This House Won’t Be the Same

Day and night and night and day, I think about my friend Earvin Johnson, about meeting him in Michigan when he was in his teens, about his mother wheeling in trays of homemade food, about his dad seated courtside at a basketball game one Father’s Day, about his older sister, Mary, dying in January, 1987, of what was publicly described as complications from lung disease.

She was 33.

I don’t think about basketball much. I think about this guy I know, this guy who calls you aside to see if there is anything you need, this guy who calls you back because he forgot to tell you about the beautiful woodland property he just bought back in Michigan for his parents, this guy who then asks: “Say, how’s your family doing?”

And now here I am without him, in his place of business, in his playhouse, and his uniform is still hanging inside his Laker locker, and his name is still listed on the Laker roster, and he is thousands of miles away somewhere beyond the sea, and our mutual friend Lon Rosen is standing here beside me on a Sunday evening in a Forum hallway, telling me a story.

He is telling me about a dinner party at the Johnsons. Nothing formal. Everybody just sat around in the dining room of Earvin’s virtual mansion, talking about anything and everything. Magic and Cookie sent out for the food. Nobody broke out a Monopoly game, as has been known to happen on evenings at Earvin’s. There was just a round-table discussion of nothing in particular, completely casual, shoes-off relaxed, lots of talk about the news of the day, family matters, kid stuff.

It was Thursday night.

Last Thursday night.

“There we were, just sitting around, a few close friends eating and talking, not a care in the world,” said Rosen, who manages Johnson’s business interests, “and just a few hours before, Earvin’s up there telling the entire world about his condition and about how he has to retire from the game and the team he loves.

“And, all the while, he’s aware of what the day’s been like for me. He knows how my telephone is ringing off the hook and how anybody who can’t reach him is probably out there trying to reach me . So, before the night’s over, he goes up to my wife, Laurie, and asks: ‘How’s he holding up?’ He says she should make sure I get some rest, because he’s worried about me.

“Because he’s worried about me .”

At the guarded gatehouse outside, there were letters, telegrams, packages, floral arrangements. By phone or wire or indirect contact, Magic received messages of encouragement from George Bush, Dan Quayle, Ted Kennedy, Bob Hope, Elizabeth Taylor, Whoopi Goldberg, Oprah Winfrey, Lou Gossett, Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, too many to mention. Within two days at Rosen’s office, the mail was stacked by the bushel. There were 600 faxes.

This did not even count the get-well cards and correspondence addressed to the Forum, where staffers Sunday were already bracing themselves for Tuesday’s mail. Most people would know no other way of reaching Magic. Imagine when the class-project messages from schoolchildren start coming. The notes from abroad. From foreign dignitaries. From friends. From strangers.

He’ll never be able to get to them all.

“Oh, yes, he will,” Rosen said. “I don’t know how, but somehow he will.”

We nodded.

“Hey, you know Earvin,” he said.

I know that I was at a ceremony in Lansing, Mich., one night when his mother and his high school coach accidentally tipped me off prematurely that Magic had decided to leave college and turn pro. I know that I was there the next morning when Earvin swore that he had been tossing and turning until 4:30 a.m., reconsidering his decision, wagging a finger at me and saying: “You got lucky I didn’t change my mind.”

Yes, I did.

And I know that the saddest I ever saw him was that day in Dayton, Ohio, when his Michigan State team was eliminated from the NCAA tournament by a Kentucky team that eventually won the national championship, and that the happiest I ever saw him was that night in Philadelphia when he became heavyweight professional basketball champion of the world and held a bottle of champagne above my head and asked me if I minded getting wet.

No, I didn’t.

And I know that inside a dressing room in Detroit one afternoon, he was offering some food that had been cooked by his mom, and telling me how meaningful it was to have a rare opportunity to play in front of his dad, and introducing me to a good-looking young guy who hopped up onto his lap: “Mike, this is my son, Andre. Andre, this is my friend, Mike.”

And now he is someplace else, and his teammate James Worthy is standing in the middle of the House of Magic, telling the people who love him: “He has given us so much over the last 12 years, and he’s continuing to give . . . he’s still giving, even today. It’s only fair that we give him back the same kind of courageous faith, the same kind of courageous confidence, the same kind of courageous support.”

And Lon Rosen is telling me one more story.

“Thursday night, 1:30 in the morning, my phone rings and it’s Magic. He’s still awake and he knows I’m still awake. He says he’s up watching CNN. He says: ‘Did you know they televised the press conference nationally? Televised it live?’ He says: ‘I can’t believe they did that.’ ”

And he asks again about the Rosens’ new baby, who is 8 weeks old. He reminds him to take good care of that baby.

“Because I want my child to grow up together with your child,” Earvin Johnson says. “And I want to watch my child grow up with your child.”