2012 National Capital Short Story Contest
Not a “bang;” not a “thud;” but a soft “scrunch!” - like the sound of a plastic pop bottle squished under a boot. There was no explosion and no dramatic effect. But the screen went dark, and Christian knew that his set was broken. The beer bottle was full, and it hit the T.V. direct and with full frustrated force.
“Tabarnouche !!,” he sighed.
Watching the Senators lose made him angry and upset, but the thought of not being able to watch them at all made him feel ill. He would have to buy another T.V. and soon. Game Three was only two days away. His hours had been cut at “the Walmart,” and he had to watch his money. No big screen. No new T.V. He would need to find something cheap and used.
The “Saver of Pennies” newspaper had pages and pages of second-hand furniture, lamps, and lawnmowers but no T.V.s. Christian searched the bulletin board at work, at the grocery, and at the mall. No used T.V.s for sale. Now less than 24 hours to Game Time, he began to panic and to curse “Les Senateurs,” “ Les God Damn Duck,” the game of hockey, and God himself.
“Mon Bloody Dieu – how could you treat me like dis !” he said shaking his giant one-finger glove at the ceiling. “You have turned your back on me and my team.”
Just then, the bell rang. Christian got up and went straight away to look through the hole in his apartment door and then turned the knob. There was no one there and no sign of anyone in the hallway, only a piece of paper on the floor. He turned it over and read “Special Stanley Cup Playoff Sale – T.V. for Hockey Fans - $50.00.” The paper had no phone number and no other words just an address in old Ottawa on a street that Christian had never visited before.
The next morning at 8 AM, he arrived at the address and knocked. It did not look like a store or even a workshop. A hunched, thin man opened the door, and Christian entered a small room with a counter, empty shelves, and an old box-shaped T.V. sitting on the floor.
“How do I know it works ?” asked Christian.
“Oh, it works, and it works in a very particular way,” whispered the man. “If you watch hockey on this T.V., your team will always win - as long as you watch – and it comes with a written, sworn-oath guarantee.”
Christian did not believe the hockey-watching story and thought the man a fool or a joker. But for $50, he was happy to sign the odd-looking deed and take the T.V.
“Remember if you want your team to win, you must always watch, never get up, never look away,” said the man with a strength that made his cheeks turn red and his forehead grow bumpy. “This is in your guarantee - as is your vow, I am compelled to tell you, to never ever, never ever blasphemy or speak sacrilege with the T.V. on.”
Christian looked at the faded paper and noticed, for the first time, this other written pledge, which was in bold, pulsating, crimson letters just above his signature. He thought all these oaths and pledges bizarre, but assumed that this was all part of the deal when buying what was likely stolen property from a scraggly stranger.
He went home and hooked up the T.V. and found that it only had one channel. Mercy to Mary, this was the one that carried the Senators games. It was June 2, 2007.
Anaheim, “a stupid Mickey Mouse town in fregging California,” led the series two games to none. The Senators lost both games by just one goal. The first 3 to 2 after leading into the third. The other game – the beer-bottle-throwing, T.V.-killing loss – was 1 to 0.
Goalie Emery was great. The team was not. Eeeeehhh !!
But now Christian’s Senators would be on their own ice, would be soaked in O Canada, and would feel the heat of a real hockey town. It was the first Cup Final game in Ottawa in four score years, and the first time Christian sat tense and fixed in front of the T.V. without going to the fridge all night.
He rocked back and forth in his chair as the score rocked back and forth between the teams. Whenever he nodded or blinked, the Ducks would score. Then, Christian stared with his greatest staring stare. The fluky ricochet in the second; the game-sealer in the third; and the buzzer. He leaped into the air as the Senators took their 5-to-3 bows, and he blessed the T.V. and the red-faced man.
Christian went to bed that night smiling for the first time in a week. He was happy about the game, of course, but he also smiled about his lucky T.V. and fancied that he had helped win the game by never getting up or taking his eyes off the screen. These thoughts and playoff hockey swirled through his excited head for the next two days and nights. He could not sleep and was awake around the clock.
Game Four. Again in Ottawa. Pronger suspended, and Alfie burning. Christian was sure that his team was on a roll. With Alanis and twenty thousand others singing, he settled into his comfy, easy chair for what he was certain would be a rout.
The puck dropped and so did his tired heavy head. He woke the next morning to a hissing, fuzzy T.V. and a clock radio talking of crazy fights, close calls, and a 3-2 loss. Christian was ill on the inside. Not only had he slept through an Ottawa Stanley Cup Final Game, but he believed that he had let his team down and felt the unease that his T.V. may be more than his mind was willing to accept.
The win with him watching - and the loss with him not - seemed unnatural and strange. It made him dig out and read again his guarantee.
The paper was hot to the touch and hard to hold. But he clutched it long enough to scan words like “soul,” “eternity,” and “damned” that were uncommon in appliance warranties and receipts at his place of work. It gave him pause and secured his resolve to stay awake for Game Five.
With the teams back in California, Christian’s chest and his tired mind pumped away under the heavy thought that he alone was responsible for the wins and losses and could not look away from the T.V. even for a blink. To make sure he would stay awake and never flap an eyelid, he spent all day at Tim Horton and brought six “Extra Large Black” in a box back to his home. He drank them all still hot and flopped down into his hockey-watching chair for the night.
The flop was a shock his body could not withstand and the swell of ten hours of coffee crested in his bladder. The Spangled Banner was still flowing in the Anaheim arena when he flashed to the bathroom, but once started he could not stop and his eyes and body were kept from the T.V. for almost a whole period. He came back just in time to see the Ducks score a second goal. Emery did not look so good, the Senators looked let down, and Christian’s caffeine-dried eyes were burned by salty tears. He squinted and rubbed and could not stop blinking.
He could only stare at the T.V. in spurts so he decided to focus on one player. Alfie. It worked. The Swedish Sen scored two goals even a short-handed one that would have been the highlight of the night if there had not been four more blinking bouts and four more Anaheim goals.
As damn Neidermayer raised the Cup and the American crowd cheered, Christian lost control – not of his bladder or his eyes – but his mouth. “Tabar#@!??# - Nac ! Nac ! Nac !!,” he shouted flinging two shoes and his chair at the old T.V.
This time the T.V. did not crack, did not break. But the door bell rang. It was the red-faced man with his copy of the piece of paper.
Today, Christian sits tied to his chair in a steamy room in front of that old T.V., watching shows about gardening, home decoration, and makeovers all day long.
And his Senators still wait and wait with hope and faith for another chance at the Cup.
