The Hazards of Good Fortune Page 15

  It had gone like this:

  “What’s up, little man? Everything okay?”

  “Uncle Moochie’s visiting Mommy.”

  Uncle Moochie? Was this what Little Dag had been told to call Moochie Collins, Dag’s former teammate when both of them had played for the Milwaukee Bucks?

  “What’s he doing there?”

  “I don’t like him.”

  “Where’s Mommy?”

  “She’s in her room.”

  It was late morning in Los Angeles. Dag did not want to ask if Moochie had spent the night. There was an unwritten rule in the league that teammates (and once a teammate, always a teammate, the bond everlasting) stayed away from each other’s exes. Under no circumstances was this credo to be violated.

  “With Moochie?”

  “Yeah.”

  Dag told his son he loved him and would see him soon. Then he told Trey they were going to Los Angeles.

  “When?”

  “Now.”

  “What are you gonna tell Church?”

  “I got a family emergency,” Dag said. There were two things he intended to accomplish in Los Angeles. The incursion of an ex-teammate into his former domain, and his intensely jealous reaction, made him realize that he wanted to make one last-ditch attempt to save his marriage.

  He also planned to “bring the ruckus” to Moochie Collins.

  For a man of his athletic prowess, professional accomplishment, and celebrity, Dag Maxwell was unusually circumspect. Early in his career, he had released a rap album and, while his rhymes had not risen to the level of art, he had written them himself. Dag had aspirations, a soulful yearning to express what lay within him through means other than slick passing and jump shooting and this urge set him apart from the Darwinian wins and losses world of professional basketball. He had few delusions regarding his musical ability—that he would never be an ace rapper was not surprising—but he found comfort in working his thoughts out in rhyme and recognized the value of having an outlet for his querulous emotions.

  He passed the flight trying to corral his feelings into verses on his phone but found it challenging because he was unsure exactly what these feelings were. He thought Brittany was in the past, that the smoking ruins of their relationship were now in the capable hands of lawyers and accountants, and he was primed to reap the rewards of the single life. But his reaction to this new information surprised him almost as much as the information itself.

  Dag could not yet see that his last conversation with Jamal intensified his response. Moochie Collins sleeping with his wife—Brittany remained his spouse until the divorce became final—was of a piece with his not being able to swing an endorsement deal with a major carmaker or wring the maximum allowable contract out of Jay Gladstone. It was a sign of disrespect, and he could not abide it. And not just disrespect from Dag’s former teammate, who deserved to die, but also from Brittany, who should have known better than to let Moochie Collins soil her family’s nest. How could she have done that? Did she not know that Dag still loved her—in a way that was problematic, to be sure, but was nonetheless enduring? As the plane passed over the California desert, Dag, after much internal back-and-forth, concluded that he should have told her this. He hoped it was not too late.

  The other part of his conversation with Jamal that contributed to his presence on the chartered jet was the unspoken suggestion that his career was on the downward slope and the end, if not exactly near, was on the horizon. Basketball mortality, once only a vague concept, was beginning to assume unmistakable form.

  Through the process of his divorce, Dag twisted himself like a pipe cleaner to arrive at the apparently false conclusion that his love for Brittany was a memory. Now it felt like he could no longer maintain this charade. She was the mother of his children. Eventually, his life would cease to be an endless chain of gyms, restaurants, hotel rooms, and clubs. He would want a home again, with a family. The idea that his mistake had been one of timing tormented him.

  Brittany Terry was a cheerleader for the Los Angeles Clippers when she caught the eye of D’Angelo Maxwell at a preseason game. Wary of his intentions, she told him, “I’m no hoochie.” She was studying for a business degree at Cal State Northridge and, in her second season as a cheerleader, was wise to the romantic wiles of NBA athletes. Further, the league frowned on players becoming romantically involved with cheerleaders for the simple reason that, legally, these were office romances and could just as easily wind up in marriage or court (unfortunately for Dag, his and Brittany’s liaison checked both boxes). But Dag was in love and pursued her with phone calls, gifts, and finally, an invitation to be his date for All-Star Weekend, the annual three-day orgy of celebration the league throws for itself where players of Dag’s stature get treated like 17th-century French aristocrats. She capitulated.

