Jordan shakes his head.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” he says.
* * *
—
Jordan plays his new favorite trivia game, asking which current players could be nearly as successful in his era. “Our era,” he says over and over again, calling modern players soft, coddled, and ill-prepared for the highest level of the game. This is personal to him, since he’ll be compared to this generation, and since he has to build a franchise with this generation’s players.
“I’ll give you a hint,” he says. “I can only come up with four.”
He lists them: LeBron, Kobe, Tim Duncan, Dirk Nowitzki. As he’s making his point, Yvette walks into the living room area and, in a tone of voice familiar to every husband who argues sports with his buddies, asks, “You guys need anything?”
When someone on TV compares LeBron to Oscar Robertson, Jordan fumes. He rolls his eyes, stretches his neck, frustrated. “It’s absolutely . . . ,” he says, catching himself. “The point is, no one is critiquing the personnel that he’s playing against. Their knowledge of how to play the game . . . that’s not a fair comparison. That’s not right . . . Could LeBron be successful in our era? Yes. Would he be as successful? No.”
The Bobcats game starts and the Celtics jump all over them. The officials aren’t helping, and Jordan sits up, livid, certain that the Celtics are getting all the calls because they have the stars.
“COME ON, MAN!” he screams.
“You ain’t getting that one,” Buckner says. “But you used to get away with shit other people couldn’t get away with.”
There’s a hard silence in the room. Jordan’s voice lowers.
“I don’t believe that,” he growls.
“Bull. Shit,” Buckner says. “Let’s not get carried away now. You and Larry.”
Jordan ignores him; he’s locked in.
“That’s a foul!” he yells. “See what I mean? THAT’S A FOUL!”
It’s a nice night, and Jordan moves out to his balcony, on the seventh floor, looking down the barrel of South Tryon Street. The TV is up in the right corner. He smokes a cigar. The Bobcats tie the game, then fall behind again.
“Getbackgetbackgetback,” Jordan yells at the TV. “Matchup, MATCHUP. Where you GOING? DIVE FOR THE BALL!”
They’re going to lose—he’s going to lose—and he is quiet on the couch. It’s over. He doesn’t talk for a minute, then mutters something, then is silent for another half a minute.
He changes the channel to the Heat-Jazz game. During the broadcast, he is the answer to a trivia question. This is the court where he made his most famous shot, and he points to the place where he took it. He remembers how tired he felt at the end of that game. A cell phone rests on Jordan’s chest. His legs stretch out on a tree-trunk coffee table.
“What’s Bird up to?” Jordan asks.
“Down in Naples,” Buckner says.
“Playing golf every day?” Jordan asks.
“Bored,” Buckner says.
“Think he’ll ever get back in?” Jordan asks.
“He’ll damn sure get back in it,” Buckner says. “He didn’t say it, but I just know him.”
The announcers gush about LeBron, mentioning him in the same sentence with Jordan, who hears every word. Those words have an effect on him. He stares at the TV and points out a flaw in LeBron’s game.
“I study him,” he says.
When LeBron goes right, he usually drives; when he goes left, he usually shoots a jumper. It has to do with his mechanics and how he loads the ball for release. “So if I have to guard him,” Jordan says, “I’m gonna push him left so nine times out of 10, he’s gonna shoot a jump shot. If he goes right, he’s going to the hole and I can’t stop him. So I ain’t letting him go right.”
For the rest of the game, when LeBron gets the ball and starts his move, Jordan will call out some variation of “drive” or “shoot.” It’s not just LeBron. He sees fouls the officials miss, and the replays prove him right. When someone shoots, he knows immediately whether it’s going in. He calls out what guys are going to do before they do it, more plugged in to the flow of the game than some of the players on the court. He’s answering texts, buried in his phone, when the play-by-play guy announces a LeBron jump shot. Without looking up, Jordan says, “Left?”
The outdoor heater makes the porch warm. Hours pass, creating distance from the Bobcats loss. Nobody says much. George plays Bejeweled on an iPad. The air is filled with the sounds of basketball: horns, squeaking sneakers, the metallic clang of the rim. These are the sounds of Jordan’s youth.
