Michael Jordan – Una historia de vuelo

«Él conoce a todos los Hardees», dijo Whitfield, riendo.

Su leal conductor George Koehler sonrió.

«Es bueno volver a casa».

El sol bajó.

«Mis padres vivían aquí», dijo Jordan cuando vio gente cruzando la calle frente a él.

Mucha gente sabe que Michael rompió tres juegos en 1985 en su segunda temporada de la NBA. Casi nadie sabe que sus padres vendieron la casa donde creció, donde James y Deloris crió a su familia, Solo 10 días después de esta lesión. Charlotte fue el comienzo de una nueva vida para ella, al igual que Chicago para Michael.

«Sus ojos eran tan grandes», dijo Bob Hatsins, entonces gerente de los Bobcats.

«Estaba muerto de miedo cuando llegó a Chicago», dijo Koehler.

La repentina riqueza de Jordan cambió la curva de su familia. Ningún Jordans realmente había dejado el pequeño pedazo de Carolina del Norte cerca de 117 antes de Michael. James y Deloris se mudaron a Nueva York, donde nació Michael, por un tiempo, pero regresaron a la zona rural de Carolina del Norte antes de quedarse sin pañales.

Estaban obligados al país.

El escritor de Mississippi, Kiese Laymon, pensó en este viaje unos días después del estreno del primer episodio de «The Last Dance». Sonrió ante los trajes largos y los colores brillantes en el armario de Jordan. Ganaron un toque de sofisticación en la gloria de la fama de Jordan, pero en la mente de Laymonon volvieron a llamar al sur profundo el domingo por la mañana. MJ se vistió como si fuera a una iglesia Bautista Misionera o AME. «Si miras a Jordan temprano y escuchas a Jordan temprano», dice Laymon, «definitivamente veo a un compatriota negro que está tratando de ser aceptado por la ciudad negra de Chicago».

«No conozco a Michael. Siempre lo he conocido como Mike».

Al Edgerton, compañero de clase de Jordan y compañero de equipo en tres deportes

Este conflicto entre las lecciones que le enseñaron en el país y la forma en que la ciudad esperaba que él actuara seguiría a Jordan a lo largo de su carrera: su reticencia a apoyar a Harvey Gantt; Los republicanos compran zapatillas de deporte; Los ataques que hizo porque no había hecho nada para detener la pobreza y el crimen en las casas de Henry Horner a solo unas cuadras del antiguo estadio de Chicago. Un director local lo llamó al Washington Post en 1992 porque estaba preocupado por los compradores de zapatos en los suburbios y no por los niños que trataban de navegar en la guerra del césped con pandillas como los Vice Señores Renegados y los Hustlers de las Cuatro Esquinas. Nada en el pasado de Jordan lo preparó para comprender la decadencia urbana y la pobreza. La experiencia de Jordan se basó en un tipo diferente de descomposición: el sentimiento omnipresente que muchos compatriotas, especialmente los negros del campo, tienen en el pecho. Solo el altar del trabajo duro puede ofrecer una salida a esta inmundicia.

«Puedo decir por la forma en que su madre llama a su padre ‘Sr. Jordan'», dice Laymon. «Y realmente creo que la política de trabajo duro de Jordan frente a una política de crítica pública tiene sus raíces en este panorama».

VER MICHAEL JORDAN Desde cierto lugar, como parte de una determinada familia e historia, puede ser el primer paso para ver realmente a Michael Jordan. Su gente caza venados, pesca bagre y besugo, cría cerdos y gallinas e va a la iglesia regularmente. Jordan creció con un padre militar y una madre del Nuevo Testamento, quienes crecieron en hogares del Antiguo Testamento. El trabajo duro como el único portal de un nivel de existencia a otro fue quizás la primera lección que James y Deloris Jordan aprendieron y una que compartieron con sus cinco hijos.

Con esto en mente, piense en el famoso «juego de la gripe» si lo desea.

Es casi imposible recordar que hubo un momento en que Michael Jordan existió en la cultura como un gran perdedor, un compañero de viaje que se levantó individualmente pero nunca dirigió un equipo. Ahora eso es ridículo, pero es verdad. O mejor. Si su línea de tiros libres es la culminación de una versión de él, la noche en que se arrastró a una arena que casi se desmaya fue la culminación de lo que se había convertido. Fue la final de la NBA de 1997. Juego 5, Jazz versus the Bulls, serie de dos juegos cada uno. El aviso fue a las 7 a.m.

Preston Truman, un chico de pelota de Utah, entró a la arena alrededor de las 2:00 p.m. de ese día, llenando refrigeradores, llenando estantes, lavando toallas y persiguiendo puré de manzana, un favorito jordano. El Delta Center es un búnker de hormigón, por lo que estaba increíblemente tranquilo debajo de las gradas.

«Escuchamos rumores», recuerda.

Michael estaba enfermo.

El autobús de los Bulls se dirigió a la esquina noroeste del Delta Center. Preston se apresuró a traer bolsas. «Se podía ver claramente que algo andaba mal con él», dice Preston. «Cada vez que Michael está en una habitación, es como Elvis. Hay tanta energía. No era él mismo. Por lo general, sonríe. Salió a la arena muy lentamente».

Preston siguió a Michael mientras caminaba por el pasillo en el extremo norte del campo hacia el vestuario de hockey que los Bulls habían asignado para los playoffs. Jordan fue directamente a una habitación privada en el extremo derecho. Solo los entrenadores y Preston estaban allí. Alguien apagó la luz. Michael se quitó el traje y se tumbó en un banco de grabación. A veces se acurrucó en posición fetal. Los médicos entraban y salían. Preston solo miraba.

Escuchó conversaciones sobre Jordan que solo jugaron en la segunda mitad. Nadie sabía lo que iba a pasar.

Preston continuó mirando el reloj digital, que cuelga en todos los vestuarios y está conectado a la caja de música, y contó los minutos. Los equipos generalmente iban al piso a calentarse, unos 20 minutos antes del final. Preston miró el reloj y miró a Michael, que solo estaba en la oscuridad con los ojos cerrados.

Han pasado 23 años y Preston todavía puede imaginarlo. No el altísimo MJ, sino una persona vulnerable. La escena sigue siendo muy clara, especialmente lo que Jordan llevaba puesto en esta mesa en la oscuridad. Llevaba los mismos pantalones cortos que usaba debajo de su uniforme en cada uno de los 1,251 juegos de la NBA que jugó.

Dijiste Carolina del Norte.

Michael no pudo ser la persona más famosa del planeta más, décadas después de la última vez que se puso estos pantalones cortos y se hizo cargo de la corte, pero cuando la persona se desvaneció, la idea de él de alguna manera siguió siendo poderosa y brillante. El mito crece cuando las personas renuncian. Aquí hay un ejemplo: hace unas semanas, se mostró un banner publicitario en la parte superior de la página de inicio de eBay, que estaba vinculado a todo lo que el sitio de subastas tenía a la venta en relación con Michael Jordan, tanto zapatillas de deporte raras como recuerdos. Es un mercado de vendedores. Una pelota de baloncesto firmada cuesta seis gigantes. Una camiseta firmada de Carolina del Norte es suficiente para ocho. No hace mucho tiempo, su uniforme olímpico de 1984 costó más de $ 200,000. Michael Russek de Grey Flannel Auctions vendió esta pieza y dijo que ahora estaba en un caso en la casa del comprador.

