Everything on the Line

by Bob Mitchell

  A beret-wearing passerby gives Ira the dirtiest look imaginable.

  A Xanax tablet burns a hole in the pocket of Jack Spade’s jeans.

  * * *

  Twenty-eighth of May, 2045, spring, evening, 8 o’clock, dinnertime, Paris, back room, La Gueuze restaurant, 19, rue Soufflot, Paris, 75005. The exact time and place when and where Ugo Bellezza first lays eyes upon the wondrous face of the rising Italian tennis star from Venice, Antonella Cazzaro.

  The moment strikes Ugo with the same precision and intensity as it did the great Italian poet Francesco Petrarca when he first gazed upon his unrequiting love, Laura, in sonnet LXI of the Canzoniere:

  Benedetto sia ‘l giorno, e ‘l mese, et l’anno,

  Et la stagione, e ‘l tempo, et l’ora, e ‘l punto,

  E ‘l bel paese, e ‘l loco ov’io fui giunto

  Da’ duo begli occhi che legato m’ànno…

  Blessed be the day, and the month, and the year,

  and the season, and the time, and the hour, and the point,

  and the beautiful country, and the place where I was joined

  to the two beautiful eyes that have bound me here…

  Fifteen-year-old Antonella’s gorgeous periwinkle eyes twinkle and flash across the table at her new acquaintance, contemporary and compatriot Ugo Bellezza.

  A button should be so lucky as to be as cute as Antonella Cazzaro.

  The two youths are sitting with Giglio, Gioconda, and Antonella’s mother, Pia, in the back room of La Gueuze, a roomy, festive brasserie in the fifth arrondissement in the shadow of the Panthéon that specializes in the three permanent members of Belgium’s culinary pantheon: ale, mussels, and fries. Antonella and Pia Cazzaro are in Paris for the French Open Girls Juniors, and Pia and Gioconda know each other through common friends, although the two youngsters have never met.

  Giglio Marotti gives a brief demonstration of the proper way to eat mussels by placing an empty shell in his right hand and using it as a pincer to extract the meat out of another, inhabited shell held by his left hand.

  Ugo, Gioconda, Antonella, and Pia follow suit, their clumsy initial attempts accompanied by giggles, then laughter that eventually subsides as they accrue a level of expertise with the newly learned manual method.

  “Delizioso!” Antonella coos as she plucks a mussel out of its bed and plops it between her perfect lips.

  “Ottimo!” her mother agrees enthusiastically.

  Not wishing yet to reveal the secret of his congenital infirmity, Ugo nods in agreement and smiles sheepishly.

  This is not like Ugo, who is usually at home in his own skin. But when he meets people he likes for the first time, and this is definitely one of those occasions, he tends to feel nervous and slightly paranoid.

  What will Antonella think of me when she finds out that I’m deaf? Will she think I’m stupid? Will she be interested in me, in being my friend? How will we be able to communicate? Che bella e dolce, how beautiful and sweet she is. I hope—

  A huge smile pasted on her face and her gorgeous Liz Taylor eyes fixed on Ugo, Antonella Cazzaro does something that stops Ugo’s breathing momentarily and leaves a single frite dangling goofily from his mouth.

  She places her left hand inside her right, then takes her left index finger and circles it around her mouth. Next, she clamps her right hand onto her nose and pulls it outward as if to extend her lovely nose another foot, Pinocchiolike, after which she makes a fist with her left hand, with her thumb sticking out, places it on her cheek, and twists it forward.

  Antonella knows how to sign!

  The lone Belgian fry drops from Ugo’s mouth and falls harmlessly onto his plate. Ugo’s mind is racing, trying to figure out how she knows sign language and does she have a deaf family member? and if not, how did she get so good at it?

  The words Antonella has signed with her hands are “in,” then “mouth,” then “wolf,” then “tomorrow.” In Italian, the first three add up to say, “in bocca al lupo,” “in the wolf’s mouth,” a colloquial way of saying “break a leg” or “good luck.” She has just wished Ugo good luck for the opening round of the French Open Juniors tomorrow, and in his native tongue and on his own home court!

  Proud mother-hen Pia puffs out her chest and Gioconda smiles that Mona Lisa smile at Giglio, who returns it with the authority and affection of a family member.

