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“Of course it doesn't work when your girlfriend tells you she's taking an internship two hundred and fifty miles away.”

“Do we have to go through this again?”

“Yes.”

We spent the next half hour running the same familiar laps around the same well-worn track; arguing about her decision to pass up an internship in Boston, which I said would be perfect for us, to take one in Vermont, which she said would be perfect for her, or at least perfect for her career. “We'll have all of July and August and most of June together,” she said.

“Great. What do we do for the other two hundred and eighty days?”

We weren't getting anywhere until Faith asked the only question that counted. “Do you think we should break this off?”

“No. Do you?”

“No.” Then she smiled and said. “This puttanesca stuff making you horny?”

“No.”

“Me neither.”

We skipped sex and went to sleep, each clinging to opposite edges of the king-sized bed, our bodies silhouetted like two mountain ranges, a cold desert of sheets and blankets stretching between us—the demilitarized zone.

Meanwhile, a rising northeast wind brought in moisture from the Atlantic and turned a flurry into a near blizzard.

Sidewalk plows were pushing aside a foot of heavy wet snow when I left for practice the next morning. I couldn't find an empty cab and the streets were too snowy to drive on so I walked to the Garden.

When I got to the dressing room Luther and Flipside were in the process of ranking the months of the year. They disagreed on all of them except March. They ranked March last and not only because of the weather. For a hockey player one of the worst things about March is the NHL trade deadline. A lot of guys are on edge until that day comes and goes. The delays in my contract talks made me wonder if I should be worried. Faith going to Vermont would be a home-baked cherry pie compared to my being dealt to L.A. or Vancouver.

“You're not going anywhere. Hattigan's just dicking you around so he can stay way under the salary cap,” Cam said. “Starting goalies don't get traded. If the Hatter deals anyone it'll be Quig.”

“You talked to Kev?” I asked.

“Tried to but you know Kev. He's always got somewhere to go, something to do. He won't even admit his game's fading faster than AM radio.”

“So what do we do?”

“Go with Plan B,” Cam said.

Before I could ask what Plan B was, Packy stopped by to tell me the team wouldn't be taking me to Buffalo but that he planned to start me three days later at home against Philly assuming I was free of all concussion symptoms.

“Philly,” Cam said and laughed. “Nice way to ease back into things. At least you know where Serge Balon's first shot is going.”

“Right at my melon,” I said. “At least he won't score if he hits me on the head.”

“Goalies have strange priorities,” Cam said.

*   *   *

We lost 4–3 to Buffalo with Rinky in net. Watching the game on TV, I noticed how quickly Rinky recovers. He'll drop down into his butterfly and in a fraction of a second be back up on his skates. Lately I've noticed that it takes me longer to recover, especially late in a game when my legs are tired. I hope no one else has noticed it. Maybe I can lose some weight, work on my leg strength in the off-season and be as quick as I used to be. Or maybe I'm kidding myself and it's little things like this that begin that final slide. In most businesses people get better as they age. But not in pro sports. The life cycle of a player is from hopeful rookie to dependable starter to aging-but-wily veteran to a beaten-up guy just trying to hold on for one more payday. It's always ugly at the end.

The loss to Buffalo dropped us into a third-place tie with Ottawa in our division. The way the playoffs work is that the three divisional champions in our conference—the Eastern Conference—are automatically seeded first, second, and third for the playoffs. The next five teams with the best won-lost records—no matter which division they come from—are seeded four through eight. The top four seeds get home-ice advantage for the first round. By early March we were nine points behind Montreal. Possibly too much ground to make up in the last month of the season. But if we finished a strong second in our division we might get the number-four seed and home ice.

I had two good days of practice before our Saturday-night game against Philly. Sure enough Serge “the Weasel” Balon launched a missile at my head on his first shift. I caught it. “Makin' sure you haven't lost your nerve, JP,” Serge said as he skated past the cage before the face-off.

“Hey, Serge, the idea is to
miss
the goalie,” I said.

Serge is always a pain in the ass but that night had me wishing the NHL called penalties for criminal mischief. In the course of the first two periods, Balon slashed Taki, tripped Gaston, and ran Rex Conway into the Philly bench, where three Flyers punched him before he extricated himself.

