Player Season: The Pickup Artist Who Hacked Nike (21 page)

When we got back to the house, Justin put his phone in front of my face and said, "Look at this!" †He was showing me a name on his contact list and it read, "Sir Charles."

"Yeah, Charles Barkley gave me his number and told me to hit him up whenever!" Justin told me, not knowing I was the puppeteer.

One-week left until spring training...

Paul Wall and Chamillionaire were coming to Scottsdale for a concert, and not only did we have tickets, but we also had a direct connection. Strangely enough, Chris Young and Paul Wall lifted weights at the same gym in their hometown of Houston; so we weren't just going to see him perform, we were going to hangout with him.

This may not seem special to most people, but I was a fan of Paul Wall and Chamillionaire since my days at VCU; I thought it was.

I was alongside Justin, Chris and their teammate Edwin Jackson while we walked into the bar, which also happened to have a stage, for the show (it wasn't your typical setting for a concert). Wannabe thugs and hood rats fell rank and file behind the small booth where, notably, Paul Wall was selling CD's to his fans in person. The gospels rang true; he was a hustler.

We skipped through the line and were let in a side entrance to his booth, which was more like a concession stand. Chris convened with him, Justin converged and Edwin congregated; I was last in line to introduce myself.

After a quick once-over, Paul Wall then smiled, with his platinum teeth shining ever so brightly, and we assembled together for a bro hug. Once we cut apart, he gave me a deep stare and then slowly began nodding his head. The nod was a telepathic nod, and the meaning was clear. It was the 'we are the only white guys surrounded by black guys' look, which I'm assuming is similar to the look black guys give one another when they're surrounded by white people, but much less common.

So we stood in the background, like we were members of his posse, while he continued to sell his CD to the stream of faithful followers waiting in line.

"Paul man, your music is so dope, I listen to it everyday while I'm blazing up," a white kid told him.

"I appreciate that," Mr. Wall replied, and then posed for a picture.

I looked down at the floor and noticed he wore black Converse shoes with miniature AK-47's printed throughout.

"You see his shoes?" I asked Justin.

"Oh yeah, I gotta get me a pair of those!" said Justin, intently.

As I previously mentioned, I was a fan of his. However, being in the situation I was in, and who I was with, it wasn't proper for me to ask to have my picture taken with him, although I wanted to. So I went to the next best option, which was distracting my peers and then covertly taking a picture ... to capture the moment.

Like any job, I needed to continually prove my worth so I left the booth on my own, lone wolf style, to see how many girls I could convince to occupy the space I had just vacated. Several encounters later, I was standing in the back of the crowd watching a befuddled Paul Wall react to a hand-picked slew of girls enter his domain. I was admiring my work.

Then it was show time, and they invited us on stage.

If you've ever seen a rap concert on video, or in-person, and you noticed the guys in the background holding a towel around their neck and doing, well, whatever the hell it is they do ... then you would have a good sense of how I felt at the time. I was one of those guys.

Nonetheless, I was in an advantageous position and I wanted to lengthen my assignment. I spotted a fit blonde and an equally suitable brunette, so I gave them the two-finger command to come on stage.

Apparently Paul Wall's manager didn't think having girls on stage was a good PR move for him (although I silently disagreed) because he blocked them from entering the door to come on stage. I wasn't going to let them get away, so I left my post.

The blonde's name was Sarah and she immediately assumed I was a member of Paul Wall's entourage.

"I'm not going to sleep with you back here!" opened Sarah.

"The thought didn't even cross my mind, but I like the way you think," I told her.

Now the thought
was
consuming my mind and I wish I could go into a story about me banging her backstage, but it didn't happen. She gave me her number and disappeared into the crowd.

However, I wasn't done being promiscuous, and an encounter outside the front entrance greatly helped to further my cause.

As one would imagine, I was isolating the girl on the right, "Summer". She belonged to a rare breed of noticeably wild yet ungodly attractive girls who only come around once in a blue moon. I invited her inside for drinks.

I sent Justin a frantic text message to meet us at the rendezvous point, and he arrived nodding to signal he was impressed. There was more in store.

Without warning, Summer jumped on top of the bar, laid down horizontally and pulled her shirt all the way up to her neck.

"Brad! Justin! Take body shots!" she yelled, suggesting we take shots of liquor off her chest.

Of course we complied and mutually agreed that Summer was a winner. She was also a girl we needed to see again, so the digits were duly noted by the end of the night. They would come in handy...

Since Summer lived an hour away and couldn't come back to the house with us, we had to enact Plan B. I called Sarah, from backstage, and she agreed to come over with her brunette friend.

"I knew I was going to do this," Sarah explained, while she was stretched out naked in my bed.