  Ugo feels a flush of warmth sweep through his entire body, from the top of his testa to the bottom of his piedi. Recovering from the initial shock, he pulls himself together and with his hands asks Antonella how it is that she knows how to sign.

  “I have watched you play with admiration and wanted very much to meet you someday and knew that day would come and I was told you were deaf so I taught myself first the alphabet and then a few words and I began to get fluent and now I can sign pretty much anything I wish to say!” Antonella signs, her gorgeous periwinkle eyes beaming across the table at her new friend.

  You could have knocked Ugo over with a strand of spaghettini.

  * * *

  “Listen up, you sonuvabitch,” Ira Spade shouts to his only child.

  Ira and Jack and manager Odi Mondheim are dining at Taillevent, a six-star restaurant, the highest possible fallutin joint in all of the City of Light.

  Ira is in his element, happy to be plunking down five, six hundred bucks a head for dinner at this fancy-shmancy establishment and telling himself that if his son does what he’s told and fulfills all his potential, he’ll be able to buy the frigging joint.

  “I’m gonna ask you one simple question,” Ira continues. “As you know, the following are ten of the greatest champions of all time: Bill Tilden, Ellsworth Vines, Jack Kramer, Pancho Gonzalez, John Newcombe, Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe, Boris Becker, Stefan Edberg, and Pete Sampras. So how many French Open titles, on the red clay, do you think they won between them?”

  “I dunno…fifteen?…twenty?…thirty?” a clueless Jack replies.

  “Zero! Zip! Zilch! Nada! That’s how many!” Ira spews. “And that’s how tough and how important it is for you to get to the finals and beat that little Italian sonuvabitch! Because if you beat him in the Juniors, then when—and not if!—you guys eventually play for the men’s title, you’ll be totally in his head, and when you beat him to a pulp, you’ll achieve what none of those great champions ever could!”

  A waiter strides up to the table, eager to please and formally dressed in white tie and tails, as in one of those old Fred Astaire movies.

  “May I interest you gentlemen in our specialties ziss evening?” he begins.

  Ira’s eyes tell him, “Sure thing, but make it snappy!”

  “Well, gentlemen,” Jean-Luc continues solicitously, “for starters, we haff a lovely parfait of duck liver…”

  Jack scrunches up his nose.

  “…or, if you prefer, perhaps a leetle frog pie?”

  Ira rolls his eyes toward the heavens.

  Jean-Luc perseveres, clears his throat. “For ze main course, may I interest you in ze rabbit with sage…”

  Jack cringes, closes his eyes, and wishes with all his might that the next specialty will be “ze grilled hot dog with ze mustard and ze sauerkraut.”

  “…or perhaps you would prefer a pastilla of pigeon?”

  Odi is about to get up and leave.

  “…or can we offer you ze flaky turnover of ris de veau?”

  “What’s that?” Jack asks.

  “Oh,” Jean-Luc says, “it is ze calf pancreas!”

  “Is that all you got tonight?” Ira asks, fast approaching ze end of heez rope.

  Jean-Luc sees the light. “No, we also haff for your eating pleasure ze filet de boeuf poêlé—”

  At the sound of the word boeuf, Ira jumps into action. “That’s what we been waiting for, the beef! We’ll have three of those!”

  “Very good, sir, and how would you like it cooked?” Jean-Luc says.

  “Medium,” Odi says.

  Jean-Luc winces.

 
; “Medium well,” Ira says.

  Jean-Luc struggles to control himself and to maintain his pleasant smile.

  “Well done, with ketchup!” Jack says.

  Jean-Luc breaks his pencil point on his note pad. But he doesn’t need the pencil anymore, because he will remember this last request until they lower him into the ground.

  “Very good, gentlemen. Enjoy your meals,” Jean-Luc says, bowing graciously and cursing these couthless American boors under his self-righteous Gallic breath.

  “Nothing like a good hunk of beef to remind you of home!” Odi snarls.

  “You got that right,” Ira agrees. “Now, Jack, I have a special surprise for you.”

  Jack smiles and wonders what lurks ahead.

  “I did a little research before we left for Paris. And guess what I found.”

  Clueless, Jack shrugs.

  “I Googleplexed ‘deaf sign language’ and went to the letter s and taught myself how to sign for stupid!”

  Looking fiercely into his son’s eyes, Ira knocks his fist violently against his forehead, then emits a diabolical paroxysm of raucous laughter that elicits dirty glances from all the surrounding tables. Odi joins in on the hilarity.

