Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
It’s Kids’ Day at the US Open, the day before the tournament begins, and like a handful of other American players, Leo is on a side court with about a couple dozen elementary school kids and their rainbow of colorful rackets.
“Everybody ready to play?” he asks brightly.
The kids race to get in line to play with him, their sneakers making small scuff marks as they go. Leo spins his racket. “Let’s go three at a time, okay?”
As he turns to take his spot midcourt, his eye catches Gabe a couple courts over, playing with his racket upside-down, smacking the ball clumsily with the handle, making the little kids laugh as he yells, “What am I doing wrong?”
Leo finds himself smiling, but before his own laughter escapes, he clears his throat and forces his attention back to the kids across the net.
A few of the parents step in to help keep the kids organized, sending the next ones onto the court after Leo has spent a sufficient amount of time with each trio.
He’s hitting much more softly than he usually does, tapping the ball over the net, and he’s beaming as the kids swat at the ball as if they’re holding a butterfly net.
There’s one boy in the group who actually seems to be getting the hang of it as his trio rotates onto the court throughout the session.
A mop of light brown hair on his head and a glint of youthful determination in his blue eyes, he reminds Leo of himself when he was a kid.
He’s spunky, going after the ball without fear, like he’s right at home on the court.
That’s exactly how Leo was from the start: meant to be there.
And it was there he stayed. Before he even finished first grade, he was spending nearly every afternoon at the Delray Beach Tennis Center with his dad.
He can remember being five years old and going for the first time.
It felt like a scene from a secret tropical garden—covered by a canopy of sloping palm leaves above, the row of courts the color of the ocean, adults scattered across them in their tennis whites as if they were specks of foam on the ocean’s waves, moving in and out like the tides.
His dad knew everyone at the center and they all knew him, too—a former American star.
Johnny shuffled Leo up to each one of them, his voice overflowing with pride as he said, over and over around the grounds, “This is my boy, Leo. He plays tennis now, too.”
It’s wild to Leo how much he’s grown to look like his dad today: the same blue eyes, the same high cheekbones, the same thick, light brown hair and scruff, the same ears sticking out.
Eventually, he inherited the same power on the court, too, the same glorious one-handed backhand.
It’s as if Leo were born to carry on the torch in tennis that his dad was forced to prematurely snuff out after his MS diagnosis.
Three years after that diagnosis, Leo was born.
He has never known his dad without MS. He has never known his life without this sport.
These two things are intrinsic to his existence.
While his dad’s MS wasn’t severe enough to keep him from coaching, there were still symptoms that wedged their way into Leo’s comprehension of it: a brief spasm in his dad’s right leg, a short dizzy spell during which his dad would have to pause their practice, the increased fatigue that cut his time on the court with Leo little by little throughout his life.
He watched the steady decline of his dad’s health in painstaking detail while his childhood marched onward, a firsthand witness to the way his dad moved and functioned and adapted on the other side of the net each day, each year, as the nerve damage continued to break down the communication between his brain and body.
Leo wasn’t the only witness, however. Other people playing on the courts next to them would sometimes whisper or hold their side-eyed glances at his dad in moments of struggle, long enough that Leo would notice.
Please stop staring at him, he would think.
He’s fine. He thought they must have never met anyone with a disability like this, how eager they must have been to gawk at a man who was different from them.
And not just any man, either. This was Johnny Chambers, one of the greats.
What are tennis players without their strength?
Their speed? Their endurance? This man is not invincible, after all, he imagined they were all thinking. He is sick.
Though he didn’t have the words for it then, Leo could sense that, for other people, Johnny was either an object of pity or, what sometimes felt even worse to him, an object of inspiration.
If he and his dad were talking off court over a snack, for example, sometimes another player would pass by them and, with overly sympathetic eyes, make a comment about how “amazing” Johnny’s story is or how “remarkable” it is that he was still able to play, if only recreationally.
They often had their hand placed over their chest. But Leo didn’t see his dad the way others did.
He only saw someone he wanted to grow up to be just like, whose skill and experience and patience he could learn from endlessly.
