FRID C 23, 2005 - Chicago ReaderReader, Inc., and mail to Reader Subscriptions, 11 E. Illinois, Chicago, IL 60611. Note: Subscription copies are usually received 3-5 days after publication

THIS ISSU

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December 23, 2005

Section One

You won’t remember me unless you’re a trivia freak with a stackof Tennis back issues, but that’s cool. Hardly anybody, even inthe industry, follows the game well enough to know anyone but the men’s and women’s winners at Wimbledon, plus a fewother genuine American heroes. Right now it goes like this:

Roger Federer, that Ukrainian chick, Serena and Venus, Agassi, AnnaKournikova, Sampras sort of, and McEnroe, because who can forgetMcEnroe if he won’t go away. A few more people know who Hingis is, andGraf, maybe Becker, and some people might remember Navratilova—shestill plays some, pretty well for an old broad—or they might think she’s thegirl who nailed her dismount in the Olympics with the broken ankle. But ifthey played before new wave or they had a funny accent,

TOM

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continued on page 3

Pure FictionThe Reader’s Sixth Annual Fiction Issue

Double Fault by Keir Graff | 1

How He Leaves by Sigers Steele | 4

Arachibutyrophobia by Hillary Frank | 6

Paint It Beige by Mae Governale | 8

Lasagna by J.R. Jones | 10

Big Black Monster by Zak Mucha | 12

Sam and Bessie by Tony Adler | 14

Ink Well | This week’s crossword: Book Groups | 27

Double Fault

ON THE COVER: JOSH MCKIBLE

Keir Graff

2 CHICAGO READER | DECEMBER 23, 2005 | SECTION ONE

CHICAGO READER | DECEMBER 23, 2005 | SECTION ONE 3

forget it. You say Laver, Ashe,King, Evert, Connors, and Borg,people think it’s a law firm. Imean, ask any high school player,“Who’s a tennis legend?” andthey’ll say that punk AndyRoddick. And who watches thefinals of any tournament whenit’s a Dutchman versus a Dane—aren’t they from the samecountry anyway? We onlyremember the names of the for-eigners for the duration of thematch in which they play anAmerican. And doubles? Nameone great doubles team. See? ButI’m getting away from my point,which is to say, you don’tremember me, which is cool. I’mnot bitter about it.

In this part of the applicationfor Riverhill Country Club tennispro I’m supposed to explain myqualifications and say why I’m thebest person for the position. Now,because I went to college—CalPoly at San Luis Obispo (yes, ithas a tennis team)—I understandthat the best way to illustrate apoint is to make use of specificexamples. (I transferred to UCDavis after someone noticed I wasbetter at the drop shot than atirregular logarithms and theymade me take English.) So fol-lowing are several points that . . .whatever. I’ll bet you’ve never hadsomeone who was ranked in thetop 400 apply before.

I never won anything impor-tant, but I won a lot when I wasstarting out. When you’re a kidit’s easy, if you’ve had a couple oflessons. You know enough tomake the guy run back and forth,or you hit every shot to his back-hand because he only has a fore-hand. Or you get lucky and theother kid throws up because heate a banana split on the hottest

day of the year. It’s not too toughin high school, either. There are afew power-stroking, crew-cutNazis out there, but there arealso a lot of undisciplined flakeswho make truckloads ofunforced errors. After all, they’refucking teenagers.

Even as an amateur, or a low-ranked pro, you’ll win some shit,but that’s where it starts to gethard. That’s because once theother guys get to a certain level,they’re not obligated to play allthe dinky events in bumblefucktowns and they can rest up andtrain for fucking ever. Look, I’mnot mad at the system. I’m noteven going to go into it, I’m justexplaining. When you’reranked—that is to say, among thetop 400 players in the world,which is no small achievement—but not endorsed and not in thetop 20, you’re going to play a lotof games where you barely payfor your hotel room and planeticket. You can be a professionalathlete and make less than theassistant manager of a RedLobster. Of course, you love thegame and all that, so I’m notsaying it’s as bad as being theassistant manager of a RedLobster. But show me anotherline of work where you can beone of the 400 best in the worldand you still have to hustle forjobs and don’t have insurance.

