I Know It Has Been a Long Time
#32 of Hockey Hunk Season 4
Victor might've just come back to work, but some wounds take much longer to heal than others...what wounds is the Doberman carrying on his hide that he's reluctant to think about? Read on at the 20th chapter of the fourth season of The Hockey Hunk! :P
S04E20
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Hehhey, muffins, and welcome to the Hockey Hunk! Another week, another set of fun chapters ahead of us - what could be nicer? Hmmm. Maybe some things, but let's not be too picky, shall we? I'm certainly having fun with myself, writing this story and making this story as fun as it can be for us - and you guys are always helping me with your comments. Keep it up! Your feedback is always appreciated.
Also remember that all votes, faves and watches will help others to find these stories to enjoy as well!
Have a fun read now :P
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Hmm.
My eyes scrolled up from the hesitant greeting, to check the vital statistics of the long message that had opened up onto my screen. The address indeed pointed to a nondescript Gmail account, the subject line simply said "Hello" and the date was on the 12th, which meant that the message had been stuck in my mailbox for two weeks now. I blinked, adjusted myself on the chair and scrolled back down again. I might as well read this thing before that meeting - probably more interesting than one of the nameless, faceless inquiries for offers on ultra cheap pencil sharpeners.
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Victor,
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I know it has been a long time, and I'm not even sure you remember me too well all told, but I hope that you'll read this. It feels a bit odd to be writing this, since I'm not even sure what made me do it on this particular moment. I'm not even sure that you'll particularly want to read such a long message from me. I know we weren't exactly friends, but maybe we both have changed since those days back in Cleveland.
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_ Funny that I've lived here for almost eight months now and only now did I learn that someone back from home is living almost next door, so to speak. Yes, eight months, and I didn't try to contact you, even though I did wonder what you're up to, and what you do with your life. I hope it isn't too weird that I looked up your work email, I just didn't want to randomly message you on Facebook or something. Sorry about that. I'm a bit new to this whole "Social Media" business as it is anyway. Didn't really get to it before I was sent out overseas so I guess im still learning about all this stuff and especially on how you're supposed to behave there._
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But that's another thing, yeah. I don't know if you ever heard, but I enlisted to the US Army back in 2006. I hadn't really done much with my life yet, I admit. I'd gone from odd job to another, didn't go to college. My parents couldn't really afford it for all of us, so as the runt, I just couldn't do it. I admit that maybe I didn't want to either. Guess that's how I ended up to the Army. Needed something solid in my life. Discipline, like dad would say huh? We don't talk much now, though. Haven't been to home since I came back.
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But that's it. I was sent to Iraq on a tour of duty with the 1st Armored back in 2008. Operation Iraqi Freedom eh? I was only there for four months before a roadside bomb went off and blasted my convoy to bits. Two guys were killed and I was injured badly. I don't remember much before I wore up and they told me that I was in Germany. Apparently at least a week had passed and I had no memories whatsoever of what went on in that time. Concussion or something, and lots of drugs. The bomb shredded my leg and punctured by intestines. I was gonna take a long time recovering and they knew that I was not gonna go back to fixing comm. gear either. That's what I did. So they sent me to this place called Walter Reed for rehab or whatever the fancy names they called it with, and that's where I spent the next months, learning to walk again with my artificial leg. The running back of the school football team learning to walk again. Sounds like a TV movie eh?
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I don't really want to put all these details on you, Victor. I don't know if it makes much sense to you, but I've been told so many times to not to keep these things bottled inside me, so I might as well come clear on it. That's what my life has been for the past couple of years. I was injured, and now the Army is trying to rehab me so that I can do something useful for the Army and the country. I've been studying web design in evening programs for the past year and last autumn I was sent here to Kirk City by the Army to continue my studies here. They said that they've got a good program here, and it's been good. I've found a few friends, too, and I've got a place to live, and the studies are alright. Guess all that technical stuff they taught to me in the Forces is doing some good here too. Maybe I should've played more computer games instead of football.
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So now you know what I've been up to. I've been thinking a lot recently, Victor, about everything in life. When you can't do anything except lie in bed, or maybe more recently, when you sometimes ache so badly you can't walk, or want to go out and see furs giving you odd looks, you just kind of do a lot of thinking. I've been thinking a lot about everything I've been, and done, and I've been thinking about school a lot too. All those furs there, and everything that happened. Everyone I used to know. Maybe its whatyoucallit nostalgia or something. Good old days eh?
