Open

by Andre Agassi

  They persist. They ask about the U.S. Open. The rivalry with Pete. What’s that like? You guys are great for tennis.

  Yes, well.

  Are you guys friends?

  Friends? Did they really just ask me that? Are they asking because they’re the Friends? I’d never thought of it before, but yes, I guess Pete and I are friends.

  I turn to Perry for support. But he’s like Brooke, weirdly starstruck. In fact he’s going a little native. He’s talking showbiz with the actors, dropping names, playing the insider.

  Mercifully, Brooke is summoned to her trailer. Perry and I follow and sit with her while a team of people blows out and combs her hair, and another team tends to her makeup and wardrobe. I watch Brooke as she watches herself in the mirror. She’s so happy, so hyper, like a girl primping for her sweet sixteen party, and I’m so out of place. I feel myself shutting down. I say the appropriate things, I smile and mouth encouragements, but on the inside I feel something like a valve shut. I wonder if what I feel is the same thing Brooke feels when I’m tense before a tournament, or grieving a loss afterward. My feigned interest, my canned answers, my fundamental lack of interest—is this what I reduce her to half the time?

  We walk to the set, a purple apartment with secondhand furniture. We stand around, killing time, while large men fuss with lights and the director confers with writers. Someone is telling jokes, trying to warm up the crowd. I find a seat in the front row, close to a fake door Brooke is supposed to enter. The crowd is buzzing, as is the crew. There is a sense of building anticipation. I can’t stop yawning. I feel like Pete, forced to watch Grease. I wonder why I have so much respect for Broadway, and such disdain for this.

  Someone yells: Quiet! Someone else yells: Action! Brooke steps forward and knocks at the fake door. It swings open, and Brooke delivers her first line. The audience laughs and cheers. The director yells, Cut! A woman several rows behind me yells: You’re doing great, Brooke!

  The director praises Brooke. She listens to the praise, nodding. Thank you, she says, but I can do it better. She wants to do it again, she wants another chance. OK, the director says.

  While they set up for the next take, Perry gives Brooke pointers. He doesn’t know the first thing about acting, but Brooke is feeling so insecure that she’d take notes from anyone right now. She listens and nods. They’re standing just below me, and he’s lecturing her as if he’s the head of the Actors Studio.

  Places, please!

  Brooke thanks Perry and runs to the door.

  Quiet, everybody!

  Brooke closes her eyes.

  Action!

  She knocks at the fake door, does the scene exactly the same way.

  Cut!

  Fantastic, the director tells Brooke.

  She hurries over to me and asks what I thought. Terrific, I say, and I’m not lying. She was. Even if TV annoys me, even if the atmosphere and the fakery turn me off, I respect hard work. I admire her dedication. She’s giving her all. I kiss her and tell her I’m proud.

  Are you finished?

  No, I have another scene.

  Oh.

  We move to a different set, a restaurant. Brooke’s stalker character is on a date with the object of her affection, Joey. She’s seated at a table across from the actor playing Joey Another interminable wait. More notes from Perry. At last the director yells, Action!

  The actor playing Joey seems like a nice enough guy. When the scene starts, however, I realize I’m going to have to kick his ass. Apparently the script calls for Brooke to grab Joey’s hand and lick it. But she takes it one step further, devouring his hand like an ice cream cone. Cut! That was great, the director says. But let’s try it once more. Brooke is laughing. Joey is laughing—wiping his hand on a napkin. I’m staring, wide-eyed. Brooke didn’t mention anything about hand licking. She knew what my reaction would be.

  This is not my life, this cannot be my life. I’m not really here, I’m not really sitting with two hundred people and watching my girlfriend lick another man’s hand.

  I look up at the ceiling, directly into the lights.

  They’re going to do it again.

  Quiet, please!

  Action!

  Brooke takes Joey’s hand and puts it in her mouth, up to the knuckles. This time she rolls her eyes back and runs her tongue along—

  I jump out of my seat, run downstairs, push through a side door. It’s dark. How did it get dark so fast? Right outside the door is my rented Lincoln. Behind me come Perry and Brooke. Perry’s mystified. Brooke’s frantic. She grabs my arm and asks, Where are you going? You can’t be going!

  Perry says, What’s wrong? What’s the matter?

