Stay Up With Me (12 page)

 

In the middle of
the night
I grabbed the phone and hit redial, because I'd tried to call Mitchell after work; but I must have called Roland's number after that because he answered. I was pretty out of it and I said, “Can you
please
come over?” believing it was Mitchell, and Roland said, “I'll be there in twenty minutes.”

 

When he came over,
I said something very stupid. I said maybe I'd become a better person if I fell in and out of a coma the way he had.

“It's never that black-and-white,” he said, and gave me a test-smile to see if I'd been kidding.

I asked him about when he was out, what that was like.

“It was like dying . . . and dreaming at the same time—there are specific things I remember about it, the shape of a sound; time skipping backward and forward. A conversation about blood types.”

“What sort of things did you learn?”

“
Learn?
Hmmm. That I would die someday. That I had wasted a lot of time worrying about things that weren't important. It sounds trite when you say this sort of stuff aloud. It's a bit like in chess, when you can see the next three moves? I could do that. I could see the traps.”

“Do you want to sleep over?”

“I do,” he said. “But not tonight. How about tomorrow night?”

He was playing this perfectly.

 

He came over
the next night with five different boxes of Chinese food, a six-pack of Tsingtao, and a movie. I ate a little of everything and drank two and a half beers. My fortune cookie said that I was comfortable in my own skin, which didn't really sound like a fortune, and certainly not mine. “They should call them compliment cookies,” Roland said. His fortune said that he was wise in the way of finances. We imagined disparaging fortunes we'd sneak into Chinese restaurants. “Your spouse will be unfaithful and your children will dislike you,” I said, reading mine.

“Your investments will tank and the bank will seize your home,” he said.

I watched him as we polished off our beers and I could see this turning into something. I laughed out loud for no reason, a goofy, raucous sound that shocked me. He kissed me then and I kissed him back. And then we were rolling around on the floor, groping for body parts and kissing necks and shoulders. He had a much more athletic body than Mitchell, who, when you got right down to it, was too tall and too thin, his voice too raspy from cigarettes, his hair too long and directionless, until he cruelly buzzed it short (the way I'd urged him to have it cut) the week
after
we broke up. We started pulling at each other's clothes, and somewhere along the way I fell off the ride and back into the ditch.

Roland beamed at me affectionately, and I felt suffocated.

“I like this,” he said.

“Me too,” I said, slithering out from beneath him. “Let's go get some air.”

 

There was a soft
snowfall
outside and we decided to go sledding in the park. We passed Tavern on the Green with its garish holiday lights, and the honeyed words of a torch song streaming through an opened window; then we walked by Sheep Meadow and the Bandshell, uptown until we found the park's hidden sledding spots. Mitchell had found two long planks of cardboard in the recycling bins of my building, and we used them as sleds. Did I say Mitchell?
Roland
. We climbed to the top of the hill—Dog Hill, they call it, or more precisely Dog Shit Hill, because a lot of dogs do just that, only it's hidden way beneath the snow. It was very cold, and the ground felt hard, even as the new snow was falling. The sledding would be fast. I got a running start and jumped on the cardboard and I yelled out at the top of my lungs, “
Shit be gone!
” Which felt good, and liberating.

Roland followed me yelling the same thing, even louder. The cardboard glided nicely over the crunchy snow. The ground whipped by, and I could feel every bump and hard-cornered chunk of ice. I laid my body luge-style, and then I soared off of a sudden rise and flipped into the air for a full second and a half. The ground smacked my head, and for a moment it knocked me out, as though I'd inhaled the gas from a whipping cream canister, like we did in high school. I saw a trail of light like a comet in the sky, and then the world spun around me, white and dazzling. I gathered myself to my feet and went running back up the hill. Roland was already there. We started up again, faster this time. “This is completely crazy,” he said, with a reasonable, kind smile that I wanted to love. I wanted this. I allowed myself to believe it was possible. I could crash into a tree, or a rock, or a bank of snow, and land hard enough so that something inside me would break. I would stay out here, burning down the steep dark hill until it happened.

