San Antonio Spurs Preview: "Second Story Sunlight"

In an effort to gear up for the NBA season (even though the season started last week), we will view the upcoming season through the eyes of Edward Hopper. Feel free to add your thoughts on the 2010 Spurs in our comments section.Ms. Jefferson jerks in fright as a bat flaps out of the woods and into the crisp night air.

"Nasty little bloodsuckers, aren't they?" quips Senor Ginobili, never lifting his eyes from his newspaper.

"Yeah," comments Ms. Jefferson faintly; her attention diverted to trapping the sounds of the bat's wings.

"When I was younger, I would venture into those woods alone, and snatch those creatures out of the air with my bare hands. I would walk into a clearing and just stand there with my eyes closed, waiting. When I caught one, I would bring it back to the house and show my father. I would tell him, 'Pops, look what I hunted down for you in the woods,' and he would tell me, 'Manu, you are a foolish boy. One day you will get bit, catch disease, and die way too young.' Well, I'm old now and not a scratch on me. Fathers only know so much, eh?" He puts the paper down on a table next to his glass of wine.

Ms. Jefferson does not know how to respond. Her Argentine lover is an odd man. If he weren't wealthy, she would say he was crazy or call him mad and be done with the whole affair; but his bank account can afford the label of eccentric, so she puts up with his stories of catching bats, the often depressing words of his father, and his elderly friends, who laugh too hard at jokes that are no longer funny. She's even come to accept his thinning hair and the bald crater its left on the back of his head. After all, it's Senor Ginobili who saved her from disappearing into the drab Milwaukee skyline.

She stood on the corner, eyeing her reflection in a rain puddle, tinted red and green from a traffic light when a Rolls Royce pulled up to the curb. The window rolled down, and a Spanish accent rolled out, "Excuse me. I require a tour guide."

She told the voice from the car window, "As long as you got the money, you call it whatever you want."

"No, really, I need a tour guide. I'm here to view the city's gutters and down spouts." Ms. Jefferson took this for a euphemism, hiked up her skirt, and got inside the luxury car. Inside the Royce's dark interior, she did not get a clear view of her client's, her patron's, her future lover's face, but he greeted her with a story, as if they already knew one another and all the characters were familiar to her.

"Pops always believed one could tell the most about a city by how its citizens handled their rain water. He would say, 'Manu, any city can stay dry in sunshine, but, son, I want to live where people stay dry when it floods.' My father always spoke like that, and I always listened to my father; but, unlike him, I prefer a city whose spouts and gutters overflow, causing unpredictable torrents from rooftop to sidewalk. I thrive on sudden downpours actually."

And with that Ms. Jefferson knew she had found a different kind of client than the typical Midwestern drunk who would take her back to a shabby apartment and split a twelve pack of PBR with her. A night with Senor Ginobili was like looking through a kaleidoscope. Her world was changing, and she now sat with her Argentine lover on a porch in south Texas, attempting to not startle at the nocturnal migrations of bats, searching the night for prey, like rats, mice, and mosquitoes.

Senor Ginobili downs his wine, and rises from his chair, leaving an indention where he's sat reading all night. As he stands, he can feel all the years of bull fighting, fencing, and rock climbing creak through the timbers of his knees. He reaches out and runs his fingers through Ms. Jefferson's hair. He leans into smell it; its scent screams just twenty years old, and makes his knees feel less stiff while other parts of him grow rigid. He walks over to the bedroom doors. "Ms. Jefferson, I think it's time we retire." He swings the door open and gestures with his arm for her to enter. She rises like moonlight from her chair and floats across the porch, stroking his cheek with her hand as she passes. She disappears into the darkness of the bedroom. "Manu, I've been meaning to tell you. I'm thirty, not twenty."

Her voice is strange to him. He can't place it. She's lost to him like a minotaur buried inside of a maze. Wings whisper at his back. He spins around and flashes his left hand up to his chest, seizing the bat from the air. He flings it over the railing and walks inside the bedroom. Blood drips from his hand onto the carpet. Senor Ginobili's been bitten; rabies is coming to a boil inside his veins.