There's a Shark in My Hockey Pool by Dave Belisle Read Free Book Online Page A

the country was slowly filling itself in with an
illuminated checkered red and white pattern. There was a strange
patriotic flare to it. The lights looked to be blazing red and
white remnants ... from a maple leaf flag that had been blasted by
a Spanish trawler. An immigration official might argue it was a
melting pot that had been sitting on the fire too long.
    One keystroke later, Bittman turned the
Wetaskiwin zone in Alberta red. The wee rectangle continued to
blink, proud and beaming at being the latest area selected. These
flashing red lights took their turns as distress signals to Derek.
Little lighthouses that knew not the rocks from the Rockies. Each
time they lit up, he had three minutes to make his selection. They
blinked monotonously, a stop light stuck on red -- yet signalling
go. Hurry! ... before it's too late.
    It all seemed too surreal. It was the flip
side of Salvadore Dali's The Disintegration of the Persistence of
Memory, with a dreadfully lackadaisical time piece hung out to dry
on a desert tree. Time falling apart ... too weak to stand still.
Seconds, minutes and hours ... with all day to spare. Derek wished
it would do just that for him now.
    No. The red and white pockmarked map of
Canada blinked away. It was his turn. Again. He remembered a day at
the races.
    The bell at the race track signaled two
minutes til post time. His dad quickly folded the racing form down
the seam and just as quickly made a second fold down the middle of
the page. The numbers of the horses were circled and the wagers
were penciled in at the top. Derek knew his father would change one
or two of his selections while they stood in line. As they neared
the ticket window, his father gestured outside, beyond the
grandstand and said, "you have to watch the tote board to see where
the smart money is going." Derek stared at the long rectangular
sign on its side.
    Every eye in the grandstand was glued to it,
yet the board was devoid of advertising -- or even advice on how to
pick a winner. It was the tote board that wasn't going anywhere.
Weighed down by a wall of light bulbs in crazy-eight patterns,
every minute the bulbs churned out another dizzying, digital wave
of information.
    Derek came to appreciate numbers. Years later
he reckoned those days at the track had kept him in a few math
teachers' good graces. He could still feel the firm nudge on his
shoulder from his father. It meant to step lively and stay close
until the bets were in. These nudges and other nuances of
father-son bonding had come fifteen minutes apart, ten times every
Sunday afternoon during racing season when he was growing up.
    Before the afternoon at Herculean was over,
Marcotte felt like he'd emptied out a huge bank account of nudges
stored from those Sunday afternoons from years past. Only the
nudges came every three minutes now ... and they weren't gentle
reminders to come along. These were hard shoves, triggered by the
flashing red lights, urging him to stay back, far back, lest he be
trampled.
    The pushing would only stop when the
two-color neon country before him was paid in full. Or would it?
But there was something different about these nudges. The urgency
was there as it had been before. Missing however was the quick fix
of anticipation a two-dollar wager brings.
    These were negative nudges, fresh from
yesterday's argument with his father. Each one urging him not only
to rethink his selection, but what the hell was he doing there in
the first place. Nudges from a hard-core mechanic meant ... grease
stains. Derek caught himself looking down the front of his spotless
three-piece suit, sure he'd find enough oil to send
environmentalists scurrying.
    Derek knew when his father's touch meant
business. He'd shaken his father's hands fewer times than he could
count on both of them. Grasping his father's hand had been like
laying your soul bare. On each of these few occasions, he'd
attacked his father's grip with strength, wanting to assure him he
was as good a