Clapping my hands together, I turn back to the galley as the smell of coffee fills the air. I open the drawer and take out my big white coffee mug, filling it with coffee. “You ready?” I look over at Beatrice, who is sitting at the door. I grab the leash from the couch by the door before unlocking it and sliding it open. The cool air hits me right away. “Oh, it’s chilly this morning,” I observe, walking out and sliding on my boat shoes. The sound of the water hitting the boat is almost peaceful. Birds chirping can be heard. “Let’s go,” I say, walking to the side and stepping off the boat to the dock.
I wait for Beatrice, who jumps off the boat like it’s no big deal. The sun is slowly starting to peek out of the sky. “Another day.” I take a sip of my coffee. “Another dollar.” We walk down the dock to the end of our row, turning to the left and strolling to the metal walkway that leads up to the street.
I press the button to open the security gate to the outside parking lot. The door opens, and we slowly take our morning walk. I look down at all the boats, all the slots now filled up. When I came in from the Gulf Coast three weeks ago, four or five boats were docked. But as the weather started getting nicer and nicer, more and more boats started coming into port.
I walk down the sidewalk, seeing the water calm as I drink my coffee. “What do you think, Beatrice?” I look over at the dog, who ambles next to me. “Is this year going to be as good as last year?” She looks down as she walks over to the corner and stops to pee. “I think so also.”
I laugh at my own joke as we walk quietly down the pier. How different the past two years have been for me. I shake my head and take a sip of the coffee. My heart speeds up a touch when I start to think about how different my life is. Two years ago, I was at the lowest point in my life. I was playing in the NHL, living the dream of so many people, yet inside every single day I was dying. My headspace was an absolute nightmare. I was in a downward spiral, and if I hadn’t gotten help, I would have been six feet under right now.
So what did I do? I hung up my skates and walked away from the game that brought me so much joy, but also kicked me all the way down into the black abysses. It was a vicious cycle, one that is not really talked about. It’s pushed under the rug, as they say, everyone knows what is going on, but no one has the balls to stand and say it. So I took myself out of the running. I shocked a lot of people when I walked away. My agent was the only one who knew the truth about why I was walking away from it.
Everything else was speculation, and even though I didn’t want to know, I heard through the grapevine and from eavesdropping on some conversations that the press spun it a totally different way. I also knew that there was nothing I could say to make anyone change their opinion of me. I learned that the hard way. There is nothing quite like waking up after a hockey game and seeing your name plastered on the front cover of the sports section because you sucked so bad. Not even my father knew what to say, not that I shared much with him. We had our ritual Sunday calls, which lasted a good four minutes, depending on the news that day, and that was it. I did my duty as a son to reach out to him, because I knew it was what my mom would have wanted.
Every single day I went through the motions of what it was to live. But what I really needed was someplace to go where I would be able to get out of my head and unplug. The ocean was that place. I had no idea, and when my therapist suggested renting a boat and going out onto the water, I did it solely to tell her I did it. But the minute we got out in the middle of the ocean, it just grounded me. I couldn’t explain it, but I knew I needed to get my own boat.
For the last two years, I’ve been living on my boat. Was it a spontaneous purchase? Yes. Did I regret it? Not even for one freaking second. Let’s be honest, I’m not living on some rinky-dink boat. This one is a four-bedroom, three-bathroom, sixty-five-foot yacht. I laugh, shaking my head as I think about how I felt when I visited it. I knew the minute I stepped onto the boat I loved it. As I looked around, I tried to make excuses that this was too much boat for me. I was one person, after all. Why did I need four bedrooms? It’s not like I had any family who would come on board. But as I walked around the boat, it just felt like home. Which sounded silly at the time. Fuck, it sounds silly now. I left the boat and then went on a long walk. A walk where I tried to make a pros and cons list about having a boat. The only thing on the pro side was peace. Which I guess was enough for me because I got on the phone and made an offer. I then turned around and sold my house on Long Island. Sold the house as is, with everything in it, and bought a boat. I decided to focus on me, for the first time in a long time. I didn’t want the house or the memories it had anymore. I closed the chapter on that part of my life, and I was okay about it.
Once I bought the boat, I knew I needed someone to come with me. I got a captain to come on board. Every single day, he came on the boat and we went through everything. The training went on for four months. Four months of ten-hour days, we would take the boat out, and he would show me different things. I loved every fucking second of it. When summer turned into fall, he introduced me to Steven, who came with me as I took the boat from New York to Miami. It took us way longer than it should, but I knew the boat inside and out by the time we got there. When it was time to return to New York, he flew out and made the trip with me. It took us half the time. The only reason I loved coming back to New York was it somehow felt like coming home. Even though I went through the worst times of my life, it still somewhat felt like home.
“What do you have planned for the day?” I ask Beatrice as we walk down the path we take every single day and night. The sun is slowly starting to peek out. “I think it’s going to be a hot day.” I take another sip of my coffee as Beatrice turns around the bend. After the boat, the best thing I got was Beatrice. I was in Miami one day when I went for a run in the morning. Stopping for a second, I looked over at the window, and there she was, sitting in a pet shop just looking at me.
I walked in, and an hour later, I was leaving with a puppy and more shit than I knew what to do with. Because of my travel schedule, I never had a pet. I was never home long enough to want a pet, but now the time was my leisure. I laugh when I think back to the training stages. She really fucking hated those pee pads. She would pee right next to it while looking me in the eye. Just to tell me she was the boss, and even though I denied it, she was. She was the only woman in my life, and I was more than happy about that fact.
“I think we should take the boat out today,” I say once we get back to the dock. The sun is now up in the sky. There is more action on the dock as I scan my key card, and the door opens. “Yeah, the water seems calm. What do you think?” I ask as we walk down the dock, nodding at a couple of people out on their boats.
We walk down our dock row, and I see movement on the boat next to mine. “Morning,” Samuel, the manager of the marina, says to me when he sees me walking by.
“Morning,” I reply, looking at him as he takes down the for-sale sign on the boat.
“Looks like you’re getting a new neighbor,” he tells me, stepping off the boat and onto the dock. “I think they are going to come on today.”
“Sounds good,” I say, looking back at the boat that just went up on the market the week before. Beatrice doesn’t wait for me before she jumps onto the boat. “Have a nice day.”