They used to call me “TheWarhead.” I liked it pretty well, Iguess. Sounds powerful, rhymeswith my last name. I’m six-three,used to weigh about 200, andI’ve got long arms. Longer than

most guys’, and when I extendedfor a full swing, especially onserves, I made the ball flatten outlike a missile. And this wasbefore graphite, before oversizedrackets—high tech was Connorsplaying with that crappy WilsonT2000. I always played withwood, myself. Of course, being abig guy I wasn’t super fast, so Ihated to serve and volley, but Icould play the net if I had to. It’shard to hit a passing shot againsta guy with a wingspan like a 747.That’s what a TV announcer saidabout me in my first televisedmatch, which went five sets. Butmy game has always been aboutpower. People talk about powerbaseline like it was invented inthe 90s, or maybe the late 80s,but I’m here to tell you I wasplaying it in the 70s. I knowsome people say it’s nothing to beproud of, that it’s changed tennisfrom a “game of finesse” to a“war of strength,” but a tennisplayer doesn’t decide what kindof player he is, he just plays thegame his natural strengths andinstincts tell him to play.

People didn’t radar serves likethey do now, but I’m guessing I’dhit 120, 130 miles per hour. Iknow the girls do that now, buttennis, like all sports, is a lot dif-ferent than it was 30 years ago.Not just equipment but training,performance-enhancing drugs,computer modeling. A lot of usdidn’t go to a private tennisacademy, or have Vic Bradencoaching us when we were ten.We just played on school teams,continued on page 16

Show me another line of work whereyou can be one of the 400 best in theworld and you still have to hustle forjobs and don’t have insurance.

Publisher Michael CrystalEditor Alison TrueManaging Editor Kiki YablonSenior Editors Michael Miner | Laura Molzahn | Kitry KrauseAssociate Editors Martha Bayne | Anaheed AlaniPhilip Montoro | Kate SchmidtAssistant Editors Jim Shapiro | Mark Athitakis | David WilcoxStaff Writers Liz Armstrong | Martha Bayne | Steve BogiraJohn Conroy | Jeffrey Felshman | Harold HendersonDeanna Isaacs | J.R. Jones | Ben Joravsky | Monica KendrickPeter Margasak | Tori Marlan | Bob Mehr | Jonathan RosenbaumMike Sula | Albert WilliamsCopy Chief Brian NemtusakEditorial Assistants Pat Graham | Renaldo Migaldi | Joel ScoreMario Kladis | Michael Marsh | Tom Porter | Jerome LudwigTamara Faulkner | Patrick Daily | Stephanie Manis | Robert CassKerry Reid | Todd Dills | Katherine Young | Ryan HubbardMiles Raymer | Tasneem PaghdiwalaTypesetters Vera Videnovich | Kabir HamidArchivist Eben English

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DECEMBER 23, 2005VOL 35 | NO 13

Double Faultcontinued from page 1


and some of us were luckyenough to have what it takes.

I don’t know if writers reallycount their words—it seems like apain—but I think I might be get-ting close to 500, so I guess I’dbetter explain Wimbledon to you.This is probably a mistake becauseyou probably haven’t heardabout it, but if you have heardabout it then I want to explain soyou’re not prejudiced against me.

I was having a sweet year, nodoubt about it. The year beforeI’d peaked out at 381 in the rank-ings, 398 the year before, and theyear before that I was unranked,straight out of college. I’m not

ashamed of those numbers.Businesses kill themselves to bein the Fortune 500. And howmany people get to be ranked inanything? There’s no top list ofdentists. But I still hadn’t beenplaying up to what I thought wasmy best. And I was slowly goingbroke. But that year, 1977, wow.First I qualified for theAustralian Open. I was creamedin the first round, 6-2, 6-7, 6-2, 6-0, but still, I’d played in a Slam.And you know who beat me?Freakin’ Jimmy Connors and histin racket. And I took a set fromhim. For the first time ever, thereporters asked me a couple ofquestions on my way out.

