Perry says, come on, come on.
He turns on the jets, sprinting after the Rolls.
Hey! What the—? Perry, are you kidding? Your mom drives a Rolls? Are you—rich?
I guess so.
Why didn’t you tell me?
You never asked.
For me, that’s the definition of being rich: it doesn’t cross your mind to mention it to your best friend. And money is such a given you don’t care how you come by it.
Perry, however, is more than rich. Perry is super-rich. Perry is Richie Rich. His father, a senior partner at a major law firm, owns a local TV station. He sells air, Perry says. Imagine. Selling air. When you can sell air, man, you’ve got it made. (Presumably his father gives him air for an allowance.)
My father finally lets me visit Perry’s house, and I discover that he doesn’t live in a house, in fact, but a mega-mansion. His mother drives us there in the Rolls, and my eyes get big as we pass slowly up a massive front drive, around green rolling hills, then under enormous shade trees. We stop outside a place that looks like Bruce Wayne’s stately manor. One entire wing is set aside for Perry, including a teenager’s dream room, featuring a ping-pong table, pool table, poker table, big-screen TV, mini fridge, and drum set. Down a long hallway lies Perry’s bedroom, the walls of which are covered with dozens and dozens of Sports Illustrated covers.
My head rotating on a swivel, I look at all the portraits of great athletes and I can only say one word: Whoa.
Did this all myself, Perry says.
The next time I’m at the dentist I tear off the covers of all the Sports Illustrateds in the waiting room and stash them under my jacket. When I hand them to Perry, he shakes his head.
No, I have this one. And this one. I have them all, Andre. I have a subscription.
Oh. OK. Sorry.
It’s not just that I’ve never met a rich kid. I’ve also never met a kid with a subscription.
IF WE’RE NOT HANGING OUT AT CAMBRIDGE, or at his mansion, Perry and I are talking on the phone. We’re inseparable. He’s crushed, therefore, when I tell him that I’m going away for a month, to play a series of tournaments in Australia. McDonald’s is putting together a team of America’s elite juniors, sending us to play Australia’s best.
A whole month?
I know. But I have no choice. My father.
I’m not being entirely truthful. I’m one of only two twelve-year-olds selected, so I’m honored, excited, if slightly on edge about traveling so far from home--the plane ride is fourteen hours. For Perry’s sake I downplay the trip. I tell him not to worry, I’ll be back in no time, and we’ll have a Chipwich feast.
I fly alone to Los Angeles, and upon landing I want to go straight back to Vegas. I’m scared. I’m not sure where I’m supposed to go or how to find my way through the airport. I feel as if I stick out in my warm-up suit with the McDonald’s Golden Arches on the back and my name on the chest. Now, off in the distance I see a group of kids wearing the same warm-up suit. My team. I approach the one adult in the group and introduce myself.
He flashes a big smile. He’s the coach. My first real coach.
Agassi, he says. The hotshot from Vegas? Hey, glad to have you aboard!
During the flight to Australia, Coach stands in the aisle, telling us how the trip is going to work. We’re going to play five tournaments in five different cities. The most important tournament, however, will be the third, in Sydney. That’s where we’ll pit our best against the best Australians.
There should be five thousand fans in the arena, he says, plus it’s going to be televised throughout Australia.
Talk about pressure.
But here’s the good news, Coach says. Every time you win a tournament, I’ll let you have one cold beer.
I win my first tournament, in Adelaide, no problem, and on the bus Coach hands me an ice-cold Foster’s Lager. I think of Perry and our pact. I think of how strange it is that I’m twelve and being served booze. But the beer can looks so frosty cold, and my teammates are watching. Also, I’m thousands of miles from home—fuck it. I take a sip. Delicious. I drain it in four gulps, then wrestle with my guilty conscience the rest of the afternoon. I stare out the window as the outback crawls by and I wonder how Perry will take the news, if he’ll stop being my friend.
I win three of the next four tournaments. Three more beers. Each more delicious than the last. But with every sip, I taste the bitter dregs of guilt.
PERRY AND I FALL right back into our old routine. Horror movies. Long talks. Cambridge. 7-Eleven. Chipwiches. Every now and then, however, I look at him and feel the weight of my betrayal.
We’re walking from Cambridge to 7-Eleven and I can’t hold it in any longer. The guilt is eating away at me. We’re each wearing headphones plugged into Perry’s Walkman, listening to Prince. Purple Rain. I tap Perry on the shoulder and tell him to take off his headphones.
What’s up?
I don’t know how to say this.
He stares.
What is it?
Perry. I broke our pact.
No.
I had a beer in Australia.
Just one?
Four.
Four!
I look down.
He thinks. He stares off at the mountains. Well, he says, we make choices in life, Andre, and you’ve made yours. I guess that leaves me on my own.
But a few minutes later, he’s curious. He asks how the beers tasted, and again I can’t lie. I tell him they were great. I apologize again, but there’s no point in pretending to be remorseful. Perry’s right--I had a choice, for once, and I made it. Sure, I wish I hadn’t broken our pact, but I can’t feel bad about finally exercising free will.
Perry frowns like a father. Not like my father, or his father, but like a TV father. He looks as if he should be wearing a cardigan sweater and smoking a pipe. I realize that the pact Perry and I made, at its root, was a promise to become each other’s fathers. To raise each other. I apologize once more, and I realize how much I missed Perry while I was gone. I make another pact, with myself, that I won’t leave home again.
MY FATHER ACCOSTS ME IN THE KITCHEN. He says we need to talk. I wonder if he heard about the beer.
He tells me to sit at the table. He sits across from me. An unfinished Norman Rockwell separates us. He describes a story he caught recently on 60 Minutes. It was all about a tennis boarding school on the west coast of Florida, near Tampa Bay. The first school of its kind, my father says. A boot camp for young tennis players, it’s run by a former paratrooper named Nick Bollettieri.
So?
