Light Up the Lamp

LIGHT UP THE LAMP KIT OLIVER Light Up the Lamp: To score a goal in hockey, and thereby set off the goal lamp behind the net ONE The hockey goal taunts Gil, sun shining on the red pipes, white netting bright in the morning light. He wipes blond hair off his forehead, adjusts his shirt stuck to his back, and grips his hockey stick. Carefully, he pulls the puck back, sets it on the heel of the blade, squinting through the heat and the sting of salt in his eyes to focus on the top corner of the net. Shifts his weight, moves the puck forward, back, and then shoots with a quick snap of his hands, the push-pull of his arms, the sweet sail of the puck toward— “Shit,” he says. “Can’t hit the side of the barn there, can you, Gil?” Gil has better aim throwing his stick like a javelin at his youngest brother. Joey sidesteps it, laughing, and the stick clatters to the driveway. “Remember how good you used to be at scoring? Maybe you can ask the other team to make the net bigger when you’re on the ice,” Joey says. “I can score. I’m just lulling you into a false sense of security for when I play you this fall.” Gil grabs the puck where it sits against the garage door, the paint scuffed from years of shots and bank passes. “If you make the roster, that is. I hear your team has a seat with your name on it to watch the game from the press box with the rest of the scratched players.” Joey grabs Gil’s stick and holds it just out of reach. “Front row seat to watch you hit the end boards over and over and over again instead of the net, Gilbert.” Joey’s tall, but Gil’s always been taller, and he yanks the stick back. “Don’t call me that.” “I’ll stop if you can beat me. Target shooting, best of ten. Tommy, you get to play winner.” Tommy doesn’t even bother to look up from where he’s lounging on the grass, scrolling through his phone. “No.” Joey kicks a stray puck at him. “You’re no fun.” “Shut it, Joey. I gotta practice.” Gil lines up another shot. “Clearly.” Gil ignores him, eyes on the net, feeling the weight of the puck as he stick-handles, moving it gently front to back on the blade of his stick. Easy, familiar, just as he’s done since he was old enough to stand up, Dad bending over him and guiding his hands, drawing the puck back, shifting his weight, sending the puck toward the net. And off the post. The metal rings and the glint of the sun hurts his eyes. “Nice,” Joey says. “Leave him alone,” Tommy says. “We’re having a pleasant morning together.” No, Tommy’s having a pleasant morning, lazing in Baltimore’s September sun with a cup of coffee. Gil’s working and absolutely sucking at it, fewer pucks finding the back of the net than the scarred garage door beyond it. Embarrassing for an NHL center heading into his tenth professional season. Even more so when Joey grabs Gil’s stick and pots a goal right away, spinning in a circle as he cheers for himself. Gil taught him how to shoot like that, back when they’d been kids and the only way to tell them apart was their staggered heights. Gil used to line Joey and Tommy up, lecture them on how to stand, how to move their hands, how to flex the stick to store up power and release the puck with a snap, flinging it past the goalie before he could react. Though Tommy had eventually signed up for choir, the middle school play, and trumpet lessons, Mom driving him while Dad took Gil and Joey to the rink. And then Joey had taken a puck off the nose, Tommy had needed glasses, and so they no longer looked identical. Now they’ve scattered: long-legged, broad-shouldered, and blond still, but off on their own lives, back together for just this week. Tommy rolls onto his stomach, ignoring it when Joey whacks his ass with Gil’s stick, prodding him to move. “C’mon,” Joey says. “I can’t. I’m allergic to hockey. And I have to practice my speech,” Tommy says. Gil glances over him, the same slim, long frame as Joey and Gil, but none of the bulk from life as a professional athlete. You should work out more, Gil had told him when he’d arrived the other day and Tommy had tucked his finger into his mouth and aimed it for Gil’s ear, as if they weren’t all in their late twenties but in middle school all over again. “Nobody cares about your speech,” Joey says, “and it’s family game time. You and Gil against me. I can take on my two big bros.” “Give me my stick back,” Gil says. “Give Gil his stick back,” Tommy says, grabbing it from Joey and trying to wrestle it away. “He’ll break out into hives if he goes too long without obsessing over his shot. And please, everyone cares. How often do I get any recognition compared to my famous brothers?” “I have work to get done.” Gil plucks his stick back. His training binder laid out on the edge of the driveway lists all his off-season workouts: morning cardio and mobility exercises and a series of skill work, strength training tomorrow, and a set of conditioning drills before his flight takes off back to San Diego. He’s got only days until training camp starts and with it preseason, and then the eighty-two games waiting for him between October and April. Maybe when he was Joey’s age, four years younger, he could get away with shirking his workouts, but at twenty-nine, he feels it when he doesn’t get his stretches done. And he can quite clearly tell when he doesn’t work enough on his shooting. Whatever. He can score. Joey’s being an ass.