i miss the old new york

Gordon Thomas Lawrence Lane’s eyes burned and no matter how many times he blinked them he just could not alleviate the pain. Some over-exuberant fan had set off a smoke bomb, probably meaning to create an atmosphere not unlike the rock concerts that they often booked to fill the holes in his team’s schedule at the Nassau Veteran’s Memorial Coliseum, but they, ultimately, unleashed a sulfuric cloud that now hovered over the rink at center ice. The haze was a detriment to the athletes’ collective vision, yet as much as his teammates grumbled he couldn’t find fault with the spectator, after all, they were excited for their home team, the New York Islanders, to be in a position to clinch the Stanley Cup. Their supporters were mostly middle class families who quickly embraced the franchise as their own when it arrived on Long Island just a few years prior. They weren’t rich by any means and their hard earned dollars spent at the gate, on concessions, replica jerseys, pennants, and the like paid his salary—the salary that he was almost embarrassed to reveal when he went into Greenpoint Savings Bank every first of the month to deposit his paycheck signed by the team’s owner Mr. John O. Pickett. To him it was vulgar that a boy from Manitoba should go on to make an almost six-figure salary for merely playing a game. In Gordon’s hometown of Brandon the only people who made that kind of money was the Fitzgerald family who owned Simplot, the second biggest fertilizer company in all of Western Canada.

Gordon, or Gordie as everyone referred to him for as long as he could remember, looked down at the emblem embroidered on the chest of his jersey, blinked hard and held it for a beat or two. The New York Islanders logo was a white NY that morphed into a hockey stick hovering in the royal blue sky above Long Island. The word Islanders encircled the edge of the body of land like a protective wall against an attack by the Russian’s submarines, or tidal waves, or, perhaps more reasonably, erosion—which he learned since he arrived here in December was the bigger threat to the island’s survival. The circular crest was rimmed in orange—blue and orange, the county’s official colors, were seemingly everywhere he went. It was on the dugouts of the little league baseball fields, the traffic signals on highway signs, even the lettering on advertisements for local politicians’ reelection that seemed to sprout up on so many lawns during the campaign season. The New York in the teams’ name was deceptive. Yes they were effectively part of New York State but they were separated from the Big Apple by a body of water and as much as the inhabitants liked to say they were practically in the City they were really out in the suburbs. The sticky feeling on his corneas reminded him of the few nights he spent in smoky Manhattan bars after the conclusion of the Islanders’ games against their hated local rivals the Rangers. The New York in their name was not a technicality; they played in the storied Madison Square Garden that their glamorous fans, movie stars on location for a film or the rich Wall Street businessmen, could get to by subway. The hustle and bustle of Manhattan was still new to him as he had only been with the Islanders for five months now—he was still acclimating himself, still getting used to being a New Yorker.

Gordie recalled his first game with the Isles, as their supporters and beat writers referred to them, was against the Rangers on December 9th of last year. He had only arrived from Washington, DC the night before and was staying in a hotel across the parking lot from the Coliseum. Lane did his best to impress that night and threw several big hits to announce his arrival. He daydreamed on the ride up to join his new team, at his fresh opportunity, that maybe he’d score a dramatic game-winning goal in the waning minutes but instead decided to play it safe and go with what he knew best. Recognizing your strengths was one of his new mottos. He took his time in the locker room after that game and requested attention from the team’s trainer for what he claimed was an ailing back. When nearly everyone had cleared out he wandered the streets around 8th avenue until he found an establishment that looked lively. He ordered a rye and soda and slipped behind a group of patrons who looked particularly interesting to him and listened to their conversation. Gordie imagined what he would add to the conversation. He plotted the way he would casually interject some correlation of the topic being discussed to a tenet of Buddhism which he had recently started reading up on, or how he might relay an amusing story on the majesty of the idyllic winterscapes from his childhood in Manitoba. This fantasy would be a routine he’d exercise every time they played in Manhattan.

