<http://schema.org/articleBody>
" FRIDAY NIGHT, EIGHT O&amp;#039;CLOCK, three hours before Clinton Portis wants to hit the streets, and he isn&amp;#039;t looking fine enough. Lucky for him, he doesn&amp;#039;t need to hunt for help; the help will come to him. After summoning his barber, Norman, Portis cracks open a bottle of Corona and roams his darkened mansion deep in the Virginia woods, waiting for the buzz of attention.  Half bored, half proud, he flicks on and off the waterfall that he&amp;#039;s had installed across one of the marble foyer&amp;#039;s tiled walls. A few feet away, a towering aquarium bubbles, casting off a soothing blue-green glow. Along with the moray eel and the friendly puffer it houses, its principal resident is a gorgeous lionfish, its spines and liquid fins catching even the thinnest light. It is the most delicate kind of beautiful, this lionfish, but it is also among the ocean&amp;#039;s thugs. Should even a barrel-chested, brass-balled spearfisherman step on one, he&amp;#039;ll be left laid out on the sand, all tears and trembles. Portis seems unaware of this fact, but he seems equally unimpressed upon his learning it. &amp;quot;I ain&amp;#039;t got no plans to step on it,&amp;quot; he says when the doorbell rings, and with that he disappears into the dark, padding his way to the door, almost purposefully weightless. Earlier in the day, at this summer&amp;#039;s first full day of minicamp for the Washington Redskins, Portis looked a more ragged beast, wearing cutoff track pants--the ninety-three other players on the field wore regulation shorts--and his jersey rolled up inside of itself. Almost angrily, he churned through the heat and three-hundred-pounders, the ball tucked into the crooks of his muscled arms, and snatched at bullet passes, perhaps a hint of new roles to come. On that field, he played the part of the lionfish, the beautiful, tattooed, 220-pound thug who almost hoped to be stepped on, somehow graceful and vicious at the same time.  But now Portis has clocked out, and he&amp;#039;s showered and relaxed, preening. His brown eyes are framed with lashes thick and long enough to flutter, and his fingernails boast the shine of the recently manicured. His hair is all that needs work (although it doesn&amp;#039;t really, Norman having trimmed it only last week). That and a change of clothes, something casual-fancy set off by a few giant, carefully chosen jewels, and he&amp;#039;ll be ready to push through a different kind of crowd, straight up the middle. &amp;quot;Tonight, I&amp;#039;ll probably be the most wanted man in the club, but I&amp;#039;ll probably come home alone,&amp;quot; Portis says, probably lying. &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s the kind of discipline I have&amp;quot;--and that much you can grant him. Despite his $50 million contract and his youth, still only twenty-four years old (he turns twenty-five in September), there is something surprisingly careful about Clinton Portis, an unexpected precision. &amp;quot;People think I&amp;#039;m a wild man,&amp;quot; he says, &amp;quot;but I ain&amp;#039;t got no kids.&amp;quot; He heads downstairs, trailed by Norman and his suitcase filled with clippers. Portis&amp;#039;s basement is bachelor-pad heaven, although it feels unused somehow. There are two more enormous fish tanks, a pool table wrapped in orange felt, a stocked wet bar, a Washington Redskins dartboard, and a projection-screen TV with thumping surround sound. Before he assumes the position, Portis flicks on an underground video by the Southern Style DJs, its soundtrack blasting. On the massive screen, MC Assault racks up his verbal machine guns, Snoop Dogg takes bullets in the backs of his skinny legs, and naked women get hit with dollar bills in exchange for performing incredible stunts with their asses. This particular video in this particular basement is everything that Portis is supposed to be, everything that rich, young black men are supposed to be--except that in the bathroom, the toilet lid has a burgundy cozy on it, and hanging in the shower is a soft sponge to match.  