Chapter 5

 

 

 

 

ON TOUR, Jared worked with the diligence of a seasoned professional. His work ethic and boyish good looks earned him the reputation of being the small-town, red-blooded American Boy personified.

He dominated his peers with a blistering forehand and sheer hustle, darting about the court and smashing bullets every time he could hit a forehand. He put a hundred percent effort into every point. He always wore the same understated white outfit, and he loved to take on the flashy rivals who followed the Andre Agassi proclamation that “Image is Everything,” giving the crowd a farm-boy vs. Hollywood match up. His forehand and his determination took him into the top twenty in just three years.

While Jared played leapfrog in the rankings, I played the challenger circuit, which is tennis’s version of the minor leagues, trying to break into the top hundred. My game was pure retriever. Strategy, speed, and stamina were my weapons. Nimble as a cat, I flew over the court, sending every ball back with heavy topspin and no pace, baiting my opponents to go for powerful, low-percentage shots. With each ball I struck, I sent a message across the net: I can do this all day.

I rarely hit an ace, but I never double-faulted, and I didn’t crack many winners but seldom missed a passing shot. My strategy usually put me in a winning position, but often as not, I would choke and lose.

My demons surfaced when closing out the match and related to the very nature of competition. In tennis, one player wins and the other loses; it’s unavoidable. One player establishes who is tougher, faster, and/or smarter. The winner earns a sense of superiority, and the loser feels inconsolable. On tour, a player’s self-esteem hinges on his most recent performance, and playing well and winning are life-and-death concerns.

I would invariably choke because I would begin to pity the player I was thrashing. I knew I was not a superior person. I also knew how he would feel regardless. Once sympathy crept into my thoughts, my focus crumbled, and the wheels fell off. I could not perform at my peak while carrying that extra mental baggage.

My handicap kept me out of the top echelon, and after two years of being ranked in the one-thirties, I abandoned the challenger circuit to focus on helping Jared.

I poured my frustration of being a second-rate player into honing Jared’s game and organizing his tournament schedule, practice agenda, diet, interviews, cross-training, and gym workouts. I pumped him up before a match and calmed him down after. I became the Parris Island drill sergeant of the practice courts, pushing Jared to develop his weak backhand and volleys in order to round out his game. Whatever the drill, I always did it with him, unlike those beer-gut coaches who load up a ball machine and bark encouragements from the sidelines.

My favorite part was giving him rubdowns after a hard-fought match or a grueling practice. I became an expert on every nuance of his muscles and tendons, where he was prone to injuries, and how to treat those injuries. I even tailored a gym routine to strengthen his more fragile muscle groups. If there was ever a hog heaven, I was living it.

After four arduous years of crawling our way up the rankings, with the endorsements and other perks beginning to come our way, Jared played the match of his career in a French Open quarterfinal. Suzanne Lenglen Stadium overflowed with twelve thousand fans. An estimated two million Americans watched on ESPN. Jared pranced off the court as radiant as a shooting star.

That night, we hit the town to celebrate. We wandered through the Marais wide-eyed and breathless. The heavy beat of music oozing from the gay clubs and the parade of beautiful men along the narrow streets had our blood pumping.

We squeezed into a club, the Blue Frog, known for its clientele of elegant men and lovely boys. The men sat along the walls sipping drinks from long-stemmed cocktail glasses. The boys jammed onto the dance floor to perform a gay version of the Hip Hop Shuffle.

We snaked our way to the bar and downed two Cosmos. Jared pulled me onto the floor. He danced loose and cool, with all the attitude of a Justin Timberlake video.

In street clothes and locked in a crush of shirtless, sweaty dancers, we became confident that no one recognized us, so we pulled off our shirts too and began to be sexy with each other, the way we did in the privacy of our apartment. The multi-colored lights glistened, prism-like, through his sweat, and I became hard watching his swaying torso and gyrating crotch. The sexier I felt, the closer I drew to him, until we were an inch apart with the music vibrating between us. Our bodies merged, panting, sweating. We kissed. Under the spell of that throbbing music, I fused into the softness of his lips and became ravenous for more. I cocked my head and ran my tongue along his neck; his salty sweat became nectar.

Someone yelled, “Lick it, baby. You know how,” and I knew he meant me. I remember being surprised that they taunted us in English, but I guessed it was obvious we weren’t French.

He unbuttoned his jeans and lowered his zipper to half-mast. In street clothes, he never wore underwear, so as his fly peeled open, his pubic hair came into view. The boys around us whistled. I felt swept away by my lust for the creature weaving in front of me. He reached over and unhooked my belt, pulled it from my waist, and draped it around my neck like a dog collar, which he used as a leash to pull my face toward his open fly.

I dropped to one knee, and my face nuzzled his belly. As my lips followed his treasure trail, a bright light exploded over us.

Jared whirled around and zipped up while dancing away, leaving me breathless and alone. The crowd howled in disappointment. I sometimes wonder how far I would have gone if that flash had not made Jared pull away.

That bright light had been a camera flash, and the next day our picture, with my face pressed to Jared’s open fly, showed up on the tournament director’s desk. We were summoned before the director and told that the ATP had paid a tidy sum to keep that photo out of the papers. Any more publicity of that nature, he explained, and we risked not being invited back.

Adding to our injury, a day later, Jared lost his semi-final match in straight sets to fellow American Nicholas Ahrens. That tournament proved to be the pinnacle of both Jared’s career and our relationship. Once rumors of our sexuality leaked to the International Tennis Federation, we began a downward slide, imperceptible at first, then avalanche-like, building in speed and force.

In 1973, Billie Jean King made history by beating fifty-five-year-old Bobby Riggs in the Battle of the Sexes, giving women’s tennis some well-deserved recognition. In 1977, Renee Richard, who was Richard Raskind before her sex-change operation, played in the women’s draw at the US Open after a legal battle that had denied her entry the year before. In the eighties, it was common knowledge that several top women players were lesbians.

But when it came to sex, the powers that govern professional tennis would be pushed only so far. In our case, everything was whispered behind closed doors, but the message became all too clear: there is no place in professional tennis for gay men.

Jared became the game’s whipping boy. The officials shunned us. The endorsements dried up. Competing became a nightmare to get fair treatment. Chair umpires made bad line overrules against Jared, tipping the matches in his opponents’ favor.

We trained harder than before, and the fatigue from our workouts helped to anesthetize our frustration, but fatigue alone could not quell all the anger building in both of us. During the worst times, we clung to each other and said, “Screw you bastards,” which was the only way we survived as long as we did.

Our last six months on tour transformed Jared into a renegade. He flew into a rage when umpires made bad calls, turning matches into circus-like forums of obscenity, umpire-bashing, and hysterical meltdowns. He plummeted out of the top fifty, then gave up altogether.

We moved to San Francisco and settled into an apartment on Russian Hill with a view of downtown, the Bay Bridge, and the Berkeley hills. After months of bumming around and burning up what money we had put aside, I met Carrie Bennett at a tennis event in Golden Gate Park, and she offered me the job of tennis pro at the Windsor Club. I wrapped that job around me like a cocoon, letting myself be content with teaching people the game.

Jared posted a want ad in the local gay rag offering lessons, and he lined up a dozen students who shelled out fifty bucks each week for a one-hour session. I sometimes wondered what would have happened if I’d gone to college. When those thoughts haunted me, I’d smile and watch them fade away. I had my job and my man. I was happy—as Hemingway said, “as happy as it is safe to be in life.”

Then Connor Lin breezed into my little world and ignited a force in my heart that threatened to blow it all away.