by Paul Shirley
Finally, we stopped at the building he thought to be our hotel; it looked more like the entrance to a junkyard, complete with guard dog, and was definitely not the Atlas-Park Hotel. At this point, I coerced our driver into talking to the hotel on the phone. Five minutes later, we were at our destination. When we gave our driver the pre-arranged 1,000 rubles, he seemed miffed, as if we should have rewarded him for finding his way back from being totally lost. What a country.
January 19
Because the Russians apparently have absolutely no talent for logistics, my trip home was interrupted by a stay in the Ramada Plaza Hotel at JFK in New York—the same place I’d stayed before my departure in November. They could not put together a trip that got me home in one day, even though they had a nine-hour time change working in their favor. Oh well, it gives the entire trip a bit of symmetry; it’s like going through the levels of depressurization after a deep dive. Or, perhaps more accurately, like being brought back from a hypnotic state—complete, I hope, with some amnesia regarding the last two months.
Apparently I am a memorable fellow. The man at the hotel restaurant in New York recognized me right away. He said, “Weren’t you here on Thanksgiving?” I’d like to think that his memory of me was aided by my winning personality, but I would guess that it had more to do with my height. I can pretend, though.
Aside from some long lines in the Moscow airport and the unnecessary stay in NYC, the trip across the Atlantic was relatively easy. The same driver who had shuttled me between airports when I arrived in Russia picked me up at the hotel outside Moscow and drove me to Sheremetyevo Airport for my flight to New York. On the way, the team’s general manager, Elvira, called to make yet another last-second offer and plea for me to stay. (It must seem that I am making this up to boost my own ego. In fact, I was as surprised by it as anyone.) I gave her another polite no. Once at the airport, the driver—who until now had shown no sign of speaking English—managed to put together, “Team not pay for this. You pay me $100.” I do not know if mustering the courage for his attempt at extortion caused him to sweat more than usual or if it was merely the turning in my direction that did the trick, but at that moment I was overpowered by the most repellant, nausea-inducing case of body odor I have ever encountered. It was like a mixture of mildewed socks and rotten teeth. The stench did nothing to convince me. Instead, I opened the door slightly in order to let in some cold air to kill the smell and then called Elvira. She answered expectantly, most likely assuming I had changed my mind and wanted her to get me a flight back to Kazan. Instead I disappointed her and told her to get Stinky off my case. She succeeded, and I beat a hasty retreat from the car.
The flight home consisted of the following:
T minus 10 minutes
I get on and realize that, for all the worldliness I like to pretend I have, I still feel a bit out of place in the business-class section of an airplane. That being said, I feel a little less out of place in Aeroflot’s businessclass, as it is easily the worst I have seen. Which is the case only because neither Siberian Airlines nor Tatarstan Airlines, which tied for the honor of worst planes I’ve ever seen in operation, had anything above coach.
0:02
The guy next to me stinks. Great. Why do they think they need to wear so many clothes? The smell is not quite as bad as that surrounding my driver, but it is reminiscent.
0:15
Speaking of clothes, I notice that my outfit of track pants and a T-shirt is decidedly out of place here. Then I think, Did these people really believe it was a good idea to wear a suit for a ten-and-a-half-hour flight?
0:21
I receive a menu. I am momentarily confused by the entrée list. I understand Salmon Steak” and “Vegetable Tortellini.” Bee Fillet,” however, throws me for a loop. Let me think now…I have heard of most cuts of meat but know nothing of the bee fillet. Is this an insect delicacy? Hmm…It says it is wrapped in ham. That rules out bugs, I suppose, as it would be hard to wrap a bee in ham. I look over at the side written in Russian, hoping for some help. I see , which, because I am a damn genius, I can read as “Beefsteak.” Problem solved. I guess my time in Russia was not wasted after all.
0:37
I pull out the little TV at the side of my seat and discover that the current movie being shown is The Princess Diaries 2. Son of a bitch.