Norman begins his work, taking a thin layer off the top. He then turns his fine eye to his client&amp;#039;s low forehead, carving out a level-perfect hairline, fading down toward the ears, each decorated with a diamond stud. Once everything&amp;#039;s put together above, like wedding-cake architecture, Norman trims Portis&amp;#039;s already-short goatee, scaling it back to a whisper, just enough to frame his smile, which is quick. It never used to be. Back when Portis was at the University of Miami--back when he was just another stereotype, the pure, angry, arrogant athlete who seemed destined to squander his gifts until he finally bottomed out and followed his brother to prison--his scowl looked well-worn enough to have been practiced in front of a mirror. That was before he simmered through one more stupid goddamn autograph session, before he and a couple of his teammates were driving back home too fast and wrecked, and before each of them was launched through the night and laid out on the ground. Though the only serious injury was to his soul, Clinton Portis was a half-changed man when he picked himself up. It&amp;#039;s not as if he saw angels and decided to become one, no sham barf like that. &amp;quot;People don&amp;#039;t like perfect,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;You gotta show that you can still stir shit up, get some negative pub.&amp;quot; But he did finally see the possibilities of his life, how full he could make it, as though he alone could know what it really meant to be, in his words, &amp;quot;a young man living.&amp;quot; A fish tank in every room, for starters. His obsession with them also began in college, during his sophomore year, when his roommate bought one and suddenly their cinder-block cell felt like a pad. The most elaborate of his current collection has been reserved for his bedroom, where the magic happens. More specifically, it&amp;#039;s reserved for his bed, the headboard of which consists of an aquarium that nearly reaches the ceiling, a square-shouldered arch filled with salt water, coral, fish, and a freakishly large sea anemone that looks an awful lot like a gaping vagina.  &amp;quot;You gonna fool yourself, too?&amp;quot; Portis says. &amp;quot;I know what this looks like, but I got a woman down in Miami. We been together seven years.&amp;quot; Um, dude-- &amp;quot;You know what, man, honestly? Yeah, I have my share. I have fun with it. I&amp;#039;m twenty-four, bro! You love to think that the woman you with, that&amp;#039;s the woman you want for the rest of your life. And I done felt that way. But I&amp;#039;m twenty-four! I don&amp;#039;t do shit to disrespect her. I try to keep it outta her face. But we have an understanding.&amp;quot; Which is? &amp;quot;Let&amp;#039;s just call it an understanding that I&amp;#039;m not perfect.&amp;quot; There is plenty more bruised about him. When he left school early and entered the 2002 NFL draft, he told teams holding anything worse than the third pick that they were wasting their time: &amp;quot;I understood David Carr, and I understood Julius Peppers, but after that, it&amp;#039;s Clinton Portis to the Detroit Lions.&amp;quot; Turns out, the teams took him at his word, and it was Clinton Portis to the Denver Broncos, and not until deep into the second round, fifty-first overall. It was a beginning filled with foreboding. Despite his being named offensive rookie of the year and running more than fifteen hundred yards in each of his first two seasons with the Broncos, it was never a good fit--with the coaching staff, with the team, or with the city. &amp;quot;I go from Miami to Denver, where people didn&amp;#039;t understand me--didn&amp;#039;t understand my character, didn&amp;#039;t understand my openness, didn&amp;#039;t understand my flamboyance--and they just couldn&amp;#039;t deal with me. I don&amp;#039;t know why those people so unhappy out there. I guess they have to stress to you, they have to talk to you until you believe that they the biggest Raiders fan or biggest Chiefs fan in the whole world. And I&amp;#039;m like, Shit, dude, I&amp;#039;m glad. I used to be a Saints fan. You gotta like somebody. But this ain&amp;#039;t no shit I&amp;#039;m willing to die for. This is my job. If you told me Redskins Park was about to get blew up, you think I&amp;#039;m gonna run in there? Hell, no.&amp;quot; But Portis would like for there to be a footnote: that he is grateful to the Redskins for rescuing him from unhappy Colorado and that he&amp;#039;s especially grateful to Dan Snyder for writing some huge goddamn checks, including a $17 million signing bonus that made Snyder&amp;#039;s rival owners choke on their beef tips. In exchange, Portis consented to butt heads more often than he had in Denver, carrying the ball down the center of the field nearly as often as he bolted with it outside, taking a statistical hit but becoming one of the league&amp;#039;s better blockers along the way, a less pretty version of his former self. &amp;quot;Clinton is the hardest-working player on our offense,&amp;quot; says tight end Chris Cooley. &amp;quot;I can catch a pass thirty yards downfield, and he&amp;#039;s the first guy throwing himself in front of me.