#disarmd

PK’s new home was lonely and depressing, and apparently ruled by an evil king, but since PK had an optimistic temperament and a deep sense of honor, he decided to make the best of it. What he needed was a friend. “I will visit the local animal shelter,” he decided.

The shelter was understaffed and overcrowded. A large American flag was hanging on the wall, along with a painting of a bald eagle with a banner in its mouth. “Land of the free and home of the brave,” said the banner, in masculinist calligraphy. An entire wall was devoted to discounted fireworks and a selection of assault rifles, because the shelter had to share space with the local gun emporium. PK felt very far from home.

Still, the presence of so many cute animals lifted his spirits. PK tried to focus on them instead of the firearms. In one large cage, an assortment of cats were confined together. Right away, PK noticed the beautiful black cat crouched warily over his food dish at one end. Periodically, other cats would dart over and attempt to swipe his food, and he would hold them off with one skilled and graceful paw.

After a couple of minutes the arms dealer came by. He took the black cat’s food and distributed it amongst the other cats, even though they already had their own food dishes. Then he dangled a toy mouse into the cage. As soon as the black cat swatted at it hopefully, the dealer threw the toy to one of the other cats instead.

The black cat looked at PK like, you see what I have to deal with?

PK said, “What’s that one’s name?” He poked his fingers through the bars of the cage.

“Oh, you don’t want Carey,” said the arms dealer. “He’s a troublemaker and a Democrat. We don’t like his type around here.”

Carey sniffed at PK’s fingers and said, “Brrrrrrp?”

“Bad cat!” said the arms dealer.

PK frowned. “Doesn’t every cat here deserve your love and support?”

The arms dealer adjusted his red baseball cap and glared at PK. “All the cats are equal. Except him.”

Carey started licking himself busily like he couldn’t care less. But PK could see the pain and emotional vulnerability behind his façade of stoicism. “I’ll take him,” he said.

The arms dealer sighed loudly and mumbled something about foreigners.

“Excuse me, I didn’t hear you,” said PK politely.

“Nothing,” said the arms dealer, and stomped off to get the paperwork.

PK opened the cage and gently lifted Carey out. Carey said “Blrrrrprrrp?” and jumped to PK’s shoulder. Then he started to purr. His warm fur was pressed to PK’s cheek.

“You and me, buddy,” said PK.

“Mrowr,” Carey agreed.

PK reached up to scritch his neck.  The arms dealer emerged again, shaking his head. He shoved a clipboard at PK. “You sure you don’t wanna just buy a couple guns?” he said.

“I’m sure,” said PK, who had already decided to buy all the property on the block, evict the arms dealer, hire new staff for the animal shelter, and open a cat café and a dog park.

“By the way,” said the arms dealer, “that’s definitely a cat.”

“I know,” said PK.

“Like, as opposed to some asshole that coulda got transformed into a cat by a kickass magician for excellent personal reasons,” the arms dealer said.

“This is a really interesting country,” said PK, handing the papers back to the arms dealer, along with the adoption fee.  

“Magic isn’t real,” said the arms dealer. “Just don’t kiss the cat.”

 Carey butted his head against PK’s ear.

"Thanks for the advice,” said PK. He couldn’t wait to call his lawyer so she could start the process of rescuing all the other animals at the shelter from the clutches of this dangerous lunatic. But first he had to take Carey home.

“Hey, Carey,” said PK, as he walked out of the shelter with his new friend on his shoulder. “You like steak? Caviar? Ethically sourced tuna?”

“Mraaa!” Carey announced happily.

PK’s heart swelled with love at the sound of his voice. “Yeah, I got you, bud. You’re safe now.”

“Brrrp?” Carey’s wet little nose brushed PK’s cheek.

“Awww,” said PK, and turned his head for a kiss.

THE END

*

"It wasn't him," said Connor's original character teammate Joey, when Connor told him what happened. "Come on, bro. Dylan's in the AHL now. We're never gonna see him again."

"You don't know that!" Connor said. "Sometimes people get out…I've heard stories."

"Santa Claus ain't real, pal," said Joey.  "Now listen…how many points are you gonna rack up tonight? One thousand? Two thousand?"

Being reminded of the game made Connor's heart sink. That was the problem with hockey. First you played a game, then they made you play another game. Sometimes weird shit happened on the ice, like the players on the other team would temporarily turn into swine or whatever, and people would go nuts as if Connor did it on purpose.

"What if I didn't score at all? What would happen then?" Connor tried to keep his voice steady.

Joey just laughed loudly and slapped him on the back. "Good thing we'll never know."

Connor closed his eyes. Only one person had ever seen him as a full person and not just a hockey saviour. "Oh, Dylan," he whispered. "I miss you."

*

"And the winner is CONnorrrrrr McDAAAAAAAvid," said the announcer after Connor scored the final goal of the game. "McDavid five THOUSAND points, Other Guys ZERO."

