P.S.

by Marnetta Singleton

June 14, 1978

Dear Dad,

I got a new bike today! My old one had a squeaky chain and was all rusty. This one is black like Darth Vader. I want that new Darth Vader figure for my birthday next week. I’m gonna be ten!

Mom said you might come to my birthday if you’re not too busy. We’re having it at Chuck E. Cheese’s Pizza Time Theatre! I hope you come because then you can meet James. He’s my best friend, and we play on the same baseball team.

James doesn’t believe me when I tell him you’re my dad. I keep telling him I’m not lying.

It would be really cool if you came to my game Saturday! Coach says I’m getting really good. He helped me fix my glove too!

Mom doesn’t think I’m old enough to watch your movies. I stayed up after she went to bed and watched one on TV. Don’t tell her.

I liked the one where you had the machine gun and the tank exploded. That was wicked! You’re so cool.

I can’t wait to finally meet you.

You’re my hero, Dad.

Love,

MATT GOLDSTINE

P.S. Mom said this is the address your manager gave her!

October 5, 1984

Dear Old Man,

I got my driver’s license today. I started working at Wendy’s last week to save up for a car. They mostly have me keeping the salad bar stocked and wiping down tables. Once I get a car, I’ll be able to drive to your premieres.

I saw that you have a sequel coming out to that racing movie of yours. I honestly think it’s stupid that people say Stroker Ace is better. Yours should’ve won an Oscar. How did it feel when Brooke Shields gave you that award? She’s a total babe. I have her poster hanging right next to the signed picture that came after my first letter. I keep all the TV Guides that have your movies in them.

I’ve also been seeing all the nasty things they’ve been saying about you in those magazines. That story about you decking that photographer? I don’t think you’re crazy. That guy totally had it coming. I can’t imagine how many assholes you deal with every day. I’m already six-feet tall, so if you ever need extra security, I wouldn’t mind working security on the side.

Mom says I got my height from you. She calls me Gort. She’s so lame. But I do think you stole my face. Give it back.

Okay, that was lame.

Sorry it’s been a while since I wrote. I know you’re busy running around Hollywood with all those studio suits. Congratulations on the wedding. Melissa seems like a cool chick. I guess it’s cool that you found somebody. You two look good together. She looks like she teaches aerobics.

I understand why I didn’t get invited to the wedding. You probably figured people would have questions. Besides, we only just got our new phone line hooked up, so Mom probably hasn’t gotten the number to you yet. Once she does, maybe you can call sometime.

I started a band last year with Trent and James. It’s called Licking Lizards. I wrote a song about you. I’d love to play it for you sometime, even if it’s just over the phone.

Mom thinks the “Licking” in the name is “superfluous.” I told her I’d take it out if she stopped using made-up words.

I still play baseball too. Coach got me onto a fall team. He says I could get scouted one day. Maybe I’ll make it to the majors. Mom comes to every game when she can, but she’s been missing more of them lately. She says she’s picking up extra shifts because we need the money. She’s tired all the time, and she’s been spending a lot of time at the hospital too.

I think she volunteers.

The offer still stands if you ever want to see me knock a few balls out of the park. We play every Saturday through November.

Matt G.

P.S. James still doesn’t believe me.

P.P.S. I’d vote for Mondale if I were old enough too. Mom says Ferraro is the one with all the guts.

May 16, 1985

Dear Dad,

Mom died today.

Matt Goldstine

P.S. I put my favorite picture of me and her in here. It’s from my first game. Our number is on the back.

August 24, 1987

Dear Dad,

I heard “Billie Jean” on the radio today.

James and I were driving back from campus with everything I own crammed into the back seat. He turned it up and started beating the steering wheel like it had personally offended him.

It’s strange how a song can make everybody dance while a man spends the whole thing trying to outrun a child.

Made me think of you.

Relax. I’m kidding.

Mostly.

Classes started this morning. Campus is all brick buildings, freshly cut grass, and people walking around pretending they aren’t lost. Every five minutes, somebody stops in the middle of the sidewalk, unfolds a map, and pretends that’s where they intended to stand.

I like it here.

The coach already warned me that being good in high school does not mean a damn thing to him, which I respect. James says I only respect people after they insult me.

