Flirt: The Interviews Read Free Page A

little Shell Shock come back to haunt. Lost his memory, lost his way.
    â€”Let me know if that heat’s too much on your feet. I need cold on my legs; the Escalade can do both at once.
    â€”How many people can you get in here?
    â€”I’ve had eight adults but that’s without golf clubs.

    â€”My father was missing when I cracked my kneecap. And my mother couldn’t manage one more complication, a girl like me: injured and cold. Another body’s degeneration. She didn’t consult a doctor until the morning of day two. Then a night in hospital. Drain the fluid, full plaster leg cast for a month.
    â€”They’d never do that now. Too much muscle deterioration. Now it’s a system of braces.
    â€”My right leg is a quarter inch shorter than my left.
    â€”Back problems?
    â€”You bet.
    â€”Parents have to take a more educated role in watching out for their kids’ bodies in sports. Fundamentals. Codes of conduct. Early sports injuries can ruin lives and limit an adult’s activities later on. Coaches, too, must condition their athletes from day one. Sorry, I’m a pamphlet again. You and your father were close?
    â€”Pliny the Elder spoke of knees as symbols of power. They’ve been called “the knob of the head’s staff.” Do power brakes help with your legs or make it harder to control the stops?
    â€”Sorry. I thought that guy was coming off the curb. They help. But still some rough stops. You know, no one dies from knees.
    â€”Howie Morenz: dead of a broken leg.
    â€”The game’s changed.
    â€”In the 1969-70 season, four years into the league, you won the scoring title – 120 points – you won the Hart Trophy, the Conn Smythe, and your team won the Stanley Cup. You scored the winning goal in overtime.
    â€”Derek Sanderson was in his third year with us. Your dad would remember him checking Béliveau.
    â€”I know; I’ll get to him. The next year – spring 1971 – my father – recovering from amnesia, from his time missing – was a Canadiens fan. He had always loved Jean Béliveau and stressed to me that Béliveau was the sort of player – the sort of man – we should all admire. A handsome gentleman, no naughty elbows, the home game sweater, the bleu-blanc-rouge , a little grey at the temples of his shot. Béliveau’s last season and that year my
father fell for Ken Dryden, his attitude, how he knew everything, could stop anything. The McGill law degree, the clean face, the wiseman posture: chin on glove on stick. A tender. I took the Bruins, I took you and the black shirts and Sanderson’s urges. Four is still my lucky number. Lucky for what, who knows, but I like its heft, its girth and smooth sound. I hear the number and see you – your shoulders not huge like the boys now – your face clean, hair flying, and so much neck in that vulnerable golf-shirt way, no Bobby Hull farmer tuft at your neck. My father in the big chair, feet up, his slices of sharp cheddar and Labatt’s Blue and the sports section, rubbing the shrapnel starting to surface in his forearm, the game helping him back to the present. Me on the loveseat with my long teenage legs crossed, a springer spaniel’s head at my knee. My sister upstairs purging chemo. The Canadiens took the Cup that year.
    It smells like a saddle in here, Bobby, but quieter. I’d count the speakers if I could find them. In the doors? On the ceiling? Merle Haggard never sounded so buttery. We’ll have roses in December . . .
    â€”That’s a pretty voice you have. It’s the old country tunes I like. Not too jumpy, but not too smooth. You know, except for Hull, no one had really big shoulders back then. Now players do more to bulk up, spend short summers training and pumping. All we had off-season was lawn-mowing, golf and the race track. The game’s changed and their proportions are different, muscled, not bulk. And the