0:41
I stow my TV. I gave it a chance, but that is one terrible movie.
0:42
I evaluate my entertainment options. I have about a hundred pages left in my book. I bought a magazine in the Moscow airport, but that won’t last long. In addition to smelling bad, the man next to me is Russian and I cannot even begin to explain how tired I am of broken-English conversations, so he is out. Thank Jobs for my iPod.
1:10
Dinner is served. I leave my caviar untouched, to incredulous stares from my cabinmates. I want to say, You realize this shit tastes like fish eggs, right? Who decided that was a good thing?
1:26
My bee(f) fillet arrives. It is not good per se, but it gives me something to do, and for that I am thankful.
1:45
Aeroflot rallies and brings me an amazing dessert concoction. The whole meal is something of a microcosm of Russia itself: nothing of substance is worth a damn, but the girls look pretty good.
2:00
I notice that the outside air temperature is–70º F. I wonder how it can be so hot inside the plane. I push my pant legs up and become a true sight to see—a six-ten guy with a plain white T-shirt and some track pants pushed up above his calves wearing white socks that match his skin after two months under the clouds of Kazan. I consider inquiring as to whether the flight attendant can find a Busch Light so I can complete the stereotype.
2:08
By my calculations, The Princess Diaries 2 has to be over soon. Surely they wouldn’t…
2:15
“Walt Disney Pictures Presents”…The Princess Diaries 2. Shit.
2:20
I begin a rotation that goes something like this: iPod alone, iPod while reading magazine, iPod alone, reading book with no iPod, back to the iPod alone. I pass out for about an hour.
4:30
Christ. Six hours left. Back to the rotation.
6:15
I drink my second bottle of water and marvel at the fact that I have not yet visited the lavatory. When I am seventy, I will yearn for these days.
6:37
It hits me that I will be home soon. I think, Four more hours, that’s nothing. I am jubilant.
6:41
Four more hours? What am I going to do for four hours?
7:12
A snack is served. On its way to my mouth, my salmon and mustard-seed pâté falls off the cracker-like piece of bread on which it is sitting. I calmly pick it off my paper place mat, replace it on the bread, and send it on its way. Cultured, I am.
8:01
I begin work on my masterwork, a list of my top fifty albums. Again, the iPod comes through.
8:45
I order a brandy. Brandy? Who the hell am I?
9:40
I finally make a trip to the toilet. Always a source of entertainment, both for me and for anyone lucky enough to see someone of my stature attempt to fold himself into an airplane lavatory.
10:12
They hand out the customs declaration sheets. We’re almost there. I am given pause by the fact that they are only in English. Seems it would be difficult to fill these out if one did not speak the language, like if one were, say, Russian. We Americans are lucky that someone decided that English would be the intergalactic language of choice.
10:16
My seatmate moves and a wave of funk is blasted my way. My concern for the Russian people is obliterated.
10:35
We touch down, five thousand miles later. I am happy but exhausted. It is 6:45 P.M., but my body thinks it is 2:45 A.M.
Arrival plus 20 minutes
I hand over my pass
port to a black lady behind the immigration counter. She smiles and says, “How was it?” I reply, “Terrible, I don’t think I’ll go back to Russia.” She smiles again and says, “Well then, welcome home.” When I complained in Russia about the fact that no one there ever smiles, I was told that the opposite was true in America; that people smiled too much, without any meaning behind the expression. There is something to that—we are probably too polite at times and often do not say what we mean, but that lady’s smile seemed awfully nice to me.
January 24
I left Russia with no real plan for the rest of the year. I thought I would come home, play out the year with the minor-league Kansas City Knights, and hope for a ten-day contract in the NBA, but most of all enjoy the fact that I was not in Russia. I thought I had a good chance for a call-up but was not going to be all that disappointed if one did not come my way. It probably was not the most ambitious plan, but then again, it seemed open-ended enough to be to my liking. Strangely, my lack of any real direction may have resulted in one of the most amazing turn of events in my life.