Licking Lizards is still alive too, somehow. We played a party Friday night and only got asked to leave once. James thinks that counts as a successful show.

We sound a little like the Doors now. At least that’s what James says. Personally, I think he only says that because he learned three notes from “Break On Through” and has been playing them in different orders ever since.

I still have all her albums.

They’re at the house. I haven’t been back there in a while. There’s nothing wrong with it. The roof is still there. The windows are still there. The key still sticks unless you pull the door toward you while you turn it. Everything is exactly where it was.

That’s the problem.

The last time I went inside, I stood in the kitchen for ten minutes trying to remember why I had come. Then the refrigerator kicked on, and for half a second I thought she was moving around in the next room.

I left without the records.

Anyway, college is good.

There are parties everywhere. James says this weekend is supposed to be “legendary,” which usually means somebody ruins a couch and we spend Sunday pretending we don’t know whose house it was. I’m not going too crazy. Baseball practice starts Monday, and I’d rather not introduce myself to Coach by throwing up on his shoes.

Congratulations on the baby, by the way. I saw the picture in the checkout line yesterday. He has our brown hair and that Roman nose Mom always blamed on you. It looks a little too big for his face right now, but he’ll grow into it. I did.

I understand why you couldn’t make it to graduation. A new baby probably makes it hard to get away.

He looks happy sitting on your shoulders.

When he gets his first bike, make sure the chain doesn’t squeak. Mine used to announce me from halfway down the block. It was rusty as hell, but I rode it until my legs hurt anyway.

I hope his is black. Black bikes are faster. Everybody knows that.

Anyway, James is yelling at me to hurry up. Apparently, legends can’t begin without us.

Baseball season starts in the spring. Most of our home games are on Saturdays.

The offer still stands.

Matt

P.S. I saw those people on the news meditating for world peace. Let me know if it worked where you are.

June 21, 1989

Dear Father,

I turned twenty-one today.

I should probably tell you James is here. We’re both pretty stoned. I’ve been smoking a lot more lately. James said this one was for my birthday.

Mom used to tell me my birthday should have been her holiday. I got presents, cake, and a song, while she was the one who did all the work. I always thought she was joking.

Maybe she was.

She had a way of hiding the truth inside a joke and waiting for me to get old enough to find it.

She called it the McCallister spirit: laugh first, before life gets the chance.

Grief is funny too, but not in the way Mom was. When she died, I thought grief was the moment the air left my lungs. I didn’t know it could wait. I didn’t know it could sit silently beside me for years, then lean over at 12:03 in the morning and remind me that this was my fifth birthday without her.

Most days, I can trick myself. I tell myself she finally took that vacation she always wanted. That she’s somewhere in the Bahamas complaining about the heat and refusing to pay twelve dollars for a drink.

Sometimes I can almost believe it.

Then 12:03 came.

I couldn’t.

I couldn’t call her and say, Congratulations. We made it another year. I couldn’t thank her for carrying me onto this blue and green planet and spending seventeen years teaching me how to live on it.

Last night, James and I watched two men on television argue about whether the Earth was round or flat. The man with the globe won. He had his diagrams, his experts, and gravity on his side.

Maybe he was right about the planet.

But the ground beneath me lifted in one solid piece and settled over my head. The sky opened beneath my feet. The dirt became a ceiling. Everyone else kept living somewhere above me.

In all that darkness, colors run together like paintbrush water. Red, blue, yellow, green. All of it stirred into one dirty gray.

Sometimes one still breaks through.

Blue gathers behind my eyes and runs down my face.

Green pushes through sidewalk cracks and comes back every spring like nothing happened.

Sometimes I hate green for surviving her.

I don’t blame you for missing her service. I figured maybe you didn’t want your last memory of her to be that.

James fell asleep on the floor a while ago. One shoe is still on. The other is under the coffee table.

The sun is coming up now.

I hate the fucking sun. Pretty rotten luck for someone born on the longest day of the year. It doesn’t warm anything anymore. It only shines on everything she left behind.

Yesterday, I tried to make her famous shit on a shingle. I followed every step she taught me, exactly the way we used to make it. I measured every damn thing. Not a spoonful too much or a pinch too little.

