The New Place

A New Place

By J.D. Anderson

The grains of ice cascaded over Dave’s face like a frozen shower. Billy had just worked a shoulder under his arm and threw his hip into Dave’s body, unceremoniously vaulting him over the snowbank and into the sugar snow on the other side. Dave felt loose snow pour down the neck of his “Wild” jersey and in the top of his jeans and long johns. He stood up and felt the snow pour across his chest, immediately melting as it came in contact with his overheated body.

“God this is fun.” He thought to himself as he searched for his stick that had been launched in a direction other than the one he had been launched in. He shook the front of his jersey to get rid of any unmelted snow. He watched as Billy caught up with the speeding black dot and planted his skate blades on the ice. He leaned his body to the left, his skates digging into the ice and launching ice chips into the air as he made his turn toward the net.

Mike, the only one of them with real pads that he borrowed from his brother who was stationed in Okinawa and had no real use for them over there, tensed his body in anticipation of the inevitable slap shot that Billy bragged about so often. That is until Ben came from nowhere and slammed into Billy.

To say that Ben checked Billy is an understatement like saying the Duke of Wellington checked Napoleon at Waterloo. Ben was the biggest kid in the neighborhood. He stood six inches taller than the next tallest kid and was fifty pounds heavier than the next heaviest. Ben didn’t have to check someone, he merely skated in a person’s way and stood still, the other person’s momentum spelled their doom.

Billy, being on the lighter end of the spectrum, hit Ben at full speed, let out an involuntary and audible exhalation as his body compressed, rebounded off Ben like a baseball from a pitch-back net, and sat down hard on his rear end to go skittering of across the ice like a Mario cart in a spin out.

Dave, having found his stick, high-stepped through the snow-piled boundary, back onto the makeshift rink on the pond that Billy’s family owned. He waved his stick in the air and yelled, “Ben!”

As he stretched out with his stick for the puck that was fluttering in front of him, Ben snapped a look at the source of his name being called. He recognized his team mate and shoveled the puck in Dave’s direction with a quick, backhanded pass.

Dave propelled himself and fell in behind Ben’s pass. He gained control of the puck with his stick and turned his attention toward Scott in the opposite goal. Scott did not have the advantage of hand-me-down goalie pads as Mike did. He had to suffice with a pair of shin guards and a couch pillow held to his midsection with two leather belts.

The unspoken rule was “no slap shots at Scott.” But all an unspoken rule accomplishes is to reveal an unspoken threat. Dave maneuvered toward Scott with intent blazing across his face. Scott crouched in the net ready to interpret Dave’s intentions. About fifteen feet in front of Scott, Dave planted his left foot and swung the blade of his stick behind himself and above his head. Scott’s eyes widened and then closed, his body stiffened, and his feet came together with his arms plastered to his side in preparation for the missile that would surely put him in a hospital room, couch pillow and all.

Dave brought his stick down swiftly and with force but pulled back just before his blade met the puck. He twisted the wrist of his right hand so that the back of his stick blade contacted the puck and nudged it to the right, then lifted the blade, passed it over the puck so it nestled into the curve of the blade. With a scooping motion, he flipped one side of the puck on top of his blade and lifted his stick. The puck cartwheeled and fluttered just high enough to clear the blade of Scott’s stick, landed on edge, and rolled into the goal. Dave raised his stick in celebration and proceeded around the makeshift rink in a victory lap.

“Boys!” came a voice from Billy’s house, “Come in for lunch and warm up!”

Scott, who was still looking dejectedly and in fascination at the puck laying in the net behind him, suddenly snapped back to reality and looked toward the voice.

“Lunch?” he said and started a mad dash to the edge of the pond, to be pursued just as intently by Ben who grabbed him by the collar and placed him behind himself with as much effort as it takes a mortal to shoo a fly.

Dave skated to catch up with Billy, who was brushing snow off his backside, and they skated to the pond’s edge together and sat down on the bench for taking off skates. Dave looked at the pond and the rink, and the woods beyond.

“I’m gonna miss this place.” He said, absent mindedly.

“We don’t have to leave until spring, Dave,” said Billy, “we still have the rest of the winter to play Hockey.”

“But then we’ll have to find a new place.” Dave scanned the pond whimsically, “where else are we going to find a place this perfect?”

“We can still go to the Arena in town.” Said Billy, trying to be practical.

“But here we can use the pond whenever we want, we don’t have to wait for someone scheduled before us.”

“The town isn’t that big, Dave, and they already schedule four open Hockey periods on Saturdays and Sundays, we’ll get plenty of ice time.”

“Yea, with a bunch of other kids who don’t play like we do, I’m tellin’ ya, things won’t be the same.” Said Dave, shaking his head.

“And in a couple of years, we’ll all be leaving on our own paths. We’ll find new friends, new interests, new Hobbies.”

“Not me,” said Dave, “I’m gonna stay right here.”

“Really,” said Billy, looking at Dave, “I thought you were going in the Army.”

“Well,” said Dave, “after that I’m coming right back here.”

“And everything will be just the same as when you left,” Billy said sarcastically, “Let me know how that works out for ya.”

The friends put on their boots and started toward the house; Dave looked up at the large, two-story structure.

“Why would your parents want to sell a nice, big house like that? There’s so much room to move around in.” said Dave, thinking of his own two-bedroom home where he had to share a bedroom with a brother until he went to college the previous fall.

“It was great when there were seven people in it, now there is just me, Mom and Dad. They want something smaller, and frankly, I don’t blame them.”

Dave felt his arguments being thwarted on multiple levels, so he tried the emotional angle and spun around, extending his arms out like a king, revealing his realm to his heir apparent.

“But the pond, Man,” he said as if his meaning was obvious, then looked intently at Billy, gesticulating toward the pond with one arm, “swimming in the summer, hockey in the winter, frog hunts, muskrat trapping, you even have the turtle we found last summer.”

“He died three months ago.” Billy said flatly.

“Oh,” said Dave, sorrowful for a moment, “sorry to hear that,” then renewed his argument, “but you still had him, doesn’t that count?”

“I think you’re being a little over dramatic, Dave.”

“I guess,” said Dave, realizing he had nothing left to fight with. “I just don’t like change, and that is all I see coming for the next few years.”

“Yea,” said Billy, “I get that. My dad says that the only thing you can be sure of in life is change. You can either accept it and flow with it or fight it and be trampled.”

“I still don’t like it.” Said Dave, shoulders drooping.

“But” said Billy, trying to find a bright side and cheer up his friend, “we still have the memories, and we still have our friendship. We’ll find a new place to play Hockey, to go frog hunting, to go swimming. It’s not really the place that makes a life, the place is just an ingredient. My mom says that sometimes you have to change the ingredients to make the recipe better.”

“I guess,” said Dave, deciding to hold on to this ingredient as long as possible. “Hey, let’s eat and get back out here for the last period.” He thought for a moment, “We’re still on for tomorrow, right?”

“Yep,” said Billy, “Right after Church. Game two of the Championship. Right here at the not-so-square Garden. Billy’s Rangers versus the Wild Daves, wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Dave stopped walking for a moment and looked at Billy, “Ya know, I hope this new place is big enough to handle all the legends we’ll be bringing with us.”

Billy looked at Dave and knit his eyebrows in mock severity, “I was thinking the same thing. This place is beginning to feel crowded with all the swelled heads skating around here.”

Dave thought a moment, broke into a jaw breaking grin and turned toward the house. Billy reached for Dave’s shoulder, gave a hard shove and both boys giggled as Dave stumbled toward the door.