Dwight Howard has been a Houston Rocket for four weeks. I sent him some text messages.

Me: hey. You read that thing about LeBron if he was a football player? Think you could make it in the nfl?
Dwight: didn’t see it. Gary was sick.
Me: what? Who’s gary?
Dwight: gary’s my reader.
Me: your what?
Dwight: my reader. I don’t read.
Me: :/ like, you don’t know how?
Dwight: of course I know how, prick. I just don’t want to. Gary reads everything to me. He just follows me around and reads everything. I never do it.
Me: man, you’re like goddamn Hakeem from Coming to America
Dwight: haha. Right. Funny. (Terry’s not laughing. He’s never seen it.)
Me: Terry?
Dwight: Yes. Terry. I don’t type. Terry’s the guy that types for me. You don’t have a Gary or a Terry?
Me: bro, how much money do you think normal humans make a year?
Dwight: I don’t know. A Jared Dudley-worth?
Me: dude
Dwight: Ewww. You make less than Jared Dudley? A Chris Andersen-worth? A Sebastian Telfair-worth? No. no way.
Me: :/
Dwight: YOU MAKE LESS THAN SEBASTIAN TELFAIR??? He made less than $2M last year. I heard he had to fire his reader. What about your reader? Omg did you fire him? How do you know what’s on tv or what’s on a menu? You’re living like a caveman. Shea, what’s the difference between you and a monkey? Really.
Me: i hate you

Me: Dwight Dwight Dwight
Dwight: ay
Me: hey, bro. nba schedule is out.
Dwight: I know. I’m in the NBA remember?
Me: chill.
Me: anyway
Me: I wanted to ask you about that first game against the lakers
Dwight: did you watch the jay z video?
Me: what? Oh, the Picasso baby one?
Dwight: yup
Me: I did. It was cool.
Dwight: what was all of the “performance art” stuff about?
Me: idk, man. I think cuz he was in a museum or something. I never understand art.
Dwight: me neither
Me: The most profound artistic thing that happened to me was this one time I was at a party in college and I was dancing with this girl and that one song by Next about the guy getting a boner while dancing came on and I actually got a boner while dancing.
[No response.]
Me: I think that’s an example of performance art.
[No response.]
Me: to be clear, I didn’t get it because he was singing about it
[No response.]
Me: it was because I was dancing with the girl
[No response.]
Me: that’s why.
[No response.]
Me: all right, man. Cool. I’ll talk to you later.

Me: bro
Dwight: yo
Me: I saw that thing about you at the park with the kids
Dwight: Guy paw bat ring the route two cats a bark myth a skid
Me: what?
Dwight: mutt.
Me: oh, I get it.
Dwight: no, try hit mitt.
Me: you’re rhyming. Cool. Cute. Great work.
Dwight: bore sliming. Fool. Shoot. Mate lurk.
Me: that one was actually kind of poetic. Nice.
Dwight: (thank you)
Me: haha. good, you’re done. but so the park thing, what was going on there?
Dwight: ta-ta. wood. Floor bun. cut low a spark ring, shut fuzz rowing won hair?
Me: JESUS CHRIST
Dwight: beans and rice
Me: seriously? are we gonna do this all day?
Dwight: furiously? star fee done a flu miss call play
[No response.]
Dwight: star fee done a flu miss call play
[No response.]
Me: film
[No response.]
Me: FILM, DWIGHT.
Me: FILM.
Me: RHYME FILM.
Dwight: smilm.
Me: THAT’S NOT EVEN A WORD DWIGHT OMG GOODBYE