JOHN BRISKER'S GREATEST GAME

 

A large, very large black man in a red and gold dashiki stood in the open doorway of a small second-floor apartment in what locals consider an unfashionable neighborhood of Monrovia. 

"You found me."

A sweaty man in frayed Dockers stood in the hallway, face to armpit with the tenant. His face reddened like a thermometer. 

He had knocked on a dozen doors and only one answered, a mother with kids hanging from her arms and legs and breast. She had nothing to say. He had started to wonder if he had the address right. He had scrawled it in a notebook where he had been jotting down his expenses. He had left the notebook on passenger seat of the car parked outside. His driver was sitting on the hood. His driver hadn't said a word to him all week. His driver had scars and the car had a tourniquet of electrical tape wrapped around the rad hose. Both driver and car had made it through a couple of civil wars. Neither inspired confidence if he needed a quick getaway but SNAFU, it's Liberia.

He figured there'd be no use bringing his camera. Try to get the large black man walking out the door and he'd either bolt or smash the camera and the guy holding it.

* * *

250000Z OCT 79

FM SECSTATE WASHDC

TO AMEMBASSY KAMPALA IMMEDIATE

DEPARTMENT CONTACTED BY _______________ CONCERNINING HER BROTHER JOHN BRISKER. MRS BRISKER RECEIVED A CALL TODAY FROM MR LEE CARTER, A REPORTER WITH NBC NEWS IN SEATTLE. ACCORDING TO MR CARTER, HE HAD HEARD A RUMOUR FROM A FELLOW REPORTER THAT MR BRISKER HAD BEEN KILLED IN UGANDA IN THE LAST THREE MONTHS ... DEPOFF SPOKE TO MR CARTER WHO SAID HE HAD HEARD THE RUMOR FROM A REPORTER WHO WORKED FOR CBS, BUT NO DETAILS CONCERNING HOW INFORMATION WAS OBTAINED.

 

250910Z OCT 79

FM AMEMBASSY KAMPALA

TO SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE

NO EVIDENCE HAS BEEN FOUND TO SUGGEST RUMOR REPORTED IN REFERENCE IS TRUE ... MR BRISKER NEVER REGISTERED WITH EMBASSY NOR WITH GERMANS DURING YEARS LATTER HANDLED U.S. INTERESTS ... NO ONE HERE HAS HEARD THE RUMOR NOR IS ABLE TO CONFIRM MR BRISKER'S PRESENCE IN UGANDA. HAVE LEARNED THAT LAST CBS CREW TO VISIT UGANDA DID SO OVER TWO MONTHS AGO SO APPARENTLY RUMOR ITSELF QUITE DATED.

* * *

The white guy had grey temples. He was plenty old enough to remember the ABA. Right back to middle-school days, he loved the rebel league. But he could only read about it. They didn't have an ABA team in Buffalo. ABA games weren't on the three networks and late-night sports never had ABA highlights or even scores. So he subscribed to SI, Sport and The Sporting News, read and re-read everything like he was a dissident and a profile of Darnell Hillman was samizdat. The NBA was The Establishment, as dull as Hondo and Dave Cowens. The ABA was The Counter-culture, Dr J soaring, Artis Gilmore's fro dusting the rafters.

His guy was John Brisker. John Dahoney Brisker. Pittsburgh Pipers. Pittsburgh Condors. Badder than Bad News Barnes ever was. The streets of Detroit got safer the day he accepted a ride to the University of Toledo and the Rockets' practices got safer the day he was kicked off the team for pounding out the coach. Fights on the court in the ABA, too many to count. Only one loss, Wendell Ladner hauled off and suckered him, knocking him cold. Ladner, a big cracker if there was one, was lucky he didn't have to practice with him. Brisker brought his gat to practices and kept it fully loaded in a gym bag that he brought to courtside.
 
The kd in Buffalo couldn’t convince his father to drive him to Pittsburgh, so he never got to see Brisker and the Pipers or Condors.

