Chapter 26: Rebel Without a Coach
Private Ice is Best Viewed in Firefox.
"Mr. Griffin." Tillie Neumann, his part-time housekeeper, stood in the doorway of the small exercise room he had converted from a guest bedroom a couple years ago. She cleared her throat and spoke louder to make sure she was heard over the Sarah Vaughan CD currently blaring from a mini-stereo in the corner. "Mr. Griffin!" She waved a portable phone at him, the gesture making her graying blond curls bounce in corkscrews around her leathery face.
Jonathan slowly lowered the barbell to it's rack. Tillie had been told several times not to bother him while he worked out, so he assumed there must be some kind of emergency. Gina? "Thanks, Tillie," he said, reaching for the outstretched phone. She lingered in the doorway for a moment, apparently curious, so he nudged his chin toward the hall. She "hmmphed" and clomped back in the direction of the kitchen.
"Hello?" he asked, surprised that his voice was tight with worry. No. Not worry. He had just been working out. Obviously he was out of breath. "This is Jonathan Griffin."
"Mr. Griffin, it's Jake," came the voice of the rink manager. "I know I was supposed to pick up that guy at the airport this morning, but I just got a call from the son-in-law, ya know? My daughter went into labor this morning, and me and the Missus are off to Harrisburg to see if we can beat the grandkid into this world. Anyway, you need to send someone else to go pick this kid up, ya know?"
In his lifetime, Jonathan had done many things that could have been classified as stupid. But as he sat uncomfortably on a hard plastic orange chair in the middle of Pittsburgh International Airport, with a cardboard sign bearing the name, "Patrick Sorelli" partially hidden behind his knees, he was hard pressed to recall when he felt as stupid. Early this morning, before he left for the airport, he suddenly realized he had no idea what Sorelli looked like. And though it was possible that the young man would recognize Jonathan, it was no guarantee. Especially as Jonathan knew he had changed greatly in the five odd years since he had last been on television. Although he had tried to reach Terrance to get a description of Patrick, the Staffords had apparently been neither at home nor at their rink. Out of last minute desperation, he had torn the top flap off a cardboard box that Tillie used to store cleaning supplies. With a black "freezer pen" (also owned by his housekeeper) he messily scrawled out a sign. He felt like a butler in an old movie. All he needed was a bowler hat.
As the flight from Denver taxied toward the gate, Jonathan tried not to be hyper-aware of the sidelong glances he was receiving from the travelers and relatives who were standing up and heading for the railing that separated the gate from the waiting area. It was the sign--when you carry a sign, people are automatically drawn to read it. And once they read the sign, their gazes lingered on his cane and the scar. Once they realized they had been caught staring they averted their eyes quickly.
Luckily, in the rush to meet up with their loved ones, or to continue with their own journeys, the milling crowd soon lost interest in him when the first trickle of passengers came through the gate. Jonathan hauled himself to his feet and stood back away from the throng, gingerly holding the sign above his head.
Patrick Sorelli was not one of the initial twenty passengers who emerged through the doors with expressions of relief and suppressed air sicknesses on their faces. Nor was he among the second wave who, as soon as it was feasible, stalked past the harried woman shepherding three screaming toddlers. The athletic looking man who bounded up the ramp -- and into the arms of a pretty redhead -- was a false alarm.
Jonathan was beginning to wonder if Sorelli had changed his mind. After all, why would anyone leave the Broadmoor Academy to train with an unproven coach --especially a coach who couldn't skate. Even if Sorelli was just a small fish in a big pond there, he still had a chance of getting better coaching at Broadmoor. His eyes slid past the latest arrivals -- not the old couple, nor the guy with the dreadlocks, obviously not the three men in business suits loudly arguing, nor the five teens chattering excitedly in German, but maybe the dark haired preppy looking teenager--
"It's upside down." The guy with the dreadlocks stood in front of him and pointed to the sign.
Yes, this definitely was the most idiotic he'd felt in years. Jonathan quickly righted the sign and gazed once more at the ramp.
"Patrick Sorelli," the youth in front of him read. He pointed to himself. "Me. I would have known you without the sign, Mr. Griffin."
Quashing an urge to say, "It is?" Jonathan looked back at the young man standing in front of him. Granted, he could be playing a joke to get a free ride, but the challenging look in this young man's eyes told Jonathan that he was being tested. His gaze quickly took in the ear length dreadlocks, the large round wire-frame glasses, the scraggly beard that ran under the jaw-line from ear to ear, and then came to rest in the skatebag clutched protectively between the dark brown hands. Good. If Patrick cared enough to keep his skates with him as carry-on baggage, then they had a chance indeed. "Hello Patrick." He folded the sign under his arm and offered his hand. "Do you have any more luggage?"
