Chapter 3 Avi
The press conference is eleven minutes long. At least that’s all I watch on my phone, as I am sitting on the kitchen floor with my back against the cabinets. I was making coffee when the notification popped up, and I never got back to standing.
Alex Grayson is younger than I expected. Forty, give or take, in a suit that fits well and with the posture of someone who knows cameras are on him. He talks about the franchise with measured enthusiasm. Vision. Culture. Foundation.
Then a reporter asks about me.
"Antero Ikonen was at the top of our board from day one." Grayson doesn't hesitate. "This isn't a consolation pick. This is the player we wanted to build around."
The coach speaks next. Pierre Boudreaux, who played fourteen years in the NHL and looks like he still could. A reporter follows up with something about the challenges of an expansion roster, and Boudreaux cuts him off.
"Most expansion teams don't have Antero Ikonen. We do. Next question."
I close the video. Open it again. Watch that part a second time.
Top of our board from day one.
Either it's true or it isn't. It's a smart thing to say to the press about a player you just acquired who found out from a reporter that he'd been thrown away. Good optics. Make the new guy feel valued. Standard operating procedure.
I stop the video and rise to make the coffee I came into the kitchen for. French press. Four minutes. I count them.
The rest of the afternoon is nothing. I sit on the couch.
Eat dinner. Pick up a book and put it down three times without reading a page.
The box on the floor still has one book in it.
The apartment is still half mine and half the ghost of the person I was yesterday, and I'm not sure which half weighs more.
My phone buzzes late in the afternoon. Unknown number.
Hey, this is Ryan Asher. Got your number from Brennan. Hope that's cool. I'm thinking about signing with Atlanta and wanted to talk. Cool if I call?
I know who Ryan Asher is. Most people in the league do.
Center, San Francisco, good hands, better instincts.
One of those players who shows up in highlight packages not for his own goals but for the assists, the no-look passes, the way he makes the guy next to him look like a genius.
I've watched him play. I've never spoken to him.
The message is too long for what it's saying, over-punctuated and oddly formal for a guy with a reputation for being the most casual person in any room.
I should not respond. Instead, I should call Laura and ask her what Atlanta's roster plans are.
Approach this like the professional transaction it is.
Fine. Go ahead.
The phone rings nine seconds later.
"Ikonen, hey. Ryan Asher. Ash. People call me Ash. You can call me whatever." He rushes all of that out in one breath. Not quite nervous, but close. "Thanks for picking up. I know this is, uh. A lot. The whole expansion thing."
"It is."
"Yeah. So I've been making some calls, trying to get a feel for the roster, who's going to be there. And Brennan. We played with each other for years, and he said..." A pause. "He said you were the real deal and I should call you."
"Brennan said that." Brennan. Always having my back.
"His exact words were 'Ikonen doesn't talk much but when he does you should listen,' which, honestly, no offense, is kind of an intimidating endorsement." A laugh, self-conscious. "Anyway. I have questions. I wrote them down. On a napkin, because I'm a professional."
My mouth does something. Not a smile. Close to one.
"How many questions?"
"Uh." Paper rustling. "Fourteen? Some of them are sub-questions. It's more of a tree structure."
I lean back against the couch. The box with one book is still on the floor. The coffee is cold in my hand.
"Ask."
He asks. The first question is about the coaching staff.
What I've heard, what the system might look like.
I tell him what I know, which isn't much.
He asks about the facility in Atlanta, whether I've seen it.
I haven't. He asks about housing, about the city, about whether I've been to Atlanta before.
I have, once, years ago for a random conference my agent wanted me to attend. I remember the heat and nothing else.
He talks between my answers. Fills the gaps I leave with anecdotes and half-thoughts and tangents that loop back to the original question in ways I don't expect. It should be annoying. It is not annoying, which I don't know what to do with.
He gets through four questions in what feels like ten minutes but is actually closer to thirty. Somewhere in the middle of question three I stopped tracking the time, which does not happen to me.
"Okay, I have ten more, but I also realize I've been talking for way too long." Another laugh, easier this time. "Can I send you the rest? Text, email, carrier pigeon. Whatever works."
"Text is fine." I pause. "Send me the rest."
I didn't plan to say that. Both parts. The text is fine was unnecessary since he'd already suggested it, and the send me the rest was closer to an invitation than a response.
"Cool. Awesome. Thanks, Ikonen. Really. This helped."
"Avi," I say, surprising myself. "People call me Avi."
"Avi. Got it. Talk soon."
He hangs up. The apartment is the same. The box on the floor, the cold coffee. Everything is exactly where I left it.
I get up. Pull a second book off the shelf. Place it in the box next to the Finnish poetry.
It isn't much. But it's one more than there was an hour ago.