Still, it didn’t take much time for him to internalize the message being sent: When confronted with something unfamiliar, people will reach for their fear before their understanding.
Just play tennis, he would tell himself, and focus all his attention on the next point, channeling his emotion into the yellow ball flying toward him.
Hearing “good” and “nice hit” and “keep it up” coming from his dad would center him in the moment and block out the negativity threatening to unbalance him.
His favorite comment from his dad usually came when they were in the outdoor dining area after hitting.
If Leo, then in middle school, was beating himself up for losing his latest match or playing poorly at practice, sulking over his turkey burger at the table, his dad would lower his head, put a hand on his shoulder, and tell him in a soft voice: “Remember what I always say? Hold your own. I don’t just mean hold your serve.
I mean stay strong, no matter what.” The two of them never talked much about how his dad was feeling or the toll the MS took on both of them, but this one comment, shared every so often, told Leo everything he needed to know.
Today, on the practice court, hitting with this boy who takes him back to when he was a kid in Delray, Leo hears himself saying “good” and “nice hit” and “keep it up.” Once they’re finished playing, the kids all gather around him, looking up at him gleefully and asking him questions about being a pro.
He pulls out his phone and takes a selfie with them, bending his knees to meet them at their level.
There aren’t many places to hide on the US Open grounds.
But after so many years practicing and playing here, Leo eventually found one reliable spot that he can duck into when, on days like today, the fans and photographers and selfies are relentless.
So, feeling overstimulated by all the activity and weighed down by all the memories clouding his mind, he sneaks off to a supply closet at the southernmost end of the grounds that he’s never once seen a member of the staff using, and shuts himself inside to catch his breath.
Atop a giant box of jumbo-roll toilet paper in the dark, he uses his 4-7-8 breathing technique, attempting to exhale the pangs of childhood shame.
After a few minutes, he finds his way back to himself.
As he rises and reaches for the door, it suddenly swings open, and Gabe comes flying in without looking and knocks into Leo.
Leo’s ankle hooks onto Gabe’s in the process and sends them both flying onto the boxes of toilet paper and rolls of paper towels.
A bottle of spray cleaner falls from a shelf above and bonks Leo on the head.
“What the fuck?” Leo yells at Gabe, who’s now fully on top of him.
“What the fuck?” Gabe yells back, staring down at Leo.
“You’re in my hiding spot,” Leo says, realizing he sounds seven years old.
“You’re in my hiding spot,” Gabe says.
“I’ve never seen you in here,” Leo says.
“No shit,” Gabe says.
For a moment, they lock eyes, and neither speaks.
Their lips are dangerously close. With their bodies pressed together, Leo’s senses betray him, taking in Gabe’s musk from playing in the sun, his soft skin that’s also slightly sticky from sunscreen.
Gabe’s body feels warm and heavy on top of Leo’s, and he can feel Gabe’s heart pounding, just like his own.
“Your hand is on my ass,” Gabe finally says.
“Your entire body is on my body!” Leo quips, yanking his hand away.
Gabe tries to stand, but his hand slips on a roll of paper towels, and he loses his balance, flopping back down.
An oof sound comes out of Leo.
“Sorry, sorry,” Gabe says impatiently, and scrambles to his feet. “What are you doing in here, anyway?”
“Getting away from all that,” Leo says, nodding toward the world outside the closet as he gets back on his feet. “I just needed a break. Like I said, this is my hiding spot. Usually, there’s no one else in here.”
“Yeah, same,” Gabe says, and his eyes shift down to the floor.
Again, neither of them speaks for a moment. There’s a small, tiny, minuscule part of Leo that wants to ask Gabe if he’s okay, ask him why he’s hiding.
“Well,” Leo starts. “Let’s … not do this again sometime.” He rushes out of the closet.
Later that day, determined to show Gabe that their literal run-in is not on his mind, he posts a selfie that he took with the kids earlier. In the background, fans have filled the bleachers and Ashe looms large.
leochambers My favorite part of the year, every year. See you on Armstrong tomorrow night, NYC!