The game was 1–1 after two periods. Packy gave us a few minutes to settle down before he came into the dressing room. “Enough's enough, Quig. You got to send a message to Balon, you know what I'm saying? The refs aren't doing it,” Packy said.

Quig nodded and took a swig of Gatorade, probably so he wouldn't have to say anything.

The Flyers scored on their second shift to make it 2–1. When Philly put Balon's line on the ice right after the goal, Packy countered by sending Quigley's line over the boards. I figured the fight would start right after the face-off. But Kevin went up and down his wing like a toy player in a tabletop hockey game. To make it worse, Quig coughed up the puck to Balon, who came flying into our zone and was lining up a shot when Cam hit him and—as Cam's father later described it—“put the goddamn Weasel on Queer Street.” Cam's hit brought the crowd to its feet but didn't save the game. We lost 4–1 to drop into fourth place in the division. We'd be lucky to make the playoffs.

Packy called Quig to a closed-door meeting in the coach's office after the game. When Kev came out he changed into his street clothes, went straight to the Family Room, picked up Nan O'Brien, and took off. He left without talking to any of us.

“That's it. I've had it,” Cam said.

*   *   *

We had two days of practice before we headed for Montreal. Sunday was just a light skate. Cam had the day off because he'd been playing about thirty-two minutes per game. Monday was a different story. That was the day Cam unveiled Plan B.

We skated through a few passing drills and worked on the power play before Packy decided he wanted to finish practice with a twenty-minute scrimmage—first and third lines and defense pairings against second and fourth lines and defense pairings. That matched Cam, a right defenseman, against Quigley, the left wing on our second line. Normally our late-season scrimmages feature less contact than the Ladies Auxiliary Square Dance and Strawberry Festival, so I thought it was odd that when Quigley carried the puck into the corner to my right Cam unloaded on him. Splattered him into the boards. Play moved up ice before Quigley regained his feet and skated out of the zone.

“Can't leave it there, Kev!” I yelled just in case he needed a reminder that a hit like Cam's—even in practice, even from a friend—has to be repaid. The hockey checkbook has to balance. I was also thinking that it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if we had what the writers call “a spirited scrimmage.” Sometimes that can jump-start a team or, in Kevin's case, a player. But when Cam had the puck in the corner with Kevin coming in on the forecheck, Kev just tried to play the puck. He never bodychecked Cam. As Cam and Quig fought for the puck along the boards—working their sticks like a couple of kayakers—two other players moved in, creating a rugbylike scrum. Packy blew the whistle to restart play. As the scrum broke up Cam gave Kevin a face wash. That's where a guy rubs the sweaty palm of his glove in your face. It's not exactly a punch so refs rarely call it, but it's annoying, and demeaning to the recipient. A face wash has been the preface to some memorable scraps. But Quig ducked away and started skating into position for the face-off. Cam skated after him and cross-checked him across the back of the shoulder pads. “What the fuck's the mattah with you?” Quigley said, turning to face Cam.

Cam didn't answer. Instead, holding his stick in both hands, he kept cross-checking Kevin. Once. Twice. Three times. Kev tried to spin away and head back toward the face-off circle but Cam kept after him.

“Let it go,” Packy said as Flipside reached out to grab Cam.

With that, Cam dropped his stick and gloves in hockey's most inescapable challenge. For a moment Quigley stood there. “There's no way out, Kev,” I heard Cam say. That's when Quigley dropped his stick and gloves and two of the best heavyweights in the league began circling like a couple of boxers. Even the janitors in the stadium stopped sweeping and leaned on their brooms to watch. Cam, a left-handed puncher, used a right jab to keep Quig away, then landed two looping lefts to the right side of Quigley's head, cutting his hand on Quig's helmet with the second punch. I don't know if it was the hits to his head or the sight of blood but Quigley went postal. He rushed Cam, grabbing him by the shoulder pads and hammering him against the glass, where Quig unleashed a flurry of punches to Cam's midsection. When Cam doubled over, Quig threw a right uppercut that caught Cam in the face, sending him slumping to the ice, blood gushing from his nose and trickling from his mouth. If it had been a professional boxing match the ref or doctor would have stopped it. I guess all of us thought Kevin, the clear winner, would stop, which is why no one moved in the split second it took Quig to rip off Cam's helmet. Cam's bare head was propped up only by the boards. I couldn't believe it when I saw Quig draw back his right arm for a kill shot. As Quig brought his fist down toward Cam's unprotected temple I reacted the only way I could. I caught the punch. Stuck out my catch glove and grabbed Quig's fist inches before it crashed into Cam's head. It was the biggest save of my life.

