Chapter 198: Joey VIII—You Don’t Exist
He didn’t just take the penalty I think he did? Joe thought to himself.
He frowned, watched the proceedings and he didn’t say a thing. He saw Parker skating into the box, he saw Patrick shaking his head but the goalie didn’t seem completely out of sorts. Joe took a deep breath well, if that was how he was playing this game…
“Dammit, an unsportsmanlike on Patty?” Joe heard Reinprecht say in a somewhat contemptuous voice.
Joe looked quickly at Steve. “He can take care of it and so will we,” he snapped. “Has he never made a save on a puck you’ve coughed up in the slot?”
Reinprecht frowned and Joe stared him straight on as he skated up the ice. Then he turned into the face off circle, took another deep breath.
“Darn!” Joe snapped when he lost the face off.
The puck
went back to the point and was shot immediately by the defensemen. Joe heard
the
Line change.
Joe leaned forward on the bench and felt helpless as the second penalty kill unit was outworked and pacified into a box formation. The pass went through a seam and he saw Patrick collapse into a Butterfly and swallow the rebound. Before the whistle could be blown, however, Patrick flipped the puck to Morris who lifted it onto his stick and shot up the ice. It was stopped at the point, though, and passed deep into the zone and Joe found himself standing and riveted by the action. It was a gallery of pass, shoot, save, rebound, over and over again. The Avalanche penalty killers obviously were a step behind perpetually but Joe found himself smiling anyway. Patrick wasn’t.
Blocker, toe, stick, pad, blocker, each time Patrick failed to control a rebound but it didn’t matter as each time he was there for the save. And with each passing moment, Joe could see the penalty killers growing slower and visibly exhausted.
“Thatta BOY!” Joe yelled, not caring if anyone was listening. “Control a rebound!”
There it was, glove hand high in the air, a whistle blown and smatterings of cheers from the crowd. The smattering spread quickly into a unified cheer, some whistles, perhaps some of them were sarcastic. It was impossible not to recognize the brilliance Patrick had flashed in that minute and a half.
“Thatta boy!” Joe yelled again, and he smacked his stick against the boards.
Patrick stood up, tossed the puck to the referee and Joe nodded when he saw Patrick looking in his direction. Don’t let them control you, he thought as he lifted his stick and hopped over the boards, listening to the exhausted groans of the returning penalty killers.
“Twenty seconds and you’re off the hook Patty,” Joe said as he skated around Patrick. “Keep it up.” He heard a satisfying thwap as he smacked his stick quickly on Patrick’s pads and he couldn’t help tapping the goalposts with it either.
Another
face off lost. Joe fought his way up the ice and he regained control of the
puck, he shot it up the ice, watched Theodore shoot it back. Blake lined up the
puck handler and Joe was quick to skate in close as he leveled the man with his
rear end and snapped up the puck. Joe took it and he skated back into the
The penalty was over, there was six and a half minutes left in the game.
We’ll be fine, Joe thought. We’re gonna be fine.
At that moment there was another blast of cold air, another round of prickling tiny claws over his skin. Joe cringed and looked around, looked up at the ceiling, then he looked at the net. Patrick was doubled over, staring at the posts, talking. As Joe was skating back to the bench, he grabbed Keaner who was skating onto the ice.
“He really believes it?” Joe asked. “The… ghosts..”
Keane sniffed, “Yes.”
Joe let him
go and sat back on the bench. He squirted a drink of something sweet and watered
down, swallowed a little bit of it, spit the rest. Brisebois,
the
6-5 wasn’t so bad, it wasn’t impossible, Joe found himself thinking and thinking and thinking as the next shift was on the ice and then someone found an opening in the….PING! Off the goalposts again and the building practically exploded with glee as Patrick smacked his stick against the crossbar and swept out the puck, the evidence of the hockey game now being 6-6.
“I can’t believe it,” Patrick kept saying as he leaned against the boards outside of the team bench during the TV time out as they were preparing for the overtime period. “I can’t believe those bitches would do that to me!”
