Chuck looked around, a little scared, then back at Johnny. He touched the large knot that was rising on the boy's forehead.

“I'm sorry,” the clumsey hockey player said. “I never even saw him. Little kids are supposed to stay away from the hockey. It's the rules. “He looked around uncertainly for support.

“Johnny?” Chuck said. He didn't like the look of Johnny's eyes. They were dark and faraway, distant and cold. “Are you okay?”

“Don't jump it no more,” Johnny said, unaware of what he was saying, thinking only of ice-black ice. “The explosion. The acid.”

“Think we ought to take him to the doctor?” Chuck asked Bill Gendron. “He don't know what he's sayin?

“Give him a minute,” Bill advised.

They gave him a minute, and Johnny's head did clear. “I'm okay,” he muttered. “Lemme up. “Timmy Benedix was still smirking, damn him, Johnny decided he would show Timmy a thing or two. He would be skating rings around Timmy by the end of the week… backward and forward.

“You come on over and sit down by the fire for a while,” Chuck said. “You took a hell of a knock.”

Johnny let them help him over to the fire. The smell of melting rubber was strong and pungent-making him feel a little sick to his stomach. He had a headache. He felt the lump over his left eye curiously. It felt as though it stuck out a mile.

“Can you remember who you are and everything?” Bill asked.

“Sure. Sure I can. I'm okay.”

“Who's your dad and mom?”

“Herb and Vera Herb and Vera Smith.”

Bill and Chuck looked at each other and shrugged.

“I think he's okay,” Chuck said, and then; for the third time, “but he sure took a hell of a knock, didn't he? Wow.”

“Kids,” Bill said, looking fondly out at his eight year old twin girls, skating hand in hand, and then back at Johnny. “It probably would have killed a grown-up.

“Not a Polack,” Chuck replied, and they both burst out laughing. The bottle of Bushmill's began making its rounds again.