John Wynn drove a gold 1969 Cadillac Coupe deVille. Tall, dignified and easy going, he had a touch of gray at the edges of both his hair and mustache. The hair was medium length, and not processed like Sinclair’s, the delivery man whose electric smile was framed by a swooping conk that came to a duck-tail in the back. I thought his name really was Sinclair, but it turned out that was just what Ruby called him, 'cause his van was always parked at the Sinclair gas station next to Elm Dairy, the store we got our food delivered from. Ruby was our housekeeper. She claimed she had dreamed me a year before I was born, and was more of a mother to me than my own. She lived with us and had for years, her husband Pete back in Uniontown PA, working in the steel mills. Ruby hardly ever ate, but drank coffee all day. I can see her right now, white cup in hand, leaning on the kitchen counter, talking to Sinclair, who had just put down a box. I don't remember what they'd say, just the energy and laughter. How her song flowed different when she talked to him.
But let's get back to John Wynn. He'd pull up in that gold Caddy and I'd get so excited, I'd run outside to greet him. He'd step out of the car, grab a hanger from the back, hang up his suit coat and put on his work smock, which he wore with just as much class. I think he was a butler, though he never brought anyone a drink on a tray or said "very good, ma’am" or anything like that. In fact, I have no clear recollections of him working at all. All my memories are of me yakking at him, asking him this and that, trying to get close to that thing, that mystery, that easy grace and style that I knew was golden, even with its heavy ache.
I was crazy about him the moment I laid eyes on him and my admiration just grew. But when he told me he was friends with Willie Mays it went through the roof. "You know Willie Mays?!" I gushed. "Yeah, Willie's an old partner of mine." From that moment on, it was all Willie Mays. What's he like? How'd you meet him? Do you think he’s better than Babe Ruth? Didn't matter that I had missed him in his prime, I knew he was the greatest. Just like when I was eleven and my brother brought home John Coltrane's A Love Supreme and I knew just from his name and face on the cover that I was looking at royalty, so it was with Willie Mays: His name, a piece of poetry. His famous basket-catch, a bit of soft-shoe in the middle of a ballet. Smacking a home run in 16-millimeter color, he is an icon of the Mad Men 60s, as kingly as Ali and no rhyming couplets needed. In newsreel black and white he’s part of American history, his over the shoulder catch in the ‘54 World Series as iconic as Paul Revere's ride.
Yesterday was strange with false reports of Noam Chomsky's death and then the real news of Willie's. Two great freedom fighters felled (or almost felled) on the same day. I was deeply moved by Chomsky's (presumed) passing and it took me back to my childhood, his unusual name handwritten on a small card in my mother’s Rolodex, the two of them allied by their opposition to the war in Vietnam.
I got really emotional. It wasn’t just Noam and what he stood for, but the ghost of my mother. My pro-union, anti-American, old-time lefty DNA that leaks out in moments like these. I thought about his commitment to his ideas. His unwavering faith in what he believed. I talked with my friend Peter and we knew it was a huge loss and that there would not be another. But when my son texted me later that Willie Mays had died, I felt something else entirely. The loss of a god in the boy mind.
I thought about the two of them, Noam and Willie. How, what Chomsky defended, Willie Mays was! But in action, not thought, motion, not words. To be a great truth teller and fighter of injustice is heroic, but Willie Mays is Icarus before the meltdown. He’s not Charlie Parker mid-solo, he is the music Bird is playing. Utterly and irrepressibly himself, he is in the great African American tradition of turning style in content, and content into style. He brought the Negro League truth to America’s pastime. I hope that Chomsky, even though he said, “the purpose of professional sports is to build public consent,” can appreciate that.
I remember when John Wynn told me he had a new job and wouldn’t be coming around anymore. I was sad, and so made sure I was there on his last day, going out to greet him when he drove up. “Hey young fella, I got something for you.” He opened the trunk of the Caddy, removed a long white box, and from it pulled an Adirondack “Big Stick” baseball bat. The same kind Willie Mays used to hit his 600th home run. There was a small gold plaque screwed into the sweet spot that read “To commemorate the 600th home run of Willie Mays.” “Willie gave this to me for you.”
I couldn’t believe it, and took that big ‘ol piece of lumber in my little hands and tried to take a cut. “It’s just for having, you can’t use it in a game.” “Okay, I won’t. Thank you, John, I’ll keep it forever.”
I don’t know when the last time I saw that bat was or if it even made the move from Long Island to the city, but when I heard about Willie my thoughts soon went to John Wynn and that bat. Then I called Peter.
“What’s going on?”
“Chomsky’s still alive. But Willie Mays is dead.”
Willie was one of those guys who seemed to possess magic, and you really got to it. I love the dignity of John Wynn and the way he kept that magic alive.
He was mythic. As we watched the mlb network coverage the morning after his death we mourned along. Too moved at times to speak. One of my husband and sons great heroes. My brother’s too. You could feel the odd space Brooklyn Dodgers fans left open for Willy I think. The respect and awe.
Closest thing to my early memories of going to church, contemplating his life and death and place in our history.