My first book of short stories, Walking With Albert, is now published and available. But stories for a second book are beginning to pile up, in the maddening way these stories do.
Here is an example.
There was never enough time. We had to fit it in between piano practice and dinner.
"Hey Norm! Wait for me!"
Stan was the same age as me. Six. A happy kid, short, a bit overweight, but easy to talk to and he made everybody smile. I liked him but he always wanted to talk to me at the wrong time, always when I was in a hurry.
I turned and waited for a moment, Stan was struggling through the snow, his features and signature gait recognisable anywhere. Head slightly to one side, big smile, always a runny nose, shoulders swinging as he walked, a long stride that made him bob up and down.
There had been only about four inches of new snow that day. In school, we watched it come down through the classroom window. It was this snow that Stan was working against. I don't know why, by he always seemed to like sliding one boot through the snow.
"Wait up!"
"Okay, I'm waiting Stan."
On my walk to and from school, something that took about half an hour, I went by Stan's family's house. He lived in a house made of concrete blocks. The house had been built originally by the quarry company. The quarry company blasted limestone, and then crushed some of it to gravel and made some into cement. Stan's father had bought the house during one of the quarry company's crises. My father said the quarry company went through a crisis every couple of years. I knew what a crisis was. It happened when the quarry company couldn't get enough dynamite and had to stop work for a while. I wasn't surprised at this. Dynamite is really hard to make. I tried making some one summer in our back yard. It didn't work. I think it was probably too warm that year.
While Stan was still some distance away, he was talking to me.
"Do you want to have a snowball fight Norm?"
"No. The snow's not packy."
"We could use some warm water."
"No. Too much trouble. Besides I need to do piano practice."
Stan caught up to me and we began walking together. But almost immediately I started pulling ahead of him.
"Not so fast, Norm. I can't keep up."
"That's because you slowed down."
"Did not."
I let Stan catch up to me, then we walked together, but once again I started pulling away.
"I can't wait for you Stan. I need to get home."
"Well... Okay."
We were almost at Stan's house anyway. I waved to Stan and said I'd see him tomorrow.
"Bye Norm!" And Stan waved wildly, as though I was on board the Queen Mary, away off in the distance.
"Bye Stan."
Then I really picked up the pace.
It wasn't dark. It was just that gloomy light coming in during the late afternoon, at the end of January, through a heavily overcast sky. We had already seen a lot of snow that winter, good for road hockey, but not for shovelling the path to the garage, or the drive out to the road. Where we lived, the road was straight and flat, so they never sprinkled sand or salt on it, except for that one time. I wanted to write to the village and complain, ask them to come and collect their sand and salt off the road, because it made the puck do weird things when we played road hockey. But my father wouldn't help write a letter. I asked my mother if he couldn't write very well, if that was the problem.
I always liked winter. Well, all except for one thing. My nose runs a lot, and it ran down onto my upper lip on account of me being told all the time not to sniff. So, I didn't sniff. I just licked my upper lip. But this made my lips wet, and raw, and red. It was something my mother called Chap's lips. I had no idea who Chap was, but he had a lot to answer for.
Usually, I got home from school at about four thirty. I needed to practise piano for at least half an hour. My mother sat with me for the first few minutes of practice, and occasionally she would tell me to slow down. I'm not sure how she worked out what I was doing. It's like this, see. In half an hour, I can strike a lot of notes. I don't really know how many, because I can't play and count at the same time. But it must be more than ten thousand notes. If I play faster, that means I can strike maybe twenty thousand notes in half an hour, so then I should be able to finish my practice after only about fifteen minutes. I was sure of this, because I'm good at arithmetic.
My mother thought there was something wrong with that argument, and I know why. She's not very good at arithmetic. But often she would let me stop after twenty-five minutes.
I had this worked out. The less time I spent at the piano, the more time I had for road hockey. We had to stop playing road hockey at six thirty, because that's when we ate. Every night, at the same time. So, if I hurried home from school, quickly took off my boots, mitts, and coat, and rushed through my piano practice, I could have as much as an hour and ten minutes for road hockey.
Out into the gloom I would go, my hockey stick over my shoulder, two pucks in my pocket. It was often snowing lightly. There was a single streetlight just up the road from our place, and most nights the snow on the road and among the trees along the road would wink and sparkle in the glow from that streetlight.
But the streetlight was perfectly placed. It was midway between our place and Carl's place. Carl and I would meet on the road, and our game would begin.
The snow formed a halo around the streetlight, a sign that somebody up there, somewhere above the clouds, enjoyed our games of road hockey. A bit like a rainbow, I guess. The snow banks on the sides of the road, never less than two or three feet high, were the boards to our rink. We only had one goal, and that was two of Carl's father's old work boots.
Carl was nine years older than me, so he was a big kid. He worked at Archie Black's gas station, where he was a very good mechanic, but he did everything else as well. He stopped being a mechanic when mechanics all had to be licensed, and Carl couldn't pass the test. Archie said there was no way he would get rid of Carl. He worked hard and he understood any kind of machine. I think Carl did a lot of work on cars when nobody was looking.
His blue eyes were what most people talked about. I asked my mother one time why people had this thing about blue eyes. My eyes are pale blue, but Carl's are bright blue. My mother just mumbled something about women.
The thing I think everyone should have noticed about Carl was his hair. It was yellow, but the important thing was that it always looked messed up, even right after he had just combed it. Carl didn't care.
We always started our game the same way. I would start off in the net, and Carl would shoot the puck from about twenty yards out. I managed to stop most of his shots.
