So what did I want to do during the three months before I would be commanded to play again in the summer league?
Get high. Get laid. And read.
Also do some light running and light lifting and hope that my enthusiasm for the game would be sufficiently restored so I could kick ass down in Orlando.
The problem was to figure out where to live until then.
Definitely not in Oklahoma City. In fact, I packed my stuff as soon as I got back to my house from the exit meeting.
LA? Nah, too busy, too crazy.
Miami? Too hot and humid, too much flash, and too many elderly Jews.
Portland? I liked it there, but how could I score drugs in an NBA city that was populated by so many well-informed hoop-o-philes?
San Francisco? Maybe.
Phoenix? UGH!
I went through all of the cities I’d ever visited, but New York was the only sensible location.
I could stay at some anonymous motel, say, in Queens. I could depend on some of my old high school teammates to hook me up with willing women and potent pot. I could do my running on the outdoor track at Reagan H.S., lift at a nearby YMCA, and if my chops came back from the dead, join the ongoing runs at Kingsborough—or even at St. John’s.
So I loaded the Jeep, bought several dozen CDs—the Dead, Neil Young, Jimi, the New Riders, Derek and the Dominoes, Van the Man. Tunes I could bop and/or sing along with on my long drive.
About halfway along the 1,500-mile trip, I stayed the night at a cheapo motel right off the highway on the outskirts of Cincinnati. Just as I nodded off, my cell phone buzzed with a call from Collison.
“I heard about your meeting,” he said. “That wasn’t very smart what you did. No need to antagonize your bosses, no matter what your job is.”
“Those guys are so full of shit. They said—”
“I know what they said. I spoke to McCue last night.”
“But I was right—”
“Doesn’t matter, Elliot. Right is whatever they say it is.”
“Fuck them and everybody who looks like them. I’m guaranteed for another season, so what can they do to me?”
“We’ll see. . . . Where are you? Still in Oklahoma?”
“No, I’m on the road. Heading back to New York.”
“Good. Good. You need some downtime to get your head straight. Here’s something I strongly suggest that you do. . . . Do you know who John Lucas is?”
“Yeah. He runs the NBA’s official rehab program down in Houston. What does that have to do with me? ”
“His off-season program begins in about ten days, and there are lots of guys who’re gonna be there on the QT. If you know what I mean?”
“Yeah. So?”
“So they scrimmage every day after their therapy sessions, and the runs are extraordinary. You’d be surprised how many top-notch players are secretly enrolled there. Even a few All-Stars. And they all play as hard as they can.”
“So?”
“So you should get yourself down there, Elliot. Not for the drug therapy, just for the runs. The experience would do wonders for your game. And you’d be in great shape for the summer league. It was McCue who suggested this, and he said they would pay all of your expenses. It’s a great deal and a great opportunity, Elliot. And a way to get back into McCue’s good graces.”
“Maybe. Let me think about it while I chill for a few days.”
Not a fucking chance!
“Great. I presume you have enough ready cash, and there’s always your credit card. So I’ll continue to deposit your checks in the OKC bank.”
Great yourself. Wonderful. Thanks. No thanks. Good-bye.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Isettled into a motel in Hempstead, on the other side of the island from Hofstra. And I few phone calls quickly reconnected me with a couple of my old high school teammates. Particularly Mark Smithson, who was now a big shot in some kind of computer business that, in my hazy understanding, seemed like something out of a futuristic science fiction movie. I hadn’t seen him in about a year, and since then he’d also become a father, but he was willing to sell me a few ounces from his stash at what he’d paid—$75 per.
Whatever his life was like, Mark looked like he was getting old in a hurry. His black curly hair that once spilled over his eyebrows was now retreating and leaving him half-bald. There were tight worry lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth. Even more noticeable was the loose paunch that flopped over his belt.
He used to be a highflyer, but now it was doubtful whether he could jump over the Sunday edition of the New York Times.
Anyway, he seemed happy, and I couldn’t help envying him.
After the transaction and a long night drinking beers and reminiscing in a local bar, Mark had an idea. Since I’d confessed to being unattached and extremely horny, he mentioned that his wife had an older sister, Monica Raymond, who was really “well built, good-looking, very smart” and had recently got divorced from a slimy guy that Mark and his wife never really liked and weren’t sure that Monica really liked either. “But the guy was rich and took her on holidays to Puerto Rico and bought her lots of expensive stuff.”
“That doesn’t speak well of her.”
“She’d been working on her master’s essay for about a year, then after getting that she was taking courses at Hofstra to get a PhD. She was so occupied with her studies that it was easy to live with him. You know? But when she started researching her dissertation, and didn’t have classes to attend, she had to spend more time with him than she had in years. That’s when she finally realized, or maybe remembered, what a boring asshole he really was. I mean, so listen, E. . . . Let’s do this. . . . There’s this new Chinese restaurant that’s really very good. Linda and me ate there about a week before the baby was born. . . . By the way, you’ve got to come over and see him. He’s a trip. . . . Anyway, why don’t all four of us go out to dinner there? Like a double date, right? Then you two could meet without any pressure, okay?”
