Stay Up With Me (13 page)

The other boys at the Academy had a basketball tournament that night to which Lee declined participation and instead played cards with one of the groundskeepers in the groundskeeper shack. Money was involved and Lee apparently ended up on the short end. I don't think it was a disastrous defeat, perhaps $100, but I suspect that Lee has been paying the groundskeeper back with some of the Wilson equipment he has been receiving. The basketball game went on until after ten, and afterward the boys drank Gatorade together on the Academy porch. Lee was back in his room by then, reading or doing sit-ups. (I have tried to match him in his exercise routine and am up to 125 sit-ups and 100 push-ups a day, which is not bad I would say for a man of forty-four.) Thank you for the quick note you sent, which I know was written during a particularly busy time for you. And in answer to your question, yes, there are several other coaches who work directly with Lee, and he is not being singled out for special treatment. But I must say that if he was, it would be because he is not an ordinary adolescent, and not an ordinary talent.

I am considering banning the smoking boy from the Academy grounds, but am reluctant to do so because I fear Lee would flee like a hostage from a barricaded embassy. Mostly my time is spent scheduling more matches for Lee and better practice partners. This weekend we will go to Boca Raton for a tournament at the Escondido Club. They have not seeded Lee and have no idea what they are about to see. I know that wherever Mrs. Wilcox is, and I choose not to believe the rumors, she is beaming with pride right now, as you in your own way must be. Lately in his forehand I am seeing a little of Jim Courier in the two years he won the French, and in his footwork I have noticed an aspect of Gustavo Kuerten. I believe too that the Danish girl is now in love with Lee, as I saw her leaving a note outside his door the other night. I admit I did lift the note and thought of opening it, but did not. I relate this to you to indicate that I do not want to get in the way of Lee and his friendships. I will write to you from the Escondido Club, undoubtedly with exciting news. There is a rumor that Sampras might stop in to watch a match or two. Wouldn't that be something?

Yours,

Maximilian Gross

 

Dearest Mr. Wilcox,

I am writing you from the veranda at the Escondido, which is filled with players and parents and coaches, much of South Florida's tennis aristocracy. Lee is one of four Academy players entered in the tournament, and from where I sit I can see him rallying with a junior player from Taiwan.

I'm happy to report that Pete Sampras is indeed staying at the Escondido and was seen this morning at the breakfast buffet with his movie-star wife and their two sons. It is hard to see Sampras eating his eggs and oatmeal and sausages and not think of how many times on the brink of a Grand Slam he flamed out so impotently in the French. There is nothing sadder than seeing a big hitter stumble and struggle on slow clay.

I wonder how much of you is in Lee, and whether in your early days with the All-City Orchestra and later with Stan Kenton and Lionel Hampton you were equally intense and abstracted. I must say that I've always loved your work. Lee told me yesterday about the first time he saw you perform, when he was eleven and you were in Montreal. I now own a dozen of your CDs and I play them in the morning when I awake and drink my coffee.

In the evenings Lee goes boogie boarding with Vivi, which I think is perfectly healthy, though I know some coaches might discourage such activities. In Lee's case I think we should welcome any broadening of his interests—moments in which he can be a kid, if you will.

As for our reason for being here, Lee did as well as we could have hoped. We played him up an age group, in the 18s, and he won his first three matches before losing to the second seed. Sampras watched four or five games of Lee's defeat and said—these are his exact words—“This kid is pretty good.” I wish you could have been there to hear this, but I hope you can imagine yourself where I was, hearing such a career-making compliment!

I was thinking of you, Mr. Wilcox, and what you might have done in this instance, how you would have responded. I was channeling the moment in the Frankfurt documentary where you take that pretentious journalist to task.

“You bet your fucking ass,” he is, I said, though it is far from my nature to use that sort of language, and certainly not in front of the greatest champion in our sport. I may have said some other things to the hotel staff there, who warned me to be quiet. I was escorted to my room and asked to leave first thing in the morning.

The fuck I will, I thought.