&amp;quot; Being in Washington has brought out Portis&amp;#039;s spines, in more ways than one. &amp;quot;For everybody who felt like I wasn&amp;#039;t worth it, I didn&amp;#039;t deserve it, money talks, man,&amp;quot; Portis says. &amp;quot;I got my money, and I got it first. Ronnie Brown [last spring&amp;#039;s first-round pick for the Miami Dolphins] got, like, a $22 million bonus. That&amp;#039;s because of me. I did that first. But he ain&amp;#039;t give me none of it yet. He ain&amp;#039;t even say thanks, you know?&amp;quot; Clinton Portis does not appear to be joking. He can be hard to read like that, even as much as he has been dissected. Although he&amp;#039;s now run more than thirteen hundred yards in each of his four professional seasons, Portis has received as much attention for his off-field eccentricities, including the elaborate stage plays he put on each Thursday last season. They began after back-to-back losses against the Broncos and the Kansas City Chiefs. To deflect the criticism about to be slung his way, he appeared in front of the cameras and microphones as &amp;quot;the Mad Scientist,&amp;quot; wearing a white fright wig and far-out sunglasses and answering questions entirely in character. His bemused teammates pestered him to keep up the act, and subsequent Portis incarnations included &amp;quot;Southeast Jerome,&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Dr. I Don&amp;#039;t Know,&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Kid Bro Sweets,&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;Coach Janky Spanky.&amp;quot; The costumes and plotlines grew more elaborate each time out, including the murder of Southeast Jerome, allegedly at the hands of New York&amp;#039;s Tiki Barber during Washington&amp;#039;s 36--0 loss to the Giants. &amp;quot;Sheriff Gonna Getcha,&amp;quot; another Portis creation, was put on the case. Portis says today that he wanted to retire the charade several times, but whenever he had convinced himself he was done with it, he was presented with some divine reason to come up with another disguise. For instance: &amp;quot;Once I heard Rod Woodson and Lincoln Kennedy [of the NFL Network] say that I wasn&amp;#039;t focused, that I should quit it, I knew I had to keep rolling with it. Don&amp;#039;t tell me what to do. They can kiss my ass.&amp;quot; But others saw darker reasons in Portis&amp;#039;s hiding behind masks. Rather than being the latest in the capital&amp;#039;s long string of superior ballcarriers (not yet John Riggins, but still), he was the latest in the league&amp;#039;s long string of heartsick running backs (not yet Ricky Williams, but still). They have long been the game &amp;#039;s lost men, grown old before their time, worn down and final-ly beaten. They are football&amp;#039;s point guards, with a career spent shackled, and Clinton Portis could sometimes look as though he had reserved his Thursday mornings to let loose another part of his fragile psyche during one more of his weekly cries for help. &amp;quot;What I need help with?&amp;quot; he says, brushing the last tufts of black hair from his lap to the floor and heading back upstairs. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m set. I got everything I could want. I go where I want to go. I do what I want to do. I ain&amp;#039;t got in no trouble. I ain&amp;#039;t done no drugs. I show everybody a good time. So what am I crying for?&amp;quot; THE DOORBELL RINGS again. Santana Moss, a teammate in Miami and now with the Redskins, arrives along with a couple of friends. The three of them are dressed gangster, as if in uniform: baggy jeans, long white T-shirts, heavy chains, shades, sparkling sneakers, do-rags over cornrows. They are hundred-percenters. They look even more like it after Portis skips up to his bedroom and comes back down wearing checkered shorts, mesh shoes, a linen jacket, and a pinkie ring. He models the outfit, striking poses, reveling in the distinction. When he speaks to Moss in the kitchen, he speaks the same language, but he looks entirely the man apart, the dandy among the bad men, never mind the homey CUCINA ornament on top of his immaculate cupboards. Together, the men hop into Portis&amp;#039;s car, a battleship-gray Mercedes S550, so smooth that even Moss is impressed. &amp;quot;Oooooooooo!