then bounces hard and lands on the back of his head.

He feels the hair on the back of his head getting warm and wet.

A flash of whiteness, and the Warrior is back on his feet. He skates gracefully towards the goal. Except now, there are three defenders. He shoulder fakes left and goes right to avoid the first one. He spins 360 while putting the puck through the second’s legs. A final bob and weave and the third is toast. A clear shot to the net, he winds up and takes a slapper that rises two feet off the ice and rising… through the goal posts, and keeps going and rising up to the heavens until it is completely out of sight.

the Warrior slowly opens his eyes. The room is white. Jimmy is there.

“…Am I in Heaven, Jimmy?”

“No dude, you’re at the hospital.”

“Oh… Did my team win?”

“No dude, we were killing you guys, and then I had to drive you here, because of your head. You were unconsious and bleeding. The outside of my car is covered in lots of your blood.”

“I’m sorry Jimmy… Wait… The outside?”

“Yeah. I stuck your head out the window, so you wouldn’t bleed all over the leather.”

Final stats

W-L: 0-1
Score: 7-3
Goals: 0
Shots on Net: 0
Assists: 1
Concussions: 1
Stitches: 32
Broken Tailbone: 1

Filed under: Today in Boston

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