After bucking the crowds at JFK I was in no mood to be pick pocketed by a
pro in broad daylight, much less by a young punk whose dirty hands left marks
on my white tennis shorts. But what can you do? Tourists, however we try to
disguise our minority status, are perennial victims of prejudice and
discrimination. So there I was, without taxi fare or pocket money back to
the JFK Hilton, and worst of all, without my tickets to the US Open. Tickets
which had been purchased six months in advance, and could now only be bought
from scalpers at slightly more than three times the original price.
Barking my frustration at the office personnel would probably do no good, I
realized. But I decided to try, anyway. Unfortunately I was beat in line by
a stream of other complainers. Frustrated balding old men in Bermuda shorts
and their fat hen wives, mostly. By the time I got halfway through the line
my anger had metamorphosed to something akin to cynical resignation, and I
pushed past the milling crowds around the courts toward one of a half dozen
snack bars. My intention was to bum a glass of ice water before thumbing
myself back to the hotel. I could have called a limo and charged it to my
room, I suppose, but there'd been over a hundred bucks in that wallet. More
than a day's wage loading and unloading furniture in Omaha. Was I gonna go
home empty handed after saving so long just to see a little tennis action up
close and personal?
"Sorry," the old biddy behind the refreshment stand cage told me. "We don't
have any water. Would you like a Bud or Mich draft?"
I looked up at the lighted Coke display. It read: Draft Beer $3. I
started walking. But since the tennis club where the Open was being held was
roughly seven miles from the hotel, just to say I'd been there in case I
couldn't get standing-room-only tickets for the later rounds, I decided to
look around first. It was, after all, something I'd have to brag about to
all the boys sitting around their wide screen TVs back home watching all the
scores, clicking their remotes from sport to sport during commercials. Maybe
if I just slipped down one of those private hallways unnoticed, I'd even
stumble in on Agassi and Chang sipping Coke from Dixie Cups and discussing
their investments. Maybe I'd overhear Edberg turn to Stich and say,
"Remember that backhand cross court I ripped on you at Wimbledon?" To which
Stich might reply, "That's nothing. You forget the topspin lob of mine that
left you in the line judge's lap in the semis at the French." Taken from
another angle, wasn't it my right to hear a little 'pro' talk, too? What
with my loyalty to the WTA and the makers of Penn tennis balls? With my
subscription to Tennis magazine five years running? Didn't I, Dale Gordon,
loading dock jockey and fan extraordinaire, deserve a break for all the hours
I'd spent of my otherwise miserable life?
The highway stretched hotelward to my right. To my left was a long green
building adjacent center court, with one wing burrowing under the vaulted
stands. Mentally, I flipped a coin. After that, following my instincts, I
began to wonder about the death rate of curious cats.
"You're Vic Trenton, aren't you?" said the man in the green suit with the
emblem of an official from the World Tennis Association.
Vic Trenton? I thought. Vic? Vic Trenton? The name rang a number of
bells of the tinkly, wind-chime kind. So that by the time the sound of them
approached the clangor of bronze gongs a full three seconds had elapsed. But
since I'd just been caught in the restricted hallway, three seconds was all
it took to make my decision. I nodded.
"We...really didn't expect you'd be coming," said the official with sudden
consternation. "Wasn't there a crash at Honolulu International...something
about an Air Force fuel tanker exploding?"
"Yeah, but it...didn't hold me up that long," I replied weakly and thought:
I can't believe I just said that.
The official glanced at his watch, then back at me, then back at his watch.
Another moment and I'd be hustled outside, and maybe even detained for
police questioning. But what the official then said was: "You're late for
the briefing. We'll have to check your schedule too, of course. Craig
Newman the Australian was slated to take your place in the opening round.
"But I..."
"Yes?" "I'm afraid that, well...my rackets didn't make it with me."
The official smiled. "No problem, Mister Trenton," he said. "We'll have
the Wilson people set you up. Just follow me."
It was like a dream. They were having their morning bull session before
their first round's play...Stich, Edberg, Chang. And over in one corner,
Sampras. Was it really? It was. Agassi was talking to six or seven minor
contenders, oblivious to the elderly gentleman reading what I assumed were
the tournament rules. My heart felt like it was about to gag me. There was
a big schedule board in back, and as I passed I scanned it until I found the
name Vic Trenton.
Vic Trenton {27} plays Mark Stedman {unranked} 3:15 PM, Court 7.
Someone had written in red pencil opposite this the word Pending.
On the wall was a picture board. The players were alphabetized there. And
after Solomon was Victor Trenton.
Me? Well, we had the same high forehead, the same rounded cheek bones, the
same over the ear hair style with locks the same dirty blond. His stats
showed him to be twenty-seven, six foot-one, a hundred seventy-seven pounds.
