| | | 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 30
... in which our hero gets to the bottom of the Lakers' playoff success.
Los Angeles has turned into a city of car flags. There are so many vans honking and lurching around with banners sticking out of the windows on both sides, you'd swear you were in Lima or some other third-world capital on the heels of a people's revolution.
This is great for me. Shaquille O'Neal is in Lore's today autographing souvenir Laker car flags with his new best buddy Kobe. But the great part isn't just hanging out with Shaq and Kobe, it's that I'm the one who came up with the idea for our version, the official Lore's-Lakers World Championship Car Flag.
You get a free Lakers car flag with each pitcher of Margaritas and double mega order of Nachos Campiones, with purple-colored mole sauce and gold cheese. Then you get to drive home with your purple and gold pennant fluttering in the wind -- if you can make it home safely after drinking all those Margaritas.
|  | | Shaq easily pushed aside the Spurs, but he's got other worries about the NBA Finals. |
People are lined up out the door and down the street waiting for Shaq and Kobe to sign their car flags, which me and my homey Puker scrambled to staple together working all night, every night for the last week. A penny for each flag we give away goes to the fight against Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.
Everyone on line is thinking one thing about the 76ers, I tell Shaq as we wait up at the bar -- sweep. The Lakers are going to be the first team not to lose a game in the playoffs
"Ain't gonna happen," Shaq mutters. "But keep it a secret."
"Really? You respect Iverson that much?" I ask.
"Nah, I'll just talk trash about his mother, he'll shoot 15 percent," Shaq says, and then he glances over at Kobe. "Ask him how come no sweep."
Kobe looks up from signing his car flag and looks embarrassed and tells Shaq to be quiet.
"I told you what I told you in confidence," he tells Shaq.
"It's Wheeler, it's OK," Shaq says, ignoring Kobe's objections. "How many games in a sweep, Wheeler?"
"Four," I say.
"Short series. So it could be vacation time in just one week," Shaq says.
"Par-tee," I say.
Shaq shakes his head. "Too fast for Kobe. Vacation time's honeymoon time for Kobe, because he got married during the season. Some fellas get a little nervous about their obligations on their honeymoon night, know what I'm saying?"
"She's a great girl," Kobe says.
"'Course she is, nobody's saying otherwise, Kobe," Shaq says.
"There's all that pressure to perform on that first honeymoon night," Kobe says. "She's a beautiful girl, don't get me wrong."
"No doubt about it," Shaq tells Kobe. "And it'll be a slam dunk. Be married 50 years. Have 10 children."
|  | | Once the NBA Finals are complete, Kobe's world will be turned upside down. |
"It's just, that first night ..." Kobe says, sighing and handing another Lore's-Lakers World Championship car flag back to a happy fan. "There's a lot of pressure. I'd rather be on the foul line with no time on the clock."
"No problem," Shaq says. "Whenever it happens."
"Even if it doesn't happen for an extra week," Kobe says. "We still love each other. Eternally."
"Four games or seven, makes no difference," Shaq says to Kobe.
Then he looks at me and winks.
"See what I mean?" Shaq whispers. "Kobe's scared of going on his honeymoon. The bride knows it too, and she don't like it. We got this far in the playoffs, because he wants to put it off. Now, he'd like the Finals to be a 15-game series. He doesn't want it to be over. But it's got to be, because somebody's gonna be champ."
I tell Shaq that when you watch Kobe play he looks like a totally no-fear dude.
"On the court's one thing," Shaq tells me, "in the honeymoon suite's another. Kobe ain't all grown up yet."
I suppose a longer series is good for me, too. More games, more car flags. More car flags, more money in the fight against CTS. And a bigger raise for me as the guy who sold Stu Getzler the idea for this promotion in the first place. These are the biggest crowds we've had at Lore's in a couple years.
"Like I said, you've got to keep this a secret, Wheeler," Shaq tells me. "Mutombo heard Kobe had cold feet about his honeymoon night. Been sending him postcards of honeymoon suites, writing 'Get Ready, Sweetheart,' on the back, raunchy stuff. Getting into Kobe's head."
"Trying to give me the cold sweats," Kobe says. "But it won't work."
"'Course it won't work. You're my idol," Shaq tells Kobe.
Shaq looks at me and rolls his eyes. Now I realize that all the talk about the Lakers' title run, of how they've come together and how Kobe and Shaq have put their differences aside really boils down to a honeymoon night.
"You'll be cool, dude," I tell Kobe, as the crowd presses toward us, a sea of purple and gold car flags. The lot out back is filled with car owners rigging them up. "Just do what comes naturally."
"That's right," a fan says, "and what's natural is a clean sweep."
The bar picks up the chant.
"SWEEP! SWEEP! SWEEP!" the crowd begins chanting. They're bobbing their car flags up and down, sweeping the air and starting to pound the walls and tabletops with their sticks. Some are even banging on each others' heads.
Kobe looks over at me and Shaq as the chant of "sweep" echoes off the walls. He's got a smile on his face, but I can't say it's a big one.
Next week: In Chapter 31, Wheeler tries to calm a storm when Tiger Woods and Casey Martin show up at the same time.
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