Even though I’d made it into aSlam, it was back to business as

usual right after that. I keptplaying, week in and week out,trying to make it to the quartersof the small tournaments, justtrying to qualify for the big ones.It’s exhausting, but there’s noother way to do it. Only the rockstars get seeded, giving themtime to fucking lie around thebeach in France with toplessmodels. Fiftieth best in thewhole world? You gotta qualify.And I was a long way fromfiftieth. But, when you’re young,you have the desire and theenergy, and I felt like any day Iwas going to start blowing ’emaway. I still hadn’t won shit, but Iwas finishing better and better.

Even though I got knocked outin the first round in Australia,

my confidence was up, and I wasthinking I had a chance toqualify at Wimbledon, too. And Idid! In the first round I drew askinny Italian guy, GiovanniTestarossa or something, andannihilated his country’s hopesin straight sets. My serve waslocked in and I was hitting thesweet spot on every stroke.

Things looked pretty good inthe second round, too. I luckedinto playing the weakest player, aRussian named NikolaiEvgenyev. He was tall like me,but skinny like a stork. A serve-and-volleyer all the way, he’drush the net waving his racketlike he was conducting a sym-phony during one of the reallyloud parts. He wasn’t bad, but he

had these skinny little wrists andno power to speak of. There’s noquestion in my mind that the guywas a better player than I was—he was ranked 83—but I alsothought I could probably justoverpower him. I was doing thispositive visualization thing backthen, so I kept working on thisimage where he was trying toreturn one of my serves and hiswrist just snapped backward andbroke. During the actual game, Iput a lot of mustard on everyserve, every forehand, every two-handed grunt-and-swing back-hand. It worked pretty well, andI took the first set 6-4.

Second set, I’ve already brokenhis serve and I’m up 3-2, servingcontinued on page 18




to make it 4-2. It’s 40-15, gamepoint. I’m so confident now, Ijust feel like every serve is goingto be an ace. I’m not tired, I’mbreathing good, I’m on that kindof autopilot that you dreamabout, when your body finallyjust takes over and shows yourmind it knows what it’s doing.And the crowd is with me, too.Tennis crowds love their bigstars, but they really love theunderdogs. Plus, I’m playing thisRussian dude, and let’s just saythat communists are underrepre-sented in the stands of CourtTwo at the moment. So, with allconfidence, I toss the ball up—

I’ve always had a really highservice toss, and some peoplethink there’s no way I’m going tolocate it and I’m going to miss itlike a Texas leaguer—and uncockmy arm and just fucking mashthe ball forward.

Have you ever watched anaccident happen? You’re sittingat some sidewalk cafe and twocars crash, and you know it’sgoing to happen because you seeit developing—one car is turningand the other one didn’t stop—but in the time it would take foryou to stand up out of your chairand yell it would already havehappened. There’s nothing youcan do. But there’s a reasonHollywood uses slow motion toshow the most intense scenes,

and it’s not just to show you howmuch money they spent on thespecial effects. Well, it partly is,but slow motion also really givesyou that feeling of watching ithappen and knowing you can’tstop it. I remember every detaillike a movie. The fuzzy, yellow-green ball against the pale blue

English sky as I tossed it. Then Ihit it and it took off in a blur. Itwas traveling fast, probably myhardest serve of the day, maybethe hardest serve of my life,going straight with no spin, buttoo low and way too far to theright. In the net for sure.

The ball boy, the little prick,

wasn’t paying attention—they’resupposed to put their headsbehind the net exactly to avoidthis sort of thing. He was justspacing out, looking who knowswhere, with his head on my sideof the net. And the ball was flat-tened out, barely rotating at all,going right at his left cheek.


