My status is rising

My main act of revolt is silence. I swear, as long as I live, never will say anything to Nick. That's my line, my religion, my new identity. That's who I am, the boy says nothing. Nick observes of course nothing. He strides past the courts and says something to me and I will not answer. He shrugs. But the other kids see that I give no answer. My status is rising.

One reason why Nick does not notice is that he is busy organizing a tournament which he juniors from across the country hopes to attract. Then I think a great idea, a new way to Nick rods. I tell one of his people that I know of someone in Vegas who would be cut for this tournament. He has incredible talent, I say. He always brings me into trouble when we play against each other.

What's his name?

Perry Rogers.

This is a real teaser. Nick's goal in life is to discover new stars and there are tournaments during show it off. New stars provide attention. New stars raising the status of the Bollettieri Academy and strengthen Nicks image as a leading tennis coach. And yes, a few days later, Perry received a ticket and a personal invitation to fly to Florida toernooi.Hij and take a taxi to the Bollettieri Academy. Once we see each other, we hug each other and grinning at the joke that with Nick tricks.

To whom should I play?

Murphy Jensen.

Oh no, but that's very good!

Do not worry. This is only a few days. Now let's party.

One of the many perks for the children who participate in the tournament, a trip to Busch Gardens in Tampa. The bus to the amusement park I bring Perry informed, on my public humiliation and how miserable I find the Bollettieri Academy. And at the Bradenton Academy. I say that I probably will drop. But he did not understand. For the first he understands my problem. He loves school. He dreams of a good college on the East Coast to go right and he wants to study.

I start on something else. I ask him about Jamie. She asked me to? What does she look like? She wears my ankle? I tell him that I had a special gift for Jamie wants to convey. Maybe something fun of Busch Gardens.

That would be nice.

We are less than ten minutes Busch Gardens or Perry sees a stall with all toys. On a high shelf sits a giant black and white panda, legs apart, with his red tongue out of his mouth.

André, you must give to Jamie!

Yes, but that is not for sale. You have to win the prize for that panda to get, and no one wins this game. It's a trick. And I do not like tricks

plan B

In my portfolio I have the credit card that my dad gave me for emergencies. And I think this is a real emergency. I go to the airport. By this time tomorrow I'll be in Perry's bedroom to tell him this story. I keep my eyes open for searchlights. I expect every moment the distant sound of bloodhounds to hear. I stick my thumb up.

It stops a car. I do the door, to throw my suitcase in the back. It's Julio, Nicks law enforcement. He says that my dad on the phone, at the Bollettieri Academy, and he wants to talk to me. Now.

The bloodhounds were'd rather have.

I tell my father that I want to go home. I tell him what Nick did.

You dress like a cousin, my father says. I think you deserve.

I try plan B.

Pops, I say, Nick spoils my game. I practice only from the baseline, we never work on my netgame. We never work on my service and my volley.

My father says he will have to be with Nick. He also says that Nick has promised him that my punishment will last only a few weeks. Nick wants to show who's boss. It is unacceptable that a child breaks the rules. He must somehow show that discipline reigns.

Then my father said again that I stay. I have no choice. Click. Dial Tone.


Julio closes the door. Nick picks up the phone and tells me that my father has instructed him to grab my credit card.

Give him my credit card? No way! The only thing I could ever come from? Over my dead body.

Nick tries to negotiate with me and suddenly I know: This man needs me. He has sent Julio behind me, he called my father and now he tries to get hold of my credit card. He said I had to leave and when I left, he brought me back. I have his challenge. Despite all the trouble I cause, I am important to him.

By day I am a model prisoner, I weeded out weeds, clean the toilets clean, wear proper tennis clothing. But at night I'm the masked avenger. I steal a runner from the Bollettieri Academy and late at night, when all others are sleeping, I go on raids with a few other disgruntled guys. Although I confine myself to harmless things like throwing shaving cream bombs, spraying walls with graffiti my companions. On the door of Nick's office inject
Nick the Dick
. And as Nick the door to clean, they do it again.

My main henchman during these nocturnal trips Roddy Parks is the guy who beat me long ago to the day I met Perry. But Roddy is caught. Betrayed by his slapie. I hear that Roddy was dismissed.

Unexpected Meeting

Bollettieri Academy I get extra attention, pats on my back and compliments. I finally feel like I hear there, one of the cool guys have one of the leaders.
Plus I got the W
.
T

unexpected meeting. Everybody gather, he roars.

He sends us to a back court with bleachers. If all two hundred children there and be quiet, he starts to walk back and forth and keep a story. On the significance of the Bollettieri Academy and that we should feel privileged because we may be. He has this place from scratch, he says, and he is proud that bears his name. The Bollettieri Academy for excellence. The Bollettieri Academy is for class. The Bollettieri Academy is known and respected worldwide.

He pauses.

Andre, will you stand?

I get up.