&amp;quot; he says, because just about every other Redskin drives a beefy truck. Portis fires up the speakers like jet engines, and it&amp;#039;s important to him that you know what song he&amp;#039;s bobbing his head to: &amp;quot;Young Bleed, &amp;#039;How Ya Do Dat,&amp;#039; 1998.&amp;quot; He says the year with a kind of snap, as though his listening to a song that&amp;#039;s eight years old is as remarkable as anything he&amp;#039;s ever done. The drive feels long, winding through trees--&amp;quot;The back way,&amp;quot; Portis says--before he and his friends suddenly emerge near the Jefferson Memorial, lit up white in the night. The Washington Monument rises in the near distance, and later the Capitol dome, and through those tinted car windows, a hard town is made to seem as optimistic as an unfolded map. The feeling changes when landmarks give way to the city&amp;#039;s brutally vacant northeast side, set aside for gangs and drug dealers and whores, except for one jumping street filled nearly to overflowing with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of young black men and women lining up outside a club called Love. It&amp;#039;s here that the magic will happen in the hours before it happens under the watch of Portis&amp;#039;s sea anemone. He backs into a single available space that seems to have been reserved for him, just across from the door, but instead of climbing out right away, he leaves the key in the ignition and watches the predance dance. Moss watches it, too, surveying the scene like a general looking down on the field from a hill. Portis sports a different look, as though he&amp;#039;s steeling himself, taking one last deep breath before diving to the bottom of the ocean. Finally, he makes for the door. There is no line for him. With nods of understanding, the club&amp;#039;s staff escorts him, Moss, and their friends to a roped-off section on the exclusive second floor, which offers an excellent, uncrowded vantage point of the rest of Love. Portis drops onto a couch and orders a bucket of Coronas and a bottle of champagne. His drinks appear instantly. The men start to push them back, and they listen to the music, their heads like pistons, but they do not talk, silent in their watching. &amp;quot;I like having my own little party within the party,&amp;quot; Portis says. &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t walk in dissing nobody or taking nobody&amp;#039;s space, and I don&amp;#039;t come here with a whole bunch of dudes. That&amp;#039;s a fight waiting to happen. I&amp;#039;m 220, man, solid, and my hands is fast, so you don&amp;#039;t want that trouble with me. But I don&amp;#039;t have many altercations, because I&amp;#039;m a calm dude and I can walk away from a situation. I&amp;#039;m cool. And I always keep a bunch of females around, because women can bring the haters down. There can be one dude in the club with trouble in his mind, a Dallas fan with enough alcohol in his system to start something crazy, but he sees all them women, he forgets the beef he got with me.&amp;quot; Within minutes, those women do start to gather, appearing out of the walls and lining up for their auditions. Soon they are wrapped around the group in concentric circles, their proximity dependent on their social status, determined by whether their hair is touched or they receive a gentle stroke on the cheek. The bunch of them assembled, they pass the dark hours together, one more night, the dance floor growing long past full, the music pumping. Portis orders two more bottles of champagne by the color of their labels--&amp;quot;Two more of the yellow ones&amp;quot;--and they arrive in a bucket, unopened, chilling on ice. Portis looks down at them, nodding, satisfied, a girl on either side of him and with dozens more hoping for the same chance. He blinks and stares back out at the floor, removed from it, perhaps more removed than he has ever been before. Here, he has earned the right to have space around him. And for tonight this is it, this is how a young man lives, in his own little party within a party, the lionfish swimming in its tank. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/sports/a539/esq0906game-139/>