  “So, when you meet that little Italian sonuvabitch in the finals, I want you to pick an appropriate time in the match and then—boom!—lay the sign on him. Now whaddya spose he’ll thinka them apples?”

  Jack Spade gives his father this funny look and has a sudden urge to toss his cookies.

  * * *

  Monday, May 29, 2045 is finally here.

  And the French Open Juniors and, potentially, the big first showdown between the two most exciting and promising talents ever to grace a tennis court.

  This won’t be easy for either of these fifteen-year-olds, between playing on the thick, moist, tricky clay of Roland Garros and dealing with their youthful nerves and the boisterous host French fans and perhaps the strongest field of competitors ever, most of whom are three years older than they.

  Outside the Court Philippe Chatrier, the main stadium court at Roland Garros, a huge blue electronic scoreboard posts the main draw (singles, doubles, and mixed), the Juniors draw, and the Seniors draw, as well as all the seedings for these competitions.

  Ira Spade and Odi Mondheim stand at the base of the scoreboard and search for the posting of the top eight seeds for the Juniors. There, there they are:

  1—Ugo Bellezza (IT)

  1—Jack Spade (USA)

  3—David Oswin (USA)

  4—Marc Kripptoid (UK)

  5—Lance Donald (AUS)

  6—Allen Peters (USA)

  7—Petter Hållerstam (SW)

  8—Tristan Corbière (FR)

  “Bastards!” Ira rants. “They’re co-number one seeds, and they listed that little Italian sonuvabitch first!”

  * * *

  Through the opening five rounds, there are no surprises, as the first four seeds wend their ways through their respective quarters of the draw. Losing a total of only twenty games in his first five matches, Ugo Bellezza plays spectacularly as he turns aside Simone Nicolescu of Romania, France’s Julien Sorel, the Swede Björn Spendrups, the Dutchman Ard Verkerk, and the tough Aussie, Lance Donald, in the quarters.

  On the opposite half of the drawsheet, Jack Spade grunts and blusters and curses his way through ho-hum victories over the Argentine Guillermo Mastroianni, Kurt Hühnerleiter of Germany, the Russian Vassily Botvinnik, the clever Italian Antonio Caprioni, and the strapping Swede from the village of Mjillkrøk, Petter Hållerstam.

  The semis match Jack against the gritty little American, David Oswin, and place Ugo on the opposite side of the net from the Manchester redhead, Marc Kripptoid. Should they get through these matches, the two fifteen-year-old wunderkinder will at last have their long-awaited assignation, the emotional lead-up to which has been building for over two years now.

  David Oswin is the wiry, wily favorite son of Bala Cynwyd, PA. He is a brilliantly talented eighteen-year-old blessed with court intelligence, stamina, guile, and a wicked topspin forehand. He is ranked number three in the Juniors and is one tough dude on clay.

  In one hour and eleven minutes, Jack Spade eats him up and spits him out into little Oswins, 6-1, 6-0, 6-1.

  Marc Kripptoid is an eighteen-year-old bulldog who never gives up, makes few unforced errors, and has a killer topspin backhand. He is ranked number four in the Juniors and is one tough chap on clay.

  In fifty-six minutes, Marc is summarily disposed of by the elegantly ruthless pressure of Ugo Bellezza, 6-0, 6-2, 6-0.

  And so, having passed the tests of boisterous French fans, physical discomfort, exhaustingly long rallies, unbearable humidity, pissing Parisian precipitation, and clumpy, cakey clay, Jack Spade and Ugo Bellezza are pitted against each other for the very first time, and, to boot, for all the major Juniors marbles.

  * * *

  It is Sunday, June 11, 2045. A date that might well go down in Italian history, right alongside September 13, 1321 (the death of Dante); May 2, 1519 (the death of Leonardo da Vinci); February 18, 1564 (the death of Michelangelo); and, on a happier note, April 28, 1945 (the death of Mussolini). A date when tennis greatness will perhaps capture center stage like at no other time in the long and storied history of l’Italia.

  The date holds a similar importance for the U.S., potentially vying for placement in the pantheon of American unforgettables—July 4, 1776; June 6, 1944; and September 11, 2001.

  There is that much that has been built up and that much at stake.

  It is fifteen minutes before the big match, and in a corner of the players’ locker room, Jack Spade is anxiously—

  “It’s showtime!” Ira Spade shouts, mimicking Roy Scheider’s call to arms in All That Jazz.

