F. Scott Fitzgerald and William Shakespeare.mp3

YOU CAN’T GO HOME AGAIN:

Charley with his baseball, always in his yard, with his glove, ready to throw with me...

It never occurred to me - occurred to me and Charley - that we’d ever outgrow baseball.

Molly had an oak tree - the Santa Maria’s tallest mast - and it would bend in the wind, and when Molly went away, she moved to Coral Gables, and me and Charley, we just figured old Molly’d be back.

We made ourselves some fake identification cards. Charley was Shakespeare and I was F. Scott Fitzgerald. We’d play a little game to see who could drink the most beers at a time. Shakespeare’d win one night, and I’d win the other.

Charley went to Princeton, and I was sent to Guantanamo Bay. We wrote a few letters, and planned a big reunion: F. Scott Fitzgerald and William Shakespeare.

The years went on, we never had the reunion. Charley was teaching when I got my discharge. I looked up old Molly girl, loved her and married her; joined General Motors as a salesman of automobiles.

Yesterday, I sold a Chevrolet to a teenaged boy who looked familiar to me. I looked at his signature: F. Scott McPherson.

I don’t think I’ll call. His dad’s a kid no more. I think I’ll leave that all behind me.

Tupper Saussy, 1969

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