Trophy Son(37)

No one could predict me nor could I predict myself because I had no track record. I felt uncertain, that my behavior would be guided by the moment, that my preferences and will were unformed so that the will of another would drive the moment and I would slot in. That wasn’t my nature to slot in. I knew at least that much. I could feel my discomfort. I needed to experiment with enough versions of myself to decide on one of them. It was kindergarten socialization dynamics at twenty-two years old.

It was confusing and frustrating. A sort of rat in a maze, bumping into walls, turning round and round, smelling something he’s certain is cheese and trying to get it.

Through the confusion I did feel an undercurrent of progress. I made wrong turns and bumped into dead ends and I was a rat, but I was my own rat.

I remembered reading David Copperfield as a teenager and thought again about the opening line: Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else …

I wondered then what hero meant. What does it take to be the hero of your own life? Choice, certainly. You have to be in charge of your life to be the hero of it. What if you make bad choices, or just-below-average choices? Do you need to reach the cheese to be the hero, and then what the hell is the cheese anyway? Self-understanding? Happiness? A Wimbledon title? Could the cheese be to perform one noble act in an otherwise unremarkable life spent not in charge of it?

In any case, I was taking charge of my own life, setting it up the way I wanted it to be, based on my limited knowledge. I thought that had to be done if I could ever have the opportunity to be the hero.

I would sometimes hum the tune of my metaphor to myself. The dog takes the cat, the cat takes the rat, the rat takes the cheese. The cheese stands alone.





CHAPTER

25

I was showered up and back in street clothes after the loss when I walked back into the hotel suite.

“Atom Bomb.”

Adam sat in the suite on the sofa next to the PlayStation controls. Gabe was too pissed off to talk with me now. It was a bad loss. “Hey, Adam.” There were big windows with a city view but I didn’t want a lot of light coming in so I closed the curtains to darken the room.

“Have a seat, my man.”

I did and unrolled my whole body into the sofa so that my head rested back and I looked up at the ceiling. The night before I had gone out to dinner with a girl on the tour. We had ordered a bottle of wine. Finished it.

“Tough day out there, Anton.”

Before dinner we had visited the Museu Picasso. In my years on the tour this was my first visit to a museum. I was in Barcelona and this seemed like a breakthrough moment, a heroic choice to make in my life. I was in Europe on a date with a pretty girl I liked and so we went to a museum and a fancy restaurant the way many human beings might. “Yes. Very tough day.”

Adam slid a PlayStation control to me. “Let’s have a round,” he said.

I sat up. I looked back at the sofa pillow that held an imprint in the shape of my head as though trying to lure me back. The wine had dehydrated me. It was a hot day for the match and my hydration never caught up. My face had gone tomato red in the first set. I drank water but could never get it all the way to my veins in time. I felt feverish. I was still feverish next to Adam. Our flight out of Spain wasn’t until the next morning. “Not now, I can’t concentrate. I can barely focus my eyes.”

“You feel like talking?”

I did and I didn’t. It depended on what Adam talked about. “Sure.”

Adam took this word and ran with it. “You seem good to me, Anton. Doing better than in the years I’ve known you. Sometimes. And then sometimes you’re worse.”

“I guess so.”

“It used to be just you and tennis, man. The two of you pulling on each other, like this linear thing. Now it’s not linear. It’s three dimensional. Maybe four or five dimensional.”

Adam could sound stoned even if he wasn’t. I didn’t say anything.

“And that’s all good, Anton. People need variety, variability. Now your highs are higher and your lows are lower,” he said. “The key is to maximize the high and curb the low.”

This was the kind of Zen advice I always thought was impractical. “Well, that would be nice.” My headache was getting worse. I could feel the beat of my heart in my temples so I massaged them with the tips of my fingers.

“You need some water,” said Adam. He handed me a Fiji from a case we kept at room temperature in the suite.

I said, “Four years ago I’d never have gone out to dinner the night before a match, but if I were still living my life that same way I’d be so miserable I’d have quit the tour altogether. Now at least I’m playing. Not as good as a robot, but it’s what I can do.”

“I know. Believe me, I’m totally with you.”

“It’s harder to focus. I can get focused, I just can’t stay focused and intense for the long haul. There’s a lot going on.”

“I know, Atom Bomb. It causes mental dislocation.”

“Something like that.” My face was still red and I still felt feverish. It was partly the dehydration and partly the conversation.

“Your head bothering you?”

“I need Advil.”

“That’ll help,” he said.