Chapter 417: Keaner X--Never Again

Surprisingly, Joe didn’t make any more mention of the incident back at the hotel room. Mike figured that some sort of punishment or rebuke, or even a long winded speech about common sense and practical jokes would be in order. He didn’t even ask if there was a real story to what happened, or a recap of what exactly did happen. Maybe saving it for tomorrow morning perhaps? Tomorrow afternoon or in the locker room, where the team could witness it? Actually, Joe didn’t even seem that angry about, just saddened and somewhat relieved, as they all were that things hadn’t turned out as badly as they could have.

“I’m turning off the television, Mike,” Joe sighed as he clicked it off. “Let’s get some sleep. I’m burned out.” Mike could hear Joe rolling around in his blanket, getting comfortable, sighing and groaning at intervals before finally settling down.

“Night, man,” he murmured staying perfectly still, feeling like a nervous rookie all over again, not wanting to disturb the sleep of the superior in the next bed. Then Mike grinned. He couldn’t ever remember actually feeling like that as a rookie but that’s what the other guys said it was like.

Still, when Mike closed his eyes, pulling his blanket around his shoulders, he saw Blake’s body toppling, spinning, falling off the balcony, his cry of anguish, the cold shock, legs sticking comically out of a dumpster laden with mattresses. Feeling like a murderer, now that was something new to Mike, something he’d never thought he’d feel, regardless of anything he’d ever done or participated in, murder had always been an alien word, beyond and below his abilities or wants. Fortunately, the mattresses had insured that he wouldn’t actually be a murderer. Even if it was an accident, Mike felt the taint of it in his blood, taking a human life, stealing it away, ending it before its time, murder.

Why should I feel guilty about having fun with you, when they killed a girl and laughed about it? Michele’s eyes watered and wavering, unbalanced, inebriated slightly, a little pot, a little liquor, just a little stoned.

Mike had laughed and leaned over her bubble bath water, trailed his fingers over the bubbles and flicked them, but he didn’t touch her or the water itself. Babe, that’s the first and last time I hook you up with a joint, okay? You’re talking funny.

I thought you said my English good! She snapped, but her eyes remained dull, her bottom lip a little loose.

Well it’s never that great, Baby, but I wasn’t talking about your accent. You’re calling your husband’s teammates murderers.

Michele had sniffed, her fingers to her nose, No I don’t like joint, Keaner, she used his nickname with such amusement, I don’t they make my fingers smell. Don’t hook up again with that thing, with me yes? And then she giggled, high, birdlike, girlish, stretching in the bubbles. And Keaner, they killed a girl.

Girls on the bus, crying out in pain or pleasure, or in the locker room, in your teammates’ bed, those were things you looked away from. Things you tolerated that didn’t amount to much than ignoring heated ruttings and tumblings, sometimes with girls too young, or married to someone important or even occasionally, a hooker. Now he couldn’t imagine something as powerful as murder being ignored.

Did you see it? Somber and serious.

She hiccupped, I was there, does that make me murder too? It doesn’t feel good.

No I wouldn’t think so.

And really Mike hadn’t believed her and now feeling as he did, he was certain she’d be angry stoned and delusional, or lying and manipulative. Blake lay in a hospital room under observation tonight, he would be fine, he would play again sooner rather than later, but he still felt like a shitty old murderer. Hell he hadn’t even dropped the damn bowling ball, and he felt like an accomplice to something guttural and dirty. He couldn’t imagine a bunch of men, not unlike him, killing someone and just continuing with their lives.

He yawned, and he closed his eyes, again seeing Drury’s horrified face, and imagining if Rob hadn’t been so fortunate. He imagined Rob tumbling onto the pavement, a pool of blood seeping from his skull, or he imagined him catching the edge of the dumpster and laying twisted and mangled amongst the mattresses. God waited right now, Keaner knew, he’d promised the old bastard upstairs a prayer in gratitude, but one wouldn’t come to him, and he was sure God understood. He just muttered a soft, “Thank you” and that should be that.

Finally, just as Sakic began to snore and mutter in the next bed, Mike fell asleep.

A dream didn’t stand out as particularly important or vivid in Mike’s consciousness when he woke up in the gray pale light of dawn, before sunrise. Dreams rarely stuck with him, or mattered much or made sense and his life went on with only vague memories of them. And when he opened his eyes, he didn’t have a particular dream image in his mind, but he wondered what he could credit for the sudden revelation.

They’re fucking.

One and two, they were at it again, like siblings competing in a stomach turning contest of will and manipulation. Not much regard had ever been spent on the feelings of their targets, but that was not a matter in the game other than forcing them to do their will. Once being a victim of it, a kid tangled with them like snakes in a mating hole, Mike couldn’t exactly say his subsequent life had been ruined, or particularly enriched. As rampant as sex and sex games were in a professional athlete’s environment, a little romp with a man and his concubines didn’t really make much of a dent.

But this time, yeah Mike had to feel somewhat annoyed.

