It’s a sunny day. Sunny and cold. The rink isn’t as crowded as we’d expected. Mostly families. Families plus the Ice King. He’s about what, about fifty with soft features. Balding with grey hair. Dresses in black and grey. Skating around as though this were all he ever did. Hands clasped around his back. Skating his orbits forwards, then backwards. Unclasping his hands to do occasional dance moves.

Sometimes he has a partner, does dancy moves around the rink with her. Sometimes it looks like a lesson, sometimes just fun.

When he’s alone, he circles like a black-tipped shark (Carcharhinus Melanopterus). I quote from a black-tipped shark website: “These sharks are known more for being nuisances, than anything else…” Except black-tipped sharks travel in schools, and the Ice King travels alone. Watching.

Watching and waiting.

He’s looking at you, my daughter said. Don’t look now, but he’s watching you. This may or may not be obvious, but: that takes all the fun out of skating. Especially when you’re not so good. When you just started skating so you could keep your kids company. When you grew up with family stories about you trying skating once as a kid and how they all laughed at how you skated on your ankles. When you just started skating so you could show your kids, you can try stuff as an adult even when you’re no damn good at it, just for the fun of it.

The fun of it.

He’s watching you, she said. Don’t look now, but here he comes.

He skated over and gave me a lesson. Maybe he teaches people, picks up extra money on the weekends this way, picking up students this way. He gave me some good pointers. That was a couple weeks ago. Now we’re back and he’s watching again. Luckily he has another victim at the moment, but he’s still watching.

It’s the most irritating vigilance I’ve ever experienced.

We play tag and I fall down and get ice crystals from shoe to shoulder. My wife brushes me off. This game demands a maneuverability I lack. I skate around, concentrating on applying the pointers the Ice King gave me last time.

What the hell does he do for a living the rest of the time? What does he do when it’s warm?

The little one wants to race me to her mother and sister, at the other end of the rink. It’s nearly lunch time, we have to go. So okay, let’s race. She takes off. Running across the ice. Looks funny, but she’s faster than me. I decide to go all out. Lean forward, use my knees, take off as hockey-like as I can manage. She’s still ahead but I’m catching up. Just as we’re about to reach the wall, just as I’m about to pass her on the right, she veers sharply right and I crash into her.

I can’t veer left to avoid her, but I try with the result that my skates sweep hers out from underneath her and the only thing breaking her fall onto the ice is her head. I hit the wall and land on something soft, her.

The Ice King’s orbit takes him within a couple meters of our pile. He has a tsk-tsk look on his face that makes me feel like punching him out. A look that says, 200 pound (including clothes and skates) men shouldn’t ought to body-check wee six-year-old girls and then land on them. I may have a look of my own on my face because when we make eye-contact he skates off without saying anything, continuing on his orbit smoothly.

We go eat lunch. As we are leaving, some kid cuts off my wife and she lands on her ass and has an ass-ache the rest of the day, as the little one has a headache. And the Ice King does his circles.