"Oilers five thousand points," called Connor, but the shouts in the arena were already drowning him out.

"CONNOR! CONNOR! CONNOR!"

"Oilers! Oilers! Oilers!" mumbled Connor, but it was no use. He skated slowly and extraordinarily over to his teammates.

"Nice work, McDavid," said Joey. "Guess we'll let you stay on the team for now. Haha!"

"Good move with the flock of doves," said Connor's coach. "That really got in their faces."

The doves had just randomly appeared, like all the other inexplicable crap that started happening after he and Dylan began playing for different teams. "That wasn't me," said Connor.

"You don't have to pretend around us," said Coach. "We know who you are."

"Who?" asked Connor, trying to follow.

Coach winked. "Let's just say we're all counting on you. Canada is counting on––"

The sound of machine gun fire cut him off. "Get down!" Connor yelled. He hurled himself on top of several of his teammates to protect them. The shots were coming closer and closer. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see black skates, clomping closer and closer, cracking the ice with every step. Connor looked up. It was––

"Dylan?"

"Shut up!" Dylan growled. He stamped down on the ice again and took aim.

"No, Dylan!" Connor yelled. "Shoot me first!"

A shot rang out, and Coach fell. Drops of blood hit the ice and froze. Connor crawled over to Coach. He was still breathing. Connor pressed his hand to what seemed like an unimpressive shoulder wound and looked up at Dylan. A mask obscured half his face. Dylan had always been a little insecure about his looks.

"You don't have to do this, bro!" Connor said.

"I do though," said Dylan. He whipped out a knife. But at that moment, there rose a mighty storm, and the wind blew Dylan back across the ice, and Dylan fell, because he wasn't a good enough skater, and then the wind lifted him up and bore him away.

"That wasn't me," said Connor immediately, because all his teammates were staring at him like what the fuck.

The medics were converging on them. Coach groaned softly.

Joey said, "Do we have to cancel tomorrow's game now? Justin Trudeau and Queen Elizabeth were gonna come."

Connor felt a stress headache coming on.

Coach grimaced as he was loaded onto the stretcher. "Gotta figure out what's going on. No game. We'll take a week off."

Connor's headache lifted. A week off! All of a sudden it felt like there was more oxygen in the arena. "Thanks, Dylan," he whispered gratefully. Then he saw how everyone was looking at him. "Sarcasm! I was being sarcastic."

"If that was your buddy, he's a goddamn psycho," Joey said. 

"Good point," Connor agreed. Dylan always did have his back.

*

During the investigation, no one had to go to hockey practice. Connor kept his phone off so he wouldn't have to talk to anyone. Once he tried to leave his house but when he looked up from the front porch, an airplane was skywriting WHAT WOULD MCJESUS DO overhead, so Connor decided to go back inside.

By the second day, Connor was getting worried about letting everyone down, so he went into his workout room to do his hockey exercises. Sooner or later the break would be over and he'd have to be in top form so no one would get mad at him. Just thinking about messing up on the ice made him feel sick to his stomach. It was almost a relief when Dylan crashed through the window, tackled him from behind, and rolled them over and over until they came to a stop by the treadmill with Dylan on top.

Connor reached up to pull at Dylan's mask. Dylan glared at him. "Oh, Dylan," said Connor. "To me you are beautiful."

Dylan let Connor pull the mask off. His face was gaunt. He looked like the ghost of the man Connor once knew.

"Bro…what have they done to you?"

"Everything," said Dylan hoarsely. 

"Was it the AHL?"

"Ssshh," said Dylan, looking from side to side as if someone else was listening. "I can't trust you. You're the target."

"I'm Connor!" said Connor. "Don't you know me?"

"I only know suffering," said Dylan. "That and death. Nothingness. The void." He looked searchingly into Connor's eyes.

Something about what Dylan was saying sounded appealing. "They don't play hockey in the void, do they?"

"No," Dylan growled. "They don't."

"Good," said Connor. "Take me there."

"What?"

"Deliver me," said Connor. "I'm ready." He smiled up at Dylan and waited for his final release. How lucky he was, to leave this terrible world. How grateful he was to go with Dylan's body pressed close to his.

Dylan raised his knife. At that moment a gentle breeze wafted the scent of flowers into the room, along with the sweet sound of distant harmonies. Dylan blinked down at Connor in confusion. The knife dropped from his hand. "Connor? Davo, is that you?"

"Duh," said Connor. "Of course it's me."

"Oh my god, Davo," babbled Dylan. "I dunno what I was doing. Did I hurt you?"

"No," said Connor sadly. It looked like he wasn't going to be murdered by his true love after all.

