Around age eight, in fact, when my mother left.
Dad had no idea what to do with a girl (and made zero effort to learn). My much-older brother, Derrick, attempted to make up for our father’s lack of interest by becoming the kind of hyper-protective big bro my girlfriends thought was the swooniest thing ever, but that secretly drove me insane. Derrick was always in my business, from bullying me into eating healthy foods instead of Pop-Tarts, to cleaning my room, to questioning my love of bug-themed school projects and my preference for spending time with art supplies over most people.
But if I had to guess, I’d bet my brother’s constant hovering is part of the reason I became an artist in the first place.
When I was lost in my art, I forgot that my brother cared too much, and my father cared too little. With a paintbrush in my hand, layering washes of watercolor to create the perfect fall maple leaf, I didn’t feel anxious or worried or not good enough.
I felt like I was where I belonged, doing exactly what I was supposed to do, and that I had everything I needed to make my dreams come true tucked away inside my own creation-loving soul.
I was hoping to cultivate some of that same calm, steady confidence within the twenty-seven professional hockey players glaring at me from the card tables set up in the old equipment room the New York City Ice Possums’ management appropriated for my two weeks of art therapy class. I thought the guys would be excited for a break from murdering each other on the ice, brutalizing their bodies in the weight room, and talking about feelings with the group therapist brought in to help defuse the Possums’ pervasive attitude problems before the preseason.
After all, I’m not asking anyone to talk about their feelings. I’m asking them to draw them, using shiny new pastel crayons and high-quality colored pencils.
Colored pencils like the pink one currently aimed at the center of my chest, held by the agitated goalie towering over me in my slip-on Vans, making me wish I’d worn my tennis shoes with the platform soles.
At five foot two, I’m never the tallest person in the room, but I’m feeling especially wee today, surrounded by enormous men with bruises all over their arms from scrapping on the ice and a collective bad attitude so intense it felt like I was wading through a swamp of icky vibes as I handed out their “anger iceberg” drawing templates at the beginning of the session.
The extra height wouldn’t offer any real protection, but I’d feel less vulnerable than I do right now, as I squeak, “Excuse me? What’s the problem exactly?” to the scowling man glaring down at me like I killed his kitten and stole his comic book collection.
“They keep breaking,” he grunts, his hint of a Slavic accent helping jog my memory as to his name.
This is Slavic Sven, one of two Svens on the team, not to be confused with Sassy Sven, who told me I reminded him of a sheep as I handed out his worksheet.
“The hair,” he said, smirking at my tight blonde curls, which I’ve always worn in a pixie cut. “Do you curl it like that on purpose?”
“No, it’s natural,” I’d said, forcing a smile and refusing to let him shake my confidence on my first day.
This gig is part of my community involvement hours for my master’s in art therapy and a job my brother went out of his way to secure for me.
Derrick is still as overbearing as ever, but these days he mostly uses his bullying powers for good, like pushing me to apply to NYU in the first place and then helping me land this gig working with the Possums during their team-building camp. He’s been a junior manager for the franchise for years and has major street cred with his bosses. He didn’t really have to stick his neck out for me, but I still don’t want to let him—or myself—down.
Besides, sheep are adorable.
I could remind Sassy Sven of far worse things.
Like a pin cushion. Or a pencil sharpener, or whatever Slavic Sven is thinking as he jabs the tip of his pencil closer to my heart again, making me so nervous I take a few steps back, bumping into my own desk and sending pencils rolling onto the floor.
I flinch, jumping a few inches into the air and then jumping again as a deep voice rumbles from my left, “What’s the problem, man?”
I glance over to see Ian standing a few feet away, and my shoulders relax away from my ears. Ian is one of Derrick’s best friends from our old neighborhood growing up, a star defender for the Ice Possums, and one of the nicest people I’ve ever met.
He won’t let Sven gut me with a colored pencil.
And maybe, now that he’s here to join in the fun, the other guys will loosen up and play along, too. He’s their team captain, after all, and one of the few Possums who isn’t constantly in the penalty box for lashing out on the ice. But he still has to attend group therapy, art therapy, and all the other team-building activities planned throughout the next two weeks.
If he can have a good attitude about it, the rest of them would be big babies not to follow suit.
“These fucking pencils keep breaking,” Sven practically shouts. “And I can’t draw. All my people look like cats.”
“Retarded cats,” a voice calls from one of the tables, eliciting a round of muffled laughter from the rest of the less-than-thrilled artists in the room.
“You can’t say that word,” Sven shouts over his shoulder. “It’s fucking insensitive. And my cousin has Down’s syndrome, and that kid is ten times smarter than all of you meatpie heads put together.”
“And probably ten times better looking than you,” a defenseman I believe is named Pete shoots back, summoning another round of guffaws.
“Yeah, maybe, but your mother wasn’t complaining last night,” Sven says, prompting Pete to shout for him to “shut the fuck up,” and a blond guy to dissolve into snorts of laughter so intense he blows his drawing-in-progress off the table onto the floor.
“Okay, everybody calm down,” Ian says as he shifts closer, making me feel even safer.
Should Slavic Sven experience a mental break and lunge at me with that pencil, I have no doubt Ian will have him on the ground begging for mercy in five seconds flat. I’ve seen Ian’s protective reflexes in action. One time, a couple of years ago over holiday break, Derrick and I were out for drinks with Ian, his girlfriend, Whitney, and a bunch of their friends and some drunk asshole grabbed Whitney’s ass while she was playing darts.
Before she had time to do more than cry out in shock, the creep was under Ian’s knee, begging for mercy.
I’m not usually the type who gets weak in the knees over displays of aggression, but Ian was just so calm and efficient about the whole thing. He didn’t yell or freak out, he simply put the man out of commission and gave him a stern talking-to while the guy whimpered that he was sorry and swore he’d never touch a woman without permission again.
By the time Ian lifted the groper into the air and carried him to the door by the back of his shirt, he’d transformed the ovaries of every woman in that bar into puddles of quivering goo.
He’s just so chivalrous and gorgeous and protective in a way that’s sexy instead of smothering. Derrick barges into other people’s business, certain he’s the only one who can solve their problems. Ian is happy to stand back, respect his friends’ boundaries, and let people make their own decisions, only stepping in when it’s clear his help is needed as an ally and decent human being.