Zackell shrugs again. “I heard. I’m not deaf.”
She goes back out onto the ice, as if he’s finished. Then she calmly carries on firing pucks. Peter storms up to the office and calls the A-team players. They all answer apart from Benji. Peter explains the threat in the email. All the players understand. Not one of them stays at home.
* * *
When the practice begins, the team gathers on the ice in front of Zackell. She taps her stick on the ice and says, “Have you heard that the club’s received a threat?”
They nod. She clarifies, “If I coach you and if Benjamin plays with us, apparently we’re ‘going to be in serious trouble.’ So if you don’t want to train today, I won’t hold it against you.”
No one moves. A lot of shit has been said about this team, but they don’t scare easily. Zackell nods. “Well, then. I understand that there are a lot of . . . emotions right now. But we’re a hockey team. We play hockey.”
The older players wait for her to demand to know who posted the picture of her and Bobo on the Internet. She doesn’t even mention it. Perhaps that wins her some respect, because eventually one of them calls out, “We mostly turned up for the beer!”
The laughter that follows is liberating. Even Bobo looks a little less embarrassed.
* * *
It’s only words. Combinations of letters. How can they possibly hurt anyone?
* * *
Benji is standing in Adri’s kennels; the dogs are playing in the snow around his feet. They don’t care, and he wishes no one else did either. He doesn’t want to change the world, doesn’t want anyone to have to adapt themselves to him, he just wants to play hockey. Go into the locker room without it falling silent because nobody dares to mess around anymore. He just wants all the usual things: sticks and ice, a puck and two nets, the desire to win, to struggle. You against us, with everything we’ve got. But that’s over now. Benji is no longer one of them.
Perhaps one day he’ll find words for that feeling of being different. How physical it is. Exclusion is a form of exhaustion that eats its way into your skeleton. People who are like everyone else, who belong to the norm, the majority, can’t possibly understand it. How can they?
Benji has heard all the arguments, he’s sat next to adults in the stands and in buses on the way to tournaments, people who say, “There are no homosexuals in ice hockey.” There were jokes, all the usual stuff, but that never really affected Benji. It was the little choices of vocabulary that everyone seemed to find obvious that cut deepest, when “fag” was used as an insult. “You play like fags!” “Fag referee!” “Damn fag coffee machine doesn’t work!” Three little letters used to describe weakness, stupidity, anything that didn’t function properly. Anything that was defective.
Naturally there were adults who never said the word. Some of them said other things instead. They didn’t even think about it, but Benji stored up tiny splinters of conversations for years. “They don’t bother with hockey. How would that even work? With the locker room and everything? Are we going to have three different locker rooms, just in case?” The people saying these things were ordinary parents, kind and generous people who did all they could for their children’s hockey team. They didn’t vote for extremist parties, they didn’t wish anyone dead, they’d never dream of being violent. They just said obvious, self-evident things such as, “People like that probably don’t feel at home in hockey, they probably like other things. You have to bear in mind that hockey’s a tough sport!” Sometimes they said it straight out: “Hockey’s a sport for men!” They said “men,” but even as a small boy Benji would stand alongside in silence, knowing that what they actually meant was “real men.”
* * *
It’s only words. Only letters. Only a human being.
* * *
Benji doesn’t train with his team today, because he knows he’s no longer one of them. He doesn’t know who he ought to be instead. And he doesn’t know if he wants that.
* * *
When the practice starts, Sune is sitting in the stands. Peter sinks down beside him.
“Have you reported the threat to the police?” Sune asks.
“They don’t know if it’s serious or not. Could just be some kid.”
“Try not to worry.”
“I don’t know what to do,” Peter admits impotently.
Sune doesn’t offer any comfort, he never does. He demands that people take responsibility. “You don’t know what to do, or what you ought to do?”
Peter sighs. “You know what I mean. It’s a messy situation to try to handle . . . Zackell and the team . . .”
Sune nods toward the ice. “They chose to come. Let the guys play.”
“What about Benjamin, then? How am I going to help him?”
Sune adjusts the fold of his T-shirt over his stomach. “You can start by giving up the idea that he needs help. It’s everyone else who needs help.”
Peter snaps back, hurt: “Don’t come here and try to tell me that I’m prej—”
Sune snorts. “Why are you still involved in this sport, Peter?”
Peter takes a deep breath. “I don’t know how to stop.”
Sune nods.
“I tell myself that I’m still here because the ice is the only place I know where everyone is equal. Out there it doesn’t matter who you are. All that matters is if you can play.”
“There may be equality on the ice. But the same thing doesn’t apply to the sport in general, Peter.”
“No. And that’s our fault. Yours and mine and everyone else’s.” Peter throws his arms out. “But what are we supposed to do?”
Sune raises an eyebrow. “We see to it that the next kid who says he’s different in some way is met with a shrug of the shoulders. We need to say, ‘So what? That doesn’t matter, does it?’ And one day perhaps there won’t be homosexual hockey players and female coaches. Just hockey players and coaches.”
“The community isn’t that simple,” Peter says.
“The community? We are the community!” Sune replies.
Peter rubs his eyes. “Please, Sune . . . I’ve had reporters calling me for hours now . . . I . . . hell, maybe they’re right. Maybe we ought to do something symbolic for Benjamin. If we painted our helmets . . . would that help?”
Sune leans back in his seat. “Do you think that’s what Benjamin wants? He chose not to tell anyone. Some lowlife gave it away. I’m sure loads of journalists would like to make him into some sort of figurehead now, and loads of nutters on the other side will want to vent all their hatred on him. And neither side knows a damn thing about hockey. They’ll turn every game he plays in into a battle between their conflicting agendas, a political circus, and that may be what he’s most frightened of: becoming a burden to the team. A distraction.”
Peter snaps back in frustration, “So what do you think Benjamin wants us to do, then?”
“Nothing.”
“We have to do something!”
“Do you care about his sexuality? Does it change the way you look at him?”
“Of course not!”
Sune pats Peter on the shoulder. “I’m a silly old man, Peter. I don’t always know what’s right and what’s wrong. But Benjamin has been the cause of a lot of crap outside this ice rink over the years, fighting and smoking dope and God knows what else. But he’s a damn good player, so you and everyone else has said, every time, ‘That has nothing to do with hockey.’ So why should this have anything to do with hockey? Let the boy live his life. Don’t force him to become a figurehead. If we’re uncomfortable with his sexuality, then he’s not the one with the damn problem—we are!”
Peter flushes and swallows. “I . . . I didn’t mean . . .”
Sune scratches his remaining hair. “Secrets weigh a person down. Can you imagine what it must have been like to carry around that secret about yourself your whole life? Hockey was his refuge. The ice may have been the only place where he felt just the same as everyone else. Don’t take that away from him.”