“Is okay,”
Milan Hejduk said and Joe couldn’t help a quick grin as he saw
“Listen up boys!” Coach Hartley said. “Let’s win this one off the first shift eh? How about, listen, Joey you win the face off, fake a pass to….”
Joe was listening but at the same time he was also watching Patrick as his large eyes glistened with emotion, he was spilling his tale of woe to Hejduk who was only politely listening to Patrick. Joe smiled.
“…and then
when the seam is clear,
“Just hold us in Patty, we’ll get the next one,” Joe said as he followed the goalie to his net. “It’ll be fun!”
Patty narrowed his eyes, “Not if THEY have something to say about it.” He grumped, patting the crossbar of his net.
Joe grinned and he saw the look of utter HORROR in Patrick’s face as he horked and spat on the crossbar. “You’ll be just fine,” Joe said.
He couldn’t help laughing as he was skating away from Patrick to hear him apologizing profusely to the posts in French.
“What’s so funny?” Saku Koivu asked as they leaned over for the face off.
Joe looked at Saku, “Patty’s posts are gonna try to kill me or him or both.”
“What?!” Saku exclaimed and the Fin seemed so in shock that he
forgot to move for the face off in time. Joe laughed and took the puck, he
faked a pass towards Forsberg and dropped it to Blake. He knew Blake would fake
the shot, he saw the
Joe’s mouth dropped open, no way! He shook his head and laughed in disbelief. The plan had been executed perfectly, the shot had been beautiful and it had pinged off the crossbar and out of play.
The unit skated back for the line change, Joe was looking at Hartley, and he knew the rest of them were as well.
“What now? It didn’t work?” Hejduk asked, eyes wide like a child’s.
Hartley grimaced and then he held out his hands. “Shit.” He said in a casual voice. “Just go out there and shoot on the net yes?”
Joe shook his head and as he was getting back into the bench Hartley said, “No Joey you and Peter stay on the ice, Modo you join the line.”
“Right,” Modano said and he hopped onto the ice.
“Let’s win this one pretty quick,” Joe said to Modano as they skated back into the face off. “Not that I don’t trust Patty but…”
“You don’t trust Patty?” Modano said.
Joe shook his head. “Naw I just don’t trust his posts.”
Modano blinked.
At that moment another chill blew over them, Joe saw Modano cringe and he nodded. “Yeah, Mikey,” he said. “Let’s finish off this game pretty quick.”
Joe lost the face off, saw the Montreal forwards crash into the Avalanche zone, it was a 3 on 2 before a shot could be fired, however, the forward whiffed on it and that’s when Footer stepped up and stole the puck, shooting it up the ice. Peter cut it off and Joe pivoted on his skates, was now part of a new 3 on 2. Air flowing over his face, his legs pumping with energy, the sound of the crowd screaming…. Joe didn’t even need to look down, he felt the puck strike his stick, a satisfying pass had been completed and he fired it, saw Jose fling his arm to make a save that didn’t happen… the red light flashed and the crowd screamed in horror.
“YEAH!” Joe barked and he laughed as he was whirled around in a hug by Mike Modano. “I love ya man!” Joe said to Modano, slapping him lightly on the cheek and he slapped Peter on the arm. “You’re my man!” he said.
Forsberg was smiling and red faced, “Joe look at Patty!”
Joe grinned and he saw Patty on the other end of the ice hugging Adam Foote and jumping up and down in his pads. He fought through the hugs of his teammates as they had spilled over the bench and he skated to the goalie.
“It’s over!” he said. “Patty it’s over!”
Patty was smiling, laughing and babbling in French. Joe shook his head and hugged him. When he let go of him he looked into Adam Foote’s smile.
“Jesus,” Foote laughed, “You shoulda seen it, when you scored I think Patty jumped eight feet into the air!”
“You’re nuts!” Joe yelled into Patty’s mask, “you know that you….”
He stopped when he felt the cold air again but this time it was more intense than it had ever been before. The entire building hushed and Joe looked around, saw his teammates looking around, and it was getting colder.
“Joe…” Patty said in a helpless voice and Joe looked back at him.
“Patty what the..” Joe stopped talking as he saw his breath come out in a silver plume. He wrinkled his nose, suddenly feeling nauseated.