Los zapatos que usó Jordan la noche del juego de la gripe salieron al mercado abierto hace unos años. Rompieron el récord por el precio más alto jamás pagado por los zapatos usados ​​en el juego. Russek también los vendió. Así es como fue. Un hombre de negocios de mediana edad de Utah que se colaba se dio cuenta de que era hora de dejar las cosas infantiles. Era hora de entrar en su caja fuerte y recoger el par de zapatillas más famoso del mundo. Ese hombre era Preston Truman, el Utah Jazz Ball Boy que siguió a Jordan al Delta Center.

A Michael le gustaba porque Preston siempre estaba esperando el puré de manzana y Graham Cracker cuando los policías entraban en el Delta Center. A mitad del juego de la gripe, Michael necesitaba comida pero no pudo encontrar una cuchara para su puré de manzana, por lo que Preston corrió por un pasillo y encontró una en el comedor de los medios y se apresuró a regresar.

Anteriormente, cuando Michael Preston dio los nombres de sus tarjetas de prueba y le dijo al niño que podía usar algunas de ellas para invitar a su familia al juego, Preston soltó: «Oye, MJ, ¿crees que podría recibir tus patadas después del juego? «

Michael lo miró fijamente. Es un aspecto terrible de conseguir.

«¿Los quieres?» preguntó.

«Sería un honor», dijo Preston.

«Son tuyos.»

Jordan comenzó el juego débilmente y fuera de lugar. Jazz corrió a una ventaja de 16 puntos. Luego, Michael comenzó a saltar con 17 puntos solo en el segundo cuarto y terminó con 38 puntos, incluyendo un triple de menos de un minuto por delante que finalmente le dio la ventaja a los toros. Michael había llevado a su equipo a la victoria y se derrumbó en los brazos de Scottie Pippen cuando salió de la cancha con 6.2 segundos en el reloj. Después del juego, hubo caos en el vestuario. Preston encontró a Michael conectado a vías intravenosas, rodeado de amigos. Charles Barkley había vuelto. Mucha gente vino y se fue. Preston continuó observando los zapatos. En algún momento el jefe de equipo de la policía los recogió.

«No, no», dijo Michael. «Déjalos allí. Haré algo con ellos».

Señaló a Preston.

«Ese es Michael», dice. «Si él te dice que hará algo, lo hace».

Jordan recogió las zapatillas de deporte.

«Aquí, hombre», dijo. «Trabajaste duro por ello».

Más sobre ‘The Last Dance’

Había madera alrededor de la casa de Jordan. Es decir, él conoce el placer salvaje de jugar bajo su sombra, inventar mundos enteros, convertirse en vaquero o caballero, su hermano el enemigo jurado. Mike y su hermano Larry tenían armas BB. Les dispararon en el campo con sus abuelos y en los pequeños grupos de árboles que se consideran silvestres dentro de los límites de la ciudad y siempre se sintieron más grandes de lo que eran, como los niños de los agricultores que describen una zanja cercana como algo grandioso como el cañón.

Un día, Mike y Larry dispararon un nido de avispas y el enjambre cayó sobre ellos y sobresalió. Corrieron, gritaron y se arrojaron agua para detener la picadura. Sus padres estaban enojados con los niños por dispararle a la casa, pero los niños solo se reían y reían. Llevaban las armas con ellos como exploradores o soldados de infantería privados. Larry jugó a vaqueros e indios, se arrodilló, apuntó y le disparó a Mike en la pierna. Entonces Mike le disparó a Larry en la cara, solo faltaba para cegarlo a los ojos. Hubo mil llamadas cercanas como esta.

Las horas ardieron como la niebla de la mañana hasta que la cena llegó a la mesa y los mosquitos pulularon afuera. Una noche en el sur cobra vida con ruidos extraños y el zumbido silencioso e incorpóreo de la vida de los insectos. Es tan oscuro como el fondo marino más profundo. El bosque mantuvo en secreto sus secretos cuando se puso el sol. Michael también sabe que las sombras que pueden acechar alrededor de los viejos árboles por la noche, como la delgada membrana entre la tierra de los vivos y la tierra de los muertos, parecen porosas, agujeros abiertos por la misma imaginación que creó el juego de la luz del día.

LA TIERRA DONDE Mike es la clave del esqueleto: la forma de desbloquear muchas de las historias, mitos y leyendas jordanas. Viene de un lugar único con su propia historia, códigos y tradiciones, todo lo cual le dio su mejor arma: su propia confianza en sí mismo y su profundo depósito de poder. Las personas que volvieron con él a ver esta vieja casa pueden saber si está estacionado sentimentalmente frente a la casa. Cualquiera que haya visto «The Last Dance» puede escucharlo ahogarse y hablar sobre su padre y el costo de su competitividad. Estas dos ideas están conectadas para siempre. ¿Qué pasa si «The Last Dance» es realmente un documento para sus gemelos de 6 años? Tal vez llora en esta entrevista porque está cansado o incluso un poco borracho, pero también puede llorar porque cree que el documental es su última oportunidad para decirle a la gente cuál cree que es la máxima expresión de una persona. Realmente tiene.

Ahora mire nuevamente los zapatos de juego de gripe que le dio a Preston. Un genio loco en Nike llamado Tinker Hatfield diseñó estos zapatos. Tinker ahora es un abuelo que está poniendo en cuarentena el skate en su vecindario en Portland en estos días. Él dice que su familia de leñadores llegó a Oregon desde las colinas de Kentucky y Virginia Occidental y dejó su enemistad con los vecinos McCoys al este. Está fuera aquellos Hatfields.

Con su pasado lleno de enemistades y trabajo duro, Tinker se ha distinguido como futurista. Ayudó a Michael a ir en una línea similar entre su propio pasado y futuro. Juntos, inventaron una nueva forma de ser un atleta famoso en el mundo y representar dos mitades del mismo hombre.

«Él entiende un proceso», dice Hatfield sobre Jordan. «Un proceso de crear algo nuevo y diferente. Él puede imaginar algo».

La marca Jordan es la creación central: y ahora el creador central, en un ingenioso truco – El público Michael Jordan, el símbolo, el ciudadano del mundo. Mientras que los críticos culturales violaron a Jordania por vender zapatos a los republicanos, las personas que vivían en la misma parte del mundo de donde era no vieron las ciudades medianas del sur como Wilmington y las pequeñas ciudades rurales como Burgaw y Teachey que las compraron. Zapatos pero quién los vendió. ¿Cómo querían ser todos estos niños de todas las razas y clases? «Fue un cambio significativo», dijo Imani Perry, profesora de la Universidad de Princeton y uno de los principales pensadores de Estados Unidos, «para que toda la nación diga que quiere ser como un hombre negro de la zona rural de Carolina del Norte».

