It's Good To Be Chad

Yo, Chauncey, where's the key?"

Chauncey Johnson shrugs. "Dunno."

Chad Johnson, his younger brother, Chauncey, and the rest of Chad's posse are standing on the corner of Sixth and Ocean Drive in South Beach, under the late-afternoon sun and amid too many Saturday revelers in town for tomorrow's Miami Carnival who've been taking advantage of Florida's liberal open-container laws. The sidewalks are thronged, and the tall, fine-looking fellow with the blond Mohawk is exerting a powerful pull on his fellow Americans.

"You're on my fantasy team, Chad, and I'm counting on you," says a puffy guy with sunburned shoulders in a white tank top. "You're my man. Sign this." He holds out a receipt.

An older couple, in matching khaki shorts and polo shirts, stops. The gentleman hands Johnson a couple of business cards. "Can you sign these? I wish the Tar Heels had you this weekend."

A German tourist wanders over. "Excuse me," he asks. "You are Wesley Snipes?"

Johnson is always willing to sign, pose, smile, please. The Cincinnati Bengals' star receiver understands the deal he has made. By playing to the football media, by boasting, preening, celebrating, ripping, taunting and generally becoming the noisiest wide receiver north of Terrell Owens, he knows he'll be recognized, beseeched and put upon wherever he goes. Still, even number 85--or Ocho Cinco, as he goes by when he's here in his hometown of Miami--has his limits.

"Who's got the key?" he asks again. This is ridiculous. His Lamborghini is just sitting there, yellow and sparkling and ready to whisk him away as yet another football fan--this one in a number 85 Bengals jersey--approaches as if ready to take a knee and hold up a diamond ring.

Finally a valet appears. "The key?" Johnson says, making a turning-the-ignition gesture with his right hand. "The key?"

The valet nods, flips through a stack of tickets, then shakes his head. "For what?"