William Goldman

As a child, I had simply no interest in books. I hated reading, I was very bad at it, and besides, how could you take the time to read when there were games that shrieked for playing? Basketball, baseball, marbles—I could never get enough. I wasn’t even good at them, but give me a football and an empty playground and I could invent last-second triumphs that would bring tears to your eyes.

(Stan Hack was the Cubs’ third baseman for these and many other years. I saw him play once from a bleacher seat, and even at that distance he had the sweetest smile I had ever seen and to this day I swear he smiled at me several times. I just worshipped him. He could also hit a ton.)

“I’m just not getting through to you somehow.”

“It’s not your fault, Miss Roginski.” (It wasn’t. I just worshipped her too. She was all dumpy and fat but I used to wish she’d been my mother. I could never make that really come out right, unless she had been married to my father first, and then they’d gotten divorced and my father had married my mother, which was okay, because Miss Roginski had to work, so my father got custody of me—that all made sense. Only they never seemed to know each other, my dad and Miss Roginski. Whenever they’d meet, each year during the Christmas pageant when all the parents came, I’d watch the two of them like crazy, hoping for some kind of secret glimmer or look that could only mean, “Well, how are you, how’s your life been going since our divorce?” but no soap. She wasn’t my mother, she was just my teacher, and I was her own personal and growing disaster area.)

“You’re going to be all right, Billy.”

“I sure hope so, Miss Roginski.”

“You’re a late bloomer, that’s all. Winston Churchill was a late bloomer and so are you.”

I was about to ask her who he played for but there was something in her tone that made me know enough not to.

Anyway, before publication, the publicity people at Knopf were talking to me, trying to figure what they could do to justify their salaries, and they asked who did I want to send advance copies to that might be an opinion maker, and I said I didn’t know anybody like that and they said, “Think, everybody knows somebody,” and so I got all excited because the idea just came to me and I said, “Okay, send a copy to Miss Roginski,” which I figured was logical and terrific because if anybody made my opinions, she did. (She’s all through Temple of Gold, by the way, only I called her “Miss Patulski”—even then I was creative.)

“Who?” this publicity lady said.

“This old teacher of mine, you send her a copy and I’ll sign it and maybe write a little—” I was really excited until this publicity guy interrupted with, “We were thinking of someone more on the national scene.”

Very soft I said, “Miss Roginski, you just send her a copy, please, okay?”

“Yes,” he said, “yes, by all means.”

You remember how I didn’t ask who Churchill played for because of her tone? I must have hit that same tone too just then. Anyway, something must have happened because he right away wrote her name down asking was it ski or sky.

“With the i,” I told him, already hiking through the years, trying to get the inscription fantastic for her. You know, clever and modest and brilliant and perfect, like that.

“First name?”

That brought me back fast. I didn’t know her first name. “Miss” was all I ever called her. I didn’t know her address either. I didn’t even know if she was alive or not. I hadn’t been back to Chicago in ten years; I was an only child, both folks gone, who needed Chicago?

“Send it to Highland Park Grammar School,” I said, and first what I thought I’d write was “For Miss Roginski, a rose from your late bloomer,” but then I thought that was too conceited, so I decided “For Miss Roginski, a weed from your late bloomer” would be more humble. Too humble, I decided next, and that was it for bright ideas that day. I couldn’t think of anything. Then I thought, What if she doesn’t even remember me? Hundreds of students over the years, why should she? So finally in desperation I put, “For Miss Roginski from William Goldman—Billy you called me and you said I would be a late bloomer and this book is for you and I hope you like it. I was in your class for third, fourth and fifth grades, thank you very much. William Goldman.”

“Has it got any sports in it?”

“Fencing. Fighting. Torture. Poison. True love. Hate. Revenge. Giants. Hunters. Bad men. Good men. Beautifulest ladies. Snakes. Spiders. Beasts of all natures and descriptions. Pain. Death. Brave men. Coward men. Strongest men. Chases. Escapes. Lies. Truths. Passion. Miracles.”

That book was the single best thing that happened to me (sorry about that, Helen; Helen is my wife, the hot-shot child psychiatrist), and long before I was even married, I knew I was going to share it with my son. I knew I was going to have a son too. So when Jason was born (if he’d been a girl, he would have been Pamby; can you believe that, a woman child psychiatrist who would give her kids such names?)—anyway, when Jason was born, I made a mental note to buy him a copy of The Princess Bride for his tenth birthday.

After which I promptly forgot all about it.

“Hey, Jason? Mom tells me this book arrived today. The Princess thing? I’d sure like it if maybe you’d give it a read while I’m gone. I loved it when I was a kid and I’m kind of interested in your reaction.”

“Do I have to love it too?” He was his mother’s son all right.

“Jason, no. Just the truth, exactly what you think. I miss you, big shot. And I’ll talk to you on your birthday.”

“Boy, are you wrong. Today is my birthday.”

The book came out and got bombed; I stayed in and did the same, adjusting. Not only did it not establish me as the freshest thing since Kit Marlowe, it also didn’t get read by anybody. Not true. It got read by any number of people, all of whom I knew. I think it is safe to say, however, no strangers savored it. It was a grinding experience and I reacted as indicated above. So when Miss Roginski’s note came—late—it got sent to Knopf and they took their time relaying it—I was really ready for a lift.

“Dear Mr. Goldman: Thank you for the book. I have not had time yet to read it, but I am sure it is a fine endeavor. I of course remember you. I remember all my students. Yours sincerely, Antonia Roginski.”

What a crusher. She didn’t remember me at all. I sat there holding the note, rocked. People don’t remember me. Really. It’s not any paranoid thing; I just have this habit of slipping through memories. It doesn’t bother me all that much, except I guess that’s a lie; it does. For some reason, I test very high on forgettability.

So when Miss Roginski sent me that note making her just like everyone else, I was glad she’d never gotten married, I’d never liked her anyway, she’d always been a rotten teacher, and it served her right her first name was Antonia.

He came from Florin (the setting of The Princess Bride) and there he had been no fool. He said once he would have ended up a lawyer, and maybe so. The facts are when he was sixteen he got a shot at coming to America, gambled on the land of opportunity and lost. There was never much here for him. He was not attractive to look upon, very short and from an early age bald, and he was ponderous at learning. Once he got a fact, it stayed, but the hours it took to pass into his cranium were not to be believed. His English always stayed ridiculously immigranty, and that didn’t help him either. He met my mother on the boat over, got married later and, when he thought they could afford it, had me. He worked forever as the number-two chair in the least successful barbershop in Highland Park, Illinois. Toward the end, he used to doze all day in his chair. He went that way. He was gone an hour before the number-one guy realized it; until then he just thought my father was having a good doze. Maybe he was. Maybe that’s all any of this is. When they told me I was terribly upset, but I thought at the same time it was an almost Existence-Proving way for him to go