The Metropolis by Matthew Gallaway Page B

parents (although it was far too amorphous for him to identify as such, again until much later), as though their failure to communicate was an expression of their stupidity, and not their humanity.
    Martin offered his opinion that Jane would not object.
    “We’ll see,” said Hank. “But promise me one thing: no knitting, okay?”
    Martin laughed. “Don’t worry—I’m not that crazy.”
    W HATEVER THE UNDERLYING motivation for the switch—and there were probably several—the goal crease proved to be the best place for Martin. The on-and-off nature of the position gave him plenty of opportunity to daydream when the action went to the other end of the rink and even—to Hank’s chagrin—sometimes when it was in his own.
    “What happened, Marty?” Hank liked to ask after a soft goal. “You were on another planet out there.”
    “Entropy,” Martin stated succinctly, one of his stock answers to avoid explaining that a loss could not be avoided when the Zamboni had not circled the ice ten times. In an early and unconscious attempt to reconcile his conflicting affinities for art and logic, he spent a lot of time developing an intricate set of superstitions, which he liked to believe could dictate the outcome of a game far more than his performance, e.g., each of his pads had to go on and come off in the same order, he never allowed the bottom of his stick to touch anything but the ice—but if it did, he would have to tap it against the ceiling three times to “purify” it—and before the first face-off of each period he always skated back and forth between the goal pipes exactly seven times. He also preferred to be the last one on the ice at the beginning of a game (but the first one off at the end), and he was always careful not to touch any of the opposing players’ clammy hands during the traditional postgame handshake. None of this he divulged to his father. “Sometimes it’s inevitable,” he said.
    “It didn’t seem too inevitable for the other goalie,” Hank noted. “He looked pretty sharp.”
    “You mean my opposite?” Martin said, using a terminology he had likewise developed, albeit for a different—but equally unconscious—reason, namely to distance himself from his father.
    “Yes, your opposite,” sighed Hank.
    “He did look pretty good,” Martin admitted and softened a little before he continued. “Next game you can be sure that my opposite’s opposite will prevail.”
    Any aggravation these tics caused Hank, however, was exceeded by the pleasure he took in his son’s talent and skill as Martin—despite the occasional lapse—continued to improve. “You may be adopted, but when it comes to hockey we have the same DNA,” he declared.
    “That’s for sure,” Martin responded eagerly. At this age, because he was adopted, he liked to acknowledge the influence of his parents, as if he were no different from any other kid. That he even resembled them in some ways—e.g., his blue eyes were very much like Jane’s and he often wore the same serious and intense expression as Hank—also made him happy, and sometimes he liked to surprise people with the truth of his adoption, as if to prove a point about it not making a difference.
    A S M ARTIN GREW older and detected a growing tension between Hank and Jane—albeit one, in keeping with the mores of Cedar Village, they were not inclined to display—he began to hope that he would not end up like them after all. Except, already more similar to them than he realized, he did not directly address the issue but rather exploited it, particularly after he tried out for and made Pittsburgh’s most elite “travel team,” the Royal Travelers, which took him—and Hank—out of town quite a bit more than Jane would have wanted. On any given weekend beginning in the winter of sixth grade, Martin found himself in Cleveland, Detroit, Toronto, Chicago, Philadelphia,or any other city within a seven- or eight-hour radius from Pittsburgh. While this