“My Pal Charles”

An NBA star, an immigrant scientist, and a friendship no one believed

- By Shirley Wang

WHEN CHARLES BARKLEY’S MOTHER, Charcey Glenn, passed away in June 2015, the former basketball star’s hometown of Leeds, Alabama, came to the funeral to pay respects. But there was also an unexpected guest.

Barkley’s friends couldn’t quite place him. He wasn’t a basketball player, he wasn’t a sports figure, and he wasn’t from Barkley’s hometown. Here’s what I can tell you about him: He often wore striped polo shirts tucked into khaki shorts, and he got really excited about two-for-one deals. He was a commuter. He worked as a cat-litter scientist in Muscatine, Iowa. In short, he was everyone’s suburban dad. More specifically, he was my dad.

“It was obviously a very difficult time,” Barkley told me recently regarding his mother’s death. “And the next thing I know, he shows up. Everybody’s like, ‘Who’s the Asian dude over there?’ I just started laughing. I said, ‘That’s my boy Lin.’ They’re like, ‘How do you know him?’ I said, ‘It’s a long story.’”

THE LONG STORY started four years ago. My dad, Lin Wang, knew about Barkley long before he met him. “You know, [Barkley] has a big personality,” he told me. “He’s a top-50 player in the history of the NBA. For many years, he was the number two guy, right after Michael Jordan.”

Whenever we attended dinner parties, my dad would talk about his friend Charles Barkley. The first time my dad told the story, I didn’t pretend to know who this person was. Basketball has never been my thing.

Like a good millennial, I googled Charles Barkley. He seemed pretty famous and definitely not like anyone who would be friends with my dad. But again, as a good millennial, I knew that people have very loose definitions of the word friend.