Thanks, Willie

As Jonathan Taylor watches his hero Willie Mays decline with age and fall down on the baseball field, old memories that he thought he had left buried return. He thinks back 20 years to when he was a black boy growing up in the Washington Heights section of Harlem with a crippling stammer that left him unable to talk. He remembers the only place he could find peace and escape the ridicule was in a fantasy world totally of his own imagination. He recalls one magical summer when he played stickball with Willie, learned about his community and history from a neighborhood bookie and a World War 1 hero, and went on an adventure which terrified and endangered him, but began to change his life. At the beginning of the summer, he cannot talk, at the end he bears witness to one of the greatest moments in baseball history. Sustained by his mother's love, his stutter eases and loosens its grip as he grows older. Wherever he goes, his bond with Willie remains strong and true. He graduates college, becomes a teacher, and a husband. He moves away from Washington Heights. He gets out. He never goes back. His life is good. The shame and self-hate of the stuttering, frightened boy have been safely tucked away in a distant memory. However, when he sees Willie decline and fall, they all come rushing back and he must deal with them. Once again, he looks to Willie.