| | | 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 39
... in which our hero pleads with Anna Kournikova to save his best friend's life
This all started a few days ago down at the beach. That's where I first noticed something was wrong with Puker. Inside his head, or at least, what's left of the inside.
When we got to the beach is when it happened. When we went over during my lunch break from Lore's with our boards.
There's one thing you should know by now about my buddy Puker. He wastes no time getting in the water. You know how some people divide life up between day and night? Puker divides his into wet and dry.
Whenever we go surfing, Puker runs the whole way across the sand and jumps in.
But a few days ago he just sat there looking at the water. Which is when I knew something was wrong. Puker being a guy, you don't ask directly about any condition that is anything other than totally stoked.
|  | | "Isn't there some type of rehab that can get Anna ready in time to play next week?" |
But one way or another, I got the conversation around to how come Puker looked like he wanted to write out a suicide note.
He looked at me like, "How could you not know what's wrong? The U.S. Open is what's wrong?"
It all poured out of Puker then. How he felt after hearing that Anna wasn't going to be playing in the Open. Because she had a bad foot.
"Do you think that if I massaged Anna's foot every day, all the time, it would get better in time for her to play?" Puker asked, looking out at the waves. "If I never stopped licking it, and rubbing oil and stuff into it, not even for a second? I mean, I could set up a little footstool by her bed and, like, while she was sleeping, I could sit there and keep on massaging it ? talking to it."
"I don't know," I had to say. "That is beyond my area of expertise."
I told Puker that, generally speaking, anything that was beyond my area of expertise I usually took as a probable no.
"You're right," Puker said. "I've got to get her to play on it, even if it hurts her a little."
"Anna's not too good at playing with pain," I said.
"Dude," Puker said, "Anna is a goddess. A goddess doesn't have to do anything with pain."
I asked Puker how he intended to get Anna to play. And that's when he decided there was only one way --- a hunger strike.
Puker is now in the fourth day of his hunger strike. And this is my personal appeal to you, Anna Kournikova, to play in this year's U.S. Open. Otherwise my best friend is going to die.
I know that look of determination on Puker's face. Let me tell you, he is determined not to let a morsel of food pass his lips until he sees you out on that court in Queens.
|  | | "Come on, Anna, suck it up. A man's life depends on it." |
If you don't believe me, here's how determined he is. Puker is sitting and sleeping on a platform over the dining room in Lore's. Our manager, Stu Getzler, figured this would be a great promotion for the place. So he offered to house Puker during his hunger strike. And every half hour he orders us to put a fresh, savory mega order of Nachos Campobello (FDR's favorite) right out there under his nose -- just to tempt him to take a bite and break his hunger strike.
I can't say for sure if Stu Getzler is a showman or a sadist. I guess they're the same thing.
But it does prove my point. There's no man I know who could resist taking a bite of nachos. Gandhi, the whole time he was in prison, if they had put a plate of Lore's nachos out there in front of him, the entire history of India might be different today.
Puker is starting to give off a smell now after four days. Puker says it's the smell of his body beginning to break itself down and use itself for fuel, but he says it as if it was a rush. The smell doesn't bother Stu because business is booming. Everyone wants to come in and see the guy who won't drink or eat while everybody else is eating and drinking.
I suppose you could say this is just another envelope edge Puker wants to jam on. But I'm not so sure it's the kind of competition I want to sign up for. It's not like I can tell Puker I would rather that he didn't die. You don't tell guys stuff like that. Even good friends. If Puker wants to sit there and rot and die a horrible, smelly death over the next couple weeks, well, hey, that's what the dude wants.
So the only way to stop him belongs to the one person who has the power to let Puker live.
That would be you, Anna. You hold Puker's fate in your hand. You can lace on those sneakers. And put on those shorts. And that nice, tight, sleeveless top that lets those beautiful brown shoulders of yours show. You can put that braid in your hair and step out on that court even if it hurts a little.
I know you're a goddess.
A goddess with a chance to save a human life.
Next week: In Chapter 40, our hero conducts an exclusive interview with Ray Lewis.
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