Chapter 9: Danny--The Perfect Family

Chapter 9: Danny—The Perfect Family

His head didn’t hurt as much. Dan Hinote couldn’t even remember getting hit to begin with, he didn’t even want to see the replays, he decided to just take the guy’s word for it. He had gotten hit just after he had scored a hat-trick......he didn’t believe them about the hat-trick part. He really thought he was good enough to play, he only had that brief memory loss, but he wasn’t having any extra headaches or anything. Still, Pat Karns, the trainer, was always such a mother hen and he decreed that Danny-boy stay home while the boys went on a short road trip.

"Does your head hurt really, really, really, bad?" Jana Roy asked Danny. She was looking up at him, squinting one eye and wrinkling her nose.

Hinote smiled and squatted down in front of the tiny girl. "Everytime I have a concussion, it reminds me of a story I heard about a hockey rookie," he said.

"What was that?" Jonathen Roy asked as he stood up from the prone body of his brother Freddy, the boys had been wrestling like tiger cubs.

Hinote looked at the boys, they seemed more interested in the story than Jana. She had flopped down on the grass and was playing with a game-boy.

"Apparently," Hinote said, "the kid’s father was very eager for his son to display himself in the NHL as a take no shit, killer player.

" ‘Son,’ the father said, ‘I know this is your first game but remember, when you meet up with Gordie Howe, take no shit from him! You dish it and you make him pay!’

"The pup listened and obeyed. On his very first NHL shift, his very first NHL face-off was against the great Gordie Howe. As they were setting up for the puck drop, the kid looked up at Gordie and snarled, ‘You better not try any funny stuff with me Howe! I’ll make you pay!’

"Then the world was black for the kid. The next thing he remembered, he was on the bench cringing from the ammonia of smelling salts. ‘What happened?’ he asked.

" ‘Howe,’ a veteren teammate of his laughed, ‘Howe.’ "

"Heehee stupid shit-head!" Jonathen laughed.

"Shit-head!" peeped Jana.

Hinote frowned and looked at the girl who was still glued to the gameboy, she probably shouldn’t be repeating stuff like that. Well.....the parents could fix that.

" Anyway," Hinote continued, "The kid didn’t miss a shift. He was back on the ice and taking a new face-off against Howe."

"Ooooooooh," Jonathen giggled, "I bet he learned his lesson!"

Freddy was grinning with wide eyes, Danny couldn’t remember the last time he had heard the kid say anything. He often sat quietly and listened, sometimes writing things in a little notebook he always carried around with him.

"Naaaw," Danny said, "He didn’t learn a thing! As soon as they prepped for the faceoff, the kid was at it again. ‘You got lucky, Howe! I’m gonna get you now!’ "

Freddy’s eyes got even bigger and Jonathen grinned like a sadist.

"Yup," Hinote said, "And then then before the puck could even drop, the kid was back on the bench, sniffing the piss of the smelling salts and as the cobwebs cleared from his head, he sat up and yelled, ‘How does he do that!’ "

He stopped and held out his hands to signal the end of the story, the boys started laughing and Jonathen pushed Freddy over, "I’m gonna get you, Howe!" Jonathen yelled.

"Hey, hey, hey," Hinote said before the boys could get carried away, "There’s a lesson there that is important if you’re gonna be hockey players. Know what it is?"

Freddy pursed his lips and slowly shook his head, his ashy hair was spiky and cow-licked in all directions. Jonathen ran his hand over his mouth, looking pensive. "Oui," he said, "Don’t screw with Gordie Howe."

Hinote smiled and shook his head. "Nope," he said, "learn from the kid. He didn’t back down from Howe and he even went back for a second beating! That’s what you need to be like! That kid was my hero, I try to be like that in every game, who cares if its Gordie Howe or Claude Lemieux or Eric Lindros, you show no fear! That makes a good hard-nosed hockey player!"

"Oooooh," Freddy said, he was nodding his head.

"Sounds like a dumb-ass way to be," Jonathen scowled, "Get a concussion for nothing."

"Dumb-ass!" Jana chirped, "Dumb-ass!"

Hinote bristled, he looked at Jonathen in surprise. "Well what about you? You like standing in front of projectiles that could someday go over a hundred miles per hour at you? How smart is that?"