Only the rock stars get seeded, giving them time to fucking liearound the beach in France with topless models. Fiftieth best inthe whole world? You gotta qualify. And I was a long way fromfiftieth. But, when you’re young, you have the desire and theenergy, and I felt like any day I was going to start blowing ’emaway. I still hadn’t won shit, but I was finishing better and better.


There was this POK! when ithit him. His head banged intothe post and he wobbled, tried tostand up, and then fell forwardonto the court. For a few secondsnobody moved or said anything.I guess nobody knew what to sayor do. I mean, I was as surprisedas everybody else, but I was alsopissed, because I already knewthat my rhythm was shot. I knewthere’d be a fuss, there’d bedelay—15 minutes minimum. Ididn’t want to stop. Ask anyonewho’s ever been in the zone—youdon’t want to get out of the zone.

Anyway, I glared at the para-medic. He was kind of fumblingfor his bag like, oh shit, I thoughtI just got to watch the game fromcourtside for free. The kid wasjust lying there in the grass. He’dpulled one hand up to his head,but that was it, he was barelymoving. I could tell you what youwant to hear, that, oh yeah, I wasso worried about this kid andhow he would look in his gradua-tion picture. But the reality, all Icould think was, this isWimbledon. Don’t get psychedout. So I turned and took a fewsteps away, then stared up at thesky, just trying to stay focused onwinning the game. I didn’t wantto think about hitting the ballboy—when you make a badserve, you’ve got to forget itimmediately. But flashbulbs werepopping like it was the TetOffensive. I assumed they weretaking pictures of the kid, butthey were taking pictures of me,too. I didn’t know how to react,so I shook my head, then rolledmy eyes, then grinned. I just ranthrough a few things, figuringthey could sort through and pickout the ones they wanted.

It was still really quiet, evenfor Wimbledon. I turned aroundand they were putting the kid ona stretcher. When they hustledhim off, you could barely see hishead under the ice packs. Butafter a while they got a new ballboy, everybody got settled, theline judges assumed the position,and the umpire nodded at me. Igrabbed a ball from my pocketand dribbled it a couple of timeswith my racket. Serve a firstserve again, is what I wasthinking. Don’t take anything off,scare the bastard with anothermonster serve. Even if youdouble-fault, it’s still game point.

But then I heard it. A boo. Ilooked up and actually saw theguy, some old dude with a blazerwith a shield insignia on it. InEngland they actually wear thattype of crap. He did it again andthe chair umpire told him to bequiet. I gave the dude a goodscowl, shook it off, and dribbledagain. Across the net, Evgenyevwas looking at me this weirdway. I think he might’ve shookhis head. I was like, “What?” Heshook his head, like, “Nothing.”So I shook my head and then Itossed the ball.

I smashed the serve as hard as Icould, but it caught the net. Itwent up and over, though, so atcontinued on page 20


least I had another serve. Inodded to a ball boy and hetossed me a ball, kind of hard, notthe gentle underhand toss likethey’re supposed to. I mean, itkind of stung my hand. I was like,what the fuck? But again, I’mthinking, “Concentrate.” I pre-tended to inspect the ball, just togive me a little time, but it was anew one, so whatever. A few morejokers in the crowd started up,following the old guy’s lead,booing. They sounded like cows.The chair umpire shushed themagain, but he didn’t put a lotbehind it. You know, Wimbledonis like the mecca of tennis, and

they’re all big on this respect andtradition crap, but the way he said“Quiet please” was like “I have tosay this but I don’t mean it.” I gotthe serve in, but the Russki fore-handed it right back at my body. Ireturned it, barely, but he wasalready rushing the net. Hesmashed one to my backhand andI made a weak lob, but he jumpedand pounded it into the crosscorner and I could only watch.

Well, he ended up breaking myserve, and pretty soon he had meback on my heels, playing catch-up, fighting for every point. Hewas reading my serves really welland getting a lot of my first servesback. He was even hitting win-ners off some of them. At the nextcrossover, he just sits there, qui-

etly sipping water and allTeutonic and Russian and every-thing while I’m trying to getmyself back in the game. I changemy socks, my racket, towel myselfdry, put on a new red-white-and-blue headband, and take a coupleof bites of a granola bar, some-thing I never do. I hear this dudein the stands go: “He broke thatboy’s jaw. Smashed it like ateapot.” And this lady goes: “Hedoesn’t even look sorry.”

