Goose

I was in Cheers Cafe about a month ago when I sat down with my friend Lois Ciali for a nice chat. She saw me sitting at the end of the bar gazing not into space but at the paneled walls and the Steelers signs and the pictures of friends with friends. I was thinking about her husband, the late Jimmy “Goose” Ciali. He employed me as a part-time bartender through the years. My first stint was in 1991, right after I got married. 

My wife and I had an apartment a few blocks up the road from where we live now in West Pittston. Then we had no furniture but we were happy. And it seemed like from my bartending tip jar I always had a few bucks in my pocket but not much else in terms of material possessions. Who really needs them anyway.

I was thinking about all that when Lois approached. But mostly thinking about Goose as I sat at the empty bar that’s now in drydock. Jimmy’s wife Lois and the couple’s youngest son John operate a takeout food restaurant with the best pizza anywhere. But bar service has ceased to be. 

Lois gave me a hug and asked me how I was— how my family was.

“I’m good, Lo. Just sittin’ here reminiscing.”

She got a little teary-eyed. 

“I know, Trace. I know,” she said. 

She knew I was thinking about the countless good times I had in that place with her husband. And about a thousand other people. 

It was around 1987 when I first met Goose through my old buddy George Hatrak. I was broke. I was broken. I suffered a tragedy a couple years before and I dropped out of college. I went from one menial job to the next and was feeling sorry for myself. My older brother was dead and my oldest brother was about three thousand miles away living in Belgium. You just couldn’t call over there without racking up a big bill that I never offered my parents any money for. I had friends nearby, of course, but I didn’t have my brothers. 

Goose went to high school with my brother Mike and right off the bat that association paved the way for a long friendship. There were many times I needed brotherly advice and Goose offered it. Ask anyone about his wise words. People came to him seeking guidance and they always got some. In many ways, Goose was like a brother to me— and about 10,000 other people. 

Lois and I talked at length that night about people who’ve left us in one way but are still with us in another. I feel it sometimes. Lois says she feels it often. She talked about reading a book by a medium. The name sounded familiar to me. When I told my sister about this conversation she said the medium Lois mentioned was the same guy one of our family members saw some years ago in their own search for peace. 

About a month after Lois and I chatted, I had a dream. Goose passed almost two-and-a-half years ago and while I still think of him frequently, I don’t remember a dream with him in it. It took place in Cheers and we were toasting, like we’d done so many times before. Goose and another guy had shots of Jagermeister. (I think the other guy was Matt Frushon but the details vanished so fast from my consciousness that I can’t recall.) Goose set me down a shot of some pulpy drink that looked like watermelon juice. 

“Goose, what is this shit?”

He said, “Trace. Just drink it. And enjoy it.”

We raised our glasses and Goose smiled that big smile with those sparkling brown eyes that could put you in the best of moods even if you were on your way to a root canal. The scene ended as the vision faded into the hypnopompic dark where dreams make their way to some place else. And I felt a happy moment give way to the stark disappointment one feels in knowing it was all just a dream. Then I woke up. It was Friday morning. 

∞

Friday nights are pizza nights in my house and most likely yours. After work on the morning of my dream, I texted my son Colin to see if he wanted to come over for dinner. He said sure. He asked me whose pizza I was feeling. I knew exactly whose pizza I was feeling but I told him I was open to suggestions. We typically spread it around on Fridays: Sabatini’s, Demuro’s, Old Forge places, Vito’s— and quite a few others. I saw the bubbles preceding the text, and it only took a second for Colin to respond. Colin reminds me a lot of the brother I lost. The brother that Goose often stepped in for when my brother Mike was thousands of miles away. Colin’s immediate text response to the pizza recommendations? 

Cheers. 

Coincidence? Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t think so. John Ciali didn't think so when I told him the story. Lois probably wouldn't think so, either. The older I get the more I think there are no coincidences. No accidents. 

It is no accident that I never said the thing I wanted to say at Goose’s funeral mass. Even at age 60, I was too scared and self-conscious to stand up among a churchful of people— most of whom I know— to tell them what I wanted to say more than anything. Of course I loved Goose. That went without saying. Everybody loved him. But that wasn’t what I wanted to say.

I wanted to talk about the gift of the other friendships he forged for me. If Goose gave you his blessing, you pretty much got everybody else's blessing, too. That gift kept on giving for the thirty-five years I knew him. And it keeps on giving today and maybe will for generations to come. It was about those other friends I made in the early 90s because I was friends with Goose. It was about those people who I met later in life but feel as close to as the people I’ve known since I was a little kid. It was about the old school guys like Mike Ciali, Pete Mangione, Johnny Mercincavage, Mark and Bear Kosek, Jimmy Mule, Charlie Prula, Frankie Yurek, John Endrusick, Mike “Cash” Soricelli, Kevin Burns, Chuckie Bilder, and a hundred or more other people from my generation and the next. If I mentioned them all, I’d run out of paper.

So you see, it wasn’t just Goose himself keeping his arms around me on the Earth. It was also the friends I made through him and his corner bar and restaurant. And those friendships will endure. Like Goose’s memory. Like Goose’s spirit. Like his big smile that you’ll always picture in your mind until you absolutely do see it again. In dreams. Or elsewhere.