It’s true. Charles Barkley, NBA hall of famer is a thief. How do I know this you ask? Well, I know this because Charles Barkley stole from me. This isn’t some sort of strange metaphor, or some sort of weird sports fanatic thing where I feel like I was robbed personally because he never brought home that championship. Sir Charles Barkley Esquire stole from me; what’s worse was that it was the little kid me. What did he steal, what could I possibly be talking about? Well, the truth in this case is seriously bizarre.
Charles Barkley stole my Charles Barkley rookie card.
Let that sink in….and I will repeat it one more time for dramatic effect.
Charles Barkley stole MY Charles Barkley rookie card—what a fucker.
Let me transport you back to my formative years, back when I still cared about sports, and actually followed and played a lot basketball. Not only did I follow basketball, but I was a pretty big fan. Like many of my 13-14 year old friends, I collected basketball cards and baseball cards. I didn’t really so much like baseball, but I liked cards and I liked trading them and such.
Much of my time during my Junior High years was spent in the Cottonwood Mall, in one of four places: The food court, the comic book shop, the arcade kicking ass at Street Fighter II or at the card shop. Yes, the mall certainly did have it all back then, plus if you lucked out you might meet some hot piece of tail that went to another school, the ultimate great white whale scenario. You always head of these mysterious hook-ups that your friends said they had when they met some babe from another locale, but it never seemed to happen to you…or rather, to me perhaps? Anyhow.
After a long Saturday afternoon of mowing my enormous backyard, and being a child slave laborer for my father, I received my allowance. A princely, nay, kingly sum for a 13 year old — $10 American dollars. $10 bucks could get you a lot back then, especially at the mall. To put this in perspective and this really makes me sound like some old man recounting how you could buy 10 moon pies and 4 pennywhistles for a dollar back in the day, but, back then you could fill up an entire tank of gas for $10. Just this week it cost me $35. Sigh. I digress.
This would turn out to be an epic, epic mall outing for me. After being dropped off with a few friends at the Cottonwood mall, I stepped into the food court. The world was at my fingertips: Orange Julius, Hot Dog On A Stick, Sabarro, Arby’s, The Weird Chinese place owned by Koreans that didn’t speak English. Oh where to start? This day, I decided to do something out of the ordinary. Rather than head over to get my usual, an Arby’s roast beef sandwich, with Arby’s delectable Arby’s sauce (I also wasn’t vegetarian back then either), I felt a strange pull. Something urged me in a different diection that day, call it the still small voice of consumerism if you will. There I was being led by a mystical force to the second level, passed the comic book store, and over to the card shop. On this day, right there in the window, they had unopened packs of 1985 Star basketball cards for $4 apiece.
Now, card collectors know there could be some gem lurking in those unopened old packs, or it could end up being just a bunch of no name hacks that you just pissed away $4 that could have been spent on a few hours of virtual fighter, or stink bombs from the Tease and Keys (a dumbed down head shop of sorts). This fortuitous day, I decided to take my chances. I plopped down my $10 bill, still sticky with the sweat of a recently mowed lawn.
“I’ll take one pack of the 1985 Stars basketball cars please.”
The man behind the counter said, almost as if he were some sort of wise sage, “Choose wisely my young friend. You could find treasure unimaginable, or you could find Greg Kite* lurking in there?”
I muttered aloud, “Who the hell is Greg Kite?”
The wise teller replied, “Who the hell indeed, who the hell indeed son?”
I looked in the box, and decided to just plunge my hand in and grab. I had made my pick. Now, I would like to say I remembered every card in the pack, but I don’t. But, the most important thing is this: There among the forgotten NBA players of old was a mint condition, Charles Barkley card!
SUCCESS!!! My gambit had paid off! There he was. Bald. Beautiful. Young. Ok this is sounding a bit gay.
The rest of the day is a blur of video games, and bragging.
“Can you believe it!?” I’d exclaim several hundred times while trouncing my friends over and over at street fighter. They should just have known that you just can’t beat me when I choose Chun Li. It’s just a scientific fact.
After exhausting my funds, we decide to call Chris’ mom on the pay phone.
After being picked up on and our way home, my friend Chris exclaims, “Holy shit Taylor! The 76’ers are playing the Jazz here tomorrow night dude!”
“So what ?”
“What do you mean so what?! You can get that card signed by Charles Barkley.”
“Chris, how the hell am I gonna do that spazz?”
The wheels in his head were spinning, he was formulating a plan and it came spewing out of his mouth, “We will just go wait outside the Marriott downtown by the Salt Palace and ask him for his autograph as he leaves to head over the game. I’ve done it a few times. I bet my mom will give us a ride.”
And just like that, the wheels of fate were in motion. I had my rookie card, Mr. Barkley was going to be in town, Chris was going to come with me and his mom was going to drop us off downtown.
My young brain could hardly contain the possibilities. I thought to myself, that card will be worth like thousands of dollars if it is signed by Charles Barkley. I could eat Arby’s, drink Orange Juliuses and buy so many fucking stink bombs with that kind of scratch. Yes, oh yes! I will be lord of the mall! I will be making out with so many chicks, from so many different schools. I will be king, king I tell you!
