how do you expect me to sleep?

The Celtics convened to celebrate their championship (1986) at the downtown restaurant owned by K.C. Jones. Bird, while elated, was also exhausted. The days of bumming rides from fans on Storrow Drive and partying until the wee hours of the morning were behind him. He was home and in bed by 10:30 P.M. His phone rang throughout the evening, but he ignored it. All he wanted to do was sleep.

“Bill Walton is on the phone,” Dinah said.

“No,” Bird answered. “I’m done.”

Just after midnight, the doorbell rang at Bird’s Brookline home. Walton stood sheepishly on his doorstep.

“I know you’re tired,” said his friend, “and I know you’re in bed. But I’m going to sit out here and listen to the Grateful Dead, and I’ll be here when you wake up.”

Bird shrugged, patted his friend on the shoulder, then headed back to his bedroom. Walton sat in his friend’s kitchen all night, nursing a glass of Wild Turkey and reveling in the moment.

“I sat there and enjoyed how wonderful it was to be on a team with Larry Bird,” Walton said. “I was an old broken-down player who could appreciate what had just happened. Larry, Kevin, and Robert were still young enough to think it would last forever.

“I knew that wasn’t so.”

When Bird awoke the next morning and got up to take a shower, he wasn’t sure if he dreamed Bill Walton’s visit. He poked his head into his kitchen and saw the big redhead sitting there, just as he had left him.

“Hey,” Bird said. “Did you fall asleep?”

“Larry,” Walton answered, “we are world champions. How do you expect me to sleep?”



When the Game Was Ours, by Larry Bird, Earvin “Magic” Johnson & Jackie MacMullan. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009