Kiss & Cry Area Unplugged

Trying my hand at some Winter Olympics fiction.


The term “kiss and cry area” was coined in 1983 by a Finnish figure skating official, Jane Erkko, to demarcate the zone set aside for the competitors to cathartically release their post-performance feelings and await the judges’ scores. Naturally, the U.S. Skating Federation opposed the K&C at first, claiming that it constituted a form of socialized mental health care. President Reagan even spoke out on the issue, stating, “The International Skating Union wants to create kiss and cry areas, modeled on the bloated Finnish healthcare system. But we Americans understand that post-athletic emotions are best handled by the private sector. If they must, they can cry in advertisements for Johnson & Johnson products.” The ISU insisted that the only European thing about the newly established area was the cheek to cheek kissing, which was by no means mandatory, just hot. The K&C was made even more communist when the East German Olympic champion, Katarina Witt was famously photographed for Playboy in the zone. Readers gave her a perfect 6.0, and the issue went on to become a top seller thus confirming the area’s capitalist bona fides. Subsequently, the U.S. dropped its objections. The zone was then carefully rigged with Avatar-esque cameras to capture every twitch for the next James Cameron 3D extravaganza.

But what happens when the cameras malfunction? The skaters stop being gracious and start being real. Here are some of the untold stories of the Kiss & Cry.

* * *

Adam Graves, the former New York Rangers player, lifted up the front of his figure skate and pointed to the toe of the boot. “What’s this claw thing?” he asked his partner, a pert 22 year old, Vanessa St. John, with brilliant eye shadow and plaited blonde hair. She just rolled her eyes at him, and looked toward the scoreboard, clasping hands with their middle aged coach.
Adam stood up and rubbed his back as he paced in front of his partner and coach. He couldn’t fathom how they could sit calmly as others decided their fates. If there had been judges in professional hockey, he would’ve shoved his stick down so far down their throats, the blade would’ve popped out of their intestines like the baby from Alien. True, that would’ve resulted in a trip to the penalty box, but at least the benches in the box had backs he could lean against. At 42 and after nearly two decades of NHL play, his back ached constantly.

Many in the press and public didn’t understand why he decided to lace up figure skates after he retired his hockey ones. Some posited that it was brain damage sustained over the course of his long career that impelled him now to mar his NHL record in spandex and sparkles, that he had been slammed against the boards one too many times.

But like most societal ills, the blame rests with sloth and Hollywood. Without morning practice to look forward to, Adam spent many late nights in front of the television wrapped in a Snuggie and a Slanket, watching infomercials and then what came on afterwards. One morning at dawn after yet another basic cable bender, he got on the phone with his former sports agent. “Have you ever seen the movie, The Cutting Edge?”

But things had not gone exactly as they had in the movie. Adam was happily married so there would be no romance with his skating partner. And though he had requested the most imperious woman that could only be tamed by his roughneck, jockish charm, Vanessa was quiet if slightly passive aggressive. When he asked her if she had seen The Cutting Edge, she thought for a moment. “I think I was 5 or 6 when that came out,” she said.

“But it’s a classic, the figure skating equivalent of Field of Dreams.”

Vanessa shrugged. “I liked Ice Princess a lot,” she said, and skated away.

“Wasn’t that animated?”

“No!” she shot back. That was the closest he got to getting her riled. She was preternaturally poised after so many years of ballet and media training.

Adam decided to make one more attempt to make his actual figure skating career mirror his movie dreams of a figure skating career. After all, that and a crushing boredom was why he got into this sport to begin with. “What is this claw thing?” he asked again but Vanessa wouldn’t bite. He had even shown her the montage from the movie. Adam leapt up from the bench. “It’s a fucking toe pick!” he screamed before storming out of the arena.

* * *

Michael and Michaela Roberts bowed in unison at the center of the rink, waving to their adoring fans. They had just finished their short program at the Grand Prix skating finals. Michael leaned over and picked up a stuffed lion that had fallen at his feet. Michaela looked for one of her own but the ice had been picked clean by the ice boys and girls. They were supposed to give the stuffed animals and flowers to the competitors but they never did. They kept them for themselves. “I should report them,” she thought as she skated to the sidelines.
The two parents beamed with pride as they watched their two children locked together, now off rink, like two teens’ orthodontia during a kiss. “You see,” Mrs. Roberts told her husband, “after all the years of bickering, you see that they truly care about each other.” But from his vantage point, Mr. Roberts saw things differently. Michael was holding the stuffed lion behind his back, which his younger sister was trying to grab. There had been another lion on the ice— perhaps several— but to foster a competitive spirit between the siblings, Mr. Roberts had been paying off the ice girls and boys to snatch up duplicate toys for years. Neither his wife nor his children knew about these shady dealings. Michaela, who was always keen to bask in the applause a few seconds longer than her brother, missed out on the best gifts.