Jonathen’s eyes slitted, Hinote couldn’t figure out who he resembled more, his mother or his father. He was certainly getting sparks in his eyes like his father.

"Buuull!" Jonathen hissed, "This isn’t the fifties we get pads and masks and pads and pads and pads! We’re more protected than the skaters! Safest place to be really." The boy then crossed his arms and proceeded to do his best impression of an intimidating stare on Danny. It certainly made Freddy shrink back. Hinote raised his eyebrows, this kid was good.

"Wanna hear an ole goalie story, Monsieur Roy?" Danny said as he leaned back on the grass.

Jonathen remained where he was and he frowned, and he nodded. Yup, the kid looked like his dad.

"Eddie Shore, he was this old time hockey-guy, a real mean SOB and when he retired, he created himself his own minor hockey team in Cleveland," Hinote said, "and this guy was like all nuts in it. He was coach, trainer, GM, popcorn vendor, you name it he ran it. He also ran the players like they were his gestapo. He controlled how they played, and even how they skated! If they scored a goal and they didn’t bend their knees correctly then Shore would bench em! Everything had to be perfect. He even made sure the players were on a schedule even when they had sex with their wives!!"

"Ewwwwwwwww!" Jana squealed.

Freddy blushed and Jonathen sniffed. "What’s that got to do with goalies?" Jonathen said.

"Well," Danny said, "Eddie hated, above all things...." Danny leaned forward and looked straight into Jonathen’s eyes, "BUTTERFLY GOALIES!"

Jonathen rolled his eyes and sighed.

"Joooon!" Freddy gasped, "You’re a butterfly goalie!"

"So?" Jonathen said.

"You know what he did to butterfly goalies?" Hinote asked rhetorically, "Well, the butterfly goalies never listened to Shore, and they dropped to their knees as they pleased to make saves. So Eddie thought of a way to stop them! In practice, he would tie a noose to the net and wrap it around the goalie’s neck. Now if the goalie played stand-up like a good boy, then he would be OK and the noose wouldn’t bug him. But if he dropped to his knees to make a save........KKKKKKKKKK!"

Hinote made the sound effect and hung his head to the side like he had been dropped from a hangman’s noose. "He strangled them!" Hinote said with a flourish.

Freddy’s eyes got really big and the syrupy music from the gameboy stopped. Jonathen didn’t look as sure of himself as he had been either. "You’re lying," Jonathen said.

"Nope," Danny said, "Can you imagine! What if your coach.........or your daddy’s coach was EDDIE SHORE!!!"

Jonathen half-smiled, he looked as amused as a cat.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" Jana squealed, "Nooooooooo don’t hurt my daddy! Don’t strangle my daddy! Eddie’s gonna hurt my daddy, Eddie’s gonna hurt my daddy!!"

Aw shit! Danny thought, he didn’t think the kid was that sensitive! He had that terrible feeling in his gut...guilt...he felt like when he was a ten year old and he had thought it would be fun to shoot a squirrel and when he did...well the guilt inside him sucked. He tried to lean over to Jana to comfort the weeping girl and Freddy was sniffling and patting her on the back.

"Noooooooo!" Jana screamed and went running back into house, "Mommma! Mommma...." she had started screaming in French and she disappeared from view.

Danny looked at Jonathen apologetically. Jonathen was glaring at Hinote, "Well," he said, "You succeeded in scaring someone! You know how long it took for Mom to get rid of her Eddie Barfin Belfour nightmares? Now she’s gonna be screaming about Eddie Friggin Shore!"

"Sorry!" Hinote said, "I thought she was tough...you said she likes ‘Friday the 13^{th’ "}

Jonathen shrugged. "Cause Jason has a goalie’s mask. Dad could run nuts in town with a sharpened stick and a bug up his ass and Jana would still think he was God. She cries when Jason gets killed!"

"Oh," Hinote said carefully, "Uh, that’s nice."

The boys were stuck in another wrestling match when Hinote went back into the Roy house, he had to pee. Jonathen had dared him to chug down three Mountain Dew bottles and never being one to turn down a dare, Hinote had taken the kid up on it. As soon as he clattered into the kitchen he could still hear Jana crying and Michele speaking softly in French to her. Hinote stopped and closed one eye, man, he really didn’t mean to scare the girl like that, she was too cute to be crying.