* * *

041411Z OCT 80

FM SECSTATE WASHDC

TO AMEMBASSY MONROVIA PRIORITY

TO AMEMBASSY KAMPALA PRIORITY

__________________ WISHES TO RE-OPEN AN INVESTIGATION OF HER EX-HUSBAND JOHN BRISKER ...  DEPT WOULD APPRECIATE MONROVIA 'S ASSISTANCE IN DETERMINING IF MR BRISKER HAS ENTERED LIBERIA SINCE MARCH 1978. MRS BRISKER LAST SAW HER HUSBAND IN JAN. 1978 AND BELIEVES HE LEFT THE U.S. IN MARCH OR APRIL WITH A LARGE SUM OF MONEY ... DURING NOVEMBER 1976 MR AND MRS BRISKER VISITED LIBERIA AND STAYED WITH ______________ AND OTHER FRIENDS IN LIBERIA ARE ___________________, SON AND DAUGHTER-IN-LAW, FORMER BUDGET DIRECTOR _________________. ADDITIONAL CONTACTS ARE ____________ ... ON DEC. 6 1976 THE AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT AND INVESTMENT COMPANY WAS INCORPORATED IN MONROVIA AND REGISTERED .... " DAHOMEY " BRISKER WAS LISTED AS TREASURER. THE MAILING ADDRESS WAS P.O. BOX 687 MONROVIA. ACCORDING TO MRS BRISKER, HER HUSBAND ALSO SPOKE OF BUYING A PROPERTY IN LAKE PISO LIBERIA IN 1976 WITH THE INTENTION OF MOVING THERE ... DEPTARMENT OFFICER HAS SPOKEN TO MRS BRISKER WHO BELIEVES RUMORS OF HER HUSBAND'S DEATH IN UGANDA MIGHT HAVE BEEN INSTIGATED BY HER HUSBAND. SHE STATED HER HUSBAND WAS "N A LOT OF TROUBLE" AND SUGGESTED THAT HE WISH TO DISAPPEAR UNTIL THE "HEAT IS OFF"

 

031310Z NOV 80

FM AMEMBASSY KAMPALLA

TO SECSTATE WASHDC

INFO AMEMBASSY MONROVIA

KAMPALA HAS NO NEW INFORMATION

* * *

Who was it that was looking for him? The first document from State said his sister, Mrs Brisker. The second said his wife, Mrs. Brisker. Probably was his wife. Probably.

* * *

"Why the f--- you have to come lookin' for me?"

Nothing.

"Who the f--- told you where I am?"
 
Nothing.

The guy in the Dockers felt like fainting.

How did he find out? Not from looking. He had looked hard.

He had wanted to write about sports back in college days, around the time of the merger. Back then he had taken an interest in John Brisker's case, like he could crack it like hoops Watergate, a career-maker. Obviously that didn't happen.  

He had chased down a few people who had lived in the thinly populated hemisphere that was Brisker's good side. He had looked up Condors' p.r. man Fred Cranwell. Cranwell had told him that Brisker did anything asked of him if it had to do with kids. That he had asked Brisker to pose with holstered six guns after the story of him bringing a gun to practice made the rounds. No problem. Cranwell said it was an image Brisker liked. Cranwell could see the good in Brisker. He must have been wearing X-Ray Specs.

He had called George Thompson, Brisker's roomie with the Condors—found him through Marquette ’s SID. Thompson had told him that Brisker didn’t get his due as a player. He had called the beat writer for the Post-Gazette. Called a clarinet player who played in the Toledo marching band--even after he was kicked off the Rockets Brisker marched in the back row, the world's meanest-looking tuba player. Called and called.

Family all came with the same story. State had talked to them. "John was into a black separatist thing. Black power. Black business for black people. Black communities with black leaders." Like they were reading from the same script. 

Mark Brisker, a nephew who bounced around the Euro leagues for a few years, had told him that Brisker had sent them a picture from Africa, a picture of him on horseback, He signed it: 'Have money will travel, John.'

He had pulled files from the Department of State, FOI. He read them. He pored over them. The redacted documents were still in boxes of papers that had never been unpacked through how many moves.

