The Whore Of Akron Part 10

Tim Donovan has found a unique way to control the postgame media throng: n.o.body is allowed to speak with Bosh, Wade, or James in the locker room. They will appear "in the Media Interview Room at the conclusion of each home game."

It's not much of a throng-a couple of dozen guys who need to file a story about a 9-point Heat win of no particular interest. Spoelstra is first to appear. He's pale, hollow-eyed, clearly exhausted.

"It's good to get a win, obviously," he says. "That's the most important thing. And to continue the process of trying to build our habits and get better."

He sounds like Mike Brown. Like Brown, Spoelstra worked his way up from the video room. He's Pat Riley's golden boy, but now that he has Wade, James, and Bosh, the sports media-and not only in Miami-are wondering if he can deal with the pressure and expectations. No one has forgotten 2006, when Riley fired Stan Van Gundy after 21 games and coached the Heat to their only champions.h.i.+p.

Bosh appears next. When he's asked about the pressure of facing his former team, he says, "I kind of worked through the nerves a little bit. We've been through so many nervous situations, my nerves really didn't get to me that much."

I make a note: "BOSH NERVOUS." The guy sat most of the game with foul trouble and was a nonfactor in the outcome. Shaq told me there were players who'd commit fouls on purpose some nights in order to get back on the bench as soon as possible. That's exactly what Chris Bosh looked like he was doing tonight.

Wade and James take the podium together. Wade answers the questions; LeBron is chewing gum. He stares down at the table. I'm sitting front and center, staring straight at him while Wade talks about the pressure on Coach Spo to win it all.

"We haven't executed the game plan," Wade says. "The coaches have done an unbelievable job."

LeBron looks up from the table. Someone has asked him a question about learning to play with Wade.

"We're both attackers," James says, looking like a man in prison. Where's the happy-go-lucky lad surrounded by his mates as he lifted his second MVP trophy last May?

"This is a process that we know only time will heal," he says, scowling.

Heal? Is he trying to tell me something? Has he a clue that the Jabba the Huttlooking scribe front and center has trailed him to Miami, that I'm the same blob who was asking about Shaq and thanked him for being the best basketball player he'd ever seen? Is it possible that LeBron thinks I am one of many, sent on reconnaissance by a brigade of porcine Clevelanders, each marked with a Chief Wahoo tattoo?

I'm staring at the Wh.o.r.e of Akron. I'm not nodding or smiling or taking notes. I'm just staring. And he won't meet my eyes.

Sat.u.r.day night on South Beach, but I am on the far end of Collins Avenue, far from the glow. I have no stomach for the action. Sleep. Tomorrow morning I'll drive north on I-95 to Hollywood, Florida, to a bar where I will watch the Cleveland Browns play the New York Jets nestled in the warm, yielding bosom of the Browns Backers Club, which has chapters all over the world, including Afghanistan and the West Bank, but not in Miami.

I'm at an old hotel, a three-floor job, a little run-down, but so am I. I'm awakened by laughter somewhere close by-laughter and the smell of good weed.

I'm not going out there. Not tonight, anyway. Tonight, I'll have a Luna Bar and seek succor in what is printed upon its wrapper, one of the "inspirational" woman-to-woman messages so cloying that they could've been composed only by a sardonic young gay man in a marketing department cubicle.

"To my grandmommy, who taught me that no mountain is ever too high! You are my inspiration and my hero! I love you!-Brooke."

I miss Gram. What she taught me is that most people, if you give them half a chance, will prove to be no brighter than farm animals and bent on malice. She was the shtetl in a white bakery smock, her varicose legs rotted with ulcers, covered in ointment, and wrapped-like mine!-with compression bandages to keep her from scratching herself open. When the itching got bad enough, she'd take a b.u.t.ter knife from the kitchen drawer and work it down under the bandage, where its blunt tip could provide her some relief. I can still see the b.l.o.o.d.y smear on the knife when she'd pull it out! My inspiration! My hero!

What's for dessert tonight, LeBron?

Here, motherf.u.c.ker, have a Bratislava Bar!

I'm watching the Browns-Jets game with the Backers at Mickey Byrne's Irish Pub. I have my laptop open at a table as far as possible from the bar because Chimay Ale is known for its reach.

There are 30 or so Browns fans here. They all hate LeBron, naturally, but some have known worse. Mark Gudin was at the stadium for the final Browns game there-December 17, 1995-when the fans literally tore the old place apart seat by seat, and the police, fearing bloodshed, let them.

"Talk about ripping the soul," Gudin says. "It was like being at a funeral."

