The Old Men and The C

This week's post was written by special guest Ernest Hemingway.

I'm looking at you, old men.

They were an old team who played in a league called the COTHL and they had gone eighty-four days now without taking a win. In the first forty days a stick boy had been with them. But after forty days without a win the boy’s parents had told him that the old team was now definitely and finally salao, which is the worst form of unlucky, and the boy had gone at their orders to another team which signed three good players the first week. It made the boy sad to see the old team come in each week with their win column empty and he always went down to help them carry either the pucks or the sticks and beer and the sweaters that were faded and worn. The sweaters were patched with flour sacks and, furled, they looked like flags of permanent defeat.

The old men were thin and gaunt with deep wrinkles in the backs of their necks. The brown blotches of the benevolent skin cancer the sun brings from its reflection on the golf course were on their cheeks. The blotches ran well down the sides of their faces and their hands had the deep-creased scars from handling heavy wooden sticks. But none of these scars were fresh. They were as old as erosions in a winless desert.


Everything about them was old except their eyes and they were the same color as the ice and were cheerful and undefeated.

“Aces,” the boy said to them as they drained sad cans of discount beer. “I could go with you again. I’ve made some money.”


The old men had taught the boy to skate and the boy loved them.
“No,” the old men said. “You’re with a lucky team. Stay with them.” 


“But remember how you went eighty-seven days without win and then we won big ones every week for four weeks. We won the cup that year.”

“We remember,” the old men said. “We know you did not leave us because you doubted.”

“It was papa made me leave. I am a boy and I must obey him.”
 “We know,” the old men said. “It is quite normal.”
 “He hasn’t much faith.” 
“No,” the old men said. “But we have. Haven’t we?” 
‘Yes,” the boy said. “Can I offer you a beer at Ferro and then we’ll take the stuff home.”

“Why not?” the old men said. “Between hockey men.”

They sat at the bar at Ferro and many of the players from other teams made fun of the old men and they were not angry. Others, of the older players, looked at them and were sad. But they did not show it and they spoke politely about the ice and the refs and the steady good weather and of what they had seen.

“May I get you more beers? I know where I can get four pizza slices too.” 
“I have mine left from today. I put them in salt in the box.”
 “Let me get four fresh ones.”
 “One,” the old men said. Their hope and confidence had never gone. But now they were freshening as when the breeze rises.
 “Two,” the boy said. 
“Two,” the old men agreed. “You didn’t steal them?” 
“I would,” the boy said. “But I bought these.” 
“Thank you,” the old men said. They were too simple to wonder when they had attained humility.

But they knew they had attained it and they knew it was not disgraceful and it carried no loss of true pride. 

“Next week is going to be a good game with this team,” they said.

“Better than a 5-0 loss to the Battlers” the boy said.

“Yes” said the old men. “It will be a good game.”


Aces pose after their most recent win

This week's entry is based on this original story.