The Winners, page 31
Being one of those men down on the ice. Not one of the powerless men in the stands, the ones who could only shout and hope, but one of the ones who could really change things. Someone who could fight and bleed and win or lose everything. The handsome man lay beside him and gently touched the tattoo of the bear on Benji’s arm. “Have you ever seen a real bear?” he asked. Benji rolled over and kissed him. The next morning the man woke up and the boat was empty.
“BENJI!” an angry voice shouts across the parking lot.
Benji carries on walking.
“BENJI!” the voice roars again, and his name feels like gunshot pellets on the back of his neck.
He stops like a rat trapped in a corner, turns around, ready for anything. The men in black jackets have left the gate and are walking straight toward him. He has been loved by them but he’s also been hated, the way only someone who has been loved can be, when they found out about all his secrets. Once he symbolized everything they wanted Beartown to be: everyone feared him and he feared no one. He was just a boy then, but he was their man on the ice. Their warrior. Theirs. The roar that can rise up from a stand full of men in black jackets when you’re full of adrenaline and throwing yourself at the Plexiglas is something Benji has never felt anywhere else, because it doesn’t exist anywhere else. How many times has he wished that he could have stayed there? That the truth had never come out? Warriors are supposed to love other men, not fall in love with them. Benji thought he had experienced every sort of silence on the planet until the first time he walked into a room full of men making jokes about fags and everyone fell silent when they caught sight of him. He thought he had experienced every sort of hate until Hed supporters started throwing dildos onto the ice when he was playing and he could see in the eyes of Beartown’s most devoted supporters that he had shamed them. They hated him for that, he doesn’t blame them, he understands that they have never been able to forgive him. “You’re one of us,” that may have been the last thing Teemu said to him two years ago, but what does that mean now? Nothing. Benji was still a hockey player then, they still had some use for him, he was special. Now he’s no one at all. He should never have come home.
“BENJI!” Spider bellows, the craziest of all of them, not as a request but as an order to stand still.
Benji doesn’t move. He just lets the men approach. The first raises his hands, then the second, it happens so horribly fast and hurts so horribly much when they hug him, because his body is still covered with bruises from when he got beaten up at the airport.
“How the hell ARE you? Damn it’s good to have you home! Shit, you’re thin, are you anorexic now, you bastard?” Spider exclaims, and the other men deluge him with insults that are actually compliments because that’s their only way of communicating, apart from compliments that are actually insults.
Then they talk about the elk hunt. About cars and rifles. The weather. Benji is still half expecting to be hit, but when it doesn’t happen his shoulders eventually relax and he says quietly:
“I… I’m sorry…”
He nods toward the churchyard, but Spider just laughs.
“Are you going to cry now? Do you think Ramona would have let you do that? She’d have beaten your skinny ass to splinters and then lit the fire with them until the whole town stank of ass!”
But there’s incalculable loss in his eyes, in all the men’s eyes. The skin of their faces is swollen with alcohol, drowned inside to stop them drowning in tears outside. They belonged to Ramona, she belonged to them, most of them were closer to the old bag than their own parents. So even humor isn’t a defense now, it’s an act of defiance, you’re not getting us, bastard grief. One of the men’s girlfriends is calling from behind the cars that she needs help carrying chairs, because the church is going to be full, so the men go off at once, still talking to Benji as if it’s obvious that he’s going with them. So he does. They talk about hockey but no one talks about Benji and hockey, no one asks if he’s going to play again, someone mentions that the council wants to try to merge the clubs, and Spider replies that “they’re welcome to try, and we won’t need any extra chairs at their funerals!” At that, the girlfriend kicks her boyfriend’s shin to get him to kick Spider. When Spider exclaims: “What did I say wrong NOW?,” the girlfriend hisses: “Just remember who you’re talking to, because we’re in a goddamn church!” And of course Spider retorts with a grin: “Don’t swear in church, Maddy!” Oh, how they laugh, all of them, Benji included. They carry more chairs into the church and discuss girls and snow scooters and none of the men in black jackets probably really know what they’re doing, but there and then they give Benji the very finest gift you can give someone who always used to be special: they treat him as if he isn’t special at all.
48 Thieves
Early on Sunday morning one fireman phones another fireman to ask for a favor. Bengt is at one end, Johnny at the other, the latter is still upset about the fight at the ice rink but his considerably older boss counsels calm:
“They’re cut up about that Ramona’s funeral. How would you feel? Let it lie for a few days. There are decent, sensible people over in Beartown too, give them a chance to talk some sense into the worst idiots and we’ll see how everything looks before you grab a baseball bat and go over there looking for trouble.”
Reluctantly, Johnny promises to do as he says. Then they talk about the elk hunt, almost all the firemen will miss it this year because their work clearing up after the storm doesn’t leave room for anyone to take any time off. “Just what we need right now,” Bengt laughs. “A load of restless idiots with fresh ammunition and nothing to shoot at!”
“I’ll talk to the guys again, calm them down as best I can,” Johnny promises.
“Good, good, how are Hannah and the kids taking it all?”
