7. Walker
SEVEN
Walker
Snow. It fell lightly as I shuffled my way down the sidewalk to the community center, flakes tumbling downward in a little ballerina frost fairy dance as Harper used to call snowfall.
I paused, looked left and right, and then behind me to ensure my sister had pulled off before falling to one knee to run my finger through the cold white dust on the cement walkway.
There was little wind roaring off the lake tonight, a blessing, as the temps had tumbled now December had arrived.
The snow was cold, delicate like Chantilly lace, and melted instantly.
Funny how we never take the time to enjoy snow as adults.
As kids, we loved it. As grown-ups? Not so much.
It’s a hassle to shovel, it makes driving hazardous, and it cancels school if you get enough, which is a PITA for working parents.
Great for kids, but a headache for adults.
I guess that was part of leaving childhood behind. I drew a circle on the sidewalk, then filled it in to complete a smiley face. A pair of soft blue sneakers came into sight. My gaze flew up from my impromptu artwork to my art teacher. Finn. He was smiling down at me.
“Hey,” I gruffly said, rising and moving my foot over the smiley snow face to clear it from existence. Maybe there was something to be said for leaving childish things in the past.
“Hey,” he replied, hugging himself tightly as flakes fell softly onto his hair and lashes, dotting his cheeks. I reached up to brush one off his nose. His eyes widened.
“You’re early.” He took a step back. My hand fell. I felt like a moron for being so brazen.
“Yeah, my sister had to be at the gym. She teaches kickboxing.” I walked around him, shoulders tight, my hand gripping the small package in my coat pocket.
This whole season was stupid. The fact I’d allowed Harper to suck me into all the ho-ho-ho bullshit I blamed on the mood stabilizers.
Not since I’d left home had I allowed a tree in the house or lights or silly window peels of reindeer and elves.
Fucking elves. If Santa and his little minions were so magical, why hadn’t they done something to help me and my sister?
Yep, just like God, they sat by and watched with their thumbs up their rumps.
“Wow, that’s impressive! Is she good?” He trailed along after me, jogging to get to my side. I yanked the door open and held it, all courtly gentleman, for him. He gave me a tiny smile as he darted inside.
“She could kick my ass on any given night.”
His eyes flared. “That is impressive.”
“She rocks. Best human being on the planet, bar none.”
“I have a brother,” he said as we made our way down to the art room, the halls empty, our footfalls falling into a matched rhythm as I slowed for him. “He’s one of my favorite people on the planet as well.”
I nodded and stopped in front of a bulletin board covered with flyers for local craft fairs, holiday events, and Christmas concerts. There was so much red and green that I had to look elsewhere. Like at Finn, who was much prettier than any jingle bell or gaudy glass ball stickers.
“Is your brother a teacher too?” I asked simply because I wanted to know more about the man. Sue. Me.
“No, he’s an electrician.” He padded around me as he talked. I enjoyed the way the lights made his hair look highlighted. “He doesn’t have the patience for teaching.”
He entered the art room, me on his heels, breathing in the aroma of his cologne.
“Yeah, teachers need a lot of that.” I peeled off my coat, taking care not to jar the little gift in my pocket.
When I’d seen it online, it had seemed the perfect present for a guy who made me feel lighter than a dandelion blow, but now it was time to maybe hand it over, it felt stupid. Overly emotional. Feminine. Gay. Fag.
Ah, there was Dad. He’d been silent for a few weeks. Probably a combination of the meds, sitting with Dr. Quackers three times a week, and coming here to paint blobs and birds and long-dead cats. I’d not missed him in my head.
“Sometimes, yes, we do.” He chuckled warmly.
I turned to find him leaning on the edge of the old metal desk, his eyes glowing with the love he had for his profession.
“Teaching is a calling. We’re not getting rich.
It’s getting to know your students and their families and leading them in a direction for enrichment.
It’s way more than getting your class to learn their ABCs and one, two, threes.
