"As the old birds sing, so do the young ones tweet."—Norwegian Proverb

Old Birds Sing

Curled in a ball like a turtle retracted into its shell, Mike sat in the desk chair of his hotel room. He was trying to pretend that he couldn't hear the groans and curses echoing from the bathroom where Neal and Dave were soaking their sore feet in a tub of cold water and ice, but he was having limited success in this venture. Most inconveniently, his powers of denial seemed to have been exhausted during the Herbies marathon, and now he saw and believed every wince and moan his teammates made whenever they so much as twitched a throbbing muscle.

Pinching the fleshy fold between his eyebrows, Mike thought that Herb was vicious enough to make a serial killer look like a cuddly teddy bear. Nobody should ever have been forced to participate in or witness the pure torture of that punishment skate. He couldn't imagine any other coach he'd had doing such a thing. Sure, his high school football coach would line them up and make them charge one another in full equipment when he felt like the team was slacking off in practice, but the madness would end after a couple of repetitions, and they'd be back to running scrimmages. Herb's discipline was on an entirely higher scale of sadism...

As he massaged his temples with his palms, Mike reflected that he needed someone to comfort him, because clearly he was unable to console himself right now. Calling Jill or his parents was a possibility, of course, but that unfortunately entailed figuring out what time it was back in Minneapolis since he didn't want to awaken them in the middle of the night for anything less than an emergency, and, given how tired his brain felt, he would probably mistakenly calculate the time in Hong Kong instead of in the Twin Cities.

Biting his lip, Mike felt very alone although he knew that Neal and Dave were only a few yards away from him soaking their feet in the bathtub, and alone was just about the last thing he wanted to be right now. Good Lord spare him, but he hadn't been this miserable since the end of last season when Bill had been coming off a leg injury as the Final Four approached and it dawned on him that he would be expected to be his team's number one defenseman in its battle to bring another championship banner to the U. That had been such a terrifying prospect because nobody could hope to fill Bill's skates, but Bill had been able to calm him down and give him the fortitude he needed to take that first step on what seemed like an impossibly long and rocky path.

Perhaps Bill would be able to accomplish a similar feat tonight. Squashing the shame that came from the knowledge that he was seeking solace from Bill when it was Bill who had endured a worse ordeal, so, in a remotely fair universe, it would have been Mike comforting Bill. Then again, in a remotely fair universe, Mike noted inwardly as he walked down the hallway to the room Bill was sharing with Phil. As his slippers shuffled through the shaggy carpet covering the corridor, Mike remembered last season's visit to an injured Bill…

Practice had ended less than a half hour ago, and Mike, who had a paper to finish for a philosophy professor so out of touch with reality that she was convinced lightbulb jokes about existentialists were as witty as anything in a Saturday Night Live script, decided to head over to Stub & Herb's to buy a Club sandwich and a can of Coke to buoy him through his essay writing nightmare. Since Bill was still coming off his leg injury and a post-practice trudge to the dining hall would probably feel like a run across America, Mike figured he would drop by Bill's dormitory to see if he should get a sandwich and a soda for his wounded hero.

As he was dressed in the jeans and sweatshirt that defined the wardrobe of a typical college student, it was easy for him to slip into the dormitory behind a knot of giggling girls, and he rode the elevator up to Bill's floor, trying not to think about the writer's block he would experience when he stared at the blank sheet of paper in his typewriter or how pathetic his defensive work would be when he tried to take Bill's place on the team.

Everything in his life was a disaster waiting to happen, he concluded dully as the elevator arrived at Bill's floor with a heraldic ding, and he exited. He made his way down the hallway to the room Bill shared with Phil, relieved to see that the door was ajar in a fashion that normally indicated the boys were not only home and interested in receiving guests.

