Story Excerpt

Not the Usual Boy
by Rob Osler

Most days, my gender fluidity creates little kerfuffle, aside from the pressure I put on myself when dressing as a woman and wanting to pull together a smart ensemble before leaving the house. One event, however, is an unfailing exception. The minor fuss begins every March at the huge professional tennis tournament that lights up the Palm Springs area, where I have served as a volunteer for the past dozen years. Although all tournament staff wear more or less the same outfit—polo shirt and trousers—the tailoring is different for women and men, and I’d rather wear pantyhose on a desert hike than suffer the humiliating cut of a men’s pair of thirty-eight-inch-waisted chinos. Still, with the reliability of my yearly whack-a-mole Botox injections (seventy-five percent off each August at the Desert Hot Springs casino), there’s always some busybody who can’t help but point out that I’m standing in the line designated for women as if I couldn’t discern the difference between the queue of bronzed country-club ladies and a parallel line of balding retired businessmen anchored in monstrous white athletic shoes. Gratefully, the general level of curiosity about me living outside the lines has lessened over my decade-plus of exemplary service to the tournament. It wouldn’t be hyperbole to claim I’ve become something of a well-known institution in my own right. It’s not unusual to overhear someone saying something like, “Who? Him? I mean . . . or is it ‘them’? In any case, that’s Perry
Winkle. Perry marches to his own drummer.” While I embrace such articulations of individuality, I prefer a snappier credo: I don’t do labels—unless we’re talking fashion.

When starting out as a volunteer, I was initially assigned the high-stress, high-stakes job of line calling. I had been three games into officiating my first tennis match and really feeling it, shouting, “Out!” with an emphatic outstretched arm, when a certain player—considered by some as the GOAT—took issue with one of my calls. Tournament officials were firm in their policy that a line judge is never to engage with a player, but icon or not, I couldn’t not defend what I considered my work product. I’m just that way. And for the record, the player had been the one to escalate matters by calling me “lippy,” which stung despite being uttered in a sexy Euro accent by a supremely fit man-boy in snug shorts. Suffice it to say, I was reassigned to crowd control, which I’ll admit better plays to my strengths of organization, professionalism, and taking guff from no one.

This season marks a decade that I’ve ruled over Stadium Court, section 14, rows A through P. But instead of collecting my official tournament garb with my usual panache, I couldn’t hide my scowl. As with many big-money deals, the event’s new corporate sponsor had won the right to slap its crowdsourced moniker—You get what you pay for!—on the tournament’s name, fan apparel, and merchandise—shirts, caps, visors, keychains, water bottles, onesies, henna tattoos—and, much to my chagrin, me. I draped my pants, the uninspired color of soy milk, over my arm and took a moment to inspect my new pale-pink polo, shuddering at the garish DATA CHILL OPEN logo emblazoned across the front.

It gets worse.

The founder and CEO of Data Chill, Logan Jest, a twenty-something Silicon Valley wunderkind whom even a pacifist would like to punch, is a nationalist provocateur who’d be a dead ringer for Bart Simpson if the squeaky-voiced yellow fellow traveled by private jet and sported a tat sleeve, sockless loafers, and a pearl choker. Logan had recently boosted his everyone’s-favorite-villain ranking by taking to social media to say despicable things about the wildly popular
American tennis pro Miles Sandersen. Seems Logan’s former girlfriend—emphasis on former—had dumped him and was now dating Miles. According to “Off-court Confidential,” a Facebook group I followed religiously, the woman at the center of the controversy, Kassie Lemon, a self-proclaimed “style sherpa” and “social influencer”—Don’t even get me started on the hubris and lunacy of such titles!—had recently calculated that despite having five point six billion reasons to remain Logan Jest’s plus-one—all of them green—she would rather have a front-row seat in the player’s box of the significantly less rich but far more Instagrammable Miles Sandersen. Being a fashion enthusiast myself, I would begrudgingly admit I was curious to get a look at this Kassie character and see what all the to-do was about.

Having collected my uniform, lanyard, and credentials, I headed for the volunteer tent to grab a snack, where I half expected to find the tournament logo seared onto my favorite prosciutto-wrapped mozzarella sticks. As I neared the tent’s entrance, I was abruptly shanghaied by silver-haired, jerky-tanned Harvey Mittwielder, a tournament official—not one of the top dogs but senior enough that nobody questioned him when he bossed them around, which he did with all the nuance of an NFL coach.

“Perry!” Harvey shouted. “I was just looking for a volunteer. The usual boy is MIA. You’ll have to do. Follow me.”

Before I could argue my suitability as a replacement for “the usual boy,” Harvey was run-walking toward the players’ building—a domain requiring special credentials possessed only by tour pros, their entourages, certain paid staff, and a few volunteers who, like the popular kids at a lunchroom table, were off-puttingly cliquish. Having never been admitted before, I felt excitement and apprehension as Harvey handed me an all-access badge, barking, “Put this on,” and we entered the security-screening area. I placed my Bottega Veneta handbag—purchased from a Cameroonian street vendor in L.A., but who’s to know?—on a folding table for inspection.

