Hockey Coach (Part 1)

I’ve been assigned to coach a hockey team. Someone has given me a clipboard. It’s twice the size of a regular clipboard. And there’s a giant calendar on the front of it. My first task is to inspect the hockey bags piled up along the wall by the rink. Orange, red, orange, blue, green, blue, orange. I write each color down and have to circle either 7 or 8 for its score. I have an assistant, about four feet tall. I tell him to unzip the first bag. He looks at me and then slowly unzips it. There’s a pair of old roller skates, styrafoam containers, coffee grounds and old banana peels. Maggots are crawling all over the garbage. I give it a 7. – Unzip the next, I say. – I don’t want to, he whimpers. – No one wants to do it! I shout. He does, and there’s a pile of green mush. I peer into it and a fish jumps right out. My assistant squeals. – Zip it up! I shout. He’s crying, his hands shaking. I like being in control. I give the bag an 8. Something about the next bag worries me. I decide to pass on it, giving it a 7. My assistant opens the fourth bag, the blue one. I cover my face, expecting a wolf to jump out. Instead, there’s a sickly looking woman, almost folded up, wearing a black dress with a strap coming off her shoulder. – Are you playing? I ask her. – Everyone has to play, she says, and steps out of the bag, teetering on her white skates which are not done up well. Just then I hear the crack of a slapshot. My assistant screams, as though he had been hit. The girl turns her head and looks back at us, sadly, a puck in her mouth, teeth and blood falling onto her white skates.