Saved

by Jack Falla

  I had one of those nights where I feel like a big Velcro basket and everything coming my way sticks to me. I felt like I was wearing the game. Goaltending is a lot like sex or golf—the more you think about what you’re doing, the more likely you are to do it badly.

  Of course the Mad Hatter, who rarely visits our dressing room until the media leave, came into the room right after the game, no doubt to make sure he got his props for our acquiring Gaston and sticking with him through six unproductive games. It was actually Packy who’d stuck with Gaston.

  The only bad thing about the win came in our dressing room after the game. The Canadiens bring a huge contingent of media everywhere they go. JB answered their questions, switching smoothly from French to English and back. Apparently one of the writers had asked JB about his views on Quebec separatism and JB said, in English: “The French are a separate people. We should have a separate country.” That’s when Jimmy Porter, the left wing on Jean-Baptiste’s line, threw a towel into the laundry cart and said, loud enough for the players near him to hear, “Fucking frog.”

  “Hey, Jimmy. Lighten up. I’m a frog too,” Gaston said.

  “Yeah, Gaston, but you don’t want to jump out of the fucking pond.”

  Gaston didn’t say anything and Jimmy stalked off to the shower. That stuff bothers me because I never know if it’s a benign tumor or a cancer in our room. But I felt so good about the win that it was an hour before I started getting nervous about meeting Faith’s parents. By Sunday morning I was sitting on the edge of the bed, a towel in my hands and teetering on the edge of full throw-up mode just as if it were forty-five minutes to game time.

  “Why are you so anxiety stricken about going to my parents’ house?” Faith asked. It’s the same kind of question people have asked me since my first day of grammar school. It’s hard to explain except to say that I wasn’t completely joking when I said my first rule for a happy life is not to meet anyone I don’t already know. I never know what to say after I’ve met someone. It’s why I say no whenever Denny Moran approaches me about making some extra money by playing in a corporate golf outing or making an appearance at a sales meeting. You’d think that being a high-profile player makes socializing easy, that people come to you with their autograph requests and questions like “What’s Jean-Baptiste Desjardin really like?” But being a player only gets you to conversational first base. The truth is I don’t know much about business, politics, or world affairs, and I find that your average adult isn’t all that interested in the nuances of the Bruins’ right-side overload power play. My idea of socializing is what Lisa used to call “bump-and-run”—a quick hello and handshake, maybe a remark about the team, then an “I’ll catch you later” and I’m off to stand in line at the bar or pull a bump-and-run on someone else. But I couldn’t bump-and-run Faith’s family. To my relief and surprise I didn’t have to.

  Faith had used a chunk of her dot-com money to buy her parents a house in suburban Winchester. The house is about a hundred feet from a pond that on that mid-December Sunday was covered with black ice, that early-season ice that’s so clear you can see through it to the dead leaves and muck on the bottom of the pond. Even though Faith’s money meant that her parents could retire, her father, Jim, kept his job as a history teacher and boys varsity basketball coach at Cambridge Catholic, and her mother, Susan, did a lot of volunteer work for the Winchester Hospital. Faith’s younger brother Jim Jr., twenty-five, in his last year at Tufts University Dental, was at his parents’ house for the weekend. While no one in Faith’s family had played organized hockey they’re all pretty good natural athletes, and they’d skated enough to be comfortable in the nearly two-hour pickup game we played with various neighbors and kids. It was just like when I was growing up. We marked the goals with boots and had a rule about no lifting the puck because no one was wearing pads. I played defense so I got to skate a lot and carry the puck for a change. There must’ve been ten players per side and it took me fifteen minutes and about a dozen giveaways before I figured out who was on my team. This was hockey the way it was first played, with creativity demanded and rewarded by open ice. There were no subs; everybody played. And there was no ref, because we didn’t need one. When I held Faith’s mom to keep her from getting to a rebound in front of my team’s goal she tripped me with her stick just as I was skating away with the puck. If I got hurt out there it would have taken Denny Moran and a platoon of Carter & Peabody lawyers to keep me from being found in violation of my Bruins contract. But I didn’t care. I was having too much fun, the kind of spontaneous good time that’s become a foreign concept to most NHL players, including me. If there’s a better game than pond hockey on black ice I’ve never played it.