Indicating the backpack slung over his shoulder, Patrick said, "No. This is all I need for a couple of days." He took Jonathan's hand and gave it a firm but brief shake. "If I decide to stay, I'll go back to Colorado at the end of the week for the rest of my stuff."
If I decide to stay. He was being tested, all right. "Sounds like a workable plan. The parking lot is this way. Please don't judge Pittsburgh by the airport." He had never gotten used to it when the airport remodeled itself into a giant shopping mall a few years ago. His philosophy was, if you were rushing to get to a connecting flight, why would you want to stop in "The Tie Rack." And if Pittsburgh was your final destination, what would be the point of spending time in "The Nature Company"?
Patrick looked around for a moment, firmly shouldered his backpack, and set off alongside Jonathan, his loping stride adjusting to Jonathan's stilted gait. A hint of stale smoky air rose from his canvas pullover. Suspiciously, Jonathan asked, "You don't smoke, do you?" It was one of the few things that he would not stand for. One could not train with diminished lung capacity.
"No," Patrick said. He stopped and gave Jonathan another one of those challenging looks. "My boyfriend does."
Obviously, Jonathan was still being tested. He refused to play.
"Secondhand smoke is just as dangerous," was all he said. "More dangerous, in fact."
Patrick shrugged. "I don't think he wants to move to Pittsburgh, anyway."
"Would that be a problem?" Jonathan asked, genuinely curious. Long distance relationships were iffy, at best, but if Patrick was willing to put his skating career first, then... well, again, it was another point in his favor.
"Not if I stay in Colorado."
Great.
For all the attitude I'm getting, this kid better have a quad. He grumbled to himself as they got on the tram headed for the parking lot. He decided not to think about the fact that he had had just as much attitude when he was younger. It was difficult enough being straight in a profession where many outsiders assumed you were gay--it must be a thousand times worse to be gay and know many insiders resented you for conforming to the stereotype. Patrick had probably earned the right to every bit of his attitude. Sometimes even the most open minded people could lash out, if taken by surprise.
Albertville, France, 1992
Without looking at the monitors hanging over the center of the ice, Jonathan knew the TV cameras were focused on him again. Nearly a week had passed since his gold medal performance, and he was still hot news. Except for his medal, the United States figure skating team was having a dismal time at the Olympics. The Unified Team had swept Ice Dance and Pairs, while the flu had swept the American ladies. Both the US National Champion and the silver medalist, each expected to place in the top five, if not the top three, withdrew due to high fevers. Young Amanda Barrett, though inexperienced, was performing as well as could be expected, but no one had expected much more than tenth place.
As Amanda's marks flashed across the scoreboard, Jonathan quickly figured that 10th place it would very likely be. With the final group of six yet to skate, Amanda was currently in fourth. He debated whether or not to stick around until the end of the competition. He'd done his patriotic duty and supported his team's sole healthy skater. Wasn't that enough? The rest of the skaters would have few surprises for him anyway. Lydia Davies and Katya Dyakonova would try to psyche each other out for the Gold, but maybe little Klara Suomijoki of Finland would slip in for a silver. Anja Kloch of Germany stood an outside chance of a medal, but only if the judges suddenly developed an appreciation for her avante gaarde program to Herbie Hancock--and only if she managed to stay on her feet this time. And perhaps the fourteen-year old Akiko Kikusawa would become the first female to land a triple axel in the Olympic games.
None of those scenarios seemed interesting enough to tempt Jonathan to stay. While the Zamboni circled the rough surface of the ice, he "pardon moi'd" himself out of the row and then slipped outside into the crystalline air. He zipped the team jacket up to his chin and shoved his hands in his pockets. At some point, his gloves had disappeared, although he'd likely find them when he packed up his room. Unfortunately, it would have been nice to have them now. The air sweeping in from the mountains was damp and slightly foggy--the skiing would probably be canceled again tomorrow if conditions didn't improve. Great. More filler interviews, as the network scrambled to find something to air.
He let out a puff of damp air and set off away from the Olympic Village and into the main sector of town. At this hour, few of the locals paid attention to a man hunched into a US team jacket, and most skating fans were still at the arena watching the final group of skaters. Maybe it wouldn't be terribly difficult to locate an out of the way bar where he could warm himself up with a glass of scotch or three. At least he hoped it wouldn't be. This close to the end of the Olympics, there wouldn't be as many crews out scouring for local color. Just two more days, and they could all go home.
And then what? The question echoed a bit in his head, not at all drowned out by the sound of his footsteps crunching on the crusted slush coating the cobblestone streets.
Oh yeah, out to Los Angeles for a bit on the Johnny Carson show, although his agent warned him that Leno was guest hosting again, so he wouldn't actually get to meet the King of Late Night Television ("make sure you have three good anecdotes ready"). He'd already done two satellite broadcasts of Good Morning America, not to mention the seven interviews he'd had with various newspapers and sportscasters. The questions were relentless in their monotony.