Everything about this place I just have said, Andre, you have denied. You have this place defiled, ashamed, in the area that you've removed yesterday. During final jeans and your makeup and wear earrings? Boy, I'm going to something important to say. If you behave as if you you dress like a girl, then I do the following: during your next tournament, I will force you to wear a skirt. I contacted them and asked a few Ellesse skirts for you to send and who will carry you. Yes sir, because if you behave like you, we will treat you so.


All two hundred children look at me. Four hundred eyes are on me. Many children laugh.


Nick continues. Your free time, he says, is hereby repealed. Your free time is my time. Between nine and ten make every toilet in this area clean. And if all toilets are clean, you clean the area and weeding. And if you do not like, simple, then you leave. If you behave like yesterday, we want you here. And if you can not show you this place is as important as we,
buh-bye

That last word,
buh-bye,
sticks, echoes across the empty courts. That's all, he says. Everybody back to work.


All children are rapidly feet. I stand motionless, trying to decide what to do. I wish Nick the skin is full of swearing. I would challenge him to a fight. I want to scream. I think of Philly, then to Perry. What would they want me to do? I think of my father, sent to school in girl's clothes when his mother wanted to humiliate him. The day he was a fighter.

There is no time for anything to decide. Gabriel says that my sentence now begins. The remainder of this afternoon, he says, on your knees. Weeding.

As the sun sets and I've handed my rake, I walk to my room. I am no longer undecided, I know exactly what I will do. I throw my clothes into a suitcase, walk to the highway. I realize that this is Florida, I can be picked up by a crazy idiot, and nobody ever hears anything from me.

Skoal and Kodiak

What can I do? Nick, Gabriel, Mrs.. G, G Doc, no one seems yet to see my antics. I shaved my hair, my nails grow, even a finger nail is five inches long and I got it painted bright red. I dyed my coxcomb and my body pierced. I break the rules, I do not like the curfew kept, I went to blows with others, have tantrums had skipped school and I even once after the girls' dormitory bedtime slipped. I drank liters of whiskey, often shamelessly sitting on my bed and I also made a pyramid of all the empty bottles. Is a tower next to my bed empty bottles of Jack Daniel's nearly one meter high. I plum tobacco and marijuana, such as Skoal and Kodiak, soaked in whiskey. If I've lost, I put a big ball of tobacco in my cheek. The bigger the defeat, the greater the ball.

What can I do? What new sin I can commit the world to show that I am unhappy and want to go home?

There are times when I did not try to invent new regions: during the free hours when I can relax in the recreation room and on Saturday night when I can go to the Mall Bradenton and girls can flirt. A total of ten hours per week of which I'm happy, or at least not torment my brains for some new act of disobedience to think.

I'm still fourteen Bollettieri Academy as a coach who hires us to the north of the state to bring a major tournament in Pensacola. The Bollettieri Academy travels every year a few times to these tournaments, anywhere in Florida because Nick these tournaments is a good test. A ruler, he calls them. Florida is the tennis heaven, says Nick, and if we're better than the best players in Florida, then we have the best players in the world.

I easily reach the final of my class, but the other children do less well. They are all previously disabled. And so they have to come watch my match. They have no choice, they have nowhere else to go. When I'm done, we will again be all together on the bus for the twelve hour drive back to the Bollettieri Academy.

Take it easy, she jokes.

Nobody is looking forward to another twelve hours in the stinking bus down.

For fun during the match I decided to wear my jeans. No tennis shorts, no shorts, but a torn, faded, dirty jeans. I know it will not affect the outcome. The boy who I play a loser. I can beat him with one hand on the back and dressed in a gorilla suit. Moreover, I keep eyeliner on and do my earrings in glimmendste.


I win the match in straight sets. The other kids cheering like crazy. They give me an additional bonus points for style.

The Story has begun

Philly and I feel both outlaws and we are always on the go and do exactly what God forbid we want to do. Fast food packaging we throw over our shoulders in the back. We listen to loud music, cursing as much as we want and say whatever the hell in our minds without fear that someone corrects us or ridicule. Yet we never discuss the fact that we make this trip for several reasons. The only thing Philly wants is an ATP earn points, just one, so he knows how it feels to have a ranking. All I want is to prevent me from Philly to play, because I loved my brother, then to defeat.


During the first satellite crush my opponent is crushed by his Philly. Afterwards, the car in the garage next to the stadium, sitting at the wheel Philly staring, stunned. For some reason, this loss hurt him more than any other. He clenches his fists and punches against the steering wheel. Hard. He punches again. He talks to himself, so soft that I can not understand. He talks louder. He cries, he screams that he is a born loser, he gives the wheel a stump and another one. He hits so hard against the steering wheel that I am afraid he will break the bone in his hand. I think of our father, schaduwboksend against the steering truck driver after he was beaten down.


Philly says: I'd be better off if I would break my fucking fist! It was all over with! Dad's right, I'm a born loser.

Then he was silent. He looks at me to leave. As quietly as our mother. He smiles, the storm has died down, the devil is gone.

Now I feel better, he says with a smile and a tear.

He drives the car park and gives me directions to my next opponent.

