The labors of Michael Jordan

The story would begin and end with a prophecy: “The ceiling is the roof.” As it was said unto him, he would say it unto the world. In all the other moments of his life, though, he would labor for the benefit of himself, such was his sacrifice.

Proudly did the scribes praise His Airness; also known as Michael Jordan; sometimes just Michael; other times MJ; or even a mouth left agape. He was the greatest man who ever lived, even greater than every branch on the tree of a mighty lineage. Some called him a grandson of Thompson. Some said he was James Worthy’s brother or Walter Davis’ nephew. Neither his flesh nor blood was ever discussed. No one mentioned, at least not often, his mother or Wilmington. He could not be mortal, not with all that greatness, so others claimed Dr. J wove him from the nylon and even others believed him to be a son of Magic. Not a speck of dust could exist in this world and not be a part of MJ. Hence, the maxim: Republicans buy shoes too.

According to the great poet Hooper, a ram descended from Phog and sneezed sky blue snot into the ocean. When the salt water met mucus membrane, MJ was born. Simple enough, and yet, other historians reported the story differently. Hardwoodotus argued that a red bull puked blood into a sky blue ocean resulting in steam particles that in human form were called, His Airness. Other accounts claimed him to be nothing more than a brat gifted with expensive shoes, colored sports drinks, and form-defining underwear, that if anyone else had been so fortunate, then he, too, would have been equally heroic in deed and names. Many of these individuals will go unnamed in this account, but know that at one time they, too, were deities. Since then, however, their tongues have been chained with six golden rings and marked with flames from the Auerbach. Upon their deaths, plaques with Larry Bird’s words carved in them were hung around their necks. “I think he’s God disguised as Michael Jordan” are words spoken with creed-like precision in all thirty temples of the world.

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But this narrative account is not so far along. In this story, which is still just starting, the man who would become a god is still a boy and his path somewhat in doubt.

Hidden far from the Forum’s eyes and ears, Michael, who wanted to be called Magic, was as far from Magic as anyone could be without having to cross an ocean. In time, his name and image would span all waters, but at this time, a man who might have been his father told him he belonged in the house with the women, or at least such was the case according to Roland Lazenby.

Michael, who did not like these words, molded his manhood from the vulnerability of such a moment. He fought brothers and sisters over such words. He took on the entire world one game of one-on-one at a time over such words. He would not rest, and he would not tire. It was then that he stopped sleeping, in childhood. Instead, opting to stay up all night plotting against his enemies, and when he defeated them all, he imagined new ones.

For the sake of simplicity, then, and on account of the truth, let it be known that His Airness was born from a fierce will to compete and very large hands. Such is the true matter of his life regardless of whether his body was delivered to the earth by rams, bulls, or Immaculate Conception.

So let the sequence of events begin with his unwillingness to sleep and his very large hands and the night he imagined his bed full of snakes and spiders and turtles and wolves, even pale-faced Demon Deacons. He strangled them all with his bare hands, and even though none of them were real to begin with, he buried the bodies. Such was the might and power of his mental strength; he could create friction where there was none.

When he buried the wolf’s body, he said in a solemnly rehearsed tone: “You know I always wanted to be a wolf,” which caused some to wonder even further whether or not he was a son of Thompson and the Wolfpack. Michael Jordan, you see, enjoyed wearing the mysteries of deception and therefore always made an effort to author his own story and, for such a traditional hero, he possessed a fondness for disguises.

One day, at school, in the heart of his youth, another man who watched over Michael had the boy banished from the varsity hunting party. Well, “banished” probably isn’t the right word and come to think of it neither is “cut,” but the point of the matter is he was told he wasn’t ready yet. Michael, thinking he was Magic and therefore always ready, then set fire to the woods and school and burned his teacher’s reputation in much the same way he imagined critters in the woods only to strangle them.