I was twenty-nine, six two, and weighed a hundred eighty-five. We might
have passed for near identical twins. Still, I didn't know who he knew, or
how he talked. And obviously, although I considered myself to be an above
average tennis player, I wasn't in his class. But was I just going to walk
out now, to go home and brag about what might have happened if only I'd gone
through with the bluff?
No way, Jose.
Sidling over to within earshot of Sampras and company, I sat. And that was
when Andre walked in. He was late too, and looked pissed just like on TV.
Rick Cohen was behind him. The two of them came over and sat behind me.
Agassi put his foot on the crossbar on back of my chair, nudging it
rhythmically. I didn't turn around.
The moment of truth came at the ending roll call. I had to raise my hand
for a second, and it drew a few eyes. But still, no one was escorting me
out. Not the official who went to reactivate my 3:15 match, nor the real Vic
Trenton.
How's that burning tanker doing right now, Vic old boy? I thought.
Bringing to mind December the Sixth of '41, I hope?
After the briefing, all the men who would be playing that day, including
some who'd already played, just sat around in their tennis shorts and
warmups, munching the hors d'oeuvres that had been brought in, waiting for
the time when it was their turn to report to the courts. Eric Jorgensen, the
Norwegian madman, came in then, and things went into limbo. They called him
number twenty because that was his stable computer ranking. They also called
him Eric the Barbarian, because he always aimed for the feet. The Barbarian
walked over to the side table, and after selecting a Ritz cracker with a
smudge of Cheez Whiz on it, plopped it in his big mouth. He was the real bad
boy of tennis---somebody who would have made McEnroe look like Little Lord
Flauntleroy, especially in any dark alley between the stands. He might have
been higher in the standings, too, except for his tendency to growl, spit at,
and otherwise intimidate his opponents. In the past, this had cost him not
only points, but games and matches.
Seeing me stare at him, Jorgensen flashed a millisecond scowl and said, "Who
the devil are you?"
Several other players turned slightly toward me at this. Nervously, I
extended my hand. "Vic," I said, simply.
Number twenty took my hand and squeezed. He said nothing. Then he sat
beside me. Agassi got up and left, a sick cheese-eating grin on his face.
Bad blood between them, I could tell. Maybe words had been exchanged, if
not blows. In my peripheral vision I perceived eyes assessing me. Were we
friends? Was I not the loner I hoped? They'd stopped laughing over there
for some reason.
"Vic Trenton," Eric the Barbarian repeated philosophically. "Didn't I play
you in the second round of the Stanley Cup two years ago?"
"Hey, that's right, isn't it?" I said, swallowing the lump in my throat.
"You aced me into oblivion, as I recall." Here I lowered my voice. "But
who are you playing in the first round here?"
True to his word, the official, a man by the name of McGuffin, obtained four
rackets for me from the Wilson people, all strung at ninety pounds. What he
actually gave me, though, were five rackets. The fifth was a Prince
Graphite. Prince, he explained, had learned that my contract with Wilson had
just expired, and would I maybe try out the superior performance of one of
their oversizes, which had been conveniently strung for me at precisely
ninety pounds?
So now I had food, my own locker, a player pass to all games and VIP
parties, and hopefully several hours to enjoy it all. I could carry a racket
around and sign autographs if I wanted. Or I could shoot the breeze with all
the beautiful people in the clubhouse, hoping not to pick anyone who knew me
too well. Ivana Trump, perhaps? Brooke Shields? In short, I was in
tennis heaven. Or so I thought.
Being twenty-seventh in the world, I soon discovered, had distinct
drawbacks. The only autographs I was able to sign were for two kids, one of
whom had dribbled chocolate on the back of the waxed ice cream wrapper I
tried unsuccessfully to imprint with the name Vic Trenton. And the closest I
got to Ivana was a chat with her bodyguard Vince, who informed me she didn't
want to be disturbed. {ie. especially by a man who twenty-six people in the
world had the right to call "loser."} He wasn't going to do me any favors,
and I knew how that felt. In fact, as I watched Jorgensen go down in defeat
to the punishing backhand of Andre, I got to see first hand how tennis was
dominated by a handful of world-hopping celebrities, some still in their
teens, who showed no mercy in their run for the money, the fame, and the
power. Below the top ten, and you were nobody.
It happened like this: Jorgensen came onto the court for their 12:15 match
with fourteen rackets, as if he expected to break a few on the linesmans'
heads. It was hot, maybe ninety degrees, and if you looked across the flat
green hot top, you could see waves of heat like the horizontal lines on an
old tube TV. Since this was the first center court match of the tournament,
I glanced up at the announcer's booth and sure enough, there was Bud Collins
up there, practicing his one-liners for broadcast. The match began with
Jorgensen scowling across the net at Agassi, and Andre returning nothing
except a cold, implacable stare which held in it all the implicit cruelty of
the grave. Agassi opened with a service ace, which was overruled by the
chair umpire, who called it out.