“Sure. I’m free any time.”
“All right! I’ll get a babysitter and set it up. You’ll really dig her, believe me.”
She was tall—maybe a six-footer—with long black hair that draped over her shoulders, appropriately busty, slim-hipped, with bottomless gray eyes. She was certainly pretty and, except for a slightly humped nose, would have been beautiful.
We were alone because Mark had called just as I was leaving the motel to say that since the baby was feverish, he and his wife had opted to stay home.
She had such a soft, almost melodious voice that I had to lean slightly forward to hear. And after we introduced ourselves and shook hands, she seemed to be very distracted.
“What’s the matter?” I asked. “Are you sorry you came? We don’t have to—”
“No, no,” she said. “It’s just, um, my work. There’s a problem that I’m having a hard time with.”
And her work was?
“Trying to finish my dissertation and get the stupid piece of paper so I can try and get a real job.”
“So your current job is fake?”
She laughed and her wide smile exposed her gum lines above and below her perfect teeth. “In a way it is. I mean, I pay my bills by substitute teaching in the Hempstead school system. But there’s no real teaching happening. All I’m supposed to do is keep the kids from running wild. They’re mostly black kids from broken homes looking for attention. I know it sounds like a cliché, but it’s true. Sad but true. And it’s exhausting. Yelling at them. Threatening to send for the dean of students, who’s a really mousy guy and very afraid of them. Sometimes I’m so tired when I get home that I can’t find the energy to work on the fucking thing. But what can I do? I need the money.”
“Tell me about your dissertation.”
“It’s about the conventions in medieval literatur
e. The Bower of Bliss. The—“
“Dream Vision.”
“What? How do you know that?”
“My father—”
“Hersch! Doctor Hersch! I didn’t make the connection. I took his course in my first semester in the program and he made a medievalist of me.”
“Really? What was he like?”
“Crusty, opinionated.”
“That sounds right.”
“But a terrific teacher. Passionate about his subject, with a total command of it. Able to make every detail, every reference, fascinating. He also had a wonderful presence. Devastating whenever any of us said or wrote something stupid, but entirely supportive when we got something right. What’s he like as a father?”
“You said it before . . . a crusty, opinionated old bastard.”
“Oh.”
“But since my mom died, I have nothing to do with him. Which suits us both.”
We ordered our meal, and discussed the merits of D. W. Robertson’s Preface to Chaucer, which provided the basis for my father’s own study—which I was sure he was still working on. When our food came, I was impressed by her dexterity with the chopsticks.
Then we tried to stump each other with obscure medieval quotations: “A field full of folkes,” which I easily recognized was from Piers the Ploughman. And I was even more impressed when she knew that “What is this world? What asketh men to have?/ Now with his love, now in his colde grave” was from “The Knight’s Tale.”
After we stopped laughing, while munching on the delicious Peking Duck, she finally got around to asking me what my work was.
“I’m a professional basketball player.”
“Oh. Is that the game with the bats and the balls?”
And I think that’s exactly the moment when I fell in love with her.
I gave her a quick, simplified explanation: “Five big guys try to put a large ball through a horizontal ring at one end of a ninety-four-foot wooden court, while the five guys on the other team try to do the same at a ring set up on the other side of the court, each team trying to prevent the other from scoring.”
I drew a crude representation of a court on a napkin and, though she tried hard to grasp the concept, she only had this to say: “It doesn’t seem to make much sense.”
“Actually, it’s a very popular sport, and players who are good enough get paid millions to play.”
“Including you?”
“Yes. Although, I’m not nearly one of the best. . . . It’s a long story.”
Which she was anxious to hear, so I laid it all out. From high school to USA to the NBA.
Then I had a brainstorm. “What if we go to an outdoor basketball court in a school yard? After all, tomorrow’s Saturday. Or a playground. I’ll bring a ball and I can show you what the game is like.”
She loved the idea.
“So,” I said in a rather forced casual tone, “Mark said you’d been married.”
“Yes,” she said. Then she tweezed another bite off the duck.
“You don’t have to—”
“No, that’s okay. It’s really a long story, and I don’t know how short I can make it.”
“No rush.”