As the flames raged behind him, MJ zigged westward and zagged northward, his first real steps towards the real Magic and the Forum. He soon found himself at a camp full of young warriors. They did not know him. He told them to call him Magic. They refused. He destroyed them all. He wore their lips and teeth as a necklace, so they could always tell the story about how he owned them. The necklace danced like gold on Jordan’s neck, and he owned them forever.

He wandered the mountain passes. He headed south. A shepherd found him if not sleeping then at least resting his eyes. The necklace spoke to the shepherd and told him how Jordan slew his peers at the camp for young warriors. The shepherd looked over each shoulder—he wanted to keep such stories a secret—before waking Jordan. When the young man awoke, he made it very clear he had not been sleeping and then accepted the shepherd’s offer, which was to learn the Right Way. The shepherd was always talking about the Right Way versus the wrong way. His successors would do the same.

The shepherd convinced Michael to stay with him. Some say this shepherd was also one of Michael’s fathers and that may be true, but there is no proof other than the shepherd’s fondness for sky blue snot and Michael’s donning the sacred snot forever and always. He wore blue undergarments under his blood red armor. He always remembered from whence he came and, because he did so, he became the personification of loyalty. His followers will never abandon him because he never abandoned the ideas of his youth and the land of his origins.

In his time under the shepherd’s tutelage, Michael grew stronger but, more importantly, he grew taller. Many warriors stand around six feet tall, but not as many stand around six and a half feet tall. Half a foot and large hands can make all the difference between mortality and immortality. Some have come to believe that Michael could not be killed.

In his days learning from the shepherd, Michael killed a large Hoya by the name of Ewing. He did so by standing off to the side and away from the action, but a kill is a kill. An early incarnation of Worthy, of whom it is said vanished to one day spring from the head of Magic, aided Michael in this blue-blooded act. But, in time, the story would change, until people believed Michael skinned the mighty Hoya and his brood from head to toe without any help. Many artists have since depicted Michael cloaked in the skins of his enemies, wearing everything from Hoya gray fur to postal uniform blue.

Michael would kill the Ewing many times. Some historians count the triumph among his labors. Here it is not counted as such. Here it is pure violence, for sometimes Michael would let the Ewing win for a little while before slaying the Ewing and the Ewing’s optimism. He enjoyed killing the Ewing more than any other beast, possibly because the Ewing sometimes mistook him for a friend, possibly because the Ewing lived in the Garden that was really a swamp, possibly because of an annoyance named John Starks.

Michael’s future acolytes would revel in such bloodthirsty deeds. They, too, wanted to kill their friends and did so in driveways and on the roads towards Thebes. They dressed in Jordan jerseys and wagged their tongues and said clever things like: “I wanna be like Mike, so I’m going to kill you now.” They would say these words and then jump, wagging their tongues all the while, to their own deaths, because only Michael could fly.

Michael Jordan wanted to stay in Chapel Hill with the nasally shepherd and tend to the young rams, but the shepherd did not believe to do so would be the Right Way. The shepherd listened to his Gut, and his Gut told him Michael had to go or he would swallow the flock. The shepherd looked in Michael’s eyes. He saw how Michael always wanted to be a wolf, so he conferred with the Oracle and with unnamed sources to see if any city was willing to take on Jordan as a hero’s apprentice. Some people thought he could be a city’s champion and not just an apprentice. Some did not. Most believed the early stories and thought he had potential. Some, not realizing he could fly, lamented his lack of height in comparison to other heroes.

When Michael heard not everyone viewed him as the best available hero, he burned with madness. Once again, he heard the voice of the man who watched him in childhood and that voice once again told him he was not ready and would never be ready. MJ fanned the flames by imagining the voice to sound more sinister and cruel than it really was. Some believe Jordan’s anger burned so hot that all the flames in existence burned hotter by degrees, including those flames managed by Sam Bowie, god of the forge. Those who believe in Jordan’s burning spirit say he is the reason Bowie walks with a limp. They believe Jordan willed the god to melt in the fires of his own forge.

