The Whore Of Akron Part 12

Neapolitan mastiff.

Arnie laughs.

"Cowboys don't ride no ponies," he says.

I have no idea what he means, but I like him. I have a condescending fondness for psychotherapists, which goes with my belief, based on long experience, that they're generally weird and ineffectual. This guy is different. This guy is for real.

"I'd like to work with you," Arnie says. " But it'd be a waste of time unless you stop drinking and getting high."

Just like that?

"Yeah. Just like that."

Hey, I'm not sure I'm ready for that.

"Me neither," he says. "You're way down the road."

Whoa. I'm not that crazy.

"Really," Arnie says. "Then you tell me what your life would look like right now if you were that crazy."

He had me there.

"I'm willing to work with you. But you've got to be willing to give it up. I can't help you otherwise. No one can."

There are all kinds of ways to save somebody's life. That's how Arnie Jensky saved mine.

Early in the Cavs' big streak, I hit the road to Cleveland with Lisa and Judah; it's the week between Christmas and New Year's, so the boy is on break. It'll be good for my mother to see him-he has nothing on his nose but freckles-and I'll be able to check the Cavs' pulse.

"Let me know if you find one," a beat writer says at practice. "These guys laugh in the locker room after they lose. A lot of 'em are just happy to get the check."

Byron Scott hasn't yet ruled out the playoffs.

"We still got fifty games left, fifty-two. I think my job now is to be a little more harsh, holding them accountable."

The next night, the wife and son and I watch the Cavs take a comfy 15-point loss to the Magic. The full house is in fine fettle as the home team hangs tough for three quarters, but when Orlando pours it on in the fourth quarter the Cavs roll over and play dead.

Three nights later, on New Year's Eve, my mother joins us for dinner. It's only 5:30 p.m. and she asks our waiter if the early-bird special is available on the holiday.

I'm buying, I tell her. Order whatever you want.

"I want the early-bird," she says.

You're embarra.s.sing me.

"Shush."

Don't shush me, Ma.

Last night LeBron celebrated his twenty-sixth birthday with a party in Miami. The cake was over six feet tall, with a crown made of fondant. I saw photos online of him with his cake. Gloria and Savannah, his girlfriend, flew down from Ohio and they posed with the cake, too.

I'm thinking, next birthday I'll get me a big-a.s.s cake. Instead of a fondant crown, I'll have a Mogen David made of kichel on top; instead of a huge "LJ" in gold flake, my cake will say, "Don't Shush Me, Ma." I'm up in the air about inviting Lucille, though. By then, the thing on my nose might have its own zip code.

The Cavs losing streak sits at 20 when I head back to Miami at the end of January. Times are tough in Cleveland. Cousin Jeff, unwilling to bear the pain of watching the Cavs, is selling his seats at the Q game by game. For Friday night, against the Bucks, the high bid for a $95 face-value ticket is $1.49; he takes it. The Browns' season ends with home losses to archrivals Baltimore and Pittsburgh in front of thousands of empty seats and the ritual axing of the head coach.

The Heat are 3314; their only rough patch since 12/2 follows immediately after the Cavs meet the Lakers on January 11 and suffer the worst thrashing in the team's history. In the first half, the Cavaliers explode for 25 points, total. Thanks to a blistering second half, they finish strong and lose 11257.

"Karma is a b.i.t.c.h," James tweets during the fourth quarter of the Cavs' loss. "It's not good to wish bad on anybody. G.o.d sees everything!"

Not always, to be sure, but apparently tonight. The Heat lose their next game, to the Clippers, James rolls his ankle, and Miami proceeds to drop five of its next six games.

The Cavs are here to play the Heat on Monday, January 31, but I've arrived Sat.u.r.day to see the world-famous Cleveland Orchestra, which began an annual winter residency in Miami in 2007. Despite harboring Gloria Estefan, this cultural sinkhole has no philharmonic of its own.

The concert features Ein Heldenleben ("A Hero's Life"), Richard Strauss's tone poem, which is explicated in two single-s.p.a.ced pages in the program in a font so small I can't make it out.

"There is no need for a program," Strauss once noted. "It is enough to know there is a hero fighting his enemies." Suits me fine: I'm thrilled just to sit and enjoy a performance unmarred every few minutes by a mascot firing T-shirts into the cheap seats. And I'm proud, too: Cleveland fans have been rooting for the orchestra's laundry since 1918.

The highlight of the Cavs-Heat game comes late in the first quarter, when hip-hop impresarios P Diddy and Rick Ross make their way to their courtside seats across from the Heat bench. I'm only a couple of rows off the court-hot as the Heat are, Miami doesn't care, and it's easy to find great seats below face value-a few seats closer to the aisle than Gloria and Savannah, who've also made the trip. Pat Riley's one section over, with his wife of many centuries, Mrs. Pat Riley.

The game itself is the usual scrimmage. Wade's hotter than LeBron and goes for 34 points; James settles for 24 and 8 dimes. At no point does either squad look overly concerned about the outcome. The final is 11790, and I'm heading for a pulled-pork omelet at Big Pink.

