I have known about Eugene Fuqua (pronounced FEW-kway) as long as I can remember. He was my dad’s best friend growing up. His short life story is like something out of Flannery O’Connor: tragic, dark, and sinister. And his name is just absolutely perfect.
__________
If Eugene Fuqua had lived,
he’d have been sixty-five this year
(same as my father,
his childhood best friend,
who did not make it to sixty-five either,
on account of cancer).
But his car went off a bridge in Clio, Alabama,
and he drowned at sixteen.
His mother always suspected foul play.
(2009)
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