What is it like to win the gold medal?
What were you thinking when you were skating?
Are you going to try to repeat in 1994?
What would their reaction be if he turned to the interviewer and said, "How do I feel? I feel empty."? So he had a gold medal. So what? He was still the same person he had been two weeks ago. He didn't feel magically changed. He didn't feel like he'd done something special--in fact, if LeClerc hadn't blown the axel combo, Jonathan would be holding a silver medal. No matter what you do, the sun still comes up every morning.
And no matter he did, within three months, his mother was still going to die.
At least that was one thing they'd managed to hide from the media. The only thing worse than being in the spotlight, would be to be "the heartwarming story of the games." Hometown boy does good, fulfills dying mother's wish of winning gold medal. As if the medal would be of any interest to her anyway. At this point she was in too much pain to care. He shook off the thought--he was feeling morbid enough without dwelling on his mother's imminent death. Instead, he followed the hint of loud voices and cheers, which grew louder as he approached a bar on the outskirts of town.
"La Petite Rat." Oh, that sounded promising. Still, he rationalized, brushing snow off his hair, a bar called "Le Petite Rat" wasn't likely to be a tourist hangout. He pushed open the door and was hit with a wave of humidity and the odor of unwashed bodies. The room was dimly lit, cramped with too many tables and people, but the snatches of conversation he could hear were all in French. Good. No tourists. No journalists. Just the residents winding down after a long day. Although the small television behind the bar was tuned to the games, few people were paying attention. He squinted at the screen in time to see a tiny girl in a coral colored dress propel herself forward into the air, spin three and a half times, and come down safely on one foot. He smiled in appreciation and relief. Akiko--Kiki-- had just triple axeled herself onto the front page. It wouldn't be enough to move her onto the podium, but her place in the record books was assured. And so were her headlines. Good. Let someone else deal with the microphones for a while.
No one in the bar had blinked though. He had definitely come to the right place. He managed to communicate with the bartender that he did indeed want something to drink, but the concept of scotch seemed impossible for the man to grasp. Instead, Jonathan ended up with a bottle of red wine... probably a local vintage. Any port in a storm... he punned to himself, feeling a brief pang that there was no one around to share the joke with. He carried the bottle and one lone glass around until he found an empty table near the door (near enough to feel a frigid blast of air every time someone entered or exited, which was probably why the table was empty in the first place), and wondered why it was so easy to feel alone in a large crowd of people.
By the time he finished the bottle, though, he was beyond caring about anything. The local Vintage, she is strong, he imagined himself saying in a false French accent. In fact, he might even have said it aloud, it was hard to tell in this crowd. He could barely hear himself think. Fast on the heels of that thought came the realization that he didn't feel terribly well. He bolted from the overcrowded bar, and gratefully gulped in the cold air. Turning around, he leaned his face against the dark brick walls until the ground under his feet stop shifting. Damn! Why was it only after he started drinking did he remember that he really didn't have the head for it? Another wave of dizziness struck him, and for a moment, he wondered if he would be able to make it back to the athlete's quarters.
"Pardon moi, may I be of some assistance, monsieur?"
Jonathan rolled his body away from the wall and faced his potential rescuer. All he could see was a bundle of parka and knotted scarves backlit by an amber street lamp. "I'm fine. I'm fine." He pushed off and started down the street.
"The Olympic Village is the other way, monsieur."
"What makes you think that's where I want to go?" Of course the act of belligerence was spoiled when his feet slipped out from under him, and he landed on his rear in a snowdrift. "Shit."
Footsteps clomped toward him. "You wear the team jacket of Les Etats Unis, Monsieur Griffin. And I know your face." The voice trembled with suppressed humor. "Yes, I most certainly know your face." Jonathan wondered if there would be a punchline to this joke, but none was forthcoming. Instead, a gloved hand reached down and he was hauled to his feet with a surprising amount of force. "Come. We go."
Ingratitude would get him nothing but frostbite, so Jonathan allowed himself to be led up the hill. "It was easier coming here than going back."
"That is always the case, Monsieur. Especially, if you drink the wine alone." The arm at his back urged him onward. "I ask myself why the man who has the gold medal drinks wine alone. Could you not find congenial company?"
"Because no one else understands why I didn't want to celebrate." He was rather surprised at his own candor, not sure if it was the wine or the anonymity that made him so willing to speak. "I don't know what to do next. I'm ... I'm afraid." But of what, he couldn't say.
"You are an artist. To do what you do, you must embrace the fire. Few know how much that burns... few know how long it takes to heal. And, I ... you ... wonder, is it worth it? Are the rewards worth the pain? Or do you fear that if you hold onto the muse she will run away?"
The words might have come from an old man, yet the scarf muffled voice seemed to belong to a young adult.