The next morning, I drive to Divine Delicacies, the shop that made LeBron's birthday cake. It looks like any other strip-mall bakery, but the display case is full of celebrity-cake photos, including LeBron's. Pride of place, though, goes to Dwyane Wade.

"We've done two cakes for Dwyane this year," says Laura, who manages the joint. "His favorite flavor is vanilla with the lemon frosting."

What about LeBron? What's his favorite?

"LeBron had five different flavors-red velvet, G.o.diva chocolate, guava cream cheese, the marble, and vanilla rum."

Laura excuses herself and comes back with an oval tray holding samples of each of LeBron's frostings.

They're all delicious, but I've got to go with the guava cream cheese, sweet and tart.

"I don't think he ever had a cake like that," Laura says. "I was at the party, and when he got there, he started dancing-then right away he got his phone and he took a picture of the cake.

Let me try that red velvet again.

"You said you're writing a book about him."

Mmmmf.

"Good or bad?"

Both, I lie. Some of both. More bad, I guess. I'm from Cleveland.

"What that owner did was out of line," she says. "He doesn't own him. He served him for so many years-he gave the city a lot of fame."

I'd like to set her straight-truly I would-but first I want to polish off the vanilla rum.

That night-I'm flying home in the morning-I realize how much I like Miami. Not the weather, which I find too hot and humid even in January, but the feel of it-easygoing, exotic, eager to please. You could almost say sensual. Almost.

I want to avoid that word because I mistrust it. It is animal, dangerous, unbounded. In a moral universe, sensuality feels like a threat. It must be distilled, channeled, sublimated into the abstract: fine art, music, poetry, even sport. Handjobs, of course. And compulsive eating.

I treat myself to sushi on Collins Avenue. The place is almost empty, so I set up my computer at a four-top and dig in. Excellent. So fine that when I'm done, I order a toro ceviche. I'm not hungry; I just don't want the meal to end.

When the ceviche is gone, I notice a blonde walking back and forth in front of my table, looking at me. Smiling.

This is not where I'd expect to find a hooker on a Thursday night at ten o'clock. But I can think of no other explanation as she comes and goes. I've lost a little weight, yeah. I've cut my hair and shaved my beard. And all that makes me is a fat old man with a laptop, a belly full of raw fish and rice, and a wife and son in New Jersey.

"Can I sit down?" she says.

I nod. She's blurry drunk. Late twenties, early thirties. High mileage.

She reaches across the table and rubs her hand along my arm.

You've mistaken me for someone else, I say. I'm not in the market.

"I'm not a prost.i.tute," she says.

Then why are you sitting here?

"You seem like a nice man."

I am a nice man. I have a nice wife and a nice son and a nice dog. His name is Pip.

She seems near tears.

"I just wanted to talk to you," she says.

Three marriages. The first two husbands liked to smack her around. The last turned out to be gay. No kids. No college. No home. She's bunking a few blocks away at a hostel, waiting for a friend to wire money. She'll need to look for work next week if the money doesn't come. Her name is Donelle.

She's rubbing my arm again.

I have to go, I say, closing the laptop. I have an early flight tomorrow.

She doesn't move until I stand up, grab my briefcase, and start to leave. She stands and blocks my path. Puts her hand on my arm and bends her face toward me. She wants a kiss.

I kiss her on her cheek, and she moves her parted lips to mine.

No.

That's the word I want, and want to avoid: no.

No.

I give my son plenty of advice. I was forty-seven when he was born, and any insurance actuary can confirm how few sixty-year-old, 300-plus-pound men make it to seventy, so I like to keep it pithy. And even though he'll always be my child, he's already becoming the man he'll grow up to be, and there are things he needs to know.

Always bring a handkerchief.

a.s.sume nothing in this world but my love for you.

Don't mistake fear for cowardice. Don't ever panic. Trust yourself and you'll figure it out.

Righty-tighty, which I learned from a goy.

Most important of all: say no.

No is the most powerful word in the language, I tell him. Especially for the son of a drunk. Especially then.

Donelle hears the no. The no cuts the air clean through.

I'm still a nice man. Nicer than I've ever been.

Chapter Fourteen.

A Strange White Man at Center Court After I get back home, Judah and I watch LeBron go off for 51 points against Orlando. He makes his first 11 shots, and when the Magic whittle a 23-point deficit to 3 near game's end, James. .h.i.ts a 3-pointer and a pair of free throws to nail down a 4-point win.

"He's hard to hate when he plays like that," Judah says as we head upstairs.

I can manage it, kid. It's right in my wheelhouse. h.e.l.l, it's my sacred duty. I'm from Cleveland.

"You are Cleveland," he says.

Every night, unless I'm on the road, I wait while my son flosses and brushes his teeth. Then he lies down and we talk. My father was a salesman on the road when I was younger than Judah is now, and I can remember his voice on the phone. I remember his smell when we'd wrestle: Old Spice and sweat. I don't know what my boy will remember. I'm not sure it matters. What matters is this moment between the end of his day and my trek up to the third floor to write, when we lay together and he says, "Tell me a story."

I got no stories, kid.

"You've got stories."

You know all my stories already.

"I know that's not true."

You know all the stories I want you to know. How about a joke?

"Okay."

You know the one about the cross-eyed schoolteacher?

"No."