Sometimes, I relive the entire crash.
Sometimes, it will only be a loop of MJ’s last moments alive. She hadn’t been killed instantly. We’d both been trapped in the wreckage, and I had to watch her die a long, torturous death. That’s the worst nightmare I repeatedly suffer.
Scrubbing a hand over my face, I wonder what time it is. I don’t have a clock, and I don’t wear a watch. My phone is plugged into a charger on my bathroom vanity. The only thing I have in my bedroom is an inflatable air mattress covered with a fitted sheet, a fleece blanket, and two pillows.
Judging by the dark gloom with a bluish cast coming through the blinds, I’d guess it was on the verge of dawn. I’m exhausted. If I laid back down, I might be able to drift off to sleep. However, the thought of falling into a vortex of plane crash terrors doesn’t appeal to me so I roll off the mattress, careful of the cast on my left wrist. I have a slight fracture to the scaphoid bone, compliments of my idiotic choices of drinking and driving two weeks ago. I’ve got another two weeks in the cast, although maybe I can talk the doctor into taking it off sooner.
Pushing up to my knees, then my feet, I make my way into the small bathroom across the hall. This apartment complex is a dump, and I’d rented a small one-bedroom when I moved to Phoenix in September after having been picked up by the Vengeance in the expansion draft.
I was a pretty unmarketable player, having sat out most of the second half of last season due to the plane crash. Not because of my injuries, though. I came out relatively unscathed except for some deep lacerations. Rather, I didn’t have much spirit of competition left within me and stayed on “injured reserve” with the Dallas Mustangs.
I wasn’t surprised they put me on the auction block for the expansion draft. I was too much of a risk, but apparently not to Vengeance. They wanted me on their team, and so I thought…. what the fuck? Why not? At least it provided me some respite from my demons.
What I found when I came back to playing professional hockey was that as long as I was out on the ice, I was able to keep MJ and her death out of my head.
Step foot off the ice and she occupied everything.
I do my business in the bathroom, wash my hands, and then nab my phone from the charger. After I shuffle into the kitchen, I start a pot of coffee. While it brews, I reach into the cabinet and pull out the only coffee mug I have. An Arizona Vengeance one I picked up in the arena fan store when I first moved here. It’s the only drinking container I have in my apartment unless the empty water bottles in my recycle bin count.
My phone lets me know it’s six forty-five, and I wonder if I’ll actually make my nine AM meeting. I have plenty of time. A ten-minute shower and change. A twenty-five-minute Uber ride to the arena—thanks to my license being suspended due to my DUI charge—and probably a five-minute mandatory wait in the front office until I can be granted an audience with Christian Rutherford.
He’s the general manager of the Arizona Vengeance and he’s expecting me to give him an answer today.
The question?
Will I choose to continue playing with the team?
His offer for my continued employment as a player on the team wasn’t made without a lot of thought and care. He met with Coach Perron and the team’s owner, Dominik Carlson. They discussed the benefit I could provide, and they weighed it against the terrible shadow I’d thrown over their entire program with my antics.
They are not without compassion, although it’s probably misplaced in a man like me.
Regardless, they made me an offer, and I’ve been considering it. Last week, I got called in to talk to Christian. His terms were simple and nonnegotiable.
First, I was going to be fined one-hundred-thousand dollars for driving drunk. He wanted to send a message to the Phoenix community as well as to the hockey world at large that my type of behavior would not be tolerated and would never be condoned.
Really, it was a punishment designed to make me think twice if I were to ever do something so stupid again.
The second requirement was no big deal. I was not allowed to drink alcohol anymore. Not a single drop. If evidence was presented that I had partaken, I would be released from the team with a forfeiture of my contract. This didn’t bother me. I didn’t intend to drink again as it was never really my thing to begin with. MJ didn’t drink at all, so neither did I.