He holds a cigar and relights it every now and then, the whoosh of the butane torch breaking the silence. The heater’s flame is reflected on three different windows, shadows flickering on Jordan’s face. He never says it, but it seems as though he’s playing the game in his head, using his rage for its intended purpose. He still knows how to play. He could shut down LeBron, if his body wouldn’t betray him, if he could hold off time, if he could get to 218.
* * *
—
George goes to bed. An hour later, the last game of the night ends. Buckner says goodbye and rides the elevator down. Yvette and her friend Laura headed toward the back of the condo long ago.
Jordan is alone.
He hates being alone, because that means it’s quiet, and he doesn’t like silence. He can’t sleep without noise. Sleep has always been a struggle for him. All the late-night card games, the trips to the casino during the playoffs, they’ve been misunderstood. They weren’t the disease; they were the cure. They provided noise, distraction, a line of defense. He didn’t even start drinking until he was 27 and complained of insomnia to a doctor. Have a few beers after the game, he was advised. That would knock off the edge.
The house is dark. It’s almost 1 a.m., and he opens the iPad app that controls the loft’s audio-visual system. Every night he does the same thing, and he does it now: Turn the bedroom television to the Western channel. The cowboy movies will break the darkness, break the silence, allow him to rest. It’s just like the old days, him and Pops. Jordan climbs into bed. The film on the screen is Unforgiven. He knows every scene, and sometime before the shootout in the saloon, he falls asleep.
FEBRUARY 2013
The Last Days of Tony Harris
What drove the former college basketball star to his death in the Brazilian jungle?
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2007, BRASÍLIA, BRAZIL
The city outside the window of Room 1507 at the Carlton Hotel is an unlikely place to go insane. Designed as living modern art, Brasília is defined by its order. But Tony Harris doesn’t see order. He sees danger. He knows how this must sound, to the locals he’s confiding in, to the friends and family he’s emailing and calling back in Seattle. He knows he sounds out of his mind. But something is after him. An idea is forming in his subconscious: Run.
While the city outside is light, the hallway is darker than the bottom of a river. The halogens only come alive when a motion sensor detects life. The room itself is worn, a step or two down from the place he stayed the last time he played basketball here, more than two years ago. But then again, at 36, he’s worn, too. He’d never planned on playing again. There are two narrow beds and tan bedspreads and brown carpet. The bedside table is cracked, the original wood grain visible beneath the varnish. A single page in the thick phonebook is creased: the page for funeral homes.
Wireless Internet is his best friend, the connection making him feel safe. He needs it. The emails coming to the United States from Tony Harris are scary. Just the other day, he wrote his mother-in-law:
I know that I can be paranoid at times but I know when I hear things. And when people stop talking when I come into the area, I just pray that I am wrong Connie I want to see my family again and I LOVE MY WIFE SO MUCH I WANT TO SEE OUR CHILD THAT LORI AND I ARE HAVING. I DIDN�
�T COME BACK HERE FOR THEM TO SET ME UP AND KILL ME.
The phone next to the bed is his other lifeline. Dial 8-2 for a wake-up call. Dial 2 for room service, like he did yesterday, to have a little piece of home sent up: a steak and a Coca-Cola. Dial 0 for an outside line. Zero takes him home. Yesterday, he talked with his wife, Lori. He told her of the closing darkness, of the whispers in the locker room: He had slept with someone’s wife the last time he played here, or that he’d fled because he had AIDS. That’s why he brought proof of his negative AIDS test—to show the players and stop the whispers. They didn’t seem interested. He didn’t understand. So last night, on the phone with Lori, confused and scared, he began settling his accounts. Tell my mama I love her. Tell my son I love him and to finish school and make something of himself and that I’m proud of him.
“You’re scaring me,” she said.
“I need to tell you this in case something happens to me,” he said.
