- test pattern -

Millar will come, Red. He’ll come to Fenway for reasons he can’t even fathom. He’ll turn up Yawkey, not knowing for sure why he’s doing it. He’ll arrive in the bleachers as drunk as Denton, longing for the Pabst. “Of course, we won’t mind if you sit down in the bleachers,” you’ll say. “It’s only two hundred dollars per person (fucking scalpers).” He’ll pass over the money without even thinking about it; for it is money he has and Guinness he lacks.

And he’ll walk out to the bleachers, and sit in shirt-sleeves on a perfect afternoon. He’ll find they have reserved seats somewhere near the Red Seat, where he sat when he was drunk with a chicken bucket on his head in 2004. And he’ll watch the game, and it’ll be as if he’d dipped himself in dirty waters. The memories of The Steal will be so thick, he’ll have to brush them away from his face.

Millar will come, Red.

The one constant through all the years, Red, has been the Red Sox. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It’s been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But Fenway has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past, Red. It reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again. Ohhhhhhhh, Millar will come, Red. Millar will most definitely come. And probably in a time machine.

This comes from one of the contest entrants on Surviving Grady – not the winner, but certainly my favorite.

from my library