“But honey, the crowd loves you more,” Mr. Roberts once told his distraught daughter.

“I don’t care. Michael’s Beanie Baby collection is worth several thousand dollars and will keep going up in value.”

“Oh sweetie, that bubble burst years ago. But gold keeps going up in value,” he said.

* * *

Seventeen year old Nadya Strazheva skated off the ice and into the arms of her coach, Boris Semenova, a Russian man in his late 70s, whose face retained just a few deep creases. He was shockingly well-maintained, as though a lifetime spent on the sidelines of an ice skating rink had cryogenically staved off aging. When Nadya was tired and wanted to hang up her skates, her mother lectured her on the importance of perseverance and preservation, but mostly on the latter point, noting the unnatural smoothness of Boris’ skin. “You already have the knees of osteoarthritic woman,” her mother said. “Do you really want her skin, too?” Nadya shook her head and returned to the rink, nightmares of the Crypt Keeper’s wrinkled visage dancing in her head. Her mother had hung pictures of him around her bed. So Nadya stuck with the sport and found herself in the top ten at the Winter Olympics, looking no older than a child of twelve who has been entered into a Texas beauty pageant.

As she pulled out of Boris’ embrace to sit and await the judges’ verdict, her coach began cursing angrily. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he cried, grasping his index tightly. Nadya’s lower lip quivered and the television cameras zoomed in on her pores.

“I thought I did a good job,” Nadya bravely managed.

“Where’d you get your costume? From the whore shop on Tverskaya Ulitska?” Nadya started to cry. She knew she shouldn’t have performed her long program to an instrumental version the Patti LaBelle’s Lady Marmalade but her mother had insisted that the “capitalist pigs” loved this sort of razzle dazzle.

Boris pressed his pointer nearly into her eye. Droplets of blood were quickly pooling along the edge. “I just cut my finger on your fucking sequins. This is the gayest injury ever.”

“Remember when my ice skate blade grazed the top of my head, shearing off a part of my scalp? You told me to put a hat on and get back out on the ice.”

“A flesh wound. Remember when I had that stroke after your fall at the World Championships? I’ve been on blood thinners ever since, you stupid girl.”

* * *

Yuki Nakase skated into the Kiss & Cry zone after her free program. She immediately found her blade guards but not her coach. She hoped he was getting her Kleenex from the bathroom so she could wipe her tearing eyes. She didn’t want to reach into her bra to pull out the tissues she had stuffed there.

She felt the bench rock and looked up. Sitting beside her was not her coach, a slight Asian man but Bela Karolyi. He towered over the diminutive Japanese skater just as he did his former famous pupils, Nadia Comaneci and Mary Lou Retton. “What are you doing here?” she asked.

“You can do it!” Bela Karolyi shouted back in a Romanian accent so thick, it seemed a bit put on, which it probably is or should be. He’s been living in the United Since 1981.

“I can do what?” she wondered. “What are you talking about?”

But Bela did not hear her. He unlaced her right boot and threw it aside. Bela then lifted her into his arms and carried her out of the arena, shouting “Ten! Ten! Ten!” to the audience.

* * *

“What’s taking so long?” Debra Smithson asked her partner, Scott Cooper. They had just finished competing, after having drawn the unluckiest of slots in the meet—first up in the short program of the ice dancing competition. The other pairs jumped up and down nearby, trying to stay fluid after warm ups.

“Maybe they’re having problems with the computer scoring system,” Scott replied. This had happened to them at the world championships a year earlier. It had taken over ten minutes for their marks to be tabulated. The computers had been running on Windows Vista, but the ISU subsequently switched over to Macs to better compliment the competitors’ costumes.

Their coach, Mark, whom they had dispatched to the judges’ table, returned. “So,” he began, “they’re debating the legitimacy of ice dancing as a sport. Some IOC officials suggested that it more akin to ballroom dance on ice. They want to make space in the Olympic Village for synchronized aerial skiers.”

This was not the first time the ice dancing pair had heard this argument and Debra was ready with a rebuttal. “What about that type of gymnastics, you know the one with the ribbon and balls? If ice dancing is not a sport, then surely one that uses props shouldn’t be considered one either.”

“Good point,” their coach said. “Let me go back to them with that.” He hurried along the sidelines and gesticulated wildly at the judges, pretending to twirl an imaginary ribbon, and then mimed being bonked on the head by phantom clubs. The figure skating judges jotted down deductions and held up a string of scores— 5.8, 5.6, 5.0.

“Ooh, they lowballed him on the last one,” Scott said.

“Yeah, but at least they used the old scoring system for him. Who the hell understands the new one?”

The IOC officials began to nod. Scott and Debra smiled as they watched their coach hurry back. This must mean good news. Their Olympic dreams were still alive.

“They agreed with your argument, Debra,” he said. “Both events are out.”