answer, all about position played, division level last year and other hockey stuff. I hoped it didn’t matter too much that I couldn’t fill in all the blanks.
By the time I finished the forms and waited my turn in the line-up again, there was a man standing behind the two ladies at the registration booth. He was just as enormous as the lady. His big gut hung over his belt and stretched the buttons on his work shirt. It seemed to me that he kept shooting quick little glances my way. When I reached the head of the line again, I wasn’t too surprised when he put a flabby arm around Mrs. Sharon’s shoulder and said, “Let me handle this, dear.”
So they were Mr. and Mrs. Something—probably Mr. and Mrs. Fat, I thought—and he had been looking at me while I waited in the line-up for the second time.
The skinny lady had come back to the registration table and she sounded upset. “But Bill, Coach Bryson said to….”
“Never mind about Bryson,” Bill told her. “It’s a good thing I dropped by to see how Sharon was doing with the registrations. I’ll handle this.”
“I’ve filled out all the forms,” I said, “and here’s my money.” I pulled out the wad of bills from my jacket pocket. One hundred dollars. It was a lot of money, but I’d managed to save it from my paper route and my allowance. I even had enough extra for new skates. My parents weren’t going to be too pleased when they heard that I’d joined minor hockey, and there was no way they would hand over money to pay for it.
I guess the money did look pretty grubby. It hadn’t been in the bank, just in my drawer where it got sort of squished and crumpled. I tried to straighten out the bills as I put them on the table, but no one picked them up. Big Bill stared at the hundred dollars as if someone had barfed all over it and the two ladies stared, too, almost as if they’d never seen money before. It wasn’t dirty, just messed up and they wouldn’t get their hands dirty if they touched it. I began to have a sneaking suspicion that no one wanted my money.
“We can’t take…we don’t allow…you aren’t allowed to….” Bill’s voice started out loud and angry, but trailed off as if he didn’t know what to say. His wife took over.
“I’m really sorry, ah…Ron,” she said, looking down at the forms to see what my name was. “I’m sorry, but we can’t take your money.”
“Why not?” I asked, although I was beginning to figure out what was going on.
“Because we won’t have…not in this league…can’t possibly….” Big Bill was trying to talk again, but he didn’t get too far this time either. Once more his wife had to take over.
“I’m sorry, Ron, but we don’t allow….” She didn’t really know what to say either, but the other lady broke in.
“Sharon! Bill! He hasn’t filled in the parental consent form. His parents haven’t signed.”
“Of course.” Bill was finally able to talk to me. “You see, ah, Ron, we have to get your parents to sign this form so the hockey league isn’t responsible if you get hurt or something while you’re playing. You can’t join a team unless your parents sign this.” He pulled a piece of paper from the stack I had given him and dropped it on the table in front of me. Somehow I had missed it when I filled out the other pages.
“Okay.” I picked up the consent form and all the others I’d completed and shoved the money back into my pocket. “Okay, fine.” I turned to go.
I guess the other lady, the thin one, was feeling a bit sorry for me because she called out, “Have your parents sign that, Ron, and you can mail your registration to us and pay your fee later. The address is on the back.”
“Sure,” I mumbled and began to walk away. “Sure.” The suspicion I’d had earlier was even stronger now. It wasn’t just a matter of having my parents sign that form. I wasn’t wanted in the minor hockey league. The other parents and kids waiting in line stared as I walked past them. No one was talking now, just standing there staring at me. It seemed awfully quiet for Friday night at the mall, so quiet that I had no trouble hearing Big Bill when he spoke.
“There’s no way a stinking Hindu is going to play hockey in this league,” he said.
2
I’m not a “stinking Hindu.” I’m not even Hindu, I’m Sikh. They are both religions, but they’re different. What Bill said was like calling someone who’s Jewish a “stinking Catholic.” It makes me mad.
Sure, my parents are from India, but I speak Punjabi, not Hindi. It’s not the word, “Hindu,” but the way people say it; the way Bill spat it out as if it were a swear word. And I don’t stink, and even if I were Hindu, I wouldn’t stink, but people like him will never get close enough to either Sikhs or Hindus to find that out.
Last year my Grade Five teacher did a unit in Social Studies. She called it “Getting to Know Us,” and everyone in the class had to research someone else. Find out all about them; where they were born, where their parents came from, what church they went to and all of that stuff—and then give a report about that person to the rest of the class. When we did the reports I found out that kids in my class went to lots of different churches and that some of their parents and grandparents came from other countries, too. Places like Germany and China and England and Australia. So what’s the big deal about me going to the Sikh temple on Sundays and my parents being from India?
My Grade Five teacher also taught us a new word, one I hadn’t known before. Prejudice. It means that people don’t like other people. Not for any good reason like they’re mean or kill people or hit their kids, but just because they are different.
I’d never heard the word “prejudice” before Grade Five, but I already knew what it meant. I had lived with it all my life. Dad says it’s the same in many small towns in British Columbia, towns where a lot of Sikhs live, and that we get used to living with it. I knew what he meant. You pretend you don’t hear the teasing words, you try to laugh, you choke down anger. You let it roll over you and think that you really don’t care any more, that it doesn’t bother you, that words can’t hurt you. Then something happens that hurts, really hurts.
I was hurting as I walked home after trying to register for minor hockey. What was the big deal? I wondered again. Hundreds, thousands of kids play minor hockey right across Canada. There must be other East Indian kids who play and Chinese kids and Native Indians and lots of others who have different religions and come from other countries. But I guess there had never been an East Indian player in my town’s hockey league. They hadn’t known what to say to me at the registration booth, but they hadn’t wanted me to join, that was clear.
To heck with them. My parents are always telling me that I have a stubborn streak just like my grandfather, and I could feel it coming out. I’d worked hard for the money to join hockey, I was entitled to join and I was going to join!
I’d phone the coach if I got any more static. He had said that it was okay for me to send the forms in, okay for me to play hockey in the league. Now the only problem would be getting my parents to agree.
I walked quickly, angry, thinking how everyone had stared at me as if I were some sort of freak. I’m not. I am Canadian, as Canadian as any other kid in town. More so than some. I was born right here, in Dinway’s hospital, eleven years ago in 1969. I’ve lived here all my life and my English is good. I don’t have an accent when I speak English, although my Mom says that my Punjabi isn’t great, that I speak it with