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Guess they weren't the best of days. I know now that I was a bastard, full of myself, and maybe an outright bully, too. I know junior high wasn't good, and even in high...I'm not too happy about that kid I was. He didn't know much about life or about himself. I'd love to say that somehow this being injured thing made me see the light or something, but it isn't that. It's just the hard amount of thinking that I had to do when thinking was the only thing I could do. I could look back into myself and see all the ugly faults and mistakes that had made me who I was. How I had treated everyone, and how I had treated myself, and I feel ashamed, sometimes.
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_And it's so far away, too, somehow. I have friends now, and it feels like it means something, and I am finally doing the right thing, and actually studying to get a job. I'm doing something in life, a good thing for myself, and others. I guess this is another thing in that...whatever the psychologists call it. Growth? I dunno. I'm not too good about this intelligent stuff yet. Aren't foxes supposed to be wily? I don't know. Kind of don't feel like that too often. _
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But yeah...what I really want to say is that recently I was thinking a lot about those old days, and everyone from those old days, and I did a bit of google searching and looked up old friends on Facebook, and I saw your brother there. Can't say we have exactly interacted much, but we talked a couple of times, a bit, catching up. I learned that you were living in Kirk City, and I just couldn't believe the co-incidence. I just felt so surprised that someone I used to know lived here, in this small town. Well, not tiny, but...you know. Still a big surprise for me. I know that I should have contacted you earlier, but something...something kept me back. Maybe I wasn't sure how you'd react to this, or something. I don't know, maybe I'm just telling that to myself to justify why it took me four months before I actually started to write this thing, and now I've been doing this for two nights, and I guess it's going to be finished soon enough. I hope you haven't been bored by all this boohoo stuff yet. Sorry about that.
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But yeah. Hope you've read this far, because what I'd like to say is that I'd really like to meet you at some point. Maybe go grab a beer or a coffee or whatever you like doing, catch up a bit? I understand if you don't want to, or think it's silly, but I would really enjoy meeting you. It'd mean a lot to me.
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Now that I read this all, it seem pretty awkward to me, but I hope you read it all, and that...I hope to hear from you, Victor. Thank you for listening.
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Tate Michaels
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I blinked a couple of times at the name written on the bottom of the very long message, and felt my ears flick up and down in the sheer surprise of the identification that stood there, followed by a typed repetition of the email address I had already seen, and a phone number to follow.
"Well I'll be damned," I rumbled to myself, as I adjusted my glasses, which had been sent astray by the rapid movement of my ears. "My, my..."
What a strange coincidence this was. Wasn't it only this morning that Cobb mentioned that guy, when he was rambling on about all those furs he knew on Facebook, and one of them just happened to be that fox.
Hmmm.
It didn't take much effort to recall the guy, not at all. Cobb and I had gone to the same school with Tate Michael since junior high. It wasn't hard to remember him, his appearance that of the prototypical fox, I guess, quite tall, wiry, an oversized-looking tail and an attitude familiar from a children's book about that naughty fox. Always up to something that would get frowns from the staff but respect and awe from his peers. I think he even visited Cobb a couple of times, at our home. They were together on the football team, too, of course, and I'd often see the guys of the team walk down the corridors in a bunch, gaining admiring looks from the girls and fearful gazes from the more wimpy kids who'd be probably greeted with a round of cries of "hello, sissy!" or "wassup, homo?" before the evilly cackling smug crowd passed. Guess Tate was always one of the loudest.
The man...hmm...speaking on the message didn't much sound like the guy who had once allegedly hotwired the math teacher's car after she had forgotten the keys and really needed to get her kids from daycare. That singe feat of mischievous behavior alone could have made him a legend, even if it wasn't for being in the football team, hanging out with the best girls and heckling the members of the hockey team (such as myself, the ultimate rivals of the footballers) with a chorus of "When you're gonna come out of the closet Holden, didn't you know that all figure skaters like you are GAAAAY?"