Letters from the Academy

Dear Mr. Wilcox,

I would like to let you know how your son Lee is progressing at the Tennis Academy. I've chosen to communicate by letter because I believe what we're witnessing requires more than a casual phone call or email, as I suspect you will agree.

I should start by confessing that I did not at the outset peg Lee as a star player. Your son was a bit spacey, and antisocial really, whereas the main cadre of top players cling to one another like a pack of young wolves. Lee has a tendency to look away when you speak so that it appears he isn't listening, though it has been my experience, as I'm sure it has been yours, that he's heard every word. He has invariably incorporated what I've suggested into his game.

But by the second week I'd see him staying late in front of the backboard and hitting way into the night, and there again at dawn with a hopper of balls and the targets, practicing a thousand or more serves. And now, a month in, I can see just a little Becker in his volleys and a touch of Agassi in his returns. I do not use those terms lightly. In the last tournament Lee was made to play the fourth seed, a boy from Kentucky with a huge serve-and-volley game, and Lee destroyed him in straight sets—6–2, 6–2. He never brags about his accomplishments, but I figured Lee would have told you this; when I talked to him a few days afterward, though, I understood that he probably didn't. He said he hasn't spoken to you in a while.

Lee won two other matches in that tournament, and when he finally lost, it was because of a broken string that forced him to borrow a racket. I plan to make a deal with Wilson so that Lee can begin to receive free equipment. I hope this will be an arrangement you will go along with. There is nothing you would need to do financially, but Lee would have to wear only Wilson clothes and use only Wilson rackets. In all other respects, I now think, he is ready for the responsibility such a deal would entail.

He still reads all the time when he isn't practicing and I wonder if that's what's caused his eyes to deteriorate. Usually he wears his contacts when he's playing but sometimes he wears those thick glasses, which makes other kids poke fun at him, although to his credit he doesn't seem to listen to them or care all that much. I'm not sure if he has any real friends here, other than a boy from the school our athletes attend who doesn't play tennis, but who watches Lee play. This boy smokes cigarettes, which I certainly hope Lee does not do, because it would result in his suspension from the Academy. So far, so good. There have been no issues with girls, although a few seem to be taking interest in him. I don't think it would be all that bad for Lee to go on a date or two, but I have not spoken to him about it, and I imagine that's more your territory than mine. There have been off-color things said about Lee and the boy from the school, although that's what's always said about unusual kids. I have caught Lee staring a few times at Vivi, the girl from Denmark, who is one of our best players and is something to look at.

What is so remarkable about Lee is his ability to focus on a single task, so unusual for a boy his age, or for anyone at any age. The world recedes for Lee when he is on the court, and his face looks purposefully placid, like Borg's or Lendl's. It's rather intimidating, really. And he has a terrific sense of balance. As he runs, you can imagine him keeping a stack of books over his head and not spilling one. His racket speed has improved, as has his footwork. These improvements are incremental, and barely detectable day to day, but I'm beginning to think he'll be one of our top players by this spring. It will be a different life for him, and perhaps for you, because I believe he will be traveling soon for tournaments, perhaps to the nationals. And I for one would like to be part of that.

I think that tennis isn't really all that important to Lee, but that whatever is in front of him becomes important, and tennis has been in front of him. He has a remarkable memory and seems to be able to read a book a night. I'm not sure I've ever seen him particularly upset, or all that happy, although when he's hanging out with the boy who smokes cigarettes and when he's watching Vivi play, he becomes more animated. That is all I can tell you right now. I hope this is as exciting to you as it is to us at the Academy. We are expecting very big things from Lee.

Sincerely yours,

Maximilian Gross

 

My Dear Mr. Wilcox,

I fear you have been out of town and therefore unable to reply to my last letter, or else you've read it and may still respond. I wanted to fill you in on the progress since our last correspondence, if we can call it progress, and I think we can. Lee has been practicing even harder, sharpening his footwork and volleying. It has gotten so that five boys can strike shots at him nearly simultaneously and he will cleanly volley all five balls back. He can retrieve the deepest lob after nearly touching the net, then sprint back for a drop shot on the opposite side of the court. The player who comes to mind when he does this is Wilander, or maybe Borg, whose fitness was legendary. Wilson has sent the first shipment of rackets, and I have strung them each with a combination of gut and synthetic nylon at fifty-two pounds, which allows for a tremendous amount of topspin but means that on flat shots Lee will still be able to keep the ball in the court. The boy he hangs out with has lately taken to smoking a pipe and wearing an army cap. Lee's grades have been outstanding in all his classes except for public speaking, where he got a B-. At sixteen, he reads at the graduate-school level, and his vocabulary is that of a man twice his age.