Michael convirtió su propio apellido en sinónimo de grandeza. Nike investiga mucho. Tienes datos profundos. Jordan Brand actualmente vende más de $ 3 mil millones en ropa y zapatos anualmente, principalmente a personas que nunca lo han visto jugar. El logotipo de Jumpman no se identifica como una silueta de una persona real en los grupos focales, aunque el nombre real de esa persona a menudo se imprime directamente arriba o abajo. El logotipo se ha convertido en lazos dorados o una manzana. Los encuestados dicen que esto simplemente significa excelencia. Esa fue la actitud de Barack Obama hacia Jordan cuando lo presentó a la ceremonia de la Medalla Presidencial de la Libertad en 2016. Si alguien es el mejor, bromeó Obama, lo llaman … «Michael Jordan, el rabino o Michael Jordan, el estabilizador del piragüismo».

Todos en la sala se rieron.

Michael se sentó en su silla y se inclinó hacia la mujer a su lado que acababa de recibir el honor de su difunta tía abuela. Él susurró: «¿Estabas nervioso?»

Luego se levantó y pasó junto a los co-beneficiarios Tom Hanks y Bruce Springsteen, así como a Diana Ross, Vin Scully y Robert Redford. Un soldado leyó su cita. Su madre estaba en la multitud. Por primera vez en mucho tiempo, no fue más grande que el momento. Apareció en su lenguaje corporal y en su rostro. Cuando vemos las famosas imágenes de Jordan agarrando el Trofeo Larry O’Brien, a menudo lo pesa y casi lucha, el hombre y su premio están entrelazados. Su agarre es agresivo. No se veía así cuando estaba junto a Obama y recibió su medalla. Él inclinó la cabeza para que el hombre más pequeño pudiera colocársela sobre el cuello. Él recibir eso. Este fue un objeto que se colocó sobre él, ninguno que él tomó. Una misericordia, no un requisito. Algo que se merece. En lugar de agacharse y esconder a su presa, se quedó allí con la medalla en el pecho. Miró a la multitud reunida con algo así como humildad y gratitud. Es uno de los pocos momentos en su vida pública en que parecía considerar y apreciar lo largo e improbable que había sido su viaje. En ese momento de pistolas con fundas, el trabajo que se requería para mantenerlas en alto y cargarlas cada segundo minuto de cada dos días se sentía pesado y real.

EN EL ÚLTIMO En la semana de su presidencia, Obama recibió un regalo especial: un par individual de Jordan IV retro con el sello del presidente y el logotipo de su campaña. Pero estos zapatos y cualquier otro par de legendarios Jordans casi nunca existieron. Dos personas salvaron la marca: Tinker Hatfield, un hombre que miraba hacia el futuro, y el padre de Michael, James, un hombre que entendía el pasado.

Hatfield se unió para liderar el equipo de diseño de Jordan, comenzando con los Jordan III. Volvamos a mediados de los 80. Incluso entonces, Tinker se veía bien con sombreros extravagantes. Necesitaría todo el mojo que pudiera reunir, vestuario y demás, porque le habían asignado un desafortunado cliente. Jordan se había roto el pie con Nikes, solo tres juegos en la temporada 1985/86.

«Le cabreó», dice Hatfield.

Jordan ahora tenía ofertas de otras compañías de zapatos. La competencia le susurró al oído que Nike no tenía las habilidades de diseño o la experiencia en marketing para cumplir con el bosque de promesas que había hecho. Incluso entonces, Jordan asustó a la gente. El tenía el poder. En el futuro, cuando los trajes de Nike se quejaron de que Hatfield hizo caso omiso de la cultura corporativa, pondría un trozo de papel con el número de teléfono celular de Jordan en la mesa en el futuro y desafiaría a los ejecutivos a llamarlo y decirle por qué él y Tinker estaban equivocados. Nadie marcó el número. Pero ese tipo de confianza tenía que ganarse, y para Hatfield comenzó con un viaje a Chicago.

Llegó al departamento de Michael. Jordan sabía que vendría. Tinker y el colega de Nike Howard White llamaron a la puerta. Nadie respondió. Golpearon más fuerte y luego oyeron un retumbar y un crujido en el sótano. Hatfield pensó que sonaba como un combate de lucha profesional. Tocó el timbre. Sin respuesta. Lo golpeó de nuevo. Finalmente oyeron una voz baja gritando para poder entrar. Tinker y Howard siguieron el sonido por las escaleras.

«Michael estaba comprometido», dice Hatfield ahora, «con su compañero de equipo Charles Oakley en un duro y loco juego de tenis de mesa que habla basura. Jugaron tenis de mesa como si fuera el último, el juego 7». Fue increíblemente competitivo y se habló de basura. Fue fisico. No nos hablaron. Finalmente resolviste el partido. Michael hat gewonnen. Er hat kaum jemals bei irgendetwas verloren. «

Michael und Tinker unterhielten sich ein wenig. Dann gingen sie zu Bigsby & Kruthers, wo die Schneider Michael für einen neuen Anzug ausstatteten. Nur eine Stunde zuvor hatte Michael ein Pingpong-Paddel wie eine Streitaxt verflucht und geschwungen, und jetzt führte er ein nachdenkliches, hochrangiges Designgespräch mit den Männern, die Stoffbolzen herausholten und ihm verschiedene Schnitte zeigten, die sie für das Revers machen konnten . Wenn es einen Moment gab, in dem Tinker Hatfield zum ersten Mal verstand, in welche Richtung sein Leben gehen würde, dann geschah dies dort, umgeben von Schneidern, die um Michael Jordan herum huschten.

Er ging zurück nach Portland und arbeitete rund um die Uhr.

Jordan kam in die Stadt, um die Trail Blazer zu spielen, und hielt in Hatfields Büro an. Tinker zeigte ihm einen Stapel Leder, der größtenteils von Möbelherstellern stammt. Derjenige, den Michael am meisten mochte, war mit Elefantenmustern versehen. Tinker hat es auch gefallen. Während sich die Nike-Chefs Sorgen machten, ihren neuen, lebenswichtigen Kunden zu verlieren, arbeiteten Hatfield und sein Team mit ihrer Fabrik in Asien zusammen, um ein Modell zu erstellen, das Jordan vorgestellt werden sollte.

In einem Hotelkonferenzraum in Orange County, Kalifornien, war ein Treffen geplant.

«Phil Knight war ziemlich überzeugt, dass Michael Nike verlassen würde», sagt Hatfield. «Phil war sehr, sehr besorgt. Ich denke, er war sich sicher, dass wir ihn verloren hatten. Es gab dieses letzte Treffen. Es war in diesem Hotel.»

Alle haben sich angemeldet.

Knight setzte sich. Der Nike-Marketingleiter nahm Platz. Tinker und Michaels Agenten auch. James und Deloris Jordan kamen ins Zimmer.

Dann warteten sie.

Stunden vergingen.

Jordans Eltern sahen beschämt aus.

«Sie sitzen dort sehr respektvoll und ruhig», sagt Hatfield. «Man konnte sehen, dass sie ein wenig gedämpft waren. Sie waren seine Eltern, die so viele Stunden in diesem Raum warten mussten.»

Niemand wusste, ob Michael es überhaupt zeigen würde.

«Wir haben vier Stunden gewartet», sagt Hatfield. «So lange dauert es, 18 Löcher Golf zu spielen. Soweit ich weiß, war Michael mit einigen potenziellen Partnern auf dem Golfplatz, und Howard war mit ihnen, aber er Ich habe versucht, Michael dazu zu bringen, den Golfplatz zu verlassen und zum Meeting zu gehen. «

Schließlich tauchte Michael auf.