You have to listen to the subtle hints they give you to help them blossom and learn to the best of their abilities. ”
“Wish I had a teacher who had listened,” I mumbled, lost in his beauty. When his expression shifted from affection to concern, I bit the inside of my cheek. Stupid. “But I had good coaches. Lots of them.”
“Good, that’s good. I’m glad you had such admirable adults to help teach you.” He seemed a little flustered now, probably because I was as well. I tended to project hostility when I got upset, according to several dozen people.
“Yeah, so, uhm… ” I now hated the fact we were here alone.
Just a few minutes ago, I was glad to have all of his attention.
Shit, I was touching snowflakes on his little button nose.
Now, I wanted to dive through the window.
“So, yeah, I think we should get some of those donuts with the fancy holiday icing on them tonight.”
He blinked. “Oh, donuts, yes, that would be nice. I’m hoping to do a holiday-themed class tonight with lots of seasonal colors and frivolity. Maybe paint some toys from our childhoods that we remember fondly.”
“My toys were all misfits,” I tossed out, hoping for a laugh. Finn seemed confused. “Like that old Rudolph show with the island filled with toys that no kids wanted?”
“Oh yes, of course. I always loved that little elf who dreamed of being a dentist.”
“I liked Bumble.”
He snickered as he looked up at me. I liked the way the lines around his hazel eyes crinkled when he smiled.
“I can see that,” he teased, just lightly, but it was enough to show me he had a sense of humor, gentle as it was, under all that pretty.
He put me at ease—something few people other than my sister and my therapist could do. He was special. Sweet. Tender.
“I saw this thing online last week—” I began to say, but then snapped my mouth shut as the other bozos rolled into class, joshing and shoving, and Arnaud singing what sounded like “Jingle Bells” in French.
Finn tipped his head as if waiting for me to continue. No way was I giving it to him with those butt-scratching baboons in the vicinity. They would make fun of me. Poke. Prod. Call me a girly boy.
“It was this farting fish,” I hurried to lie.
The others were instantly drawn to the farting fish conversation.
Finn, being the teacher, got us into place in front of our easels while leading the discussion from flatulence to using different brushes to create diverse textures that would open us up to a wider range of emotions.
Nope. I was not emoting in front of my fellow Copperheads. Hockey players did not emote in such floofy ways. We knew only two emotions. Happiness when we won, and sadness when we lost. Oh, and anger. We knew three acceptable emotions. Anything else was for limp-wristed queers.
Ugh. Dad showed up at the worst times. Finn watched from behind me as I threw some colors on the canvas.
Deep browns with a splash of green that I smeared about to look like a pine tree before slapping a glob of gold atop the ugly tree.
Then, I slathered the words Merry Shitmas, which got a few snorts from the guys but only a look of concern from Finn.
Class was not fun at all that night. Coffee and donuts in a shop that was decorated to the damn rafters was not fun. Eating donuts with red and green icing was so very much not fun. I left early and walked to the nearest bus stop, snow falling at a goodly clip, and took a bus home.
My tiny present for Finn was still in my pocket. I ripped off the paper, then tore the small box into bits before I chucked it into the dumpster outside our complex.
I went inside, kicked the door shut, toed off my wet sneakers, removed my damp socks, and then raced to the window to stare down at the dumpster.
An epic battle took place inside my head.
Dad vs Walker. This time, amazingly, Walker won the fight and let himself feel things.
Real things. Good things. Kind things. Things guys were allowed to feel…
“Fuck off, old man,” I snarled to the lingering snarl of a man lying in his grave, yet still able to torment me.
Shaking like a leaf, I threw the door open and ran back to the trash can, climbed inside, and pawed around until I located the little statue of a man holding an apple in one hand and a slate in the other that read “World’s Best Teacher. ”.”
I’ll give it to him next week. No backing down.
Holding the little ceramic figurine to my chest, my bare feet carried me into my apartment, and I placed it on my nightstand before unfolding the drawings Finn had made of us over the past few weeks.
My ass found the floor. I drew my feet in to run the cold out of them and felt a serenity settle over me that had nothing to do with meds or facing down the demons that clung to me like burdocks.