  Celebrity is an aphrodisiac, and when combined with great wealth it produces otherwise unimaginable results. Women threw themselves at Dag with alarming regularity, cocktail napkins with phone numbers proliferated in his pockets, straight-up propositions in hotel lobbies were an everyday occurrence. But Brittany was different from the usual groupies who crowded his neon life. The daughter of a dentist and a teacher, Brittany had been raised in San Diego, the oldest of three children. An honor student in high school, she planned to get a corporate job after college, then start her own business. Her parents were not thrilled when she brought Dag home and let their daughter know. But Dag charmed them, they relented, and Brittany’s life plan shifted. If he were forty when they’d met, he probably never would have cheated.

  “You ever see an eclipse?”

  Dag looked over at Trey, irritated. “What are you talking about?”

  Trey showed Dag his phone. “Article says there’s going to be a solar eclipse in a few days. Have you ever seen one?”

  “Naw, man. You?”

  “I want to,” Trey said. Dag was happy to listen to his brother talk about astronomy. Right now, any distraction was welcome. “Moon passes over the sun during the day, and the world gets dark.”

  “Why you want to see that?” Dag asked. “Can’t you just wait ’til nighttime?” He was joking, starting to relax a little.

  “Point is, it’s nighttime in the daytime,” Trey said. “Shows everything don’t always have to be the same old same old.”

  Dag laughed. It was moments like this that he liked having his brother around.

  Trey arranged for a rented Porsche to be waiting for them at Van Nuys Airport and just after seven in the evening they were headed south in light traffic on the 405 Freeway, Trey at the wheel. Anyone going nightclubbing would still be home, particularly if it were before her children’s bedtime. Trey took the Sunset exit and pointed the Porsche toward Bel Air.

  When the Maxwells purchased the luxurious house on St. Cloud Drive with its landscaped grounds and sweeping view of Los Angeles from the towers of downtown all the way to Catalina Island, the idea was that this was where they would raise their family, a place to celebrate birthdays, graduations, and one day, weddings. As the car wended through the densely wooded roads of the posh enclave, Dag felt the sense of plans unfulfilled.

  They slowed down and came to a stop in front of a contemporary wood and glass home nestled into the verdant landscape. There were several luxury cars parked in front of the house. Dag hesitated before getting out.

  “You want me to come in with you?”

  “Don’t want you cappin’ no one,” Dag said.

  Trey rolled his eyes. What kind of ghetto fool did his brother take him for?

  Dag had never wanted a fire pit. They reminded him of the flaming garbage cans the winos in his neighborhood would gather around in the winter to warm their hands but it was important to Brittany, so he relented. Now, ten men and women (he recognized most of them as Brittany’s crew and their boyfriends), surrounded the fire pit on the patio. They held
glasses of sangria and were listening to his wife hold forth. Moochie Collins, that disloyal motherfucker, was sitting next to her with his hand on her knee. As for that knee—wrapped in a skintight lemon yellow catsuit, cinched at the waist by a wide calfskin belt. The father of her children would’ve been far happier if, at that moment, she had been dressed like a Mormon sister-wife.

  Dag was barely able to contain his emotions. He stood in the kitchen with Trey, peering out the window looking for a camera crew. He knew his wife was shooting the next season of Hoop Ladies and wanted to make sure no one was filming this party. His plan was to chase Moochie off the premises as a prelude to reconciliation with Brittany. He had already disabled the security cameras (it was a matter of flipping a switch on a panel near the front door), so there would be no record of what was about to happen. He assumed his kids were upstairs with their nanny. He would say hello to them when he was done handling his business.

  Dag said, “Anyone starts taking pictures with their phone—”

  “Ain’t gonna have a phone,” Trey assured him.

  The guests registered a mixture of surprise and alarm when they saw Dag striding toward the fire pit, except for Moochie Collins, who could not hide his considerable panic.