"I'm so sorry, bro. I'm gonna show you how sorry." And then Dylan's mouth was on Connor's, and it was almost everything Connor had ever wanted. Dylan kissed him desperately, touching him everywhere as if trying to make sure he was still whole. "I can't believe I almost destroyed your hockey career," he whispered. "I can't believe I almost ruined Canada."

"Not your fault," Connor muttered.

"Now you can still save the Oilers!" said Dylan. "Why are you crying?"

"I'm not crying," said Connor. "Everything is fine."

The alien blanched as if he didn't know how to respond to polite and friendly greetings. He reached back to the seam in the air he'd stepped from, but the portal was already gone. "Which planet is this, specifically?" he asked.

"Earth!" Geno said proudly.  "And I am best hockey player, you very lucky you meet me first. What your name?"

"Sidney," said the alien. "From X12903857. Where is your ice, please?"

"In the refrigerator!" said Geno, and laughed at his own joke.

Sidney stared at Geno. "I don't understand."

"Of course not, you are stranger," said Geno. "Come with me, I teach you hockey."

"Hockey, yes," said Sidney. "Take me to the ice."

"There is hockey on your planet? Tell me more about your planet!" Geno took Sidney by the elbow, steering him out of the park toward the rink.

Sidney recoiled and then seemed to steel himself to tolerate human contact. "Well…there's a lot of ice. And hockey. In my childhood, I played hockey for many hours every day, in order to prepare myself for playing more hockey. Then I played hockey, and after that, some additional hockey. But our leader told me, 'You must expand your horizons! You must travel and learn! You must play hockey somewhere else.'"

"Very good!" said Geno. "I going to introduce you my team. We take selfies, you will send to home planet."

"I don't know what a selfie is," said Sidney. "Is it bad luck?"

Geno liked Sidney, but he really had a lot to learn. "You are like tiny baby," he told Sidney reassuringly. "It okay. I teach you. I hold you in my arms and sing you Russian folk song."

"Please don't do that," said Sidney.

"Not right now," Geno agreed. "Right now hockey! Here is rink!"

The tension seemed to slide from Sidney's shoulders. His face grew soft. He stared at the ice like a starving man staring at a six-course meal. "I love you," he murmured.

"Sidney," said Geno. "You I like very much too, but we just meet fifteen minutes ago. In Pittsburgh we wait little more time to say big thing like love."

"I was talking to the ice," said Sidney. He pulled a pair of skates from his pocket and began lacing them on.

Geno's jaw dropped at this display of strange alien magic. And then Sidney stepped off the edge. He skated like his feet were making love to the ice. He held a hockey stick like it was a natural extension of his alien body.

Sidney executed a neat turn to face Geno and for the first time Geno saw the ghost of a smile on his face. "Coming?" he called, and tapped a puck in Geno's direction.

"Sidney, you are so good!" Geno exclaimed. "You are almost like human person!"

Just then, Geno's teammates poured out of the locker room, laughing, shouting, and shoving each other.

"Geno!" they shouted in their rough, masculine way. "You ready? Whatcha standing around for?"

"I not standing around," said Geno, affronted. "I very busy, I best at doing busy things!" Sidney skated back over to him. The hubbub died down at the sight of a stranger.

"Who's that?" asked a Penguin. "Geno, dude, you don't have time to hang out with some loser. We got a game to play."

"Excuse me, but I do not lose," said Sidney politely. He sent a puck sailing across the rink right into the empty net.

"Sure," said the Penguin. "Geno, get this guy out of here."

Geno turned to Sidney to explain that he had to leave, but when he saw Sidney's stricken face the words died in his throat. "You don't go," Geno told him. He put an arm around Sidney. This time Sidney didn't even flinch. Geno glared at his teammates. "This Sidney. We the best."

THE END

Nate leaned over the side of his bunk to see the new guy, who rubbed his eyes hastily and glared back. "It's okay," said Nate. "I'm Nate, you can trust me."

"I don't trust anyone or anything," said the new guy.

Nate rolled his eyes. "Fine, dude, then I'm just saying hi. I guess they brought you in while I was sleeping."

The new guy seemed to relax a little. "Yeah. Sorry, I'm kinda stressed out right now."

"Of course you're stressed! You're new and you don't know me."

"I guess," said the new guy. He peered up at Nate. "You know what, though? You seem kinda familiar. Like maybe we met before. I'm Jonathan, by the way."

Nate looked at Jonathan carefully. He'd spent most of his life at the hockey orphanage trying to shoot small objects into a net and not getting out much, so a previous acquaintance seemed unlikely. Still, something nagged at the edge of his memory. He'd figure it out later. "Nice to meet you, Jonathan," he said. "Sorry you had to come in today of all days."

Jonathan looked puzzled. "What's special about today?"

"One of the wardens told me," Nate said proudly. "In the outside world it's Valentine's Day."

"Oh," said Jonathan. "So?"

"It's a day for love," said Nate, "but nobody loves us here."

