A FEW WEEKS AGO, as I left the house I grew up in, my stepmother remembered, as she always does, that she had “some of my things.” These “things” are the treasures of my youth–my first baseball glove, letters from friends now dead, my college diploma–which are fighting a losing battle for attic space against various fruit bowls and beer coolers. This particular tranche, as I discovered on opening it in my kitchen in Washington, contained thirty-year-old pro football memorabilia and–tumbling out of a dog-eared “NFL Encyclopedia”–the first autographed picture I ever owned. One night in 1970, my father and I were discussing football in the kitchen. He told me about his friend Jack Mattock. “Jack travels with the Cleveland Browns. Goes to all their games. Stays in the team hotel, watches their practices, that kind of thing.” The implications weren’t lost on me. “Has he ever met Leroy Kelly?” I asked. Kelly was the Browns’ star running back. “I’m sure,” said my dad. “He knows all those guys.” This was the first indication I’d ever had that my father was a man of such importance. He knew a guy who knew Leroy Kelly. By the next morning, every one of my second-grade classmates knew that I was the son of a guy who knew a guy who knew Leroy Kelly. One night the following week, my dad came in the front door and handed me a manila envelope. “Open this,” he said. It didn’t dawn on me what I was looking at until I had the black-and-white photo all the way out and saw Leroy Kelly charging into the camera with the ball tucked under his arm. And then the inscription: To my friend Chris–Leroy. I was shocked. I was trembling with joy. “Now, listen,” my father said. “Remember to write a thank-you note.” I was lying on my bed with a pencil and a pad of lined paper within seconds. Dear Mr. Kelly . . . “Or is it Dr. Kelly?” I wondered. Dear Leroy . . . I decided to mention some of the carries I’d seen him make on “This Week in Pro Football,” just to reassure him I was as ardent a fan as he’d doubtless been told. But I couldn’t lie, either. I had to tell him my team was the Patriots, not the Browns. Should I promise to sort of root for the Browns? Would that be indelicate? Or insincere? By the time my father came in to kiss me goodnight it was clear I had a larger task in front of me than I had thought. I took the finished product out to show my Dad a couple nights later. Drafted and redrafted, it was a two-page-long masterpiece of second-grade wit, openheartedness, good manners, and perfect penmanship. I waited for his compliments. Instead he said: “What’s this?” “It’s my thank-you note.” “I meant a thank-you note to Jack Mattock!” The thought had never–not for an instant–occurred to me. When my father saw this in my face, it threw him into a fury. “Jesus! Have you no manners?” he said. “It’s Jack who got this thing. Leroy Kelly doesn’t know who the hell you are! He signs a hundred of those things a day.” He probably would have said more had I not begun sobbing inconsolably. So my father said, oh heck, Leroy Kelly probably knew who I was. We came up with a compromise. He’d mail the note to Kelly the following morning, and I’d write one to Mr. Mattock later. My father reminded me the following night. And the night after. But I couldn’t write the note. I’d been depleted by the effort of the first one. I had no more to say. Besides, I didn’t know Jack Mattock the way I knew Leroy Kelly–I hadn’t seen him run, or heard him speak. I didn’t know what he did for a living. I couldn’t even picture him. He was, literally, nothing to me. Pretty soon my dad was reminding me only once a week or so, but the unwritten note poisoned my joys. One evening months later, my father came glumly in the front door and asked, “You ever write that thank-you note to Jack Mattock?” “I’ll get right on it.” “Don’t bother,” my dad said. “He had a heart attack this afternoon. He died.” In my father’s stricken face, I saw Jack clearly for the first time. He was my dad’s friend. (I could picture them laughing together.) He had a family. (What would happen to his children?) He liked the Browns. (I could have talked about that in the letter.) I kept the autographed picture on my desk for a few more days. But it was now the source of such burning shame that, one night before bed, I slipped it into the gutter of my “NFL Encyclopedia,” where it would remain, unseen and forgotten, until it fell out onto my kitchen table in Washington three decades later. For what it’s worth, thank you, Jack. –Christopher Caldwell