Jorgensen grinned. Andre just barred his teeth. The mood was set.
The second service went thus: Agassi served into the Norwegian's backhand,
a serve which I overheard the man with the laser speed gun say was a hundred
three miles an hour. But Eric the Barbarian somehow returned the service up
the line, catching Agassi off guard. Andre reached for it, managed a slice
drop shot, and after recovering, charged the net. But then Jorgensen lobbed.
So Andre jumped to slam it, missed and doubled back again, slamming it this
time right into Jorgensen's solar plexus. End point one.
"You can always tell when he's scared," Agassi told the waves of heat around
his feet. "He wets his pants."
Cackles of laughter from the stands. The crowd loved a good blood letting.
They knew what was on the line all too well. It wasn't just the money or
the car or the trophy so much as the chance to be admired by the likes of
Trump and Nicholson and Brooke. If you were good enough in this ritual
slaughter of your opponent, you'd get to bed your own movie celebrity on a
more or less regular basis, too. And the endorsements and commercials you'd
clinch would keep you in black Russian caviar for at least until Wimbledon.
This is what the crowds paid to see. I could imagine Bud up there too,
quipping away one-liners from a list of them he had ready, and maybe
substituting a laundry list for all anyone knew. Several times during the
first set Jorgensen shrieked at the judge. Then he shattered a racket on the
net post, and was fined a penalty game. Mellowing slightly in the third and
final set, however, he only once turned to the linesman and said, "Minimum
wage isn't enough for you, is it?"
After the match, which he lost 6--0, 6--2, 6--1, everyone ignored him except
me and Connors. Jimmy, walking past him toward the winner with a microphone,
said, "Nice try."
"Right," Jorgensen replied, wryly. "Right."
After Jimmy had joined the circle of smiling faces over where Agassi stood
sipping Gatorade, Eric turned to me and said, "Look, so I lose in the first
round here. Big deal, right? There's always a match somewhere that the brat
pack doesn't go. Maybe I'll go to the Fiji Island Open or the Papua New
Guinea Cup. Listen...I'll win because no one above me knows how to get
there! And if not, we still get paid by Nike and JC Penny. Right? They pay
us just in case by some fluke we make it to the top ten. Then they have us
under contract already, and we can't up the ante for a while. Hell, Fruit
of the Loom is even negotiating with my agents. You gotta see this thing in
perspective."
"I think I'm beginning to," I said, realizing my own match was coming up in
about thirty minutes.
3:15 PM. Mark Stedman, of course, had no idea he was about to play a fork
lift operator from Omaha. This helped me do well in the warmups. Plus the
fact that my bloodstream was about to OD on adrenalin. As Mark retied his
shoelace, I scanned the meager audience sitting behind the woven fence
surrounding Court 7. The faces looked bored, intolerant. Expiring minds
wanted to know whether we could relieve that boredom before they returned to
their fast food, traffic jam, diaper rash, tax and spend world. Some of them
had even ponied up scalpers money to get in, such was their desperation, and
I knew all too well they were looking for a show.
Well, I'd give them a show. Even if I lost every game.
I served to Stedman. I didn't have any topspin on it. It was just a bull
shot, hard into his backhand. He netted it.
Well, what about that, I thought.
I tried it again. Stedman almost got a handle on it this time, but not
quite. Not yet. It was too conventional, too unexpected. So I tried it
again. This time he returned it to me with a little something extra. But my
adrenalin was really pumping now, and I squeezed it by him cross court.
Then, the next point, I chopped his return over the net for a let court
winner. The people clapped. They didn't care if the point was sheer luck.
It was winning that counted.
Now I had the psychological edge. It wasn't enough to break him, but I
continued to hold my own. And when I did finally break him, it was 5--4, my
serve. Stedman managed a rally in the second set, where he broke my service
twice. He would have broken it again, except he was making as many unforced
errors as McDonalds has commercials. He kept rubbing his elbow too, and
grimacing. Yet he won 6--4 anyway.
The third set could have gone either way. Except I obtained added
incentive. I thought I saw Bjorn Borg in the audience. He was wearing a
baseball cap, and had short hair and dark sunglasses. I kept looking over at
him, trying to make sense of the signals he was giving me. Was it really
him? I wasn't sure, but it helped me win the tiebreaker, 7--6.
Set four? It was like a dream. Not the counting sheep kind of dream, but
the nightmare kind where something small and round and furry is after you,
and the harder you try to escape it the closer it comes to Pac-manning you.
