I've Just Seen a Face

Before I go any further, I'd just like to say if you watched my recent Instagram story, you should stop reading now and save yourself some time because this post is going to be pretty much a transcript of my story from Sunday night (maybe even with the video thrown in--okay, definitely with the video thrown in), and that's literally all: no deep insights, no reflection, no aha moment to be found. Simple facts and nothing more--

but--

with facts like the ones I'm about to present, who needs more?

***

It may come as a surprise to some people since I'm so apathetic about sports, but I used to be quite the hockey fan, and when I say quite the fan, that's not an exaggeration at all. Not only did I know players' stats from every team in the league, but I also played--and either won or got second place, I don't remember for sure--fantasy hockey with some guys from work. The year of conception of my hockey obsession was 1996, and while oldish people who've been in Florida for a long time or sports fanatics are probably thinking to themselves right now that I'm one of those types of people, becoming a fan because the Panthers had a standout season, going all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals, those people couldn't be more wrong. 

I've never cared about any sport enough to be a fair-weather fan. A team is doing well? Awesome for them, but I still don't give a fuck.

But, dear people who read my blog, you who know me so well, what do I give a fuck about above all else? What could take a girl like me and make it so to this day she could tell you Teemu Selanne scored 76 points his rookie season and in 1996 scored 108 points and played on a line with Paul Kariya on the Mighty Ducks? Or that Tie Domi was one of the best goons? Or that Brian Skrudland, former captain of the Panthers, used to be a Calgary Flame?

Why, a boy, of course.

In 1996, Glenn (spoiler alert: Glenn is not the boy), a longtime hockey fan, dragged me, and I do mean dragged me, to a game. I won't lie: I couldn't stand it at all. I don't remember what it was exactly that I couldn't stand, only that I couldn't wait to get out of the Miami Arena and go home; however, the game's end would bring me no such luck. Back in the old days, if fans waited long enough on the side of the arena, they could see the Panthers as they walked to their cars, say hi and maybe even get something signed. Naturally, this was something Glenn wanted to do, and so I had to do it, too.

Thank the fucking hockey gods.

Why am I thanking the hockey gods? Because it was there, at that Miami Arena side door, that I saw him for the first time: Radek Dvorak, number 9, born March 9, 18-year old rookie, Czech Republic transplant, most perfect man I ever had the privilege of seeing in my entire life. 

Radek Dvorak, whom I became so obsessed with I typed the above info without even thinking hard.

Radek Dvorak, whose (Supra? Celica?) super fast sporty black car I used to follow all the way to the Yamato Road exit in Boca in what I hope were covert high-speed chases.

Radek Dvorak, about whom I wrote the column Devoted to Dvorak in my long-defunct zine.

Radek Dvorak, whose housing development I hung out in for an entire night hoping he'd come home; who I used to watch at practices at Gold Coast Ice Arena; who I actually left work early one night to go and see at Gatsby's so I could hand deliver him three issues of that zine. 

Radek Dvorak, who was on my mother fucking airplane on Sunday night. 

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OH!

MY!

GOD!

I kid you mother fucking not. 

There I was, standing in the aisle waiting to get to seat 14A, stopped just a foot or so before 12C for a long enough amount of time to have the following thought process beginning the second I noticed the guy in 12C, who was looking downward, talking on the phone:

Hmm, that guy on the phone looks like he's Russian. I fucking love Eastern European guys. He sort of looks familiar. That's not Rustem [guy from the axe bar who asked me out], right? I wonder if it's some Russian guy from the axe bar. No, but wow. He looks awfully cute for an older guy. Wait a minute...wa--I think...is...is that Radek Dvorak? I think that's Radek Dvorak. Look up, look up, look up.

He looks up. Super blue eyes look directly into mine. We stare at each other for about five seconds--do you have any idea how long five seconds is when staring into a stranger's eyes?--I almost die.

I turn to Griffin. I whisper, Oh my God, Griffin. I think that's Radek Dvorak! Griffin tells me whoever it is, he knows I was looking at him because he was staring at me. We were staring at each other, I say.

I turn back around and wait. The man I think is Radek Dvorak hangs up the phone.

Are you Radek Dvorak? I ask.

He says yes.

The man, in fact, is Radek Dvorak.

Radek Dvorak is, in fact, on my airplane. Radek fucking Dvorak is on my plane, two rows in front of the row where I'm going to sit. I feel like I'm going to die.

I open my mouth and say the only thing at this point in time I know how to say, the only words I can think:

I love you.

Silence. We stare. I mean, I just told a complete stranger I love him, what do I expect?

I mean, from the Panthers, like 20 years ago, I say.

You're from Fort Lauderdale? he asks.

Yes, I answer.

We stare.

I'm in awe, I say.

No, don't be, he responds.

Radek Dvorak and I are now having a conversation. In case you didn't get that, I'm now standing in the aisle of a plane having a conversation with the man I was obsessed with and stalked.

We say other things. He tells me he has a hockey school, and I immediately want to have children just so they can go to his hockey school.

We chat a bit more and the line starts to move. I tell Radek goodbye and go to my seat where I stare at the back of his beautiful Slovakian head.

I've thought about almost nothing else since getting off the plane, have had many different iterations of thought.

On the one hand, every time I go through the story in my head or out loud, I'm so happy I want to die. Radek Dvorak was on my plane!

On the other hand, I've wondered, did he know? Did I look familiar? The girl who used to show up everywhere he went? Does he still have the zines I hand delivered? Did he sit on the plane with a gnawing feeling--I know that girl--and go home and look through them for a photo, confirmation that I'm a nut? I could be crazy--well, obviously I'm crazy--but I'm pretty sure I saw recognition in his eyes.

On the last hand, how fucking crazy is life? Never would I imagine a world where the events of Sunday night occurred (the events which I'll be conveying to you in speech below this post in an attempt to convey the actual excitement I felt in case my writing left you with any doubts), not in a million billion trillion years, something that, if we look logically at, tells us indubitably one thing:

You never fucking know.