I was living in Philly then; I didn't want to go. I could not have borne it. I've watched the clips on YouTube; just thinking about what happened when that game ended makes me cry. The Cleveland Browns, unprompted, jogged downfield to the bleachers to say thanks and farewell, to hug and to be hugged by the Cleveland fans they never wanted to leave behind.

"I get goose b.u.mps," Gudin says. "Those guys got it. And that's the big part about LeBron that makes me so angry-he just doesn't get it. And he should."

Watching with these folks is intoxicating. They're loud and drunk, and the Browns are playing a great game, led by rookie quarterback Colt McCoy, who throws a game-tying touchdown pa.s.s with only 44 seconds left.

"Colt McCoy" may be the greatest name ever to grace an NFL quarterback. Colt McCoy once swam 300 yards to save a drowning man. Colt McCoy won more college football games than any quarterback in NCCA Division 1 history. And for a few minutes, here in Hollywood, Florida, I think I'm destined to see Colt motherf.u.c.king McCoy beat the Jets.

You'll never guess who else is watching the Browns-Jets game. Go ahead, guess. I'll wait.

That's right: the Wh.o.r.e of Akron sees the Jets marching in the fourth quarter and tweets, "Sanchez is wearing them down." And I fire back: "But they haven't quit. Look in the mirror, motherf.u.c.ker. You're a f.u.c.king loser and always will be."

Then the Browns are driving for an overtime win when a Browns' receiver named Chansi Stuckey fumbles at the Jets' 32-yard line. The Jets score with 16 seconds left in OT.

All I want is to climb over the bar, bend backwards under the Chimay tap, open my mouth, and spend an hour swallowing. I'm not loving the mission. The mission is beginning to feel like unleavened misery. This Browns loss is a perfect distillation of the past 50 years of crushed Cleveland fanhood.

For a Cleveland fan, there is no deja vu, no presque vu, no jamais vu; for us, it's all vu: everything known, understood in all its fullness in the instant when Chansi Stuckey, bucking for one more yard, has the football torn from his grasp.

O Nicky, where art thou? How could I have known then that what made me want to punch you in the face was the ineffable resemblance I saw there to my own? So many more seasons full of bitter, wrenching defeat, and still I sit entranced, the blood pounding in my ears, my fists clenched, my heart wide open-because after all these games and seasons and years, this could be the game. Would I still be living and dying with this bulls.h.i.+t if I didn't believe that it could happen, Nicky?

But it never does.

That night, I file my Esquire post and e-mail Tim Donovan requesting access to practice so I can spend a few minutes with Z, who seems less than eager to meet with me now. I a.s.sure him in our e-mail correspondence that I want only to sing his praises-the loyal Cavalier who left Cleveland "the right way" to chase a ring-and will not ask him about LeBron.

No need to ask Z. James is about to close on a $9 million estate in Coconut Grove. His girlfriend, who does not like Miami, is in Ohio with their sons. LeBron is here, partying hard.

LeBron does not like Erik Spoelstra, who has the temerity to confront him at practice when LeBron starts goofing. He does not want to play point guard. He does not understand why the fans are booing him everywhere the Heat play. He's a young man far from home, living on his own for the first time ever, and he doesn't seem happy.

I am not devoid of sympathy. I listen to the gossip and wish that I could help him focus on what truly matters in a man's life. It would take only a few words, and a tire iron.

Word comes from Tim Donovan at 4:01 p.m., a one-line e-mail: "You are no longer welcome at our building and will not be credentialed going forward."

That's it. I send a reply at 4:04, asking why. Never heard from Tim Donovan again.

My piece blows up when it runs the next day. New York Times big. I'm not going to lie: When I see "Wh.o.r.e of Akron" in the Times, it feels good. It felt like the pinnacle of my f.u.c.king career.

Tim Frank at the NBA office even had a statement prepared: "There's an expectation of professionalism on both sides in the team-media relations.h.i.+p, and the posts on Mr. Raab's twitter account clearly fall short of that standard."

Another NBA spokesman said I was still free to seek one-game credentials from other teams.

Tim Donovan told the Times that after I "used inappropriate language via Twitter directed at one of our players, we conferred with the league office and decided to no longer offer credentials to Mr. Raab for our games and practices."

Eh.

I buy myself a seat for Wednesday's game in the "Dewars Club" section, four rows up from the floor and right across from the Heat bench. It cost $278, but I get to sit so close to Pat Riley that I can smell the dirt in his casket. All in all, I don't feel unwelcome. In fact, I'm beginning to like Miami.

There's a diner of sorts across from the hotel called Big Pink. I set up there-I'm out of Luna Bars-and eat pulled-pork omelets, thick tomato slices with big wheels of mozzarella, and iced coffee. When you tip like I tip, you can pull out the laptop and spend a few hours on it. I've gotten to know a waitress named Taina, and Taina is cool with my professional loitering.

