Open: An Autobiography

Nick keeps going. Your free time, he says, is hereby revoked. Your free time is now my time. You’re on detail, Mr. Agassi. Between nine and ten you’ll clean every bathroom on the property. When the toilets are scrubbed, you’ll police the grounds. If you don’t like it, well, it’s simple. Leave. If you’re going to act like you did yesterday, we don’t want you here. If you’re incapable of showing that you care about this place as much as we do, buh-bye.

This last word, buh-bye, rings out, echoes across the empty courts.

That’s it, he says. Everyone get back to work.

All the kids scurry away. I stand stock still, trying to decide what to do. I could curse out Nick. I could threaten to fight him. I could start bawling. I think of Philly, then Perry. What would they have me do? I think of my father, sent to school in girl clothes when his mother wanted to humiliate him. The day he became a fighter.

There is no more time to decide. Gabriel says my punishment begins right now. For the rest of the afternoon, he says - on your knees. Weed.

AT DUSK, relieved of my weed sack, I walk to my room. No more indecision. I know exactly what I’m going to do. I throw my clothes in a suitcase and start for the highway. The thought crosses my mind that this is Florida, any maniac halfwit could pick me up and I’d never be heard from again. But I’d be better off with a maniac halfwit than with Nick.

In my wallet I have one credit card, which my father gave me for emergencies, and I’m thinking this is a bona fide Code Red. I’m headed for the airport. By this time tomorrow I’ll be sitting in Perry’s bedroom, telling him the story.

I keep my eyes peeled for searchlights. I listen for the yelps of distant bloodhounds. I stick out my thumb.

A car pulls up. I open the door, wind up to toss my suitcase in the backseat. It’s Julio, the disciplinarian on Nick’s staff. He says my father is on the phone back at the Bollettieri Academy and wants to speak to me - now.

I’d prefer the bloodhounds.

I TELL MY FATHER that I want to come home. I tell him what Nick has done.

You dress like a fag, my father says. Sounds like you deserved it.

I move to Plan B.

Pops, I say, Nick’s ruining my game. It’s all about hitting from the baseline - we never work on my net game. We never work on serve and volley.

My father says he’ll talk to Nick about my game. He also says Nick has given his assur-ance that I’ll only be punished for a few weeks, to prove that Nick is in charge of the place.

They can’t have one kid flouting the rules. They need to maintain some show of discipline.

In conclusion my father says again that I’m staying. I have no choice. Click. Dial tone.

Julio shuts the door. Nick takes the receiver from my hand and says my father told him to take away my credit card.

No way I’m giving up my credit card. My only means of ever getting out of here? Over my dead body.

Nick tries to negotiate with me and I suddenly realize: He needs me. He sent Julio after me, he phoned my father, now he’s trying to get my credit card? He told me to leave, and when I left, he fetched me back. I called his bluff. Despite the trouble I cause, I’m apparently worth something to this guy.

BY DAY, I’M THE MODEL PRISONER. I pick weeds, clean toilets, wear the proper tennis clothes. By night I’m the masked avenger. I steal a master key to the Bollettieri Academy, and after everyone’s asleep I go marauding with a group of other disgruntled inmates. While I confine my vandalism to minor stuff, like throwing shaving cream bombs, my cohorts spray walls with graffiti, and on the door to Nick’s office they paint Nick the Dick. When Nick has the door repainted, they do it again.

My primary cohort on these late-night sprees is Roddy Parks, the boy who beat me that long-ago day when Perry introduced himself. Then Roddy gets caught. His bunkmate drops a dime. I hear that Roddy’s been expelled. So now we know what it takes to get expelled. Nick the Dick. To his credit, Roddy takes the fall. He doesn’t rat out anyone.

Aside from petty vandalism, my main act of insurrection is silence. I vow that, as long as I live, I’ll never speak to Nick. This is my code, my religion, my new identity. This is who I am, the boy who won’t speak. Nick, of course, doesn’t notice. He strolls by the courts and says something to me and I don’t answer. He shrugs. But other kids see me not answer. My status rises.

One reason for Nick’s oblivion is that he’s busy organizing a tournament, which he hopes will attract top juniors from throughout the nation. This gives me a great idea, another way to stick it to Nick. I pull aside one of his staff and mention a kid back in Vegas who’d be perfect for the tournament. He’s unbelievably talented, I say. He gives me problems whenever we play.

What’s his name?

Perry Rogers.