Er war schlecht gelaunt, schmollend und desinteressiert – bis Tinker die Air Jordan III herausholte. Das veränderte den gesamten Tenor der Treffen, ebenso wie die Models, die die entsprechende Kleidung trugen, und der Rest ist Geschichte. Jordan blieb bei Nike und verdiente genug Geld, um eine Basketballmannschaft zu kaufen. Hatfield glaubte jahrelang, sein Schuhdesign habe das Unternehmen gerettet. Dann hörte er, was nach dem Ende des Treffens passiert war.

Michael ging nach draußen und sein Vater packte ihn auf dem Parkplatz.

«Sohn», sagte er, «das war deiner Mutter und mir peinlich.»

Michael entschuldigte sich.

«Was denkst du sollte ich tun?» er hat gefragt.

Sein Vater sagte, dass das Engagement von Nike gezeigt wurde, weil Phil Knight so lange gewartet hatte und seine Designfähigkeiten in den IIIs gezeigt wurden, und dass dies der richtige Schritt für seine Zukunft zu sein schien. Michael hörte zu. Hier begann die Legende – als North Carolina vor einem Hotel in Orange County seine Anziehungskraft ausübte. Von diesem Parkplatz bis zur Anerkennung durch den Präsidenten, nicht nur für seine sportlichen Fähigkeiten oder sein Marketing-Know-how, sondern auch für seinen Antrieb, seine Wettbewerbsfähigkeit, seine wesentliche Größe. It could be seen as a culmination of a life spent escaping a past, or a post-racial brand strategy anomaly, an American unicorn, or it could be seen in another way: a man actually fulfilling a destiny, carrying his family with him on his rise, coming from somewhere. Michael Jordan didn’t just appear. He was raised — by his parents, by a community, by the stories of those who came before.

More on MJ and the Bulls dynasty

ACT II

ONE OF THE great unexpected joys of these five weeks has been the rediscovery of the pregame theme music the Bulls used, «Sirius.» You know the song. Makes your hair stand up on your arms when the synth kicks in with its tumble of sixteenth notes. A heavy bass undercurrent makes the same kind of noise a big ship propeller does beneath the black waves, a diesel engine thump. The public address announcer, Ray Clay, has made a life out of his Jordan introduction. He’s done it for free in grocery stores shopping for vegetables, for money at bar mitzvahs and weddings. He even did it in Chapel Hill once at a Tar Heels event. A speech teacher helped him learn to push the air out with his stomach muscles instead of his chest and to manage the air in his lungs. Early in his career, he almost passed out after his opening, «AND NOW … «

«Breathing is very important,» he says.

The first few notes of the song are enough to make players and coaches from that era break out in hives. It really is menacing to listen to even now. «I always can remember that damn song playing,» Pat Riley told me recently. «It definitely alerted the opposition that a battle was about ready to begin, for real.»

There’s a version online I’ve been playing over and over, from Game 4 of the 1998 Finals. The crowd is as loud as the big arena speakers. The top comment on the video says, «Karl Malone hears this in his nightmares.» It’s thrilling even all these years later. After Clay announces the fourth starter, Ron Harper, the crowd gets louder — because he’s also 6-foot-6. They know what’s coming. Every child of the 1990s can almost recite Clay’s next words by heart, how he says Jordan’s home like he’s talking about Sparta or something: FROM NORTH CAROLINA … That signifies many worlds. Not just North Carolina but coastal Carolina, always different than the mountains or the Piedmont plain; and not just coastal Carolina but Wilmington, and not just Wilmington but the rural riverbank swamps stretching out from the edge of town. And not just generic swamps but two in particular. Holly Shelter and Angola Bay. That’s where the Jordans come from. A tight wedge of brackish land outside Wilmington bordered by Highways 17 and 24 to the south and north, and Highways 117 and 50 to the west and east. Keep drilling down, before names and roads and any of that, go all the way back, because these 560 square miles of land tell you as much about the man as a story about being cut from a basketball team ever did. «There is a lot of power in staying connected,» says Zandria Robinson, a Georgetown professor studying race, gender, popular culture and the U.S. South. «There is power in that particular kind of rearing too — all that work. This is why they stayed connected to that land.»

Long before Michael Jordan came into the world, this is where he was born.

THE LAND EXISTED before humans ever took from it, carved homesteads from it, stalked its bounty for food and pleasure. Time moves differently back in the woods. Progress is a word that means fancier surfaces on the roads and pickup trucks instead of horse-pulled chairs with leather straps instead of springs. Before Highway 117 was a concrete road covered with asphalt, resurfaced seven years ago by a high school teammate of Jordan’s, it was a wide dirt path that mirrored the Northeast Cape Fear River, running past a dozen or so plantation homes. And before that, it was nothing. A rut for deer maybe. Or a footpath used by the band of Iroquois who lived there first.

The first plantation up the Northeast Cape Fear River was called Stag Park.

The land was named on a Monday afternoon, Nov. 12, 1663, when a group of white Englishmen from Barbados explored the river for the first time and came upon a tract of land without many trees and covered in lush, long grass — perfect for clearing. They saw turkeys and ducks. Several wolves howled. They stopped and watched a wolf tear an animal to pieces. They picked and ate wild grapes. On the northwest side of the river, they saw an enormous deer, with a mighty spread of points, and that’s where they got the name for the land.

Governor George Burrington lived there first.

Samuel Strudwick got it after his death.

Ezekiel Lane Sr. got it from his family.

Upon Ezekiel’s death, his granddaughter Mary Elizabeth Lane inherited Stag Park and 16 slaves. She married a Georgia preacher and together they ran Stag Park until around 1880.

The preacher’s name was Jesse Jordan.

All that’s left of the Stag Park empire is a silver historical marker on the side of 117. The land was cut into smaller and smaller pieces with each passing generation. Some of Jesse Jordan’s descendants still live there. But the land always remains. Nearly four hundred years later and in the dark woods, no time at all has passed. Maybe the light now comes from million candle power Q-Beams instead of whale oil lamps. But it remains wild territory. These are gothic inland narrows. «Gothic» is the adjective Martin Scorsese used with his director of photography when they wanted to re-create the Wilmington coast for the film «Cape Fear.» The movie is composed so that the actual light degrades over time, to reflect the inner turmoil of the characters and to mirror the way the humidity and weird ocean currents can make the tidewater air shimmer sometimes. Black bears still hunt through these swamps. Vast woods of longleaf pine and 800-year-old cypress-tupelo trees tower over this landscape. Songbirds fill the air with sweet noise. Big whitetail deer, heads crowned with enormous medieval-looking racks, still move like shadows in and out of the forest. This is where five generations of Jordan men lived and died.

«The kind of mystical ways that people have described Jordan over the years can be frankly connected to what it is like to be on ancestral land,» Zandria Robinson says. «They are living on Southern ancestral land. It’s rare that it’s physical in this kind of way — these multiple generations lived in this same area. Our ancestors walked their land, they buried s— out here, worked out here, died out here, buried each other out here. … This is ancestral land.»

The land is never just dirt and loam and clay and slate. It contains everything that has ever lived on or in it, fossils of tiny animals, the spirits of the people who tried to make their agrarian’s stand, and the evil men have done to one another to control a piece of paper filed in something called a courthouse that the law says gives them title. And when the laws are corrupted and the courthouse collapses, the land will remain. Every man and woman, every race and tribe and family, makes their own history, on their land, in their dirt. They bury things that mean something only to them.

