Open: An Autobiography

He already gives me Excedrin, Philly. He makes me take Excedrin before a match, because it’s loaded with caffeine.

Yeah, I know. But these pills I’m talking about are different. These pills are tiny, white, round. Don’t take them. Whatever you do.

What if Pops makes me? I can’t say no to Pops.

Yeah. Right. OK, let me think.

Philly closes his eyes. I watch the blood rushing to his forehead, turning it purple.

OK, he says. I got it. If you have to take the pills, if he makes you take them, play a bad match. Tank. Then, as you come off the court, tell him you were shaking so bad that you couldn’t concentrate.

OK. But Philly - what are these pills?

Speed.

What’s that?

A drug. Gives you lots of energy. I just know he’s going to try to slip you some speed.

How do you know, Philly?

He gave it to me.

Sure enough, at the nationals in Chicago my father gives me a pill. Hold out your hand, he says. This will help you. Take it.

He puts a pill on my palm. Tiny. White. Round.

I swallow the pill and feel OK. Not much different. Slightly more alert. But I pretend to feel very different. My opponent, an older kid, poses no challenge, and still I carry him, drag out points, hand him several games. I make the match look tougher than it is. Walking off the court I tell my father I don’t feel right, I want to pass out, and he looks guilty.

OK, he says, rubbing his hand across his face, that’s not good. We won’t try that again.

I phone Philly after the tournament and tell him about the pill.

He says, I fucking knew it!

I did just what you told me to do, Philly, and it worked.

My brother sounds the way I imagine a father is supposed to sound. Proud of me and scared for me at the same time. When I return from nationals I grab him and hug him and we spend my first night home locked in our room, whispering across the white line, cherishing our rare victory over Pops.

A short time later I play an older opponent and beat him. It’s a practice match, no big deal, and I’m much better than the opponent, but once again I carry him, drag out points, make the match look tougher than it is, just as I did in Chicago. Walking off Court 7 at Cambridge - the same court on which I beat Mr. Brown - I feel devastated, because my opponent looks devastated. I should have tanked all the way. I hate losing, but I hate winning this time because the defeated opponent is Philly. Does this devastated feeling prove I don’t have the killer instinct? Confused, sad, I wish I could find that old guy, Rudy, or the other Rudy before him, and ask them what it all means.

4

I’M PLAYING A TOURNAMENT at the Las Vegas Country Club, vying for a chance to go to the state championship. My opponent is a kid named Roddy Parks. The first thing I notice about him is that he too has a unique father. Mr. Parks wears a ring with an ant frozen inside a large gumdrop of yellow amber. Before the match starts, I ask him about it.

You see, Andre, when the world ends in a nuclear holocaust, ants will be the only things that survive. So I’m planning for my spirit to go into an ant.

Roddy is thirteen, two years older than I, and big for his age, with a military crew cut. But he looks beatable. Right away I see holes in his game, weaknesses. Then, somehow, he fills in the holes, papers over the weaknesses. He wins the first set.

I talk to myself, tell myself to suck it up, dig in. I take the second set.

Bearing down now, I play smarter, quicker. I feel the finish line. Roddy is mine, he’s toast.

What kind of name is Roddy anyway? But a few points slip away, and now Roddy is raising his arms above his head, he’s won the third set, 7:5, and the match. I look into the stands for my father, and he’s staring down, concerned. Not angry - concerned. I’m concerned too, but damned angry also, sick with self-loathing. I wish I were the frozen ant in Mr. Parks’s ring.

I’m saying hateful things to myself as I pack my tennis bag. Out of nowhere a boy appears and interrupts my rant.

Hey, he says, don’t sweat it. You didn’t play your best today.

I look up. The boy is slightly older than I, a head taller, wearing an expression that I don’t like. There’s something different about his face. His nose and mouth are out of alignment.

And, the capper, he’s wearing a fruity shirt with a little man playing polo? I want no part of him.

Who the fuck are you? I say.

Perry Rogers.

I turn back to my tennis bag.

He won’t take a hint. He drones on about how I didn’t have my best game, how much better I am than Roddy, how I’ll beat Roddy the next time, blah, blah. He’s trying to be nice, I guess, but he’s coming off like a know-it-all, like some kind of Björn Borg Jr., so I stand and pointedly do an about-face. The last thing I need is a consolation speech, which is more point-less than a consolation trophy, especially from a kid with a man playing polo on his chest.

Slinging my tennis bag over my shoulder I tell him: What the fuck do you know about tennis?