Taina has waited on LeBron. She claims James tweeted a picture of her-no lie: I found it on his time line-and that his tip was so big that she used it to pay for a photography course.

I still hate him, I tell Taina.

"I can tell that you do," says Taina.

I have a mission.

"I do, too. I need to stop drinking so much wine."

Chapter Twelve.

The Traitor's on the Floor If I had to rank my worst days as a Cleveland fan, January 4, 1981, would be the rankest. The Browns were trailing Oakland, 1412, with the ball on their own 14 and a little more than two minutes left in a divisional playoff game. The field was patched with sheets of ice; the Lake Erie gale battering the open end of the Stadium had dropped the wind-chill temperature to 36 below. The gray sky was falling dark and 78,245 fans were on their feet, calling down one more miracle from the Kardiac Kids, the team they'd seen pull win after last-minute win out of its a.s.s all season, led by their rag-armed, bra.s.s-balled quarterback, Brian Sipe.

With players on both teams slipping on every play and the Browns heading into the gusting wind, Sipe somehow drives the Browns 73 yards. With 41 seconds left to play and one time-out left, the Browns face second down and 9 on the Raiders 13-yard line.

A field goal will win the game. But because the Browns are driving into the swirling maw, and because the Browns' Don c.o.c.kroft, history's last straight-ahead NFL placekicker, has already missed two field-goal attempts and had an extra point blocked, and because these Brownies have danced cheek-to-cheek all year with Death and have come to believe that they are a Team of Destiny, head coach Sam Rutigliano calls for a pa.s.s play designed to produce a touchdown.

Red Right 88.

Brian Sipe, in the only NFL playoff game he will ever play, drops back, moves left, and sees tight end Ozzie Newsome, his favorite receiver, running right to left across the back of the end zone. Sipe heaves the ball into the wind. The wobbling football never reaches Ozzie. It falls, along with Cleveland's hope, into the arms of a Raiders' safety.

Sipe stumbles toward the sideline, into Rutigliano's fatherly embrace. Sam doesn't scream, "You San Diego surfer son of a b.i.t.c.h!" Nor, "Did I not tell you to throw the football into the f.u.c.king lake if no one was open?" To his vast credit, Sam Rutigliano is not the sort of man who'd ever say these things.

"I love you, Brian" is what Sam does say.

The thought of which, even now, makes me want to run Sam Rutigliano through a wood chipper.

I wasn't at the Stadium that day. I couldn't afford the ticket. I was living in a $75-a-month room in an old house in Cleveland Heights, after going bust as a weed dealer in Texas. Another boarder had a TV, so I watched the game in his room. When Sipe threw the pick, I headed down the stairs and out the front door. So cold, it hurt to breathe.

I didn't know yet about Rutigliano's "I love you, Brian," and it wouldn't have mattered if I had: I wasn't capable of processing a single thought. The world stalled, with Sipe's final pa.s.s cast forever into the wind. I stood there empty, past tears, beyond words.

I could not know then that The Drive and The Fumble and The Shot and all the rest were coming down the pike. But even as those nightmares played out one by one, each a private sorrow and a public h.e.l.l and all together forming a skein of unbroken, uninterrupted, apparently eternal misery, Red Right 88 hurt more because it came first. Nothing to befall a Cleveland sports team could ever pack the wallop of shock and disbelief I felt that day. Nothing could ever lay me so low.

Nothing, that is, until December 2, 2010, when LeBron James comes back to the Q. By now, the Heat are imploding and James is booed without mercy in every town they visit. Fans who couldn't care less about Cleveland or the Cavaliers saw The Decision and came to the same conclusion about LeBron: a.s.shole. Traitor. Egomaniac.

His defenders are quick to point out that all he did was exercise his right as a free agent. He hasn't been arrested for DUI or failed a drug test, wasn't charged with rape or pinched with a transs.e.xual hooker. They don't understand that this is beside the point.

NBA fans loved LeBron. He was cheered almost everywhere the Cavs played, and even where he was hated-Detroit, Chicago, Boston, and Was.h.i.+ngton in particular-he was villainized for the right reasons: He came, he swaggered, and he kicked a.s.s.

What they see now is a fraud. A brand name with no more substance than a marketing plan to move shoes and soft drinks. A self-proclaimed king without a crown, a blowhard who has been publicly disparaged by his iconic elders-Michael and Magic, Barkley and Bird-for lacking the esprit de combat that burned inside them and made them great. They don't question James's right to free agency or talent. They question his heart.

