AW, CUT THE SHIT! MAG AND ALI IN THE SAME WEEK?

WHAT’S THE POINT OF ANYTHING?

What’s the point really? Ali and then Mag within 2 days? The same week?

C’mon!

C’mon now!!! You can’t do this to me!

How can you do this to me?

Mag was the fuckin’ greatest. What a dweeb, a dork a mook. “Bert.” His high school teammates dubbed him “Bert.” Baggy shorts about forty years before they were considered in vogue or Fab 5 stylish. Black socks with sneakers eons before the Euro look. Baby fat.

Big smile always. Throughout. Throughout all the peer group torture. And the false (?) accusations of stealing a dime off the greasy food counter of a Kezar Falls, ME. bowling alley.

“I didn’t do it…I deedn’t dooo it!!!” I can still hear him proclaiming his innocence fifty years later.

He caught shit for that well into adulthood. Unmerciful grief.

Always with that smile.

I think he did it.

Mag grew up in a strict suburban household. He adored his parents and his brother, and they him. And somehow or other — genes at work? — he became a very unlikely-looking athlete.

A very good one. Highly skilled.

In high school he played 3 sports unassumingly. But he was good enough to play. In soccer he was good enough to earn Division I interest and a ride to Providence College where he became a 4-year starter and team captain as a senior.

But he was still Mag.

(By the way, he earned that nickname at summer camp; “Mag” was short for “Magilla” as in Magilla Gorilla, a fun-loving cartoon character of the era created by Hanna-Barbera. Mag looked just like him).

One year became the next and Mag and I lost touch but thankfully, we had a friendship that was a deep one; one that needn’t be reaffirmed. We became closer again over the last few years and picked up seamlessly.

I would subject him to my piercing and relentless barbs and he would parry weakly. Always with that smile. And plenty of laughter.

But always with that infectious smile. I’m surprised his whole face didn’t fall right off.

He really had a pretty good sense of humor and he was so self-effacing.

The perfect foil.

Mag has been sick off-and-on for the past 8–12 months and yesterday he died. Apparently his genealogy in this case was too much for him to bear.

And right now, his loss is too much for me to bear.

I love you Mag. May God bless you.

Rest in peace my brother.

[Editor’s Note: This piece was written by Mr. Kaplan in June 2016.]