That was it, and yet it wasn't. "I am afraid that nothing I do will ever be enough to make the empty feeling go away." Except, when he was skating--skating really well, that feeling did go away, only to return stronger than ever the moment he stepped off the ice. Sometimes it hurt so much he could taste it.
They stopped for a moment. "Yes, Monsieur Griffin. The empty feeling." There was a moment of charged silence, and then his rescuer muttered to himself something in French.
The hand that had been leading him onward suddenly pulled, causing him to stumble into the arms of his guide. Before he could regain his balance, he found himself on the receiving end of a hard kiss.
The brush of day old whiskers told him this was no girl.
Jonathan reacted with his fist, and connected with the man's stomach. As quickly as the embrace began, he shoved himself away, as the other doubled over. "What the hell do you think you are doing?" He couldn't bring himself to look at the man.
"Pardon moi, Monsieur. I am sorry," he repeated in English. "I thought you would want this. I thought... I hoped... perhaps... you were like me." He paused, and then added in a different tone. "You are a skater, yes?"
"Hell no, I didn't want that." His feelings of queasiness returned with a vengeance. "And just because I'm a skater--Jesus Christ, I'm not gay." He'd always felt proud of himself for not being bothered by the gay skaters he did know--of course none of them had ever tried to kiss him either. His anger quickly eroded into guilt at the initial feelings of revulsion. He had thought he was more open minded than this. With a shudder, he realized he wasn't.
"It is a pity, Monsieur Griffin. We might have been good for each other. Mon Dieu, though, what a punch." He was still holding his stomach. "The Olympic Village, is just around the corner, about 100 meters away. Go on."
Jonathan waited until the man stood back up again and headed back into town before he himself turned toward his quarters. One thing for certain, this would not be a story that he would tell Jay Leno.
During the car ride, Patrick relaxed enough to gaze at the city with interest. Jonathan didn't really think it was his responsibility to play tour guide, so there was little conversation. Patrick asked if he could change the radio from the classical station that it was currently tuned to. "I hate classical music," he said, and at Jonathan's shrug, he channel surfed for a while, eventually choosing a soft jazz station.
Jonathan didn't even want to think about the kind of chore it was going to be to find program music for someone who hated classical. Granted, with the number of movie and Broadway soundtracks available, it wouldn't be impossible -- but assuming Patrick was in it for the long haul, coming up with four years of non-classical programs they both could live with would not be easy.
On the other hand, it might be an interesting challenge.
When the reached the hotel where he'd made reservations for Patrick, he said, "The room is already paid for, you just have to give your name at the front desk. I assume you'll want to rest before the try out. I have another coaching session for the next three hours anyway. I can either find someone to pick you up at 4:30, or you could take a cab."
"If it's all the same to you," Patrick said, "I'd rather go to the rink now, look around at the facilities, and then watch your coaching session. I got a good night's sleep, slept on the plane a couple hours too, and I'm not tired at all."
Since the afternoon session was the one Gina shared with Cody and Megan, Jonathan knew that an extra person in the rink would not be noticeable. Between Cody's girlfriend, the weird kid with the computer, and Marvella, people were always dropping in to watch. "Fine with me, but if jet lag kicks in, let me know, and we'll move your try-out to tomorrow." He eased his car around a station wagon of unloading tourists, and headed toward the club. "I'll find someone to show you around, and then when you're done, you can head over to Rink A."
Once they arrived, he ushered Patrick into the hands of pairs skaters Dana and David Killian, who appeared to be killing time in the snack bar. The younger skaters enthusiastically led him off on a grand tour. He then turned toward the counter for his daily dose of coffee.
"Um hmm... that is one prime cut of man," Marvella said, gazing after Patrick. During the past couple months, Jonathan and Marvella had negotiated a truce which basically allowed her to talk at him while he ordered his coffee. She probably would have done so in any case, but he liked to think he had some power over the situation. "I could give him a tour. A great tour--I'll even show him the supply closet."
"He's taken." The truth, part of it anyway. "Besides, he's not sure if he wants to train here."
"Then I definitely should give him a tour, cause there ain't no man who can resist me, when I'm really trying. He'll forget that girl, like that." She snapped her fingers, causing a slight tremor in the coffee cup she had in her other hand. "Taken don't mean nothing without a wedding ring to back it up."
After a brief debate with himself--just because Patrick came out to a potential coach didn't mean it was general knowledge... on the other hand, he didn't want the kid to be pestered to death by Marvella-- Jonathan said, "He's not in your camp."
Marvella blinked. "Well, shit. Ain't that always the case. All the good ones." Slapping a lid on the Styrofoam mug, she sighed. "Oh well. I can still admire the scenery even if I can't touch the goods."