It still didn’t taste right.

I used to think she had been leaving out an ingredient.

But no.

It was her.

I’ve been playing “Break On Through” by the Doors on repeat. It was her favorite. The record is spinning right beside me, but the music sounds like it’s coming from a room three floors above us, behind a closed door. By the time it reaches me, it isn’t her favorite song anymore. It is just proof that the record is still turning.

James hugged me when he got here.

I hated it.

Not him. The hug.

I understand what people’s arms are trying to say. I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do with it once they let go.

Because when they let go, they keep living as though nothing has moved. They make plans. They buy groceries. They complain about traffic.

And when they finally find the time to ask how I’m doing, I have to choose between telling them I’m okay and telling them I believe the Earth is flat.

Note to self: Never read Sylvia Plath while stoned.

Anyway, I’m not a complete nutcase. I almost forgot to tell you. The Cleveland Indians picked me in the June draft. Coach says I’ll probably start in the minors, but it’s professional baseball.

I actually did it.

Mom would’ve called every person she ever met by now, including a few she didn’t like.

Guess I did get something from you after all.

Sincerely,

Matthew Goldstine

P.S. You should come by sometime. I’ve been saving my first legal drink for you.

June 14, 1996

Dear Ronald Goldstine,

I had one of those quiet, life-changing realizations today.

You are a fucking loser.

It came to me in the doctor’s office, almost a year after I dove for that ball and collided with another outfielder. My shoulder took most of the impact. Two surgeries and eleven months of rehabilitation later, the doctor finally stopped using words like progress and possibility.

He told me I’ll never play professional baseball again.

Those words devastated me, but I think I’ll sleep a little easier tonight knowing your career isn’t doing much better.

Your last three movies bombed. Your television show was canceled before the first season finished airing. Melissa finally left you, and now every time I turn on the news, there you are walking out of a courthouse while your lawyer explains that the millions of dollars you forgot to report were all part of some innocent misunderstanding.

I guess we both had a bad year.

Do you know what I did every Saturday when I was a kid?

I put on my uniform, walked onto that field, and searched the bleachers for your face. Every single game, I told myself maybe this would be the one. Maybe you would finally show up, and I could grab James by the shoulder and say, See? I told you. I wasn’t lying.

I wasn’t some pathetic kid sending letters to fucking Santa Claus.

Then every Saturday night, there you were anyway. Right inside our television. Shooting bad guys. Surviving explosions. Saving women you had known for fifteen minutes. You could cross deserts, jump from moving cars, and crawl through burning buildings whenever a script told you to.

You just couldn’t make it to one baseball field.

I’m fucking furious with her.

She knew who you were. She knew what you had already chosen. And she still brought your face into our house. She showed me your movies. She helped me write that first letter. Every time you didn’t answer, she handed me another excuse. You were filming. You were traveling. Your manager probably lost it. Maybe the next one would reach you.

She taught me how to wait for you.

All those fucking letters probably went straight into the fan-mail pile. That photograph I kept on my wall all those years wasn’t from you. It was a generic glossy from your fan club, the same one they mailed to anybody who bothered to write.

Deep down, I knew. I just refused to believe it.

Your signature on my birth certificate should’ve been the only autograph that mattered. I was pathetic enough to frame it and hang it on my wall. You were pathetic enough to sign it and still never step up.

I’m not a fan. I’m your son.

Every time I look in the mirror, I see a carbon copy of a failure.

I’m not a fan. I’m your son.

Every time someone calls me Goldstine, I answer to the name of a man who never answered me.

I’m not a fan. I’m your son.

Every time a crowd rose and cheered my name, I listened for your voice anyway.

‍ ‍I’M NOT YOUR FUCKING FAN. I’M YOUR FUCKING—

I don’t wish you well, Ronald.

I hope you live a long, healthy life. I hope you have enough years left to watch your name disappear from movie posters, television screens, and every mouth that once called you important.

And when you finally reach out for someone, when you need a voice, a hand, or a son, I hope silence answers you as faithfully as you answered me.

Matthew McCallister

P.S. The worst part is, if you called me today, I’d still answer.