One morning not long before the game, two men drive from Hed to the factory in Beartown to apply for jobs. They’ve been unemployed for a long time, they both have children, and when the factory’s new owners offered them interviews it was like a gift from the gods. They park the car outside the factory. When they get back to it after their interviews, they find it’s been smashed to pieces. The doors have been kicked in, and a large tree branch has been shoved through the windshield. There aren’t any witnesses, of course, even though some men in black jackets are standing nearby. Among the broken glass on the driver’s seat is a note reading “Beartown jobs for Beartown people.”

* * *

Perhaps that was how it started.

* * *

Unless it started when a small group of men from Hed meet up soon after that to discuss how to get revenge. They want to hurt the Pack. They want to take something the men in the black jackets love away from them. “I want to set fire to their goddamn homes,” one of the men from Hed mutters at that meeting. Perhaps he doesn’t mean it literally. But one of his friends replies, “Then that’s what we’ll do.”

47

A Love Story We Will Never Forget

It’s hard to keep a secret in the locker room. Any sort of secret.

* * *

In the arena in Hed, practices are getting more and more tense. Everyone in there has stopped referring to Beartown inhabitants as people, increasingly preferring to use terms such as “the greens.” Or “the baby bears are going to get slaughtered.” Or “the bitches.” Or “the bastard fags.” William Lyt might have been expected to be one of the loudest voices, but for some reason he’s becoming quieter and quieter.

When his teammates ask why he’s being so quiet, he says he’s “just trying to focus on hockey.” He has no better answer. Something odd has been happening to him this autumn and winter: the more everyone has started to hate each other, the more fed up he is with himself. He has been angry for so long, angry at hockey, angry at school, angry at home, that in the end perhaps he simply doesn’t have the energy to carry on being so angry. “Focus on your hockey,” his mom said, patting his head tenderly. So that’s what he’s done. He’s distancing himself more and more from the rest of the team, training harder on his own. He meets a girl from Hed and starts spending his evenings with her. One day David calls him into his office. He gives him a note with a phone number written on it, belonging to a scout for one of the elite clubs several divisions above Hed. “They’re interested in you, they want you to call them.” As William stares at the note, David walks around the desk and puts his hands on his shoulders. “I’ve seen you focusing more on your hockey recently, William. And noticed that you’ve let go of all that other nonsense outside, the fighting and so on . . . That’s good! That’s why this club is interested. You can be something, William, you can go a long way! But you know I’m going to fight to keep you playing for me. I think you’ll be ready to be captain next season!”

Then David says something terrible. Something that completely destroys a young man who’s scared of showing his feelings: “I’m proud of you, William.” William walks straight out of the office and calls his mother.

* * *

It’s hard to keep a secret in the locker room, so everyone congratulates William when he comes back. He’s proud, obviously, but he also notices that they stop talking when he’s around. He realizes that they’re talking about something they don’t want him to hear.

After practice there are two cars parked outside the ice rink, containing young men with bull tattoos and hooded tops. A couple of William’s teammates, the ones who are young enough to want to fight and not good enough at hockey to have anything to lose, walk straight to the cars.

“Where are you going?” William asks.

One of them turns around. “The less you know, the better, William. You’re too important for the team to be involved in this. We need you on the ice!”

“What the hell are you planning?” William asks, confused.

The men with the bull tattoos don’t reply, but one of the guys from the team is too excited to stop himself. So he shouts, “We’re going to see how well bearskin burns!”

* * *

The cars drive off, leaving William standing there alone.

* * *

When the police question them afterward, the men from Hed will have a thousand excuses. Someone will say they didn’t mean to set fire to the whole building, they just thought the door would burn and they’d have time to put it out before it was too late. One will say they just wanted to “make a point,” and another will say it was only supposed to be “a joke.” None of them knew there was an apartment above the Bearskin pub. Or that Ramona was asleep up there.

* * *

Maggan Lyt picks her son up from Hed ice rink, just as she does after every practice. She has sandwiches and protein smoothies with her; she puts his bag in the trunk, plays his favorite music all the way home. But he doesn’t say a word.

“What is it?” his mom asks.

“Nothing . . . it’s nothing. I’m just . . . nervous about the game,” William mumbles.

He pretends it’s true, and Maggan pretends to believe him. They don’t want to hurt each other’s feelings. They have dinner and listen as William’s father talks about his day at work, laugh when William’s sister talks about her day: she unscrewed the lids of the salt cellars on the teachers’ lunch table so they fell off when the teachers tried to season their lunch! William taught her that. Maggan tries to scold her, but the girl’s laughter is so infectious that she doesn’t have the heart.

Today, more than usual, William watches his parents as they eat and chat. He’s well aware of what people in this town say about his family, that his dad is “so cheap he cries when he takes a shit” and that his mother is a “crazy hockey mom.” That might be true, but there are other things that can be said about them, too. They’ve never had anything handed to them on a plate, they’ve had to fight for everything, and they want to give their children all the things they themselves never had: power over their own lives without having to struggle every day. Maybe they go too far sometimes, but William is only too willing to forgive them. This world isn’t built for kind people. Kind people get exploited and crushed. William just has to look around Beartown to see that.

After dinner he watches a cartoon in his sister’s room. When she was born, the doctors said there was something wrong with her. There wasn’t, she’s just special. People keep wanting to describe her using the name of her condition, but William refuses. She is who she is. The kindest person he knows. When she falls asleep, he goes down to the basement to do some weight training on his own. But those words are gnawing away at him: “We’re going to see how well bearskin burns!” He can’t let go of them. So he puts on his tracksuit and tells his mom he’s going out for a run. Maggan Lyt hopes it’s because her son is nervous.

After the door closes behind him, she goes straight to the kitchen. She always worries about her children; whenever William isn’t home she channels her anxieties into making food. “Say what you like about Maggan Lyt, but she’s a good cook!” people say. The fact that they feel the need to preface the sentence with “Say what you like” doesn’t bother her. She knows who she is. She fights for everything she’s got. She ends up making a pasta salad, then some potato salad. “No one can make so many salads out of things that aren’t supposed to be salads as you, Mom—you can make any vegetable unhealthy!” William usually says with a grin.

* * *

She stays awake until he gets home, worrying the whole time.

* * *

William runs through Beartown. Suddenly he realizes that he’s wearing his red tracksuit with the bull on the chest. Even he appreciates what a stupid provocation that is around here right now. He turns to run home and get changed but stops when he notices the smell. It catches in his nostrils.

* * *

Something’s burning.

* * *

The smoke doesn’t wake Ramona, she wakes up to find someone tugging at her. Ramona may have drunk one or two late-night snacks, so she reacts the way she always does when someone wakes her: she flails her arms, yells obscenities, and tries to find a solid object to use as a weapon.