Every history is deeply personal. Every history is unique.

More from Wright Thompson

FIVE GENERATIONS OF Jordan men came before Michael and he knew three of them: his father, James, his grandfather William and his great-grandfather Dawson. Dawson’s father was born a slave in 1862 and everyone called him Dick. In the 64 years he lived, before his heart and kidneys failed and he died in a Wilmington hospital, he went from slavery to owning his own home. He learned to read and could borrow the supplies needed to farm vegetables on his own credit. Like the men in a lot of families, he was a truck farmer. On Dick’s death certificate, filled out with a typewriter, is the only evidence that seine father ever lived. John Jordan and his wife, Alice, came and went from this earth and left virtually no trace of themselves behind. Think about that in the context of «The Last Dance.»

There’s no history showing where John Jordan was born or where he was held captive as a slave. Based on his research into property and burial records, Pender County historian Mike Taylor says John likely worked the fields at Jesse Jordan’s plantation. New documents are being found all the time, old wills and business papers, even maps of the swamps to the east of Highway 117. «The Angola Bay map that is attached was made in 1883,» Taylor says, «and was discovered in a cache of surveys found in an old barn in a neighboring county only this past year. Michael Jordan’s ancestry in America is rooted in this region going back to Colonial days. They are rooted to land, first enslaved working on land in Stag Park. I believe some of his enslaved ancestors are likely buried on this land.»

There’s one piece of old paper that podría have John Jordan’s name on it. When Ezekiel Lane died and his granddaughter Mary Jordan inherited those 16 slaves, their first names were listed in the probate documents, filled out by hand. First names only. Old Sam and his wife, Beck. Little Sam, Little Moses and Ben Judge. Plato and his wife, Amy. There is only one listing for a mother and child, according to the custom of listing a woman first and a man second only if the male was actually an infant or a toddler. Too young to work. The document lists, among the 16, a woman named Molly or Millie and a John. That’s probably Michael Jordan’s great-great-great-grandfather. Probably. There’s no way to ever know for sure.

That’s not an accident.

Historians and genealogists talk about the difficulty of cracking «the 1870 brick wall,» because census takers didn’t record even the first names of slaves. It wasn’t because they didn’t know the names. Census takers were locals, and as court and probate records from that time show, nearly everyone knew the names of local slaves. The U.S. Congress forced census takers not to write down names or place of birth, which created the wall — which erased them from history but not from the land.

CONSIDER WHERE THIS family history is leading. Leave Stag Park and go a century into the future for a moment. Sit with James and Deloris Jordan on Gordon Road, after their kids had gone to bed, the summer air hot and humid outside. When they wanted to go commune with the past, they sometimes went inland toward the swamps and farms. But when they wanted to dream, they went the other direction. They slipped out of the quiet house and got into their car, making the drive from memory: Gordon Road to Highway 117 until, not even 15 minutes later, they parked at the Atlantic Ocean. The smell of salt hung in the air. Sometimes they just sat in the car beneath the moonlight, and sometimes they walked hand in hand along the sandy dunes. The conversation inevitably turned to the dreams they shared for all of their five children. They wanted them to be men and women of integrity and work. They put that dream into action. James and Deloris Jordan created the America they wanted in how they taught their children to move through the world.

They told Michael to turn all negative events into positives, which later became his armor made of slights. Michael’s mother wrote children’s books after he got famous, and in one of them, her parenting philosophy was revealed: Saying you want something is fine and well, a good start, but doing something about it is what really counts. At the end of that book, when the mother puts her son to bed after his first successful basketball game, she tells him with pride, «I guess you aren’t just a dreamer but a doer, Michael.»

That idea is what this ground was nurturing for all those years. It’s what Zandria meant when she talked about the power of Southern ancestral land.

EVERY 10 YEARS, when the census takers would fan out around the countryside, when roads were makeshift things and not codified government projects, they’d find a Jordan man living in the same pie-slice-shaped wedge of land where they had always been. Dawson lived on Holly Shelter Road in 1920, Bannerman’s Bridge Road in 1930. Both of those are tucked into bends in the river, where the old Stag Park plantation used to be, where Dawson used to work a boat.

By 1940, Dawson Jordan lived between the swamps, Holly Shelter to the south and Angola Bay to the north. The year before, he’d worked 52 weeks straight and made $300. His son, William, and grandson lived with him too. The boy’s name was James R. Jordan. James was 4 years old, and 23 years from the birth of his son the basketball star, Michael Jeffrey Jordan, living back near the swamp with the son of a former slave — 17 miles northwest of Highway 117 where it intersects Burgaw and a half-hour drive, looping to either the north or the south of the Angola Bay swamp, from that house to the cemetery where James Jordan would one day be buried.

There are a lot of people still around those rural counties who remember the sound of Dawson’s deep bass voice. He drove a mule-drawn cart even after the first rocket sent a man into space. He made and sold moonshine out in the swamps and made extra money as a cook at the Wallace Hunting Club, the kind of hand-me-down place that shows up alongside church memberships and military service in small-town obituaries. They kept a low-slung camp, covered in unpainted clapboard, fronted by a porch with no railing. The front door led to a dining room with one long table taking up most of the space.

An old man named Frank Futch used to go there with his grandfather as a young hunter and still remembers Dawson sitting on a box collecting money, or on a nearby bench with one of his great-grandsons — most likely Michael’s oldest brother, Ronnie. Dawson liked to mix vodka and Coca-Cola and sip while he cooked deer meat or pork chops or chicken. He made a pot of rice with every meal. Sometimes, when he’d doze off, one of the hunters, an undertaker in one of the nearby towns, would tiptoe over and pretend to start measuring the sleeping man. Dawson would startle awake, laugh and yell at the man, «Get away from me! I ain’t dead!»

MICHAEL JORDAN GREW up with all these stories. He knew Dawson, who died in 1977 — the year Michael started high school at Laney — and would later describe the old man as «tough,» tearing up at the memory.

His childhood lives in the back-home stories he tells. There’s the pig story and the ax story and the BB gun story and the horse in the cornfield story, to name a few. Unlike the usual greatest-hits montage he spins for interviewers, these remain personal to him, and he gets wary if you bring them up — like, who in my life is talking out of school?

Mike used to ride horses around his family’s land until one threw him off and drug him through a cornfield. His foot got caught in the stirrup, and for a quarter of a mile, he bounced on the tilled ground and got ripped through the stalks. It was 38 miles from the Jordan boys’ house to the grandparents’ place out in the country. Every weekend they went out there and just roamed around.

«Michael is loyal as s—. If you are in his circle, you are in his circle. A tribe is the best way to describe it.»

Nicholi Wozniak, son of Michael John Wozniak, a former member of Jordan’s security

At 6 or 7, Mike went outside with an ax, mainly because his parents had told him not to play with it, and started chopping up wood and little branches, like he’d seen the grown-ups do. Then he misjudged and caught his big toe with the ax. There was blood everywhere, and he went screaming into his parents’ house. His mom took him to a local doctor, and a lady there put kerosene on his foot to disinfect it. To this day, he’s missing a quarter of an inch of his big toe.