Gordie grabbed one of the green plastic water bottles from the shelf on the dasher board in front of him and sprayed it on his face blinking some more to wash away the burn. The crowd stood and cheered louder as their Islanders lined up for the opening face off against the Flyers of Philadelphia. The sixth game of the best-of-seven series of the 1980 Stanley Cup Finals was now underway. A vague feeling of anarchy was settling into the crowd of over 16,000 this Saturday afternoon, as they knew they were embarking into uncharted waters. Their young organization, in only it’s eighth season in existence, was playing in their first Championship series and, with the sport of hockey coming off a high after the “Miracle on Ice”, as some were calling it, just a few months earlier in Lake Placid, the executives at CBS decided to capitalize and broadcast the possible clincher on national television but on the condition that the game be played, for the first time in NHL history, in the afternoon. In front of the network’s Sports Spectacular cameras the Islanders supporters cheered louder attempting to drown out the voices in their heads that repeated the press’ reports that were saying that the team couldn’t do it—this season would be no different than the previous five, that losing in the playoffs was their modus operandi. The papers all over the country were saying that they didn’t have what it takes even though they had jumped out to a three games to one lead.

Gordie looked over his shoulder to his left and saw Mr. Iannuli shaking his fists in the air as the play started to move in the fast and fevered pace that could only occur within the first few minutes of the game before strategy, history, and fatigue set in. Nunzio Iannuli smiled at Gordie and shook his wife’s shoulder directing her attention to him. Gordie winked at them and focused back on the game. The Iannuli’s owned and operated the pizzeria that he made a point to frequent every weekend that he wasn’t on a road trip since he moved to the tony town of Oyster Bay on the north shore of the island. He was a bit lonely his first month or two after the trade from Washington. He still had not made friends with his teammates yet as it was near the holidays when he arrived and most of the guys were either busy getting their shopping together or, in most cases, traveling to visit their families in towns like Moosejaw, Oshawa, or Regina since none of the players were native New Yorkers either. He moved to the neighborhood on the recommendation of Jack Duffy, the team’s travel manager, who, Gordie assumed, thought a young man, new to the area and with a decent paycheck would like to be located but, truth be told, he felt alienated from his neighbors in this rich community. He found them to be judgmental and snobbish which was part of the reason why he developed an instant affinity to the Iannuli’s. Though they were the first generation of their family to immigrate to America and had never ice-skated in their lives they felt just like family from back home in Manitoba.

Father Sebastien sat at the edge of his bed staring at the white linen curtains that seemed to glow orange from the setting sun beyond them. The threadbare green wool blanket and crisp cream sheets were stretched tightly and tucked beneath him. The entire contents of one dresser, one closet, one medicine cabinet, and one nightstand were nestled in a cracked gray leather suitcase, long since fashionable, which was lying next to his feet. Any signs of habitation of this room over the past two years were now out of sight. The only trace of his time at the seminary that remained was one wooden framed photo of Sister Monica and himself, which stood propped up on the window ledge, and was now staring back at him.
He replayed the events of that day as he gazed at the snap shot. The excitement they shared at stumbling across a church also named for Saint Monica as they went on one of their patented long walks after chapel. They made a habit out of animatedly discussing the way they would run their parish when they took control after they graduated and were placed in a yet to be assigned diocese. Imagine the shock at their discovery mere miles from the campus they had been stationed for the past twenty-four months. The reason it had remained such a mystery was that the state had declared the church “structurally unsound” close to a decade ago. The roof had become water logged due to lack of maintenance from years of disuse as wavering numbers in the parish had long since forced the congregation to merge with Holy Child a few blocks away. One morning, after a particularly heavy rainstorm, it simply collapsed under its own weight.
It may have no longer been a functioning church but it excited them just the same. So much so that they ran to the nearby drug store to buy a disposable camera and after flagging down a pedestrian they joyously leaned in to the frame together to smile before the crumbling facade. Now, as he sat contemplating and the curtains grew gradually darker, it was the embrace that Father Sebastien remembered most vividly. The memory of this moment was even more lucid than the glossy 8-by-10 color Kodak print sitting right before his very eyes.