Last night, he thought he was dead for sure. This morning, a plan begins to form. He asks Brent Merritt, a friend from Seattle who played here, to call the team. He follows up with an email, asking Brent to call back if he doesn’t hear from him. Ask to speak to me, he instructs. But then a thought enters his head: What if the team has someone pretend to be him? What would Brent do? He needs a test. Yes, a test. That’s it. So he gives Brent a password of sorts. Ask the person claiming to be me what the name of my dog is. If he doesn’t say Enya, then it ain’t me.
Then he goes to play for his new team, Universo. Once, not that long ago, Tony was one of the best players in the Brazilian league. Tonight, he doesn’t take a single shot. When the game is finally over, he rushes back to his hotel room, away from the tailing cars and lobby whispers.
The sun has gone down. If he could see this from above, like a god or an omniscient narrator, he’d see this city as an island of lights in a vast darkness. Out the window to the left is the famous television tower, the highest man-made point in Brazil, the raised fist of those who came out here into the bush five decades ago to hack out civilization. To the right, over the top of the Hotel das Américas, is a highway climbing out toward a tiny village named Bezerra, toward the wilderness. He’ll go in both directions before his running is finished.
He sends an email to his wife:
To: Lori J Harris
From: T bone
Date: 11/02/2007
I am home now. I just feel like crying all night. Babe I am really paranoid I still think that they are going to try and do me harm. Why do I feel this way I am not sure. Forgive me please babe I am sorry. Tell me why when I got home into my apartment the TV was way up loud and when I left it was really low and the maids cleaned my room earlier.
Soon, Tony Harris falls asleep. It will be the last night of his old life.
REAL DANGER OR PARANOIA?
Our man in Brasília orders a caipirinha. Gauchos around him carry skewers of meat. He wears a green shirt, and his head is crowned with a full crop of hair. His name is Simon Henshaw, a diplomat’s name. His title is consul general, a diplomat’s title. He has been around the world, to the banana republics of Latin America, the Pacific, and Africa. He is a man who has heard truth and lies, who has seen light and dark, and who has learned there is but a thin line separating the two. He lives in the city but understands the wilderness. It surrounds him. A half hour out of town in any direction, he says, there is desolation. For the past month, he has been investigating the strange case of Tony Harris: Seattle basketball prep star to Washington State Cougar to international professional to . . . gone. He, too, wants to know what happened out there. It’s so hard to make sense of it all.
He wants to know what you will be writing. Well, you tell him, there’s a lot of Joseph Conrad in this tale. A man travels down his own personal Congo, a descent, until the jungle consumes him at journey’s end. He learns there is danger and evil in the world and is unable to escape its fated pull.
Henshaw mulls this over. “Who’s Kurtz?” he asks.
The darkness chasing Tony Harris, is it out in the world? Or is it inside his mind?
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 3, FLEEING BRASÍLIA
Another game ends. Tony shows a flicker of the man who led the Cougars to the NCAA Tournament in 1994, helping to jump-start Kelvin Sampson’s coaching career. He scores eight points and doesn’t dribble the ball off his foot, as he did a few days ago. But the panic that started in his mind has now reached his legs: Run! Run! Run!
He nervously changes into a gray tracksuit, ties his blue-and-white, size 13 Nikes, and asks a teammate he trusts, Estevam Ferreira, to give him a ride to the Carlton. Estevam says sure, and they climb into his Renault. Back at the Carlton, Tony invites his friend upstairs. On the 15th floor, Tony begins packing. This isn’t the first time he has done this.
“Tony, what’s happening?” Estevam asks.
“I miss my wife” is all Tony has by way of explanation. “I want to get away from here.”
Tony is in a hurry but not rushing. Methodically, as if following a well-practiced escape plan, he takes about 15 minutes to get a backpack ready: laptop, a change of clothes, a few other essentials. The rest of his belongings he leaves behind. Tony and Estevam walk into the hall, the movement clicking on the light, down the elevator, toward the bar, left past the front desk. When Tony steps out of the hotel, there is no turning back.