I watched the end of Lee's match from my room. I thought the last match might go on forever. Do you know those rallies where each of you digs to the bottom and reaches his racket out and manages the strength to knock the ball across again, and then sprints on strained calves and cramping stomach back to the center of the court for more? Was it like that on those late nights when you played one last set at Birdland?

From where does genius arise?

When he lost, Lee shook the other boy's hand and then went down to the beach and watched the ocean for an hour or so. I joined him there and took him to one of the restaurants inside where I bought him a fish dinner, which he ate without a word.

“Would it be okay if I stopped playing for a while?” he asked me afterward.

“Why would you stop playing?”

“I feel tired,” he said.

“Are we talking a few days? A week?”

“I don't know,” he said. “Maybe more than a week.”

“Whatever you need,” I said. And then he collapsed.

There was a doctor in the hotel who said it was simply heat exhaustion and cramps. They told him to rest with a cold washcloth on his forehead, and to drink electrolytes. At around eleven he went downstairs with the Danish girl. They sat by the pool with their feet in the water. I watched them for a while and then went to bed.

In the morning Lee was on the court, hitting with Pete Sampras as though none of this had happened. I stood on the veranda with my suitcase packed, waiting for a taxi to come and take me to another hotel. Sampras kept staring over at me, unsmiling. May I say here that the champ has not aged terribly well? Not in his face anyhow. The sun has been particularly unkind to him, giving him the deep lines of an aging lifeguard. Nor has his hairline held up as he must have hoped.

When they'd concluded their workout, Sampras told me I should stay away from Lee and that Lee would be traveling with Pete as his practice partner.

My face felt hot, and my jaw tightened.

“But you don't play tournaments anymore,” I said.

And he said, “I know a bad situation when I see one.”

An argument ensued, and I probably handled it badly, though I think the staff at the Escondido was equally to blame. As a result, my continued employment at the Academy is under discussion, and I have not seen or heard from Lee since then. While Pete Sampras is a well-known celebrity, I do not know if it is in your wishes for your son to be the hitting partner of a washed-up balding husband of a second-rate Hollywood starlet. I told him he would need your permission for us to let Lee go anywhere, and he said, “It's been handled,” without explaining what that meant.

I believe great things are in the future for all of us provided we sort out these complications. Would you be able to come soon to Florida, or might you be able to meet with me where you are to discuss strategies? If you hear from Lee, can you tell him that we still have work to do?

I am waiting for your reply,

Maximilian Gross

 

Venerable Mr. Wilcox,

There is not much these days to say for loyalty, or for all the careers I've nurtured, or for the reputation I've developed over decades of playing and teaching and learning about the game. Around ten of the players stood up for me, as well as a few of the cafeteria staff, and Antonio from the pro shop. But then there were lies spoken by a few of the least reliable, those most likely to profit from my expulsion, those who would turn the Academy into nothing more than a way station to the pros. Gone would be any learning, or staring up at the sky, or listening to music such as your own. Gone would be the role of the imagination, so much larger in the life of a great athlete than most educators ever recognize. Go study the neurochemistry of Nastase and Panatta and Budge, and certainly Federer and the great McEnroe, and you will see so much of what you might see in the brains of Mozart or Degas or, from your world, Miles Davis. What if this side of those brains had never developed? It was my job, I always believed, to link the physical and the metaphysical. Now it will be repetitive drills and weight training.

I saw Lee after he'd cleared out of his dormitory suite. I had the sinking feeling one has when one has been lied about. At the same time he seemed as though he wanted something from me, something he couldn't articulate. Tropical storm clouds gathered above us.

Neither of us knew then about my impending dismissal, and I said nothing to him of my talk with the director. I gave him a signed copy of Brad Gilbert's book on match strategy, and enough string to last him through the summer.

“Did you steal this?” he asked me.

“Of course not. It's yours,” I said.

“I'm all set on equipment,” he said, the sky darkening. “But thanks for the book.”

On the title page I'd written a warning about Sampras that I now wished I could erase:
Big serves are like big bustlines. Nice to look at, but no guarantee of a person's character.

