Page 53 of Omega’s Forward

“Another of your father’s old colleagues. He has everything we need: the experience, love of the game and the team. The team will like him. He’s a good match.”

“And he didn’t come up earlier because?”

“Out of the country. Just got back a few weeks ago.”

“Perfect. Give him whatever he’s asking for.”

“I already have but he’s asked to meet you before he signs his side.”

“Why? He’s met you. You’re the one he’ll be working with.”

“If you can’t be produced for one hour, he’ll start wondering what’s wrong, and he’ll be right to. It looks strange.”

I look at the folder and say nothing.

“The team has an away day Thursday,” she adds, looking at the folder rather than at me. “Community appearances. The full roster, out of the building by nine.” There’s a small pause. “You wouldn’t run into anyone.”

There are days I could swear the woman invoices me extra for discretion. “Thursday,” I say. “One hour.”

*

The arena on a game night can be heard from the highway. On a Thursday morning, the place echoes. My shoes tap down the concourse. The ice sits gray and unlit while one man on a machine takes it in slow ovals. Nobody checks my pass.

Priya meets me at the executive elevator with a clipboard. “Mr. Belanger arrives at ten,” she says. “The papers are on the desk. You have forty minutes.”

The office is boxes, labeled in her block capitals: FRANCHISE — LEGAL. FRANCHISE — HISTORICAL. PERSONAL — HOLD.

Forty years of my father’s life in cardboard boxes. The photographs are off the wall and wrapped, but darker squares on the walls show where they hung.

One of the wrapped frames has a corner of bubble wrap torn back, and I can see a sliver of it. Silver jerseys. A cup going up over somebody’s head. He is in there somewhere, nineteen years old.

There is nothing in this room I want. He would have minded that. At the end, all he wanted was for me to be as obsessed with this team as he was.

He would have hated this. I don’t feel bad about that, nor do I feel particularly pleased. I just want it to be done.

Fortunately, Belanger arrives early. He turns out to be a big man gone silver at the temples. He shakes my hand firmly: two pumps and a squeeze at the end like punctuation.

“Mr. Rourke. Sorry about your dad. Gordie was one of the good ones. Threw me out of a stick room in Hartford thirty years ago and bought me a beer the same night.”

“That sounds like him,” I say, as I shake the hand, and smile the smile.

He walks me through his read on the lease, the deadline, a plan for renewals.

I ask questions because I probably should and he answers everything easily and gets the numbers right.

He is perfectly competent, exactly what I need.

That’s when the noise starts.

Voices first, a lot of them, coming up a stairwell. Then pucks going off boards, that flat crack, over and over. I know the sound of a full practice by now.

Priya is already at the door with her phone to her ear. She listens for ten seconds, says “thank you” in a clipped, annoyed tone, and turns around.

“The away day is canceled. Coach Sacco called it off at eight this morning, when he heard Mr. Belanger would be in the building.” Her jaw is tight.

“Ah, Sacco,” Belanger says, sounding delighted. “Great. It’s been far too long.”

“We can have you out the freight elevator in four minutes,” Priya says to me, quietly.