Dirty Work

for Dennis Rodman

there’s never been another living in 
the anthropocene like him. try it — 
afraid to pay the fee of playing him 
twice a year, jackson lit the candle 
and locked the door. then the rest 
got scared, the referees, david stern, 
and a growing television audience all
tuned in for m.j.,  so they had to call 
him “the worm.” there’s not many 
highlight reels of Rodman that survive
because his game was really an act of 
anti-matter. lock-down doesn’t start to 
defend it. we talk about his rebounding 
because we can count it. but Rodman 
played the game ad infinitum, caused such 
terrible trouble all around, mostly eliciting
poor offensive outings from the league’s 
marquee scorers so that they started booking 
the bulls to play sunday afternoon games. (no 
wonder he later tried veils, nuclear diplomacy, 
and leg-drops from the top rope.) the referees 
had to kick him out of games just to generate 
more scoring opportunities. they had to ship 
shaq to l.a. to avoid playing him. now there’s no 
endorsements for dennis, and i have to wonder 
how everything might have been different if
dennis had been given the ‘96 Finals MVP
he deserved? and i mean everything, too. maybe 
no ‘98 NBA lockout leaving no gaps in ABC’s 
t.v. programming, meaning no celebrity mole,
no survivor, and maybe if we would have
gotten lucky, no apprentice. instead they 
hollywood ten’d him all the way into being
commissioner of the lingerie football league.
see we were taught to hate him just because 
rodman had shown us what freedom could 
be like here, in this the best of all possible 
worlds. 

AVERY GREGURICH is a writer living and working in Marengo, Iowa. He was raised next to the Mississippi River, and has never strayed too far from it.