Justin's night didn't go quite as smoothly.

"How'd it go?" I asked, while he sat in his bed alone.

"She spent the night with me, but nothing happened," he answered.

"That's unacceptable," I told him.

I went downstairs and had a talk with her.

"You know Justin is the nicest guy in the world, I really thought you two would hit it off," I expressed, even though I was running a con.

"Yeah, he is really nice," she remarked.

"It's weird how nice guys finish last. Look at me, I'm an asshole and you see how my night went," I said, and then glanced at Sarah.

"Nice guys don't finish last! He's not upset is he? I'm going to go talk to him," she decided, and the con was complete.

Justin exited his room an hour later with an immeasurable smile upon his face. I didn't need to ask questions, I knew what happened. I took Justin's Porsche and dropped the girls off at ASU knowing my rent-free status was secured for an extra month or two.

Another spring training came and I was given yet another job as a driver, but this time it was for Justin and Chris...instead of BJ and Kazmir.

I dropped them off at the field in Tucson and sat in the car, staring off at the panoramic mountains overcasting the area from afar. Then an old, but never forgotten dream hit me. I still wanted to play baseball.

Driving expensive cars, living in extravagant houses and picking up girls was fun, but I was willing to trade it all in for another chance to play. It's tough to explain, but baseball never stopped running through my veins.

The minor league fields were only a mile away, so I spontaneously hopped out of the car and began hiking towards the main office; in search of their coach.

"The man you're looking for is Billy Butler, but he's not in," the young receptionist told me.

Just like that, the dream faded back to reality.

My reality was to acquire women for my friends, who seemed more like clients the more I thought about it. I scrolled through my phone and picked out my recently attained ace-in-the-hole ... "Summer".

"Do you want to come down to Tucson?" I asked her.

"Sure! I can come tonight when I get off work but can you pay for my gas?" Summer replied.

"Yeah, but you have to bring a friend for Justin," I told her.

"That's fine. I have just the friend in mind," she said.

I didn't want to pay for her gas. A wise man once told me to say whatever needs to be said to get the girls on location, even if you have to lie. If they want money, tell them you have a million dollars. If they want alcohol, tell them you have four kegs. If they want drugs, tell them you have four pounds.

Chris and Justin approached the front desk and asked the hotel receptionist for three rooms. Normally they gave me a degrading speech before making a purchase on my behalf, but not on this night, my assets were en route.

However, my assets were running late. Justin and Chris planned on meeting their teammates at a local club once the girls arrived, but they were growing impatient. It was my job to focus on the task at hand, which was procuring and preparing the ladies, so I insisted they leave for the club without me.

Thirty minutes later, Summer came swinging her hips through the front door, wearing skintight white shorts and a clasped red sleeveless top with each breast snugly compacted against the other. With every blonde typically comes a brunette, and that brunette friend wore blue jeans, a black t-shirt and a green army styled hat. She was lovely, but Summer was magnetic.

After resting their bags in my room, I guided them to a bar on the back deck of the hotel. Let me rephrase. It was not a hotel, it was a villa, and this particular villa was built on top of the highest mountain, which overlooked scarce city lights and vast fields of cacti. The scenery was grand.

Instead of taking them to the club, which didn't seem productive, I sat down at the bar and ordered drinks for each. They were being primed for the occasion, and I filled the conversational gaps with questions about their lives, this way they did most of the talking. It's no secret how much girls love to talk about themselves, so it's imperative to have sharp interviewing skills. Ask, listen and pick one line out of their response for the next leading question. Simple.

"How does my girl look?" Justin texted.

"Give me a minute, I'll show you," I responded.

This is when the night took a fine turn in an even finer direction; ultimately providing the groundwork for what turned out to be a major-league night.

"Justin wants to see what you look like," I told the brunette.

"I want to change, I don't like what I'm wearing," she said.

"Let's take a picture together in our bathing suits," chimed Summer.

She didn't have to tell me twice. After scurrying to the room, they both got undressed in front of me and suited up.

"We should take it in the bathtub," said Summer, whose stock was climbing by the second.

They ran hot water and stood side-by-side splashing one another; I couldn't believe my eyes, it was like a scene straight out of Playboy. You could fill a munitions truck with the volume of pictures I was snapping off but I settled on sending this one to Justin ... with the caption 'Trust me, they'll be ready when you get back.'

"I'm on my way!" Justin replied, which didn't surprise me.

The next twenty minutes felt like twenty hours as the girls amplified their uninhibited disregard for social norms. I plugged in the iPod, dousing musical fuel on an already blazing fire while they steadily evolved from smacking each other's ass to taking their tops off and then–graciously–intertwining tongues.