I arrived in Kansas City on a Wednesday night, still disoriented but delighted to see two of my younger brothers awaiting me at the airport. We had a quick dinner at Outback Steakhouse (because nothing is as American as a poor attempt at co-opting another country’s culture) and I fell into bed. Thursday held a trip to my parents’ house to see the rest of the family. That night, sometime before or after one of my mother’s typically fantastic culinary creations, I got a call from my agent. Keith told me that the Phoenix Suns were considering making a trade that would send three of their players away in exchange for only one player. He did not know many details but said that the Suns had called him to inquire about my availability should the deal go through. He thought that if it happened, it would be the next day, so I should stay close to my phone. I informed my family and, for the most part, forgot about it for the night. Such things—the type that seem too good to be true, that is—have not figured prominently in my basketball career to this point, so that I dismissed the scenario as extremely unlikely should not be particularly surprising. My reaction was that there was very little chance the team I already knew—the one that had some players I actually liked, in addition to being one of the best teams in the NBA this year—would sign me. It would be too easy.
I woke up Friday and, after my whopping one day off (travel days do not count as days off; I would submit that they are harder on the mind and body than a full day of practice), made a trip to the gym with the hopes only of breaking a sweat and checking to see if I had forgotten how to shoot a basketball in the four days since my last game in the former USSR. I accomplished that goal and on the way home checked in with Keith. He reported no real developments except to say that the Suns’ GM, Bryan Colangelo, had called him early that morning to say that the trade had not yet been made, but if it was, I would definitely get the call as a replacement for the departed players. He noted, however, that he had been told that if it happened, the trade would go down at noon Eastern time. That it was then 2 P.M. Eastern time and he had not heard anything was a little alarming. I decided that even though there was a good chance doing so would jinx the entire setup, I probably should get home and start unpacking some of my bags.
While I was waiting to transfer loads of wash, I made a few calls to catch up with people with whom I hadn’t spoken in two months. One of my calls was to a friend who works for the New Orleans Hornets, having survived the purges that removed Coach Floyd from his post there. He happened to mention that he had overheard a rumor that his employer was about to pull the trigger on a trade that would send Jimmy Jackson (for whom the Hornets had traded one month earlier, only to have him refuse to report for duty) to the Suns for Casey Jacobsen, Jackson Vroman, and Maciej Lampe. He thought the deal was all but done—their equipment guy was readying uniforms for the new acquisitions. My jaw dropped at least three inches. When I recovered, I told him how his news was particularly interesting to me, and promised to keep him informed about further developments. When I hung up, it was all I could do to keep my newfound information to myself. I told my brothers but kept careful watch on their Internet usage over the next hour. A little while later, just as I was putting my third load in the washer, Keith called to tell me that the trade was done and that I should be ready to go to Phoenix, possibly as soon as that night. When he told me that the deal had gone through, I put him back on his heels a little by naming the players involved. He was duly impressed with my insider information. As I ratcheted up the pace of my laundering, I waited for more news. It did not take long. When he called the next time he said coyly, “I have bad news and good news. The bad news: I wasn’t able to get you the ten-day with the Suns. The good news: I was able to get them to sign you for the rest of the year.”
I spent Friday night in a daze. I had invited people over for a poker game at my house; it played on, but my concentration level was at an all-time low. (Such is the excuse for my poor performance.) I flew to Phoenix on Saturday at noon, and upon my arrival I underwent a physical that consisted of a doctor asking if anything had changed since the last time he had seen me in Phoenix: it took approximately three minutes. After my clearance, I returned to the same hotel where I’d spent a month in the fall, and wandered around in confusion. My brain was completely overloaded.
Keith called the next day, just prior to my first regular-season game with the Suns (not counting the one at the beginning of the season before which I’d cleaned out my locker). He said, “Well, Paul, there are some issues with your contract.” I thought, Okay, here we go. The real nameplate they put over my locker and all the rejoicing by team personnel—it was all part of the plot to help make the ten-day they are going to offer more palatable. I knew this was too good to be true. He continued, “Yeah, they want to have an option on next year.”
