Chapter 33: Patty V--I Wouldn't Hurt You

A/N: If this chapter seems a bit dark.....well I can’t be happy all the time!!! Oh yeah, and big disclaimer of course. I know nothing of the past this is all fiction! FICTION!

Chapter 33: Patty V—I Wouldn’t Hurt You

"Daddy!"

"Wake up!"

"Waaaaaaake up!"

Patrick opened one eye and groaned. Was it four already? Jana was sitting on his chest slapping lightly at his face and he could feel Freddy panting at his ear. "Go away!" he muttered.

"Awwww, Daaaad!" Freddy moaned.

"This’ll get him up," he heard Jonathen say from the foot of the bed. There was a high pitched click from the remote control and Jonathen turned the TV to a loud music channel. Jana squealed and covered her ears and Patrick sat up abruptly.

"Jonathen!" he snapped. "Turn the channel!"

Jonathen rolled his eyes and clicked the TV to a news station. "There," he said. "We’re just trying to get you up."

Patrick yawned, stretching his arms far above his head. Jana wrapped her arms around him as he did so. Patrick smiled and hugged her. "Well, don’t scare your sister," he said.

Jonathen frowned. "She’s not scared of anything," he snapped. "She just acts up to get attention."

Jana looked over her shoulder and stuck her tongue out at her older brother before burying her face back into Patrick’s chest.

"See!" Jonathen exclaimed holding his hand out, "I always get in trouble for her dramatics! She can do whatever she wants and I have to be all nice to her!"

Patrick narrowed his eyes and looked at Freddy, who shrugged. "Mom got after Jonathen for hiding her Sneezy Bear."

"It was just a joke! Jeee-zus!" Jonathen cried.

"Jonathen," Patrick barked, "Stop it."

"Dad...." Jonathen began, but his voice died as Patrick proceeded to stare at him coldly. Jonathen tried staring back, his eyes sparking a bit, but he quickly dropped his gaze and mumbled. "Sorry."

Patrick sighed. "Just behave, your mother has enough to handle with in a day."

Jana jumped up and looked at Jonathen. "I’m sorry too!" Jana said. "I love you!"

"Riiiiiiight," Jonathen said as he rolled his eyes and stomped out of the room.

"What did I do? I said I love you!" Jana asked looking back up at Patrick.

Her eyes were fluttering like a hummingbird’s wing and there was a slight pout to her mouth. Patrick felt a dull ache in his stomach as he suddenly realized that she’d be a teenager and then a woman. Life was never easy, and this was one of the things he wasn’t looking forward to coping with. The babies grown, and then facing the world.

It was after practice earlier that afternoon when the news of what had happened to Joe had spread amongst the team. Patrick had just stepped into the locker room and already everyone was buzzing about it.

"Slipped on a baby toy?" Blake exclaimed. "How did that happen?"

"What’s up?" Patrick asked.

"Hey, Patty," Blake said. "Joe’s been injured."

"What?" Patrick exclaimed feigning as much ignorance as he could. "How?"

"Slipped on one of the baby’s toys," Footer said leaning forward from his seat on the bench, he winked quickly, "Fell down a flight of stairs."

Patrick grimaced. "That’s terrible. How long will he be out do you think?"

Practice was solemn and long. It was already a quieter place without Danny who was largely responsible for a lot of the yapping and horsing around the team energized off. Now the captain was gone. As quiet as Joe was, it was always so comforting to have him there. He was easy to obey and he also never excessively expected anything from anyone.

Patrick was actually finding it a bit harder to concentrate as the team skated some laps around the rink. He hated when Joe was hurt. It bothered him immensely not to see him gliding through the rink, weaving in and out amongst the guys. There was no short barks from him, no taps on the shoulder or a tug on the elbow to say, "Hiya Patty, how ya doing?"

Patrick had never in his life felt that way about a captain of his. In fact he had never felt that way about anyone considered a veteran on any team he had been on from junior hockey up. And Joe was younger than him! It was amazing how much respect he could command without exacting any sort of physical tribute or emotional collateral from those that followed him. Joe was practical. He did what he had to and didn’t waste anything to get things done. That’s what he liked about him. That’s what he respected.

As David Aebischer settled in the net to take the bulk of the practice shots to prepare for his game against Columbus that night, Patrick sat down at the other corner of the rink. He contented himself with watching the practice and trying to think if there had ever been a veteran or captain that he had truly respected before he had met Joe. Well, there had been Larry Robinson.

Patrick remembered melting in the sauna, trying not to think about anything, right before his very first playoff series in ’86. He had felt slightly nervous and curious as to what was going to happen to him. There had been so much uproar in the team surrounding him in recent months and he knew that they’d been lucky to scrape over 80 points in the standings. Teams didn’t win Stanley Cups by scraping by.

Their coach, Jean Perron, had tried to prep and pep them after the last game of the season. "We have veterans!" Perron said. "We have fire!"