  “Showtime!” Odi Mondheim mimics Ira mimicking Roy.

  Jack excuses himself, goes into the gentleman’s washroom, pukes in the sink, cleans it up, and pops a lifesaving Xanax into his mouth.

  And he looks into the mirror, brushes his jet-black hair back with all ten fingers, flashes at his reflection that devilish smile of his, and mumbles a single, obedient word under his breath.

  “Showtime!”

  * * *

  A 15,166 capacity crowd anxiously awaits the entrance of the two young whizzes into Court Philippe Chatrier. Unusual, not only because not only is a capacity crowd watching a Juniors match, but because a crowd of any kind is watching a Juniors match in Court Philippe Chatrier. The tournament committee has seen to it that the fans’ request to see this match merits this unprecedented venue.

  To thunderous applaudissement, thirty years of talent and brilliance enter the stadium, first the all-black-clad Jack Spade, then, all in white, the statue of David-come-to-life.

  While the prodigies warm up, the contrasts in style and demeanor couldn’t be more obvious. Jack is a living, breathing health hazard, with fire in his eyes, grunts belching from his mouth, and smoke coming out of his ears. Ugo is a composed Italian Hercules whose labor it is to slay this Cretan bull. In the oppressive heat, Jack is dressed in his intimidating, heat-soaking black Nike outfit. In his white Fila duds, Ugo is as cool as a concombre and as dry as an os. Intense battler Spade attacks every practice stroke like a charging lion, while Bellezza prances with the grace of an antelope. Lefty Jack wears his Halloween costume of rainbow-colored racquet strings and funky, rock-star reflecting glasses. Righty Ugo has nothing up his proverbial sleeve. Jack, in the mold of lefties Muster, Vilas, and Nadal, is an absolute physical specimen, a beast, perfectly built for the rigors of clay. Ugo is more like a Federer or a Borg, built athletically but not bestially. Jack grunts after every shot. Ugo is as silent as a B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber.

  Jack is fire, Ugo ice.

  As the two towel down one last time before the battle begins, words are exchanged in each corner of the boxing ring.

  On Ugo’s side of the net, Virgilio Marotti sits in a chair next to his protégé’s. Ugo lip-reads from Giglio’s mouth an aphoris
m, a quote from the great French poet, Paul Valéry: “On ne termine pas un poème, on l’abandonne,” “You don’t finish a poem, you abandon it.” Giglio signs that this is what tennis and art and, yes, life are all about. It means that you never stop working on something you are passionate about and on developing your skills. You never stop editing, polishing. And so the goal is not to win per se, but to improve, to be the best Ugo you can be.

  On Jack’s side of the net, Coach Ira Spade is blasting through his habitual pre-match rant, rat-a-tatting Jack about how he is on his way and not that many years removed from being the greatest tennis player who ever lived and how he’s gonna beat this little Italian sonuvabitch who’s standing in his path to greatness and if he doesn’t there’ll be hell to pay and now he’s quoting Lombardi and Hayes and Knight and Steinbrenner for the nth time about winning, winning, winning.

  In the first game of the match, Jack is serving at 40-0. And Ugo Bellezza is remembering the forty-love game against Tristan Corbière in Barcelona and that anything anytime is possible, but so is the well-schooled and well-prepared Jack Spade, and even though Ugo’s return of service is potentially the best ever, better than Connors’s or Agassi’s even, it is a moot point as fifteen-year-old Jack whistles a monster serve right on the T, sending chalk flying and freezing the helpless Ugo’s racquet as it rests on his left hand in front of his body.

  As Lloyd Bentsen would have said: Tristan Corbière, you are no Jack Spade.

  Early on, as the games fly by in this opening set, Jack is discovering that it will be an exercise in futility to cling to his expectation of winning with power. Not only are Ugo’s returns of serve too good and his groundies too deep and strong and—in the proud tradition of maestros Laver, Borg, and Nadal, who dominated on clay—exaggerated by unbelievable topspin, but great power net-rushing champions like Newcombe and Ashe and Tanner and McEnroe and Cash and Edberg and Becker and Krajicek and Ivanisovic and Sampras had never won this clay-court major. So Jack is forced to back up a step, pull back on the power a bit, and concentrate more than usual on his considerable defensive skills.