* * *

180806Z NOV 80

FM AMEMBASSY MONROVIA

TO SECSTATE WASHDC

INFO AMEMBASSY KAMPALA

... INTERVIEW WITH _____________ ... SAID HE SAW MR BRISKER ... WHEN HE WAS IN MONROVIA ... MR BRISKER WAS WITH A LIBERIAN WOMAN BY THE NAME OF ______________ ASKED ABOUT BRISKER'S WIFE ______________ AND BRISKER ONLY INDICATED THAT THE MARRIAGE WAS FINISHED AND HE HAD MET ______________ IN NEW YORK AND WAS VERY MUCH IN LOVE WITH HER ...  BRISKER SAID HE HAD HAD DIFFICULTIES WITH THE SUPERSONICS OVER HIS CONTRACT WITH THEM BUT HAD GOT A SETTLEMENT FROM THEM AND NOW WAS EXPLORING INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITIES ... ***************** IS EMPLOYED AT THE BANK OF LIBERIA. SHE STATES THAT HER DAUGHTER LEFT WITH BRISKER AND __________________ ON MARCH 3, 1977 LEAVING HER DAUGHTER'S CHILD IN HER CARE. SHE NEVER HEARD FROM THEM AGAIN ... ______________ SPECULATED THAT BRISKER WANTED TO DISAPPEAR ... THAT BRISKER'S MOTIVE WOULD HAVE BEEN TO ESCAPE FINANCIAL LOSSES DIVORCE PROCEEDINGS WITH _______________ WOULD IMPOSE ... HE HAD A LUMP SUM SETTLEMENT FROM THE SUPERSONICS, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN EASY TO ASSUME A NEW IDENTITY AND ESTABLISH HIMSELF IN AFRICA OR EVEN CONCEIVABLY RETURN TO THE STATES. 

* * *

"They said they stopped looking. I read the papers. I heard about a woman who thought that she was my child, Somebody shoulda told her there was no gold to dig.” 
 
The guy in the Dockers had seen something on the genealogy website a few months back. A woman posted that her mother was John Brisker's high school girlfiend and that she was his daughter. The guy in the Dockers sent her an email but it bounced back. And again. 

* * *

143250 JUNE 81

FM SECSTATE WASHDC

TO AMEMBASSY MONROVIA AMEMBASSY ACCRA

_________ HAS AGAIN CONTACTED DEPT CONCERNING THE DISAPPEARANCE OF HER EX-HUSBAND JOHN BRISKER DPOB 6/15/47 MICHIGAN , WHO ACCORDING TO ______________ WAS LAST SEEN IN MONROVIA IN MAY 1978. ______________  HAS NOW RECEIVED A REPORT FROM A PERSON IN SEATTLE THAT HER HUSBAND MAY HAVE SETTLED IN GHANA WHERE HE REPORTEDLY HAS A BUSINESS.

 

FOR MONROVIA ________ BELIEVES HER FRIENDS ________________________ MAY BE AWARE OF MR BRISKER'S WHEREABOUTS. SHE REQUESTS THE EMBASSY CONTACT THEM AS WELL AS ___________________ AT THE BANK OF LIBERIA TO INQUIRE WHETHER THEY'VE HEARD FROM JOHN BRISKER.

FOR ACCRA JOHN BRISKER, A FORMER PROFESSIONAL BASKETBALL PLAYER IS DESCRIBED AS 6'4" OR 5" WEIGHING 215-230 POUNDS WITH DARK BROWN SKIN. HE HAS A SMALL SCAR ON ONE OF HIS EYEBROWS, HAS PROBABLY NO BEARD OR MOUSTACHE AS HE HAS TROUBLE GROWING FACIAL HAIR. HE MAY B E WEARING A GOLD CHAIN WITH A PENDANT IN THE SHAPE OF AFRICA ON WHICH A SMALL RUBY MARKS THE LOCATION OF LIBERIA. 

* * *

He had drawn the short straw and was assigned to work with a kid who was genetically coded to climb in the network. 

When the shit started to fly in Liberia he and the boy wonder were dispatched to Monrovia. Charles Taylor? Word association: "Crackpot leader of a failed country." Then "war criminal" was attached to Charles Taylor's name. That’s when he had to get his shots and pack his bags.