Smiling at the ease in which she'd mixed her metaphors, Jonathan paid for the coffee and headed out to Rink A, where Gina was stretching her leg out along the top of the boards. "Hi there," she said, as she reached her fingertips toward her ankle.
"Hi yourself." He waited for her to finish stretching and set her foot back down before he said, "Patrick Sorelli is wandering around the rink with the Killians, and he'll be watching most of your practice, if you don't mind."
"I don't mind." She pulled a pair of fingerless gloves over her hands, and then moved her water bottle over three inches to the left. Like most skaters, Gina had certain rituals, although Jonathan wasn't sure how conscious she was that she always laid her skateguards, her gloves, her water bottle, and a package of Kleenex out in a neat row before she stretched, and then rearranged that row after she put on her gloves. Next, she would double-check the scrunchie in her hair--yes, there that was. And then she would take off, right foot first, to get her blood circulating with some fast laps around the rink.
She needed privacy to work on the lutz, so he'd switched her jump practice to the evening and the choreography sessions to the afternoon. With the Atlanta Open looming on the horizon, they were spending the majority of the afternoon practices polishing the Hollywood Nocturne program. The open was a two-part competition, for men, ladies, and pairs. During the first part of the event, the skaters would perform an ISU competitive short program --Gina's Chopin would be fine there, especially as they planned to use it all year--and then, after a short break, they would each perform an "interpretive free program." No one seemed exactly sure of the rules of the free program, except that skaters would be allowed to use vocal music (generally a no-no in world level competitions) and that triple jumps would be limited to three. In other words, with over three and a half minutes of time not taken up by triple jumps, Gina's programs could be filled with her specialty--footwork.
Many skaters and coaches considered footwork (and spirals) to be afterthoughts... something that you did to get you from point A to point B... points A and B, being jumps. In fact, footwork was often called "in-betweens." But Jonathan didn't believe in that philosophy, and designing a program for Hollywood Nocturne was exciting, because Gina felt the same way. To fit the slower, almost Latin beat of the music, the so called in betweens featured long edges and elegant extensions to suggest the muted sensuality of an old black and white movie. Bogart and Bacall in Key Largo, was how he described it to Gina. To help enhance this feeling of nostalgia, the key movement pattern was of stretching out, and then slowly pulling back in again. High floating single and half jumps (which Jonathan considered to be a part of footwork), including variations on single axels (a Russian split axel and a delayed axel), a split falling leaf, half-loops, and a split flip reinforced this pattern, as did two serpentine spiral sequences. They had also been working on Gina's flexibility in the layback spin, so that she could begin in the classic position with the leg held high, then shift the balance and drop further back so that her head was almost level with her waist while her free leg hovered just behind the other ankle. And of course, nonchalantly tossed in the program as apparent afterthoughts, were the jumps: her lovely triple loop-double loop combination; the triple flip--which could be changed at the last minute to a triple toe loop, in case of panic attack; a double loop-half loop-triple salchow combination, and a double axel. After weeks of intense work, Gina's double axel was a thing of beauty, especially when begun from a Bauer glide entrance.
Jonathan was quite proud of the program, and of Gina--and, he was looking forward to showing it off to Patrick. In fact, he was surprised to admit it, but he was looking forward to the tryout. He realized that he wanted Patrick to be a promising skater, and he wanted the coaching situation to work out.
I actually enjoy coaching.
Of course whether or not he would enjoy coaching anyone other than Gina was still to be determined.
"Ok," he said to her when she finished her warm-up. "I've been thinking about the second vocal in the song. You know where the lyric says, there in the night, he echoes a thousand voices ... then there are three beats of an instrumental, which is where we have you doing the double axel, followed by your step into the camel spin, which you pretty much hold until the end of the song..." She nodded. "I'd like to end with something a little more poignant. We can move the camel spin to the middle of the song where the sax solo is." He sensed, rather than saw, that Patrick had finished his rink tour and was now sitting a couple rows behind them.
Gina looked thoughtful. "Where we had the camel spin originally? I liked having it there. But then we moved it to the beginning, and then we moved it to the end."
"You should have told me. You had the right instinct." All right, so choreography with them was more of a trial and error situation, especially since half the time they were designing the program, Greensleeves was playing in the background. "For the end... I'm not really sure if you can do this... but--"
This time, she laughed and Jonathan smiled with her at the sound. If only she would laugh more often... "The last time you said that, we ended up inventing a new move." She bent over and wiped some ice shavings off her blades.
A move that will be spectacular too--in fact it might end up being Gina's signature move.
"Anyway. When you land the double axel, hold the landing for two seconds, and then step into an outside Spread Eagle. Hold that through the next lyric, I think it's something like whispers a thousand names... ok? And then on the next beat do an outside three turn into another Spread Eagle. Hold that until the lyric, he lives his Hollywood Nocturne at which point you're going to shift into a simple outside spiral."