Hmm. Why did thinking about that smart a bit more than it probably should? Getting a picture of a ballet dancer glued to your locker door was pretty much a rite of passage for hockey team members, when it came to being the topic of the football team's psychological warfare. It wasn't like they had anything to prove that I would have actually batted for the limp-wristed team. I was stealthy enough throughout my years of schooling, and they never would have had a reason to throw any of that crap at me for real homo offenses.
Well, he certainly didn't sound too cocky on this message, I thought. It all seemed almost painfully honest to me, all in all, considering the details about being embarrassed about those old days, and even telling me everything that had went on since. Seems that he really hadn't had much direction in his life and that it had taken him to a lot of places, and the final destination was...weird enough...Kirk City. Guess this was heaven compared to Iraq, though.
I couldn't help but cringe at the description of injuries, let alone mention of a long hospital stay. It hadn't been long since my own brush with the terrifying force that was mortality. I still snapped awake in the middle of the night, feeling that horrible frozen feeling of a weight in my chest that would last there for minutes before my breathing would calm down. I was worried I had made a sound waking up, and would lie there, wondering whether Cobb would burst in, having heard me...
This was a lot, I wasn't sure what to...
"Crap!"
Crapping crap. It was already two minutes past nine - I had spent so much time reading the email that I was now actually late from the morning meeting!
Oh, shit. What a way to come back to work and show my dedication to be the best office doggie by being late on the very first morning. Damn! I jumped up from my chair and hastily CTRL-ALT-DELETED:d my desktop to a lockdown before I rushed into the corridor. At least it was only a few steps from my door, a quick turn right, and then through the doors into the meeting room. There was no chance of slipping or anything, so I decided to simply step in and bear the consequences.
Yeah.
A dozen or so pairs of eyes and eleven pairs of ears turned at me - Mr. Bambang flicked his tongue instead, staring across the room at me from where he stood, in front of the whiteboard that also served as a projection surface for the video projector already blazing up near the ceiling, probably ready to show some fantastic PowerPoint graphs about exciting new office supply deals in Maryland. I felt awfully self-conscious, and it didn't help that Mr. Gabriel seemed not too pleased when he looked at me, the fur to occupy the only empty seat left on the table.
"And there's Victor, who has finally made a comeback!" Mr. Bambang declared in his best rumble. "How about a bit of applause for Victor?"
Well, he really didn't have to ask for much, since soon everyone was clapping like mad, and my cheeks warmed up, and Henry, who happened to be sitting next to me, patted my shoulder again, and I felt quite flustered by the time the clapping quieted down like it always did. Everyone was still staring at me, too.
"Speech-speech-speech-speech!" Max chanted.
I glanced at the grinning fox and decided that this called for some revenge later on.
"Well, uh..." I started, well aware that I was expected to thank them for all the care they had given to me during my long and difficult recovery, "...thank you, guys, for thinking about me...and...uhh...for the card and the gifts...though my brother ate all the chocolates...."
Ba-dumtsh. At least that got the chuckles out of them.
"...and it's nice to still have a job, obviously..."
More heheheheheh's. That was promising.
"...and thank you, Loomis, Juliet and Acton, for taking care of my stuff...I owe you guys so much for that," I spoke, "even though I was late from this meeting because I was stuck reading all the emails left over for me..."
Another round of hahahahas. Maybe this was going well.
"So, thank you guys. It's good to have a place to come back to. It's good to be back."
I gave them all my best smile then.
"And that's how we work here at the USC", Mr. Bambang declared solemnly, "and it's good to remember, both in good times and the worse times, too, when they happen. Now that Victor is back with us again, I must say how pleased I am now that we're up to full manpower again, since I think that Mr. Gabriel has some quite good news to us about Maryland this morning. I think I'll leave the floor to Mr. Gabriel now."
The Komodo monitor nodded in the direction of the bespectacled grey-suited badger.
"Oh yes, I would say so."
Well, this was it, I thought, as I tucked my paws against my lap and settled as comfortably as I could. This was going to be the ultimate test of whether I was ready to be back to work...whether I would survive the boredom of this compulsory meeting, during which I would probably need to volunteer more of my personal resources to a yet another sale.
I was glad to be back.
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Thank you for reading my story! I hope you enjoyed the story, and I hope that you'll leave me a comment to tell me how I did. Also remember that all votes, faves and watches will help others to find these stories to enjoy as well!
See you on Friday!