Some years later, after graduating with honours from the University of Western Ontario’s journalism program, Allisandra (having abandoned the nickname of Allie sometime in first year university) lucked into a job as a sportswriter for the Toronto Star. She spent most of her time traveling around the country, following up on the various activities of various sports teams, then attempting to make an interesting story out of so and so’s salary dispute or jock itch. Every so often, while traveling to Detroit to follow up on the Red Wings, Tigers, Lions, or Pistons, Allisandra would drive across the border to Windsor and visit her beloved Windsor Arena. For many years, the city had been trying to build up enough support and funds to tear down the arena and build a new one, but their efforts were to no avail. So, the arena continued to stand, proud and tall, stinking of a strange blend of hockey players and bad fast food.
Every time Allisandra enters the arena, her first instinct is to smile, shake her head, and think “some things never change.”
Though slightly grayed and somewhat less mobile, Drunk Guy was still there. Allisandra noticed this instantly upon her arrival at the arena on a cold, blustery February day. In town covering a Toronto Maple Leafs road trip, she almost regretted having gone to the game. After all, she had articles to write, deadlines to make, and an angry editor breathing down her neck. The game began with a loud roar from the crowd which, for Allisandra, was interrupted by the indignant chirping of her cell phone.
“Allisandra Leighton,” she answered mechanically.
“Where the fuck are you?”
“Nice to hear from you too, Jack.” Jack, her chauvinistic, middle aged, balding, Viagra addicted editor, had been trying to get her fired for months. It was all that Allisandra could do to hold her tongue and refrain from making biting remarks whenever she was in contact with him.
“What the hell are you doing? That doesn’t sound like an office, Leighton. Shouldn’t you be writing something right now?”
“Shit,” muttered Allisandra, thinking quickly. How could she justify being at a junior hockey game when her deadline was only a few hours away? Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Drunk Guy. And, just like that, she was hit with an idea. “Jack, I’m doing a human interest piece. A sort of individual as a representation of hockey in Canada type of thing. I can’t tell you much yet, but it’ll be good. I’m researching it right now.”
“It’d better be good, or your ass is gone.”
With her sweetest tone, she replied, “Don’t worry, Jack, darling. You’ll be blown away.” Shoving her phone back into her purse, she gritted her teeth. “Time to save my own backside,” she thought as she got out of her seat and proceeded in the general direction of a decidedly sober Drunk Guy.
During an appropriate break in play, Allisandra nonchalantly meandered over to the empty seat to the right of Drunk Guy. For the first time, she noticed that his eyes were a striking shade of blue. He sat, hunched slightly forward, elbows on knees, hands clasped, intently watching the game. Allisandra cleared her throat to get his attention, but his eyes didn’t move from the ice. The horn sounded to signal the end of the first period, but Drunk Guy’s gaze remained unwavering. Allisandra cleared her throat again, then finally grew impatient.
“Excuse me, sir?”
Finally, Allisandra received a response. Drunk Guy turned his head ever so slightly towards her, not moving from his hunched posture. In a slightly accented voice, he responded, “Yes? Can I help you?”
His voice took Allisandra aback. The accent, the hollowness of it, was not what she had expected. Somehow she had expected some variation on the theme of a drunken Canadian hick slur. This educated, foreign, hopeless voice was most unexpected.
Recovering her professional demeanor, Allisandra introduced herself. “My name is Allisandra Leighton and I’m a reporter for The Toronto Star. I’m doing an article on the fans of Canadian minor league hockey and I was wondering if you’d consent to doing an interview?”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can. I’m not really that much of a hockey fan,” was his unexpected reply.
In a rare moment of true honesty, Allisandra replied, “Because you interest me. Because I came to a lot of games here when I was a teenager and you were always here. I guess I’m just kind of curious why you come here for every game. Especially now that you’ve told me that you’re not much of a hockey fan. That can’t be true after all these years.”