She looked down at the far end of the ice, which is where she would be at that point in the program. "I'm not sure I would have the speed at that point."
"You won't need it. You'll just ride the spiral around to center ice, and just as you reach the middle, the music should end. Then you just have to make sure you finish the spiral with the music." He could see it in his head. It would be such a simple, yet elegant ending to the program.
"You want me to end a program with a spiral?" Gina sounded doubtful. "I'm not sure I can. I'd probably flop over if I wasn't moving." Then she bit her lip and looked apologetic. "I'm sorry. Of course I'll give it a shot."
He sighed. Maybe one of these days she would be able to relax enough to joke with him all the way through practice. "Just the spiral part and we'll see how well you can stop." Then, hoping to lighten the mood, he added, "Remember your first skating lesson... the easiest way to stop is to fall down."
Shrugging, Gina said, "Ok, I'm sure there is a part of my body that isn't bruised yet. I'll try to land there." She stroke halfway around the ice until she'd reached a medium slow pace and then leaned forward and raised her leg behind her. The spiral took her three quarters of the way around the ice. When she passed him, she gave him an "I hope you know what you're doing" look. Eventually, gravity and friction caught up with her and she slowed until she had nearly stopped. Then her arms windmilled around for a moment, and she quickly stepped out of position.
"Break it down further. Just do a spiral on a straight line, heading for the boards. We'll use it to spot you until you find the balance point. You might have to come up on your toe pick a little."
"What did you do in skating class today dear? Well, gee mom, coach had me skate into the wall a few hundred times." Patrick had scooted down until he was directly behind Jonathan. "What are you trying to do?" He gazed at ice with alert interest in his eyes.
Jonathan explained about the end of the program as Gina launched herself toward the wall. She slowed enough to coast gently into the boards, but not enough to stop. "This is going to take some timing," she said. She sounded more positive about the move though. Noticing Patrick sitting behind, she put out her hand, "Hello. I'm Gina."
Belatedly, Jonathan remembered to introduce the two of them. "Gina Logan, meet Patrick Sorelli."
"So you're checking out the facilities here," Gina said. "Have you been to Pittsburgh before?"
"Nope. I was born and raised in Atlanta but I'm currently at Broadmoor, right now." He looked around. "Nice place here, though. The weight room looks brand new."
"It is, actually," Jonathan said. He checked his watch. "Our turn for sound, Gina. Lets do a run through of Hollywood Nocturne."
"Wait. Let me see if I can manage the new ending first." Gina said. After a series of back crossovers, she stretched into a Bauer glide, which she held down the length of the ice. Then she leaped up into the double axel, and stepped into a spread eagle from the landing. The three turn into the next spread eagle tripped her up a bit, as did the next transition into the spiral. Again, she had trouble coming to a halt at the end of the spiral. "I'll have to play with that, but I like the basic idea," she said. "Ok, now where did we finally decide to put the camel spin?"
"That spiral turn thing she did in the middle of the program," Patrick asked after he warmed up. He hopped over the boards and sat down in the first row. He bent down and checked the laces on his skates and then looked at Jonathan. "Did you invent that?"
Jonathan knew exactly which move he was talking about. "That happened by accident, actually. We were working on a slide spiral, but when we first tried it, instead of skidding into the turn, she deepened the inside edge so much that her skate actually made a loop figure tracing in the ice. After that she lost her balance and fell, but we both liked the idea so much that we worked on it until we got it right."
Well, Gina had done all the work. He'd just sat here and watched.
"It's awesome." He rolled his shoulders and then cracked the bones in his neck, a picture of pure kinetic energy.
"Thank you." There was a long uncomfortable silence, and then Jonathan realized that Patrick was waiting for a cue to begin. "Well, do you want to run through a program first, or the jumps?"
"I'll do the program first. Could you hand me my skatebag?" Jonathan did so, and Patrick rummaged around in his bag for a moment. "Damn, where did I put? Oh. Walkman." He located his Walkman, and then removed the tape from it. "Um, I really hated the music my coach picked out for me, so this is something I've choreographed on my own. I'd like to use it for my short program. I think it's cued up... side B."
As the cassette was a standard drugstore variety, not even labeled with anything more than Patrick's name, Jonathan figured it was probably homemade dubbing from a CD or another cassette. He put the tape in the rinkside boombox that they still used for practices, and braced himself for some potentially badly cut music. He still remembered the massacres Gina had made of her music before he'd taken over the task.
With a loud crackle, the music began with the swooping clarinet that Jonathan recognized instantly as belonging to Gershwin's "Prominade." The song suited Patrick's loose limbed dancy style, as he began the program by placing his hands in his pockets and doing several hops of footwork. The program itself was poorly choreographed though, with too much time spent facing one side of the rink, and the jumps all clumped in the middle of the program. In less than a minute Patrick performed a scary looking triple axel with a squeaked out landing, a beautiful triple lutz-triple toe combination, and a high triple flip. Then he returned to the dance style moves, ending with a flying sitspin that didn't quite fit the beat of the music.