He met the producer, the “talent” and the soundman in the lounge at JFK, Terminal Four. He looked out a two-story-high window and watched landings. Gentle touchdowns. 

He wasn't much for flying. It always seemed like there was some sort of crash days before a big flight. Celebrity deaths in crashes stuck in his mind. Back in '75 Eastern Airlines Flight 66 to off from NOLA bound for JFK but didn't make it. The Boeing 727 was coming down in a thunderstorm and hit wind shear, tipped on touching down and hit arrival lights on the ground. A fireball, an explosion, debris scattered miles. An investigation indicated that the pilot relied on sight and not instruments. Looking out the window he thought of Flight 66. Ten survived, 116 dead, more than any flight in US aviation history. 

He didn't remember where he was that day, didn't remember the flight number or the airline. He did remember that one of 116 was one of four Nets to have his number retired, Wendell Ladner. Six-eight, 240 pounds, instantly incinerated. What stuck out in his mind was the fact that all that was left of Wendell Ladner was his ABA championship ring. 

* * *

Nothing in Department of State files indicated that John Brisker's Africa pendant was ever recovered. The reports lowered expectations every year. DOS reached a complete dead end in 1983.

A judge in King County court declared John Brisker legally dead and allowed the widow Brisker to collect on a pittance in life insurance. The guy in the Dockers had put in a request for copies of the documents filed in that case. Clerks said there was no sign of a Brisker file.

* * *

A week into the Monrovia assignment, while the rising TV star was doing face exercises and yoga in his room probably, the guy in the Dockers went someplace for something cold and wet. He was alone and so, per usual, he struck up a conversation. The barman who never gave his name told him that an American lived around the corner, that he was a great big man. An athlete or used to be at least. Still looked like it in his 50s. And, without exactly saying so, dangerous. Another guy piped up. Not an American anymore, a proud African. Never came in this place. Nobody's friend. Everything was third-hand. They gave him an address of a low-rise apartment building.  

* * *

240119Z MAR 82

FM SECSTATE WASHDC

TO AMEMBASSY KAMPALA IMMEDIATE

AMEMBASSY MONROVIA IMMEDIATE

DEPARTMENT HAS RECEIVED AN INQUIRY THROUGH CONGRESSMAN'S PRITCHARD'S OFFICE REGARDING W/W OF BENJAMIN LEWIS TAYLOR. SUBJECT LAST CONTACTED HIS FAMILY IN MARCH 1978 FROM UGANDA . HE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ACCOMPANYING JOHN BRISKER ________ HAS OBTAINED ADDRESSES WHICH MAY BE USEFUL TO POSTS _________________ SUBJECT WAS ALSO SUPPOSED TO BE ACCOMPANIED BY MASSA TAYLOR WHO IS SUPPOSED TO BE A NATIVE OF MONROVIA.

 

261120Z MAR 82

FM AMEMBASSY KAMPALA

TO SECSTATE WASHDC

INFO AMEMBASSY MONROVIA

THE CASE WAS ________________ WHO WAS VERY FORTHCOMING. ___________ RELATED THE FOLLOWING. LEWIS ARRIVED IN UGANDA APRIL 1977 AS BUSINESSMAN. LEWIS APPROACHED AMIN WITH A DEAL TO BRING A BLACK AMERICAN BUSINESS GROUP FROM THE UNITED STATES TO UGANDA . JOHN BRISKER RESPONDED TO THE CALL AND JOINED LEWIS. SUBSEQUENTLY THE TWO AMERICAN MEN WERE ACCUSED OF CRIMINAL ACTIVITIES AND ABDUCTED FROM THEIR ROOMS AT THE KAMPALA INTERNATIONAL HOTEL BY UNIDENTIFIED PERSONS. ALLEGEDLY THEY WERE SENT TO THE STATE RESEARCH BUREAU NEVER TO BE SEEN AGAIN.

