Two-Way

The clip is 4.2 seconds and he is late on all of them.

I have it on the monitor in the upstairs room that used to be storage and still smells like tape. Harbor Barn. Low roof. The light is a lamp I brought from my apartment because the club's light makes everyone look like a bounce. I pause. I back up. I pause. Theo March is a blur on the weak side that Ward already told him about, and the man he did not pick up is a goal we are going to eat in Ashland if I do not make him sit.

He is twenty-three. I am thirty-six. I timestamp the gap. 14:11 of the second. I write March, weak-side, late on the pad in the letters I use when I am not going to be kind. I am not going to be kind. Kind is how the last video intern let a rookie joke his way off a read and then the read became a board and the board became a parent in a lot. I do not do parents. I do time.

The room has one table, two chairs, a desktop that fans like it is dying, and a stack of labeled USBs I treat like a religion. I do not treat men like a religion. I treat gaps.

He comes up without knocking because he is a person who thinks video meetings are optional and doors are suggestions. Fast. Loud in the room. A mouth that has already started a joke.

"That was sick," he says, looking at the frozen frame of his own miss. "I almost had the stick back."

"You didn't. Sit."

He sits. He looks at me. He has a face the town will want to make cute. I do not make faces cute. I hit play. 4.2 seconds. He is late. I pause on the man he did not see.

"Ward told you this in the hallway," I say. "Cal put it on the board. I put it in a folder with your name on it last week. You went in first anyway. You went in pretty. Pretty is a word I don't timestamp."

"I was trying to finish."

"You were trying to be a highlight. We don't have a league that pays you for a highlight. We have a Barn and a weak side and a captain who already did this conversation. If you joke again I will send you back to the clip until the joke dies. Then I will send Ruthie a note that says you sat optional. Optional is a census. This is not optional."

He looks at the screen. The joke leaves his mouth without being said. I file that. I hit play again. He watches himself be late. I watch him watch. That is the job. The job is not his throat. The job is 14:11.

Ruthie comes in without knocking because GMs do not knock. Fifty. Coffee. The face of a woman who has already decided.

"He sits every session or he goes back down," she says, to me, not to him. "I don't have a two-way who thinks the dark room is a suggestion. You have him until he can pick up the man Ward already named. If he misses it again I send him to the affiliate before Fran writes me a memo about a kid with too much ice."

"I can sit," Theo says.

"You will sit," Ruthie says. "Sitting is not a personality. Sitting is a condition of the sweater. Greer timestamps. You shut up. If you make this a story about a staffer I will make it a story about a bus."

She leaves. The desktop fan dies another inch. Theo looks at me. I look at the pad.

"Every session," I say. "You come up after practice. You come up after games when I say. You do not come up to be charming. You do not come up to tell me sick. You come up to watch yourself be late until you are not. If you are late in my room I will send the clip to Cal and I will not iron it."

"I wasn't trying to be a story."

"Then don't look at me like I am one." I eject a USB. I label it March, weak-side, 14:11. I put it in the stack. "That's your copy. You take it. You watch it in a hotel that is not this room. You do not post it. You do not show it to a girl who thinks you're a call-up. You show it to the man on the weak side in your head until he has a name."

He takes the USB. His fingers are taped. He is fast. He is loud. He is quiet now. Quiet is the only note I like.

"Greer," he says, and he gets my name right, which is not charming. It is the start of a problem I can already see. "I'll sit."

"You'll sit. You'll be late less. That's the sheet."

He goes. I stay. I back the clip up. I watch the gap without him in the chair. The gap is still a gap. I write the time again. I do not write his mouth. I do not write thirty-six. I write mandatory. Ruthie. affiliate if repeat.

Downstairs the Barn is a warehouse that learned hockey. June is in the booth with a plant that is dying. Maren is ironing a sentence about a bounce. Rhea is in the stair with ink. Henrik is talking to a crease. Ward is a hallway conversation Theo did not keep. Cal has a marker behind his ear. Lev Morin is a waiver rumor on a memo I have not opened. I open it. The memo says a winger could come through. A winger coming through is a two-way going down. I close it. I do not show Theo. Showing him would make the rumor a romance about ice. I do not do romance about ice. I do time.

I go down at 6:40. I take the bag. I do not romance a bag. I inventory it. Lamp cord. Pad. The stack copy. The copy I did not give him. I walk the lower bowl once so the dark room cannot be the only room I inhabit. Anja is off the far ice already. The slot is taped for five and we did not eat it. I file that as the only clean thing in the building. Bo is in the tunnel with a net and a lemon he has already killed. He does not look. Pia has a key ring in the lobby and a face that has already decided whether a mandatory is a lease.

"Ruthie put him in your room," Pia says. "Don't make the room a smell I have to put on a ring. Affiliate is a bus I can book. I would rather book ice."

"It's a clip."

"Keep it a clip. If Fran walks a pattern I will hear about it from a key I don't like."

I go to the booth. The plant is still dead. I do not name it. June looks at my hands.

"He sat," I say, because she will ask if I don't.

"If he comes to me with a wrist and a joke I will treat the wrist. I will not treat the joke. Don't send him here to be told he is a person. I don't do persons. I do heads."

"I'm not sending him."

"Good. Don't water that." She means the plant. I do not water it.

The lot is dirty ice. My car is a car I bought used after the divorce and I do not tell the room about the divorce. The room can have clips. The room cannot have a marriage that ended because a man wanted to be a highlight in a kitchen. Miles's truck. June's light. A plow that has given up. The diner sign across the street making the walk-up look concussed. I do not look at the walk-up. I look at the Barn roof. Too low.

I sit. I look at the USB copies in my bag. I have one for the stack and I gave him one. I will make another if he loses his. I do not lose time.

Tomorrow he sits. The dark room becomes a condition. I am not his lesson. I am the person who will send him down if the gap stays a gap, and I will not let him turn the send into a feeling I have to timestamp.

I start the engine. I sit until the USB copies in the bag are just plastic. Then I go.

Home is a one-bedroom over a print shop that smells like toner if the wind is wrong. I have a monitor on a desk that is not the club's. I have a pad by the bed. I have a drawer with papers I did not throw away. I heat leftover rice. I eat standing up. I do not put a clip on while I eat. Eating is not a session. After, I sit. I write 14:11 one more time so it exists outside his mouth. I write 23 and I scratch it out because age is not a timestamp I put on a pad I might leave in a bag. I write bus and I leave that one.

I sleep. I do not sleep. I see the gap. I see the joke leaving his mouth. I see Ruthie's coffee. I do not see his throat. I refuse the throat. Refusing it is a timestamp I do not write down.