So here he is, Charles Barkley, basketball player-cum-entertainer. As the world knows, he is at his most entertaining to the reporters who hover about him after every game. So even after the final buzzer, Charles’ show goes on. He ascends the stage as he undresses and prepares for his extensive postgame treatment by the Suns’ trainers.
“No one person can stop me,” he says, beginning this evening’s soliloquy. “There’s a reason why I get double-teamed every night.”
Charles, why can’t you just get along? (Reporters love to goad him, just as he loves to give them an outrageous answer. “My life is not complete without y’all buggin’ me every damn night.” He knows this game and has mastered it just as he has his other game.)
“I don’t change my personality. If people like me that’s great; if they don’t, fuck ‘em. ‘Cuz everybody’s not gonna like you no matter what. So you can’t please everybody.”
Charles, you oughtta be in pictures, a stunt man or an actor?
“Would I do it for a career? It depends on how much they pay me.” So is that what it’s all about, gettin’ paid?
“I left college ‘cuz they wouldn’t give me a raise. They couldn’t give me money so I left after three years.”
And the beat goes on and on. What is perhaps most fascinating about Charles Barkley is that even when it is clear he doesn’t have the most enlightend opinion he speaks his mind anyway. As the posse of reporters spits questions and personal commentary at “Chuck” (everyone calls him Chuck – damn!) I think of Muhammad Ali’s “float like a butterfly” metaphor, Reggie Jackson’s “straw that stirs the drink” nutgrabber, and Carl Lewis’ flag-driven victory run at the ’84 Olympics. Yup, Chuck is right up there with the great hot dogs of all time. An inspiration for this generation, even, ‘cuz he’s got the balls to be bad (most of the time) and bad enough to be good at what he does.
Once the last of the media hounds breaks out, I stand still, wondering if Sir Charles will give me some play. Fuck it! I tell him I’m from a new magazine called SLAM, that I came all the way from New York City to talk to him about. Needless to say, Chuck is not impressed. I try again.
“How’s your back?”
Sensing my desperation, he responds.
“My back is gonna be a struggle for me. But I just gotta play through the pain.”
(I never wished I were Danny Ainge until now, ‘cause at least Ainge gets an answer. A few nights before Ainge hollered across the locker room “Hey Charles, how’s your back?” Charles responded: “Like your face. It needs surgery.”)
Asked about his retirement, Barkley yawns. He’s been asked this one before.
“It really depends on how my back feels. I’m gonna base all my decisions on my health ‘cuz I’m not gonna make myself suffer for other people’s enjoyment.”
Yeah, I heard that. But with the Sonics and Houston so strong this year, maybe he thinks he might never see that crown. And maybe Barkley really ain’t got nothin’ to prove at this point, anyway. He rocked hard in college, played with Dr. J and Moses Malone, won as Olympic gold medal, and is happy to be with a good team after years of misery with the Philadelphia 76ers. Of course the crowning achievement would be a championship, but Sir Charles lives for the moment and as arrogant and stubborn and brutal as some folks paint him to be, he is, under the jersey and the flesh and the bone, in tune with his own space.
A teenage locker room attendant makes small talk and Charles Barkley listens carefully, standing butt-naked in the center of the locker room. Yeah, he wants to get his bad back to the sauna quick, but he remembers his youth and how important it is for kids to known someone is listening. “I’m not a role model!” Sir Charles has barked many times. Maybe he isn’t, but I’m impressed by his genuine mass-ass appeal. Cutting the attendant off in mid-sentence, Charles Barkley pulls a huge pair of white high-tops from his locker and tosses them to the boy: “Here, they’re crowding my space.” With that, Sir Charles is out of here stomping his way into the steaming sauna.
