It was to this desk that I now went to pull out the first magazine I had stolen from the doctor’s office, dated April 1999. There were two Gretzky articles in that magazine. I read the second article first. To be honest, the picture of Wayne at eleven was what had caught my attention. That’s the number ninety-nine that I could relate to, the Wayne briefly entangled in my crazy dysfunctional world. The young boy, with the ancient eyes, that I had shared a strange moment with when we were both ten. He was the same boy that I had simply known as a valuable young hockey player all those years ago when my world still made some kind of sense, even though it was anything but normal. The writer of the article talked about how, when Wayne was younger, the other players thought he was spoiled and snobby. I chuckled to myself because that was not the language I remember them using. He was neither, but he pissed off many kids, likely, because all they heard from their parents was, ‘why can’t you be more like that Gretzky kid’ or, ‘get out there and kill that Gretzky kid’. It seemed to me that the parents disliked him more than the kids did. The kids just wanted to play hockey, the parents were dreaming of what they wanted their kids to be; how much it would change their world. Gretzky was a threat to their kid’s chances. He was a threat to all of their dreams. I could still hear the screaming in my head and see the malice on their faces for a skinny little kid with kind but cautious eyes. His life then was probably just as messed up as mine had been but I had had little sympathy for him. I read the first article next, all about how difficult a decision it had been to retire and how he had waged the battle of that decision within himself. He didn’t even discuss it with his wife or his father. It made sense to me; after all, whom could he trust? If he had learned anything over his esteemed career, he should have learned that the only person he could rely on was himself. It wasn’t right but it was reality. I knew that all too well. When it got to the quote from Wayne’s father, I could hear the words in my head, ‘You’ve got to behave right. They’re going to be watching your every move for each little mistake on and off the ice. Remember that. You’re a gifted, special player and you’re on display. What you do reflects on me. They’re going to be out to get you.’ It wasn’t Walter Gretzky saying them, though. It was my father. He had my brother by the shoulders and he was staring at him as he repeated the words that I had heard over and over for most of my young life. My brother was staring back at our father, believing every word that came from his mouth. He was so trustful, so brainwashed, hopeful and willing to please. He was a hockey machine, a robot of sorts, with no emotional rights to anything but the pursuit of a little black hockey puck. Our father was the King and he was preparing him to go after the Holy Grail. Everything in his life and, through necessity our lives, was focused on him being drafted into the NHL. Each meal that he ate, any move that he made, all emotions he felt, the slightest breath that he took for every day of his life was designed and controlled by our father to make him a hockey super star. It was just that way. We all knew that he was special because we knew that we weren’t. We all knew that there was only one thing in his life and one person that our father couldn’t control and it led to deadly consequences for all of us.