He raised his fist to knock on the partially open door but reflexively stilled his hand when he overheard Bill saying to Phil in a tone so wry Mike could practically hear the attendant sarcastic eye roll, "Well, that was a great pep talk Herb had with me after practice. He basically asked me if there was such thing as a quitter's effort to get back from an injury because if there isn't I should patent it immediately. Only, since it was Herb, he wasn't content to tell me that one time. No, he had to repeat it approximately fifty times, so I can only assume that he thinks I'm so dumb that the only thing I could ever invent is a quitter's effort."

A worried furrow wrinkled Mike's forehead. Since his mom, as she loved to remind him whenever he acted remotely rude, had taught him manners since he was too small to ride the carousel at the amusement park, he was well aware that he wasn't supposed to eavesdrop on conversations that he wasn't intended to overhear. Etiquette demanded that he either announce his presence with a knock on the door or not interrupt and walk away from the conversation, but his mind couldn't compel his body to do either of those things.

As much as his burning ears did not wish to listen to the vulnerable words spilling from his idol's mouth, Mike's hammering heart needed to hear them. If something was troubling Bill, he wanted to know about it so maybe he could try to help in his blundering way, and there wasn't even a one in a million chance that Bill would confide in Mike about anything that was bothering him. Patient and kind as he was, Bill still perceived Mike as the hyper little brother to tease and guide not share his troubles with, but Bill was essentially attached to Phil at the hip like Siamese twins, and there was no thought or feeling those two best friends didn't voice to one another. It followed logically, then, that if Mike wanted to have more insight into the pain Bill was experiencing during the comeback from his injury, he would have to eavesdrop on this conversation not because he was thirsty for a sip from the watering hole of gossip but because he was a concerned friend…

"Don't listen to the shit that spews out of Herb's warty ass." Phil managed to make the harsh words sound soothing. "He's the most cantankerous bastard this side of the Berlin Wall, and he probably takes considerable pride in that fearsome statistic. In the final analysis, I'm sure he's just afraid that you won't be back to top form for the Final Four, and fear makes his saccharine temper all the sweeter as you well know."

"I'm afraid, too, Phil," replied Bill so quietly that Mike almost convinced himself that he had misheard, since Bill—always unflinching in the face of any obstacle—could not possibly be intimidated by anything even a nuclear warhead. "With my leg like this, I can't—"

Here, Mike's finger dug furiously through the shell of his ear in an ultimately fruitless attempt to excavate the wax that had to causing him to hear phrases that would never emerge from Bill Baker's mouth. As large a vocabulary as Bill had, can't wasn't a part of it.

"Play my usual minutes, and I doubt that will change before the championships roll around," Bill went on, and the active fantasy life Mike's ear were developing likewise continued. "I'm supposed to be the captain of this team, and I'll basically be warming the bench during the most important part of the season."

"Sometimes generals have to lead their troops from the sidelines," responded Phil. "It doesn't matter where a leader stands as long as his heart is with his people, and everyone on this team understands that you're with us whether you can be on the ice or not, okay?"

"Yeah." Bill's sigh, which was audible even from where Mike was lurking in the hallway, made it plain that he was still more defeated than Mike could ever have imagined. "It's just that I don't know what to do about any of this. That's just so frustrating and discouraging."

At this, Mike couldn't stifle a gasp. Bill was supposed to know the answer to every question whether it was about college, hunting, hockey, or physics. It was as wrong for Bill to not know something as it was for gravity to start tugging objects upward.

"Jeez, the doorknobs in this dorm have amazingly large ears," remarked Bill, who had obviously been alerted to Mike's presence by the sharp intake of breath from the corridor. "Why don't you come in, Rammer, instead of standing there like a guard at Buckingham Palace?"

His cheeks flaming with embarrassment at being caught eavesdropping like a neighborhood vulture, Mike slipped into the dorm room, as Phil quipped, "Don't be ridiculous, Bill. The guards at Buckingham Palace are ordered to maintain an utterly impassive countenance no matter what gems they overhear, so this hapless scamp would probably be court-martialed within an hour."

"Well, that's a warm welcome." Sticking out his tongue at Phil, Mike tried to mask his humiliation with indignation. "Why are you such a nasty jerk to me all the time?"

