It had been no great matter for Lelia Ehrhart to call Spiders head coach Bo Raval and find out exactly where she might get her hands on Bobby Feeley. Probably the gym, she had been told. She turned off Three Chopt Road onto Boatwright and followed it to the U of R campus. She turned into the private lot, where members of the Spiders Club parked during the games. She tucked her Mercedes at an angle, taking two spaces, far away from those less expensive cars that might hit her doors. She walked with purpose up the Robins Center’s front steps.
The lobby was empty and echoed with the memory of many games won and lost that Ehrhart had not enjoyed. Eventually, she had refused to attend them with her husband, nor would she subject herself to football. She simply would not watch sports on TV anymore. Bull could get his own beer and make his own microwave popcorn. He could point the remote as often as he wanted, playing God, controlling, master designing, making things happen, and she didn’t care.
A basketball bouncing beyond shut doors sounded lonely and determined. Ehrhart entered Milhouser Gym, where Bobby Feeley was shooting foul shots. He was tall, as expected, with long sculpted muscles and a shaved head and a gold loop earring, like all basketball players. His skin glistened with sweat, gray tee shirt soaked in back and front, shorts baggy down to his knees and swirling as he moved. Feeley paid no attention to Ehrhart as he tried again and hit the rim.
‘Shit,’ he said.
She said nothing as he dribbled and faked, rushed, elbows flying, turning, faking again, fast breaking, leaping and slam-dunking, hitting the rim again.
‘Fuck,’ he said.
‘Excuse me,’ Ehrhart announced herself.
Feeley slowly dribbled the ball, looking at her.
‘Are you Bobby Feeley?’
She stepped onto the gym floor in high-heeled shoes with brass butterflies.
‘That’s not a good idea,’ he said.
‘Excuse me?’
‘Your shoes.’
‘Who’s not right with them?’
‘They aren’t tennis shoes.’
‘Yours aren’t wearing tennis shoes,’ she said.
He dribbled some more, frowning.
‘What do you call these?’ he asked.
‘Basketballs shoes,’ she said.
‘Ah. A purist. Okay,’ said Feeley, an honors English student. ‘But you still can’t walk on the floor in those shoes. So you can take them off or go somewhere else, I guess.’
Ehrhart slipped out of her shoes and drew closer to him in knee-high hose.
‘So, what can I do for you?’ Feeley asked as he pulled the ball away, elbows out and dangerous, eluding an imaginary adversary.
‘You’re number twelve,’ Ehrhart said.
‘Not that again,’ Feeley exclaimed as he dribbled. ‘What is this anyway? You people think I have nothing better to do? That I would do something as sophomoric as painting graffiti in a cemetery?’
He dribbled between his legs and missed a jump shot.
This is not just graffiti as you watch on subway trains. It’s not ‘The Screech’ and schmucks you watch on buildings.’
Feeley stopped dribbling and wiped sweat off his brow, trying to interpret.
‘I think you mean scream,’ he tried to help her out. ‘As in Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream’. And maybe you mean schmoeP Schmuck’s not a nice word, although those unfamiliar with Yiddish usually don’t get it.’
‘Spray-painting Mountain Rushmore, how about then?’ she said indignantly.
‘Who did?’ Feeley asked.
‘So you can go paint your basketball uniform, number twelve included, on my ancestor!’
‘You’re related to Jeff Davis?’
Feeley ran and dunked. The ball bounced off the backboard.
‘I’m related to Vinny,’ Ehrhart stated.
‘As in Pooh?’
‘Varina.’
‘I thought that was a place or maybe something else we shouldn’t allude to.’
‘You are vulgarly rude, Mr. Feeler.’
‘Feeley.’
‘It disdains me that people from your generation respect not a thing that’s gone before in the past. And the point is, it isn’t gone even if it started before you in. I’m standing here, as evident.’
Feeley frowned. ‘How ’bout ringing me up again. I think we have a bad connection.’
‘I wouldn’t,’ she said flatly.
He cradled the ball under his arm. ‘What did I do?’
‘We know both what you did.’
He dribbled into a hook shot that swished below the net.