Nothing else was said, because it started to pour. I wondered what one does here—shake hands, embrace? In some measurable way my heart was breaking. We stood across from each other awkwardly and then he walked away.

The Danish girl has quit the Academy and has accompanied me on my trip north to see you. She is crazy about Lee, she says, and wants to meet you. I am devoting myself now to her training and believe she has it in her to make a splash at the Australian this year. I am not fond of the way people look at us while we're on the road, and so for now we are pretending to be father and daughter, like James Mason and Sue Lyon. There is nothing untoward about our interactions, though on one occasion Vivi, frustrated I believe by her inability to contact Lee, pressed her not unremarkably soft lips against mine, something that startled me and that I told her definitively could not happen again.

In the evenings, while she watches her TV shows, I've taken to long drives in no particular direction. I simply veer toward the empty road. Sometimes I play your music and listen to my own thoughts, and other times I break into tears for no reason other than that it makes me feel, oddly, loved. I try and remember the good things, matches I've won, people I've helped, a dog I once rescued from the pound. I think of walking the grounds at Wimbledon on opening day and praying it wouldn't rain.

Lee has been playing regional tournaments in California. I know this because I have a former player out there who has sent me emails about Lee's results. While he is winning matches here and there, I have no doubt that his progress has stalled outside the Academy, and I wonder whether Pete Sampras has the time to devote to him or whether he's simply found a third-rate coach out there to feed Lee balls. I wonder if there's a library out there, or anyone to go to the movies with. I wonder what happened to his friendship with the boy who smoked pipes, who I saw loitering around the Academy for a week or two after Lee left. I wonder about Lee's ability to so easily break his attachments, and whether that comes from the same place as your ability to end relationships with the women you have been with over the years, though I know I'm overstepping my ground here.

For the next week we will be staying at the Knights Inn in Kalamazoo, Michigan. There are courts nearby at the high school, and Vivi and I are out there training. Are you available early next week? I would not mind at all making the trip to your house in Grosse Point.

With hopes of seeing you soon,

Maximilian Gross

 

Mr. Wilcox,

I imagine you are surprised to see the postmark on the outside envelope. But yes, in point of fact, I find myself living productively and gainfully in Copenhagen, Denmark, thanks to the efforts of Vivi and her parents, the Ingebritzens. They have put me up in an apartment outside their indoor tennis club a mile or so from the great Tivoli Amusement Park. I am now coaching five young ladies and two young men, all of whom have some degree of talent, the best being Vivi. I read somewhere that you lived in this city for a year, and I wonder if there are any places you would have me go in my first months here. I did make it to your house, you know, though it must have been when you were in Los Angeles visiting with Lee and the Samprases. Did they have you to their ugly house? I find myself swinging these days from stretches of loneliness and doubt to pockets of unrestricted happiness, and as strange as it sounds I think I owe both of those moods to you. To your music, your imagination, and your strange and gifted son. If I never see him again, he will still live within me, as do you, Mr. Wilcox. The Danish girl and I had a two-hundred-shot rally today, and one nearly as long right after. I'm wondering how many times early in your career you were in places like this, relying on your wits and your talent, and a woman who did not judge you, who trusted you when you'd forgotten how to trust yourself. I do not often think of Lee these days, but I hope he is in your life where he belongs. As you requested, I will not write again or try to get in touch with you or Lee, but know that you will always be part of my neurochemistry, the part of me that sings and mourns and deeply understands. This is what I've learned from your music, and from my coaching, and what I will continue to pass on to the Danish boys and girls, of whose talent I am sole guardian.

I am taking a Danish immersion class at night, and now when I dream I dream in Danish. When I wake up in my Copenhagen apartment, under my cold cotton sheets, I sometimes feel touched by magic, as though nothing in my life can ever go wrong. Do you know this feeling? Did you feel it when you saw your son hitting peerless ground strokes with the great Pete Sampras, and if you did, did you recognize the gift I'd given you?