  “Why are you here?” Brittany said, trying to keep her voice from shaking. The anger Dag had quelled during the ruminative phase of his trip to Los Angeles had come roaring back. He was not yelling or gesticulating, but the coiled rage he emanated, combined with his size, rendered him terrifying.

  Dag ignored Brittany’s question. To Moochie, he said:

  “What the fuck are you doing at my house?”

  Trey hovered about ten feet behind Dag. As usual, no one acknowledged his presence. Behind the revelers, the pool glistened in the early evening, the lights of the city a twinkling star field in the distance.

  “This isn’t your house anymore, D’Angelo,” Brittany said.

  Moochie rose uneasily from his chair. In his late thirties, he was a light-skinned black man. Six foot two, about a hundred and eighty pounds, a piece of kindling next to Dag.

  “What up, D?” Moochie said.

  The nervousness of his rival’s ersatz smile gave Dag pause. He thought of the two years Moochie was his teammate, how much he had liked him. But Moochie had violated the unwritten laws of the social system where superstars like Dag ruled, and must be made to pay for this unforgivable sin. But how to address the transgression? Certainly not by cursing him out. Dag had just chartered a jet and flown three thousand miles. There was an audience, and it included his wife, whose respect he craved. The predetermined roles of the two men in this drama gave it a nearly Calvinist quality. Everyone present knew Moochie had cuckolded Dag. The circumstances required Dag to act. He had to be resolute, to perform the part, not only of the aggrieved husband but of the basketball star. He had to vanquish Moochie. To trail feebly away, having done nothing other than talk smack, was unacceptable. They would laugh at him. For someone like D’Angelo Maxwell, the only condition more ignominious than defeat was being the object of laughter. Being laughed at was the ultimate affront. A man raised fatherless and poor, his entire life a twilight struggle to avoid that fate.

  Zeus felt the eyes of the mortals. They were waiting. Looking at Moochie now, the man trying not to quake, Dag did not want to lay a beating on him. But he knew he had to.

  “What up, Mooch?”

  “Have a sangria,” Moochie said.

  The casual temerity of the suggestion with its We’re-all-adults-here implication gave Dag the excuse he required. Without another word, he sprang like an uncaged cheetah and loped around the fire pit toward Moochie.

  Brittany screamed for him to stop but Dag was deaf to her agonized shouts. The men in the circle, all of whom were civilians, uneasily rose to their feet but no one had the slightest intention of actually doing anything to protect their fellow party guest. The women, except for Brittany, did not move. Several of them believed Moochie was about to get the whupping he deserved.

  Because Dag had blocked access to the house, Moochie sprinted toward the yard, which led to the sight of Dag chasing him around the pool. One of the female guests, a black woman in maroon leggings and a baggy ecru sweater, true to Dag’s prediction, aimed her phone at the action and began recording it. She was caught completely by surprise when Trey snatched the device from her hand and flung it in the water where it made a small splash before sinking to the bottom. He told the woman he’d buy her a new one and she cursed him before angrily turning her attention back to what was transpiring on the lawn.

  Moochie had circumnavigated the pool and was sprinting back toward the house with Dag in pursuit. At the patio grill, mounted in custom-built brick housing and the place where Dag had cooked hamburgers for his children, Moochie picked up a two-foot-long cooking fork and brandished it at Dag.

  “Back off, man,” Moochie said, more request than demand. “Let’s talk about this like men.”

  Dag’s response to this suggestion was to grab a deck chair and smash it over Moochie’s head. This assault sent him sprawling to the flagstone patio. As he scrambled to his feet, Dag set upon him. The universe shrank to this brawl with Moochie Collins. His wife’s betrayal, the refusal of Jay Gladstone to meet his demands, his fear and rage at the toll age was taking, all of this found concentrated form in Dag’s fists.

  The first punch caught Moochie on the chin and sent him reeling although he managed to stay on his feet. He attempted to back away but Dag connected again with another blow, and this one landed Moochie flat on his back.

  “All right, Dag, that’s enough,” he said, rubbing his bruised chin.

  Dag was breathing heavily. He looked over and saw his brother standing next to him. Trey indicated that he agreed with Moochie. No more violence tonight. Dag had made his point.

