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The line is silent. Then, in a kind of whisper, Philly asks, How does it feel?

I can’t believe how thoughtless I’ve been, shouting in Philly’s ear when he must feel bitterly disappointed. I wish I could throw half of my ATP points on his chest. In a tone of supreme boredom, stifling a pretend yawn, I tell him: You know what? It’s no big deal. It’s overrated.

W
HAT MORE CAN
I
DO
? Nick, Gabriel, Mrs. G, Doc G—no one seems to notice my antics anymore. I’ve mutilated my hair, grown my nails, including one pinky nail that’s two inches long and painted fire-engine red. I’ve pierced my body, broken rules, busted curfew, picked fistfights, thrown tantrums, cut classes, even slipped into the girls’ barracks after hours. I’ve consumed gallons of whiskey, often while sitting brazenly atop my bunk, and as an extra dash of audacity I’ve built a pyramid from my dead soldiers. A three-foot tower of empty Jack Daniel’s bottles. I chew tobacco, hardcore weed like Skoal and Kodiak, soaked in whiskey. After losses I stick a plum-sized wad of chew inside my cheek. The bigger the loss, the bigger the wad. What rebellion is left? What new sin can I commit to show the world I’m unhappy and want to go home?

Each week, the only time I’m not plotting rebellion is free hour, when I can goof off in the rec center, or Saturday night, when I can go to the Bradenton Mall and flirt with girls. That adds up to ten hours per week that I’m happy, or at least not wracking my brain to think up some new form of civil disobedience.

When I’m still fourteen the Bollettieri Academy hires a bus and ships us upstate to a major tournament in Pensacola. The Bollettieri Academy travels several times each year to tournaments like this one, throughout Florida, because Nick thinks they’re good tests. Measuring sticks, he calls them. Florida is tennis heaven, Nick says, and if we’re better than Florida’s best, then we must be tops in the world.

I have no trouble reaching the final in my bracket, but the other kids don’t fare as well. They all get knocked out early. Thus they’re all forced to gather and watch my match. They have no choice, nowhere else to go. When I’m done, we’ll get back on the bus, en masse, and drive the twelve hours home to the Bollettieri Academy.

Take your time, the kids joke.

No one is eager to spend twelve more hours on that slow stinky bus.

For laughs, I decide to play the match in jeans. Not tennis shorts, not warm-up pants, but torn, faded, dirty dungarees. I know it won’t affect the outcome. The kid I’m playing is a chump. I can beat him with one hand tied behind my back, wearing a gorilla costume. For good measure I pencil on some eyeliner and put in my gaudiest earrings.

I win the match in straight sets. The other kids cheer wildly. They award me bonus points for style. On the ride back to the Bollettieri Academy I get extra attention, slaps on the back and attaboys. I feel at last as though I’m fitting in, becoming one of the cool kids, one of the alphas. Plus I got the W.

The next day, right after lunch, Nick calls a surprise meeting.

Everyone gather around, he bellows.

He directs us to a back court with bleachers. When all two hundred full-time kids are settled in and quiet he starts pacing before us, talking about what the Bollettieri Academy means, how we should feel privileged to be here. He built this place from nothing, he says, and he’s proud to have it bear his name. The Bollettieri Academy stands for excellence. The Bollettieri Academy stands for class. The Bollettieri Academy is known and respected the world over.

He pauses.

Andre, would you stand up for a minute?

I stand.

All that I’ve just said about this place, Andre, you have vi-o-lated
. You have
defiled
this place, shamed it with your little stunt yesterday. Wearing jeans and makeup and earrings during your final? Boy, I’m going to tell you something very important: If you’re going to act like that, if you’re going to dress like a girl, then here’s what I’m going to do. In your next tournament I’m going to have you wear a skirt. I’ve contacted Ellesse, and I’ve asked them to send a bunch of skirts for you, and you will wear one, yes sirree, because if that’s who you are, then that is how we’re going to treat you.

All two hundred kids are looking at me. Four hundred eyes, fixed tight on me. Many of the kids are laughing.

Nick keeps going. Your free time, he says, is hereby revoked. Your free time is now my time. You’re on detail, Mr. Agassi. Between nine and ten you’ll clean every bathroom on the property. When the toilets are scrubbed, you’ll police the grounds. If you don’t like it, well, it’s simple.
Leave. If you’re going to act like you did yesterday, we don’t want you here. If you’re incapable of showing that you care about this place as much as we do,
buh-bye
.

