Keep The Lights On

Okay, I know I need to blog about vacation AND Quebec, but as that won't be happening right now, I do have a story that I wrote on the way out to Salt Spring, and I thought if I was going to post I might as well post this. So. Comments and constructive criticism are writer's bread and butter, please do give them :)

Orange lights reflected on a rink crosshatched with the marks of skate blades. Above, the sky had been black nearly since the time boys had started appearing with skates and sticks. Banks of shoveled snow, waist-high in places, bordered the ice. Patrick McAllister cleared it every morning.

The last gangly teenager finished tugging off his skates, shoved half-numb feet into boots, and the little shack on the edge of the rink was empty. The orange lights still reflected their electric glow on the surface of the ice, but Patrick turned those off last.

First, he emptied the dregs of hot chocolate from its metal keg. All of it sold every evening, at fifty cents a mug. It wasn’t much for profit, but profit wasn’t really the point. Afterward, he set it on the step to be taken home and rinsed out.

The tiny room adjacent to the even tinier one that he called his ‘office’ had a floor overlaid with rubber. It was meant to keep the blades from dulling, but the black veneer had never been replaced and Patrick could feel the wood beneath. Nevertheless, he mopped the melted snow and placed a forgotten hockey stick in the corner. Robby Vanderbilt, said black permanent marker on the shaft. Robby was always forgetting things. So were the others – Patrick had a stash of unclaimed sticks interspersed with a few pairs of skates and several mittens without partners.

A glance at his watch showed him it was high time to be home. Tomorrow morning he must be up in time to shovel any snowfall during the night, and still make his bus for the hardware store job that paid for things like electricity and water. Not quite university. “Water that bursts the pipes,” he muttered, remembering that the plumber never had come after temperatures dropped to minus forty and the line that fed his shower had split.

All that was left was to jam his faded red-and-white toque on, wind his scarf around his head against the cold that would still infiltrate his lungs, and walk home. Donning his hat, whose bright Canadian maple leaf had long ago dropped off to leave only a jaggedly cleaner shape against the wool, he flicked the switch that would plunge the rink into darkness and stepped into his boots.

He thought the first tentative knock at the door was his own thudding footsteps. Then came a second one, followed by a treble inquiry – “Can you turn the lights back on, mister?”

Patrick opened the door. Facing him on the one step was a short figure, shape of a hockey stick in one hand, and a telltale rubber disc in the other. “One sec,” he responded, backpedaling to flick the switch on once more. Rink lights flickered once more into life. What was anyone doing, skating this late?

Now, returning once more to the door with intention to tell whoever this late-night enthusiast was that he should be home in bed, he could see him more clearly. A hat, that might once have been green but was now a noncommittal dark shade, was pulled down over his ears. He looked about ten, perhaps eleven or a small twelve. His hockey stick was on the verge of becoming one large splinter. “Thanks,” he said, peering upward from under the shadow of the too-large hat. Freckles were sprinkled liberally over his nose.

Patrick had meant to tell him the rink was closed for the night and boys should be home, especially with school the next day, but instead he found himself saying, “No problem.” And then, even more surprising – “You wanna use a better stick?”

“You have sticks?” was the eager response.

A foray into the rubber-floored room had Patrick emerging with a respectable specimen. WAYNE GRETZKY, proclaimed the block letters along its length. Black tape swathed the blade, but it was respectable enough. “Here y’go,” he said, giving it into a mittened hand.

“Thanks!”

Another discreet glance at his watch informed Patrick just how late it was getting. “Hey – what’s your name?” he called after the retreating figure. The kid was slowly making his way out onto the ice with purposeful strokes. If he lacked technique, he made up for it in determination.

“Marcus O’Brien,” he called, voice carrying clearly in the crisp air. Probably below minus twenty-five by now, Patrick thought. But –

“Hey, you’re Irish! Me too,” he responded. It really was getting late. Tomorrow he needed to be awake enough to tell people which section the spare tires were in and identify the right type of nail for fastening drywall. The rink should have been closed an hour ago.

Thirty seconds later, Patrick had his skates on. The stash of sticks in the corner had lost one more.

