“Truth is, I do like them a little. The bigger truth is, it’s business.”
“Business?”
“Basketball business. Making money. Lots of it. You know how much money I make in endorsements? A shit load. Why? Because outrageousness sells. Look at Deon. Look at Rodman. The more crazy shit I do, the more they pay me.”
“So it’s just an act?”
“A lot of it, yeah. I like to shock, too, just my way. But mostly I do it for the press.”
“But the press is always ripping you apart,” Myron said.
“Don’t matter. They write about me, they make me more money. Simple as that.” He smiled. “Let me clue you in on something, Myron. The press is the dumbest animal on God’s green earth. You know what I’m gonna do one day?”
Myron shook his head.
“One day I’ll get rid of the rings and shit, and I’ll start dressing nice. Then I’ll start talking polite, you know, giving them all yes-sirs and yes-ma’ams and start spitting out all that team-effort bullshit they like to hear. You know what’ll happen? These same fucks that say I’m destroying the integrity of the game will be kissing my black ass like it’s the Blarney Stone. They be talking about how I went through some sort of miraculous transformation. How now I’m a hero. But only thing that’s really changed is my act.” TC gave him a big smile.
Myron said, “You’re a piece of work, TC.”
TC turned back to the water. Myron watched him in silence. He hadn’t bought all of TC’s rationalizations. There was more at work here. TC wasn’t lying, but he wasn’t exactly telling the truth either—or maybe he couldn’t admit the truth even to himself. He hurt. He truly believed no one could love him, and no matter who you are, that hurts. It made you insecure. It made you want to hide and build fences. The sad thing was, TC was at least partially right. Who’d care about him if he wasn’t playing professional basketball? If not for his ability to play a child’s game, where would he be right now? TC was like the beautiful girl who wanted you to look down deep to find the soul within—but the only reason you’d bother trying was because she was beautiful. Get rid of that physical beauty— become the ugly girl—and nobody gives a damn about scratching the surface to find the beauty within. Get rid of TC’s physical prowess and the same thing happens.
In the end, TC was not as off-the-wall as he appeared in public nor was he as put-together as he wanted Myron to think. Myron was no psychologist, but he was sure that there was more to the tattoos and body piercing than making money. They were too physically destructive for so pat an explanation. With TC, there were a lot of factors at work. Being a former basketball star himself, Myron understood some of them; being that Myron and TC came from completely different worlds, there were others he could not so readily grasp.
TC interrupted their joint solitude. “Now I got a question for you,” he said.
“Shoot.”
“Why you really here?” TC asked.
“Here? As in your house—”
“On the team. Look, man, I saw you play when I was in junior high. In the NCAAs. You were great, okay? But that was a long time ago. You got to know you can’t do it anymore. You had to see that at practice today.”
Myron tried not to look stunned. Had he and TC been at the same practice? But of course they had, and of course, TC was right. Didn’t Myron remember the days when he was the team’s superstar? Didn’t he remember scrimmaging against the last five guys who would play their butt off while the starting five screwed around and played with no incentive? Didn’t he remember how disillusioned those last five became, fooling themselves into believing they were just as good as the first five when the first five were tired from real games and were just slacking off? And back then, Myron was in college. He played maybe twenty-five games a season—these guys played almost a hundred against vastly superior competition.
Good enough to play with these guys? Who had he been kidding?
“I’m just giving it a shot,” Myron said softly.
“Can’t let go, huh?”
Myron said nothing. They fell back into a brief silence.
“Hey, I almost forgot,” TC said. “I hear you’re good friends with a big hotshot at Lock-Horne Securities. That true?”
“Yes.”
“Was he that slice of white bread you talking with after the game?”
Myron nodded. “His name is Win.”
“You know Thumper works on Wall Street, right?”
“She told me,” Myron said.
“Thumper wants to change jobs. Think your friend could talk to her?”
Myron shrugged. “I could ask him.” Win would certainly appreciate her outlook on the role of sex in ancient civilizations. “Who does she work for now?”
“Small outfit. Called Kimmel Brothers. But she needs to move on, you know? They won’t make her a partner, even though she busts her butt for them.”
TC said something else but Myron was no longer listening. Kimmel Brothers. Myron remembered the name immediately. When he’d hit the redial button on the phone at Greg’s house, a woman had answered and said, “Kimmel Brothers.” Yet Thumper had just told Myron she hadn’t spoken to Greg in a month or two.
Coincidence? Myron thought not.
Chapter 16
Thumper was gone.
“She came for you,” TC said. “When it didn’t happen she split. She got work tomorrow morning.”
Myron checked his watch. Eleven-thirty. Long day. Time for a little shut-eye. He made his good nights and headed for his car. Audrey was leaning against the hood, her arms folded across her chest, her ankles crossed. Pure casual.
“You going back to Jessica’s?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Mind giving me a lift?”
“Hop in.”
Audrey gave him the same smile he had seen back at practice. He had thought at the time she had been impressed with his play; now it was clearer that the amusement was more akin to ridicule than appreciation. He unlocked the doors in silence. She took off her blue blazer and laid it on the backseat; he did likewise. She wore a forest green turtleneck underneath it. She adjusted the neck part, folding it back an extra time. She took off the pearls and jammed them in the front pocket of her jeans. Myron started the car.
“I’m starting to put this thing together,” Audrey said.
Myron did not like the way she said it. Too much authority in her voice. Audrey hadn’t needed a lift home, he was sure of that. She wanted to talk to him alone. That worried him. He gave her the good-natured smile and said, “This doesn’t have anything to do with my ass, does it?”
“What?”
“Jessica told me you two were discussing my ass.”
She laughed. “Well, I hate to admit this,” she said, “but it did look pretty scrumptious.”
Myron tried not to look too pleased. “So you doing a story on it?”
“On your ass?”
“Yes.”
“Of course,” she said. “I was thinking we could give it a big spread.”
Myron groaned.
“You’re trying to change the subject,” she said.
“There was a subject?”
“I was telling you how I was putting this thing together.”