“Well, my dad’s a rich divorce lawyer and my mom runs around doing all kinds of charitable work. For autism awareness, Greenpeace, computers for kids, the March of Dimes, you name it. She even raises funds for the ASPCA. So, with both of them so busy, my sister and I were mostly raised by live-in nannies. Lots of them, because my mom was never satisfied with any of them. They were stealing the silverware, or they didn’t clean the toilets to suit her standards, or they didn’t change my underwear every day. Even though some of them, most of them, I really liked. So I was always anxious and confused, withdrawn and unable or unwilling to make friends at school. I felt that if I got to like one of my schoolmates, something would happen to them. Like their family would suddenly move, or they’d get killed in some accident, or they’d just simply disappear. My sister is three years older than me and we never really got along. She quit school when she was seventeen and moved in with her boyfriend By the time I got to high school, I was mostly on my own. And very lonely. College wasn’t much better. Then I met Jason in my second semester in grad school. He taught the Elizabethan drama class I took. And he was so friendly. So friendly, so smart, so funny. I mean, nobody had really been that nice to me. So there was no way I could resist Jason. Well, he got me pregnant, we got married, and my dad must’ve spent about a hundred thousand on the wedding. There were like almost three hundred guests. It was ridiculous. I mean, I married the guy because he was nice to me. Anyway, the baby was stillborn. Plus, Jason turned out to be a serial student-fucker. So we split three years later and the divorce came through a few months ago. And my dad made sure that Jason didn’t get a penny.”
She didn’t frown or tear up while she told her tale. Her only noticeable reaction was a shrug when she finished.
“I think I need another glass of wine,” she said.
We’d arranged to meet early the next morning at a junior high school schoolyard just a few blocks away from where she lived. I stopped off at a sporting goods store to buy a women’s-sized ball, and when I arrived ten minutes early, she was already there. Dressed in sneakers, white tennis shorts, and a baggy, gray Hofstra University sweatshirt.
“This is fun,” she said when she easily caught a soft pass from three feet away.
When I threw her some longer passes and some bounce passes, I was impressed by her good hands. Layups were next, and I taught her to shoot from the hip instead of with an overhead release. She missed ten in a row, then yipped with delight and did a quick dance when she made one.
Dribbling was hard for her.
“Don’t patty-cake it,” I said. “Wait for the ball to come up to your hand. . . . Yes. Like that.”
“Okay. Now I get to show you how I learned how to dribble.”
As she lifted her right leg, she bounced the ball under it and caught it in the middle of her body. She then repeated the same move under her left leg. All the while singsonging this in perfect time with every bounce:
“‘A’ my name is Anna. And my husband’s name is Alan. We live in Alabama. And we sell apples.”
Then she tossed the ball to me, saying, “Your turn.”
“‘B’ my name is Billy. And my wife’s name is Barbara. We live in Brooklyn. And we sell bagels.”
We laughed, hugged, engaged in some serious kissing, and walked over to her apartment, where I spent the night. She shut off her phone so she couldn’t be called to sub in the morning. So I stayed the next night, and the one after that. Really, we only got out of bed to order in dinners or to visit the bathroom.
Crazy as it sounds, we declared undying love and fantasized about getting married and living in Oklahoma City. After, of course, she’d completed her dissertation.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Over the next few weeks, Monica and I were virtually inseparable. I did my running and lifting only when she was called to sub. Otherwise, I checked out of the motel and moved in with her and we spent our days making love, visiting museums in the city, taking rides on the Staten Island Ferry, going on picnics, working on her dissertation, and just hanging around and talking.
However, our peaceful, hopeful bliss was periodically interrupted by a series of bad news from Brook Collison.
“Elliot, it’s me. The Thunder fired McCue. You know? The general manager? All the assistant coaches are also gone.”
“Including Richardson?”
“Yes. But Davis is still there.”
Monica’s on-court education continued to the point where she could make one-of-five layups, but only from the right side. She could also dribble the ball for at least thirty seconds without mishap.
“Elliot, it’s me. McCue was replaced by Barry Millbrook.
You know? The assistant GM with the Bucks?”
We spent another day in the city. This one at the Forty-Second Street New York Public Library, where I helped Monica photocopy several scholarly articles.
“Elliot. Millbrook just called to say the team wants to buy you out. He said they have the Number Two pick in the draft, and besides, he wants to bring in his own players.”
“Shit-fuck! Do we have to agree to do this?”
“No. But do you really want to be with a team that doesn’t want you? I mean, you could wind up playing the whole season in the D-League.”
“That’s fucked.”
“Okay, so if you do agree, then I’ll start the negotiations.”
All right. So we won’t be living in Oklahoma City. This whole buyout business could very well be a blessing in disguise. Any other team in any other city with any other coach would have to be an improvement.
Right?
“So, your second-year contract is for one point fifteen million, and their original offer was six hundred thousand. I got them up to seven fifty. What do you think?”
“What do you think?”
“I think the most I can squeeze them for is another fifty thousand.”
Although she hadn’t done all her research, Monica started writing. I told her she should’ve waited until she had everything she needed, but she disagreed. We were on the verge of having our first argument, until I yielded, saying that I had complete faith in her methodology.
“They said no. Seven fifty was as high as they’d go.”
“What’s our alternative?”
“You could renege on the agreement to accept a buyout. That way they’d be obliged to pay the entire contractual amount and you’d be an unrestricted free agent. Which you’d become if we accepted their offer anyway. Either way, the full amount counts on their salary cap.”
“So why not go that route from the beginning?”
Trouthe, Lies, and Basketball Page 15