Quig glared at me. For a second or two I thought he might come after me. Then Quig looked at Cam. Kev started to say something but whatever it was got choked off by the same kind of heaving sobs I'd heard when I walked into the wrong room at our Christmas party and found Quig crying on Nan O'Brien's shoulder. It wasn't even ordinary crying as much as an anguished twisted cry rising from the bottom of a personal hell. “Fucking liahs … fucking liahs … all of them,” Quig cried.

“That's it, guys. Off the ice. Let's go,” Packy said, breaking up the huddle around Quig. A few of the Black Aces went to the opposite end of the ice for some so-called extra practice (I think they mainly do that to try to impress the coaches) but Packy ordered them off the ice too. There was just Cam sitting against the boards and bleeding a river, Quigley doubled over on the ice, and me standing there not knowing what to do.

“Who's a liar, Kev?” I asked.

“All of them … my phony fucking parents … couldn't tell me the truth … and my give-up mothah; loved me so much she gives me away … cop stepfathah beats me up about once a week till I coldcock him,” Quigley said, blowing his nose into his hand, then wiping it on his practice shirt. He looked over at Cam: “Jesus, Cam, I'm sorry—”

Cam cut him off. “Never mind the scrap. I started it. Tell me who lied about what.”

What came out in the next few minutes, as Quigley regained emotional control, was a story of rejection and deceit. Kevin Quigley was adopted and never told about it. He'd been given up at birth by his unmarried mother and adopted into a family that told him he was theirs.

“It's typical old-time Irish,” Quig said. “Never talk about anything. Pretend everything's OK. My own mothah puts me on waivahs and I have to find out twenty-three years latah from a social workah.”

“Now you have the chance to deal with it,” Cam said.

“Yeah. The truth will set you free. But it'll beat the shit out of you before it does,” Quig said.

Quig started apologizing again for the fight when Leadfoot Larry Jankowski yelled at us: “Let's go, guys, got to resurface. We got
Sesame Street on Ice
tonight.” Leadfoot Larry drives the Zamboni as though he thinks it's a tank and he's George Patton. Hockey players and Zamboni drivers are natural enemies. It was a Zamboni driver, not a psychiatrist, who invented the fifty-minute hour. When we were kids our team would pay for an hour of ice rental but at ten minutes before the hour the corner doors swung open and out would roar the Zamboni with the driver screaming, “You little bastids get off the ice. We got the high school on next.” That doesn't happen in the NHL but we players still harbor simmering residual dislike for Zamboni drivers.

Leadfoot came straight up the boards, blipping the throttle as he drove right at the three of us. Quig and I could have skated out of the way but Cam, still bleeding, was using the dasher board to hoist himself to his feet as Leadfoot gunned the Zamboni toward him. Quigley went crazy again. Only this time he was the Kevin Quigley we'd known and trusted. Kev charged the Zamboni and hauled Leadfoot off of his perch. The machine stopped and stalled. But Quig was just getting started. He grabbed the flailing Leadfoot by the collar of his nylon jacket and the belt on his denim work pants. “Curling's a great sport, Larry, you fucking arrogant moron. You like curling, Larry? Curling's where you take this big dumbass stone and throw it down the ice.… Like this…,” said Quig, using two hands to send the skateless Jankowski skimming across the Garden ice and into the middle of the spoked B, our center-ice logo. “Stay there till we're off the ice, Janko. Don't go near this fuckin' machine!” Quig shouted as he pulled the ignition key from the Zamboni and threw it into a corner of the rink from which a slip-sliding Jankowski would have to retrieve it.