Scott Raab - The Whore of Akron: One Mans Search for the Soul of LeBron James

The Whore of Akron

One Mans Search for the Soul of LeBron James

Scott Raab

To Lisa, Judah, and Pip

And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.

REVELATION 14:8

All men are Jews, except they dont know it.

BERNARD MALAMUD

Contents

Intimations

The Handshake and the Handjob

Witness

The Kings Humanity

Coins on a Cold Grave

Chief Wahoo and the Whore of Akron

This Could Be Their Year, Scotty!

Hater Daze

Jew over Miami

This Way Lies Madness

Little Access for a Big Man

The Traitors on the Floor

Franz Kafka Bobblehead Night

A Strange White Man at Center Court

Endgame

Intimations

I no more chose to be a Clevelander and a Cleveland fan than I chose to be a Jew transfixed by leggy shiksas . It is my birthright, my legacy, my destiny. My fate was cast in 1964 on a Sunday afternoon at Cleveland Municipal Stadium, while Canadian gusts swept across Lake Erie and through the mammoth double-decked bowl in damp, endless circles cold enough to stiffen snot. I have seen Paris at dusk; I have prayed at the Wailing Wall; I have beheld the twin scoops of Rebecca Romijns vanilla ass: yet never have I been so transported, never so ecstatic, as on December 27, 1964, when the Cleveland Browns beat the Baltimore Colts and won the NFL World Championship.

I was twelve years old. Old enough to stand fast, amid men warmed by whiskey and their fiery love for the Browns, and drink in the sight of 80,000 of our number rising as the clock ticked toward infinity, fixing that victory forever as a fact of history, past insult or dispute. That flag still flies in my soul. The roar still echoes in my ears. The visionof Cleveland triumphant, of Cleveland fans in communal thrall to a joy beyond all words, of a Cleveland team lifting the towns immortal heart to heavenstill fills my eyes. Im fifty-nine years old now, far from Cleveland in every way save one: I still live with the Browns, the Indians, the Cavaliers, and I will die with them. They were a solace and source of hope when I had no other reason to wake up, and now that I am a manthe father of a twelve-year-old, the husband of a leggy shiksa , a sober alcoholic and drug-free addictthose teams remain a psychic rock, an anchor for my wobbling, fretful soul. Unlike two entire generations of Cleveland fans who have grown up rooting for Cleveland teams and have tasted only defeat and despair, I know what it feels like to win it all. And I have waited forty-seven years to feel it one last time before I go.

L ast time I spoke to LeBron James, he was wearing a towel in the Cavs locker room at Quicken Loans Arena. The nightly media scrum wedged tight around his double-wide had retreated to their laptops to file their stories. The Cavs had won without playing particularly well, but it was April 2010, the end of another long regular season; the Cavaliers were 6016 and already had secured home-court advantage through the playoffs.

They were an extraordinary team: led by LeBron, the leagues best player, in the prime of his prime. The Cavs sold out every time and everywhere they played. Led by LeBron, they were known around the globe. Led by LeBron, they were the best thing to have happened to Cleveland all of Cleveland, black and white, young and old, East Side and Westsince Jim Brown walked away from the NFL in 1965.

Led by LeBron. Who was our native son. Who had become the face not just of Cleveland, but of all Ohio. Who was about to win his second MVP award in a row. Who was shortly to become a free agent. Who palmed our collective fate in one huge hand.

In a league full of athletes whose bodies can honestly be described as beautifulone of the aesthetic delights of an NBA locker room is watching from a distance as the pack of mainly fat, mainly white members of the press gathers and ungathers itself as each chiseled specimen emerges from the showerLeBron James is a masterpiece. Hewn of sinew, apparently impervious as ironmuscled yet sleek, thick-shouldered yet loose of limb, James looks different from every other player in the league, especially in a damp towel.

Still, theres nothing especially forbidding about a guy in a towel, even LeBron. Hes a kid who just took a shower, and the fact that he can do things that I can only dream ofthe physical summit of my day is a decent bowel movementdoesnt change that. Besides, Id been following the Cavs all season, and while I wasnt sure James knew my name, wed spoken in passing a few times. He had withdrawn from any media contact to avoid questions about his impending free agencythe five-minute post-game scrums were the sum total of his availability, and asking about free agency was itself off-limitsbut he sometimes was willing to field a question if you sidled up after the pack departed.

I had no question to ask. I was heading back home to New Jersey from the arena, but I knew that the next time I saw him would be during the playoffscrazy timeand I felt I had to speak my piece. I had seen him come into the NBA at age eighteen and, from his first game forward, outplay all the absurd hype around him. I had watched grown men, league stalwarts, shuffle out of his way as he drove to the rim. I had laughed as teammates were hit in the head by bullet passes they hadnt dreamed James could thread through a web of defenders. And I had sat in a hotel room in Hollywood on May 31, 2007, alone, awestruck, and weeping as he scored the Cavs last 25 points and destroyed the Detroit Pistons in a double-overtime playoff victory, the single most astonishing performance by any Cleveland athlete Ive ever seen. I had studied him closely and been dazzled a thousand times and more. No other way to put it: it is an honor and privilege just to watch this motherfucker play.

I saw Oscar in his prime. I told him. Michael. Magic. All of them. And youre the best basketball player Ive ever seen. Thank you.

I did and do not intend to degrade Oscar Robertson or Michael Jordan or anyone else. Nor am I claiming any kind of objectivity: Im a native Clevelander and a Cavs fan since 1970, the year of their birth. Yeah, I know: count the rings. But Im not talking about rings; Im talking about pure game . All Im saying is LeBron James is the best fucking basketball player Ive ever seen.

He savored my little speech for a second or two, smiling ear to ear, eyes bright.

That means a lot to me, he said, utterly sincere. Thanks.

That was it. I didnt urge him to stick around, to stay with the Cavs and become the Moses every Cleveland fan felt hed be. It didnt occur to me. Everyoneeven the most cynical out-of-town beat reporterassumed that LeBron was going to re-sign with the Cavs for at least three more years. Northeast Ohio was his home; Dan Gilbert, the Cavs owner, spent freely to get players to complement his game; adoring fans filled the Q every night, thousands of them clad in replicas of his jersey like it was the Shroud of Turin.

Trust me: Im not sorry I didnt say any of that, and Im certainly not silly enough to believe that anything I couldve said wouldve meant diddly. Which isnt to say that I have no regrets about that conversation. I feel, in fact, a deep and abiding sense of regretI say this as a man who has known the pain of divorce, not to mention as a Jew who bought a hundred shares of Apple at seventeen and sold them all at twenty-twoI feel remorse unto grief about that night in the locker room with LeBron.