From the life and times of Dennis Rodman

Last night, President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met to discuss either everything or absolutely nothing, only time will tell. Meanwhile, NBA veteran Dennis Rodman, with his close ties to both men and high level of emotional volatility and investment, was launched into the center of history because, once upon a time, he gave Kim Jong Un a copy of a very rare and little known book, The Art of the Deal by Donald Trump. The world is clearly a strange place today and, for the most part, probably always has been. Parody is politics. Politics is parody. The world is a stage, and the only person not acting may be Dennis Rodman.

In 2016, I launched a longform site for NBA fan fiction. Stealing its name from former NBA commissioner David Stern’s dismissal of diplomat Dennis Rodman, You Can’t Eat The Basketball admittedly takes fan fiction way too seriously. And yet Dennis Rodman is now, once again, center stage for his unending fifteen minutes of fame. He has swapped a wedding dress for a red cap, but the spectacle is roughly the same.

The following excerpt is a declassified account from Act 3 of Everything That Dunks Must Converge. Maybe it’s parody. Maybe it’s something closer to the truth. Either way, Dennis Rodman is the quintessential glue.

If one looked from a vantage point inside the meat locker, then the four of us probably looked like Mr. Blonde, Mr. White, and Mr. Pink opening a trunk in Reservoir Dogs (or maybe we looked like Vincent and Jules in Pulp Fiction). Either way, the point is we were, for whatever reason, wearing matching black suits and sunglasses.

Before I go on, I should probably backtrack, and, before I backtrack, I should probably tell you the freezer contained neither a cop taken hostage nor a briefcase.

On the plane ride to Houston, I sat next to Grant Hill. It was my first time flying first class ever, regardless of destination. Also, at this time, we were not yet wearing matching suits. That would come later.

Sitting next to Grant Hill on the flight felt like sitting next to any stranger on any flight — you wondered who would ask the questions and who would do the answering, you wondered how much of yourself would you have to reveal in order to pass the time, and without becoming too vulnerable. You hoped one of you would fall asleep, and you didn’t care who.

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Neither of us fell asleep.

When the plane reached its cruising altitude, Grant Hill asked me, “You’re an English teacher, right? Have you ever read Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities?”

I told him I hadn’t, but that I had read a summary of it in a book, The Domino Diaries, by Brin-Jonathan Butler, where Fidel Castro’s granddaughter asks Butler the same question: have you ever read Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino? In that book, too, the individual receiving the question answers no. But, whereas Fidel’s granddaughter summarizes the Italian novel for Butler, I did not wait for Grant Hill to intervene on my lack of reading. Instead, I repeated the summary as best I could:

"“She told Butler how in the book several men from around the world had an identical dream. She said they all saw the same girl from behind, running through an unknown city. They hunted after her, twisting and turning down streets and alleyways, but they could never find her. After the dream passed, all these men set out after that city where they’d seen her. But she had vanished, and they never found the city. Instead, they found each other and decided to build a city like the one from the shared dream. They, then, laid out the streets just as they were in the dream, hoping to find her.”"

Grant Hill listened with his chin in his fingertips. “Yes, that is what happens, and what do you think this means?”

“In Butler’s book either he or the girl says the dream and the execution of the dream is a trap.”

“What do you think?”

“Well, it seems like they’re building the pathways that led to the loss in the first place.”

His eye glistened with something akin to having seen a wish fulfilled. “And that is how it is with the NBA. We all chase some phantom in a dream to these strange cities and, once there, we find that very few, if any of us, will hold more than a vision.”

He said this, and I did not respond. We flew in silence for a time.

“Do you know why Naismith Mandeville’s manuscript came to you?”

“Not really. I’m still not even sure if I understand it or what we’re doing on a flight to Texas.”

“It came to you because Mandeville had already been rejected by every publisher, by every news source, by every other respectable journalist.”

“I’m not sure I’m any of those things.”

“You’re right. You’re not, but The Baller Ball had shut down and no one else responded to Mandeville’s inquiries.”

“You talk about him like he’s a person.”

“Is he not?”

“He seems more like an idea.”

Grant Hill nodded. “Perhaps those two words are not too far removed from one another.”

“Does the Fifth Codex even exist?”

He looked out the window, through the clouds, at the particles of people and places and things moving in smooth circuits down below.

“Have any of you even been to Mexico?”

“I did go hunting there during a rehab stint. A trainer in Phoenix mentioned the jaguar’s blood as some sort of magical cure all, so I went.”

