The Life Of Brian

Brian Williams gets home after practice, and his personal chef is cooking lunch. Williams takes a seat at a kitchen counter and checks out the headlines in the morning paper. As usual, none of the news is good: Another snowstorm is on its way from Canada, and the Detroit Pistons still have a crummy record.

The chef, Darryl Davis, is panfrying catfish, and smoke rises in piles from the stove. Today, along with the fish, Davis is serving Williams and a guest Cajun shrimp, a bean dish and a green salad crowded with croutons as big as alphabet blocks.

"Brian has to have everything fresh," Davis says. "Fresh carrots, fresh peas. See that grapefruit juice he's drinking?" Williams holds up a glass. "Fresh," Davis says.

Williams picks at the soul patch under his lip and throws a look at the guy he's invited to lunch. It's a long time before Williams speaks. "When are we serving the dirt?" he asks. "Is that what you're thinking?"

The man doesn't respond, because he has food in his mouth. But if he could say something, it would be: "So you mean that's not true, either?"

"The dirt thing is bull——," Williams says, seeming to read his visitor's mind. "It's complete and utter bull——. No, man, I've never eaten dirt—not for nutrients and not because it tastes good and not for any reason. Well, let me correct that. I have eaten dirt before, but it was only by accident. I fell off my mountain bike."

Davis gives Williams a second helping of fish, and he goes at it without saying anything. Williams, 6'11" and 260 pounds, seems to be trying to prove something. "People must think I'm some kind of oddball," he says at last, "because only an oddball would eat dirt for nutrients, right?"

But once again his guest is quiet. This Davis fellow can really cook.

There were other stories before the one about Williams's eating dirt, and there have been plenty of other stories since. Williams, 28, the starting center for a Pistons team that was 22-25 at the All-Star break, has his own peculiar mythology, and for years it's been dragging behind him like tin cans on string.

"I guess you heard I like to jump from airplanes, too, huh?" he asks, giving his head a shake. "The truth is, I skydived once, just once, down in Florida. I took a course for four hours, and then I had two instructors, one on each side of me. I sky-dive once, and next thing you know, it's all I do. What else did you hear?"