Around the same age he had another brilliant idea: slip beneath the electric wire surrounding the hog pen and aggravate some of the pigs. The Jordan boys thought it was hilarious to dance in the mud and make the pigs chase them around honking and snorting. A particularly annoyed sow disagreed. She chased Mike toward the fence, and as he prepared to leap over the top wire to safety, he tripped. Caught the electric wire right across his chest. About had his teeth chattering, he got shocked so bad, and left him with a burn across his chest. When he went inside for some sympathy, his parents told him, «You shouldn’t have been out there messing with the pigs.»

One time, Larry wrecked a Yamaha 60 dirt bike with Mike on the back of it. Both of ‘em got all skinned up but feared the wrath of their father even more. So they wrapped their cuts in tissue and then put on long-sleeve shirts to hide their arms. In the North Carolina summer. James got suspicious, eyeing the boys as they sat at the dinner table, trying to figure out what they were up to. Right about then is when Michael’s elbow started bleeding — through his shirt.

«Take off that damn long-sleeve shirt,» Mr. Jordan commanded.

Mike complied, revealing the disaster of his arms. His dad sold the bike.

Another time, some neighborhood kids were throwing footballs and shoes and stuff at the family’s electric meter. One connected and broke it. Mike’s grandmother was furious and told Mike’s father, who said he’d take care of it.

He called all the neighborhood kids over to the garage.

«One way in, one way out,» Michael foreshadows when telling the story later. He’s a good storyteller. Mr. Jordan told the kids he wanted to give them some cake and ice cream, and like suckers, they all bought it. Mike’s grandmother saw what was coming and pulled him in to help her in the kitchen, keeping him out of the line of fire. That’s when they heard the screaming. Mike’s dad was in there giving out whippings to all the kids, not just his own. They all ran crying to their parents, who then went over to confront Mr. Jordan.

They found him on the porch, smoking a cigarette.

«You beat my kid?» they asked.

«You damn right,» he replied.

IT WAS 1977 when Jordan’s life got divided into two halves. One potential, one kinetic. A past full of spirits and ancestors, influences and guides; a future full of choices and conflict, dead ends and golden roads. Ninth grade really pissed him off. He got suspended on the first day of school, breaking a record of perfect attendance. All his discipline problems were driven by this sense of unfairness that had taken up residence inside him. It started with the miniseries «Roots.» The racial injustice that had shaped his family suddenly became real to him. He raged against anything he couldn’t control. He’d prove himself to everyone.

That carried over to the next year, when he tried out for varsity basketball for the first time. This is where the myth of Michael Jordan was born, and in nearly all retellings of his life, including in «The Last Dance,» all roads lead back to this tryout and this rejection. The mother road is erased and a new path is laid out. That’s almost true. The mother road is erased for the public but not for him. He never forgets. Anything.

On the day he didn’t make the varsity basketball team as a sophomore, he stood in the school gymnasium that would one day bear his name, and he scrolled down one of two lists hung on the door, and when he didn’t see his name but did see the name of his classmate Leroy Smith, he rushed home in a rage. The road that took him home that afternoon in November of 1978 was Highway 117.

«My biggest lesson about people came from my father. … You could talk to him for two or three hours and not know a f—ing thing in two or three hours. But at the same time, you’ll say he’s a nice gentleman. He never gave any family secrets away. I’ve got that trait. I use it.»

Michael Jordan

In that moment, he began to understand the focus he could find by turning everyone and everything into an adversary. Like when he told the story, to himself and everyone else, that he was cut from the basketball team by a coach who doubted his talent. Turns out, he wasn’t really cut at all. No, he didn’t make the team. But according to a famous Sports Illustrated story, that’s because the coach recognized his immense talent and put him on junior varsity, where he’d get more minutes a game. Clifton «Pop» Herring, that coach, later found himself taunted by Michael’s story about what happened for decades.

«The thing is, people in Wilmington who knew the story,» says Pop’s daughter, Paquita Yarborough, «they didn’t hate that Michael was a hometown hero, but they hated the story was never set straight. That’s what people’s irritation really was. Part of the story was for his brand. Part of the story was to sell shoes and products and ‘You can be like me, I got cut. Then after that I became the greatest basketball player who ever lived.’ It is annoying. It’s very annoying. I have intentionally not watched Michael Jordan things. I had no clue there was a documentary.»

When Pop died last December, the Jordan family sent flowers. Paquita wrote her father’s obituary. Four hundred and twenty-two words and not one of them was «Michael» or «Jordan.»

THE JORDAN FAMILY and the Herring family are connected by a shared history that goes a lot deeper than one basketball tryout — that history is reflected in Pulitzer Prize winner David Zucchino’s new book,»Wilmington’s Lie.» It’s about an organized and violent white coup of the city in 1898 — exactly 100 years before the events of «The Last Dance.» The two stories were released within months of each other and are interesting to consider together. One describes the fall of black Wilmington, and the other chronicles the rise of the most successful black Wilmingtonian.

Wilmington on the eve of the 20th century was a model for an American city three decades after the guns of the Civil War fell silent. Zucchino paints a picture of an integrating city. Three of the 10 aldermen were black. Ten of the 26 policemen. Black merchants were free to set up in the city market. There was a black coroner and jailer, and the only daily Negro paper in the world, as its masthead said. The paper had white advertisers. Black men didn’t need to look at the ground when they passed a white man on the street. In 1880, Wilmington had the highest share of black residents of any Southern city, 60%, as compared to Atlanta’s 44% and New Orleans’ 27%. The neighborhoods were integrated. The courts were integrated. Black magistrates sentenced white defendants. A black middle class grew with each year. In 1898, Zucchino writes, the American Baptist Publication Society called it «the freest town for a negro in the country.»

That didn’t mean everyone in the city accepted what Wilmington was becoming.

There were two cultures living side by side, competing for the future of their home. Blacks and white Republicans, for instance, celebrated Memorial Day, laying wreaths at the American military cemetery in town. White Democrats, the political party of the slave-owning class, refused to honor American dead. They even tried to have Market Street moved so they wouldn’t have to suffer the indignity of walking past the soldiers’ graves. Earlier in May, they celebrated Confederate Memorial Day instead.

That was Wilmington as the 1898 election approached.

There are two great books on what happened next, but basically two groups of elite white citizens formed secret committees to overthrow the government if the election didn’t go as they wanted. The mostly Irish immigrants were enlisted as muscle. The treasonous army called itself the Red Shirts. So many white people bought guns in the lead-up to the election that the stores in the city ran out and had to request an emergency restock from dealers in Richmond and Baltimore. Like the Ku Klux Klan 30 years before, or again 30 years after, the Red Shirts rode in the night, yanking outspoken black citizens from their homes.

Two days after the election, the Red Shirts went looking for blood. A crowd of black longshoremen and stevedores who loaded cotton on the docks came back to their neighborhood to protect their families. A black store owner tried to reason with men to leave before the whites arrived.

«For the sake of your lives, your families, your children and your country, go home and stay there,» he begged. «We are powerless.»

They faced a choice. They chose to stay.

That’s when the shooting started.