Skip forward the next evening and there I am, nervously standing outside the Marriott hotel across the street from the Salt Palace on a warm summer night. I am armed with a black sharpie, and my coveted Charles Barkley rookie card. We’ve been standing around for about 20-30 minutes. While I have seen a few people who are obviously basketball players, I have yet to see anyone I recognize.
I turn to Chris and say, “Hey man, let’s just go over to Crossroads Mall, I don’t think anyone is coming out.” The Crossroads mall was the downtown mall just around the corner.
Just as the words left my lips, I caught the glint of sun coming off a large, bald, black man. The light hits my eye, temporarily blinding me. Could it be? Is it? As my eyes came into focus, there before me is Charles FUCKING Barkley himself. Gym bag in hand. A few people are milling around him, and he seems distracted.
Chris squeals out, voice cracking with pre-pubescent excitement, “DUDE, there he is, go up to him. You are gonna get your rookie card fuckin’ signed man!”
This is it. The moment I’ve been waiting for, for like almost a whole day. I run up to him and blurt out something that in my head sounded like, “Charles, you are an awesome player, and just yesterday I had the amazingly good fortune to come upon one of your rookie cards. It would mean a great deal if you could autograph it for me. I promise to cherish it for the rest of time.”
But it really came out as, “YourCharlesBarkelyivegotacardforyoutosign.” I was completely intimidated. He was enormous. One of his hands could easily wrap around my small head, crushing it like a grape should he choose.
He looked down at me with a puzzle look on his face and said, “What?”
Dumbfounded, this probably being the closest I have been to someone this famous ever, and most likely the first time I talked to a black man (I grew up in salt lake. There were hardly any African Americans there at the time. It was as white as white could get.) I held out my hand, presenting the card and sharpie marker to him.
He said, “Oh, you want me to sign this?”
I replied, “Yes please.”
He looked at it a moment and then exclaimed, “Damn, is this my rookie card? Shit I haven’t seen one of these in…” he trailed off as some guy in a suit came over and started talking to him in hushed tones.
He wandered off to speak to this man. I was still in shock. He was going to sign my card. HE WAS GOING TO SIGN MY CARD! I stood there a moment and Chris ran up and was giddy like a school girl.
“Keep your cool man, don’t make me look like an ass,” I exclaimed.
Distracted, I turned back around, and Charles was nowhere to be found. Where did he go? Wait, he has my card! What the fuck? How did he vanish, he is enormous, he can’t really have too many places to hide. What is he the flash?
I ran out of the lobby, and looked up and down the street. I spotted Charles crossing the street to head into the Salt Palace.
I sprinted to catch up with him.
“Charles, Charles, “I yelled exasperatedly
“Hey, Charles, you’ve got my card still man, hey you’ve got my card.”
He just kept walking forward, pretending he couldn’t hear me. I finally caught up to him.
I tugged at his sleeve, “Charles, you’ve got my rookie card, can I have it back?”
He replied, “You mean my rookie card?”
I stared blankly at him, thinking maybe that this was some weird meta moment, since it really was technically a rookie card of him, and therefor when he said “my rookie card” he meant it was a card of him and I thought maybe it just sounded strange to me and that he wasn’t giving me the typical school yard bully reply.
“Right, it is a rookie card of you, well your rookie card, but it is my card that I got at the mall this weekend in a pack of 1985 Star Cards and I got totally lucky because you, well not you, but your card was in there, so did you sign it for me?”
Charles stopped dead in his tracks. Reached into his bag, to pull out what must surely be the signed rookie card……nope, he handed me back my sharpie and said, “Buzz off kid; I’ve got to go kick Malone’s ass.”
I replied shocked and angry, “Dude, give me my fuckin card back.”
He turned back around and gave me a look that said without uttering a word, “I am not beneath kicking some little white kid’s ass.”
Standing there outside the Salt Palace I was utterly defeated. Questions started racing through my brain. What was I going to do? Who was going to believe me? Why would he need to steal his own rookie card for me? Doesn’t that douche have like millions of dollars? Doesn’t he have like a thousand of his own rookie card? Wouldn’t the car company just send them to himinh bulk? Who steals from a teenager when they are that rich and famous?
Chris caught up to me and said, “Did you get it man, did you get it?”
I replied, “That fucking asswipe just stole my card. Charles Barkley stole my Charles Barkley card.”
Chris laughed and said, “Sure he did, where is it? I want to see.”
I reiterated, “He fucking just took it and told me to buzz off, and then he looked like he was going to murder me so I just let him take it…but he gave me back my sharpie.”
Standing there, in front of the Marriott hotel in downtown Salt Lake, completely in shock about what just transpired, I did what any angry teen would do. I decided to deface city property. There on a no parking sign in front of the hotel I scrawled with my sharpie,
“CHARLES BARKLEY IS A FUCKING DICK WHO STEALS FROM CHILDREN!”
I hoped that he saw it after the game. I hoped that Karl Malone would break his femur in two. I hoped that his career would be cursed for the rest of time.
Well, he never did win an NBA title, and I’d like to think it was because he stole from the 13 year old me.
Fuck You Charles Barkley.
*Grekg Kite Was a player from BYU who was the lowest scoring member of the Championship Boston Celtics in ’85 & ’86 and was considered their worst player. I looked up wost players in the NBA during the 80’s, he came up.