Reality check in detroit, p.1
Reality Check in Detroit, page 1
Text copyright © 2015 by Roy MacGregor and Kerry MacGregor
Published in Canada by Tundra Books, a division of Random House of Canada Limited,
One Toronto Street, Suite 300, Toronto, Ontario M5C 2V6
Published in the United States by Tundra Books of Northern New York,
P.O. Box 1030, Plattsburgh, New York 12901
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014941837
All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher – or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency – is an infringement of the copyright law.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
MacGregor, Roy, 1948-, author
Reality check in Detroit / Roy MacGregor.
(Screech Owls)
ISBN 978-1-77049-422-0 (pbk.).–ISBN 978-1-77049-427-5 (epub)
I. Title. II. Series: MacGregor, Roy, 1948- . Screech Owls series.
PS8575.G84R42 2015 jC813’.54 C2014-903061-4
C2014-903062-2
Cover designed by Jennifer Lum
www.tundrabooks.com
www.penguinrandomhouse.ca
v3.1
For Olivier and for Ellen, with appreciation
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
About the Author
1
Travis Lindsay’s eyes had finally fixed on the perfect postcard – a moody black-and-white photo of a boxer slouched in the corner of a ring, holding two shiny black boxing gloves up in front of his chest – when Wayne Nishikawa poked his head around the postcard rack, slid a pair of bejeweled butterfly sunglasses down his nose, and announced his new life plan.
“From now on, you can call me Hollywood!”
“Um … Nish, that’s not going to happen,” Travis laughed.
Travis picked up the postcard of Joe Louis, the boxer the Detroit Red Wings’ hockey rink had been named after, flipped it over, and then put it back.
“You know those are girl glasses, right?”
“Girl glasses? Not once I make them famous!” Nish said loudly, shifting his eyes back and forth as if the paparazzi might be after him.
“Nish? A teen heartthrob? Um … no thanks!” Sarah Cuthbertson called from the line of Screech Owls waiting to pay for their Stupid Stop purchases. She had found a windup flashlight keychain that fitted in the palm of her hand. “You can slow down, egomaniac. The TV crew hasn’t even shown any footage of us yet,” she added.
“Way before there was Justin Bieber and Michael Jackson, there was Elvis,” Nish called back, pushing his sunglasses up his nose again. “Elvis was made fun of … and then he was huge! – just like that. Just like I’ll be!”
Nish shot Sarah his best Elvis-style hip wiggle before holding out his hand to show Travis his other purchase option: a big, ancient-looking tube of hair gel with a dusty orange discount sticker.
“Not that again,” Travis groaned, grabbing the tube and slipping it onto a shelf between a dozen Motor City snow globes and mugs. “Your hair gel experiments always smell like egg farts. Go find something else to buy with your money.”
“Fine,” Nish shrugged.
“Five minutes!” Mr. Dillinger, the Screech Owls’ manager, called from the glass doors at the front of the store. “The bus and the cameras start rolling again in five minutes! If you aren’t outside, we’re leaving you behind!”
Nish swaggered down one of the narrow souvenir shop aisles and reached out to a rack of skinny black-satin ties and bow ties with “THE TEMPTATIONS” written across them in glittery block letters. “I’ve just gotta have something to set me apart, Trav – you know, other than my good looks and charm. When we get to Detroit – Motown, baby! – you know I’m going to have to be the star.”
“Have to?” Travis chuckled under his breath as he grabbed the Joe Louis postcard for the collection he’d started up after the Owls went to Boston. He also picked out one of a regular-looking, white-and-blue house with the words “HITSVILLE, U.S.A.” on it for Muck, the Owls’ coach.
Nish, however insufferable, had been working toward his Hollywood goal for the last six weeks, and to Travis’s surprise, it seemed to be paying off.
Stardom, or at least a bit of it, seemed finally within reach for Nish.
Back in November, Nish had heard about a reality TV show called Hit the Ice. The show featured Aboriginal players from across the country and let them show off their skills, and Nish, seeing an opportunity, had taken Jesse Highboy under his “creative” wing. Jesse, after all, was from James Bay and his family was Cree. And he was a pretty good little hockey player.
As Jesse’s “agent,” Nish had coaxed Travis and Larry Ulmar – a.k.a. Data – out onto the Lord Stanley Public School rink to film Jesse’s audition tape. Data brought his new camera; Travis was to be the playing partner; Nish would be the director, the agent, and, if he could figure out how to do it, the real star.
First, they did some fancy stickhandling around tiny orange pylons, then a little open-ice, puck-chasing hustle (to show off Jesse’s best feature: the fact that he always tried so hard), and then, for good measure, Jesse took shot after shot on a near-empty net – near-empty because Travis was awful in goal. Data had even been able to add in some cool tracking shots by rolling his wheelchair along the outside of the boards while he filmed.
Nish had packaged the audition tape with a quick, comical “between periods interview” with the right-winger, in which Nish got more “face time” than Jesse. Nish then added his own Screech Owls hockey card in place of a business card and dropped the package in the mail.
