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Cuban identity crisis
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Editor's Note: When we got to work today, we found another e-mail from that bartending, skateboarding buddy of ours in California. We decided to pass it along again. A word of warning: always wear a helmet.

Chapter 11
... in which our hero breathes life into a stranger

Two state troopers drag the guy into Lore's at around midnight. He's tall and gangly and scratched-up, with black hair that looks like a toupee and this goofy smile pasted on his face. Kind of like that volleyball Tom Hanks keeps talking to in "Cast Away." So I decide to call him Wilson.

The cops explain they picked up Wilson wandering around in the desert all the way out by Banning near an overturned Lexus that was spotted heading West at over 100 mph. He was muttering and incoherent and the only thing they could understand was: "I love this team."

"Why'd you bring him to me?" I ask.

"We found this in his pocket," they say. "There was nothing else. No I.D."

They show me a crumpled note with some pencil scrawl: "Wheeler. L.A."

"You know this guy?" they ask.

I don't. But I say I'll take care of Wilson because that's what you do when you're a trained bartender.

"Wilson! Wilson! Do you know where you are?" I yell into his ear as soon as the cops are gone. "Can you hear me, Wilson?"

"I love this team," the stranger keeps mumbling.

I try to revive him by waving some steaming Xtreme Nachos with Pork under his nose.

Nothing. I can't even get Wilson's eyes to open. He's lying there, out cold, on the bar, in nothing but a soiled trench coat, jeans and a pair of sneakers.

"I love this team," he keeps moaning.

Before I take Wilson to the hospital, I figure I'll try one last-ditch thing: Wheeler's Margarita Xtreme. I'd just come back from a trip to the most extreme surfing spot in the world, The Cortes Banks, a shoal in the middle of the ocean that tops off just three feet below the Pacific, causing breaks 100 feet high moving in from Asia as fast as the pace car at Indy. I'd hired on as a jet-ski tow-in driver, because you can't paddle fast enough to catch up to the surf there, or up north at Mavericks or down at Todos Santos in Baja. If you ride and live, you get my Margarita Xtreme -- mixed with three golden beads of pure adrenal rush swabbed off the middle of the forehead as you wait for Godzilla to come knocking 100 miles out at sea with no land in sight.


	"I love this team."

"I love this team," Wilson is still murmuring.

"Wilson! Take this!" I manage to dribble a few drops of the Xtreme Margarita into the corner of his mouth. Wilson returns to the land of the living in a couple of seconds. He looks around the sports bar, trying to get his bearings.

"Where am I?" he asks.

"L.A." I tell him. "You've been out for a long time, Wilson. And by the way, you wouldn't happen to remember your real name, would you?"

"Yeah," he says, and I can see it's all coming back to him, "I'm Mark Cuban, and who are you?"

"I'm Wheeler," I say.

Cuban breaks down and begins weeping. "I found you, I found you," he keeps saying, pounding his palm on the bar, his shoulders heaving. "Thank you, God. Oh, thank you. ... I love this team."

By now, I've figured out the "team" he's talking about is the Dallas Mavericks.

"What does an NBA franchise in Dallas have to do with me?" I ask when he's finally got his composure back. Me and guys with blood-sugar problems, I don't know what it is -- but I'm a magnet.

Cuban tells me that he heard how I helped patch up the Shaq-Kobe feud last week. How it's all around the league, the whispers about a magical guy named "Wheeler" out on the Coast. And so he began a pilgrimage -- one way or another he had to meet the dude who was awesome enough to do the trick. Because he loves his team.

"I just want to hang with you, man. Just absorb the magic," he tells me.

I tell him, sure, it sounds like a good deal. Only it'll have to wait. He looks horrified.

I tell him I'm about to hop a plane to Tampa. "The Giants want me with them for the Super Bowl," I say. "Jim Fassel and Ernie Accorsi know about my Margarita Xtreme. Fassel drank one before he made that guarantee about the Giants going to the playoffs. Anyway, they want me mixing Margarita Extremes for the Giants after practice this week. But don't worry -- I'll be back on Monday."

Quickly, Cuban says, "I can call my own plane. We can fly to Tampa together."

"I don't see why not?" I say.

So, it's me and Wilson -- I mean, Mark Cuban -- heading for Florida in style.

We already agree on one thing: We love this team.

Next Week: Chapter 12 in which our hero begins to turn the NBA into the XBA.

	wheeler's

ALSO SEE:
Wheeler's X-Cellent Adventures: Chapter 10

Wheeler's X-Cellent Adventures: Chapter 9

Wheeler's X-Cellent Adventures: Chapter 8

Wheeler's X-Cellent Adventures: Chapter 7

Wheeler's X-Cellent Adventures: Chapter 6

Wheeler's X-Cellent Adventures: Chapter 5

Wheeler's X-Cellent Adventures: Chapter 4

Wheeler's X-Cellent Adventures: Chapter 3

Wheeler's X-Cellent Adventures: Chapter 2

Wheeler's X-Cellent Adventures: Chapter 1