The Red Shirts killed a still unknown number of people. At least 60 black persons died. As Zucchino reported, the mob forced the resignation of the mayor, all of the aldermen and the chief of police. The black newspaper was burned down. Many black residents with money, power or education were forced to leave the city, along with white politicians who supported equality — in some cases at gun point. Three days later, the white preachers of Wilmington told their congregation they’d done the Lord’s work.

«God from the beginning of time intended that intelligent white men should lead the people and rule the country,» said a Baptist minister named James Kramer, who’d carried a rifle into the streets.

No conspirator was ever charged with a crime.

North Carolina’s Jim Crow laws grew out of this moment. Its aftermath can be seen in the generations of stagnated lives, yes, but perhaps the cold arithmetic of numbers reveals the terrible legacy of the coup most pointedly. In 1896, according to The New Yorker, there were 126,000 registered black voters in the state. Six years later, there were only 6,100. Black families fled the city, some moving north, others hunkering out in the swampy longleaf pine forests like the Jordans. On the morning of the coup, 56% of Wilmington’s citizens were black. Two years later, the majority of citizens were white. Today, 76% of the city is white and only 18% is black.

The African American population living in and around Wilmington for the past 120 years has internalized a lesson that parts of America have too often tried to ignore. Michael learned it early. Once, he and his white best friend, David Bridges, went swimming at a friend’s house. The parents weren’t home. The boys were around 12. When the parents returned and saw a black kid in the pool, they ordered everyone out. Michael and David walked away, and as David tried to comfort his friend, they heard everyone jump back in the pool.

Michael has never told the story in public, just as he’s never publicly commented on the 1898 massacre in Wilmington, not once, even in passing. Michael’s great-grandfather Dawson was 6 in 1898 and didn’t die until Michael’s 14th birthday. He didn’t need to read a book. He knew someone who lived through it. «I’m sure the family was aware and just laid low,» Zucchino says. «A lot of people didn’t talk about it. It was too painful and it died out after a few generations.»

This history stayed buried for a long time, and when it did get passed down in words, it was usually told as a «war» in black homes and washed over as a «riot» in white ones. Two important books prior to Zucchino’s exposed that history. One, by Helen Edmonds, was published in 1951 and enraged the Wilmington establishment by calling out their lies. The second was by H. Leon Prather Sr. His came out in the winter of 1984, on the same day Michael Jordan scored 19 points as the Tar Heels beat Clemson to extend a winning streak to 18 games.

BETWEEN 1984 AND 2003, Michael Jordan became the most famous person in the world as his family members went on with their lives. Michael sucked up all the oxygen, which might be why few people noticed that around the same time Michael quit basketball the first time, his oldest brother volunteered for the Army’s parachute training school at Fort Benning. James Jordan Jr., known to his family as Ronnie, was much older than the rest of the candidates for the coveted jump wings.

The house on Gordon Road sat between the Army’s Fort Bragg and the Marine Corps’ Camp Lejeune. The same North Carolina forests that once hid runaway slaves now hide soldiers and Marines on training runs through the night, wearing face paint and dark forest camo. Fighting has always offered a way out for country folks, black and white. Michael grew up surrounded by the military. His father, James, served in the Air Force. Ronnie chose the Army. He graduated from high school on a Friday and enlisted that Sunday. He needed a new way. His mother felt like someone had died. Their house missed his enormous presence, and losing that energy left a palpable hole, especially for his mother. For many years afterward, she refused to go into his room.

Command Sgt. Maj. Jordan, as his soldiers called him, is an American stalwart. Here’s an example. His 30 years arrived just as his brigade was deploying to a war zone for Operation Iraqi Freedom. Jordan wrote a letter asking for special dispensation to stay in uniform and go to war with his men. «Here’s a guy who had 30 years in and had nothing to gain by deploying,» says his commanding officer, Col. Bryan Ellis. «And, of course, he had everything to lose, up to and including his life. And he never hesitated.»

Ellis and Jordan protected each other in Iraq. Almost nobody ever asked Ronnie about his famous brother. They flew all over the country, and when the brigade rotated home, Jordan could finally retire. The Army held a big celebration at Fort Bragg, in North Carolina. Ellis held a seat open. He posted young soldiers at either end of the parade field, by the sidewalk to the parking lot.

«Sergeant Major has a guest coming,» he said. «You’ll recognize him.»

The ceremony started, and standing up on the review stand, Ellis heard a rumble through the crowd. He looked up to see a star-struck young soldier escorting Michael Jordan to a seat. When the presentation ended, a crowd swarmed Michael, who was polite but quickly made an exit.

«He knew this was his brother’s special day,» he says.

That day, the Jordan family gathered at Ronnie’s home near the base. Ellis came and brought his 10-year-old son. They walked out onto the patio and saw all the uncles in a crowd. Michael was with them, holding a Corona and a cigar. The colonel grabbed a beer and a little later felt a hand on his back. He turned around and found himself face-to-face for the first time with the most famous man on the planet. Jordan stuck out his hand.

«I’m Michael,» he said. «I’ve heard a lot about you.»

ACT III

«THE LAST DANCE» premiered on Sunday, April 19.

That night, the people who produced the film all gathered on a Zoom call to raise a toast to director Jason Hehir. A cast of ESPN folks joined the virtual toast. Some Netflix people were there too, as was NBA commissioner Adam Silver, top Disney executive Bob Iger and ESPN president Jimmy Pitaro. The heavy hitters. All of Jordan’s executives were in high spirits, and then, in the top corner of the screen, Michael popped into view. Michael Jordan! Even his appearance thrilled some of the executives on the call. Everyone toasted Jason, who raised a White Russian — he’s a «Big Lebowski» fan — in appreciation. Jordan raised a glass of tequila in salute and made a joke.

He hoped his mama wasn’t gonna get mad at him for all his foul language in the film.

The first episode began and «The Last Dance,» like so much of Jordan’s life, was then public property, to be considered, debated, judged. In The New York Times, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Wesley Morris compared the film to the Oscar-winning «Made in America,» highlighting what he saw as a difference between Jordan’s place in the culture and that of Barack Obama, Muhammad Ali or even OJ Simpson. «Jordan is as important but less transcendent,» he wrote. «Less polarizing, less political, therefore less politicized.»

Less political has always been Jordan’s most tender spot. The fear that despite absolute devotion to his craft he might still be found wanting. The kind of man who might dominate the game for years, or the culture for a few weeks at a time, but wouldn’t change the world. Michael has found his voice late in life, speaking out against police violence, donating millions to charities designed to bridge the chasm of mistrust between cops and the communities they patrol. He supported NFL players kneeling in public and raised money for Barack Obama. But he is still the man who grew up around rural African Americans who believed that the only way to succeed in America, to defend yourself and your family, was to work twice as hard as everyone else. «That ‘work twice as hard as white folks’ s— we all heard growing up,» Kiese Laymon says, «came right from our grandparents.»

Jordan left North Carolina for Chicago carrying souls with him, like passengers, like roots. He became a superstar and a global icon, but he was never not also a member of a family that lived through slavery and the coup of 1898 and Jim Crow and on and on. His family, and their sliver of land, shaped him, taught him how to survive and struggle, how to surpass. Watching Jordan on the screen in the documentary, listening as he says again and again that he will outwork you, whoever you are, raises what just might be the essential Michael Jordan question: Isn’t working that hard and achieving all that it brings, and never letting go of your approach, isn’t that its own kind of yard sign? How, exactly, can Michael Jordan’s life be apolitical?