SINCE POST HAS GONE AS FAR AS POSSIBLE WITH THE GOVERNMENT OF UGANDA PUSUING THIS AND THE BRISKER CASE AND SINCE OTHER EFFORTS HAVE YIELDED ONLY UNCONFIRMED REPORTS, DEPARTMENT MAY WISH TO PASS ALONG TO ___________ OUR SUGGESTION THAT A LAWYER OR OTHER INVESTIGATOR IN UGANDA .

UNFORTUNATELY POST HAS NO WAY TO DETERMINE WHETHER THE STORY IS TRUE, AS THE LEGACIES OF THE AMIN ERA WAS THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE.

* * *

"I'm dead."

The eyes of the very big man in the dashiki widened.

The same thought was occurring to the guy in the Dockers. He was mistaking an order for a statement.

* * *

John Brisker wasn't dead when he signed with the Supersonics back in ’72. A couple of 29-point-a-game seasons in Pittsburgh were worth a healthy six-figures in the NBA. He found a GM who bought his act.

A kid in Buffalo wanted Brisker to bust up the NBA. Just more proof that the other league was as good as the one with the Establishment Seal of Approval. He went to see Brisker when the Sonics played at the Aud. December 1, 1972. It wasn’t Brisker who was tearing it up. It was Spencer Haywood, another Detroit playground legend. Brisker was at best Seattle’s fourth option. Played 25 minutes at the Aud that night. Braves got the win. Brisker didn’t even look up when he walked off the court. Didn’t even look at the kids who held up programs to autograph. Not the next winter either, Brisker’s last trip to Buffalo.

12 PPG: It didn’t seem like the same John Brisker. Drugs? Could have been. A player just waking up old one day? The easy answer. Or maybe he wasn't ever that good. George Thompson had told him everyone in the ABA had just been scared shitless of him. He had racked up 56 points one time without a trip to the line--every time he touched the ball the lane parted like the Red Sea. The NBA guys didn't scare that easy and they knew that he wasn't going to risk a suspension, a fine and a loss of pay. By the time Brisker collected his third paycheck in this third season he was out of the Sonics' rotation.

Brisker knew his contract with the Sonics was going to be the last he’d ever sign. He wanted to get into business. He was a free-market believer. He threw money into a couple of things. Some above board. Others had risk attached. Some of the worst risks were coming to pass in his last winter in Seattle . Scary isn't Wendell Ladner. Scary isn't a gat in a gymbag. Scary is a badge asking questions. Scarier is a guy who will sell him out or take him out. 

Others go fishing. John Brisker went to Uganda. Or wherever.    

* * *

The white man felt like fainting.

"I can kill you and I will."

The room started to spin and he couldn't mumble a word. He had no confidence that the minder-driver would bother calling authorities to report him missing. What authorities were there in Monrovia? 

No Africa pendant. No scar, at least no scar that he'd remember. No tuba in plain sight. No metaphysical certainty in Liberia in 2003. No getting sources to confirm. Could have been Benjamin Lewis Taylor. Could have been Massa Taylor. Who the hell were they?

Not a word to a soul. It would have just been his word, like that of the CBS reporter who had tipped Mr Lee Carter.

* * *

"Get the fuck out of here. You tell anyone I'll hunt you down and kill you and burn what's left of you."

Nothing but a tremble.

"And you come back here tomorrow you won't find me."

Not a single move. Not even a blink. From either.

The very big man in the dashiki had a reasonable and justified confidence that the guy in the Dockers could never get so lost that he'd find him again. 

* * *

The driver didn't say a word. The notebook wasn't where he had left it.

* * *

The guy had thermal underwear under his Dockers. His cheeks, fuller now, were bright pink from the Arctic cold. He was in Alaska. He had once again drawn a short straw and was assigned to another rising star, a kid who hoped his work on the campaign trail would land him a top slot in the Washington bureau. 

The day was at an end and he would trudge through the snow to the first open bar in Barrow. Before that he opened his laptop. Seven years after what he hoped would be his only assignment in Liberia he tracked the ongoing and seemingly endless trial of Charles Taylor. He looked at photos of Charles Taylor that ran with the stories filed from the international court in The Hague. He looked for someone a head taller than everyone else, some on the edge of the frame.

He looked but not for John Brisker.

John Brisker was dead.