  You know. You both know.

  Brooke is begging me to stay. So is Perry. I tell them there’s no chance, I don’t want to watch her lick that man’s hand.

  Don’t do this, Brooke says.

  Me? Me? I’m not doing anything. Go back and enjoy yourselves. Break a leg. Have some more hand. I’m out of here.

  I’M DRIVING FAST ON THE FREEWAY, weaving in and out of traffic. I’m not sure where I’m going, except that I’m not going back to Brooke’s. Fuck that. Suddenly I realize that I’m going all the way to Vegas, and I’m not stopping until I get there, and I feel great about this decision. I open up the engine and roar past the city limits, on into the desert, nothing between me and my bed but a stretch of wasteland and a swirl of stars.

  When the radio turns to static, I try to tune in my emotions. I felt jealous, yes, but also dislocated, out of touch with myself. Like Brooke, I was playing a part, the role of the Dopey Boyfriend, and I thought I was pulling it off. But when the hand licking started I couldn’t stay in character any longer. Of course, I’ve watched Brooke kiss men onstage before. I’ve also had the experience of meeting a perv who couldn’t wait to tell me about making out with my girlfriend on a movie set when she was fifteen. This is different. This is over the line. I don’t pretend to know where the line is, but hand licking is definitely over it.

  I pull up to the bachelor pad at two a.m. The driving has tired me, taken the edge off my anger. I’m still angry, but also contrite. I dial Brooke.

  I’m sorry. I just—I needed to get out of there.

  She says everyone asked where I was. She says I humiliated her, jeopardized her big break. She says everyone told her how good she was, but she couldn’t enjoy a minute of her success, because the only person she wanted to share it with was gone.

  You were a major distraction, she says, raising her voice. I had to block you out of my mind so that I could concentrate on my lines, which made everything harder. If I ever did anything like that to you, at a match, you’d be incensed.

  I couldn’t watch you lick that guy’s hand.

  I was acting, Andre. Acting. Did you forget that I’m an actor, that acting is what I do for a living, that it’s all pretend? Make-believe?

  If only I could forget.

  I start to defend myself, but Brooke says she doesn’t want to hear it. She hangs up.

  I stand in the middle of my living room and feel the floor shaking. I briefly consider the possibility that Vegas is being struck by an earthquake. I don’t know what to do, where to stand. I walk to the shelf that holds my tennis trophies and pick one up. I hurl it through the living room, through the kitchen. It breaks in several pieces. I pick up another and hurl it against the wall. One by one I do this with all my trophies. Davis Cup? Smash. U.S. Open? Smash. Wimbledon? Smash, smash. I pull the rackets out of my tennis bag and try to smash the glass coffee table, but only the rackets shatter. I pick up the broken trophies and smash them against the walls and then against other things in the house. When the trophies can’t be smashed anymore, I fling myself on the couch, which is covered with plaster from the gouged walls.

  Hours later I open my eyes. I survey the damage as if someone else is responsible—and it’s true. It was someone else. The someone who does half the shit I do.

  My phone rings. Brooke
. I apologize again, tell her about breaking my trophies. Her tone softens. She’s concerned. She hates that I was so upset, that I got jealous, that I’m in pain. I tell her I love her.

  ONE MONTH LATER I’m in Stuttgart for the start of the indoor season. If I were to list all the places in the world where I don’t want to be, all the continents and countries, the cities and towns, the villages and hamlets and burgs, Stuttgart would be at the top of my list. If I live to be a thousand years old, I think, nothing good is ever going to happen to me in Stuttgart. Nothing against Stuttgart. I just don’t want to be here, now, playing tennis.

  Nevertheless, here I am, and it’s an important match. If I win, I will consolidate my number one ranking, which Brad badly wants. I’m playing MaliVai Washington, whom I know well. I played him all through juniors. Good athlete, covers the court like a tarp, always makes me beat him. His legs are pure bronze, so I can’t attack them. I can’t tire him out like a typical opponent. I have to outthink him. And so I do. I’m up a set, rolling along, when suddenly I feel as if I’ve stepped in a mousetrap. I look down. The bottom of my shoe has fallen off. Peeled away.

  I didn’t bring an extra pair of tennis shoes.