Two weeks later, they got a reply. The producers didn’t just want Jesse Highboy, they wanted all of the Screech Owls to appear in their own reality show they planned to call Goals & Dreams. And it wouldn’t be on the small Aboriginal network in Canada. It would air on national networks all over North America – and the producers had plans to sell the show to Europe and the rest of the world.
For the first time anyone could remember, one of Nish’s mad-crazy schemes was actually working out.
He might even end up a true star.
2
Muck, not surprisingly, hadn’t been big on the idea of his team being part of a reality television series, but he’d let the parents put it to a vote. Since the Screech Owls had only a four-day skills competition in Detroit between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, and because the show had promised to put the players up and feed them, it was hard for any of the parents to say no – even the ones who were a bit unsure about being in the spotlight as part of the players’ “lives back home.”
What won Muck over were the skills sessions the show had promised. The producers said they would bring together several of the most forward-thinking hockey coaches in the world – one from Sweden, one from Russia, and college coaches from the United States and Canada – to devise a skills competition the likes of which had never been seen on a hockey rink.
There was also the not-so-insignificant matter that Muck, the history buff, would also get to take a closer look at the origins of Detroit’s famous Motown recording industry. The great music made in Detroit had been a big part of his youth.
So, in the end, he relented, and to great cheering in the Owls’ dressing room back in little Tamarack, he had given the go-ahead with a curt nod of his chin.
The Screech Owls were headed for Detroit … and the world of lights, cameras, and action!
“Got it!” Nish said, having snapped one of the black-satin bow ties around his neck. He slid his glittery sunglasses back down his nose. “I look Motown famous, right? Elvis famous?”
“You look ridiculous,” said Travis, shaking his head at the bow tie and laughing. “Not one of those people ever wore a bow tie over a T-shirt that said, ‘PULL MY FINGER.’ ”
Nish looked down at his shirt – the words over a picture of a giant blue-and-white Toronto Maple Leafs foam finger – and smiled.
“We’re on!” yelled Mr. D. “Everyone! Bus! NOW!”
Travis and Nish finished paying for their Stupid Stop treasures – “Only one rule,” Mr. D always told them as he handed them a little pocket money. “You have to buy something absolutely unnecessary and useless” – and together climbed onto the team’s old renovated school bus. They were expecting to see a Goals & Dreams cameraman with his tripod in the aisle of the bus again, ready to film more of the segment they called “The Screech Owls: Life on the Road.” Instead, he was standing next to the driver’s seat, holding a TV remote.
“I can’t believe it!” Sarah said as Nish straightened his ludicrous bow tie and gave the cameraman his best crooner’s smile.
“I don’t even know the Klingon phrase for this one,” Data sighed. “Maybe ‘nuqDaq
“What’s that mean?” asked Fahd Noorizadeh.
“Where’s the toilet,” Data said, giggling. “Because I think I’m gonna hurl!”
“The tie’s not that bad –” Nish started, more offended that Data had stolen his famous line, but then he realized his teammates weren’t even looking at his bow tie. They were staring above it, at one of the bus’s small TV screens. On the screen, Nish the hockey superstar, soon to be Hollywood icon, was beaming back at them, in full Screech Owls uniform, from a photo on his mother’s piano.
Roger, the cameraman – a short little fellow with curling white hair and a likable smile – was using Mr. D’s homemade TV system to show them some raw footage of what the producers had assembled so far in the series.
“Turn it up!” Nish shouted. He bowled past Travis to get farther onto the bus, his bow tie bouncing enthusiastically just below his chin.
“He’s always been very musical – from piano, to violin…,” Mrs. Nishikawa was saying as the camera cut to a shot of Nish adjusting his shin pads in the Screech Owls’ dressing room. In the background, Travis and Andy Higgins were re-taping their blades. Wilson Kelly was going over a defense drill with Muck.
“Winning is all about finesse,” Nish was saying directly to the camera. “And I’m a finesse player, a finesse defenseman – there aren’t many of us. I come out, I play my best, and my best just happens to be really, really awesome. Right now, I’m working on my version of the shootout spin-o-rama – very controversial …”
On the bus, Travis and Sarah turned and stared at each other in horror. Data rolled his eyes and groaned loudly.
Nish paid no attention. “Ha!” he shouted over the sound track on the TV. “Do you see that? I’m going to be huge. Huge!”
Neither Travis nor Sarah said a word. They just stared at each other, their thoughts perfectly in tune.
They were witnessing the birth of a monster.
A monster called Wayne Nishikawa.
The whole trip had seemed improbable right from the start. Muck agreed to it only because there would be no cost to the team and they’d be promoting skills development. Muck believed in practice, much to Nish’s regret. He believed that the two most important elements of good hockey were skill and speed. Muck said minor hockey teams in Canada played far too many games and tournaments and held far too few practices. He liked the European model of hockey, where players practiced two or three times more than they played. Creativity is a simple process, Muck liked to say. You repeat, repeat, repeat, and repeat again – and when it works, people will think you made it up on the spot.