"Sorry, was I being rude again?" Phil's eyes widened in feigned innocence. "Forgive me, Rammer. Do come in and wear your welcome out the way you always do."

Ignoring Phil's mockery, Mike turned to Bill, explaining, "I stopped by because I wanted to ask if you'd like me to pick you up a sandwich or something at Stub & Herb's."

"No, thank you. I'm not really hungry right now." Bill shot Mike an appraising glance. "There's something else you could do for me if you're willing, though."

"I'd do anything to help." His words exploding from him in a geyser, Mike leaned forward, eager to prove that he could do anything his hero requested of him.

"You should be careful who you make declarations like that to, Mike." Bill's lips quirked. "That's how people end up agreeing to commit murder in gang initiation rituals."

"You wouldn't ask me to do anything horrible like that." To show that his simple logic was utterly unassailable, Mike shrugged. "That's why I would do anything to help you, Bill."

"Touché." For a few seconds, Bill chuckled, and then his face took on a somber cast once again. "Promise me that if I can't play my usual minutes during our championship bid, you'll pick up the slack for me."

"Did your brain get hurt along with your leg?" Stunned, Mike's eyes expanded until they were the size of quarters. "I'm not even half the defenseman that you are. I can't replace you any more than a traffic cone can."

"You have to be able to do it." Locked on Mike's, Bill's gaze was firm. "That's why Herb brought you here: to be the leader of his defense."

"Oh." Mike crinkled his nose. "I thought it was so he could have someone to accuse of being a prima donna every day at practice."

"Nah." Bill flashed a smile. "That was just a bonus."

"I'll do my best to pick up the slack if the team needs me to do that." Mike ducked his head, thinking that he was just an exuberant kid whose desire to make big checks along the boards or charge up ice with the puck to score a goal was always taking him out of position to perform his defensive duties, as Herb constantly reminded him in the most barbed manner possible. "I can't be you, though."

"You don't have to be me; you have to be you." Bill paused to emphasize this point. "Just trust your instincts, and be yourself, because there's a reason that you were taken eleventh overall in the NHL draft, and it isn't that you suck at defense."

"Yep, the reason is the scouts have a higher opinion of my abilities than I do."Mike snorted. "Believe me, Bill, if there's any part of me that's ready to lead this team's defense, it must have come from trying to copy you."

"Copying me is pretty easy, scamp." Bill ruffled Mike's hair. "I just try not to let bad goals be scored while I'm on the ice. That's my grand strategy for success."

"Oh, and what do you do if that bad goal is scored?" pressed Mike, figuring that he would need this tidbit of advice when that inevitable bad goal was scored on his watch.

"Drown my sorrows in whiskey, update my will, and check that Phil still has my final farewell letter to pass along to my grieving family after Herb murders me." Bill's blue eyes twinkled. "What else could I possibly do under such dire circumstances, Rammer?"

"Don't tease, Bill." Mike scowled. "Come on. I'm being serious for once, and here you are messing with my mind."

"All right, I'll stop toying with your delicate psyche." Grinning, Bill patted Mike on the shoulder. "Being serious, if a bad goal is scored when I'm on the ice, I just remind myself that the next move I make is the most important one. That's what my high school coach used to say whenever someone wet the bed, and it was one of the handful of things he was right about, if you ask me."

As he reached his destination and knocked on the ajar door, Mike was yanked out of his memories from last season.

"Come in!" called Bill's voice, and Mike slipped through the partially open door into the hotel room.

"How are you holding up?" Mike asked, his gaze riveting on the bucket with which Bill was icing his feet and ankles, while by the sound of water humming through the pipes and hitting tiles, Phil showered in jets that were probably chilly enough to make flesh pucker, bones ache, and muscles burn.

"Fine." Bill gave a ghost of a grin. "Don't worry, Rammer. The U.S.S Bill Baker hasn't sunken yet. In fact, it hasn't even sent out an SOS or released its lifeboats yet."