  While we played, Faith’s dad had racks of ribs cooking over hickory chips in a couple of smokers. If you think pond hockey followed by smoked ribs, cold beer, and the Patriots beating the Dolphins 49–7 in the 4:15 game isn’t a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon, name me a better one. Sex? The line on sex versus pond hockey is 6–5 pick ’em.

  Just before we left, Faith’s dad embarrassed her by taking me into his den, the walls of which fairly drip with photos of Faith as a basketball player. Even as a sixth-grade CYO Leaguer, Faith, all knees and elbows, had the gunfighter eyes.

  Her father told me he was thinking of dropping down to assistant hoops coach at the high school. “We lost two games all of last season, won our league, went to the playoff semifinals, and the parents are still unbearable,” he said. He told me that the first three rules of high school coaching are: “Never trust a parent. Never trust a parent. Never trust a parent.”

  I believe him. And I’m glad no coach ever had reason to say that about my mother.

  “I had a great time,” I said, tossing my skates in the backseat and handing my car keys to Faith, who’d had two beers to my four. “I’d love to have grown up in a family like that,” I said, instantly wishing I’d kept quiet because I felt as though I were being disloyal to my mother and grandmother, who did a good job under tough circumstances.

  “Maybe you’ll create a family like that,” Faith said as she headed toward Boston a lot faster than Boss Scags usually gets driven.

  “Maybe we could make a family like that,” I said. Or maybe the fourth beer said it.

  “You proposing?”

  “Nah. I was going to do that live on the JumboTron at the Garden.”

  “Maybe that’s something we should talk about.”

  “Proposing on the JumboTron?”

  “I’m oh-for-one in marriage,” she said. “But love’s a funny thing. You can lose a hundred times, win once, and you win the whole tournament.”

  “I’m one-for-one but it was an abbreviated schedule,” I said.

  “Serious question,” she said. “You grew up without a father. Ever think of what kind of father you’d want to be?”

  “Cam Carter,” I said. “I watch him closer than he knows. He gives Lindsey and Caitlin a lot of his time and he doesn’t push. I think he’s got it dialed. What about you?”

  “My dad says being a parent is like being a good ref: ‘Call it tight early and you can let ’em play late. Let the players decide the game.’ I want my kids to trust themselves.”

  “Christ, we’ve been going together for less than three months and we’re talking about kids?”

  “Clock’s ticking, Jean Pierre. We’re in our early thirties. But let’s get through Christmas. We can talk about it later.”

  “We’re not going to live till Christmas,” I said as Faith gunned Boss Scags past the Museum of Science, downshifted through the right-hand turn at Leverett Circle, then accelerated onto Storrow Drive as if she were coming out of the pits at the Monaco Grand Prix. The Arthur Fiedler Footbridge and the Hatch Shell were blurs as Faith, shifting like Michael Schumacher, took the Ferrari above ninety miles per hour for the first time since I’d owned it. “Why’d you buy this car?” she asked.

  “To help me meet chicks,” I said.

&n
bsp; A mile went by before Faith said: “You know, JP, you should stop thinking this Ferrari is a better car than you are a person.”

  * * *

  We had a great Christmas schedule. A quick trip to Long Island on December 22, then no games until the day after Christmas when we played Ottawa at home. We beat the Isles 4–2 with Gaston getting a goal and an assist. Packy told us we’d practice on the twenty-third and twenty-fourth, take Christmas off (loud cheer), and have a mandatory pregame skate on the morning of the twenty-sixth. He also told us that the team’s annual Christmas skating party would be on the twenty-third at the Garden. Some of us think this so-called Christmas party is really more of a PR photo op. That’s why Flipside said he’d have an unofficial team party later that night at his house in Medford. “Wives, girlfriends, or paid escorts. No kids,” Flipside said.

  The biggest surprise at the team’s official Christmas party was Kevin Quigley showing up with Nan O’Brien. That ended all the older-woman and Mrs. Robinson jokes. As soon as we know a teammate is serious about a woman—and Kev wouldn’t have brought her if he wasn’t—all joking stops. Team rule.

