Lawrence Block - Enough Rope

Two games later in the same set, he let a desperate return of his opponent’s drop. It was long, landing a full six inches beyond the white line. The umpire declared it in, and Tommy went berserk. He screamed, he shouted, he commented critically on the umpire’s lineage and sexual predilections, and he underscored his remarks by gripping his racquet in both hands, then swinging it like an axe as if to chop down the wooden platform, perhaps as a first step to chopping down the official himself. He managed to land three ringing blows, the third of which shattered his graphite racquet, before another official stepped in to declare the match a forfeit, while security personnel took the American in hand and led him off the court.

The French had never seen the like, and, characteristically, their reaction combined distaste for Terhune’s lack of savoir-faire with grudging respect for his spirit. Phrases like enfant terrible and monstre sacré turned up in their press coverage. Elsewhere in the world, fans and journalists said essentially the same thing. Terrible Tommy Terhune, the tennis world’s most gifted and most temperamentally challenged player, had proven to be his own worst enemy, and had succeeded in ousting himself from a tournament he’d been favored to win. He had done it again.

The racquet Tommyshattered at the French Open was not the first one to go to pieces in his hands. His racquets had the life expectancy of a rock star’s guitar, and he consequently had learned to travel with not one but two spares. Even so, he’d been forced to withdraw from one tournament in the semifinal round, when, after a second double fault, he held his racquet high overhead, then brought it down full-force upon the hardened playing surface. He had already sacrificed his other two racquets in earlier rounds, one destroyed in similar fashion to protest an official’s decision, the other snapped over his knee in fury at himself for a missed opportunity at the net. He was now out of racquets, and unable to continue. His double fault had cost him a point; his ungovernable rage had cost him the tournament.

Such episodes notwithstanding, Tommy won his share of tournaments. He did not always blow up, and not every episode led to disqualification. In England, one confrontation with an official provoked a clamor in the press that he be refused future entry, not merely to Wimbledon, but to the entire United Kingdom; in response, Tommy somehow held himself in check long enough to breeze through the semifinals, and, in the final round, treated the fans to an exhibition of play unlike anything they’d seen before.

Playing against Roger MacReady, the rangy Australian who was the crowd’s clear favorite, Tommy played center court at Wimbledon as Joe Dimaggio had once played center field at Yankee Stadium. He anticipated every move MacReady made, moving in response not at the impact of ball and racquet but somehow before it, as if he knew where MacReady was going to send the ball before the Australian knew it himself. He won the first two sets, lost the third in a tiebreaker, and soared to an easy victory in the fourth set, winning 6–1, and winning over the crowd in the process. By the time his last impossible backhand return had landed where MacReady couldn’t get to it, the English fans were on their feet cheering for him.

A month later, the laurels of Wimbledon still figuratively draped around his shoulders, Terrible Tommy Terhune diagnosed an official as suffering severely from myopia, astigmatism, and tunnel vision, and recommended an unorthodox course of ophthalmological treatment consisting of the performance of two sexual acts, one incestuous, the other physically impossible. He then threw his racquet on the ground, stepped on its face, and pulled up on its handle until the thing snapped. He picked up the two pieces, sailed them into the crowd, and stalked off the court.

Morley Safer leanedforward. “If you were watching a tennis match,” he began, “and saw someone behave as you yourself have so often behaved—”

“I’d be disgusted,” Tommy told him. “I get sick to my stomach when I see myself on videotape. I can’t watch. I have to turn off the set. Or leave the room.”

“Or pick up a racquet and smash the set?”

Tommy laughed along with the TV newsman, then assured him that his displays of temper were confined to the tennis court. “That’s the only place they happen,” he said. “As to why they happen, well, I know what provokes them. I get mad at myself when I play poorly, of course, and that’s led me to smash a racquet now and then. It’s stupid and self-destructive, sure, but it’s nothing compared to what happens when an official makes a bad call. That drives me out of my mind.”

“And out of control?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“And yet there are skeptics who think you’re crazy like a fox,” Safer said. “Look at the publicity you get. After all, you’re the subject of this 60 Minutes profile, not Vasco Barxi, not Roger MacReady. All over the world, people know your name.”

“They know me as a maniac who can’t control himself. That’s not how I want to be known.”

“And there are others who say you gain by intimidating officials,” Safer went on. “You get them so they’re afraid to call a close point against you.”

“They seem to be dealing with their fears,” Tommy said. “And wouldn’t that be brilliant strategy on my part? Get tossed out of a Grand Slam tournament in order to unnerve an official?”

“So it’s not calculated? In fact it’s not something subject to your control?”

“Of course not.”

“Well, what are you going to do about it? Are you getting help?”

“I’m working on it,” he said grimly. “It’s not that easy.”

“It’s rage,” hetold Diane Sawyer. “I don’t know where it comes from. I know what triggers it, but that’s not necessarily the same thing.”

“A bad call.”

“That’s right.”

“Or a good call,” Sawyer said, “that you think is a bad call.”

Tommy shook his head ruefully. “It’s embarrassing enough to explode when the guy gets it wrong,” he said. “The incident I think you’re referring to, where the replay clearly showed he’d made the right call, well, I felt more ashamed of myself than ever. But even when I’m clearly right and the official’s clearly wrong, there’s no excuse for my behavior.”

“You realize that.”

“Of course I do. I may be crazy, but I’m not stupid.”

“And if you are crazy, it’s temporary insanity. As I think our viewers can see, you’re perfectly sane when you don’t have a tennis racquet in your hand.”

“Well, they haven’t asked me to pose for any mental health posters,” he said with a grin. “But it’s true I don’t have to struggle to keep a lid on it. That only happens when I’m playing tennis.”

“The court’s where the struggle takes place.”

“Yes.”

“And when you honestly think a call has gone against you, that it’s a bad call...”

“Sometimes I can keep myself in check. But other times I just lose it. I go into a zone, and, well, everybody knows what happens then.”

“And there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“Not really.”

“You’ve had professional help?”

“I’ve tried a few things,” he said. “Different kinds of therapy to help me develop more insight into myself. I think it’s been useful, I think I know myself a little better than I used to, but when some clown says one of my shots was out when I just plain know it was in—”

“You’re helpless.”

“Utterly,” he said. “Everything goes out the window, all the insight, all the coping techniques. The only thing that’s left is the rage.”