"That isn't too reassuring." Mike smirked, taking a seat on Phil's bed. "You're the sort of person who'd rearrange chairs on the deck of the Titanic after it struck the iceberg."

"If the ship's going down, it might as well look nice and organized while it does." Bill shrugged. "We wouldn't want the sea urchins to get an unfavorable impression of the wreck."

Clenching his fists so that his fingernails scratched into the tender heels of his hands because he couldn't bear to joke around as if everything was normal when to him it felt as if black had suddenly become white, Mike muttered, "It's nuts that you aren't all a bunch of shaking wrecks after the Herbies marathon. I mean, I didn't have to undergo the torture, and I still feel like a totally traumatized wreck."

"The Herbies did feel a bit like what would happen if an unstoppable force met an immovable object." Bill's feet shifted in the bucket of ice. "Still, it was most likely one of those events that are worse to witness than experience."

Highly doubting this last statement even if embracing it would bring him some comfort, Mike bit his lip so hard it bled, giving his saliva a metallic tang. "Herb's crazier than a rabid raccoon, but this is the cruelest thing I've ever seen him do. I just can't wrap my mind around why he decided to hit this new height of horribleness."

"Herb is a sort of mad artist who perceives this team as a mostly blank canvas on which he can create his magnum opus," explained Bill in a calm tone that suggested they were discussing nothing more emotional than tomorrow's predicted humidity levels. "Studying his potential masterpiece, he realized that he needed to add a sliver of shadow to bring out the shine in his picture, because you don't notice the light without the dab of darkness. Everything has a mixture of darkness and light, so the artist has to tinker with the balance of brightness and shadow until he gets it exactly right."

"My bullshit alarm is blaring." Mike's eyes crinkled in suspicion. "You don't have to lie to try to make me feel better, Bill."

"I'm not lying," answered Bill. "I'm just providing you with an education beyond the end of your hockey stick, because the Italians actually call that play of light and dark within a piece of art chiaroscuro."

Not about to attempt a pronunciation of this new vocabulary word that he would forget within an hour, Mike scoffed, "Well, if the Italians coined the term, it's definitely a steam mound of bullshit. Nobody can beat the Italians at shooting the bull. Even Rizzo admits that. Actually I think he takes pride in that."

Before Bill could reply, the door to the bathroom opened and Phil, wearing baggy a T-shirt and sweatpants as pajamas, emerged. Instantly detecting Mike's presence, Phil crossed over to his bed to deliver a firm shove to Mike's back, grumbling, "There's a turd on my bed. Now I have to flush it out, since it stinks."

"You don't stink at all; in fact, you smell delightfully like flowers." Offering an exaggerated sniff, Mike rose from Phil's bed. "Switching to that magnolia shampoo gives you such a manly scent. I'm green as a lizard with envy."

"Yep, and now I need my beauty sleep to maintain my status as a flawless specimen of masculinity." With a push, Phil propelled Mike toward the door. "Beat it, Rammer, before I have to muster the energy to beat you."

Unable to resist a retort as he exited, Mike tossed over his shoulder, "Beauty sleep isn't going to improve your looks any, Phil, because you'll still have your face shoved so far up your ass that no one will be able to distinguish the difference between the two."

Mike fully expected Phil to attempt to get in the last insult, so he was surprised when it was Bill who shouted out his name as he stepped over the threshold into the hallway.

"Yeah?" Cocking his head inquiringly, Mike pivoted to discover what his hero wanted from him.

"Mike, will you try to perk Neal up for me?" Bill asked. "When we left the arena, he looked so much like a whipped puppy left out too long in a downpour that I bet he needs a boost right now."

"I'll do what I can for him," promised Mike before setting off down the corridor toward his hotel room.

When he reached his destination, he plopped into the desk chair and scrutinized the room service menu, searching for the name of a dish that looked promisingly like a dessert, because sweets could always cheer Neal's spirit.