  The biggest nonsurprise was the Mad Hatter skating around trying to get himself into photos and on TV. Madison Hattigan was at the top of his PR game, kissing more kids than a guy running for reelection. Lynne Abbott had warned her paper’s photographer about our self-promoting GM, so the next day’s Post carried pictures of players and children only. The Post had a nice shot of me in the net with Lindsey Carter, who was imitating my goaltender’s crouch and holding one of my sticks. Cam told me that in the early years of youth hockey kids get to volunteer to play goal on a game-to-game basis instead of committing to that position for the whole season. He said Lindsey volunteered more than anyone. “Linds loves playing goal,” Tamara said. “I don’t know where Cam and I failed.”

  I skated over to Nan O’Brien. “You have to lay off a caseworker?” I asked.

  “Are you kidding? I’m hiring a caseworker. We cleared seventy thou at the auction and dinner dance partly because of the way people bid up those signed sticks. You guys really helped us.”

  “Kevin’s the guy who made the play,” I said.

  Faith arrived at the party just as Paul Bertrand, the Bruins’ anthem singer, showed up dressed as Santa Claus and singing Christmas carols while he handed out gifts to the kids. If you don’t think a guy singing Christmas songs can precipitate an argument, you don’t know our team. Cam and Flipside got into it when Cam said Nat King Cole’s “The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)” is “the greatest pop Christmas song of all time.”

  “Wrong,” Flipper said. “The greatest Christmas song of all time—in the Pop Division—is Bing Crosby’s ‘White Christmas.’ And while we’re on the subject, the greatest song in the Ecclesiastical Division is ‘Silent Night.’”

  “And in the best-of-seven final?” Cam said with a touch of sarcasm.

  “‘Silent Night’ in a sweep,” Flipside said. Most of us agreed although Quig said Bing Crosby should be disqualified because he was an abusive father.

  “True but artistically irrelevant,” Flipside said.

  “Can we get out of here?” asked Faith, who failed to grasp the importance of the Great Christmas Carol Debate and Playoff. Faith and I almost made it to the Zamboni door when Rex Conway skated over, Rinky Higgins in tow. “Jean Pierre, I need you and Reginald to sign something for my church,” he said. Rex was the only guy who wasn’t going to Flipside’s party, because Rex’s total commitment to spiritual salvation (and to picking up naive, dewy-eyed, incredibly good-looking Christian fundamentalist chicks) required that he speak at a church service that evening. Like Nan, he wanted Rinky and me to autograph a stick to be raffled off. Unlike Nan, he wanted more than our names. “I need you to put my church’s name on it,” Rex said.

  “Sure. What’s that?”

  “Sign it ‘To the Foursquare Bible-Believing Church—Merry Christmas, Jean Pierre Savard,” Rex said. Now I know why he wanted Rinky and me. Our goalie sticks were the only ones big enough to hold all that.

  Faith and I went back to my place to kill the two hours between the end of the Bruins’ party and the time we had to leave for Flipside’s. I spent most of that time wrapping Christmas presents, with particular attention to the big one I’d bought for Lindsey Carter. I got her a complete set of junior-size goaltending gear—leg pads, catch glove, blocker, goalie pants, body and arm protector, mask, the works. I got everything into a huge box, then wrapped the box, tied it with a red ribbon, and put one of those stick-on bows on top. Then I taped two notes to the box—a simple gift card to Lindsey and a sealed note to Cam and Tamara. The sealed note read:

  Cam and Tam,

  No one suffers like the parents of a goalie.

  Jean Pierre

  That was the payback for Cam letting Lindsey beat up on me back in September.

  I’d waited too long before trying to hire a town car to bring my mother and grandmother to Boston on the morning of the twenty-fourth. Denny Moran solved the problem by sending one of Carter & Peabody’s corporate jets. “Give my regards to your mom … I mean to Jacque-LYN,” he said, pronouncing her name correctly. “She’s pretty particular about the name, eh?” Denny added, then laughed.