After about fifteen minutes of that, the real game would start. Carl was in the net, and I was all the other players. Carl was also the announcer, either Foster Hewitt or Danny Gallivan, two guys that Carl seemed to know but I had never met. As well as being the entire opposing team, I was also the referee.
I looked at Carl. He nodded and began his commentary.
'It's a capacity crowd here tonight in Maple Leaf Gardens. We expect a fast game. Lumley is in goal, banging his stick on the ice, eager to get going.'
The first time I heard Carl say the name Lumley I hadn't any idea what he was talking about. But there was no way I would admit that to him.
"Who's Lumley?" I asked my dad that same evening.
"Lumley? Where did you hear that?"
"From Carl."
"Ah!" my father said smiling. "That's Harry Lumley. Old Apple Cheeks. He was an NHL goalie. Long time ago. One of the best. Carl gets that from his father. Harry Lumley was his father's favourite hockey player."
It was time to start the game. I dropped the puck.
'And we're off', the announcer said. 'The puck is grabbed right away by the Bruins' centre. He's into the Leafs' zone. Tries to move past the defence. Over the blue line. Turns. Moves back in front of the goal.'
In fact, I was still stickhandling my way down the road. Carl was between the two old boots, crouching down, calling the play that he imagined was happening, hockey stick in front of his feet, his gloved left hand raised, ready to snatch the flying puck from the air in the unlikely event that I could lift it more than about a foot. I haven't made any shot yet. I'm dodging make believe defencemen, twisting and weaving, closing in on the net.
'A quick pass to the Bruins' right wing. Ohh! The right wing just avoids a check. There's going to be a penalty here, but the referee waves the play to go on. Along the boards. The right wing goes into the corner. He stickhandles. He twists and turns.'
Carl's commentary really had nothing to do with what was actually happening on the road, but I didn't care. This was road hockey!
'And now a pass along the boards. Behind the net. The Bruins' left wing takes the puck. He's wide open! He fans a shot! Here it is! A wrist shot! Oh, and Lumley makes the save! Harry Lumley. Hangs onto the puck. And the referee calls the play.'
I had been the left wing Bruin in Carl's commentary, and now Carl smiles, passes the puck back to me, I move away down the road again, getting ready for the next play.
'We're ready to start again. The two teams take their places. To the left of Lumley. Behind the Leafs' blue line. Here's the face-off. The Bruins' centre gets the puck right away. He races back and around. Misses a check. Now he's right in front of the Leafs net! He shoots! And Lumley makes the save again.'
This time it was me who made the shot, a real shot, and Carl made the save.
It was pretty much the same every night, although Carl's commentary was always a little bit different.
Except for one detail. Lumley always made the save. Even when I managed to get the puck between the boots and past Carl, Lumley still made the save.
This would go on for as long as I could stay out.
There was drama along the boards.
There were players fighting for the puck in a corner.
There were face-offs.
And Lumley was always there to make the save.
If we were lucky, we could go almost an hour without having to move to one side to let a car past. All the neighbours knew we were out there, me and Carl, having our nightly game of road hockey. When it was snowing heavily, the game became very interesting. The puck would go missing, and I'd have to sweep my stick across the road looking for it, concealed somewhere in a small hillock of snow. On rare occasions, we would need to move off the road completely if the snow plough came along.
On wet days, playing road hockey was less fun because of the slush, but we were out there anyway. On really clear cold nights, we were there as well, the snow squeaking, the squeakiness being distinctive depending on how cold the night was. But the best nights were when there was no wind, it was not wet, not too cold, and a light snow was coming down. Snow flakes would collect on my eyelashes. Carl and I would both laugh. Snow falling past the streetlight would wink and sparkle. Carl's big smile filled the air, and even when it was dark, full night being upon us, we didn't care. We played on.
Occasionally, when I was tired of dodging Leafs defencemen, and Lumley had made hundreds of incredible saves, we would stop for a moment, Carl and me, catch our breath, look at the snow falling out of what seemed an infinite black night. And I liked the way the pine trees held out their huge hands, palms up, and welcomed the falling snow. But then the referee would call for play to resume. I would station myself in the road about twenty feet from Carl. He would bang his stick on the ice. Lumley wanting to get back in the game.
At some point, every evening, when it was almost time for me to stop and come in for dinner, I knew my father would come and stand at the edge of our house and watch us play. I think he also liked Carl's running commentary, because every once in a while I would hear his soft chuckle as Carl uttered his loud, admiring, and victorious declaration that Lumley, our hero, the invisible third guy who was always present at our games, had made another impossible save.
But then I would have to go in for dinner. Carl would collect the boots, our goal posts, wave at my father, and sing out his cheerful 'Bye', before heading home.
I'm standing out in the road again. But it's not the same now. Partly because it's the middle of summer. Partly because I'm now in my mid-forties, and I haven't played road hockey here with Carl for more than thirty years. Partly because my parents moved into town a few years ago to live closer to me, my wife Claire, and our three kids, now teenagers, soon to move out.
Carl doesn't live here anymore either. After his parents died, he moved to Lindsay and now operates his own taxi company. But the big pine trees are still there. There are more and better streetlights now, and there's still a streetlight there, just above where we placed the old boots, where I took the shots on goal, where Carl broadcast the commentary, and where Lumley made all the saves.
I kept the two pucks we used to play with. They're a bit nicked and battered now, but I still look at them occasionally.
I never met Harry Lumley. He stopped playing hockey before I was born. But I can still remember the cry that enlivened so many evenings for Carl and me:
"Oh! And Lumley makes the save!"