Ghosts from the Past

I hail a taxi cruising down the snow-covered road, and as I do, the bitter wind cuts through the thin wool of the long black coat I’m wearing.

Shit, I should’ve packed something heavier, a jacket with down maybe.

I sigh as I remind myself, “Yeah, you should’ve done a lot of things differently.”

Shivering from the cold, or maybe it’s from memories creeping in, I wonder how I could’ve forgotten how cold Buffalo is in late December.

“You, of all people, should have known better.”

There are those words again—should have.

“Fuck,” I bite out. “Why is the goddamn taxi taking so long to get over here?”

Shielding my eyes from the snow blowing around, I squint to find it’s stopped at a red light.

Ah, okay.

This delay gives me more time to think. But hell, I’d rather not. I’m trying to forget this city was once my home.

It’s too late as ragged bits of the past come at me like a freight train. Because of where I’m headed today, a place I’d rather not visit, but I must because it’s where the past and the present collide. And who knows? Maybe I’ll find some peace.

Yeah, right.

I may be in Buffalo for hockey, but my past is here for good, beckoning me, calling me, haunting me.

See, I lived in Buffalo a long time ago, back when I was a boy and not serious at all about the sport I now play professionally. It’s funny to think that hockey ultimately saved my ass. If I’d never picked up that first stick, who knows where I’d be today?

Nowhere good, that’s for sure.

I wouldn’t be what I am—a twenty-seven-year-old Stanley Cup champion, standing on a corner, hailing a cab in a two-thousand-dollar coat.

“A two-thousand-dollar coat that’s shit in the cold,” I murmur as I shiver some more.

Too bad it’s not the freezing cold that’s cutting me to the bone. It’s not; it’s the demons from my past. Those bastards are colder than ice, and unlike this transitory cold, will never go away.

You should’ve done more to save her, one of those demons from the past reminds me now.

“But I was just a kid,” I protest to this one, named Guilt.

That’s no excuse, Guilt hisses in my head.

Thank God the taxi is pulling up. Because I’m really losing it here.

Ice crunches beneath the spinning tires as the cab slides to a slippery stop.

“Hop on in,” a young, friendly male driver says when I open the back door.

I jump in and before he can utter another word, which is what it looks like he’s gearing up to do, I snap, “Can we just get going already?”

The scruffy kid, who can’t be more than nineteen, peers back at me in the rearview mirror.

“Someone chasing you, man?” he wants to know.

“You could say that,” I mutter.

“Hey, I don’t want any trouble,” he says as he twists around to face me, looking worried as hell. “Maybe you should get out and wait for another ride.”

“Wait a second, kid. You’ve been the only cab to drive by in the past twenty minutes. I was freezing my balls off out there.”

“There’s a hotel down the road,” he offers, “and cabs are always lined up outside.”

“Yeah, I know.” I sigh. “That’s where I’m staying.”

Before he can ask what I’m doing a mile up the road, and why I didn’t just grab a ride at the hotel, plus before he doesn’t really kick me out, I try to explain.

“Look, I needed a walk to clear my head. I have a lot on my mind. That’s why I’m so desperate to get moving.’”

“Ahh, I see. The walk didn’t work, did it? For clearing your head, that is.”

“No, it didn’t,” I say.

“Sorry, man.” Totally chill now that he knows I’m not running from the law or something, the driver places the cab in gear. “So where do you want to go?”

“Uh, I need to go to United Cemetery.”

Frowning back at me from the mirror, he says, “You know they don’t plow much up there this time of year, right?”

“I know, but it’s really important I go.”

“Okay,” he sighs. “I’ll give it a shot.”

“Thanks.”

The kid’s pretty quiet as we start out, leaving me with nothing to focus on but why I’m going to a snowy cemetery in the dead of winter.

Fuck, not again.

I look around to latch onto something—anything—to talk about. And wouldn’t you know it, hockey comes to the rescue once again when the driver slips on a knit cap that’s blue and has a Buffalo Sabres logo.

Quickly, I say, “The Sabres are looking really good this season, yeah?”

Since they’re the reason why I’m in town with the Las Vegas Wolves, the team I play for, I know all about them. This is so perfect.

With a big grin, the kid replies, “Yeah, they’re playing balls to the wall, man. There’s a game tonight and I think it’s a lock. I mean, sure, the Wolves are good and all, but they’ve been struggling lately.”

“They sure have,” I murmur.

This is all too true. Our team’s been in a real slump. We’re even dropping in the standings like a goddamn rock.

Ever since one of our best players, forward Nolan Solvenson, got hurt, we can’t seem to get it together.

But we better turn it around soon, and fast. Otherwise, we can kiss a second Stanley Cup goodbye.

“You plan on watching the game?” the kid wants to know.

“Uh, you could say that since I’ll be there.”

“No fucking way! That’s super cool, dude.”

He glances back at me but clearly doesn’t recognize me from the Wolves roster. He thinks I’m just a fan.

If only he know. Maybe I’ll tell him before it’s all said and done.

Focusing back on the road, he laments, “I haven’t been to a game in, like, forever. Seats are just too expensive.”

Hell, I can’t leave a true hockey fan hanging, even if he will be rooting for the competition.

It’s time to come clean. “I could get you a ticket if you want,” I murmur.

“Dude…” He laughs. “You must really have some major connections. Do you know a player or something?”

“Funny you should ask,” I reply, chuckling.

I share with him then that I am a player, and he exclaims, “No fucking way!”

We come to a red light and he turns around to study me, no doubt trying to figure out who I am.

“You must be with the Wolves,” he says at last. “I’d recognize you if you were a Sabre.”

“I am with the Wolves,” I confirm.

“What’s your name?”

“Dylan Culderway.”

“That’s right! Defenseman, top line, I know who you are now.”

“You got it.”

The light turns green, and he turns back around, muttering as he does, “A professional hockey player in my cab”—he shakes his head—“amazing, man.”

After a minute, I reiterate about the tickets and he’s, of course, all in.

I go on to make the necessary calls while he drives, our destination not far now.

I feel good that I made someone’s day, but that feeling doesn’t last long as we travel through the open gates of the graveyard.

Somber now, I ask, “Do you mind waiting for me? I shouldn’t be all that long.”

“Sure.” The kid gestures to a clump of birch trees a few yards away. “I’ll pull up over there, give you some privacy.”

I look ahead at the trees and I’m shivering again. They’re white as bone and skeletal without leaves.

How very appropriate, I muse.

Before I close the door, I remind the kid, “I’ll be back in a few.”

He nods and drives away.

Alone again in the cold, and with the ghosts of the past coming back to life, I take a deep breath.

Fuck, it’s freezing.

I turn away from the wind to start over to where my mother is buried.

My mother who died too young…

My mother who died in front of me…

My mother who died at the hands of my rotten stepfather…

I couldn’t stop any of it from happening, and that’s what tortures me day in and day out.

If only I could make some sort of amends maybe I’d heal for good. That’s what this trip to a bone-chilling graveyard is all about.

Too bad I know it won’t help in the end. It never does.

Only thing going to save me now is saving someone else…to succeed where I failed.

I wonder who she’ll be.