  “That’s some weak-ass shit, Moochie,” Dag said.

  “Whatever,” Moochie said. He propped himself up on an elbow and spit bloody saliva on to the slate patio.

  “You happy now, D’Angelo?” Brittany asked, glaring at her husband. “Is this how you want your kids to behave?” She turned to Trey, who tried to remain impassive in the face of his sister-in-law’s contempt. “And you let him act like this? You’re useless, Trey. Damn errand boy.”

  Although being called an errand boy cut him to the quick, Trey did not respond. He knew this was Dag’s show.

  Moochie had used this lull to get to his feet. He backed away from Dag, moving toward the house.

  “Get the fuck outta here, Moochie,” Dag said, massaging the back of his sore right hand with the palm of his left.

  Brittany said, “Don’t you throw my guest out, D’Angelo.”

  Moochie mumbled something about having to be somewhere and stole away crossing paths with another one of the guests, a white man in his thirties wearing jeans and a blazer, who had just emerged from the house. He told Brittany the police were on their way. When Moochie heard this, he turned toward Dag.

  “I’m not gonna press charges, Dag. Let’s keep this between us.”

  Dag only stared at him. Moochie retreated.

  “The police, Dag,” Brittany said. “This is what you want?” She thanked the man who had alerted them, then turned her attention back to her husband. “They’re going to want to talk to you.”

  Dag asked Brittany if he could have a word in private. Her girlfriend who had attempted to film the action yelled that she should not go in the house with him, but Dag had never laid a hand on Brittany, and she knew he would not touch her.

  They stood in the living room overlooking the yard. He told her that while he had thought the marriage was over, he was wrong and that his feelings for her overwhelmed him. Could she possibly consider reconciling?

  “Only person you’re thinking about is you.”

  “That ain’t right,” Dag said.

  �
��You’re always talking about ‘my brand this’ and ‘my brand that’ but what you did to Moochie? That was some homeboy bullshit.”

  “Motherfucker deserved it.”

  “Look around, Dag. Does this seem like the hood to you?”

  Dag knew his former Bel Air home did not resemble the hood. He worked as hard as he did so his surroundings would reflect his self-image. The condescension wounded him. While Brittany saw his obvious emotional distress, he sensed she felt sympathy but not love. It was over between them. She could no longer trust him. She told him that his arrival in her life had diverted her from a well-considered path and she now intended to resume where she had left off.

  “On some janky reality show?”

  “Call it what you want, D’Angelo, but I’ve got my own life going on. Because of that ‘janky reality show’ I’m working on a fashion line, a cosmetics line, and a beauty book. And if you thought you were going to change my mind by beating up Moochie, that shows how little you know me.”

  “I know who you are,” he declared, a forlorn attempt to convey what he thought was his love and regret.

  “And I know who you are.” Her response was unsentimental. “I don’t want to be married to you anymore, okay?”

  “For real?”

  “I’m not feeling it.”

  In that instant, Dag realized it was over. The woman in front of him was someone to whom he was physically attracted and who, for the rest of his life, would be the mother of his children. He would take care of her as long as she fulfilled that role. But whatever spark had existed between them was extinguished, and he knew it. Moochie had animated a vestigial feeling in Dag, and he had confused shame with love. Why had he come to Los Angeles? Dag wasn’t sure other than it was not because he loved Brittany. He was flailing, but since it was a sensation he had not previously experienced, he did not recognize it.

  She told him he should fly back to the east coast after he talked to the police, then she returned to her guests. Dag’s hand had started to throb. Rooted in what had been his living room, he gazed around. There had been pictures of him and Brittany all over, but none were in evidence, only family photos of her and the kids. He felt a lump in his throat but willed it away. His anger had dissipated, and he went upstairs to visit his children. The two younger ones were asleep, but Little Dag was overjoyed to see his father. When Dag hugged his son, he noted the boy’s Portland Trailblazers pajamas—the Blazers were Moochie’s most recent team—and realized they must have been a gift from the man sleeping with his wife. This only deepened his sadness. Dag got down on the floor and built Duplo structures with his son until the police arrived.