Patrick skated towards the net. “What the hell is the matter?” he snarled at the posts.
Joe was about the skate to Patrick when he heard the screams from all around, frightened screams, girls, children and that’s when he felt it under his feet. The ground was shaking.
“God!” Joe gasped as he fell onto Foote who caught him and he saw Patrick lose his balance and fall onto his butt.
“It’s an earthquake!” Foote exclaimed.
Adam slipped and Joe fell onto the ice with him, he didn’t have time to do anything else and then it stopped. There was a dead silence in the building, Joe swallowed, felt his pulse glugging in his throat, the spit was gone from his mouth. The silence continued. Joe sat up on his bottom, saw the same dazed expression on everyone’s faces, saw the jumbotron swinging on its cables, was briefly worried that it might snap and come crashing down onto the ice.
“I think it’s over,” Joe whispered to Adam.
Adam frowned with frightened eyes. “There’s not supposed to be earthquakes here?”
“I think it’s over,” Joe repeated and then there was an incredibly loud Crrrrreak and Bang that sounded eerily similar to that of a door swinging shut on rusty hinges.
Ghosts don’t exist… Joe thought to himself. The sound system is rattled from the quake….
SMASH!
There were the very real sounds of people screaming in terror and Joe looked up at the other end of the ice to see a pane of glass was shattered and then there was another brief silence. Joe felt Adam press his hand over his arm, squeeze. Joe pressed his hand over Adam,
“What’s going on?” Adam whispered.
There was a loud groaning sound, like the sound from overworked machinery and then silence. Joe found himself squeezing harder onto Adam’s hand, he could feel his pulse racing faster now, found himself wanting to be under his covers at home, with Debbie in his arms… why had he neglected her so much? He hated himself now.
There was another loud groaning sound and Joe began to think of the sounds a large wooden structure would make, about to collapse under a great deal of weight. He saw no one moving to leave or speak. Everyone in the audience seemed to be staring at the ceiling, holding onto each other, blinking, crying silently, pleading inwardly that the ghosts not hurt them. He again found himself thinking of Debbie, of all the times he had rolled away from her body, denied himself when she had been inwardly begging for him to love her.
“You don’t exist!” Joe yelled, surprised at how loud his voice was as it cut through the silence of the building.
The minute the words left his lips there were screams from the audience as the remaining panes of glass still rimming the ice swayed violently, almost rippling like water and that sent a panic of fans near the glass who began running up the stairs or jumping over seats.
“FUCK YOU!” he heard Patrick yell.
The sound was sharp, tinkled like a million bells in a high pitch as the swaying glass, each pane of it, simultaneously cracked and shattered spraying small chunks onto the ice and onto the first rows of seats in the arena. Joe instinctively ducked his head, realized he must seem silly because he was pressing his face into Footer’s chest, hearing screams and not wanting to see a child or a woman covered in glass, lacerated…
“Joey!” Footer said, “Are you okay?”
Joe looked up, felt embarrassed and he took a deep breath. He got to his feet, the ice felt stable, there were no more signs of movement from underneath and he looked around the eerie, naked, glassless rink. To his relief he saw no one injured no one prostrate and screaming for help. It simply looked as if people were more frightened but they had got out of the way in time. Joe shook his head… it was just an earthquake.
Joe looked back to Patty, saw the goalie sitting on his knees, his hands on his hips at a comical angle as if he were irritated. He thought about calling out to him but he skated over to him instead, he saw Patty run his bare, pale hand up and down one of the posts.
“And you call me melodramatic, eh?” he heard Patty say in a sadistically amused, taunting voice.
“Let’s just call it even. Don’t forget what I can do for you.”
Joe stopped, swallowed and felt the cold in his veins. There wasn’t any denial of what he had just heard and of who had just said it. He skated backwards slowly, bumped into a body.
“Joe you okay?”
Joe looked into Peter Forsberg’s silvery blue eyes and he shook his head. “Can you hold onto me until we get into the locker room. I think I’m gonna throw up or go insane and I don’t want to do it in front of everyone….”
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