A witness came forward, a boy the same age as Maya who had been in the house when it had happened. But that didn’t make any difference. The police did nothing, the town kept quiet, the adults did nothing to help Maya. Then one night, not long after that, something else happened. No one knows exactly what. But all of a sudden Kevin stopped going out. Rumors that he was mentally ill started to circulate; then, one morning three weeks ago, he and his family just up and left town.
Leo had thought everything would get better then. But it got worse instead. He’s twelve years old, and this summer he learns that people will always choose a simple lie over a complicated truth, because the lie has one unbeatable advantage: the truth always has to stick to what actually happened, whereas the lie just has to be easy to believe.
When a vote of the club’s members had decided by the smallest possible margin to let Peter Andersson stay on as general manager back at that meeting in the spring, Kevin’s dad had immediately seen to it that Kevin changed clubs, from Beartown to Hed. He had persuaded the coach, almost all the sponsors, and almost all of the best players from the junior team to move with him. When Kevin’s family suddenly left town three weeks ago, everything was turned upside down again, but—weirdly enough—nothing changed.
And what had Leo expected? That everyone would suddenly realize that Kevin was guilty and apologize? That the sponsors and players would come back to Beartown with their heads bowed? Like hell they did. No one bows their heads around here, for the simple reason that many of our worst deeds are the result of our never wanting to admit that we’re wrong. The greater the mistake and the worse the consequences, the more pride we stand to lose if we back down. So no one does. Suddenly everyone with power and money in Beartown chose a different strategy: they stopped admitting that they had ever been friends of the Erdahl family. People started to mutter, very quietly at first, then with increasing assurance, that “that boy was always a bit odd,” and “his dad put way too much pressure on him, anyone could see that.” Then, weirdly, it slipped into comments like “that whole family, they were never . . . you know . . . like us. The father wasn’t from around here, not originally, he was a newcomer.”
The story when Kevin transferred to Hed Hockey Club was that he had been “the victim of a malicious accusation,” and “the subject of a witch hunt,” but now there’s a different version: that the sponsors and players didn’t move to Hed because they were following him but because they wanted to “distance themselves” from him. His name has been erased from Hed’s membership register, but it’s still on Beartown’s. That way everyone was able to move far enough away from both perpetrator and victim, so now all Kevin’s former friends can call him a “psychopath” while still calling Maya a “bitch.” Lies are simple; truth is difficult.
Beartown Ice Hockey started to be called “Kevin’s club” by so many people that Hed automatically began to feel like the opposite. Emails were sent from players’ parents to local councillors about “responsibility” and “insecurity,” and when people feel threatened a self-fulfilling prophecy occurs, one tiny incident at a time: one night someone wrote “Rapists!!!” on one of the road signs on the outskirts of Beartown. A couple of days later a group of eight-year-olds from both Beartown and Hed were sent home from summer camp after a violent fight, caused by the kids from Hed chanting “Beartown Rapists!” at the kids from Beartown.
Leo is sitting on the beach today, and fifty feet away sit Kevin’s old friends, big, strong eighteen-year-olds. They’re wearing red Hed Hockey caps now. They’re the ones who wrote online that Maya had “deserved it” and that Kevin was obviously innocent because “who the hell would want to touch that slut even with a shitty stick?” As if Maya had ever asked any of them to touch her with anything at all. Now the same boys claim that Kevin was never one of them, and they’ll go on repeating the same lie until he’s associated only with Beartown, because however this story gets distorted these boys will make themselves the heroes. They always win.
Leo is six years younger than most of them; he’s an awful lot smaller and an awful lot weaker, but some of his friends have still started to tell him that he “ought to do something.” That one of those bastards “needs to be punished.” That he has to “be a man.” Masculinity is complicated when you’re twelve. And at every other age, too.
* * *
Then there’s a noise. Heads look down at towels. All over the beach cell phones start to vibrate. First one or two, then all at once, until the buzzing blurs together into a invisible orchestra where all the instruments are being tuned at the same time.
The news is arriving.
* * *
Beartown Ice Hockey no longer exists.
* * *
“It’s only a sports club, there are more important things.” It’s easy to say that sort of thing if you believe that sports is merely a matter of numbers. But it never is, and you can only understand that if you start with the simplest question: How does it feel for a child to play hockey? It’s not so hard to answer that. Have you ever been in love? That’s how it feels.
* * *
A sweaty sixteen-year-old is running along the road outside Beartown. His name is Amat. In a garage out in the woods, a dirty eighteen-year-old is helping his dad fetch tools and stack tires. His name is Bobo. In a garden a four-and-a-half-year-old girl is firing pucks from a patio into a brick wall. Her name is Alicia.
Amat hopes that one day he’s going to be good enough for hockey to take him and his mother away from here. For him sports are a future. Bobo just hopes he can have another season of laughter and no responsibilities, seeing as he knows that every day after that will be like all his dad’s days. For Bobo sports are a last chance for play.
For Alicia, the four-and-a-half-year-old girl firing pucks on a patio? Have you ever been in love? That’s what sports are for her.
* * *
Cell phones buzz. The town stops. Nothing travels faster than a good story.
* * *
Amat, sixteen years old, stops out on the road. Hands on knees, chest heavy around his heart: bang-bang-bang-bang-bang. Bobo, eighteen years old, rolls another car into the workshop and starts to beat out a dent in the plate: bang-bang-bang. Alicia, four and a half years old, stands on a patio in a garden. Her gloves are too big and the stick is too long, but she still fires a puck at the wall as hard as she can: bang!
They’ve grown up in a small town in a big forest. There are plenty of adults around here who say that work is getting harder to find and the winters are getting worse, that the trees are denser and the houses sparser, that all the natural resources may be out in the countryside but all the money still ends up in the big damn cities. “Because bears shit in the woods, and everyone else shits on Beartown.” It’s easy for children to love hockey, because you don’t have time to think when you’re playing it. Memory loss is one of the finest things sports can give us.
But now the text messages arrive. Amat stops, Bobo lets go of the hammer, and soon someone is going to have to try to explain to a four-and-a-half-year-old girl what it means when a hockey club “goes bankrupt.” Try to make it sound like it’s just a sports club collapsing, even though sports clubs never really do that. They just cease to exist. It’s the people who collapse.
* * *
In the Bearskin pub they usually say that the door should be kept closed “so the flies don’t get cold.” They usually say other things too: “You’ve got an opinion about hockey? You couldn’t even find your own arse with both hands in your back pockets!” “You want to talk tactics? You’re more confused than a cow on AstroTurf!” “You think our defense is going to be better next season? Don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining!” But today no one is arguing; today everything is quiet. It’s unbearable. Ramona pours whisky into all the glasses, one last time. The five uncles, seventy years old, maybe more, raise their glasses in a perfunctory toast. Five empty glasses hit the bar. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. The uncles stand up and leave, go their separate ways. Will they call each other tomorrow? What for? What on earth are they going to argue about, if not a hockey team?