“The kids got home and were angry about everyone in Beartown, but Hannah was mostly angry with me. How it’s supposed to be my fault, God only knows, but that’s nothing unusual.”
Bengt laughs so hard he starts to cough.
“Sounds like my wife. Every morning I wake up and I’m already on minus points with her. If I do everything right all day I might get back to zero, at the very most. And the next morning I wake back on bloody minus points just the same. Speaking about the wife, can I ask you for a favor?”
“Didn’t you just ask for one?” Johnny points out.
“Yes, yes, but my leg’s in plaster and I can’t drive, and the wife’s winter tires have arrived. Could you pick them up for me?”
“Sure. Where from?”
“From the trash bandits.”
“The trash bandits?” Johnny repeats skeptically. He hasn’t been to the scrapyard since the new owner took over, but naturally his colleagues at the station have talked about it a lot. “I wouldn’t open my mouth there if I had gold fillings because you’d lose them before your tongue even noticed,” was how one of his colleagues summarized his feelings, but Bengt replies calmly:
“Cheap tires. Nothing wrong with that.”
“Do you want me to get a receipt?” Johnny smiles.
“Probably best NOT to!” Bengt laughs.
But Johnny promises to pick them up. He drives the van through Hed and stops at the scrapyard below the mountain. It’s more a hill than a mountain, to be honest, but once things have been given a label in Hed it’s hard to change. He gets out of the van without locking the door, his cell phone’s lying on the passenger seat and a fat man in a leather jacket standing a couple of yards away smiles thoughtfully:
“You’re not going to lock your car, yes?”
Johnny raises his eyebrows.
“Why should I?”
The man doesn’t take his eyes off him, still smiling, almost expectantly.
“Most people lock their cars here. There are rumors that we’re thieves, haven’t you heard? Maybe someone will take your phone, yes?”
Johnny looks into the car, then looks around the scrapyard, looks back at the man again, and replies calmly:
“Tell one of your guys to try and we’ll see what happens.”
The man bursts into a long, hearty chuckle and holds out his hand.
“Lev.”
“Johnny,” Johnny replies, shaking it hard.
Lev nods at the T-shirt under Johnny’s jacket, with the badge of the fire brigade on the chest.
“Fireman, yes? Not afraid of fire, not afraid of thieves, what can I do for you?”
“I’m here to pick up some tires for my boss,” Johnny replies.
“Bengt, yes? Very good. We’ll fetch. How is his leg?”
“Thanks… good, he’s doing well,” Johnny replies, a little surprised.
Lev holds the palms of his hands up.
“People talk, yes? We heard about the accident. Hope he… how do you say? Gets himself better, yes? Anything else?”
Johnny squirms, takes a deep breath, and gestures toward the van:
“This isn’t running the way it should. The wife’s complaining. Could you take a look and see if you have any replacement parts?”
He doesn’t say he needs help fixing it, he still needs to feel that he can fix something himself, but he might as well buy replacement parts while he’s here. Lev appears to evaluate him and the van for a while before he says:
“My mechanic will look. Takes half an hour. You drink coffee, yes?”
Johnny nods. Everyone drinks coffee, surely? Lev leads him away from the scrapyard toward a small house nearby, then goes into the kitchen and switches the coffee machine on. Johnny steps warily in after him, there’s hardly any furniture, Lev has been living here for several months but it still looks like it’s occupied by someone ready to leave at a moment’s notice.
Johnny takes the mug Lev hands him. He feels he should make small talk but doesn’t know where to begin. So he does what he usually does, looks around to find something he can use to change the subject, looks out of the window at the little yard at the back and exclaims:
“What happened there?”
There are several sections missing from the fence, and even if a bit of snow has fallen, the yard is clearly covered with muddy tire tracks. Lev puts so many lumps of sugar in his coffee that Johnny can’t help thinking it will soon be more of a dessert than a drink, then he replies:
“Teemu Rinnius. ‘The Pack.’ You know them, yes?”
Johnny nods, suspicious but curious.
“Of course.”
“Teemu wanted to give me a message. I don’t think he likes telephones. So he left me a… what do you call them? A hearse!”
Lev gestures pointedly toward the destruction in the yard. Johnny peers at him.
“A hearse? The Pack did that? What the hell had you done to them?”
Lev shrugs his shoulders in resignation.
“Business with Ramona.”
“The woman who died?”
“Yes, yes. She owed me money, yes? So I said I would buy the Bearskin pub in place of the debt. This was Teemu’s response.”
“Buy the Bearskin? You said that to Teemu?” Johnny laughs, because he would have paid good money to see the look on the idiot’s face when that was proposed.
“No, no. I was… how do you say. A diplomat, yes? I went to Peter Andersson.”
“Oh,” Johnny mutters, his tone of voice giving away what he feels about that name.
“You’re friends?” Lev wonders with an uncertain smile.
“We used to play hockey against each other when we were younger.”
“Yes? Before he played in the NHL?”
Johnny drinks his coffee and licks his lips in an attempt to prevent the bitterness from seeping out, but it doesn’t go very well:
“Long before that. We were only teenagers, I was never as good as him. Have you contacted the police about what Teemu did?”