The airport sits about 10 miles south of the main urban corridor, on the road winding down toward the lake, past the zoo. Tony begins to lose control. He has fought so hard for the past four days, trying to talk these feelings away or stuff them deep down inside and get through just one more season. But he can fight no longer. Now he must Run! There is a cost for crossing the thin line between imaginary and real, between light and dark.
“I’m afraid,” he sobs.
“What are you afraid of?” Estevam asks.
“There is someone trying to get me.”
“Who?”
Tony doesn’t answer. He weeps. He is silent. He weeps again. An elaborate drama is playing out in his head, behind a thick stage curtain, the tears muffled noises that let his audience of one know something is happening, something powerful and awful, even if Estavam cannot catch a glimpse of the action.
Finally, they arrive at the airport. Tony asks Estevam to wait, then goes inside alone. Only he does not buy a plane ticket home. Who knows why? Instead, he purchases a ticket to Natal, a beach town in the northeast of Brazil. He is planning to fly there, where his friend Erika lives, then figure out what to do next. Erika worked at the hotel where he stayed when he played here before. At security, though, he hits a wall: He doesn’t have his passport. The team has it. With a game each day and the need to provide documents for each player before each game, it’s easier if the team keeps them. It’s standard practice, but Tony’s sure the team is in on this plot to kill him. Can’t ask the team. Now he doesn’t know what to do.
Estevam, sitting in his car, watches his friend coming out of the airport. Tony looks scared. His plan has fallen apart. Without structure, the night becomes even more frightening.
“So tell me what you wanna do now,” Estevam says.
“I don’t know,” Tony says. “Please help me.”
To Estevam, who is also nervous now, this feels like a spy movie. He has known Tony for years, and if someone is trying to kill Tony, might they also try to kill him? He thinks. Thinks. Thinks. He and Tony call Lori, and a new plan is hatched. The bus station. Goiânia is a city close to Brasília. Buses leave every hour. Tony likes this. He has a friend in Goiânia, an ex-girlfriend, Daniela. They drive back toward Brasília, to the bus station, a half-hour trip.
Estevam still doesn’t understand. “Let’s go to the police,” he says.
Tony says no. No cops. No U.S. embassy. Only escape.
The bus station finally appears in front of them, and the two men go inside. Tony
purchases a ticket, and Estevam walks him to the correct bus. Something is coming to an end. Both men sense it. Tony hugs his teammate and says, “You live in my heart.”
Estevam searches for the words. “Go with God,” he says.
The tears are gone, replaced by a lost look in Tony’s eyes. What is going on behind those eyes? What do they see? Estevam searches his friend’s face for clues, for some sort of road map of the journey to come. He sees sadness but also relief. Tony climbs the bus steps and finds his seat. The bus pulls away. Before it leaves the comforting glow of the station, Estevam sees Tony sitting by the window. The men lock eyes a final time. Tony gives him a thumbs-up. In the last breath of the vanishing light, he takes his right hand and beats on his chest.
You live in my heart.
WHAT CHANGES WHEN A MAN HAS SEEN THE EVIL OF THE WORLD?
In Seattle, as word spreads of Tony’s disappearance, his friends and family try to make sense of it. They know Tony is running. Some know Tony has a history of paranoid behavior. Some know it isn’t the first time he has been scared.
The first time, eight years ago, he was in South Korea playing basketball. He was out with a teammate, Derrick Johnson, and two girls in the VIP section of a Seoul club. A group of Korean men, speaking Russian, attacked the woman with Tony, striking her in the face with a bottle. Later, after she had jumped in their cab to escape, a van chased them down, cut them off on a bridge, and the woman was yanked from the car by the same men. Johnson laughed it off. Tony didn’t. He started seeing danger in every shadow. He stopped going out. Something inside of him changed. “From there I saw the paranoia,” Johnson says. “Tony made it through the rest of the season. It was toward the end of the season. The paranoia didn’t happen to the point where he left.” Tony eventually got home and everything was fine. He’d left the fear in Korea.
The Cost of These Dreams Page 4