Mr. D was all for the trip. He liked nothing better than to take the old bus out on a road trip and include one of his treasured Stupid Stops. The parents were in favor, too, because it wasn’t going to cost them anything. And Nish, of course, was in, because, well, Goals & Dreams would help jump-start his Hollywood career.
Travis had dozed off before they reached Windsor, on the Canadian side of the Detroit River. Mr. D woke him up when they came to the border crossing and the Owls’ manager had to produce the team’s passports. As usual, Lars Johanssen, who carried a Swedish passport, was asked a few questions, but soon enough they were all cleared to go and Mr. D directed the bus down into the brightly lit tunnel that took them under the river to the American side.
Travis rested his head against the window as the yellow lights along the tunnel wall flashed by. He felt like he was in a spaceship, and he might just as well have been – he was about to enter a world so distant from the one he had left it could have been light years away.
Before they went to the hotel to check in, Mr. D gave them a quick tour of the downtown. Travis knew this would have been Muck’s suggestion. He had noticed Muck moving to the front of the bus and leaning down to whisper something to Mr. D.
No trip, Muck always said, should ever be just about hockey. You should learn something, too. Something of value. And there was certainly something to learn in their brief look at downtown Detroit. Travis had once seen a movie, War of the Worlds, in which it appeared that all humanity had been destroyed. Streets were empty, cars abandoned, storefronts shattered or closed down. It wasn’t that bad in downtown Detroit, but it sure wasn’t good. Hardly anyone was in the streets, few vehicles were parked, and even fewer were going anywhere. Store after store had “FOR RENT” or “FOR LEASE” signs, or were simply shuttered up with plywood that had faded in the weather.
When they turned onto a particularly bleak street, Muck indicated to Mr. D that he should pull over and park. He stood up in the middle of the aisle and asked Roger not to record him. He then turned and faced the Owls.
“I want you all to remember what you are seeing here,” he said. His voice was quiet, but every single word was heard and understood by the players. “Detroit is what they call a ghost city. When the bottom fell out of the North American automobile industry, the bottom fell out of this city. Today, Detroit has less than half the population it had as far back as 1950. It has a hundred thousand abandoned buildings and houses. It has the highest unemployment and poverty rates of any large city in the United States.”
He paused while the Owls took all that in.
“I wanted you to see this,” he said, “because I want you to think hard about something …” He paused again.
Fahd, of course, asked the obvious. “What?”
Muck looked over all the Owls. None of them dared even to breathe.
“To think about how lucky you are.”
3
“SWAG! We got swag! Swag! Swag! Swag! Swag!” Nish had screamed at the top of his voice, his face a swollen tomato about to burst.
Travis had never thought he might one day say he felt like he had died and gone to … Detroit. But this, he had to admit, was Hockey Heaven. Or as close to it as any Screech Owl had ever come.
They had just checked in to a hotel fancier and more luxurious than anything they had ever experienced. The Marriott Renaissance – “Five stars, 72 floors, 1,298 rooms,” Data had read from his phone as Mr. Dillinger pulled the bus up in front of the blackest, tallest building on the Detroit waterfront.
At the reception desk in the marble-floored lobby, room keys had already been laid out waiting for the Owls to check in, along with a card telling who would be rooming with whom. Two to a room! Travis had never imagined such luxury – usually the Owls were four to a room, sometimes six. Travis’s only possible cause for complaint came when he found his card and key. On the card was written, in flowery script: “ROOM 4715: TRAVIS LINDSAY AND WAYNE NISHIKAWA.”
Just his luck, Travis had thought, to draw the stinkiest, loudest, dumbest, craziest, silliest, quirkiest, most troublesome, bothersome, and irritating Owl of them all: his sometimes-best-friend-sometimes-worst-enemy, Nish.
Travis forgot his bad luck, however, the moment he slid the key into the lock and their door swung open on a large bright room with two queen-size beds. Each bed had brand-new hockey gear laid out on it.
Nish tossed his suitcase and raced to the nearest bed, then flew through the air as if he were diving into a pool. He screamed as he hit the bed – “SWAG!” – and began rolling around with as much hockey equipment as he could hold in his arms.
“Wrong bed,” Travis said.
Nish stopped rolling and blinked, not following. “Whaddya mean, wrong bed? You ‘n’ me’s roomies, pal.”
“Wrong bed,” Travis repeated. He went to the other bed and pulled a hockey jacket off the end and held it up. He had never seen such a beautiful jacket. It was baby blue with black leather arms and it had the Screech Owls’ beloved logo over the heart. On the left arm was “PEEWEE AA” and on the right arm was “NO. 44” – and right below that, “NISH.”
“They know me!” Nish shouted, leaping from Travis’s bed to his own and rolling about with the jacket in his arms as if he had just given birth to it.
The “swag” – as Nish called it – was unbelievable. The television producers were providing brand-new equipment to every player on the team. And not just new equipment, but the best new equipment.
Travis picked up his own jacket – “NO. 7, TRAVIS” – and tried it on. It fitted perfectly. Nish had put his on, too, and it also fitted perfectly. How could they know our sizes? Travis wondered. They must have gone through Mr. D – Mr. D knew everyone’s size, their sticks, and even how they liked their skates sharpened.
