Roland followed me yelling the same thing, even louder. The cardboard glided nicely over the crunchy snow. The ground whipped by, and I could feel every bump and hard-cornered chunk of ice. I laid my body luge-style, and then I soared off of a sudden rise and flipped into the air for a full second and a half. The ground smacked my head, and for a moment it knocked me out, as though I’d inhaled the gas from a whipping cream canister, like we did in high school. I saw a trail of light like a comet in the sky, and then the world spun around me, white and dazzling. I gathered myself to my feet and went running back up the hill. Roland was already there. We started up again, faster this time. “This is completely crazy,” he said, with a reasonable, kind smile that I wanted to love. I wanted this. I allowed myself to believe it was possible. I could crash into a tree, or a rock, or a bank of snow, and land hard enough so that something inside me would break. I would stay out here, burning down the steep dark hill until it happened.
Letters from the Academy
Dear Mr. Wilcox,
I would like to let you know how your son Lee is progressing at the Tennis Academy. I’ve chosen to communicate by letter because I believe what we’re witnessing requires more than a casual phone call or email, as I suspect you will agree.
I should start by confessing that I did not at the outset peg Lee as a star player. Your son was a bit spacey, and antisocial really, whereas the main cadre of top players cling to one another like a pack of young wolves. Lee has a tendency to look away when you speak so that it appears he isn’t listening, though it has been my experience, as I’m sure it has been yours, that he’s heard every word. He has invariably incorporated what I’ve suggested into his game.
But by the second week I’d see him staying late in front of the backboard and hitting way into the night, and there again at dawn with a hopper of balls and the targets, practicing a thousand or more serves. And now, a month in, I can see just a little Becker in his volleys and a touch of Agassi in his returns. I do not use those terms lightly. In the last tournament Lee was made to play the fourth seed, a boy from Kentucky with a huge serve-and-volley game, and Lee destroyed him in straight sets—6–2, 6–2. He never brags about his accomplishments, but I figured Lee would have told you this; when I talked to him a few days afterward, though, I understood that he probably didn’t. He said he hasn’t spoken to you in a while.
Lee won two other matches in that tournament, and when he finally lost, it was because of a broken string that forced him to borrow a racket. I plan to make a deal with Wilson so that Lee can begin to receive free equipment. I hope this will be an arrangement you will go along with. There is nothing you would need to do financially, but Lee would have to wear only Wilson clothes and use only Wilson rackets. In all other respects, I now think, he is ready for the responsibility such a deal would entail.
He still reads all the time when he isn’t practicing and I wonder if that’s what’s caused his eyes to deteriorate. Usually he wears his contacts when he’s playing but sometimes he wears those thick glasses, which makes other kids poke fun at him, although to his credit he doesn’t seem to listen to them or care all that much. I’m not sure if he has any real friends here, other than a boy from the school our athletes attend who doesn’t play tennis, but who watches Lee play. This boy smokes cigarettes, which I certainly hope Lee does not do, because it would result in his suspension from the Academy. So far, so good. There have been no issues with girls, although a few seem to be taking interest in him. I don’t think it would be all that bad for Lee to go on a date or two, but I have not spoken to him about it, and I imagine that’s more your territory than mine. There have been off-color things said about Lee and the boy from the school, although that’s what’s always said about unusual kids. I have caught Lee staring a few times at Vivi, the girl from Denmark, who is one of our best players and is something to look at.
What is so remarkable about Lee is his ability to focus on a single task, so unusual for a boy his age, or for anyone at any age. The world recedes for Lee when he is on the court, and his face looks purposefully placid, like Borg’s or Lendl’s. It’s rather intimidating, really. And he has a terrific sense of balance. As he runs, you can imagine him keeping a stack of books over his head and not spilling one. His racket speed has improved, as has his footwork. These improvements are incremental, and barely detectable day to day, but I’m beginning to think he’ll be one of our top players by this spring. It will be a different life for him, and perhaps for you, because I believe he will be traveling soon for tournaments, perhaps to the nationals. And I for one would like to be part of that.
I think that tennis isn’t really all that important to Lee, but that whatever is in front of him becomes important, and tennis has been in front of him. He has a remarkable memory and seems to be able to read a book a night. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him particularly upset, or all that happy, although when he’s hanging out with the boy who smokes cigarettes and when he’s watching Vivi play, he becomes more animated. That is all I can tell you right now. I hope this is as exciting to you as it is to us at the Academy. We are expecting very big things from Lee.
Sincerely yours,
Maximilian Gross
My Dear Mr. Wilcox,
I fear you have been out of town and therefore unable to reply to my last letter, or else you’ve read it and may still respond. I wanted to fill you in on the progress since our last correspondence, if we can call it progress, and I think we can. Lee has been practicing even harder, sharpening his footwork and volleying. It has gotten so that five boys can strike shots at him nearly simultaneously and he will cleanly volley all five balls back. He can retrieve the deepest lob after nearly touching the net, then sprint back for a drop shot on the opposite side of the court. The player who comes to mind when he does this is Wilander, or maybe Borg, whose fitness was legendary. Wilson has sent the first shipment of rackets, and I have strung them each with a combination of gut and synthetic nylon at fifty-two pounds, which allows for a tremendous amount of topspin but means that on flat shots Lee will still be able to keep the ball in the court. The boy he hangs out with has lately taken to smoking a pipe and wearing an army cap. Lee’s grades have been outstanding in all his classes except for public speaking, where he got a B-. At sixteen, he reads at the graduate-school level, and his vocabulary is that of a man twice his age.
I have signed Lee up for a series of satellite tournaments, which will bring him in front of some significant crowds and provide us with a good testing ground. I very rarely tell a parent that their son or daughter has what it takes to make a living at our sport, but in Lee’s case it is becoming apparent to us all. Just last week a collegiate player from Florida Tech stopped by the Academy to train with Lee. At the end of the day they played a set and Lee thrashed him 6–1. It was only practice and the collegiate player, one of our alums, was somewhat out of shape, due to a monthlong spell of mononucleosis. But the margin of victory was what sent shock waves that night through the Academy dining room.