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PERRY AND I are hanging out in the barracks the next morning when Gabriel pokes his head in.

The Man wants to see you.

What about?

Gabriel shrugs.

I walk slowly, taking my time. I stop at the door to Nick’s office and with a thin smile I remember. Nick the Dick. You’ll be missed, Roddy.

Nick is sitting behind his desk, leaning back in his tall black leather chair.

Andre, come in, come in.

I sit in a wooden chair across from him.

He clears his throat. I understand, he says, that you were at Busch Gardens yesterday.

Did you have fun?

I say nothing. He waits. Then clears his throat again.

Well, I understand you came home with a very large panda.

I continue to stare straight ahead.

Anyway, he says, my daughter apparently has fallen in love with that panda. Ha ha.

I think of the little girl on the bus. Nick’s daughter—of course. How could I have missed that?

She can’t stop talking about it, Nick says. So here’s the thing. I’d like to buy that panda from you.

Silence.

You hear me, Andre?

Silence.

Can you understand?

Silence.

Gabriel, why isn’t Andre saying anything?

He’s not speaking to you.

Since when?

Gabriel frowns.

Look, Nick says, just tell me how much you want for it, Andre.

I don’t move my eyes.

I know. Why don’t you write down how much you want for it?

He slides a piece of paper toward me. I don’t move.

How about if I give you $200.

Deep silence.

Gabriel tells Nick that he’ll talk to me later about the panda.

Yeah, Nick says. OK. Have a think about it, Andre.

YOU’LL NEVER BELIEVE THIS, I tell Perry at the barracks. He wanted the Panda. For his daughter. That little girl on the bus was Nick’s daughter.

You’re kidding. And what did you say?

I said nothing.

What do you mean, nothing?

Vow of silence, remember? Forever.

Andre, you misplayed that. No, no, that’s a miss. You’ve got to revisit this, quickly. Here’s the play. You take the panda, you give it to Nick and tell him you don’t want his money, you just want an opportunity to succeed and get out of this place. You want wild cards, bids to tournaments, different rules to live by. Better food, better everything. Above all—you don’t want to go to school. This is your chance to break free. You’ve got real leverage now.

I can’t give that fucking guy my panda. I just can’t. Besides, what about Jamie?

We’ll worry about Jamie later. This is your future we’re talking about. You have to give that panda to Nick!

We talk until long after lights out, arguing in heated whispers. Finally Perry convinces me.

So, he says, yawning, you’re going to give it to him tomorrow.

No. Bullshit. I’m going to his office right now. I’m going to let myself in with the master key, then put the panda on Nick’s tall leather chair, ass up.

THE NEXT MORNING, before breakfast, Gabriel comes for me again.

Office. On the double.

Nick is in his chair. The panda is now in the corner, leaning, staring into space. Nick looks at the panda, then me. He says, You don’t talk. You wear makeup. You wear jeans in a tournament. You get me to invite your friend Perry to the tourney, even though he can’t play, he can barely chew gum and walk at the same time. And that hair. Don’t get me started on that hair. And now you give me something I ask for, but you break into my office in the middle of the night and put it ass-up in my fucking chair? How the fuck did you get in my office? Jesus, boy, what is your problem?

You want to know what my problem is?

Even Nick is shocked by the sound of my voice.

I shout, You are my fucking problem. You. And if you haven’t figured that out, then you’re stupider than you look. Do you have any idea what it’s like here? What it’s like to be three thousand miles from home, living in this prison, waking up at six thirty, having thirty minutes to eat that shitty breakfast, getting on that broken-down bus, going to that lousy school for four hours, hurrying back and having thirty minutes to eat more crap before going on the tennis court, day after day after day? Do you? The only thing you have to look forward to, the only real fun you have every week, is Saturday night at the Bradenton Mall—and then that gets taken away! You took that from me! This place is hell, and I want to burn it down!

Nick’s eyes are wider than the panda’s. But he’s not angry. Or sad. He’s mildly pleased, because this is the only language he understands. He reminds me of Pacino in Scarface, when a woman tells him, Who, why, when, and how I fuck is none of your business, and Pacino says, Now you’re talking to me, baby.

Nick, I realize, likes it rough.

OK, he says, you made your point. What do you want?

I hear Perry’s voice.

I want to quit school, I say. I want to start doing correspondence school, so I can work on my game full-time. I want your help, instead of the bullshit you’ve been giving me. I want wild cards, bids to tournaments. I want to take real steps toward turning pro.

Of course none of this is really what I want. It’s what Perry tells me I want, and it’s better than what I’ve got. Even as I demand it, I feel ambivalent. But Nick looks at Gabriel, and Gabriel looks at me, and the panda looks at all of us.

I’ll think about it, Nick says.

HOURS AFTER PERRY LEAVES FOR VEGAS, Nick sends word via Gabriel that my first wild card will be the big tournament at La Quinta. Also, he’s going to get me into the next Florida satellite. Furthermore, I’m to consider myself hereby dismissed and excused from Bradenton Academy. He’ll set up a correspondence program of some sort, when he gets around to it.

Gabriel walks off, smirking. You won, kid.

I watch everyone else board the bus for Bradenton Academy, and as it rumbles away, spewing black smoke, I sit on a bench, basking in the sunshine. I tell myself: You’re fourteen years old, and you never have to go to school again. From now on, every morning will feel like Christmas and the first day of summer vacation, combined. A smile spreads across my face, my first in months. No more pencils, no more books, no more teacher’s dirty looks. You’re free, Andre. You’ll never have to learn anything again.

7

I PUT IN MY EARRING and run down to the hard courts. The morning is mine, mine, and I spend it hitting balls. Hit harder. I hit for two hours, channeling my newfound freedom into every swing. I can feel the difference. The ball explodes off my racket. Nick appears, shaking his head. I pity your next opponent, he says.

Meanwhile, back in Vegas, my mother begins correspondence school on my behalf. Her first actual correspondence is a letter to me, in which she says that her son might not go to college, but he’s damn sure going to graduate high school. I write back and thank her for doing my homework and taking my tests. But when she earns the degree, I add, she can keep it.

In March 1985, I fly to Los Angeles and stay with Philly, who’s living in someone’s guest cottage, giving tennis lessons, searching for what he wants to do with his life. He helps me train for La Quinta, one of the year’s biggest tournaments. The guest cottage is tiny, smaller than our room back in Vegas, smaller than our rented Omni, but we don’t mind, we’re thrilled to be reunited, hopeful about my new direction. There’s just one problem: We have no money.

We subsist on baked potatoes and lentil soup. Three times a day we bake two potatoes and heat a can of generic lentil soup. We then pour the soup over the potatoes and voilà—breakfast, lunch, or dinner is served. The whole meal costs eighty-nine cents and keeps hunger at bay for about three hours.