Regardless of causes, Bowie remained a broken god and Jordan arrived in Chicago, one of the most desolate destinations in the realm, which was also the perfect setting for a potential hero. Here he would be carefully monitored and watched. First, by Rod Thorn and Kevin Loughery, but the city rose in rebellion against them, leading to a power vacuum that was eventually filled by the second Jerry, who went by the name of Krause. Krause had eyes everywhere. He collected cows and lions and peacocks, but none of these beasts impressed Michael. In fact, Michael spurned all of Krause’s advances, so Krause made sure to list off all the heroes who were more heroic than Michael, starting with Theus and Perseus and ending with Earl the Pearl and anyone in a Clipper uniform. Krause was always bringing the Clippers into matters that should have had nothing to do with Clippers. He did so to spite Jordan. He did everything to spite Jordan.

If Michael ever faced a challenge, the challenge was ultimately Krause’s doing. If not Krause, then the first Jerry, who went by Reinsdorf, was responsible.

When Michael first arrived in Chicago, he started killing it. He slew opponents. He slew teammates. He slew his own shadow. He rid the locker room and surrounding hillsides of addicts and thieves. He did everything with reckless abandon and thought the Forum would open its doors and arms to him.

But the Forum did not.

Instead, Isiah Thomas, always a Trickster, talked Magic, king of the gods, into hosting a star filled event. They invited Michael, but the catch was, no one would talk to Michael or pass him any Hors d’oeuvres, drinks, cigars, or women. As always, many theories exist as to what Isiah’s motives may have been. Some say the young hero ignored him first. Others say the young hero belittled Isiah, saying Isiah was only a minor god who smiled so much because others did his fighting for him. But the truth was MJ was killing it so much that Isiah could never rest. There were always more corpses needing an escort from around the realm to the ghastly confines of the Boston Garden where everything burned in the Auerbach.

One night MJ had the audacity to leave 63 bodies outside the doors to the New England underworld and didn’t even have the decency to carry them over the threshold. He just left them on the doorstep. He even killed what was left of George Gervin, who had once been a Titan, and so Isiah was sure the young hero lacked respect for his elders. These events were why Isiah made Michael a target of his trickery. But, most of all, the messenger god secretly despised having to be the bearer of bad news. He wanted to be the hero. Michael did not let him be the hero. Michael wore shoes; Isiah wore sandals.

When Jordan learned about Isiah’s secret plot, sometimes referred to as the Jordan Rules, he grew furious and killed more bodies, which, in turn, made Isiah grow even trickier. Life is a series of vicious cycles. Michael would lose his best friend Oakley in one of these cycles and not even Bill Cartwright, one of the oldest and wisest giants to walk the earth, could ever console him.

Because the Forum was closed to him, Michael visited the shepherd often, for he had broken his foot in battle and needed to know his purpose. He limped all the way to Chapel Hill. The shepherd then directed him to the Sept of Baylor, which was a second-rate Oracle, but before that, the shepherd asked Jordan if he could use his name to recruit more young warriors. Michael agreed as long as the young warriors agreed to wear his likeness on their sacred garments. That is why a jumping man is always sewn into the folds of sky blue ram snot.

Jordan visited the Sept of Baylor, which was near the Forum. There he heard the words: “Learn to lose. That is your penance for all the slaughter. You must walk the pathways of those who came before you. Otherwise, winning will bear no meaning. Be like the Clipper.”

Jordan agreed to do so, but he wouldn’t stop the killing. He could not deny his instincts, so he managed to lose wars while winning all the battles. These struggles were eventually recorded by the ancient scribe Sam Smith as The Jordan Rules, but in the meantime, his suffering inspired others. They chose to walk in his shoes, and that is why the jumping man can be seen on the feet of lesser beings even to this day. They mark themselves with his ambitions when they themselves cannot fly. The earth is covered in jumping men.