  I halt the match, tell officials that I need new shoes. An announcement is made over the loudspeaker, in urgent staccato German. Can someone lend a shoe to Mr. Agassi? Size ten and a half?

  It has to be a Nike, I add—because of my contract.

  A man in the upper bleachers rises and waves his shoe. He would be happy, he says, to loan me his Schuh. Brad goes up to the stands and retrieves it. Though the man is a size nine, I force his shoe on my foot, like some half-wit Cinderella, and resume play.

  Is this my life?

  This can’t be my life.

  I’m playing a match for the number one ranking in the world, wearing a shoe borrowed from a stranger in Stuttgart. I think of my father using tennis balls to mend our shoes when we were kids. This feels more awkward, more ridiculous. I’m emotionally exhausted, and I wonder why I don’t just stop. Walk off. Leave. What keeps me going? How am I managing to select shots and hold serve and break serve? Mentally I leave the arena. I go to the mountains, rent a ski cabin, make myself an omelet, put my feet up, breathe in the snowy smell of the forest.

  I tell myself: If I win this match, I’ll retire. And if I lose this match, I’ll retire.

  I lose.

  I don’t retire. Instead, I do the opposite of retiring: I get on a plane to Australia to play in a slam. The 1996 Australian Open is only days away, and I’m the defending champ. I’m in no frame of mind. I look deranged. My eyes are bloodshot, my face is gaunt. The flight attendant should kick me off. I almost kick myself off. Minutes after Brad and I board, I nearly jump out of my seat and run for it. Brad, seeing my expression, takes my arm.

  Come on, he says. Relax. You never know. Maybe something good will happen.

  I swallow a sleeping pill and down a vodka, and when I open my eyes the plane is taxiing to the gate in Melbourne. Brad drives us to the hotel, the Como. My head is in a fog as thick as mashed potatoes. A bellboy shows me to my room, which has a piano and a spiral staircase with shiny wood steps in the center. I tap a few keys on the piano, stagger up the steps to bed. I fall backward. My knee hits the sharp edge of a metal balustrade and tears open. I tumble down the stairs. Blood is everywhere.

  I call Gil. He’s there in two minutes. He says it’s the patella, the kneecap. Bad cut, he says. Bad bruise. He bandages me, puts me on the couch. In the morning he shuts me down. He doesn’t let me practice. We have to be careful with that patella, he says. It’ll be a miracle if the thing holds up for seven matches.

  Limping noticeably, I play the first round with a bandage on my knee and a film over my eyes. It’s plain to fans, sportswriters, commentators, that I’m not the player I was a year ago. I drop the first set and quickly fall behind two breaks in the second. I’m going to be the first defending champion since Roscoe Tanner to lose a first-round match in a slam.

  I’m playing Gastón Etlis, from Argentina, whoever that is. He doesn’t even look like a tennis player. He looks like a substitute schoolteacher. He has sweaty ringlets and a sinister five-o’clock shadow. He’s a doubles guy, only playing singles because by some miracle he qualified. He looks astonished to be here. A guy like this, I normally beat him in the locker room with one hard stare, but he’s up a set on me and leading in the second set. Jesus. And he’s the one suffering. If I look pained, he looks panicked. He looks as if he has a ninety-pound bullfrog lodged in his throat. I hope he has the balls to close me out, to finish me off, because I’m better off right now with a loss and an early exit.

  But Etlis gags, freezes, makes shockingly bad decisions.

  I start to feel weak. I shaved my head this morning, full-on, bare-scalp bald, because I wanted to punish myself. Why? Because it still rankles that I ruined Brooke’s cameo on Friends, because I broke all my trophies, because I came to a slam without putting in the work—and because I lost to Pete at the U.S. Fucking Open. You can’t fool the man in the mirror, Gil always says, so I’m going to make that man pay. My nickname on the tour is The Punisher, because of the way I run guys back and forth. Now I’m hell-bent on punishing my most intractable opponent, myself, by burning his head.

  Mission accomplished. The Australian sun is flame-broiling my skin. I scold myself, then forgive myself, then press reset and find a way to tie the second set. Then I win the tiebreak.