“Next week,” I vowed to the statuette.
Four days after the snowy smiley face, I was sitting in the Copperheads video room, being a good little puck pusher, and watching vids of the team we were playing next.
I came in daily, skated with the offensive coach -- a nice guy named Bill Pawlowski -- then worked out or watched videos.
Due to the meds, I was not allowed to skate with the team.
Or hadn’t been. Last session, I had badgered Dr. Quackers to lower the restrictions to let me skate with the team.
Even if it was just in a no-contact jersey.
It was BS making us art boys -- as Arnaud was so thrilled to call us, like it was a damn after-school club -- fiddle with our schlongs as we worked out our shit.
“If I don’t get back to doing the one thing I do well soon, I am going to go totally batshit,” I confessed as he tugged on his pointy goatee while some sort of berry tea steeped.
“I’m better. The side effects are less. I need to do something productive,” I’d said as he studied his teapot as if he were expecting it to talk like that one in Beauty and the Beast .
Yes, I knew all the Disney princesses. I’d grown up watching them with my little sister.
Come at me, motherfuckers. Boys can enjoy singing candelabra.
“You don’t find therapy productive?” he asked because of course he had.
I chuckled appreciatively. “Clever.” I wagged a finger at him.
He seemed pleased with himself. The whiskery jerk.
“Yeah, of course it’s productive, but I’m a hockey player.
It’s what I do. It’s me. It’s like asking…
” I scoured my brain for an example. Amazingly or not, Finn popped up.
“Like asking an artist not to paint when he’s struggling through hard times. ”
“So, you express yourself on the ice?” he enquired, then leaned up to pour the tea. Fruity fumes tickled my nose. I nodded. “Do you plan to express yourself on the ice in an acceptable way or with your fists?”
“Doc, it’s hockey. I mean, if someone runs my goalie, I will go after him. If someone cross-checks our best scorer, I will go after him. It’s part of the game. But no, I won’t do anything too violent unless someone asks for it.”
He snickered softly. I cocked an eyebrow.
“I’m not sure that’s the positive reply you seem to think it is, but I will consider running some tests.”
He’d passed me a cup of coffee, and I had thanked him.
And now here I am, watching videos after spending the morning on the ice with the team.
It had been everything . I mean, Jesus H.
Christ, it had been good. No one really knew me.
They knew of me, obviously, but they’d all been decent.
Chatting me up as if I’d not wailed on a phone-thieving twink like I was Georges St. Pierre just a few months ago.
The ice had been crisp. The air brittle.
I’d knocked a few pucks past the starting goalie, a bruising Russian named Matvey, who liked to call out derogatory animal names to people shooting at him.
“Your shot is weak like ferret piss.”
“You are as feeble as a skinny weasel.”
“Your slap shot is stinky like mink shit.”
Mustelids seemed to be Matvey’s mammal of choice.
It was all good. He could call me a fucking smelly stoat all day if that made him happy.
I was just thrilled to be on the ice, stick in hand, feeling I was doing something.
Anything was better than sitting around my apartment as my sister worked, jerking off to mental images of Finn kissing his way down my dick as soap operas played in the background. Stir-crazy was a thing.
Yeah, things were okay. Not great. Not even close, but okay.
My head still ached at times, and I was still peeling off mental scabs in therapy that bled for days afterward, but overall, life was okay.
I could even look at the blue spruce in the corner of our living room and not be overwhelmed with the need to light it afire, then chuck it into the lake. Progress.
It was slow and hurt like an infected toe, but it was being made.
Now, all I had to do was work up the courage to give Finn his little gift.
It was beyond ridiculous for a big, tough asshole hockey player to be so scared to give a guy a present.
Maybe there was something extra special about Finn that needed a little more time to cure or whatever word artists used to call a painting that was in progress.
That was me. An unfinished oil. A maquette of a sculpture. A rough draft of a novel.
An incomplete man searching for the one to help make him whole.