In spite of the poor choreography, Jonathan did think that Sorelli had a talent that was worth developing. It wasn't something that could be put into words though. It was a combination of the comfort level Sorelli achieved with the dance moves--well, no question about it, the kid could definitely dance on blades--actually, it was comfort level in general. He looked like he was born to be out there, like he was at home. Of course there still was a question of...
"Good," he said when Patrick skated back to him. "Or rather, we would need to recut the music, and space the jumps out more, but I can see that working for you. Take a minute to catch your breath, and then I'd like to see your jumps."
Patrick leaned against the boards for a moment. "Magnuson thought I should be skating to the 1812 Overture for my short program and Carmen for my long. I'd rather skate in silence."
"Not the most imaginative of choices, to say the least, although certainly dramatic." Jonathan thought about it for a moment. "Not that I'm advocating keeping that music, but I could see you skating to Carmen." Jonathan groaned whenever he saw another program to Carmen, but he did think Patrick could probably pull it off if they couldn't find anything better. Of course, he was pretty sure he could find something better.
"If I thought you were serious," Patrick said, as he once again tightened his laces, "I'd be flagging down a cab for the Air Mall." He adjusted the strap that kept his glasses locked around his head, and then made sure it was hidden under his hair. "Ready."
"Start with doing one of each triple. Your choice of order, take your time in between." He hoped that sounded professional enough. He had never actually had to try out for a coach, as he had been coached from nearly the beginning by the same couple. Carol and Mike Siegel had pulled him out of group sessions before he was even old enough to understand the meaning behind private coaching. He wondered what the Siegels were doing now--they'd retired a couple years after his accident and moved to Arizona, but surely they weren't completely staying away from the ice. Even before his career ended abruptly, he and his coaches had grown apart, but perhaps it was time to contact them and see what was up. At the very least, he could use some basic advice on coaching... like, how to.
Returning his attention to the ice, he watched as Patrick did a nearly perfect triple lutz. Textbook technique, definitely, and so high it would be attention grabbing, if placed in an appropriate moment in a program. He then eagerly displayed a solid triple toe and triple flip. After that, however, events took a downward turn. It took him three tries to land a triple axel, and two to nail the triple loop. The salchow was landed on the first try, but with a cheated take-off that Jonathan knew would be frowned upon by judges.
Instead of returning to Jonathan, Patrick kept skating, so Jonathan leaned forward to see what the kid had planned next. After a quick glance to make sure Jonathan was paying attention, Patrick powered around the ice, and then did the Bauer glide, double axel, spread eagle, spread eagle, and spiral combination that Gina had been trying to perfect. His one variation was to turn the spiral into a lunge, rather than to attempt a glide to a halt. "Just wanting to let you know that I can follow directions, and I'm a quick study," he said when he reached the boards.
"Translation, I assume, that you can, if the spirit moves you, but that doesn't guarantee you will, if you don't agree with me, right?" Jonathan nearly laughed at Patrick's chagrined expression. Gotcha! "Have you got a quad?"
"Not yet, but I'm working on a quad toe. It's only about ten percent, though."
Jonathan shook his head. "I wouldn't put one in a program unless it was at the very least seventy percent, and I'd prefer 80. Let me take a look at it though. And then let me see the triple toe and the triple lutz again, too."
Patrick's quad toe was just about a quarter rotation short, causing him to two foot the landing. At Jonathan's request, he did his triple toe and then his triple lutz again. As Jonathan had noticed before, the lutz was a stronger jump for him than the toe loop. Weird. Some people were just lutz prodigies. "Just two more things, and then we'll be done. I'd like to see a triple-triple combination with the second jump being the loop, and then a combination spin."
Patrick rolled his eyes, and kicked one toe into the ice. "You'd like to see that, but I can't guarantee you will."
What he got to see was a triple toe followed by a popped loop, and then a nicely positioned camel into a back sitspin into a super fast scratch spin. Then Patrick skated back to the edge, hoisted himself onto the boards and turned to face Jonathan. "So. I've shown you what I can do. What would you do with me?"
Who is auditioning here, you or me?
Jonathan faced the kid, noting with some surprise that Patrick didn't flinch at the sight of his face. In fact, he hadn't even blinked or stared, even when they'd first met. "What are your immediate goals? World team? Top five? Top ten?"
"Anything worse than 8th at Nationals would be backsliding," Patrick said, almost bitterly. His hands fiddled with the handle of his skatebag. Then, he added, "World team would be nice, but I could learn to live with top five. Except for O'Connor, the field is wide open. They're pushing Duggan and Ostrowski, but Ostrowski is a goof-off and Duggan is never gonna have the nerves."