“What? Who gives a damn? They can have an option on each of the next ten years, for all I care. Is this contract guaranteed for the rest of this year? Yes? Well then, sign it before they change their minds.” (This is the reason that from the outside, such as in the newspaper, it appeared that I signed a two-year contract.) I signed my copy of the contract exactly twenty-six minutes before our game with the New Jersey Nets. I suited up but did not play—probably fortunately for everyone, as my body continues to show some confusion as to what time zone it is in. We won, and my second stint as a Phoenix Sun is off to a glorious start.
February 3
It is quite possible that I have the best job in the world. The following are my vocational requirements:
1. Travel around the country on a chartered jet.
2. Stay in the finest hotels our land has to offer.
3. Practice basketball occasionally.
4. Sit on the bench during games and cheer for my teammates.
5. Once in a while, play a few meaningless minutes when the aforementioned teammates have stretched a lead into the thirty-to-forty-point range.
It’s a tough gig.
I can vividly remember being about twelve years old and watching some NBA game or other with my father and hearing him say about some white guy at the end of the bench, “You see that guy, Paul? He’s got the best job a person could want—backup center in the NBA.” I am neither a center nor even a backup. I am a backup to the backup. I have even less responsibility than the guy we were talking about. Add in the fact that my contract is guaranteed for the rest of the season, meaning it would take a meteor crashing into the earth, or at least an unprecendented fiscal crisis in Phoenix, for me to worry whether I will have a job in two weeks, and my dad was right—I do have the best job a guy could want.
I was in Phoenix for exactly forty-eight hours before leaving again. The Fates decided that I had not had quite enough traveling in the last month, so they decided my return to the Suns would coincide with the beginning of a six-city, ten-day road trip. Our journey would take us to all the way east to New York, back across the country to Milwaukee, again to the c
oast and Boston, north into Canada for a game with Toronto, down south(ish) to Memphis, and then back to the Kazan-like climate of Minneapolis (actually, it felt a lot like spring there; it must be global warming). I spent the first few days of the trip in a kind of afterglow, hardly believing I was where I was. I watched us score 133 in a win against the Knicks, pull out an ugly victory against the Bucks, and squander a big lead over the Celtics but hold on to come out on top, all from the end of the bench, fully clothed in my warm-ups. My days were spent confirming the rumors regarding my whereabouts and walking around about six inches above the ground. Heady times.
In Toronto, the Suns scored forty-six points in the third quarter, which has to be some sort of record. This scoring orgy left us ahead by thirty going into the fourth. The seemingly insurmountable gave our coach, Mike D’Antoni, enough confidence to throw into the action me and a couple of other guys who had not played. We played great defense, allowing the Raptors to score only ten straight points in two minutes. Seeing his hard-fought lead being whittled away, Coach D’Antoni escorted us out of the game. The starters managed to right the ship, and we were allowed back in with about three minutes to go. My totals were five minutes played and 0 for 1 from the field (it took me about forty-five seconds to get up my first shot), with one random assist.
Our five-game win streak came to an end in Memphis. They found the secret to success against the Suns, which is to score more often than we do. (We play a rather fast-paced game, mainly due to point guard Steve Nash’s ability to get the ball up the court in a hurry on offense. When I say that the secret to success is to score more often than we do, I mean it somewhat seriously. Because of our blitzkrieg mentality, most teams are taken aback and get down early, which results in their taking bad shots, allowing us to rebound the ball and get it out for easy baskets. The problem only gets worse as a team gets further behind, leading to the ludicrous point totals we sometimes accumulate.) The Grizzlies were actually able to make enough shots early to slow our advances into their defense, thereby creating a half-court game that was more in their favor. I will now stick a knife in my own ear because I sound like a basketball analyst.
