Barf On Ice

Until a couple of months ago, I hadn’t vomited in thirty-five years. Don’t think I didn’t try. I was simply unable to perform. I took it personally. I felt inadequate. Over the years I experimented with self-induction multiple times. While feverish and miserable in Darjeeling, India, I deep-throated a toothbrush hourly for three days. All seventy-two attempts failed to launch.

It took a particularly nasty Norovirus that had traveled from Peru inside my daughter to knock me out of my slump. So, I guess I owe her for that.

My inability to orally expel my gastrointestinal contents was a mystery. Until I was nineteen I was pretty good at it, especially when alcohol was involved. During what I refer to as my “Glory Year”, August 1983 to August 1984, I vomited four times in three states from alcohol alone. On only one of those occasions was I able to make it to a toilet. My mother was the only witness. I was indiscreet the other three times. A second incident in Wisconsin caused a little embarrassment. While retching at a party, I heard a girl say “Can’t that boy hold his liquor?” in a Southern accent she had picked up after living in Houston for three months. Had I been able to speak, I would have told her that I indeed could hold my liquor, I just wanted to make room for more. I thought it was a funny coincidence that too much Southern Comfort was to blame. I had eaten nothing but cherries that day, so it looked like I was puking blood. Those were good times.

I was so drunk on my nineteenth birthday that I don’t remember throwing up, according to a friendly witness, half a dozen times. I only know it happened in Florida, the promised land for spring break vomiters.

The last incident was the most public. I puked in a movie theater in Dallas, sending people in ten rows scrambling for new seats. I passed out and didn’t wake up until the end credits. The first two minutes of Bachelor Party are still all I’ve seen of the movie. When I left the theater, everyone knew I was the guy who made them scatter. I had thin-crust pizza and Long Island iced tea all over me.

By far my most traumatic and memorable vomiting experience happened back when the only alcohol that had ever passed my lips was sickly sweet altar wine. In fourth grade my parents convinced me to play hockey, like some of my classmates had been doing for a couple of years. At the club I joined, all the age divisions were divided into one A team, also known as the travel team, and a couple of B teams. It was my first season. I could barely stand in skates. No one expected me to be able to do anything. There was no reason to fear failure. Still, this was my first foray into team sports and I was quivering as my dad laced me up. The sensation in my stomach was much worse than butterflies. It felt like had a couple of cockatoos mating in there.

After three minutes on the ice, as the head coach was finishing his opening comments, I’d had enough of the cockatoos. I tottered as fast as I could to the door in the boards that circled the rink. It wouldn’t open. Desperate to get off the ice, I kicked and pounded on the door. I couldn’t speak because I didn’t dare open my mouth. No one came to my aid. I couldn’t wait another. I puked through the face mask of my helmet. It hit with a splat. A patch of ice had already started to melt by the time an adult finally opened the door. I don’t know if someone had to shovel up my barf or they just put a cone in front of it and let the Zamboni scoop it up later. I told my parents I thought I had the flu. They knew me too well and didn’t believe me. It was pretty clear I didn’t make the travel team, so we left. I thought about the day’s events all the way home. I knew the behavior was abnormal and I didn’t like what it said about me. It was the first time I experienced self-loathing outside of the classroom. My life would have been so much easier if I had been oblivious.

Despite being known as the kid who barfed at tryouts, I stuck with hockey (I didn’t become a quitter until I was older.). I didn’t make the travel team the next year. Or the year after that. Or the year after that. I needed the exercise, so playing the sport was good for me physically. But I was scraping the bottom of the self-confidence barrel. After a four-year plateau, I needed a win.

At tryouts in eighth grade— my fifth season—one of the coaches used me for a checking demonstration. I did it correctly. He complimented me in front of the entire group. I wasn’t used to that. It felt great. When we were changing out of our gear, one of the coaches called out to all the players and parents. He was going to read aloud the list of kids who had made the travel team. It had taken them a mere five minutes to make the list. My first thought was they were just sticking with the same kids from the season before. The cockatoos were back, and they were horny.

“These are the boys on this year’s traveling team,” the coach said. He took a breath and started reading names. “Artie Bruemmer. Ross Burns.”

Of course, there were more than the two of us on the team, but after I heard my name, I didn’t hear anyone else’s.

I was going to the show.

My newfound swagger helped during the first game. I wasn’t nervous and I felt good playing left defense. At one point in the second period, our team had the puck in the opponent’s zone. We were pressuring. Our left wing fired off a shot. Their goalie blocked it, deflecting the puck to the right side of the net. The other defender and I shifted, just like the coaches taught us. When I stopped in my spot, I stumbled and touched a knee to the ice. I was up immediately. Like it never happened. No one could have possibly noticed. If they had, compared to my vomiting episode years earlier, my tiny glitch was completely forgettable. Still, I glanced at the bench to assess the damage. No frowning coach. No one looking at me at all. It wasn’t enough. I fretted over it for the rest of the game, which we won.

In the locker room after the game one of the coaches pulled me aside.

“Ross, we’re sending you down to one of the B teams,” he told me with no consideration for the profound and long lasting effect his impetuous decision would have on my future.

I certainly didn’t expect to be coddled or given false compliments. But one game? He didn’t know me well enough to cut me. I should have told him I had the flu.

I couple months ago, as I draped myself over the toilet, my abdomen cramping violently, I took a nostalgic trip back to the good old days. It made me want to play hockey and then go get shitfaced and watch the rest of Bachelor Party.