Jonathan tried to remember the little bits of skating info that had been drifting to him over the past few years, in spite of his purposeful lack of attention. He'd heard great things about O'Connor, and very little about anyone else. "So what you're saying is that with the right coaching, you expect to take silver at this year's nationals."
Patrick shrugged. "With the right coaching, I have the ability to take a silver. But if you hadn't noticed, I'm black, I'm gay, and I'm not planning on trying to oreo my image. I'll be lucky to be sixth." The bitterness in his tone was completely undisguised.
"Next question. What do you think I'm going to tell you to do, then?" Jonathan already knew how Patrick would respond, and he was looking forward to checkmating the expectations.
Patrick snorted and then chanted, "You want me to skate to classical music, lose the dreds, get contact lenses, and go back into the closet. Oh yeah, and land a quad toe."
Jonathan allowed himself an internal "score!" but kept his expression impassive. "Given your abilities, a quad lutz might actually be easier for you. Yes, I know the lutz is considered the second most difficult jump people conventionally do, but, did you also know that the first triple toe loop landed in competition happened nearly two years after Donald Jackson landed the first triple lutz." From Patrick's shrug, Jonathan assumed that he hadn't known that... or at least hadn't thought about it. As for the rest of your list... the glasses can stay if they aren't giving you problems when you skate. The first time they fly off your face mid-program, and they're gone--assuming that contacts are a medical possibility for you. The hair looks good that way, I'll go to bat for you if the USFSA squawks."
Patrick snorted again. "They've been squawking ever since I started growing them last year. All of a sudden, they thought I looked--" he made little quotation marks with his fingers, "too black."
That didn't surprise Jonathan, though he expected there was perhaps some exaggeration there. He ticked the rest of Patrick's list off on his fingers. "What else? Classical music? We'll talk about it. I'm not going to insist that you skate to anything that you hate, but I think I can manage to find classical music you can stand." With his extensive CD library, there was bound to be something in there. "When is your first international event?"
"My only international event is Finlandia... first week of October," Patrick said bitterly.
Rubbing his chin, Jonathan thought for a moment. "That gives us just barely six weeks to throw together a long program. I hope you have some ideas for music, then. No?" he asked when Patrick looked stumped. "I'll think of something. As for your sex life, I don't care what you do, who you do it with, or who you choose to tell--as long as you take steps to protect your health. However, don't you ever use your homosexuality as an excuse for not placing on the podium. If you finish fourth or fifth or below, if you get left out of the GP series, then it's because you cheat your salchow, because your combination jumps are easier than other skaters, or because your triple axel is only fifty percent. No more excuses. From now on, you will attribute both your successes and your failures to your skating, and not on politics. Understand?"
"What you're saying is that because I'm black and I'm gay, I have to skate better than everyone else." He angrily swatted his skateguards against the bleachers, resulting in an obnoxious thwapping sound.
Jonathan reached over and trapped the guards between his hand and the bench. "You're not listening to me. If you want to win, you have to skate better than everyone else. If Gina wants to win, she will have to skate better than everyone else. I won because I skated better than everyone else. That's why it's called a sport. Do you understand that?"
Receiving another shrug in response, he continued. "Look, I'm coaching one skater... one very talented, very hard-working skater. I have four World Championship titles, one Olympic Gold medal, and on my twenty-first birthday, I inherited twenty-seven million dollars from my grandfather. I don't need to take another skater on for either fame or fortune; I have had my share of both. I certainly don't need a skater with an attitude problem. I do, however, think that you do have a talent worth sharing with the rest of the world, and that we could probably work well together if you listen to me. So in answer to your original question, what would I do with you, the answer is this. I would work with your jumps, so that you'd be able to do a triple lutz-triple loop combination, a triple axel combination, and maybe a quad lutz. We'd have to set you up with an intense cross training program to get your strength up. I'd fix the technique on your triple salchow and triple loop. I'd come up with music and choreography that you could live with. And if the powers that be are racist or sexist, then I'll handle it. If that is something you can live with, then all I ask of you is that you do your best." He slammed his cane into the concrete with an unnecessary force that sent uncomfortable vibrations up his arms and pull himself to his feet. "Take tonight to think it over, and if you want to skate for WPFSC, then be here tomorrow at this time and we'll work out the financial details. Otherwise, have a nice flight, and it was certainly an interesting experience meeting you."
All in all, he was quite pleased with that as an exit speech and he curbed the curiosity to look over his shoulder to check out the expression on Sorelli's face.
But, damn, he hoped Patrick would take him up on the deal. Choreography ideas for Gershwin's Prominade were already swirling around in his head.
Text Copyright © 1999-2000 Karen Frank
