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To Bird, "this part here is all baloney," and he actually counts down the stops. "Just five more games in Dallas." He smacks his lips, calculating one visit a year for the balance of his contract. Dallas' charms have been especially elusive, but few of the league cities warm him. "The same towns over and over. You know where you're going, but you forget where you're coming from. I've seen a lot of places, but I've still never been any place as good as Indiana."
Like globe trotting, grammar has no firm hold on Bird. His manner is countrified enough to give people a comfortable misimpression of his intelligence and sophistication. Either guilelessly or gleefully he contributes to his image. "I read a couple of books this summer, shows you how bored I was," he twangs self-consciously in response to the stares of teammates who have observed him reading Arthur Schlesinger's Robert Kennedy and His Times, and could not be more stunned if he were wearing a necktie. Particularly by N.B.A. standards, it is a paperback of Tolstoyan heft. "This will probably take me three years," Bird moans. Not one for justifying himself much, he explains the selection by mentioning a couple of movies and leaves out the truth that a basic grounding in the Kennedys is a prerequisite for conversation in Boston.
In moderation, he does not mind the public inconvenience attending his celebrity, at least not as much as he used to. It would be nice, however, if he could be left in peace to watch a baseball game at Fenway Park. "Everybody wants to be a part of something. I understand that now," he says. "In college I didn't, but I'm getting better. Some days I want to be around people, but other days I just don't." Seeking privacy, he folds himself up like a lawn chair--haunches, levers and various other right angles--into a tiny airport telephone nook, and picks up Schlesinger on page 85.
Any topic attracting Bird's research inevitably prompts a fascination aboard the hotel jitneys that deliver the Celtics players to airport or gym. As the Kennedy round table inexorably revolves to sex lives, Bird muses, "Who was that blond actress Kennedy supposedly dated?" This brings smiles. How could anyone know of Marilyn Monroe and not know her name? Another time, when the subject is popular music, Bird puzzles, "Who's Bruce Springsteen?" Dan Shaughnessy, the thoughtful young basketball writer for the Boston Globe, answers softly, "Larry, he's the you of rock 'n' roll." Bird laughs wearily. "Where have I been?"
Playing basketball. "I know I missed a lot, but I'm making $2 million a year, and I'm seeing and learning a lot of things, and I wouldn't be doing none of it without basketball. I know a person has to expand, but I'm sort of in college here, and I'm getting smarter." Consequently, he checked out a Springsteen concert and came away an unusual fan. "I'm still not into loud music, but you should see how hard that guy works for four hours. By the time it's about through, you're sick of him, but he still wants to go more. Whew, it wore me out. He's great." Leave it to Bird to admire a man for his perspiration.