  “Just moving you off the plate,” I said.

  Mammam probably wouldn’t know the difference between a Gulfstream IV and a one-horse open sleigh, but I wondered what my mother would think climbing aboard. “She’ll be embarrassed by the ostentation,” Faith said.

  * * *

  The party was in full swing when we arrived at Flipside’s house. Some of the married guys brought their wives. You might have recognized Jean-Baptiste and Renee Desjardin from that photo of them in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. JB was the one wearing a top. I was surprised Taki’s wife, Su, got the night off, because the Boston Ballet was in the middle of its annual Nutcracker run. To be honest I wondered if she’d really want to be with us, since the world she works in is a lot more sophisticated and cultured than ours.

  One of the coolest things about Flipside’s house is that he has two jukeboxes. He’s filled one with singles and albums from the 1990s to the present. He calls it the one-name jukebox because most of the artists in it seem to have one name—Eminem, Coldplay, Incubus, Ciara, Shakira, Deerhoof, Ludacris, and so on. The other jukebox—the one that got Flipside his nickname—is filled with vinyl records released mainly in the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s, when the music industry produced 45-rpm discs with one song on each side, a “hit side,” also called the A side, and a flip side or so-called B side. Flipper had the jukeboxes fixed so you didn’t have to put in any money or Treasury notes. We started out playing mostly the one-name jukebox, but as the party heated up, there was a big demand for the older stuff and Flipper plugged in the second jukebox. The later it got and the more we drank the older the music we wanted to hear.

  Nan O’Brien was looking at some of the older stuff when she saw “96 Tears” by a group listed on the label as “? and the Mysterians.”

  “Ooohh. I know this. I know Question Mark’s real name,” she said. She should’ve simply told us and left it at that. But she pressed her luck. “Philip,” she said to Flipside—Nan has trouble calling people by their nicknames—“what was Question Mark’s legal name? Nobody ever knows this.”

  “Rudy Martinez,” Flipside said, then rolled up the score: “The Mysterians were named after characters in a Japanese sci-fi movie and the song’s original title was ‘69 Tears.’ The flip side is ‘Midnight Hour.’ Anything else you need, Nan? Something from the bar maybe?”

  Nan got a round of boos and hisses. “Welcome to the NHL,” Quig said to her. She laughed. That was about all Quig said all night. I noticed he was drinking more than he usually did. And that’s a lot.

  I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised that Su Yamamura was the best dancer in the room. Put on a tune and Su turns into some kind of Janet Jackson. It’s l
ike Cam’s father says: “Banking, baseball, or barbecue, a goddamn pro beats a goddamn amateur every time.”

  “We have practice in the morning, hon,” I said to Faith around midnight as I launched into what I knew would be at least a twenty-minute campaign to get her out of the party.

  I asked Flipside where our coats were. “Upstairs, first bedroom on the right,” he said. “You got the claim check, right?… Just kidding, JP, just kidding.”

  At the top of the stairs I opened the first door on my right. It wasn’t a bedroom. It was a dimly lighted den. I was stunned by what I saw. There was Kevin Quigley, his back to the door, crying uncontrollably, his head resting on Nan O’Brien’s right shoulder, his huge back heaving with sobs.

  I stopped, shocked, my right hand on the doorknob. Nan had both arms around Quig and was whispering to him. When she saw me she flicked the fingers on her right hand as if she were brushing me out of the den with a whisk broom. I closed the door softly, certain that Quig hadn’t seen or heard me and wishing I’d never opened it.

  I found the coats piled on a bed in the next room. I’d retrieved my Burberry and Faith’s butter-soft black cashmere and was headed toward the stairs just as Loretta “Lash” LaRue began moaning from somewhere in the bottom of the coat pile. I retrieved the phone from the plaid horse blanket of an overcoat that I knew was Bruno’s and rushed downstairs shouting, “Telephone for Mr. Govoni … telephone call for Mr. Govoni,” while holding up the phone, the better for guests to hear Ms. LaRue’s breathless gasps of pleasure. Everyone except Bruno and the girl he was with seemed to think it was amusing.