“Well…” he said hesitatingly. Then, seeing Allisandra’s pleading expression, he added, “I guess. But just a few basic questions. Not here, though. Do you mind going somewhere else?”
“Of course I don’t mind,” replied Allisandra, joyously. “There’s a Tim Horton’s right down the street. Is that alright with you?”
Drunk Guy nodded his approval, and the two left the arena into what could only be described as a truly Canadian blizzard. Drunk Guy increased the speed of his gait, and Allisandra followed suit, sliding clumsily through the snow in her three inch heels.
“By the way, sir, may I ask what your name is?” she yelled over the roar of the wind.
“Michael Peralta. Just call me Mike, though.”
Shaking the snow off their coats, Mike and Allisandra entered the warm sanctuary of Tim Horton’s. Allisandra looked down at her shoes and sighed. “So much for $200 Prada heels.”
Mike chose a table in the back corner of the restaurant, and Allisandra sat across from him. Taking off his plain brown overcoat, Mike began. “So…”
Allisandra, still trying to get the snow off of her precious shoes, turned her attention to Mike. She pulled a small tape recorder out of her purse and, pushing the record button, set it down on the table.
“Well, first of all, can you tell me a little bit about yourself?”
“That’s easy enough. I was born in a small town in Italy and grew up there. Eventually, I moved to Boston with my family. That was in about 1968, I was twenty years of age. Shortly after, in a crazy fit of patriotism for my new country, I joined the army and was sent to Saigon. After ‘Nam, I came home, eventually moved to Canada, and that, in a nutshell, is my life.”
“What was life like in Italy?”
“Comfortable. My family was one of the more affluent and prominent families in our village, so I had it easy. Good school, lots of possessions, few worries. Italy is a beautiful country. Have you ever been? Well, if you ever have the opportunity, I’d recommend it. Of course, I haven’t been back in years. I plan on going back someday.” His voice took on a dreamy quality as he said this, and Allisandra found herself wishing that she was in the warm, luscious vineyards of Italy, not buried in the snow and ice of Canada. She made a mental note to ask her travel agent about the availability of flights to Italy when she got back to Toronto.
“Now for the important question. What is it that makes you want to attend so many hockey games when you stated that you don’t particularly like hockey?”
With that, Mike’s expression changed from bored detachment to an unreadable mixture of longing and melancholy. After a moment, he simply said, “Good memories, I guess.”
Slightly frustrated with his reluctance to answer the question more fully, Allisandra asked, “Can you explain that?”
“I thought you said this was going to be simple,” retorted Mike.
“It is simple. I mean, I’m sure that you must have a simple reason. Maybe you like the company there. Maybe you like the puckbunnies. Or the smell of the zamboni. Or, most undoubtedly, you just go for the unlimited cheap beer. I’m not asking the meaning of life here – it’s a simple question with a simple answer.”
The moment the words were out of her mouth, Allisandra regretted saying them. Once again, she had let her sharp tongue get away from her. In her mind, she saw Mike getting up and leaving that very instant, and both her story and her career disappearing with him.
To her surprise, though, Mike did not get up. Nor did his expression reflect any sort of anger. Instead, it had returned to its familiar, unreadably bland lines.
“I’m so sorry,” said Allisandra. “I didn’t mean that.”
“Yes, you did,” replied Mike. “You, Miss Leighton, are a very cocky and judgmental individual. You probably think that I’m just some middle-aged drunkard who works at a minimum wage job and gets the thrill of his life from a Budweiser and the cheap seats at a hockey game. And, just for that, I’m going to answer your question; not so that you can get your Pulitzer prize-winning story, but simply so that you will realize that most people don’t fit into the little holes that narrow-minded people like yourself drill for them.”
Stinging from his words, Allisandra fought the impulse to get up and leave. “Cocky? Judgmental? I am not!” she thought. Instead, she listened to her sensible side and kept her seat at the table, if only for the sake of her story. “Not that it would be that great anyway. I’m interviewing a drunkard who just happens to think he’s better than all the other drunkards.”
