Trophy Son(17)

Dr. Ford skipped that part because he worked for Dad, not for me. He made no distinction between the goals of making me a great person and a great tennis player, but that lack of distinction was my whole problem in the first place. Anyway, I didn’t understand this yet, and it also felt good just to have a safe place to talk. I talked so little about anything during the usual days. Maybe I could release some of the Liz toxins here. It still made my stomach cramp to conjure the memory.

“How do you feel about your new coach?”

“I like Gabe a lot.”

“Do you think you can win with Gabe?”

“I do.”

“Why is that? What’s different?”

“He really knows the game. Dad knows a lot but he was never a pro, never had formal training. Gabe has already taught me some small things. Subtle things that help. He makes practice a little more fun.”

“Good. And is your dad still involved?”

“Sort of. Gabe and I practice at the house so Dad’s always there. He’s aware of everything but he stays out of it while Gabe’s there and sometimes we’ll talk after Gabe leaves. He seems to want to give Gabe some room. Dad was an athlete so he respects the player-coach relationship.”

“Good. That’s good. So would you say you feel supported?”

I hadn’t thought about it that way before but I considered that I had a tennis court in our backyard, an expensive coach, plenty of rackets and balls, transportation to any tournament, a dad who was newly giving me some space. “Yes, I think so,” I said.

“Will you practice today?”

“At two o’clock.”

“What will you be thinking when you step on the court today?”

Gabe had played against Federer, Nadal, Murray when he was younger. He got his ass kicked by all of them but he’d seen them up close. “I want to impress Gabe.”

“You want to be a great player,” said Dr. Ford.

“I do.”

“It’ll be a long road. Lots of work,” he said. “I think you can do it.”

When I saw Gabe at two o’clock that afternoon I told him I was all-in for a year. We shook hands. I stepped on the court with him and played great.





CHAPTER

12

I was winning again. Cruising. Having made the decision to commit helped me focus. I was seeing the ball so well, hitting it so cleanly, putting it anywhere I wanted. I could design a point in my head then make it happen exactly that way, like a playwright. On the court my will became reality and I could see my opponents knew it. They could feel they were just a piece on my game board. I didn’t lose even a set the entire summer. Only Ben Archer pushed me to a tie break once which I won, then I won the second set 6–0.

Life off the court was robotic, single-threaded. I was worshipping at Dad’s altar. I kept that from bothering me by remembering that I had made a deal with myself and I was getting the results I had bargained for in the deal so everything seemed fine. My time with Liz was now in a sealed vault buried fifty feet underground like an ancient city now forgotten beneath a present-day tennis center.

Dad’s whole being was dominated by the one-to-one correlation between his happiness and my winning so he was very happy.

Gabe also was feeling great. In a matter of only weeks he had unlocked my potential and got me winning again.

Mom was happy because there was peace in the house. We had lots of hugs. Hugs and knowing looks like people living carefully under a mad king. Not Anne-Frank-living-in-the-attic type stuff. Just people who don’t believe in fascism.

I started reading more, at least two hours every night. I discovered Milan Kundera and Philip Roth. Roth had written a lot of books and for a period of three months I considered him my best friend. I wanted to meet him. I related to him and I wanted to meet him more than I wanted to meet my tennis hero, John McEnroe. McEnroe was an adult, independent with plenty of money, and he still surrounded himself with tennis. I couldn’t relate to that at all.

I told this to Dr. Ford. I said it exactly that way. “I think Philip Roth is my best friend.”

“Who is Philip Roth?”

“The writer.”

“Oh, of course. The Ghost Writer; My Life as a Man.”

“Right,” I said.

“When did you meet Philip Roth?”

“I haven’t.”

Dr. Ford never showed confusion. He just took longer to say something, a trait I thought was pretty good and wanted to test. “I see. But you love his writing?”

“Very much.”

“And you relate to him in some way?”

“I do,” I said.

“More than people?”

“What people?” I said.

“The people in your life.”

“I repeat,” I said.

Dr. Ford smiled. “Well, that’s not entirely fair, Anton.”

If I knew then what I know now I’d have told him to shut the fuck up right there. But instead I said, “There are props in my life, not people. Except Panos but he’s at college now with a girlfriend and I’m playing all the time. I hardly see him anymore.”

“Aren’t things with your mother improved? With your father?”

“Everyone has self-awareness of the plan we’re on and the plan is like a balm for a cold sore. So, yes, the plan is working as much as a balm can work for a cold sore.” I learned more from my novelist friends than from Dr. Ford.