«It es political,» Imani Perry tells me emphatically when I raise the question with her. «Black Southern folks in particular, it is political. In it there is a transcendence of the expectations of what space you’re gonna occupy.»

That idea runs counter to the way the culture usually judges Jordan. It reframes his story. Michael Jordan’s life is as much an act of protest as carrying a sign or speaking out against a war.

«THE LAST DANCE» will live in the streaming world, first at ESPN and later at Netflix, but the moment of its cultural domination will soon start to fade. That’s the duality for someone like Jordan. Even as he catches glimpses of his own immortality, he is also confronted with the very real passage of time. Three of his old bodyguards have died, including two in the past two years. These were the men who knew him best. They called him Black Jesus. When John Michael Wozniak would beat him in cards or coin tossing or any other inane competition, he’d sing the Doobie Brothers as a taunt: «Jesus is just alright with me … Jesus is just alright.»

Their mortality shook Jordan, who had kept up with them even after his playing days were done. When Gus Lett got cancer, Michael got him moved from a South Side Chicago hospital to Northwestern Medical Center, paid his bills and told the doctors to treat that old man in the bed exactly like they’d treat Michael Jordan. When Clarence Travis retired from the police department, his friends threw a party at a White Sox game. Jordan showed up. When Joe Rokas retired, an enormous television set arrived at his front door.

«Michael is loyal as s—,» says Nicholi Wozniak. «If you are in his circle, you are in his circle. A tribe is the best way to describe it.»

Michael’s staff says he couldn’t even talk about Gus when the cancer came back. It hurt him too bad.

Wozniak was the last one still working for Jordan, guarding his big estate in Highland Park. John Michael fought his cancer hard, but the end came quick earlier this year. Nicholi was with his family in Nashville when he got the call that he needed to rush home. He boarded a Southwest flight into Midway, an hour without his phone, no one to know what was happening up there ahead of him. When he landed, he knew from the messages that he was too late. His father had died. There was a voicemail on his phone too, a message of condolence that had arrived midflight.

It was from Michael.

JORDAN IS PROBABLY playing golf right now. He’s 57. Who knows if he’ll ever dominate the culture like this again? He’s living with his family in a mansion overlooking the 16th green of a course in Jupiter, Florida. It’s a swank gated community of trust fund loafers, military-industrial CEOs and hedge fund billionaires.

His basketball team in Charlotte is still in quarantine limbo. Both of Michael’s brothers work for the Hornets. He sends the now-retired command sergeant major to owners meetings in his stead. Michael hired his brothers because he trusts them. That’s also why he took such care of his security guards for all those years.

«My biggest lesson about people came from my father,» Michael told me that afternoon in Carolina. «He could talk to anybody. He could get along with anybody. But he never let people into his life. He never let people see his thoughts. His secrets. I have those traits. I can sit and talk to all the different sponsors, and they know only as much as I want them to know. I am always able to maintain that mystique. You could talk to him for two or three hours and not know a f—ing thing in two or three hours. But at the same time, you’ll say he’s a nice gentleman. He never gave any family secrets away. I’ve got that trait. I use it.»

Keeping your head down and your thoughts to yourself, working hard, never trusting, never easing up even for a moment. It was a choice. Michael Jordan was born into a world of predators, and into a line of survivors, and he studied on how to win. That’s the real wonder of him up close. Not being near his fame or even the legend. It’s seeing the full expression of a kind of person. A child was taught how to survive in a world of wolves and he used that knowledge to become the alpha wolf. I picture him leaning back in his office chair in 2013 in Charlotte. Special fans clean the air of the smoke trailing in a lazy line up from his cigar. Inside he’s thinking about whom he might still be able to prove wrong.

Walking through a hallway in the arena he owns, he smiled.

You couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

«You won’t,» he said. «I’ve been trained my whole life: maintain your emotions, don’t do anything to give out a misconception of what your thoughts or feelings are.»

The lights were off. Nobody was around. Well, that’s sort of true. There are always people walking with Michael, invisible but shoulder to shoulder, every step of the way. There’s Mike Jordan of 4647 Gordon Road, and of course James Jordan, may he rest in peace, and Ronnie and Larry, and all those Jordan men who came before, Dawson and William and Richard and John. Especially John, whose great-great-great-grandson learned to fly.

He whistled in the dark as he walked alone toward his car.

Inside his expensive shoes he had nine and three-quarter toes.

MICHAEL JORDAN DOESN’T like to come home. He said once that he senses some malevolent forces waiting to pull him back into this place he escaped. But home remains a source of his power. One year on Easter, he took his now-wife, Yvette, back to Gordon Road. They drove down Highway 117 between his old house and Laney High, because she needed to see it and he needed to show it to her.

«I was a normal guy,» he told me. «I grew up in a normal house.»

The first free male of Michael Jordan’s line was Richard James Jordan, born a slave in 1862 and freed three years later. As he neared 60, having seen both the Civil War and the 1898 coup, Richard lived on Acorn Branch Creek, which has now mostly been filled in and covered with modern Wilmington. A tiny trickle still runs in a nature reserve between the Wilmington Airport and Highway 117. People like to mountain-bike there. A century ago, Acorn Branch Creek ran directly beneath what is now Gordon Road. The Jordan family had survived for six generations in these hard tidewater counties, moving up and down Highway 117, and by the time Mike Jordan was a boy, he lived almost exactly on a spot where the last slave in the family had lived too.

«Like the T-shirts say,» Zandria Robinson says, «he’s his ancestors’ wildest dreams.»

He went along 117 every day, from the house to high school, before he moved away. The drive takes seven minutes. About halfway off to the left there’s a tiny cemetery hidden now behind an industrial park. A chain-link fence surrounds it. Spanish moss hangs from the skeletal winter trees. Once it was called Acorn Branch Colored Grave Yard. Slaves were buried there before the war. The county runs it today, and a local official said that any African American buried in the small Wrightsboro neighborhood back then was almost certainly buried at Acorn Branch. A lot of the cemetery records have been lost or thrown away, but in the remaining files, that official found paperwork showing Richard’s widow and his son and daughter-in-law are buried at Acorn Branch. Richard is almost certainly buried there too. All four of them in unmarked graves.

The cemetery is just to the east of 117 and a mile north of Gordon Road.

Mike passed it every day and now Michael was passing it again with Yvette, pointing to his home and to the gymnasium where he tells people he got cut. They drove around town for an hour and a half. Yvette asked a lot of questions. She knew all about Air Jordan, about the shoes and the rings, but didn’t know anything about where any of that came from, where the man disappeared and the legend began. Going home with him changes a lot of things. Puts him in focus. That long-ago United Center introduction, accompanied by strobes and lasers and those chill bump sixteenth notes, undercut by a rumbling bass line buried down deep, feels different. Watch that sequence from the 1998 Finals again. Listen to it build. The man in the middle! Michael Jordan is sitting on the bench, waiting to hear his name, the most famous man in the world at the absolute peak of his powers, Richard Jordan’s wildest dream. Now listen as the announcer leans into his microphone and uses his stomach muscles to bring up enough air. He remembers to breathe and then cuts through the storm of noise.

«From North Carolina … «