Chapter 12 — ZAY
Nan calls while I’m on the hotel bed reviewing treatment notes. The caller ID photo is from two Christmases ago, her kitchen, flour on her apron, one hand on her hip and the other pointing at whoever was behind the camera. Me, probably.
“Zay. Just wanted to check on my baby.”
“I’m fine, Nan. Road trip.”
“Mhmm.” She holds the sound the way she holds everything, warm and patient and leaving room. “You sound tired.”
“It’s late. We got in two hours ago.”
“That’s not the tired I mean.” A pause. Then, gently: “You eating?”
“Yes, Nan.”
“You stretching?”
“I stretch other people for a living.”
“That is not an answer.”
I smile at the ceiling. She’s seventy-three years old and she hears things in my voice that I haven’t said yet, things I’m not sure I’ve admitted to myself.
She doesn’t push. She never pushes. She just calls at nine thirty on a Tuesday and waits for me to fill the silence or not, and either way she’s satisfied she’s heard enough.
“I’m good,” I tell her. “I promise.”
“Okay.” I hear her settle into her chair, the familiar creak. “Come get this pie when you’re back. It won’t keep.”
“It’ll keep and you know it.”
“Come get it anyway.” She says goodnight and I hold the phone for a few seconds after she hangs up, the screen still warm.
***
Berger is ranking the bartenders before we’ve finished our second round.
“The one on the left has technique. Watch the pour. Consistent wrist, no wasted motion, respects the glass.” He points with his beer. “The one on the right is improvising, and it shows.”
“Berger, we’ve been here ten minutes,” Thompson says.
“And in those ten minutes I’ve gathered sufficient data for a preliminary assessment.”
We won tonight. Marchetti had two assists and a goal he’ll be describing to anyone in range for the next forty-eight hours, and he should, because the feed from Hájek was clean and the finish was better.
The bar a block from the hotel is loud and warm and the team has pushed three tables together, ties loosened, jackets slung over chairs, the post-game energy carrying us into the night.
I am standing at the bar grabbing a pitcher of beer and a woman across the room catches my eye.
Dark hair pinned up, gold earrings, a laugh I can hear from here.
She’s looks at me in a way I would’ve done something about two months ago.
I don’t do anything about it now. Not because I’ve stopped noticing.
Because I noticed someone else first and that someone has taken up permanent residence in the part of my brain that used to be available for this.
When I get back to the table, Hájek asks about Berger’s wing sauce spreadsheet.
Berger turns to him with the visible satisfaction of a man who has been waiting for someone to ask.
“A ranking matrix. Every wing sauce I’ve encountered this season, scored across five categories.
Heat, complexity, viscosity, aftertaste, and what I call ‘return factor.’”
“Viscosity,” Thompson repeats.
“It matters. A sauce that slides off the wing is a sauce that has not committed to the wing. I don’t reward that.”
Marchetti looks at me. “He has a viscosity category, Brooks.”
“I heard.”
“And you’re letting this stand?”
“I’m off the clock. His spreadsheets are not my jurisdiction.”
Marchetti’s grin opens up and I feel the pull of it, that warmth his face produces when he’s in a room and enjoying himself.
I let myself have one second of it before I turn to Hájek.
One second is what I allow. One second and then back to the table, the noise, the men around us who cannot see what that grin does to the inside of my chest.
Berger’s fourth drink arrives and he holds it to the light and tilts it. I wait for the rating.
It doesn’t come.
He takes a sip and sets the glass down and asks Mueller a question he already knows the answer to, which is not how Berger operates. Berger delivers verdicts. He doesn’t ask for input on matters he’s already adjudicated.
Marchetti catches Hájek’s arm when he makes a point about the menu, casual, the way touch means nothing to Marchetti because he touches everyone, and I watch his hand land on Hájek’s forearm and think about where those hands were two nights ago and take a very controlled sip of my beer.
His knee angles toward me under the table where nobody can see it.
Four inches of charged air between his kneecap and mine.
Neither of us has moved. Not closer. Not away.
Just four inches of air and a room full of teammates and a secret held in the space between.
Marchetti tells the story of his goal. The second telling adds a detail about the defenseman’s face that may or may not be accurate.
Thompson confirms the first version and only the first version.
Jensen is at the far end, nursing a single drink, contributing nothing and somehow still part of the room the way Jensen is part of every room, which is completely and silently.
The fifth drink Berger orders without commentary.
Marchetti is describing Parker’s ongoing war with the bathroom sink to a delighted Hájek, and Berger is not contributing.