“What’s this?” an ancient fellow asked, removing a clear bottle of green liquid from my bag.

“My guess is kombucha,” said his coworker, a pimply-faced teen with boy-band hair.

“Kom-what?” the old fellow bellowed, his hearing aid apparently for show.

“Sorry . . . sir or . . .” the teen trailed off, telegraphing his uncertainty.

Having no such ambivalence, the old fellow said, “New rule, bub. Personal bottles aren’t allowed. Everyone with the tournament must use one of these.”

The teen reached behind him and plucked a tournament-branded water bottle from one of the dozens of boxes containing identical bottles.

Examining the DATA CHILL OPEN logo emblazed across the hard plastic, I quipped, “I hadn’t realized the Borg had taken over the tournament.”

As if proving my point, they returned the same blank expression. Usually, I’d take the opportunity to expound on the threat of assimilation—one of many life lessons I’d learned as a Trekkie—but Harvey was already looking impatient on the other side of security. I hustled through the body scanner, reclaimed my bag, and we were off.

My Keds squeaked loudly as I followed Harvey down the wide, shiny hallway adorned with action photos of current stars and former champs. It was all intensely thrilling. My adorable tennis racket-shaped earrings swung like tiny pendulums as my head swiveled, taking it all in. The last time I’d been so awestruck was when shopping at the Palm Springs farmers’ market; I reached for the last bag of organic dates as a well-known game-show letter-flipper had the same idea. Our initial chuckles gave way to a crowd-clearing tug-of-war. Given her Twiggy-like figure and advanced age, I hadn’t expected her grip strength—or potty mouth.

Nearing the players’ lounge, I quivered with delight, eager for celebrity sightings I could recount to my bridge group. I was desperate to dethrone Mildred’s three-decades-long brush-with-fame boast of being the on-set stylist who shaved Sigourney Weaver’s head for Alien 3. “Oh, the heady heights,” I would say, “to think you once possessed the hairdressing skills of a Basque sheepherder.” Not understanding the jab but sensing mischief, she would call me a racist and then take vengeance by running the table.

To my disappointment, Harvey didn’t continue toward the lounge but took a turn. Then, seeing where he was leading me, my knees nearly buckled. Seconds later, I was standing beside him in the middle of the men’s locker room.

“The job is simple enough, Perry. Used towels go in the round bins. You’ll find soaps, shampoo, that sort of thing in the supply closet over there.” Harvey pointed across the room. “Fresh towels go here.” He patted a white folded stack on a wheeled cart. “Just keep things neat and tidy—and clean. Management likes it clean. Sound good? Think you can handle it?”

As if on cue, from around a bank of tall walnut lockers stepped the world’s number-five-ranked player, Miles Sandersen, utterly and spectacularly naked.

“Perry? Can you handle it?” Harvey repeated.

I muttered a reasonable facsimile of assent before Harvey slapped my back, sending me stumbling toward Miles, and left the room. As I’d yet to change into tournament garb, Miles’s widened eyes were presumably in appreciation of my attractive puff-sleeved denim shirtdress—a recent splurge at J. Crew—and the glorious red hibiscus flower I’d earlier plucked from the landscaping and pinned to my hair.

Being two strangers suddenly alone in a room together, Miles and I did what two strangers suddenly alone in a room together do: We sized each other up. Speaking of which, it took all the discipline I could muster to keep my eyes from straying south of the border.

“Mind getting me a towel, mister?”

Hearing Miles’s voice, I imagined his Minnesota accent melting hearts from the heartland to Barcelona to Melbourne and all tour stops in between.

“With pleasure, kind sir.” I bowed, handing him a towel.

While Miles sat, towel clad and busily texting on his phone, I quickly changed into my new volunteer togs and began making the place shipshape. I took to my new duties like a ball kid scrambling after an errant Penn 2, wiping, dowsing, sweeping, and stacking. While replenishing the hand soap in the bathroom, I glanced in the mirror as two more players burst into the locker room with ear-piercing jocularity. I recognized them both: Germany’s Franz Schlup and Serbia’s Milos Zekic. Each guy lugged a large bag over each shoulder, one racket shaped and the other, I presumed, stuffed with clothing, toiletries, and silver neck chains. As they moved across the room, their bag tags swung loosely in time with their mesmerizing swagger.

The two men saw Sandersen and abruptly ceased their banter. The room’s temperature spiked. Zekic and Sandersen traded searing glares. It was basic knowledge among followers of Off-court Confidential that the American and Serb couldn’t stand the sight of each other. According to the Facebook group, their animosity began ten years earlier when they were playing each other in a fourteen-and-under doubles match. Sandersen’s partner mistakenly returned a short lob, and Zekic, despite having an open court, had purposefully returned an overhead straight into Sandersen’s privates. At the following month’s tournament, Sandersen sought revenge by mixing super glue into Zekic’s tube of hair gel. As the boys became men, they continued to torment each other, fueling a hatred that grew in proportion to their physiques; both men, supremely fit, stood six foot four and kept their long hair—Sandersen’s reddish blond and Zekic’s jet black—tucked beneath colorful headbands when on the court.