He knew sooner or later Michele would have her Danny, crack him like crème brulee and throw away the half licked bowl. Why she would want him, didn’t seem so spectacular, women loved those sweet faced boys and rarely passed an opportunity to taste one. But he knew that had to be the reason Alex Tanguay and Hinote were now forced roommates. She and Patrick had adopted Alex like some unsexed, overgrown son, and he wondered if they realized how stupid it would be to undertake any more games under his ever watchful eye. But yeah, Danny belonged to her now. Why Mike hadn’t noticed or thought about it much days ago, was beyond him. And it bothered him because he would have to take care of the mess when his heart was finally broken.

He liked Danny, the boy was a playful jerk, well meaning, cute, clean, someone to casually bond with, he felt like an older brother to him. What he didn’t like was some girl coming into the clubhouse and jerking him around.

But the real revelation for Mike was when he opened his eyes.

They’re fucking.

One single glimpse, quiet, shy, meant for no one else to see, but done just so there could be a danger of someone seeing it, stuck in his head. None of it computed to him last night but it must have been magnified over and over in a dream for Mike to feel its importance now. David Aebischer had reached out and touched Patrick’s arm, slid his fingers over it, outside of the hotel, away from most everyone, against the wall. Patrick had looked at him, grinned, and touched his cheek, turned around and walked away. Brief, brief, Keane had seen it but in his shock over Rob, he hadn’t analyzed it.

Only a fool would be unable to see the intimacy shared there, but neither one of them had seemed affectionate. David’s eyes had glittered, narrowed slightly, as if sly and treacherous, angry almost, bitter, powerful. Patrick’s expression, calm, amused, like a cat about to yawn as it sat on a window sill. No love shared between the two, not even a hint of playfulness.

As far as Michele was concerned, she had her own domestic life to watch over and toy with. If she got burned she often readily had an escape plan, a way up from the trapdoor, all the while laying more snares herself. As for Patrick, his well being had such delicacy that a pair of knitted mittens could make or break a game for him. His emotions ran his talent, his faith ran his outcome, and his passions and his appetites often decided both. Toying with Aebischer, a rival, a boy in the wings with all the fire and beauty and ambition that Patrick once had, could be more than a farce or a dalliance, it could be damaging, for someone or both.

And that annoyed Keane too, he didn’t want his season hinging on the carnal games of a couple who had seemed for all intents and purposes at the beginning of the year to have vowed never again to play them. Like talking to them would get him anywhere, he closed his eyes, wanting just a few more minutes of sleep…

Mariah Carey, yeah aside from her mental haywire tendencies, she had a kickass voice and an even better set of tits, real tits at that. Great hips, nice waist, good meat on the bones, delicious skin, great eyes, the woman appealed to him. Dreaming about her, well that was even better, except for right now. Yeah she stood before him in all her curvaceous big haired glory, but something was off as she made eye contact with him, microphone in her hands her lips open wide as she sang that song of hers, “Vision of Love”.

“Treated me kind! Suh-weet destineeeee eeeee…. Carried me through despera-shuun….” Yeah the words were right but her voice sounded terrible, as if she’d been afflicted with a throat full of cigarette smoke and whiskey. It sounded like a donkey’s braying, the last moans of a dying animal. He watched her in horror, in disbelief, that this once gorgeous toned song bird could sound so strained.

“Prayed through the niiiiiight! Sooo faitfull….” It took Mike too long, way too long after he realized he was in a horrible dream to even begin rousing himself.

Wrong! His mind screamed so wrong, it must stop, degradation, noooo!

He opened his eyes and he realized why everything was so wrong. Mariah’s voice rang out pure and clear from the muffled confines of the bathroom. Shower water hissed underneath it, and above it, far above it, overpowering and sacrilegious he heard what could only be Joe Sakic’s voice chortling along, far off key, off the beat, off the rhythm. Sakic howled, so lustily, so happily and eagerly that Mike felt his cheeks reddening and he slowly, slowly sat up. So much was his horror that he couldn’t even blink.

“I had a vision of looooove!” the horror continued, “And it was aaaaaa aa a aa aaaaal aaa uh ah uh aaaaa uh aaaaaaaaaaaaa uh that it tuuuuurned….” Keane closed his eyes, “out toooo….” Obscenely long pause, and then Sakic hit the word and note dead on terrible, extending it, and hammer in the ears loud, “BEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEEEEE! OOOO aaaaaaa OOO aaa oooo ooooo yeah mmmmmm hmmmmmm mmmmm yeah!”

Keane swallowed. He stared at the bathroom door, feeling afraid and embarrassed. He also felt a sense of purpose and duty, a sense of meaning. He felt that yes there indeed was a divine reason for why he and Joe were now roommates. Odd since he never thought of himself previously as a religious man. Still, the purpose shone clear in his mind. He needed to give this man some help.

The door opened and Joe peeked out of the bathroom, clad in hotel towels, wide blinking eyes a sort of grin on his face. “Morning Keanes.”

Keane still couldn’t blink, his cheeks felt cold and Joe must have noticed that expression because he frowned.

“What’s wrong?”

“Joe,” Keane said and he held his hand out. “Never do that again, I mean promise me, you’ll never do that again.”

Innocent smile and laugh, “Heh heh, what?”