“And?”

“The jungles were all hunted out. The world only has the time and the resources for so many empires.”

“You mean Jordans.”

“I do. He and Phil had depleted those jungles sometime in the 1990s, slipping over the border as if they were agents of NAFTA, and maybe they were.”

“Did no one else know about the blood magic yet?”

“Not really. And it could also be that they were not the first to use it, but isn’t it strange that so much of the NBA’s history includes the same men over and over, only they appear at different times in different places. It’s really all quite incestuous.”

“You really do think Phil’s at the heart of all this.”

“Rings in New York. Rings in Chicago. And Shaq surely didn’t win it all in Orlando.”

“And he didn’t win with Del Harris either.”

“He surely didn’t.”

I thought about the chronology of the NBA. Compared with other sports, its timeline did read rather simplistically.

“What about the Celtics?”

“I don’t know. There’s still a great deal of work to do in explaining all this.”

“The jaguar blood you game to me, how did you get it?”

“That’s the thing. You drank synthetic blood, from a lab. It’s not nearly as potent, yet it’s also not FDA approved, mind you. Anyway, it wasn’t real. It tasted like Gatorade. It will wear off.”

“Do you think Phil is the only one with a supply of the real?”

“I don’t. He’s parceled the secret out to too many players and in too many places. It would be impossible to trace all those supply lines and family trees.”

“But Mandeville tried.”

“Mandeville tried.”

“And you’re still not going to say who he is?”

“I’ve only spoken to him once, briefly.” He thought on what to say next. “I don’t even think I could speak to that question, not really.”

“Where was that?”

“On a tarmac in Orlando. He was tall. You could even say expressionless. A heavy fog filled the air; it was like the last scene in Casablanca.”

I pondered who that could possibly be, but then we hit turbulence and my thoughts began to jumble.

After we landed, I somehow twisted my ankle on the way to the car. In a strange way, it made me feel as if I belonged in the company of these three cursed athletes. They walked with a grace that signified they knew what it was like to bear their pain in public. I limped along, just trying to keep pace.

Penny sat in the driver’s seat. T-Mac occupied the passenger seat. Grant Hill and I sat in the back. However, before the car started, they did blindfold me. For these reasons, I cannot describe Houston’s sprawling streets and how the city skyline fell behind us, only the cloak and dagger of humidity and oil that choked the air, as we drove towards some abandoned pit stop on the edge of the Gulf. In a way, my journey then and my telling of it now have rendered me the anti-Ryan Lochte.

When they lifted the blindfold, my eyes looked out on a shabby building beside what I assumed to be the Gulf of Mexico. A sign labeled the building: MOSe’S PLaCE—DowN by thE WaTER YALL.

As I squinted in the sunlight, T-Mac removed a briefcase and some items from the trunk of the car. We approached the building. Penny tried the door. It was locked.  A heavy voice from inside demanded: “Password.”

“Nanahuatl.”

I recognized the password as the name of an Aztec god who, despite being crippled, sacrificed himself in the fire when all the other gods stood still. Considering the health of my playing companions and my own swollen ankle — yes, I was still limping — the password seemed most fitting. Also, the password worked: the door opened. On the other side, a tall man, and by tall I mean almost 7-feet tall, greeted my three companions with what I assumed to be a secret handshake, connoting some sort of secret alliance. When he stared me down, I half-expected him to teach me this gesture. Then, I half-expected him to eat me. Then he spat his disapproval at my feet.

“Who’s this? Worm didn’t mention him.”

“Worm?” I asked.

“Shut-up,” hissed the large man.

“We need a journalist,” said Grant Hill. The large man appeared to concede the point, and I exhaled a sigh of relief.

Inside, we walked through what had once been a dining area and into a neglected kitchen. There, we stopped in front of a large freezer.

“Well, Tree,” said Grant Hill, “show us the contents.”

Tree Rollins grimaced at me, obviously still not sure if he could trust me, and I must admit I studied him, too. After all, I had not seen him in quite sometime, and the last time I had was from the nosebleed section of the old Omni in Atlanta. Reflecting on his slow, lethargic stoop from the building’s front door to its kitchen, I thought about how I wanted to say, Tree Rollins? More like Ent Rollins, but, instead, I just stared back, doing my best not to be intimidated. In hindsight, it all seems a bit wrought with foolish pretension.

He looked away. He undid the combination lock on the freezer, and there we all stood like gangsters in a rehashed Tarantino flick.

