The story pained Brazil. It enraged him that an extraordinary talent could be completely annihilated in a second by someone who had decided to throw back a few more beers at the bar.
‘I’m just glad I got to see him play. I guess you could say he was my hero.’ Feeley got up and stretched his limber seven-foot frame.
‘Pretty tough to wear your hero’s jersey,’ Brazil commented as he got up, too.
Feeley shrugged. ‘It’s part of running with the big dogs.’
‘Maybe you should get your number changed,’ Brazil suggested.
Feeley was startled. His face got hard, eyes flashing.
‘What did you say?’ he asked.
‘Maybe you should retire the number, let someone else have it,’ Brazil explained.
Feeley’s eyes snapped. His jaw muscles bunched.
‘Fuck no.’
‘Just a suggestion,’ Brazil said. ‘But I don’t understand why you’d want to keep it if you get psyched. Give it up, Bobby.’
‘No fucking way!’
‘Just do it.’
‘Fuck you!’
‘It really makes sense,’ Brazil went on reasonably.
‘Motherfucking never!’
‘Why not?’
‘Because nobody would fucking care about it as much as I do!’
‘How do you know?’
Feeley threw the basketball as hard as he could and it swished in without touching the rim.
‘Because nobody would respect Twister, treat him right, spread the word about him like I would!’
Feeley ran full speed for the ball, dribbled with his right hand and left and slam-dunked.
‘And I’ll tell you what, too, you’ll never see that jersey dirty or tossed in a corner somewhere!’ He dunked the ball over the back of his head, the rim vibrating. ‘Some little spoiled piece of shit coming in here and wearing Twister’s number!’
He hooked it in, rebounded, slam-dunked, snapped it up, thundered to the top of the key and banked it in, wrestled it away from grabbing hands and jumped a good two feet off the floor, sinking it.
‘Does Twister have family around here?’ Brazil asked.
‘I remember going to the home games and seeing him with some little kid. Twister would sit the little guy right behind the bench,’ Feeley said, hitting free throws and talking at the same time. ‘I got the impression it might be his little brother.’
At James River Monuments, Ruby Sink was doing a little investigating on her own. The noise of air hammers and pneumatic tools was awful, and someone was bouncing a four-point bumper on Southern Georgia granite. The sandblaster was going and an overhead crane was lifting a thirteen-hundred-pound monument that was chipped and stained green along the top from moss.
White Vermont marble was very difficult and not used anymore and Floyd Rumble had a chore on his hands. He was a bit overwhelmed, anyway. It had been one of those days. His back hurt and his son was stuck at the desk inside the office because the secretary was on vacation.
Then Colonel Bailey, who had Alzheimer’s, had come in for the fourth time in a week to say that he was to be buried in uniform and wanted something very patriotic engraved on his Saint Cloud Gray marble monument. Each time, Rumble made out a new order because the last thing he’d ever do was humiliate anyone.
Rumble picked up a knife and resumed cutting a leaf on Nero Black marble, thinking how bad he’d felt when stockbroker Ben Neaton had suddenly dropped dead of a heart attack and the wife had to come in here, too distraught to think, much less pick out something.
So Rumble had suggested the elegant black stone because Mr. Neaton had always driven shiny black Lincolns and worn dark suits. The inscription, Not Gone,
Just Reinvested, had been stenciled into a sheet of rubber which was placed over the face of the stone. The sandblaster had etched the letters in a matter of minutes, but Rumble always cut the detail work, such as ivy or flowers, by hand.
It was common for bereft, shocked people to ask Rumble to make all decisions and unfold the story of their lost loved one’s life, and what the person had last said or eaten or worn, or had intended to do the next day. Always there was that one little thing that gave the person a bad feeling.