I have signed Lee up for a series of satellite tournaments, which will bring him in front of some significant crowds and provide us with a good testing ground. I very rarely tell a parent that their son or daughter has what it takes to make a living at our sport, but in Lee's case it is becoming apparent to us all. Just last week a collegiate player from Florida Tech stopped by the Academy to train with Lee. At the end of the day they played a set and Lee thrashed him 6–1. It was only practice and the collegiate player, one of our alums, was somewhat out of shape, due to a monthlong spell of mononucleosis. But the margin of victory was what sent shock waves that night through the Academy dining room.

I am concerned because we have not received your check for the spring, and while I'm quite confident that Lee will qualify for a full scholarship, I would like to talk to you about this and other matters, preferably on the telephone so there can be some back-and-forth. It would be better still if you could make the trip down here and see what your son's life is like. The other day I observed Lee and the Danish girl sitting on the practice court bench after a long workout, the two of them quite sweaty and flush, and I saw the Danish girl several times touching Lee's arm, and then resting her head on his shoulder. Again, I cannot be sure if there was anything significant going on, and nor would it be a problem, as the Danish girl is from a good family and is an extremely talented player ranked very high in Denmark. I only think that Lee would profit from some adult guidance on this matter.

The boy who smokes cigarettes is also a friend of the Danish girl. I saw him out on the court one night in blue jeans and the wrong shoes hitting balls with Lee while the Danish girl watched. We have strict dress rules at the Academy, and strict rules about allowing guests to play without clearing them through Clara at the front desk. I spoke to Lee about this and he assured me the smoker would not be playing at the Academy again. The three of them ate together at a table at the side of the pool, pizza slices cribbed from the Academy pizza party. I did not see this as a problem and would like Lee to feel he has freedom here and isn't being watched around the clock. There are entire days in which I barely see Lee, though not an hour passes without my thinking of something else we might do to optimize his prodigious talent.

There is a junior Davis Cup player coming to the Academy from Chile, a boy whose game harkens back to a young Yannick Noah, and I would like to have Lee play him in a match inside the newly refurbished Academy stadium. The match will be videotaped, and we will post clips of the most exciting points on the Academy website provided it goes well and Lee is successful, as I'm quite certain he will be.

With warm regards and in distant partnership,

Maximilian Gross

 

Dear Mr. Wilcox,

The match with Javier, the Chilean junior, was more than my middle-aged heart could take. In the warm-ups Lee was relaxed, powdering his ground strokes and crushing his overheads, and he took a 5–1 lead in the first set. But after that he began to spray shots, and double-fault, like a pitcher who mysteriously and suddenly loses control. I have seen this sort of meltdown eight or nine times, but it usually occurs for boys with more volatile temperaments than Lee's. It might have served as a lesson had Lee in fact lost the match, but Javier had his own, more theatrical and subequatorial meltdown in the third set, and Lee won through attrition more than perseverance.

When the match was over, Lee and the boy who smokes went to the movie theater at the mall. I saw them buy two pretzels, a slushy, and a chicken sandwich of suspect pedigree. They sat in the eighth row. I know this because I was in the fifteenth. It is not unusual for me to go to the movies, and I hadn't intended to spy on them, but the movie was at a convenient time for me, and I planned to leave before the end of the film so as not to inhibit them on their afternoon escape. There are no rules against seeing a movie on a Sunday, provided you make it back by dinnertime, and provided you've played at least four hours and run three miles, which Lee had done. I heard Lee laugh several times during the movie, once at a very serious, and in fact poignant, moment—a last conversation in a hospital ward between a husband and wife—and I'm quite sure he and the smoker were upsetting the family who sat in front of them.