“What is that?” I asked.

“What does it look like?” responded T-Mac.

The fur lay stiff and frosted over the curled midnight body; and the head was tucked under a large paw; but there was no mistaking the species — it was a jaguar.

“Is it real? I thought you said they were all hunted out.”

Tree Rollins laughed, “Is it real?” Then, speaking to the corpse curled in the fetal position: “Do you hear that, ‘Nique? He wants to know if you’re real.”

The dead cat did not respond.

“What’s with his spots?”

“What do you mean?” asked T-Mac.

“They look like faces.”

I leaned in for a better view. At first, I thought maybe it was a trick played by my imagination, but a closer inspection of the jaguar’s spots told me my inclination was correct. Not only were the spots shaped and shaded in the contours of a human face, but they were shaped and shaded with the details of a face I recognized.

“Every spot is a Crying Jordan meme.”

“Yes,” said Grant Hill, and I could hear the twist of a wicked smile in his voice. “Indeed each one is, and so it is with men and cities and the stars above our heads.”

Tree Rollins looked up, as did I. Above us there was only duct work.

I stepped back from the freezer.

“So you want me to report on this?”

“Yes,” said Grant Hill.

“But I don’t even know what this is. Who is going to care about a jaguar’s corpse covered in Crying Jordans?”

“His name’s ‘Nique,” said Tree.

“They will care,” started Grant Hill, “because you will explain to them what this is.”

“But what is it?”

Grant Hill sighed; my questions were clearly exhausting his patience.

“The Crying Jordan is a gateway into all the possible worlds we do not know and, moreover, could never know. It is the darkness and the chaos beyond the  order and the light. It is everything.”

“But it’s just a dead cat.”

“It is not,” said Tree.

“Listen to Tree,” added T-Mac.

“You all believe this?” I asked. And even Penny shrugged in agreement.

“Well, what do you plan on doing with it?”

Tree held up a large knife he’d obtained from God knows where in the kitchen. “Skin it,” he said.

“And then distribute the blood,” added T-Mac.

“Jesus,” I translated. “Holy–”

“Exactly,” concluded Grant Hill. “We will make new worlds.”

Penny and T-Mac worked together in order to lift ‘Nique from the freezer. I watched them lay the body on the stone table of a kitchen counter. When they were done, Tree Rollins lifted the knife above his head. He stood at the ready, like some executioner long-restrained. And then, I could not shake the shape of the world Grant Hill had depicted earlier.

“I thought you said Phil and MJ had hunted out this species of jaguar.”

“They did,” answered Grant Hill.

“Then, how did this one get here?”

“I brought it,” said a hoarse whisper that wormed through the darkness. “Read the writing on the freezer.”

I didn’t know whether to obey the voice or search the shadows for the voice’s identity. In the dim light, I searched the side of the freezer’s wall and, engraved there, I found characters in a language I did not know.

“Is that Chinese?” I asked.

“Korean,” said the man stepping closer to the border between the light and the darkness. “My friend Kim Jong Un makes them.”

“Freezers?”

“No, journalist, he makes synthetic jaguars. He makes pathways.”

“Why doesn’t he just make food for his people?”

“Because he so loves basketball, he gave his only jaguar, or one of his only jaguars. Actually, he has the means to start mass-producing, but first we have to introduce the blood at street level. For people to drink the kool-aid, they first have to drink the Gatorade, which really isn’t Gatorade, but is jaguar blood. Can you dig it?”

I looked around the room to see if anyone else was buying any of this, what to call it, bull s**t.. “You guys realize we’re probably on the wrong side of history.”

“What is history?” asked the man with multiple piercings and dyed hair. “But a construct.”

I looked at the players huddled around me. They had all at some point either lost time due to injuries beyond their bodies’ control or had just missed out on a chance to win a title. For example, Tree Rollins arrived just one year after the Bad Boy Pistons won the last of their two championships. Penny made the NBA Finals early in his career, but never returned. He became less and less himself. Grant Hill wasted years as a bystander in Orlando. Tracy McGrady wore down his body waiting for Grant Hill to walk again. The former retreated to Houston; the latter resurfaced in Phoenix. Each year the expectations grew both heavier and more distant. Even if they did not break, they became phantoms of a promise; some prophecy of a second coming that haunted the league in the turn of the century.

And then there was Dennis Rodman.

