Open: An Autobiography

He gives me a hug. I thought I knew what a hug was, but you’ve really never been hugged until you’ve been hugged by a man with a fifty-six-inch chest.

On Christmas Eve, 1989, Gil asks if I’d like to come over to the house, celebrate the holiday with his family.

Thought you’d never ask.

While Gaye bakes cookies, while their daughters are upstairs sleeping, Gil and I sit on the living-room floor putting together toys and train sets from Santa. I tell Gil that I don’t know when I’ve felt so peaceful.

You wouldn’t be happier at a party? With friends?

I’m right where I want to be.

I stop putting together the toy in my hand and fix Gil with a look. I tell him my life has never for one day belonged to me. My life has always belonged to someone else. First, my father.

Then Nick. And always, always, tennis. Even my body wasn’t my own until I met Gil, who is doing the one thing fathers are supposed to do. Making me stronger.

So being here, Gil, with you and your family, I feel for the first time in my life that I’m where I belong.

Enough said. I’ll never ask again. Merry Christmas, son.

11

IF I MUST PLAY TENNIS, the loneliest sport, then I’m sure as hell going to surround myself with as many people as I can off the court. And each person will have his specific role.

Perry will help with my disordered thoughts. J.P. will help with my troubled soul. Nick will help with the basics of my game. Philly will help with details, arrangements, and always have my back.

Sportswriters rip me about my entourage. They say I travel with all these people because it feeds my ego. They say I need this many people around me because I can’t be alone.

They’re half right. I don’t like to be alone. But these people around me aren’t an entourage, they’re a team. I need them for company, for counsel, and for a kind of rolling education.

They’re my crew, but also my gurus, my blue-ribbon panel. I study them and steal from them.

I take an expression from Perry, a story from J.P., an attitude or gesture from Nick. I learn about myself, create myself, through imitation. How else could I do it? I spent my childhood in an isolation chamber, my teen years in a torture chamber.

In fact, rather than make my team smaller, I want to grow it. I want to add Gil, formally. I want to hire him, full-time, to help me with my strength and conditioning. I phone Perry at Georgetown and tell him my problem.

What problem? he says. You want to work with Gil? So hire Gil.

But I’ve got Pat. The Spitting Chilean. I can’t just fire the guy. I can’t fire anyone. And even if I could, how do I then ask Gil to leave a high-profile, high-paying job with UNLV - to work exclusively for me? Who the fuck am I?

Perry tells me to have Nick reassign Pat to work with the other tennis players Nick coaches. Then, he says, sit down with Gil and put it to him. Let him decide.

In January 1990 I ask Gil if he would do me the great honor of working with me, traveling with me, training me.

Leave my job here at UNLV?

Yes.

But I don’t know anything about tennis.

Don’t worry, I don’t either.

He laughs.

Gil, I think I can accomplish a lot. I think I can do - things. But after our short time together, I’m reasonably certain that I can only do them with your help.

He doesn’t need a hard sell. Yes, he says. I would like to work with you.

He doesn’t ask how much I’ll pay him. He doesn’t mention the word money. He says we’re two kindred spirits, embarking on a great adventure. He says he’s known it almost from the day we met. He says I have a destiny. He says I’m like Lancelot.

Who’s that?

Sir Lancelot. You know, King Arthur. Knights of the Round Table. Lancelot was Arthur’s greatest knight.

Did he kill dragons?

Every knight kills dragons.

There is only one obstacle in our path. Gil doesn’t have a gym at his house. He’ll need to convert his garage into a full-scale gym - which will take lots of time, because he wants to build the weight machines himself.

Build them?

I want to weld the metal, make the ropes and pulleys, with my own hands. I don’t want to leave anything to chance. I won’t have you injured. Not on my watch.

I think of my father, building his ball machines and blowers, and wonder if this is the one and only thing he and Gil have in common.

Until Gil’s gym is complete, we continue to work out at UNLV. He keeps his job, works with the Rebels basketball team through a brilliant season, culminating in a blowout win over Duke for the national title. When his duties are done, when his home gym is almost done, Gil says he’s ready.

Andre, now, are you ready? One last time, are you sure you want to do this?

Gil, I am more sure about this than I’ve ever been about anything I’ve ever done.

Me too.

He says he’s going to drive to the college this morning and turn in his keys.

Hours later, as he walks outside the college, there I am, waiting. He laughs when he sees me, and we go for cheeseburgers, to celebrate new beginnings.