This last word,
buh-bye
, rings out, echoes across the empty courts.

That’s it, he says. Everyone get back to work.

All the kids scurry away. I stand stock still, trying to decide what to do. I could curse out Nick. I could threaten to fight him. I could start bawling. I think of Philly, then Perry. What would they have me do? I think of my father, sent to school in girl clothes when his mother wanted to humiliate him. The day he became a fighter.

There is no more time to decide. Gabriel says my punishment begins right now. For the rest of the afternoon, he says—on your knees. Weed.

A
T DUSK
, relieved of my weed sack, I walk to my room. No more indecision. I know exactly what I’m going to do. I throw my clothes in a suitcase and start for the highway. The thought crosses my mind that this is Florida, any maniac halfwit could pick me up and I’d never be heard from again. But I’d be better off with a maniac halfwit than with Nick.

In my wallet I have one credit card, which my father gave me for emergencies, and I’m thinking this is a bona fide Code Red. I’m headed for the airport. By this time tomorrow I’ll be sitting in Perry’s bedroom, telling him the story.

I keep my eyes peeled for searchlights. I listen for the yelps of distant bloodhounds. I stick out my thumb.

A car pulls up. I open the door, wind up to toss my suitcase in the backseat. It’s Julio, the disciplinarian on Nick’s staff. He says my father is on the phone back at the Bollettieri Academy and wants to speak to me—now.

I’d prefer the bloodhounds.

I
TELL MY FATHER
that I want to come home. I tell him what Nick has done.

You dress like a fag, my father says. Sounds like you deserved it.

I move to Plan B.

Pops, I say, Nick’s ruining my game. It’s all about hitting from the baseline—we never work on my net game. We never work on serve and volley.

My father says he’ll talk to Nick about my game. He also says Nick has given his assurance that I’ll only be punished for a few weeks, to prove that Nick is in charge of the place. They can’t have one kid flouting the rules. They need to maintain some show of discipline.

In conclusion my father says again that I’m staying. I have no choice. Click. Dial tone.

Julio shuts the door. Nick takes the receiver from my hand and says my father told him to take away my credit card.

No way I’m giving up my credit card. My only means of ever getting out of here? Over my dead body.

Nick tries to negotiate with me and I suddenly realize: He needs me. He sent Julio after me, he phoned my father, now he’s trying to get my credit card? He told me to leave, and when I left, he fetched me back. I called his bluff. Despite the trouble I cause, I’m apparently worth something to this guy.

B
Y DAY, I
’
M THE MODEL PRISONER
. I pick weeds, clean toilets, wear the proper tennis clothes. By night I’m the masked avenger. I steal a master key to the Bollettieri Academy, and after everyone’s asleep I go marauding with a group of other disgruntled inmates. While I confine my vandalism to minor stuff, like throwing shaving cream bombs, my cohorts spray walls with graffiti, and on the door to Nick’s office they paint
Nick the Dick
. When Nick has the door repainted, they do it again.

My primary cohort on these late-night sprees is Roddy Parks, the boy who beat me that long-ago day when Perry introduced himself. Then Roddy gets caught. His bunkmate drops a dime. I hear that Roddy’s been expelled. So now we know what it takes to get expelled.
Nick the Dick
. To his credit, Roddy takes the fall. He doesn’t rat out anyone.

Aside from petty vandalism, my main act of insurrection is silence. I vow that, as long as I live, I’ll never speak to Nick. This is my code, my religion, my new identity. This is who I am, the boy who won’t speak. Nick, of course, doesn’t notice. He strolls by the courts and says something to me and I don’t answer. He shrugs. But other kids see me not answer. My status rises.

One reason for Nick’s oblivion is that he’s busy organizing a tournament, which he hopes will attract top juniors from throughout the nation. This gives me a great idea, another way to stick it to Nick. I pull aside one of his staff and mention a kid back in Vegas who’d be perfect
for the tournament. He’s unbelievably talented, I say. He gives me problems whenever we play.

What’s his name?

Perry Rogers.

