Hockey Night in Slattsbury
by Maggie
February 17, 2004
I gotta tell you about Lizzie. We
think Lizzie's in her fifties, but it's really hard
to tell. She's got an Orphan Annie hairdo the
colour of Raggedy Ann's, and her skin's as smooth
as a baby's ass, except for the down hill lines on
each side of her mouth. Lizzie's never had
any teeth since I've known her, six or seven years. She
always wears a dress and bobby socks, no matter what
the weather, and leotards under the bobby sox in
the winter.
We're not sure if she owns a bra or not.
But, boy, does she love her hockey.
And she loves her beer. Drinks Moosehead,
straight from the bottle; rolls her own smokes by
hand - Drum tobacco.
Last Saturday we were all sitting around the Liar's table at the Dog Tooth
Lounge in Slattsbury, and in comes Lizzie wearing her favorite green dress
and Bobby's red plaid jacket. (Bobby's her boyfriend - Old Bobby, we
call him.) It was snowing pretty heavy, and with Lizzie's red hair,
and snow all over her, she looked like someone had tried to decorate her
for Christmas.
This was Lizzie's new green dress. The other one was made of crepe material,
and one time, when her and Old Bobby were out jacking deer, Lizzie needed to
take a leak. She squatted down near the front of the half-ton and while
she was doing her business, Old Bobby turned the lights off for a joke and
scared the hell out of her. She peed all over the tail of her dress.
It was a nice, warm night and her and Old Bobby stood outside the truck and
drank beer for a while, watching for deer. When the beer was gone, they decided
to do a liquor store run. By the time they got there, the tail of Lizzie's
green crepe dress had shrunk all the way up to her bloomers. Lizzie says
she likes cotton better.
She paid her buck at the bar and signed in for a chance at the loony draw. She
got her Moosehead and joined us at the table.It was Hockey Night in Canada,
and just like every other Saturday Lizzie made the 9 mile run from her and
Old Bobby's place to the local liquor store in her half-ton to stock up for
the hockey game that came on CBC Television
at 8 o'clock. The truck had had so many body parts replaced and remodeled
(customized, she called it), that no one knew for sure how old it was. Old
Bobby and her got half in the bag one day last summer and painted the thing
all over with a roller and a sponge edger. Green. Lizzie's favourite
colour.
Well, certainly the subject of hockey came up. Sharky says to her, "Bet
you wished Wayne Gretzsky was playing in the All Star games this week-end." That
got her goin. Lizzie was a Gretzsky fan for years, but when he pulled
out of Canada , she had no more use for him. Never was a fan again. She
said "If I'm gonna love a Canadian, it's gonna be a real Canadian, not
one of them transplants." So she picked Mario Lemieux. She said she didn't
even care if his name sounded kinda Frenchy. Sharky (he got his name from telling
lies about the size trout he catches) he tells Lizzy that Lemieux's nothin
but a cripple this year, so she should pick an underdog and root for him.
Lizzie paid for her second Moosehead and said, "That'll
be easy; they're all
underdogs compared to Lemieux."
Lloyd said, "I never seen any damn sense in
hockey. When the wife has it on, I go to bed." Lizzie
told him he had to have sense in the first place
order to see any sense.
Lizzie drank another half a dozen beer or so, said
it was 6:30 and she had to go get some more wood
in before the game started. Bella asked her how her
pee light was working, and she said just fine. (We got her a miner's light
for her birthday. She wears it when she gets wood in at night, too) We
all hollered, "Bye, Lizzie" and said "Drive Careful", like
we always say to everybody when they leave.
There ain't too many of us that go to church, so there's a fair crowd at
the Dog Tooth on a Sunday morning, sitting around the Liar's Table having
their own kind of communion. And that's where we were this Sunday when
Darwood Slatt comes in and tells us that Lizzie lost her truck. Darwood's
sort of a communications expert: telephone, telegraph, tellDarwood.
According to Darwood, who said 'According to Lizzie',
she was truckin along on her way home Saturday night,
drinking a beer, and the bottle slipped out of her
hand while she was trying to roll a smoke. She bent
down to get it and lost control of the truck. She
said she flew over the ditch and went into a field. She
got out all right and headed up for the road. She
started walking for home. It was hard slogging
and Lizzie said she got awful dry. Then she thought
of the beer back in the truck and Old Bobby's forty-pounder
of Kelly's wine, so back she went. It was dark
out and she couldn't see a hand ahead of her, the
snow was blowing so bad, and she couldn't tell where
she'd put the truck off the road. She told Darwood
that she kept walking along until she fell into the
ditch, so she figured that was as good a place as
any to look for it.
She said she hiked all over that damn field, trying
to find her truck, but she couldn't see it anywhere.
Darwood said he was on his way home from the bootleggers
on his four-wheeler when he saw Lizzie coming up
out of the ditch. She was wound up about losing her
beer, and Darwood said it took him a while to figure
out that she'd lost the truck, too. So, according to Darwood,
he got her on the four-wheeler and turned it broadside the road and shone his
lights on the field. He said he spotted something shiny. "There it is,
he told her." She hollered at him, "That's not where I left
the road. That's Coady's barn, you damn old fool. Can't you tell the
difference between a barn and a truck?" Darwood said he drove
the four-wheeler down into the ditch and down across the field toward the barn. Coady's
barn hasn't been used in years. Saw a lot of barn dances, that barn. There's
no longer any doors on it, and it's got a lean to it that defies gravity. But,
sure enough, there was Lizzie's truck inside, parked just as pretty as you
please. Darwood figures that the truck just coasted right down the grade and
into the barn. Lizzie couldn't remember taking it out of gear.
Darwood said she jumped right off the four-wheeler
and started running to the barn. When he caught
up to her, she already had a beer open and was grinning
like a Cheshire cat.
Darwood and Lizzie sat and drank a couple more beer, then Lizzie grabbed the
rest of the case and the Kelly's wine, and got on the back of the four-wheeler. Darwood
said, "I asked her what she was going to do about the truck, and Lizzie
said the hell with the truck. I got my booze, and I ain't missin the hockey
game."
And that's Hockey Night in Canada , somewhere near
Slattsbury.
-Maggie
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