"We have questionable goaltending," their captain, Bob Gainey, had said bluntly. "And Tremblay is gone. We need to overcome that."

Patrick had felt a fire in his gut but he didn’t say anything at all. He’d seen too much to react much anymore.

But he had thought about it more as the steam sweated his skin. Gainey was right. Goaltending, his goaltending was the issue. He knew they had enough offense but that’s not how the playoffs ran. Even though he knew Gainey was correct, and not outwardly trying to be insensitive, Patrick was still irked. It couldn’t help the team or the goalie in question if the captain was just throwing barbs at him.

"Ooooooh, clear a space! I’m coming in." Larry Robinson said as he pattered into the sauna, dropping his towel to one side and flopping down on a bench. "Oh, hey Goose."

Patrick mumbled a "hello" to Larry and began to fume some more. The whole team had taken to calling him, "Goose" because of the way he bobbed his head during games. What a stupid nickname! Patrick had thought.

"No one else here?" Larry asked as he looked around the sauna and then looked at Patrick.

Patrick shook his head. "No," he said. "Do you think anyone would want to be in here with me? What makes you think I want anyone else in here?"

Larry looked straight into Patrick’s eyes and slowly nodded. Then he coughed and blew some air through his reddish mustache and leaned his head back, closing his eyes.

Patrick continued to look at Larry. The man was shaped like a wiry scarecrow and colored like milk. There was something graceful about the way he was formed though. It was perhaps the length of his thin neck and limbs that helped with that. Mario had been shaped more like a mass of boulders. All muscle and bull dog flesh.

Patrick shuddered, Mario was gone now and he still couldn’t rid himself of the feeling of his body. Unattractive. Worse, Patrick knew that Mario had left a taint on him that was ugly. It must have been Mario’s fault because Patrick knew that before he’d met him, he had never caught himself staring at another man’s body the way he was looking at Larry’s right now. He’d never been curious before about how pink another man’s fingertips were or how his skin might feel.

"What are you looking at?" Larry asked Patrick, running his fingers through his dampened, reddish mop of hair.

"Nothing!" Patrick snapped and he looked away with red cheeks.

There was silence for awhile, just the hiss of the steam. Patrick could feel his throat tightening a bit. He had been crying periodically every day, and Michele was too. Neither of them could seem to stop it.

"You don’t have to be ashamed," Larry finally said. "We all look at what interests us. We’re human."

"I’m not a fag," Patrick snarled.

Larry held up his hands slightly. "Neither am I," he said. "I just do what I please."

Patrick calmed down a bit, feeling more curious. "You do?" he asked.

"Goose," Larry said, leaning forward, resting his elbows on his thighs. "Life is too short to make distinctions between fag and straight and restrict and repress. Understand?"

Patrick nodded. There was a sick logic in that.

"We only have one life," Larry said. "We might as well make ourselves comfortable."

Patrick looked away. He could feel Larry’s gaze on him now. After another pause Larry said quietly. "Come here."

Patrick looked back at him and shook his head.

Larry shrugged. "Suit yourself."

"I’m not going through that again," Patrick replied.

"I wouldn’t hurt you," Larry said. "It doesn’t have to be painful."

Patrick ignored him. Silence was a weapon sometimes. They wanted to hear his voice. They wanted to hear him say things, well he wouldn’t oblige them. They sat quietly for another spell.

"Are you still talking to your posts, kid?" Larry finally asked.

"What do you care?" Patrick said.

"It concerns me, I worry about you." Larry said.

"It helps me concentrate," Patrick replied.

"You didn’t start talking to them until after...after "The Incident". Do you need someone to talk to about it?" Larry asked.

"No," Patrick said dully, "Mimi and I are fine without any of you." Patrick looked at Larry’s sad eyes and felt a wicked smile cross his lips. "Besides!" Patrick added, "I have the forum ghosts, you have shit!"

Larry smiled uncertainly. "No," he said. "We have you, and even if the others don’t realize it yet, that’s all we need."

Patrick suddenly felt his confidence melt away. Goaltending was the question mark.

"You know, Pat," Larry said. "If you cut out that one bad goal per game. We’re gonna be just fine in the playoffs."

For the first time that morning, Patrick smiled. "It’s that easy, is it not?" Patrick said with a laugh. "You’ve been a goalie? You cut out one goal a game like magic?"

Larry shrugged. "If it’s one bad goal, absolutely. The soft goals you can prevent and that’s what you allow consistently after those splendid saves you make. Just cut them out. When the shooters beat you, it will be because they deserve it, not because you do."

"Patrick! You’re up!"

Patrick was snapped from his thoughts as he rose to his skates, tapping Abby on his pads as he skated by him to the net. He looked around the faces of his teammates as he settled down for some shots. There was no Joe. He knew they were all thinking the same thing. What do we do without Joe?

Joe deserves more respect from me, Patrick concluded. Larry was all well and good, but even after the youthful ordeals Patrick knew Joe had gone through, in the end, Joe was clean.

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