He had five rings. He had ties to the 1980s via his days with Isiah Thomas. He had ties to the 1990s via his nights with Michael Jordan. Somewhere in the dusk he brushed shoulders with David Robinson and what the San Antonio Spurs might become in the 2000s. He was, it seemed, everywhere. A world traveler and go-between, he even crossed the waters that marked the end of Hernan Cortès’ violent vision.

The epiphany struck me cold.

“Dear God,” I said, “is this Naismith Mandeville?”

“Who the f**k is Naismith Mandeville?” croaked Rodman.

Loud crashes sounded from the dining hall beyond the swinging door to the kitchen. Shouting and footsteps flooded the vacuum.

“S**t!” laughed Rodman. He was still grinning as he lifted a hand to stroke his beard. “That might be check mate.”

From outside, a voice yelled, “This is Agent Silver! You are surrounded!”

“Will somebody at least block the goddamn door?” asked T-Mac, and Tree Rollins commenced to rolling some cart full of dishes and cooking utensils in front of the doorway.

“You think they have men out back?” asked Grant Hill.

Penny nodded.

“What do we do with ‘Nique?” asked T-Mac.

“I’m not leaving him,” said Tree.

“Can you carry him?” asked Grant Hill, and Tree responded with a grunt as he hoisted the jaguar up and laid the dark silhouette across his shoulder blades. The Crying Jordan faces glistened as if sewn into the fur with a gossamer thread.

They were all holding guns, loading clips, and removing the safeties. Grant Hill tossed me a phone. “It’s all written,” he said.

“What?”

“The pass code is 042576.”

“To what?”

“Mandeville’s translation. He hacked your system.”

“You mean the site?”

“Whatever You Can’t Eat the Basketball is, he hacked into it and uploaded his third act. He texted me the Codex is complete when we arrived here.”

“I thought you hadn’t spoken with him.”

“I said I haven’t seen him since the tarmac.” Then Grant Hill turned to the guys around him. “When we rush out of here, we make for the water. Doc should have the portal waiting.”

“What about Rodman?” asked Penny.

Everyone but Grant Hill looked around the kitchen.

Agent Silver yelled something from outside, but it was difficult to hear him.

“Let him go; he’s not part of the Order.”

“But we have his jaguar.”

“Exactly. He’ll find us.”

“Ready?” And they all were.

Tree opened the backdoor, slowly at first, inching his large frame out onto the wooden planks. They exhaled under his weight, and underneath the boards, the marshy tide of the warm Gulf waters baptized the polished sand. The moon hid behind a net of fraying clouds. Tree looked back at us one last time, but the jaguar’s head eclipsed his face, giving him the appearance of some strange and human hieroglyph.

His large frame sprinted for the gap in the railing. He didn’t make it. A shot shattered the escape. As he fell in mimicry of his name, ‘Nique flew from his shoulders, with his paws sprawling at the moonlight. And, for a brief moment, this silhouette of a black cat aligned perfectly within the moon’s bright circumference. The sign appeared and disappeared like some ancient token lost in the crucibles of time. Serenading the glorious flight was a symphony of gunfire, and anyone else daring to run out that door knew it was a suicide mission before they even crossed the threshold.

But the other men, too, attempted escape, guns ablazing.

Shots echoed back from in front of the building. A great cloud of gray nothing accumulated in between the darkness and the moonbeams, until finally the gray tangle consumed the entire visible world.

I approached the doorway. I poked my head out into the confusion of gun smoke. I looked in the direction where Tree had fallen and the others had run. I looked to follow the sprinting bodies, but in the fog, it was like they no longer existed.

I walked out slowly, tracing what I imagined to be their steps. And, filled with caution, I held the phone close to my heartbeat.

Then, towards the shoreline, I saw what must have been the bursting of a flashbulb, like the wink of an exploding star. Sparks rained onto the watery reeds and melted into nothing.

As they died, I thought I could see two men. One held what may have been a  camera, while the other scribbled something in a notepad. Behind those faintly written bodies , a withering wafer of moonlight clung to the vanishing night as an orange ball of sunlight rose on the horizon, over the water’s smoking mirror. In that light, the outlines became full-fledged silhouettes, and they stood in the crux of change like archaeologists in the vanishing mist of a dream.

They did not see the dawn through the shock of something new, but with the awe of being exactly what they had expected the night to become; the shapes and forms of some game written in the eternal matrices of the human condition, pumping its way from the heart into the tides of ancient waters.

Not knowing what else to do , I pressed publish on Mandeville’s phone