| | | 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 27
... in which our hero rejuvenates a tennis legend
You know that scene in the Westerns, the one where a guy walks through the swinging doors and everyone inside the bar goes quiet? They make it seem like that's an everyday occurrence.
The truth is, you can tend bar for 50 years and never see a situation like that.
I had one last night here at Lore's.
At around midnight, I'm spreading a nice round swirl of whipped cream on the top of our new Margarita Especiale. So I'm concentrating on making the swirl perfect -- at least three times around, or it's not really a swirl. That's the Stu Getzler way. All of a sudden, everything goes quiet. You could hear a pin drop. I look up.
Pete Sampras is standing in the doorway.
That Pete Sampras. And his hair.
Pete puts his head down when he sees all eyes on him, and he walks quickly over to my station. He gives me one of those looks you see when he's ready for the ball boy to bounce a couple to him before he fires a 130-mile-an-hour bullet at your manliness. Here at Lore's, the signal means, Give me the usual. Now I'm not at liberty to tell you what it is that Pete drinks. Pete's strange that way. But I don't think it's giving up my bartender-client privilege to say that it includes vermouth and a pinch of French clay.
Pete sits there with the usual. And still, nobody's saying a word.
Everyone is thinking the same thing, which is that Pete the Great has gotten bounced out of two straight tournaments in the first round by two guys nobody's ever heard of. But nobody's saying it.
|  | | Pete Sampras just needed to practice a few overhead smashes before the French Open. |
Pete knows what they're thinking, though.
He looks at me like he's ready for another serve.
Then he swivels around in his chair and looks out at everybody. Doesn't say a word. Just kind of half-closes his eyes at the room. People start talking again. And so Pete swivels back around. As soon as his back's to the room, everyone shuts up.
I'm just back from riding some monster waves with Puker up north. Puker is hurting. We got our signals crossed up on one wave, and I cut in one way and Puker went the other. Puker's leg was broken, but he'll be out of the wheelchair in another day. At least we got him an electric wheelchair. If you have to be in a wheelchair, better make it an electric one, I always say. You would have to agree.
My point is, I thought riding those monster waves was intense.
But this is worse. Pete Sampras drinking up, and everybody staring. He starts running his hands through his hair. When guys look down at their drinks and run their hands through their hair, it almost could make you emotional. But this is Pete Sampras. And like maybe the dude is thinking it's over. Like from now on it's never going to be me, Pete, kissing the trophy -- from now on it's just going to be me, Pete, making a lousy $10 million a year and married to Bridget Wilson, I'm such a loser.
Suddenly I hear the sound of Puker coming in. They say every wheelchair engine has its own distinct sound. No two are the same. Sure enough, it's Puker.
Puker isn't thinking about anything other than we've been talking about taking him in the chair up to the top of the canyon and doing a little wheelchair/luge.
"Yo, it's Pete Sampras ? Dude!" Puker shouts. He can't help it. He has an awesome knack of not being able to stop himself.
Nobody says anything. Then Pete lifts his head and looks over at Puker.
"Can't a guy get some privacy here? What the hell's wrong with you people? Huh?"
Pete swivels around and addresses the room.
"A guy loses a couple tennis matches, suddenly he's a has-been? You're ready to give up on him? Just like that?"
By this point he's yelling louder than anyone has ever heard Pete Sampras yell, I think it's fair to say.
The room is still quiet. Everyone is too scared to speak.
"Maybe I need some practice. Yeah -- maybe that's what I need," Pete yells.
He reaches down and unzips something and in a second he pulls out a tennis racket. He gets off the stool and takes the drink glass in his hand. Then he tosses it high into the air and whacks it with the racket. It shatters against the wall.
"Maybe I need practice on my overheads!" he hollers at everybody. Then he gets an idea. "Better yet, I think I better practice my first-serve efficiency," he says.
He reaches over to my side of the bar and scrounges around for some shot glasses. I look over at Stu Getzler to see whether Stu thinks I should stop Pete, by maybe slugging him over the head with the baseball bat Sammy Sosa gave us that we keep behind the bar, only Stu is too busy hitting on our new waitress, Stefanie Giordano, which is funny, because Stefanie has been telling me that Stu makes her want to puke.
"Pete ... dude ..." I say.
"Relax, Wheeler," Pete says. "I'm just going to tune up for the French Open."
Pete lines up the shot glasses on the bar. Then he turns to Puker.
"Start rolling, peanut," he growls.
One thing Puker has a sore spot about is his height. Pete knows that. And sitting in a wheelchair doesn't do much for Puker's height.
Anyway, Puker accelerates into action. He motors back and forth across the floor like a moving target.
"First serve, high kicker to the forehand ..."
And Pete smashes a shot-glass serve that whistles right by Puker's head in the wheelchair. It spatters against the wall.
Not even that gets Stu Getzler's attention away from Stefanie. Stu's the kind of guy, you wonder if he knew that he made Stefanie want to puke, would he mind that or not? I think he wouldn't give a flip.
Anyway, Puker is zig-zagging back and forth around the floor like Lore's is a shooting gallery, and Pete is firing those shot glass serves at him that explode against the walls.
"Ace into the ad court!" he yells, and he powders a rocket that misses Puker by an inch.
I realize that maybe I should do something. Like maybe stop him or something.
But before I can come to any decisions about that, Pete runs out of shot glasses and he stops serving. A good thing, too, because Puker's electric motor battery is running low.
Pete stands there sweating and breathing hard. He's been through a good workout. Then he looks around at everybody. Everybody is still quiet.
"Game, set, match, dude," Puker says.
There's shattered glass all over the floor, but all Pete does is his famous thumb-to-forehead sweat-wipe, then puts his racket away, then tosses a few hundred-dollar bills on the bar and heads for the door.
"Good luck at the French," Puker yells after him as Pete leaves.
I go over to Puker and ask, "Dude, he almost killed you. Why are you wishing him good luck?"
"You got it wrong. Out-racing those shot glasses was a lot of fun, Dude," Puker says.
Somehow Stu Getzler has torn himself away from Stefanie. Maybe he noticed the look on my face, like I was shocked about something and he came over. Or maybe he finally woke up to the fact that the whole bar was quiet and there was a couple hundred dollars' worth of broken shot glass all over his floor.
But it turns out there was a different reason Stu didn't come running.
"I've never seen anything like that, Stu," I tell him. "I guess I should've stopped him."
"It's OK, Wheeler," he says. He puts his hand on my shoulder. "Pete does this every year before he goes to Paris."
Not every bartender can say he was part of history.
Next week: In Chapter 28, Phil Jackson begs for our hero's help after Tim and The Admiral rock the West Coast.
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