Breaking her reverie, Mike pointed to her tape recorder. “I assume that thing is turned on?”
“Yes, it is. Please go on,” she said with feigned complacency.
“Well, like I said, I came to the United States when I was twenty. I’m still not sure why my family chose to emigrate, but they did, and within the year, we all became US citizens. Now, this was the late sixties, while they were still drafting for Vietnam. Being the adventurous type, I signed myself up for the Army. At the time I thought it was an adventure – a chance for a free vacation to some exotic southeast Asian country that I had never visited. I envisioned coming home a hero with a few medals and some fancy ranking. I thought that Lieutenant Peralta had a nice ring to it. Truth be told, I was much like you are now. Young, cocky, idealistic, with many dreams, but few means of reaching them.”
“Great, another story of some wacked out Vietnam vet. Nothing everyone hasn’t heard a million times before. He probably never even saw battle,” brooded Allisandra.
“Was I ever in for a shock when I arrived in Vietnam. Beach vacation it wasn’t. I was immediately sent into battle. But never mind the glory that is usually associated with those words; there was nothing glorious about it. It was what was known as the rainy season, so it usually poured for most of the day. We trudged through knee-deep mud in jungle so dense you couldn’t see more than a few feet ahead of you. None of us had a clue where we were and, worse than that, none of us had a clue where the enemy was either. I think the term they use in high school classes now is guerilla warfare, but to put it quite plainly, it was hell on Earth. We lived in a constant state of fear: fear of ambush, fear of death, fear of never seeing our loved ones again. Our C.O., a guy in his late thirties from Kentucky named Frank, eventually gave up his harsh manner and told us all about his wife and twelve year old daughter. I’ll never forget the moment when he broke down in tears and made me promise that, if he never made it out, I’d personally go to see them. Like I said, I never signed up for anything like that.
“As it turned out, part of my dream for Vietnam did come true. Apparently, I had a sort of talent for being a soldier, and eventually did become Lieutenant Peralta. At first that was a good deal, I was given something like a break – I was sent south to train the new recruits. Saigon, at that time, was a very welcome vacation from the jungles and villages of farther north. Like any other fine young soldier of the time, I took an active role in helping the South Vietnamese nightclub industry. Whenever I had some time off, my buddies and I would go to this one place – Dreamland. It was the ultimate in sleeze; we could each get a couple rounds of drinks and a girl for about what it would cost for a burger and fries back home. It was an easy life, but after a while, I began to get restless.”
At that, Mike paused and laughed nervously. “I guess I shouldn’t have told you that last part, eh? A young lady like yourself probably doesn’t need to hear about that part of the life of a soldier. Although I’m sure, considering what the papers are printing these days, you’ve heard and written much worse.”
Anxious for him to continue with his story, Allisandra concurred. “I’m sure I have.”
“So, back to Saigon. Soon I was put in command of a unit of about twenty-five men. Our assignment was the same as any other unit’s – find the Viet Cong and kill them. For a while, we were successful. Some of my men even joked that I deserved a medal of honour. Then everything changed.”
Mike’s voice wavered with his last sentence, and Allisandra noticed that its hollowness had returned. Looking over at him, she saw his obvious discomposure and wondered what could have possibly happened to affect him so strongly all these years later.
“Our assignment one day was seemingly routine – go into a village and root out the enemy. We’d all done it before and, unpleasant as it was to burn the homes of civilians, it was necessary. Suddenly, we heard gunshots from the roof of one of the larger buildings, and when we looked up, we saw two Cong soldiers positioned there. One of my men had been hit, so we fired in retaliation. I tossed a few grenades, just to ensure that we didn’t miss any of them. I guess my throw was dead on because almost immediately, the building went up in flames. Then, from inside, I heard the cries that I still remember to this day. Cries of anguish, cries of pain. Cries of the damned, screaming for salvation. We realized all too late that the building must have been the village’s school, or something like that. At that point what could I do? If I went in with my men, we would have probably been trapped and died trying to save the children of the enemy. People rushed from all sides of the village to watch the blaze. Parents, siblings, friends, all there in agonized grief, all looking at us as if we were heartless killers.