His eyes lit on the word krumkake, and, figuring that the second half of the dish bore a heartening resemblance to the term cake, he dialed the extension for the kitchen on the room phone and placed an order for it, hoping it was indeed a dessert and not a cake made from the pickled herring or poached cod with which the Norwegians were so obsessed.

As soon as Mike hung up the phone, the bathroom door swung open, and Neal and Dave came out, dribbling water all over the carpet. Wincing, Dave hobbled over to his bed and collapsed upon the mattress, declaring in a tone stale as flat soda, "I'm not going to move ever again. I'm staying right here until I croak, which will hopefully be soon, because I want nothing more than to be put out of my misery like a dog with cancer."

"Ouch!" whimpered Neal, as he fell onto the blankets that comprised his makeshift bed on the lumpy hotel couch. "Double ouch! Cripes, my whole body hurts whenever I move a muscle."

"You can take my bed, and I'll sleep on the sofa," Mike suggested, praying that his sympathy for Neal's plight was audible in his voice. "That might be more comfortable for you."

"You're so silly, Rammer." Neal's lips trembled in a peculiar blend of humor and pain. "This couch is too small for you. You'd have to sleep with your feet in the air, and all the blood would flow to your brain, so you'd probably end up getting a stroke or something."

"Well, if you're sure about sleeping on the sofa, we'll keep things as they are," responded Mike, not exactly apologetic about not having to spend the night on a couch that appeared to have more mountains than the Andes.

"I'm sure about sleeping on the sofa." Neal's fingers fiddled with a loose thread on one of his blankets. "What I don't understand is why Herb hurt us like this."

"Herb doesn't make sense." Mike shook his head, deciding against sharing Bill's chiaroscuro explanation since it contained too many shades of gray to bring any real consolation to someone like Neal who saw the world only in black and white. "The sooner we stop expecting him to act as if he has any human emotions whatsoever, the happier we'll be."

"That doesn't work for me, because I admire and trust him like a second dad, Rammer," burst out Neal. "I trusted him, and he hurt me, but I still respect him and believe in him. Isn't that sick? How messed up is it that I look up to someone who hurt me?"

"Not as messed up as the fact that somebody you admire and trust would hurt you." Mike's throat constricted like a cobra coiling around prey, and he was grateful when a sharp rap on the door provided him with an excuse not to have to choke out any more words on the grim subject.

After he had paid and tipped the maid who brought the krumkake, Mike set the tray of food on his nightstand and cut into it with the provided knife. To his relief, he sliced into it to see that it was definitely a dessert and a rather succulent one at that: a paper thin rolled cake filled with whipped cream.

"Who wants a piece of cake?" asked Mike, dumping a wedge of krumkake onto a porcelain saucer and sticking a fork in it.

"Will it spoil my luscious figure?" Neal wanted to know, a mischievous expression finally returning to his face after a long period of being absent without leave.

"It's loaded with cream." Mike chuckled as he thrust the platter into Neal's hands. "That means it will not only fatten you like a blimp, it will also leave you with ugly stretch marks."

"Don't sweat the weight gain, though, baby, because I'll still think you're the most beautiful creature on two legs that I ever met," teased Dave, blowing faux air kisses at Neal while Mike cut him a slice of krumkake.

As all three of them exploded in peals of laughter, Mike thought that he might be able to find it in his heart to forgive Herb, after all. Forgive. The frail beauty of the word took root in him, and he decided to hold onto that fragile seed of hope, remembering that in each of them was a balance of virtue and vice; light and shadow; art and agony; choice and regret; cruelty and compassion; humor and grief; ruthlessness and sacrifice. Each of them were their own chiaroscuro, their own bit of illusion battling to emerge from the shadows into something solid, something real. They had to forgive themselves and one another for that, because, in all of them, there was a lot of gray to work with, and no one could live in the light all the time.

All Mike could do now was laugh to release his pain and pleasure because he could, because he must, and because he wanted to see how long he could before his lungs made it so he had to stop.