"Wow," said Jonathan. "I heard there's something called the draft. Is that like a good thing or a bad thing?"

"No one knows," said Nate. "But anywhere's gotta be better than here." He dropped back into his own bunk. They both needed to get some rest. "Night, Jonathan."

There was a moment of silence, and then from the lower bunk: "You can call me Jo."

"Awesome, bro," said Nate. It seemed like Jo was starting to trust him, but he didn't want to make an issue of it or anything.

He closed his eyes and tried to remember his dream. The road stretching out before him. Foot on the gas pedal. An open window. The boy next to him, laughing. Nate was half-asleep again, falling into the dream. Where do you want to go? Nate asked. I'll take you anywhere. He took his eyes off the road and looked at the boy next to him. It was Jonathan.

part two: the draft

A year passed––the happiest year Nate had ever known. Off the ice, he and Jo were inseparable. On the ice, they were unstoppable. Periodically, other groups of overworked waifs would be pushed onto the ice with the children from Nate's orphanage and they'd all hit their sticks together and shout athletic-themed insults that the wardens had taught them in advance. There was a small disc that Nate and Jo knocked into the net over and over again because apparently no one was quick enough or smart enough or strong enough to hold them back.

Nate never told Jo about his dream, in case Jo thought it was creepy. He just tried to make Jo happy every chance he got.

That was why, one day after practice, Nate climbed a tree to get over the electrified fence and dove into a cold stream. He returned to the dormitory dripping wet. The smaller children, the ones still years away from the draft, gasped to see the fish clutched in his reddened hands.  With some difficulty, Nate climbed the rope ladder to the secret attic meeting place where he knew Jo would be waiting for him.  Proudly, he tossed the fish at Jo's feet.

"Oh my god," said Jo.

"You like them?" said Nate. "I wanted to get you a treat."

At the orphanage they served mostly stale bread and the occasional potato.

"I love them," said Jo. "But you're so wet, bro, aren't you cold?" He pulled off his dry shirt and gave it to Nate, which meant Nate had to pull off his wet shirt and put on Jo's shirt instead and it was soft and kind of smelled like Jo and also Jo was shirtless now.

Together they worked on preparing the raw fish. Nate glanced over at Jo, but totally not to check out his body. "So I heard something today."

"Yeah?"

"Might be a draft coming."

Jo made a hideous face at the fish he was gutting. "Good for you, I guess."

"What?" Nate put down his knife.

"You used to always talk about how you couldn't wait to be drafted. Who cares if not everyone survives? Anything to get out of this dump, right?" Whack, whack, whack went Jo's knife.

Nate was horrified. "Jo, come on. That was like…a year ago, sweetheart, I mean bro. I don't feel that way anymore."

"You don't?"

"No," said Nate. "Not since––not since you."

"Oh," said Jo, and used Nate's wet shirt to wipe fish off his hands.

"Cuz we might not, like, get drafted together," said Nate. "We could end up on different sides."

"Sides of what?"

"I think it might be some type of war or complicated battle system, I'm not––Ow!"

Jo had grabbed his hand hard. "Nate. If we're on different sides, what are we gonna do?"

Nate frowned. "What could we do?"

Jo loosened his grip on Nate's hand without letting go.  "Listen. I'd refuse. I'd tell them they have to set me free."

"We're not free now," Nate pointed out. "And I don’t see you rebelling."

Jo looked at Nate like Nate was the stupidest person whose hand he'd ever gently caressed. "Because you're here."

"Jo. Oh, Jo." Nate wanted to dive into freezing cold streams for Jo every day for the rest of his life.

"So right now we're together. But if we weren't––" Jo cleared his throat. "I'd escape. I'd skate my way right back to you."

"Babe," says Nate. "Bro. I don't want you to make trouble for yourself."

"I'll be very quiet and discreet," said Jo.

"Hmm," said Nate. "That could be pretty tough to pull off."

"What else can we do?"

"Run away," said Nate. "I know how to get over the fence. We sneak away tomorrow after practice. We make a new life together. I drive you around like constantly."

"What?"

"Doesn't matter. Point is, we get away before they can draft us apart."

Jo's normally moody face was beaming. "Nate, that's perfect. Let's do it. I can't wait!" He grabbed Nate into a fierce hug. He still didn't have a shirt on. Under Nate's hands, Jo's muscled back felt like freedom.

"Tomorrow," whispered Nate. "You and me."

*

That night, Nate had the dream again. This time he was driving through the ocean, and Jonathan was pointing at the fish, iridescent and beautiful. Ooh, I love this one, said Jo, but then there was a flash of underwater lightning and Nate couldn't see anything at all.  Where is it? said Nate, but Jo didn't answer, and Nate drifted deeper into a dreamless sleep.

When Nate woke at first light, Jo was already gone.

THE END