“When the flames died down to smoldering embers, one young mother rushed in to the middle of them and picked up the scarred body of her young child. She rocked him back and forth, clutching him tightly, as if in refusing to let him go she wouldn’t have to accept that he was gone. She cried out something indecipherable in her own language, but then pointed at me and said clearly, in English, one word: “murderer”. I guess my unit should have pulled out by then, but we were all in a state of shock. Sure, we had seen death before, but nothing like this.”
Tears filled Mike’s eyes as he painfully recalled those events. With a shaking hand, he quickly wiped them away and continued.
“When we got back to the base, I was lost. I replayed that day over and over in my mind, trying to comprehend what had happened and what I could have done to prevent it. No matter what I did, I couldn’t escape the overwhelming guilt that I felt. The war was no longer a game or a way to attain glory, it was torture of the worst kind.
“Eventually I found my reprieves – drugs, alcohol, and prostitutes. Going to nightclubs was no longer a thing to do with my friends on a Saturday night, it was the story of my life. When I was drunk or stoned the guilt wasn’t as intense, but whenever I sobered up, it came flooding back. So I remained perpetually intoxicated.
“Of course, my C.O. never realized that anything was wrong, so I was soon sent back into combat. This time, though, I didn’t care whether I lived or died. I made stupid mistakes, set myself up for failure, and eventually was wounded – a bullet through the thigh. Once again, it was back to Saigon, only this time to a crowded military hospital. Little did I know that in that hospital I was about to meet my guardian angel.
“A few days after I had been dragged in and fixed up, I woke up, slowly and groggily, to an angelic face leaning over me. She had huge blue eyes and a halo of long, blonde curly hair. Her first words to me were, “Good morning, lieutenant. Had a good rest?” only I can still remember that she said lieutenant as “lefttenant”, which seemed odd. Eventually, I found out that my angel’s name was Abigail Kennedy, and she had grown up in Canada but currently lived in California. She was a medical student who had come to Vietnam to gain some practical experience. None of that mattered at the time, though – I was in love. I know that sounds crazy, love at first sight. God knows, I never believed in it before that moment. In that one moment, though, I didn’t know how and I didn’t know why, I just knew that I had met the one person that I was supposed to be with. She gave me hope for the future and made me want to live again. When I finally got up the courage to tell her about what had happened in the village on that fateful day, she listened attentively and told me that she understood that it wasn’t my fault. More than that, though – she allowed me to believe it, too. With her by my side, I quit drinking, gave up drugs, and dared to again become an idealist.
“When I was well again, she promised to write to me, and I almost considered getting myself wounded just so I could see her again. Once again, though, luck appeared to be on my side. It was 1974, and things weren’t looking good for us. The Viet Cong were advancing, and back home most people were in support of ending the war. So the president issued an order – gradually remove the troops from ‘Nam. I was among the first to go. Abigail remained, but we vowed to be together as soon as she returned to the USA.
“The next few years went by in a blur. I returned to Boston and began work in my father’s business. The war ended, but I had no word from Abigail. Frantically I did my best to search for her, but to no avail. I went through the motions of living without really feeling anything.”
For the first time, Allisandra noticed the small, gold wedding band on Mike’s left ring finger. “You’re married, though! So that means you found her, right?” Mike said nothing, but smiled sadly and continued on with his story.
“One day, I guess you could say destiny took a hand. As it turns out, my youngest brother, Eddie, had a natural talent for the sport of hockey. When he was 16, in 1976, he had a hockey tournament here in Windsor. Both of my parents were busy the week of the tournament, so they asked me to go along with him to make sure that he didn’t get himself into any trouble.
