Chuckles and Me

"They're just a whiny bunch and I can't root for them"

Chuck's been talking about the Miami Heat. He is sitting across from me in a first-rate French café. We're on the Rive Gauche and it's a sunny day so we're outdoors. He's in town to advocate multicultural awareness in the European sporting world. I'm in town because this is all a dream. He peruses the menu, drawing my attention to a full complement of absurd sausage-like fingers. Up comes the waiter, whom Chuck abruptly high fives. He breaks into a hilarious giggle, his massive frame wobbles and he is now leaning perilously to one side. The waiter frowns bitterly and then mutters something unrepeatable in French.

I order something called Crêpe Suzette. Chuck orders the same – with about eleven croissants on the side. We also order two enormous bottles of Stella Artois. Not a lot of people know this about him, but Chuck is a big drinker. Bizarrely, he's also something of a connoisseur. We've been talking about the NBA Finals.

Chuck takes a big swig of beer and wipes his mouth with a napkin that's about the size of a table cloth.

"That LeBron James, he don't know what he wants from the game."

A pretty young woman walks by, her carriage eminently aristocratic. Chuck raises an eyebrow and his head swivels, impossibly, as if it were an owl's. He whistles and turns back to me.

"You know what I love about Europe?"

"What?"

"The women."

We high five. Chuck takes another big swig of beer.

"Yeah, but you see, with LeBron, his big problem is that he don't know what he wants from the game."

"So what about all those Jordan comparisons?"

"Jordan comparisons are ridiculous. The guy don't even have one championship ring."

There's an awkward silence. We each reach for our beers, absurdly. Rings, after all, are a sore point for Chuck.

"But more than that, it's because he doesn't have a killer instinct. You know, with Jordan you just get the sense that he wants to kill people out there, but it's not the same with LeBron. He wants to go out there, play some point guard, play some power forward, play some shooting guard. He don't know what he wants from the game."

...

Some moments later Chuck is signaling to the waiter for our cheque and almost instantaneously it materializes. Chuck pays the cheque, we get into his waiting lambo, which now contains Malcolm Lowry (soused), Cindy Crawford, and Edward Said.

The lambo shrieks down the boulevard and miraculously we are transported to Ernest Hemingway's new bar, Fiesta! The wait staff are anthropomorphic polydactyl cats. I'm not allergic to them in my dream. Game 5 is about to start. We order a round of Anis del Toro, except Malcolm has a flask of mescal. Mark Jackson says something about a clinic. Jeff Van Gundy is hitting on Doris Burke. Outside in the street it's rapidly alternating between night and day. The street goes orange. The street is white. The street is purple. The street goes dark. Brobdingnagian croissants go rolling down the boulevard.

On a small stage Norah Jones sings "The Corpus Christi Carol," while Said looks on with rapt attention. Lowry jealously nurses his mescal. Jeff and Doris slide into first base. Mark Jackson says something about a clinic. Chuck has ordered an appletini and is flirting with the pretty woman from outside the café. Cindy Crawford and I discuss Foucault's History of Sexuality. We are engaged in a discourse. Norah takes a breather, and Said replaces her on the piano bench. "The Moonlight Sonata." My mind travels to infinity and back. I look up, momentarily, and I see LeBron James' face flickering on the screen. Lowry has a gulp of mescal. Now or Never! Mark Jackson says something about a clinic. The sun also rises.