The tip of Lev’s nose moves sadly from side to side.
“The police? No, no, police and lawyers, they don’t work for people like me. They work for people like Peter Andersson. I went to him, like a man, he and Teemu responded with the hearse.”
Johnny looks out through the window, having some difficulty imagining that Peter Andersson, whatever else he might think of him, could be behind something like this. But people change, and these are strange times, in both towns.
“We used to call Peter ‘Jesus’ when we played Beartown, because everyone there thought he was the savior of the whole world. Always a bit better, a bit fancier than the rest of us. What are you going to do to him and Teemu now, then?”
Johnny regrets everything he’s just said, but particularly that last question. Lev puts another sugar lump on his tongue before saying:
“Nothing.”
Naturally, Johnny doesn’t believe him. They finish their coffee in silence, Lev needs a spoon to get the last of it out of his mug. One of the men from the yard comes and knocks on the door, explains what’s wrong with the van without Johnny really understanding, but without him quite being able to admit that.
“Bengt’s tires are in the back. And reserve parts for you, yes?” Lev translates.
“What do I owe you?” Johnny wonders.
“For a fireman? Nothing! Not worth mentioning!” Lev replies calmly with a smile, and once again Johnny has no idea if he means that the replacement parts aren’t worth mentioning, or if what Johnny now owes him isn’t worth mentioning.
“You should call the police,” Johnny says, nodding toward the yard, mostly because he doesn’t know what else to say.
“No worries. I’ve lived in a Hed and a Beartown many times, yes?” Lev replies.
Johnny scratches his head.
“How do you mean?”
Lev smiles benevolently and looks for the right words.
“I’ve lived in towns like yours before. In many countries. People around here seem to believe that all immigrants are born in big cities, yes? But I was born in a Hed. I’m a forest person, like you. There’s a Teemu everywhere. A Pack everywhere. They want to say to us: ‘We’re in charge. You must obey. You must back down.’ Yes?”
“And you’re going to?” Johnny wonders, sounding more curious than he’s really happy about.
Lev tilts his head a little to one side.
“You have a saying here: ‘The only time I back away is when I’m taking speed!’ Yes?”
“ ‘The only time I back away is when I’m taking aim,’ ” Johnny corrects with a slight smile.
“Exactly. Exactly!” Lev nods.
He holds out his hand. Johnny shakes it. Lev keeps hold of it a few moments longer than necessary and looks him in the eye.
“If there’s a fire, I’ll call you, okay?”
“Absolutely, if there’s a fire, call me,” Johnny laughs.
“And if you need me, you call me, okay? What do you call it? ‘Being neighborly,’ yes?” Lev goes on, without breaking eye contact.
Johnny ought to be wary, he knows that, but instead he nods emphatically. As he walks away, he finds himself hoping really, really badly that Teemu Rinnius and Peter Andersson and all the other bastards over in Beartown have finally picked a fight with someone more dangerous than they can handle.
He drives the van to Bengt’s and unloads the tires, then he goes home and lies to Hannah about where he bought the replacement parts. Otherwise there’d be a hell of a fuss about that as well.
49 Secret smokers
“Marriage.”
* * *
There ought to be a different word for it once you’ve been married for enough years. When you’ve long since passed the point where it stopped feeling like a choice. I no longer choose you every morning, that was a beautiful thing we said on our wedding day, I just can’t imagine life without you now. We aren’t freshly blooming flowers, we’re two trees with intertwined roots, you’ve grown old within me.
When you’re young you believe that love is infatuation, but infatuation is simple, any child can become infatuated, fall in love. But real love? Love is a job for an adult. Love demands a whole person, all the best of you, all the worst. It has nothing to do with romance, because the hard part of a marriage isn’t that I have to live seeing all your faults, but that you have to live with me seeing them. That I know everything about you now. Most people aren’t brave enough to live without secrets. Everyone dreams about being invisible sometimes, no one dreams of being transparent.
Marriage? There ought to be a different word for it after a while. Because there’s no such thing as “eternal infatuation,” only love lasts that long, and it’s never simple. It requires a whole person, everything you have. The whole lot.
The children are making their own way to the funeral today, so the parents are on their own at home with everything they can’t talk about. Kira is standing outside the bedroom door, not daring to breathe, because Peter is sitting on the bed in there trying to knot his black tie and crying. She backs away all the way to the staircase, then pretends she’s just come upstairs and calls: “Do you want coffee, darling?” And he has time to wipe his tears and clear his throat and call back: “Yes, thanks, darling, I’ll be right down!”
He comes down the stairs, his tie slightly too long, she isn’t standing in his way and he walks past her as usual, but suddenly they bump into each other anyway. Her fingers find him and she buttons his jacket to pretend that they’re not just looking for intimacy. He stops, almost dizzy, and they look past each other because if they look each other in the eye right now they would probably both crumble. It’s been so long since they touched each other that her fingertips are enough, they’re like electric shocks to him, she dares not rest the palms of her hands on his chest. Dear Lord, how close you have to be to giving up each other to remember to fight for each other.