On his way back from the Sept of Baylor, Jordan heard a man cry out in pain. The cry sounded like something the muse R. Kelly might hear in a nightmare’s zombie chorus. Jordan climbed a rock face to the sound of the man’s pain. When he reached the top, he discovered Julius Erving chained to Cliff Robinson (the mountain, not the man).

“I believed you could fly,” said Michael.

“Once upon a time,” said Erving, as he bled from his torso. Jordan saw the open wound and gagged.

“Oh,” said Erving, “that’s where the Barkley Lion digs his claws into me. He loves ribs. He will grow to be very round one day.”

“This is not right,” said Michael. “You were one of the greats. You resided in the ABA.”

“I did.”

“Where’s World B. Free?”

“He’s not what he used to be.”

“I will do something about this.”

Michael climbed down the mountainside and returned to Chicago, where he began to lift weights. If anyone ever chained him to a Cliffside, he would free himself. Six years later he would slay the Barkley Lion, but he would do so in the desert and with the help of a squire named Paxson. This deed would be recorded as one of his many labors. Erving would not be around to see it.

Before that Michael accomplished many other deeds. He defeated the Portland Hydra with a shoulder shrug and the aid of his apprentice, Scottie Pippen. He trained Pippen every day to carry his body if his legs should ever grow weary. Because he did so, many believed Michael to have been blessed with great foresight, that he knew who could and could not carry the weight of a champion.

Before and after slaying the heads of Drexler, Michael wrestled with Magic in this world and in dreams. He won both times. He still never slept. He shuffled tarot cards in the night. He watched Isiah grow too slow to be the gods’ messenger and saw Bird close his halls to the dead. Bored and tired and with nothing left to conquer, Michael retired from being a hero. Chicago built a temple in his honor. His statue, with legs spread wide and an outstretched arm, orbits round its mighty walls, with its tongue wagging in the metal.

As Chicago raised the temple walls in honor of Jordan’s many labors, he wandered through the Maize.

Many versions exist about this portion of the legend’s life, and he was, by this stage in his hero’s journey,—something other than human. The voice of the man who once watched over him died. Some spoke of the event as if it always hung in the hero’s future. They sighted the nights where he did not sleep. They sighted the hours spent playing cards and other games of fate. They sighted everything from conspiracy to karma, wanting the story to make sense. The story, though, refused, because sometimes life is more random and real than any narrative.

And so Jordan walked out of the story and into the Maize.

He picked up a glove and a bat. He walked across the baseball field and into the cornfield. James Earl Jones and Kevin Costner were not there, but it was difficult not to hear their voices narrating the hero’s footsteps. He searched his origins in much the same way his critics and followers searched his every step for secret antecedents. Is he the son of Erving? Is he the son of Thompson? Is he what Dean or Phil made him? No. The answers were all no. He was the son of a man whom no one really knew and so the legend and the mystery grew. He walked deep into the American Maize and looked the Minotaur in the face. Who knows what he saw there? He left the creature alive and well and waiting. Some things cannot be killed in an arena. That much is clear, but so much is unclear and left swirling in the pools of Rodman tie-dye. Michael Jordan could not hit a curveball to save his life or raise the dead. He started training for a new set of labors.

Michael appeared in the temple disguised as his brother. People did not recognize him until he dropped fifty-five bodies in Madison Square Swamp. This labor is often referred to as the double-nickel game because he placed coins on the King Pat Riley’s eyelids, so the cleverest of kings could pay his way into the afterlife. He would return to the land of the living years later, in Miami. He was a great cheater of death.

Old age and Krause had cleared Chicago of Michael’s traveling companions, so when he and Pippen and a wanderer named Kerr traveled to Orlando, they found themselves undermanned and underprepared. Nick Anderson stole Michael’s sword and so the warriors traveled back to Chicago, having learned the lesson never bring fists to a swordfight.