Now, I’d like to know exactlywhat people are thinking whenthey say that kind of shit. Here I

am, fighting for my life in thepremier tennis event of the entireworld, maybe it’s the only timeI’ll be here, and they’re stage-whispering about the poor, hurtkid. Not to be a dick, but what dothey expect you to do? Wave yourtennis racket and make it allbetter? It was a freak accident. Idon’t go around hurting peopleon purpose, and if I did Iwouldn’t do it with TV camerason me. And if I go, “I’m so sorry,”yeah, the kid’s going to feel muchbetter. It’s just asinine, youknow? It totally gets away from

the fact that it was the kid’s fault.So the match was kind of get-

ting away from me. Evgenyevtook the second set, and thethird, but neither of us broke theother in the fourth and I won iton a tiebreak when he double-faulted twice. So now it’s a one-set game. Fresh start. I would stilltotally have had a chance to winif I hadn’t broken the umpire’snose. What can I say? I wasnervous. And it’s not like Ipunched him out over a bad call,like Connors would probablycontinued on page 22


It was still really quiet, even for Wimbledon. I turnedaround and they were putting the kid on a stretcher.



have done, except that he wenton to make the finals and lose toBorg by a set. It was my firstserve of the fifth set, and by thenI was feeling tired and a littleshaky from all the crowd bullshit.And I just shanked one. It wasn’teven traveling that fast, but thechair umpire was watching theservice box, thinking that’s wherethe ball would land. So his nosewas out in profile, and he hadkind of a big one, I’m thinking, orthe ball would have just goneright by him, but instead it hitshim square on the nose andthere’s just this weird sound, likewhen you snap a celery stick.

He said, “Shit!” really loud,and he was miked, so probablythe ice cream vendors outsideheard it. All the old ladiesgasped. Blood just startedpouring out of his nose and alldown his shirt and tie and blazer.

He looked at me, I swear he wasthinking, “You meant to do this.”I gave him one of those palms-upgestures, you know, saying sorry.And I even said “Sorry” I think.But he just shook his head andclimbed down from the chair,staring at me the whole time,even while the paramedic wipedoff the blood and examined hisnose and everything.

You’d think they’d get a newumpire after that. Anyone couldsee that he’d have it in for me, butapparently there’s some techni-cality that says he can’t relievehimself of his duties, and the headumpire was watching the matchon center court, and anyway, thishad never happened before. Soafter about ten minutes he’s backin the chair. He’s got this piece ofwhite tape over his nose, and he’sholding an ice bag on it, and hiseyes are bloodshot and starting toturn black underneath, and he’slike, you know, resume play.

I won’t lie, I wasn’t playing that

great, but I really couldn’t get acall from anyone after that. TheRussian would serve and it wouldbe out by three feet, I’m not exag-gerating at all, and the line judgewouldn’t say anything, the chairjudge wouldn’t say anything, andI’d just have to walk to the otherside of my court and wait for thenext serve. You could just see it,the whole crowd sitting there withpinched faces, thinking, go ahead,protest the call. Evgenyev, playinglike shit, still closed me out andwon. And of course he went on tolose badly in the third round.

The way the press made meout, it was like I was invited tohave tea with the queen and Itook a shit on the tablecloth!Their papers were like, “A CheekyShowing,” and “Racquet RogueRaps Rupert,” and so on. Therewere all these quotes about whatan asshole I was, from waitresseswho said I was drunk and rude tochambermaids who claimed Ididn’t tip. Which of course I

didn’t! Who thinks to tip a cham-bermaid? Who even knows whatone is? They turned it into thisbig Ugly American thing, me andConnors, probably McEnroe, too.Even back home, there was asidebar in Sports Illustrated,“Warhead Self-Destructs,” orsomething, that showed a pictureof me apparently shrugging nextto a picture of the kid with hisjaw being sewed shut.