As 12/2 approaches, the Heat come close to cracking. They drop 3 games in a row, including a 16-point loss at home to the Indiana Pacers. On November 27, in Dallas, the Heat are on their way down again when Spoelstra calls a time-out and James, stalking back to the bench, b.u.mps his shoulder into Spoelstra's hard enough to spin him sideways, something LeBron once did to Mike Brown, too.

On November 29, ESPN's top story leads with "The Miami Heat's players are frustrated with Erik Spoelstra and some are questioning whether he is the right coach for the team, according to people close to the situation." Spoelstra's offensive schemes are lame; he's too panicky about losing his job to be an effective coach; he's a lousy motivator who won't let his players be themselves.

The byline is Chris Broussard's; the fingerprints on the knife belong to Maverick Carter. It is an obvious a.s.sa.s.sination attempt and a message: LeBron holds himself blameless for anything going wrong in Miami.

I'm fairly plotzing from the pleasure of seeing the chickens so soon taking their talons home to roost. Another week of woe may force Pat Riley to rise from the tomb, thirsty for blood, and drain Eric Spoelstra's jugular.

How sweet it would be to see Miami hand itself over, as the Cavs once did, to the Wh.o.r.e of Akron. While the Heat go down in Dallas, the Cavs beat the Grizzlies in front of a full house at the Q on Sat.u.r.day night-the same Memphis team that beat the Heat a week ago. Cleveland is a sc.r.a.ppy 710, and if the season ended today, they'd own the last playoff seed in the Eastern Conference.

Two nights before the Heat game, the Cavs lose big to the Celtics, but I write that off to the intensity of antic.i.p.ation-all anybody's talking about, in Cleveland and everywhere else, is LeBronukkah.

Good times in the old hometown. Thanks to all the twittering and the hoo-ha after the Heat withdrew my nonexistent credentials, I'm now a local hero of sorts. There's not much compet.i.tion. I'm feeling so buoyant that I invite my mother to lunch at the Cheesecake Factory, an act without precedent.

"What if they come after you?"

Who?

"LeBron's people."

What people?

"His friends."

Lucille's worried they'll shoot me. She's worried about my weight. She's worried about the thing on the side of my nose. "What is that?"

I don't know. A pimple?

"You need to get that checked. It doesn't look like a pimple to me-it looks like a mole or a growth. How long has it been there? I don't remember seeing it at Julian's bar mitzvah. Was it there then?"

This is fun, Mom. I don't know why we don't get together more often.

"I'm your mother. I worry about you."

You do realize I'm pus.h.i.+ng sixty.

"What difference does that make? You will always be my child."

This stops me cold. I've heard it before, a thousand times, always as a curse, life without parole. Gloria James was sixteen years old when she had LeBron; Lucille was twenty-two when she had me. He has a tattoo of his mother's name in large cursive script; I have an arrowed heart with MOTHER in a banner across its center. Gloria borrowed against LeBron's future millions to buy him a Hummer; my mother repaid the shoe store while I was in London with the deposit bag, to keep them from pressing felony charges against me. I owe this woman far more than I have ever been man enough to acknowledge.

When Thursday dawns, Cleveland feels like a city ready for a brawl. Pundits across the land, some local, keep warning fans not to give the town a "black eye" by burning down the Q. The natives, eyes permanently blackened by forty years' service as a media punch line and punching bag, are in no mood for lectures. Hundreds of media hypocrites have arrived here in force precisely because there might be violence. ESPN for weeks has speculated about the likelihood of violence. Most of the press here obviously hopes for violence-which, should it occur, they'll hold themselves blameless for helping to foment.

The big question is whether James will do his pregame chalk toss, and how the fans will respond. I offer the Cavs' media relations head $500 cash to allow me to stand between LeBron and the resin. I vow to maintain a strict policy of pa.s.sive resistance, but I also a.s.sure him that James will not reach his target. He declines and also tells me that Dan Gilbert, whom I've asked to join for at least part of the game, is "too emotional" to meet with me now.

There are many more security guards than usual in the bowels of the Q, and there's a constant crackle on their walkie-talkies-LeBron has a code name: the Traitor. As in, "The Traitor's on the floor."

The booing that greets him when he comes out of the tunnel for the pregame shootaround unrolls without end. I can feel the sound in the pit of my stomach, although that could be the pair of Polish Boys I disappeared at lunch.

Then the chanting begins-"a.s.s-HOLE, a.s.s-HOLE, a.s.s-HOLE"-less dazzling but still inspiring in terms of its volume. The words "Merry Quitness" alternate with live shots of LeBron on the JumboTron as I squeeze my way up to Section 130.

When I pause to get my wind, a woman supervising the section checks the placard dangling on my heaving chest and bursts into tears.

"You're Scott Raab?"

I nod.