Just One Night

The games that make you feel alive.

Apr 21, 2025

This weekend was finally the first sign of warm weather and the end of winter’s grip on the city. In the spirit of this day, what better way to celebrate then to head to Manhattan to Madison Square Garden and watch the Knicks face off against the Pistons. As most would assume, Knicks regular season tickets are expensive so the playoffs aren’t even within a world of possibility in terms of attending. But the plaza between 33rd Street and 7th avenue will be hosting watch parties till the Knicks are bounced from playoff contention.

I love basketball but more importantly I love those loveable losers called the New York Knicks, a dumpster fire of a franchise for nearly 20 years that has seen a return to playoff contention over the last few years thanks in part to an actual accountable front office.

Yesterday, as I walked across the Knicks Plaza, I felt like I was back at Comic Con. Knicks fans are truly the biggest nerds on the planet, but how can you not be romantic about a team who hasn’t held a trophy in 50 years. The last time the team even reached the finals was when I was four years old. Funny enough, before the game got started Latrell Sprewell and Marcus Camby, both members of those ‘99 Knicks who lost to the San Antonio Spurs in the finals were out signing autographs and meeting fans in the courtyard. The atmosphere in the plaza was pure jubilation even though we haven’t even played the game yet. Tourists passed by eager to see what this huge swath of mostly orange and clad fellas yelling out answers to team trivia as the game was about to get underway.

I enjoyed a nice slice at Pizza Suprema across the street from the Garden beforehand with a friend, recounting his recent completion of watching Sopranos while I recounted this game’s narrative implications. I was also playing back my memory’s of where I was at this point in 2024.

Over a year ago this time, I’d gone through what I conceivably felt was one of the worst weeks of my life. On April 17, 2024, an older cousin of mine had passed away after her cancer took a turn for the worse after a brief remission, leaving behind her husband and a daugther who was on the verge of graduating high school.

Two days later on April 19, 2024, I would put down my cat, Gigi. She’d been having her own health problems in January before bouncing back. I only got a few more months with her before she also passed away from cancer.

I seem to be surrounded by death since I was a kid but I never experienced loss like this before.

I still remember receiving the news over text of my cousin’s passing, as I was spending my final hours with Gigi. I never liked cats before her because I a cat bit me as a child and I’d just always assume they were cold animals, not nearly as affectionate as dogs.

She ended up being my best friend for four years and my first real pet following the pandemic. My Dad took her in after her abusive owner had passed, and when I went to Florida during lockdown she quickly attached herself to me. Over those four years, she would be sitting on the egde of my bed while I would be watching movies or I’d wake up to her laying on my head as I was getting up in the morning, sometimes she’d be snoring so loud she’d wake me up at night. She would cough up hairballs, claw at me for pets, or actually “go” where she wasn’t supposed to but I loved her all the same.

Eventually when I started dating my girlfriend, who also wasn’t accustomed to cats, Gigi who was notoriously scared of new people and would scamper away at a stranger’s site immediately came up to her out of curiosity.

My favorite moments during our first year of dating was when she’d curl up by us while we were trying to sleep on the couch or on the couch watching movies. I was truly happy, I would think how life had finally met me where I wanted, a quiet night amongst two people I love.

I remember walking home in the cold rain from the vet after we’d put her down that evening, I was carrying her favorite blanket and an empty carrier on Jamaica Avenue as the J train rustled overhead as we walked by Cypress Hills cemetary back to my house.

The rest of that week, I took off from job and isolated myself to just a select group of family and friends. I needed the space to figure out where I was going next.

This past Thursday, I went to go see Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds at Barclays Center. His music became a big part of my life during the pandemic and the subsequent years largely in part to his ability to capture grief so poignantly. His music captures the pain of loss in the most beautiful and stirring ways.

The title track for his 2016 album Skeleton Tree is one of my favorite songs of all time and he performed that evening. It’s a somber song that offers a glimpse of hope, the haze of grief dissipating as you put the pieces of your life back together. Warren Ellis’ synths weave their way into Cave’s piano with these lyrics:

Sunday morning, skeleton tree
Oh, nothing is for free
In the window, a candle
Well, maybe you can see
Fallen leaves thrown across the sky
A jittery TV
Glowing white like fire
Nothing is for free
I called out, I called out
Right across the sea

But the echo comes back in, dear
And nothing is for free

The track offers a gentle hug to the listener in the form of several voices in unison calling, “And It’s Alright Now.”

This past Friday, my girlfriend and I walked across Flushing’s Tamgram Mall in an arcade where we saw their newly opened cat cafe. I watched through the glass as people sipped their coffees and cats scurried about, and I though about how Gigi used to chase a shoelace around.

We went to this mall, last year the day after she passed just as a way to feel normal again. On our way back home, the Knicks won a down to the wire game against the 76ers, and now it’s Saturday night a year later.

I’m standing on this plaza at MSG watcing everyone lose their minds as what seemed like a game that the Knicks are about to lose to a young upstart Detroit Pistons squad. Only this time, Cam Payne is shooting lights out to give the Knicks the lead and what would become a 21-0 run that would electrify the whole square. Strangers losing their mind in unison as we pulled off a nervewracking comeback.

I’d end up walking towards the subway with the Empire State Building donned in orange and blue. There was a gentle breeze and it felt good to be a winner for one night cause who knows what tomorrow will bring.