He kept shaking his head and muttering curse words to himself as he went to the bathroom. When he came out, he could hear Jana sniffling and he saw Michele in the kitchen. She was running a wash cloth under the faucet, wearing mini cut-off jean shorts and a spaghetti string tank top. Woah, Hinote thought, if my mom was like that I’d grow up with a complex!

He stepped back sheepishly into the hallway, he didn’t know what Jana could have told her, but he wasn’t quite ready to face a mother’s wrath. Hinote watched her from the hallway. Her frosted hair was twirled up in a clip, only a few strands brushing us against the nape of her slender neck. One of the spaghetti straps fell off her shoulder as she turned off the faucet and gave the wash cloth a motherly twist into the sink. He could see the ghost of a yellowing bruise on her bare shoulder blade. Danny blushed, that looked like something he shouldn’t be seeing.

He hadn’t been quick like the other guys to defend Patrick when he had gotten himself arrested a couple of years ago. After all, the man had drove his own wife to call the police! There had to be something wrong with that. Sure he always saw them as a smiling couple and the arrest gave him a cold feeling of shock, but there had to be more there than a fight about in-laws. And now that bruise....maybe it was nothing...

Michele turned around with the wash-cloth and Danny froze, he wanted to run like a little boy. She looked him directly in the eye, her head cocked to one side. She had a sparkling, pretty smile marred by a bruise on her mouth covered with some make-up,

"Are you telling my babies scary stories?" she said in her husky french accent.

Danny opened his mouth and shuffled his feet, girls often didn’t look him directly in the eye like that, not even Cecile. Cecile often had a lashes lowered sort of look.

"Sorry," he mumbled.

Michele walked up to him slowly, never losing his eye contact, Danny was beginning to feel like a mouse hypnotized by a snake. She lifted up her damp hand, and touched his cheek, he could see a ring of small round bruises around her wrist. "Don’t worry," Michele said, "Jana loves to be doted on, she’s not as scared as she seemed. No?"

God the woman wore some great perfume! It was like...it smelled like something tasty and spicy. He bit his bottom lip and nodded.

"Bon!" Michele said with smiling eyes, "Now be a sweetie and call my boys in, I want them to help me set the table."

With that, she walked away with the rag in her hand, leaving the scent of her perfume in Danny’s nostrils. He shook his head and exhaled. Woah! he thought, he was sweaty now and definitely had a hard-on. He leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. Any other normal guy would probably just go back into the bathroom and choke the chicken, but he wasn’t any other normal guy. He didn’t want to waste anything, there was one thing in life that he wanted to keep extra special and that was sex. He tried to keep it quiet around the guys, but it was something that he was holding special, and Cecile. Sweet, gorgeous Cecile felt the same way, although with her it was mostly religious reasons.

"Wooooh!" he exhaled, thinking of cold showers, Drury’s hairy ass and other such turn-offs. Slowly but surely, it worked.

Danny shook his head again, and inhaled the ravishing aroma of whatever was baking or roasting in the oven. His stomach roared. "Hey boys!" he yelled out of the kitchen door, "Come on in, help set the table!"

The boys obeyed immediately, bolting from their spots like hunting dogs called to action. They were real good kids, they never seemed to complain.

He looked over the back-yard as the boys clattered in past him and began fighting over the soap in the sink. He saw that a piece of their back-yard fence was torn through. Danny remembered at that moment why he was having dinner here, it wasn’t just a friendly visit. Patrick had called him personally and told him about the shit-dick that had attacked Michele and not been caught. "My wife and kids are real scared," he had said, "They would feel a lot better if you drop in on them, hang around a bit."

It made sense, Danny only lived a few minutes away in his Cherry Hills loft. He would be happy to do it, he had nothing else to do anyway.

Danny looked back at Michele as she began taking a lovely looking roast out of the oven, both of her wrists were bruised. It was cause of that guy, Danny relaxed, that’s why she was bruised, it was all explained. Wait, no! he thought, the one on her back was an older bruise...

Danny was rather quiet as he ate the delicious meal that seemed to ravish his mouth. The kids were smiling and giggling about everything, Jana was as bright as sunshine. No. Danny thought to himself, this was the perfect family, a family he would love to have himself. Enough worrying about phantom bruises, Patrick wasn’t like that, not to this sweet pretty wife of his. She didn’t have an evil bone in her body.

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