The present encounter in the locker room was taking shape to be their latest altercation. The two men volleyed fighting words, culminating in Zekic shoving Sandersen against a locker, shouting, “Stay the fuck away from Leska, or I swear I’ll end you, pretty boy.”

Leska? While there surely were multiple Leskas in the world, Zekic must be referring to his fiancée—the subject of another Off-court Confidential post. Thankfully, Schlup intervened before things escalated to blows, certain fines from the tour, and a fresh cycle of sensational tabloid coverage.

Unrattled, Miles coolly recinched the towel around his slim waist and, with a smirk, blew the Serb a kiss before sauntering off toward the ice baths. It was all Schlup could do to restrain the infuriated purple-faced Zekic, who repeated his threat to “end” his arch enemy, this time adding a reference to a tennis racket and Sandersen’s southern orifice. The scene was unnerving, juvenile, and, considering the overwhelming output of testosterone, curiously homoerotic.

The following quarter-hour in the locker room passed in a whirlwind of activity. Coaches, physio trainers, players, and staff darted in and out. I was kept on the trot gathering damp towels from the floor and benches and restocking supplies. Although knackered (borrowing a term I overheard a British player use to describe his je tlag), I’d just started the time-consuming task of slipping 128 name tags
into small brass frames on
each locker door when an anxious teenager tapped my shoulder and held up two Data Chill Open-branded water bottles. “I’m supposed to give these to Miles Sandersen,” he announced.

I knew the liquid sloshing within those bottles would be a precise
concoction of electrolytes, protein, vitamins, and energy-boosting ingredients. Like other young athletes, Miles was the human equivalent of a Formula One race car—finely tuned, meticulously cared for, and rich with endorsements from luxury watches, fashion brands, and the airlines of oil-rich nations.

“I suppose you can leave them by his bag,” I told the boy, pointing toward Miles’s locker. “Otherwise, you can find him in an ice bath down the hall.”

Eager to be rid of the bottles, the boy headed for the lockers while I turned my attention to the one area I’d yet to conquer: the bathrooms. As I emerged from the third stall with a toilet brush and a lesser opinion of mankind, Franz Schlup and Milos Zekic, gear slung once again over their thick shoulders, departed for the practice courts.

Feeling peckish and in need of a sit, I slipped out of the locker room and dashed to the players’ lounge, where my hopes were fulfilled by a well-provisioned buffet of assorted fruits, vegetables, and lean meats. After a light snack, I visited the nearest bathroom. From behind a stall door, I heard two women enter, engrossed in conversation. Sweet Renée Richards! In my haste to use the toilet, I hadn’t paid proper attention to the signage on the bathroom door. The last thing a person like me needed was to be caught in the wrong WC. My sole intention was to pee, not to cause a stink. Now, I had to stay put until the coast was clear and I could make my escape.

“His days as a player are over,” one woman said. “He thinks he can get away with treating me like shit?” She laughed menacingly. “He’s about to see exactly—and I mean exactly—how that feels.”

The other woman gasped, “O.M.G. You didn’t!” and honked a laugh.

Eager to get a visual of them, I pressed my eye to the crack between the stall door and the wall. I glimpsed one woman, dressed in a psychedelic silk halter midi dress, drop something into the waste bin before leaving with her companion.

Following a hunch, I opened my phone’s browser. Two taps later, I had a positive ID. The woman was none other than Kassie Lemon. Loathe to admit it, but she was all that and a bag by Jimmy Choo. Hurrying from the room, I winced at my own dishevelment reflected in the mirror. My turn at vigorous labor had taken an unflattering toll.

Returned to the men’s locker room, I brushed my hair and spritzed my face with a hydrating nutrient mist I picked up for eighty percent off before the Bed Bath and Beyond at my local mall became my neighborhood’s one-hundredth pot dispensary. Appraising the space with fresh eyes, I couldn’t help but notice that whatever cleaning “the usual boy” did neglected much of the cleaning that should have been done. I found a Swiffer on a long stick to dust the screens that, like in a sports bar, hung silently throughout the room, each providing a real-time view of one of the courts. As the tournament hadn’t officially begun, the camera feeds were active only on the practice courts. I took a moment to admire the crisp groundstrokes of Schlup and Zekic as they rallied crosscourt forehands at speed sure to snap the axle of my rattletrap Prius in two.

I recognized the kid who’d earlier delivered water bottles to the locker room as now fetching balls for the pros’ practice session. Preparing to serve from the baseline, Zekic bounced a ball and tossed it into the air. But instead of continuing his service motion, he dropped his racket onto the court. Looking confused, he pressed a hand to his chest and pointed to his team sitting courtside. Sensing something very much amiss, his team sprang to their feet. I reached for the television’s volume.

“Milos! You okay, buddy?” Franz Schlup shouted across the court.

Zekic wobbled. If he said anything, I couldn’t tell from the angle; his back was to the camera. He appeared to glance toward the ball boy, who tossed a ball to Zekic as if he’d asked for one.

Then Milos Zekic fell flat on his face. . . .

 

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Copyright © 2025 Not the Usual Boy by Rob Osler