Chapter 117: Modo VII—A New Beginning
There was no way Jason could have kept quiet after what Mike had done to him Mike understood that. Arnott was right. If Mike had just confessed his sexuality to Jason and nothing more, he would have been more than happy to keep it to himself and brush it off as the ravings of someone drunk and depressed. But Mike had stood up and forced a kiss on Jason and that was just not something a man does to another. It was almost an assault, and Jason had to tell the captain and the coach. And they had to tell management. Mike had outed himself as a danger to his teammates, and a shame to the organization.
Of course they would all want him gone. He had seen it in their eyes after just one practice and a game. He saw the way they shied away from him in the locker room covered themselves up. It was as if he had some disease within him that they didn’t want to catch. There would be no way that anyone could play decent hockey after this.
Fine, Modano had thought. A trigger would be pulled on a quick trade just to get him out of here. What was wrong with that? Maybe he needed out of here, just to get away from the memories. Where would he end up? The Rangers? New Jersey? Philadelphia? Somewhere in the East he was sure. He wouldn’t get traded to a conference rival, he knew. He was too valuable for that.
Mike had been scratched from the line-up he noticed from Saturday night’s game and he was told not to come to practice that morning. So he stayed home and began to pack up his most important stuff, he had to be prepared. He wasn’t going to cry, he told himself as he looked out of his bedroom window. Why waste anymore tears on life? It did hurt though, knowing how his teammates felt about him now. Of course they wouldn’t talk about it to other locker rooms, that just wasn’t part of the Code, but it did hurt to lose them like that.
Mike sighed and then his doorbell rang. Shaking his head, he ran to answer it and saw to his surprise, Jere Lehtinen his teammate.
"Hi," Jere said with his perennially sweet smile. He had large blinking eyes, like the eyes a calf would have.
"Hey," Mike said, "Jere! Come on in... what’s going on?"
"Oh," Jere said in his soft Finnish accent. "I skip practice today, is OK they will let slide I sure."
"Sure they would," Mike said as Jere followed him into his living room. "You can skip a practice every now and then. What are you doing here?"
"My wife," Jere said holding out a cardboard box that Mike hadn’t noticed him holding before. "She make you pie, says she will miss you."
"Aww," Mike said feeling the tears sting his eyes, thinking of Jere’s wife, a sweet, quiet woman, just like her husband. He always enjoyed her company, her good honest smiles and talk. "Wow, send her my thanks!"
Jere beamed and then his smile disappeared to a serious face. "You know... I want you to know, that I don’t think you bad person. Don’t listen to what they do, OK? I mean they don’t like what they don’t know but they wrong. They must not know you, cause I know you."
Jere patted Mike’s arm and nodded his eyes large and earnest. Mike’s heart simply melted, not in lust but in a sad, quiet adoration. Jere had always been there for him and for everyone with a smile or hug, or a cup of coffee, and he always would be. A sincerely beautiful soul of a man.
"You always decent person," Jere said. "Always! And we won’t forget you, never ever. You never hurt no one, never!"
"Thank you!" Modano whispered the tears falling down his cheeks, Jere brushed them off in the soft manner a mother would, and he hugged him tightly, pressing his damp face to his neck.
RING! RING!
Startled Modano jumped back and Jere picked up the phone. "Yah!" he said calmly into the receiver. "No, he right here. Yah it’s me. Yah I skip practice. Because my wife made pie! OK, OK!" Jere held the phone out to Mike. "Is for you, I try to buy time, so you can calm yah?"
Modano smiled weakly and took the phone. "Yah," he said into it, "I mean yeah?"
"Mike," it was the coach. "You’ve been traded."
The news hit him with a dull shock. He had been expecting it but he knew that he really hadn’t been. "Where?" he asked helplessly.
"You and Muller," the coach said and Modano shut his eyes. Of all the people to leave with.... "To Colorado."
Mike’s eyes popped open and he dropped the phone, he knew his mouth was gaping like a fish. He couldn’t breathe. This was impossible! All he could see was the fragments of his life, his childhood, his early career, his first kiss, Brett and then his mind fixated on... JOE!
"Yah," Jere said into the phone as he picked it up off the carpet. "Is me again. Yah he still here, I think he shocked. OK... OK... Yah. OK... I tell him, OK. No I won’t do again, just this time. My wife made pie! I said before! OK... I come right now OK? Is that good? Yah... Goodbye."
Jere hung up the phone and looked at Mike. "To Colorado? Is good yah! Good team, mountains, is good!" He smiled big. "And he say that ticket been bought for you to leave this afternoon to Denver. Pick up at office."
Mike nodded, he didn’t know exactly how he felt. Was it joy or pain or both? It was perfection. Fate was smiling upon him again there was no getting around it. Mike finally smiled and he looked at Jere. "Thank you for being such a friend to me," Mike said. "I will never forget that!"
"Oh," Jere said with a grin. "You go to Denver and I see you in summer! I will have no refusal!"
Modano nodded and hugged Jere again. "Thank you! I needed that so much today!"
It was almost a pleasure to see the tears in the eyes of flight attendants and airport staff and the cabbie and just about everyone who had caught wind of the trade. "How could they?" The ticket lady sobbed as she checked his plane ticket. "How stupid can they be?"
Mike had just shrugged and patted her on her hand and smiled at her. See! He knew he was important here, and he would be missed!
"All the tears for Mikey," Kirk whispered into his ear as they sat down in the plane. "No tears for Muller."
"Aw come on they’ll miss you too," Mike said as charitably as he could.
"Not likely," Muller muttered as he yawned and leaned back into his seat. "All because of your little nervous breakdown. You staged it didn’t you?"
"What?" Mike asked looking at Kirk in disbelief.
"I know what you were doing," Kirk said with his eyes still closed. "You were playing fag to scare Arnott cause you wanted to leave. I know that trick. Is that why you were asking so many questions about Michele Roy? You were planning on coming here?"
Mike pulled the little curtain down on his window and refused to watch the landscape disappear. He wanted never to look back. And rather than field the questions of Kirk, he merely tilted his head back, and closed his eyes until he fell asleep.
The violent turbulence that always preceded the immediate entry into Denver’s obscene altitude is what awoke Modano. He gasped and looked around as the plane rocked in short, evil bursts. He was gonna have to get used to this for every roadtrip? No friggin way!
And as soon as Mike was stepping out of the plane he saw the reporters and the cameras. Oh yeah this one was huge wasn’t it? Everyone was roped off, Mike blinked, looking around, and then he saw that familiar red beard, and then that gorgeous, perfect face of the other man. It was Keaner and... and... Joe! Joe had thought enough of him to come personally? Oh heavens!
"Hey!" Joe said with a smile. "Welcome to Denver!"
"Hey," Mike said as subdued as he could, his heart bursting as he gripped Joe’s hand. "Glad to be here!"
"Hull-o Mikey," Keaner said beaming like a troll.
Mike smiled back at Keaner, actually pleased to be seeing him again. At least Keaner was something familiar.
"So show us a great place to eat," Kirk said after Joe shook his hand. "I’m starving."
"We should find someplace to stay first shouldn’t we?" Mike asked.
"It’s all worked out," Joe said. "Kaspar told us that you two could have his apartment until everything was situated for us all. We’ll take you there."
"Not bad," Muller said.
Mike took a quick glance at Joe who smiled back at him and he knew now, that one most go through so much tribulation before they can enter into heaven!
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