Ever have a piece of bad news just suck the wind right out of where you are? It’s generally accompanied by one of those moments that you never forget the details about years later. I just had one of those moments on June 14, 2004. I decided to hop onto ESPN’s site for some baseball scores, when I saw one of their top stories announced the death of Page 2 columnist Ralph Wiley. My initial reaction was, truth be told, unprintable, but it managed in four words convey my shock and anguish along with knowing how much was just lost.
Now, if you are totally unfamiliar with Ralph Wiley’s work, shame on you. Seriously. I can say without flinching that Ralph Wiley was my favorite living American essayist, and I could without flinching name him one of the top 5 writers I had ever read (in no particular order, Kurt Vonnegut, Mark Twain, Dante, and Antoine de Saint-Euxpery round out that list). If you aren’t familiar, I demand that you go over to ESPN Page 2 and read through his archives to get an idea of his writing.
I mean no offense to any of the other writers I read, particularly my friends amongst the staff here. But nobody could write like Wiley could. Particularly not myself and that has nothing to do with humility. The plain simple truth is that Ralph Wiley not only could show you a larger truth you’d miss while obsessing over a smaller truth, but he’d force you to confront it. Particularly if you didn’t want to.
In that regard, I’m going to bare myself to the world and dare discuss one of Wiley’s best subjects, one I’ve always been afraid to confront: race. Sometimes, I admit that I felt Wiley would focus too much on race, believing that this was modern America, and things have never been better for people of other races. But it was like I heard Wiley’s voice inside, berating me for thinking that. "Hey, just because it might be better than ever before doesn’t mean that it’s good. You don’t see it because you’re white, and let me show you the world you don’t get to see." And in his writing, I finally got a real glimpse at the many faces of racism alive and quite active today.
I wish I could give justice to much of what Ralph illustrated through his writing, but I only can give one example - the inadvertent racism that I realized I showed people. Part of me knew what was out there in a vague sense, and I knew mostly how little I did know. And because of that, I was afraid that even my slightest action would end up offending someone of another race. So, to be honest, I avoided people that weren’t white. I did it because I didn’t want to offend, but isn’t that still backhanded racism? It was through Ralph’s writing that I came to understand this, and begin making amends. I won’t pretend that I have yet, but I at least can say that I’m better than what I was.
So I personally got that tangible idea from his writing. But just as important was that his writing, like all truly good prose, revealed what you can do with words. He ended up with a vibrant flow, which I personally liken to a New Orleans jazz impresario. He made his writing vibrant and deep, with words chosen with a precision that makes my own approach, the cluster bomb school of writing, to be the works of a clunky child. It’s worth noting how many writers on ESPN Page 2 try to imitate his style (sadly, not nearly to Wiley’s level), and how you almost want to implore others to imitate it even when you know it would be like Kenny G remaking Thelonious Monk’s "Memories of You." His work showed me how much you can do in so few words, how a great writer’s style is like a fingerprint, and that even something totally different from your usual oeuvre can pull you in when it’s art.
Really, there was art in what he wrote. Sometimes it was the high art of the college educated Wiley, who obviously paid much more attention in his comparative studies classes than I ever did. Sometimes, it was the homespun art of the backwoods Southern area he grew up in. And sometimes it was the raw art of the street, told through his "friend" the Road Dog. It’s often said about critics and journalists in general (no matter how much they want to admit it, journalists are more closely related to we critics than anything else) that they are all failed writers. Ralph Wiley was the greatest argument against that sentiment that I’ve ever come across.
In truth, part of the reason I’m writing this is because not ever bothering to contact Wiley is one of the few regrets that I have. I, being the sort that always wants to avoid regrets, usually jump at such opportunities. But I was lazy, figuring that he’d always write something that moved me one way or another and I’d finally write him. But my procrastination robbed me of a chance to talk to a writer that I highly esteem. I can only sit and wonder now what he might have said to me, wonder what he’d have to say about my own work.
I had been under a bit of writer’s block, having pushed myself hard to get projects done and also cope with having surgery done on my back. And when I read about Ralph’s death, the words just came pouring out freely. I almost want them to stop; I feel like the cannibal that gained strength feasting on the ideas of the lost writer. It’s like the blacksmith from Alundra, but with a less noble purpose. (Okay, did you really think I was going to write a whole column and avoid saying a thing about video games?) I know some will say that it’s a fitting tribute, and that if he had ever read it he would have loved it, and the usual treacle that follows such writing.
But like it’s the last truth he gets to show me, I know that I’m just another writer who needs a jolt before he can write again. I hope that I can find another writer who can jolt me like he did. I hope that I can glean something from his life and works, and blaze my own trail. This piece is my convoluted thanks to a man I never met, and who never knew that he helped me grow. One measure of a man is whom he inspires, and Ralph Wiley inspired me. I’ll let you judge how much of merit that is.