  My mind is chattering. What else can I do with my life? Should I break up with Brooke? Should I marry her? I lose the third set. Again Etlis can’t stand prosperity. I win the fourth set in another tiebreak. In the fifth set Etlis wears out, gives up. I’m neither proud nor relieved. I’m embarrassed. My head looks like a blood blister. Put a blister on his brain.

  Later, reporters ask if I worry about sunburn. I laugh. Honestly, I tell them, sunburn is the least of my worries. I want to add: I’m already mentally fried. But I don’t.

  In the quarters I play Courier. He’s beaten me six straight times. We’ve had terrific battles, on the court and in the newspapers. After he beat me at the 1989 French Open, he complained about all the attention I get. He said he felt as if he forever plays second fiddle to me.

  Sounds like an insecurity problem, I told reporters.

  To which Courier shot back: I’m insecure?

  He’s also been chippy about my ever-changing appearance and psyche. Asked what he thought of the new Agassi, he once said: You mean the new Agassi, or the new new Agassi? We’ve patched things up since then. I’ve told Courier that I root for his success, that I consider him a friend, and he’s said the same. But there’s still a curtain of tension between us, and there may always be, at least until one of us retires, since our rivalry dates back to puberty, back to Nick.

  The match starts late, delayed by the women’s quarters. We get on the court close to midnight and play nine games on serve. So this is how it’s going to be. Then the rain falls. Officials could close the roof, but it would take forty minutes. They ask if we’d rather come back tomorrow. We both say yes.

  Sleep helps. I wake refreshed, wanting to beat Courier. But it’s not Courier on the other side of the net—it’s a pale facsimile. Despite being up two sets to love, he looks tentative, burned out. I recognize that look. I’ve seen it in the mirror many times. I swoop in for the kill. I win the match, beating Courier for the first time in years.

  When reporters ask about Courier’s game I say: He’s not where he wants to be.

  I want to say: There’s a lot of that going around.

  The win helps me regain the number one rank. Once again I’ve dethroned Pete, but it’s just another reminder of when I didn’t, couldn’t, beat him.

  In the semis I face Chang. I know I can win, but I also know that I will lose. In fact I want to lose, I must lose, because Becker is waiting in the final. The last thing I need right now is another holy war with Becker. I couldn’t handle that. I wouldn’t have the
stomach for it, which means I’d lose. Given a choice between Becker and Chang, I’d rather lose to Chang. Besides, it’s always easier psychologically to lose in the semis than in the final.

  So I’ll lose today. Congratulations, Chang. I hope you and your Messiah will be very happy.

  But losing on purpose isn’t easy. It’s almost harder than winning. You have to lose in such a way that the crowd can’t tell, and in a way that you can’t tell—because of course you’re not wholly conscious of losing on purpose. You’re not even half conscious. Your mind is tanking, but your body is fighting on. Muscle memory. It’s not even all of your mind that purposely loses, but a breakaway faction, a splinter group. The deliberately bad decisions are made in a dark place, far below the surface. You don’t do those tiny things you need to do. You don’t run the extra few feet, you don’t lunge. You’re slow to come out of stops. You hesitate to bend or dig. You get handsy, not using your legs and hips. You make a careless error, compensate for the error with a spectacular shot, then make two more errors, and slowly but surely you slide backward. You never actually think, I’m going to net this ball. It’s more complicated, more insidious.

  At the post-match news conference Brad tells reporters: Today, Andre hit the wall.

  True, I think. So very true. But I don’t tell Brad that I hit the wall every day. It would crush him to know that today the wall felt good, that I kissed the wall, that I’m glad I lost, that I’d rather be on that plane back to Los Angeles than lacing them up for a rematch with our old friend B. B. Socrates. I’d rather be anywhere but here—even Hollywood, my next stop. Since I lost, I’ll get home just in time to watch the Super Bowl, followed by the special hour-long episode of Friends, featuring Brooke Shields.

  19

  PERRY GRINDS ME EVERY DAY, asking what’s wrong, what’s the matter. I can’t tell him. I don’t know. More accurately, I don’t want to know. I don’t want to admit to Perry or myself that a loss to Pete can have this kind of lingering effect. For once I don’t want to sit with Perry and try to unravel the skeins of my subconscious. I’ve given up on understanding myself. I have no interest in self-analysis. In the long, losing struggle with myself, I’m tanking.