Open: An Autobiography

Weeks after Stuttgart, walking through LaGuardia Airport, I get a phone call. It’s a man with a gruff voice, a voice of judgment and condemnation. A voice of Authority. He says he’s a doctor working with the ATP. (I think what those letters stand for: Association of Tennis Professionals.) There is doom in his voice, as if he’s going to tell me I’m dying. And then that’s exactly what he tells me.

It was his job to test my urine sample from a recent tournament. It’s my duty, he says, to inform you that you’ve failed the standard ATP drug test. The urine sample you submitted has been found to contain trace amounts of crystal methylene.

I fall onto a chair in the baggage claim area. I’m carrying a backpack, which I slip off my shoulder and drop to the ground.

Mr. Agassi?

Yes. I’m here. So. What now?

Well, there is a process. You’ll need to write a letter to the ATP, admitting your guilt or declaring your innocence.

Uh huh.

Did you know there was a likelihood that this drug was in your system?

Yes. Yes, I knew.

In that case, you’ll need to explain in your letter how the drug got there.

And then?

Your letter will be reviewed by a panel.

And then?

If you knowingly ingested the drug - if you, as it were, plead guilty - you’ll be disciplined, of course.

How?

He reminds me that tennis has three classes of drug violation. Performance-enhancing drugs, of course, would constitute a Class 1, he says, which would carry suspension for two years. However, he adds, crystal methylene is a clear case of Class 2. Recreational drugs.

I think: Recreation. Recreation.

I say: Meaning?

Three months’ suspension.

What do I do once I’ve written this letter?

I have an address for you. Have you got something to write on?

I fish in my backpack for my notebook. He gives me the street, city, zip code, and I scribble it all down, in a daze, with no intention of actually writing the letter.

The doctor says a few more things, which I don’t hear, and then I thank him and hang up. I stumble out of the airport and hail a cab. Driving into Manhattan, staring out the smudged window, I tell the back of the cabdriver’s head: So much for change.

I go straight to Brooke’s brownstone. Luckily, she’s in Los Angeles. I’d never be able to hide my emotions from her. I’d have to tell her everything, and I couldn’t handle that right now.

I fall onto the bed and immediately pass out. When I wake an hour later, I realize it was just a nightmare. What a relief.

It takes several minutes to accept that, no, the phone call was real. The doctor was real.

The meth, all too real.

My name, my career, everything is now on the line, at a craps table where no one wins.

Whatever I’ve achieved, whatever I’ve worked for, might soon mean nothing. Part of my discomfort with tennis has always been a nagging sense that it’s meaningless. Now I’m about to learn the true meaning of meaninglessness.

Serves me right.

I lie awake until dawn, wondering what to do, whom to tell. I try to imagine how it will feel to be publicly shamed, not for my clothes or game, not for some marketing slogan someone hung on me, but for my utter stupidity, mine alone. I’ll be an outcast. I’ll be a cautionary tale.

Still, though I’m in pain, during the next few days I don’t panic. Not yet, not quite. I can’t, because other more harrowing problems crowd in from all sides. People around me, people I love, are hurting.

Doctors need to operate a second time on little Kacey’s neck. The first operation was clearly botched. I arrange for her to fly to Los Angeles, to have the best care, but during her post-surgery recuperation period she’s immobilized again, lying on her back in a hospital bed, and she’s suffering terribly. Unable to move her head, she says her scalp and skin burn. Also, her room is unspeakably hot, and she’s like her father: she can’t take heat. I kiss her cheek and tell her, Don’t worry. We’ll fix it.

I look at Gil. He’s shrinking before my eyes.

I run to the nearest appliance store and buy the biggest, baddest air-conditioning unit they have. Gil and I install it in Kacey’s window. When I turn the knob up to Max Cool and press Power, Gil and I clap hands and Kacey smiles as the cold air pushes the bangs from her pretty round face.