“During one of his games, I was doing my best to sit there and try to look interested – as I’ve already said, hockey really isn’t my game, when I noticed a beautiful blonde woman sitting on the opposite side of the ice, staring at me. My first inclination, of course, was wishful thinking that it was Abigail. Since we had parted, almost every beautiful blonde woman I saw evoked that reaction from me. When I looked at her again, she was still staring and I realized that it wasn’t just wishful thinking. It was her. In the most unlikely of places the long lost lovers were reunited. Let me just say that Hollywood itself couldn’t have come up with a better scene. About a month later, we were married and had settled in Windsor, which turned out to be her Canadian hometown. She worked as a pediatric oncologist, and I set up a small real estate business. It was the perfect life.
“Unfortunately, as we all know, perfection doesn’t last forever, and dreams eventually have to come to an end. About five years after we were married, Abigail started to get headaches and fainting spells. I took her into a doctor and, after about a million painful tests, he diagnosed an inoperable brain tumor and gave her six months to live. Kind of ironic, isn’t it? The disease she had been curing in children at the clinic was the one that would be her end. She fought it valiantly and lived longer than anyone expected, but even she wasn’t strong enough to do the impossible. It was like being back in ‘Nam again, only worse. I was watching someone die and was powerless to stop it. Only this time it was the one person who I knew I couldn’t live without. She had saved my life, but I was powerless to do anything to save hers.”
Mike’s voice cracked and faded off. He leaned against the table and put his head in his hands - the picture of a broken man. Her story the farthest thing from her mind, Allisandra quickly stopped the tape recorder and put a hand on Mike’s shoulder. He pushed it away.
“You have your story now, don’t you? Hell, you probably have a Hollywood script, if you cared to write it. You’re probably wondering why I haven’t moved on – why I haven’t bought one of those self-help books, or seen a shrink or something. The truth is that I’ve given up. Every day when I get up, just for a moment, I allow myself to believe that my wife is there beside me. Then I look over, see nothing, and the pain returns again.
“Y’know what I just realized? I never did answer your question straightforwardly, although I’m sure that you can guess the answer by now. Why do I attend so many hockey games when I don’t even like hockey? Like I said, good memories. After enough drinks, I can almost bring myself back to the past world. Every so often I can look up and once again see the love of my life across the arena, staring and trying to decide if her eyes are really playing tricks on her. When I stand up to leave my seat, I can make myself believe, if only for a second, that I’m getting up to be with her.”
Mike looked Allisandra straight in the eye. “You probably wouldn’t understand this, you’re too young, but I’m sure that someday you will. Losing the best thing you’ve ever had does strange things to a person. They say that it’s better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all, but loving and losing is no easy thing either.”
Allisandra opened her mouth to say something, but Mike held up his hand in a gesture of silence. “It’s amazing the things you’ll tell to a complete stranger, isn’t it?” he said. “I guess it’s just easier to talk to strangers sometimes.” And with that, Mike picked up his coat and slowly walked out of the Tim Horton’s into the blizzard. Allisandra watched him go, head down and hands thrust deep into his pockets, until he disappeared into the mystical whiteness. She sat at the table in stunned silence. In that short time, all of her life flashed before her eyes. Her goals, her ambitions and everything she did in the average day suddenly lost all of their meaning. What good were money and fame? In the end, where did they really get you? It was the people around you that really mattered. Allisandra came to this revelation with a start. Mike, in his own way, had helped her see it. She looked back at all the people she had hurt and exploited on her way to success and felt an instant pang of regret.
Suddenly, she wanted nothing more than to just put her arms around Mike and thank him. To spend more time with him and try to bring some amount of light into his dark life. Without even reaching for her coat, she dashed out the door, but it was too late. He was long gone.