The man who has opinions about everything is turning his glass in a slow circle on the coaster, his jaw tight.
The table’s energy covers the gap because nobody in this room is paying attention.
I have. I spend my days listening for what players won’t tell me.
“Berger.” I keep my voice easy. “You good?”
“Good.” One word and a simply nod. No elaboration. From the man who delivered a four-sentence defense of viscosity as a scoring category forty minutes ago.
By the time the check comes, he’s had six. Maybe seven. His posture has changed. His jaw holds a clench that doesn’t match the drinking, a tension that looks less like too many beers and more like a man pressing his teeth together against what might come out if he opens his mouth.
The group thins in the hotel lobby. Mueller and Hájek toward the elevator. Jensen disappearing the way Jensen disappears, thoroughly and without announcement. Thompson looks at Berger, looks at me, makes a judgment.
“You got him?”
“We got him.” Marchetti is already there, one hand on Berger’s arm. I take the other side. Thompson nods and goes.
The elevator is a specific kind of challenge. Berger’s weight tilts into Marchetti and Marchetti holds him, adjusting his grip when Berger lists. I press the floor number and watch Berger’s reflection in the polished doors. His eyes are barely open. His mouth moves.
“I want mercy.”
Marchetti exhales through his nose. “I know, man. You feel like shit. We’ll get you water and you’ll feel better.”
“I want mercy.” Quieter this time. His head drops against Marchetti’s shoulder and his hand comes up and grips Marchetti’s jacket at the lapel. His skin is flushed and there’s sweat at his temples. The alcohol is doing what alcohol does, but the vitals are not telling me to call anyone.
The word, though. The repetition. Under acute intoxication, people fixate.
A word, a phrase, a name they can’t stop saying.
His room key is in his back pocket. Marchetti finds it without jostling him.
The hallway is quiet, the thick carpet absorbing our uneven footsteps.
Inside, the room is standard, but Berger’s suitcase is open on the luggage rack and even barely vertical, I can see the packing.
Shirts folded. Toiletry bag upright, zipped.
Everything organized with the same precision he brings to his stall, his spreadsheets, every visible surface of his life.
People who control the outside that tightly are usually negotiating with what they can’t control underneath.
We lower him onto the bed. I angle him on his side, pull his top knee forward to stabilize. We get his shirt off, leaving him in an undershirt, and I check that his airway is clear.
“Berger. Where are we?”
His eyes open to slits, dragging across my face.
“Who am I?”
“Brooks.” A long pause. “The one who won’t rank the restaurants.”
I check his pupils with my phone light, cupping the beam. Reactive. Sluggish but symmetrical. His skin is clammy but he’s responding to verbal prompts. I don’t need to call anyone. Yet.
Marchetti fills a glass from the bathroom and brings it without being asked. I tilt the rim against Berger’s mouth. He drinks. Some runs down his chin and I catch it with my hand and wipe it on my pants.
“Please.” His voice is stripped. Whatever broadcasts and ranks and fills rooms with declarative certainty is gone. What’s left is rough and small and I don’t recognize it. “I need mercy.”
Marchetti sits on the edge of the bed. He’s worried, not hiding any of it. “Is he okay?”
“I think so. Just needs to sleep it off.”
I take the chair by the window. Berger’s eyes close and his breathing slows into the rhythm of a body giving up its fight with the alcohol, settling, going under.
His jaw unclenches for the first time in over an hour and the face underneath is one I’ve never seen.
Not the comedy. Not the performance. Just a face, slack and tired and carrying weight I didn’t know was there.
Marchetti rubs a hand across his face. “I haven’t seen him like this before.
He’s been quieter lately. I asked him to hang out last week and he just never responded.
Then you came over and I kind of forgot about it.
” He rubs his hand across his face and then looks at Berger.
“Do you think we should do something? Tell someone?”
The protocol is clear on paper. Substance use that impairs function, you flag it to the medical director and coaching staff.
One incident doesn’t establish a pattern, but it goes in a file and someone starts watching.
If I report this, Berger gets added scrutiny he might not need for what could be a one off.
If I don’t report it and this is the start of something, I’ve missed a window.
“If it’s not a pattern, then maybe you could talk with him.
See if anything is going on.” One bad night is not a substance concern.
One bad night is a person having a bad night.
But I’ll be watching now. “I’ll keep an eye on how he’s presenting in sessions.
If anything changes, we deal with it then. ”
Marchetti nods, then tips his head back against the headboard. His eyes close but he doesn’t sleep and neither do I.