I had my rhythm, and I was playing the most incredible tennis of my life, it
was true. But Stedman wasn't missing as many as he had been. Or was it that
my freakish Twilight Zone luck was back? What is certain is that now it was
Stedman who was wiping the chalk that had splattered his knees, while the
chair umpire overruled my shot out. He won three straight love games,
making it 5--2.
I looked over at Borg, and there he was expressionless as ever in his
tourist disguise, but I knew, if it really was him, that he was having a bad
hair day. Then he tapped his head with one finger. A private
communication, meant for me?
Think Vic. Think. That's what it's all about.
I decided to rush the net. My height gave me an advantage there, at least.
And if I used a lot of angle, and made him reach for it enough, maybe that
elbow of his would give out and...
Yeah. Sure. But had I given any thought about what would happen if I won
the thing? Or if I lost, might the real Vic Trenton, temporarily
incommunicado in a hotel room in Honolulu, then call and learn about his
entering and failing to advance into round two? I could hear it now. He'd
be yelling like Eric the Barbarian. There'd be questions asked of Mr.
McGuffin. Serious questions involving his retirement income. In short
order, McGuffin would be making McMuffins, and I'd be hustled off in a squad
car.
If I stayed around long enough, that is.
As I moved up to intercept Stedman's devastating ground strokes, a plan
began formulating in my mind, and it involved calling the New York Time's
sports editor, and maybe the National Enquirer. Naturally, it would sound
better if I won. Perhaps, if the real Trenton wasn't informed, they'd advise
me to keep playing. And I'd get to meet Ivana and Brooke after all.
My serve and volley game improved dramatically from that point. Then
Stedman began to assume the appearance of someone in critical need of elbow
surgery. I won the match 6--4, 4--6, 7--6, 7--5.
"Hi...Bjorn?" I said, greeting the sunglassed and elusive former superstar
outside the fence.
"Hi," Bjorn said. "Whoever you are."
I took his shoulder and guided him to one side of the people-stream.
"How did you know?" I whispered.
"Well," Bjorn replied, evenly, "it might have something to do with your
change of style. Playing right-handed these days, are you?"
I smiled, albeit nervously. "This is my...one lucky break," I told him, my
voice almost pleading. "It's a fluke. Never happen again. Next week I'll
be back lifting crates in some warehouse. So do me a favor, and don't tell
yet?"
"You get no promises from me," Bjorn replied, frowning.
"But why? Why? You don't know what it's like being me. I've been a
faceless fan for years, always paying the money, going to the games and
paying court fees, buying balls and magazines and videos. You're used to
people swarming around you all the time, driving Ferraris, eating with people
like Princess Grace."
"Yeah," Bjorn said. "All the time. Only Vic is my friend too."
Five minutes later, security arrested me in the parking lot, trying in vain
to hail a limo. They took me to the central office for interrogation, where
a fat man by the name of Gillespie introduced himself as the director.
McGuffin stood behind Gillespie, looking like a man who'd just eaten his
tie. He wasn't wearing one.
"We've just had a tip about your identity," the director informed me, his
tone glacial. He leaned and put his hand on the filing cabinet beside him.
"So we looked into it. Just to make sure you weren't ambidextrous. Now,
would you care to explain this, Mister..."
I extended my hand. "Gordon. Dale Gordon, gentlemen. Love the game. But
I'm just a...warehouseman from Omaha, up here on vacation. And before you
decide to call the police on this, I think you should know that my bondsman's
call will be made instead to the offices of Sports Illustrated. Don't you
think it'll look a little funny having a forklift driver from Nebraska
winning in the first round of the U.S. Open?"
Gillespie did a double take, and rubbed his chin for a long time. He
resembled someone himself, now: Walter Cronkite.
"And if you're thinking this might be good publicity for you," I added,
"like this nobody wins...meaning so can you, mister consumer...forget it.
For Borg's sake we'll just invalidate the match and let the real Trenton
play it over, if he's coming at all. As for me, like I said, I'm just here
for a little tennis action. Can we work something out?"
"Borg?" the bewildered director responded. "It wasn't Borg who complained
to us, Mr. Gordon. It was a young man who found your wallet, which had a
driver's license in it. Mr. Borg is on his yacht off the Greek islands,
having turned down options from CBS to offer commentary during this
tournament."
The next day, washed and shaved, and with my guest pass securely buttoned in
my shirt pocket, I took my seat in the top center section of the grandstand.
"How's it going, old buddy?" I said to the man in the faded dungarees and
Budweiser cap sitting next to me. "Enjoying yourself?"
"Immensely," Borg replied with a genuine smile.