A few days after I'm back at the Bollettieri Academy, I slip away to the Mall and call collect calls Bradenton home.

Philly takes on. He sounds just like in the garage.

You know, he says, you have a letter from the ATP.

Oh yeah?

Do you know your ranking?

No idea, what do you think?

You are at number 610.

Really?

Number 610 of the world,
bro

This means that the whole world, but 609 people better than me. On planet Earth in this solar system, I am number 610. I give a blow against the wall of the booth and shout for joy.

The line was silent. Then ask Philly whisper: How does it feel?

I can not believe how thoughtless I am so going by screaming, while I know he must be disappointed. I wish I were half my atp-points could give him. On a very bored tone I say: Oh, you know? It's nothing. Not really.

Three hundred

The rest of the time I count them and recount, and thank my guardian angel for this job.

My father thinks my hair and my earring, as expected, horrible. But he refuses to blame himself for having me on the Bollettieri Academy is. He will not admit that it was a mistake to send me away, and he refuses to talk about that I would be coming home. He just asks if I'm a fag.

No, I say, and go to my room.


Philly goes with me. He says he likes my new look. A coxcomb is better than bald. I tell him about my mazzeltje the plane.

Wow! What will you do with all that money?

I am considering buying an anklet for Jamie, a girl at Perry in school. The last time I was home, I could kiss her. But I do not know, I must necessarily have new clothes for school. These black and white checkered sweater, I can not long bear. I want to belong.

Philly nods. Difficult problem,
bro

He asks why I'm not there to hear, and there I want to hear, I have a mohawk and an earring. He sees my dilemma as something serious, my inconsistency as something normal, and helps me through the options to take. We conclude that I had the money to the girl publishing, and new clothes but forgot.

Once I anklet in my hand, I have regrets. I see myself when I'm back in Florida, with the few clothes I have. I say it to Philly and he nods.

The next morning when I open my eyes, I see Philly grinning hanging over me. He looks at my chest. I look down and see a pile of banknotes.

What is this?

I played cards last night,
bro
. Had luck. Won six hundred U.S. dollars.

And, what is this?

Three hundred. Go and buy some new sweaters.

Spring is my father that I participate in several minor tournaments, satellites, with an open qualification. That means that everyone can do and in any case a match to play. They are held in remote villages, very remote towns like Monroe, Louisiana, and St. Joe, Missouri. Because I was only fourteen, I can not travel alone. So send my dad with Philly, for me to chaperone and to play. Philly and my dad still believe that it will be something with his tennis.

Philly hires a beige Omni, which quickly became a mobile version of our bedroom at home: a half of him, one half of me. We travel thousands of miles, stopping only at fast-food joints and tournaments to play and sleep. We sleep anywhere for free, because in every city we stay with strangers, families voluntarily shelter. Most families are nice, but do overly enthusiastic about tennis. It is already crazy to stay with people you do not know, but it's very annoying to get to the pancakes and coffee just to talk about tennis.

Stewardess

The worse I do at school, how I am rebellious. I drink, I smoke pot, I misbehaved myself. I am vaguely aware of the inverse of my grades and my rebellion, but do not really think about. I prefer Nick's theory. He says I do not do well in school because I got shit on everywhere. This is perhaps the only thing he ever said about me a little true. (He describes me mostly as a cocky glutton who wants attention. Even my father knows better.) But my behavior in general is bright, whimsical, irrepressible, and therefore I accept that, as I change accept that my body undergoes.

Finally, if my figures are very low, my rebellion reached its peak. I walk into a salon in Bradenton Mall inside and ask the hairdresser to give me a mohawk. I tell him he should shave the sides very briefly, in the middle with a thick pointed her job.

Sure, kid?

I want it high, and I want it pointed. Then you paint it pink.

He has eight minutes to work with his clippers. Then he says: Ready! And turns me into the chair. I look in the mirror. The earring was good, this is better. I can not wait to Mrs.. G's eyes to see.

If I'm out shopping and the bus to the Bollettieri Academy'm waiting, there's nobody recognizes me. Children who I tennis, children with whom I share a bunk looking past me. A casual observer might think I've made a desperate attempt to stand out. But in fact, I myself, my true self, made invisible. At least that was the intention.

I fly home and Christmas when the plane approaches the Strip, the casinos under the sloping wings sparkle like a row of Christmas lights, the stewardess said we should wait with countries.

Groans.

Because we know you all want in the casino quickly, she says, we thought it would be nice for a little gamble until we can land.

Cheers.

If you all a dollar in the paper barf bag stop, then you write your seat number on the stub of your ticket and you put in the barf bag. We get a check slip, and that person wins the jackpot!

They collect all the dollars, while another attendant retrieves the control markers. Now she is in the plane and puts her hand into the bag.

And the grand prize goes to, drum roll please, 9F!

I'm 9F. I won! I get up and wave. The passengers turn around and see me. More moans. Great, that kid with the Mohawk haircut has won.

The flight attendant gives me the barf bag unwilling to ninety-six U.S. dollars.