The small figure was intently handling its puck near the opposite end of the rink. Patrick skimmed through the splotches of orange light until he was close enough to make a pass for the rubber disc. He grinned. “You want some company?”

Marcus considered him, the tilt of his head thoughtful. “Okay,” he said, and passed the puck.

They skated down the rink in companionable silence, Patrick returning all the passes he received. Reluctant responsibility took hold. “Won’t your parents be worried you’re out so late?”

“No.” Marcus continued down the ice, apparently tranquil.

A beat, and Patrick followed, curiousity not sated in the least. Another few passes, and he tried again. “Got school tomorrow?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s your favorite subject?”

“Recess.” That made them both laugh.

A flurry of snow swept across the ice, carried by a breath of icy wind. Patrick cast his small company a sidelong glance, but Marcus was unperturbed by the cold.

Two more trips along the length, and two sets of toes had begun to go numb. Patrick caught a sniff from beside him and ground effortlessly to a stop, shaving ice. “You want some hot chocolate?”

They stomped back into the shack, over the rubber floor, and Patrick left Marcus tugging off his skates and went to heat water.

Moments later, over a pair of mugs, he made another attempt at conversation. “I haven’t seen you around the rink before.”

Marcus nodded. “We moved.”

“Where from?”

A shrug. “We move a lot.” That small freckled face was intent on its hot drink, but Patrick thought he sensed something behind the noncommittal answer. He probed no further.

He glanced at his watch and winced. He’d be dead at work tomorrow. “Marcus, I should get home. You probably should too.”

For the first time, he saw dejection in the hunch of the boy’s shoulders. Marcus drained his hot chocolate, and pushed the mug across the table. “You can skate backwards really good,” he offered matter-of-factly. “If I came tomorrow, would you teach me?”

Caught off guard, Patrick blinked. “Sure, I could do that.”

“Okay.”

He turned off the orange lights with an air of finality, and walked beside Marcus to where similarly orange streetlights, their bases piled high with snow, lined the sidewalk. Both paused at the corner, Patrick crossing and Marcus turning. Unsure of the appropriate gesture, Patrick solemnly extended a mittened hand. “Good night.”

Marcus shook it. “Thanks for keeping the lights on.”

- - -


The next evening, Patrick didn’t turn off the rink lights. Instead, he sat in the shack and drank the dregs of his hot chocolate until nearly midnight. The stick that said WAYNE GRETZKY lounged in the corner unused.

He walked home feeling a curious sense of loss.

Marcus never came again.

- - -


The job at the hardware store paved the way to a job at a diner, then a job at a restaurant. The restaurant acquired a few regulars, among them a Kelly with green eyes. University doors were open now, but she hadn’t gone, so he decided he wouldn’t either. Their wedding was in the little chapel around the corner, and their honeymoon was a night in the fancy hotel in downtown Winnipeg. She wanted a little girl, and he wouldn’t have objected to a boy, but he fell in love the moment a hospital nurse deposited Erin – Irish heritage and all – in his arms. It was just after her first birthday that they acquired a TV.

Patrick sprawled on the couch, half paying attention to the staticky hockey game and half dissuading his small daughter from grabbing the cat’s tail. Kelly rattled dishes in the kitchen.

“And here we are with Marcus O’Brien of the Vancouver Canucks – Marcus, how have you found your first season in the NHL?”

Patrick sat bolt upright, hearing the cat give a yowl and disregarding it. The young man on the screen might have had freckles, but he couldn’t see through the static. He answered a few questions about being a rookie, was appropriately excited, and thanked the news anchor with a rakish grin. Erin was attempting to stand using the edge of the coffee table, and he steadied her with one hand while still gluing his eyes to the screen.

“Anybody out there you want to say hello to?” the anchor asked just as Marcus O’Brien was turning away. The rookie started to shake his head. Then he looked over his shoulder at the camera.

“Nah,” he replied. “Just one thing.”

“What’s that?” Patrick fumbled for the antenna in sudden panic as a wave of static garbled the audio.

He caught one more glimpse of Marcus O’Brien. The static cleared, and the young man could have been staring straight into Patrick’s eyes.

“Thanks for keeping the lights on.”

"Exotic melancholy gives me spazzy tantrums."