People forgive guys like Connorsand McEnroe, because they throwtemper tantrums but then theywin the whole enchilada. And ifthey stick around long enough, it’slike they’re elder statesmen. Whocalls McEnroe a brat anymore?He’s the voice of tennis, the newBud Collins. Me? I was the guywho broke the kid’s face. The nextyear at Wimbledon they did asoft-focus thing on TV, followingup on the kid and his plastic sur-gery, and of course the littlefucker wanted to be a ball boyagain because he loved tennis so

very very much, and they had theDuke of Kent saying how bravethe kid was to still be a ball boyafter the horror he had endured.The kid walked on the court andhe got a standing ovation eventhough you’d think people wouldbe a little more excited to see Vitasfucking Gerulaitis than the kidwho was going to shag his balls.

I watched it from the bed in mystudio apartment. I was teachingclasses at the Y in Passaic, NewJersey. I had stayed on the road fora few months after Wimbledon,but the heckling was so bad thateven when people weren’t sayinganything I was thinking, whatwill they say next? A couple ofbad losses and I wasn’t even inthe top 400 anymore.

But I learned something. Itwasn’t an easy lesson, but who eversaid life was easy? I learned thatcharacter doesn’t count, hard workisn’t always rewarded, and thatpeople might love you one minute,but they’ll turn on you the next.



Nikki saw them right away,walking out to the lot wearingtheir reddish orange smocks.And smocks or no, it was hermom, and you just know yourmom. She probably thought shedidn’t though when she watchedher get into a pickup with thatmullet-wearing, middle-agedpixie, who grabbed her motherby the back of her head andthrew her mouth on hers beforethe truck door had even closed.

Bet she coughed then.She was always closer to her

dad and closest to her grandma,who took her to church and gaveher her car after she bought a

new one. But it wasn’t until thatmoment, peering through adirty windshield, that sherealized how far she was from her own mother.

She doesn’t remember thedistance between the two cars,just the sight of her mother’sskin, soft rolls on her backwhere her shirt had been pulledup, and her own fist poundingon the passenger’s side window.

They looked up at her, hermother only slightly startled, and her lover with dead eyes as she twisted the key andlowered the window.

“What the fuck do you want?”It must have been a horrible

dream.It took her years to scrape the

word mom out of the back ofher throat, and a moment forher mother to sigh and say,“Nikki, just go home. I don’twant to talk about this.”

Her arm reached through the window toward her motheronly to be seized by the pixie. She dug her dirty nails into herskin, leaned over like she wasgonna take a bite out of her arm,and said, “She doesn’t want todeal with your shit right now.

Get over it.”Then she let go, tossing

Nikki’s arm so she stumbledback. The window rolled up, thetruck started, and then it wasjust her and the Kmart parking lot.

That night Pat fell asleepwatching TGIF sitcoms, andNikki put him to bed. The TVwas still on in her parents’ roombut she heard her dad get up tocontinued on page 24

Paint It Beigecontinued from page 8

It was around three in the morningwhen the phone rang. She picked upthe cordless in her room to hear thesteady, firm voice of a police o∞cer.

I stayed at the Y for a few years.The kids didn’t judge me, they justwanted to watch me serve, and Imanaged to teach some of themto be pretty good. We even had acity champ one year. I’ve beenscuffling since then, teaching alittle, playing for money a little.I’m no longer allowed to competeprofessionally because I triedplaying under an assumed nameonce and got recognized.

Listen, I’ll be honest. My gameisn’t what it used to be, but I canstill beat anybody who walksthrough the doors of the RiverhillCountry Club, and I can teachthem how to beat just about anybody else, as long as they’vegot talent and they’re not afraid of the ball. v

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FRID C 23, 2005 - Chicago ReaderReader, Inc., and mail to Reader Subscriptions, 11 E. Illinois, Chicago, IL 60611. Note: Subscription copies are usually received 3-5 days after publication