These events rekindled the old instincts in Michael. He began slaying the sons of gods and even his own sons, for by this time he had many potential successors. Of the next Jordans, he slew: Minor and Hill and Stackhouse. And, in the coming years, he would add to this number. Of the old gods’ offspring, he slew a second Hoya, Alonzo, and the first Hoya, Ewing. He slew the sons of Dominique, from Mutombo to a man named Smith. His wrath new no bounds and he killed Eddie Jones, a son of Magic. He muted the Sonic Boom in the northwest, and Shawn Kemp was never the same. The entire kingdom would eventually wither and die. He would not allow the lines of Stockton and Malone to prosper either. He killed their sons Byron Russell, Shandon Anderson, and Howard Eisley. He even butchered the boar Oster Stag.

Some even say he clipped big Penny’s wings and ripped out little Penny’s tongue, after having tricked the giant Shaq into picking Disney’s golden apples. The sky fell forever after in the Magic Kingdom. Eventually, Michael ran out of beings in this world to dominate, so he battled with Monstars and broke the rules of time and space. He tamed the Rodman to run and jump in straight, geometric lines, but left him free enough to marry himself. Some believe marriage to one’s own image is the highest form of being like Mike. Being like Mike and Dennis being Dennis are two sides of the same coin.

Michael had long studied the science and logic of Tex Winter, the last of the old alchemists. When Jordan tied himself to the post, the entire world shrank in the confines of his shadow. In the end, his labors annihilated the belief in giants. The tall men who would follow in his wake claimed to be power forwards rather than cyclops. The larger his actions appeared; the smaller the world became. Never again would creatures like Wilt and Russell loom over the Painted Area. Creation reduced itself to a three-sided prism.

Michael Jordan retired for a second time from the narrative.

One day a wizard, not named Harry, approached Michael with a choice. He handed the old hero three marbles. In one, he could see a young warrior named Tyson. In another, he could see Eddy Curry. In the last marble he saw a boy named Kwame. The wizard told Michael: “If you pick the right one, the size and scope of the world will return. What you made small can be undone. What would that mean to you?” Michael stared into the tiger eye swirl of each marble. He watched the three youths run and jump and pivot. He thought about how a world full of giants would be a world once more in need of a hero. He found himself looking time and time again at the boy in the third marble.

“He would need a teacher,” said the wizard. “He is not ready.”

Something in those words struck a chord with Michael. After all, they had once been said of him by the man who watched over him. He felt that old familiar whetting of the appetite.

“What would it take?” asked the old hero.

“Like all good stories, it would take a willing sacrifice,” said the wizard.

“Hm,” said Jordan, stroking his chin with his hand. Each finger wore a golden ring, and each ring shone brightly in the sunlight.

“How does that work, though?”

“How does what work?”

“Sacrifice.”

“You simply lay your body down.”

Jordan pondered those words, and in the pondering, he remembered Erving’s old body chained to the rocky mountainside. His whole life he had been given to flight. When he wrestled with Magic, he soared through the air. When he did battle with Stockton and Malone, he at least hovered. What would it mean to lie down? He shivered at the thought.

“Here,” said the wizard, offering a cloak that resembled a Hoya’s hide, “wear this.”

When he allowed the wizard to drape the hide over his shoulders, he did so without knowing it had been soaked in the blood of all his enemies and allies alike. The blood burned his skin so deeply he felt the sensation through his muscles and in his bones.

“I am not ready for this,” he said, dropping two of the marbles. And then Jordan wept. And, in his weeping, he crushed the cat’s eye marble with the boy Kwame inside it.

“That’s not what I meant,” said the wizard, and Jordan could stop neither the burning nor the tears. The two acts formed a vicious cycle, like a snake devouring itself. And such was the apotheosis of Michael Jordan. A swarm of hornets arrived to carry him home. MJ voiced the prophecy come to fruition: “The ceiling is the roof.” Some philosophers have translated the line to mean: every  blessing is a curse. Krause was very pleased. Vindication was all he ever wanted. The world could be measured against nothing other than the past actions of Jordan’s very large hands and that included Michael too. He has yet to sleep, and if you want to be like Mike, you shouldn’t either.