It’s like laying fresh bait in a Nick trap. Nick lives to discover new stars and showcase them in his tournaments. New stars generate buzz. New stars add to the aura of the Bollettieri Academy, and bolster Nick’s image as the great tennis mentor. Sure enough, days later, Perry receives a plane ticket and a personal invite to the tournament. He flies down to Florida and takes a cab to the Bollettieri Academy. I meet him in the compound and we throw our arms around each other, cackling at the fast one we’re pulling on Nick.

Who do I have to play?

Murphy Jensen.

Oh no. He’s great!

Don’t worry about it. That’s not for a few days. For now, let’s party.

One of the many perks for kids playing in the tournament is a field trip to Busch Gardens in Tampa. On the bus to the amusement park I bring Perry up to speed, tell him about my public humiliation, describe how miserable I am at the Bollettieri Academy. And at Bradenton Academy. I tell him I’m close to failing. That’s where I lose him. For once he’s not able to make my problem sound coherent. He loves school. He dreams of attending a fine Eastern college, then law school.

I change the subject. I grill him about Jamie. Did she ask about me? How does she look? Does she wear my ankle bracelet? I tell Perry I want to send him back to Vegas with a special present for Jamie. Maybe something nice from Busch Gardens.

That would be cool, he agrees.

We’re not at Busch Gardens ten minutes before Perry sees a booth filled with stuffed animals. On a high shelf sits an enormous black-and-white panda, its legs sticking left and right, its tiny red tongue hanging out.

Andre—you need to get Jamie
that
!

Well, sure, but it’s not for sale. You have to win the grand prize to get that panda, and no one wins this game. It’s rigged. I don’t like things that are rigged.

Nah. You just have to toss two rubber rings around the neck of a Coke bottle. We’re
athletes
. We’ve got this.

We try for half an hour, scattering rubber rings all over the booth. Not one ring comes close to lassoing a Coke bottle.

OK, Perry says. Here’s what we do. You distract the lady running the booth, I’ll sneak back there and put two of these rings on the bottles.

I don’t know. What if we get caught?

But then I remember: It’s for Jamie. Anything for Jamie.

I call out to the booth lady: Excuse me, ma’am, I have a question.

She turns. Yes?

I ask something inane about the rules of ringtoss. In my peripheral vision I see Perry tiptoe into the booth. Four seconds later he leaps back.

I won! I won!

The booth lady spins around. She sees two Coke bottles with rubber rings around their necks. She looks shocked. Then skeptical.

Now wait just a minute, kid—

I won! Give me my panda!

I didn’t see—

That’s your problem if you didn’t see. That’s not the rule, you have to
see
. Where does it say you have to see? I want to talk to your supervisor! Get Mr. Busch Gardens himself down here! I’m taking this whole amusement park to court. What kind of a gyp is this? I paid a dollar to play this game, and that’s an implied contract. You owe me a panda. I’m suing. My father is suing. You have exactly three seconds to get me my panda, which I won fair and fucking square!

Perry is doing what he loves, talking. He’s doing what his father does, selling air. And the booth lady is doing what she hates, manning a booth at an amusement park. It’s no contest. She doesn’t want any trouble and she doesn’t need this headache. With a long stick she snatches down the big panda and forks it over. It’s nearly as tall as Perry. He grabs it like a giant Chipwich and we run off before she changes her mind.

For the rest of the night we’re a threesome: Perry, me, and the panda. We bring the panda to the snack bar, into the boys’ room, on the roller coaster. It’s like we’re babysitting a comatose fourteen-year-old. A real panda couldn’t be more trouble. When the time comes to board the bus, we’re both weary and glad to dump the panda in its own seat, which it fills. Its girth is as shocking as its height.

I say, I hope Jamie appreciates this.

Perry says, She’s going to love it.

A little girl sits behind us. She’s eight or nine. She can’t take her eyes off the panda. She coos and pets its fur.

What a pretty panda! Where did you get it?

We won it.

What are you going to do with it?

I’m giving it to a friend.

She asks to sit with the panda. She asks if she can cuddle it. I tell her to help herself.

I hope Jamie likes the panda half as much as this girl does.

P
ERRY AND
I are hanging out in the barracks the next morning when Gabriel pokes his head in.

The Man wants to see you.

What about?

Gabriel shrugs.