Leon rode his bike and followed the old man's golf cart to the entrance of the basketball arena, a very tall old square basketball hall with huge glass lattice windows on all four walls to let the sun shine into the arena. The old man got out of the golf cart and led Leon into the arena, which was empty, and the empty arena looked dull in the dim sunlight.

But the day after tomorrow, the Boston area will also host an annual children's basketball camp hosted by the white-haired old man Leon met and the most legendary figure in Boston basketball history, Cardinal Arnold Jacob Auerbach — more commonly known as "The Red Head" Reed Auerbach.

Of course, there are impressions of this famous figure in Leon's memory bank, and his legendary stories and experiences in the NBA are well-known in the Boston area, and even if Leon didn't have much interest in basketball in the first place, the name Auerbach is like thunder for him.

But looking at this gray-haired, somewhat withered old man, Leon could perceive that the breath of life and vitality in him were declining very much, which was the appearance of an old man in his twilight years—his hair was dry and messy, his skin was wrinkled and bloodless, his eyes lacked brilliance, and his back was weak, like an old cat who had been in the sun all day without moving.

It's just that at the moment when he stepped on the wooden floor with him in the stadium, Leon could feel a strange look burst out of the old man's body, Auerbach walked under the basket, looked around with his hands on his waist, although there was no one around, Leon felt that he was reviewing his team, paying tribute to the fans, and demonstrating to the opponents.

It's just that the hallucinations last for a short time.

"There's going to be a lot of stools here!" Auerbach looked at it for a moment and said loudly to Leon, then took a puff of his cigarette and said, "Those stools are stacked on the north-facing wall outside, and your main job today and tomorrow is to bring them all in and set them up in preparation for the opening ceremony of the camp the day after tomorrow." ”

Leon nodded, he didn't talk much, if the job here was to set up a stool, then it would be easier, but Auerbach's subsequent words made Leon feel that this job was not so simple.

Auerbach led Leon to the north façade of the Coliseum, where there was a small open space where stacks of chairs were stacked, all folding chairs with metal frames and wood tops, each not too light, and Leon found that the chairs were partly white and partly green.

"It's a folding chair pulled from Boston, and I've loved it since 1981, and for twenty years, I've sat on it with my kids and parents at every bootcamp to listen to the opening speech. Then the team's benches, the spectator seats on the sidelines, will be able to use these stools. If you see it, move them in, put them in neatly, and remember, put a clover on the table. "Auerbach put Leon in a difficult position.

The clover is one of the symbols of the Boston Celtics, and this simple and impressive logo has accompanied the Boston Celtics for decades, the king of the NBA, and no matter how many other teams have updated their logos every three years and five years, this small clover has always been engraved on the Celtics' jerseys.

Auerbach didn't make things difficult for Leon, and every year at camp he asks the staff to put the green and white chairs in a clover pattern. However, it was not the work of one person, but more than a dozen people working together to draw lines on the floor and arrange the chairs according to their numbers and pictures, so that standing in the stands, you could see the green and white chairs forming a white clover pattern.

But since 1997, when Auerbach stepped down as general manager of the Celtics, his basketball camp has not had such a big battle, and he himself is too old to do many things himself, so the annual children's basketball camp has been shrinking, and there are fewer and fewer outstanding basketball teenagers willing to participate in the camp, and they are more willing to go to the training camps run by professional teams in big cities or college stars, including some talented teenagers who will become famous and become stars in the future.

This year, Auerbach couldn't even borrow people from the Celtics to help prepare for the camp, and there weren't many kids signing up for the camp, and there was nothing in the hall two days before the start of the camp, so he had to borrow a community service spot from the community management center, hoping to get people who participated in community service to come and help.

So, Leon, who had just come out of prison and needed to complete his community service mission, was placed here, and he was the only one.

Leon looked at the stacked chairs, like hills, and it was an impossible task to move them all in and arrange them in a pattern.

Auerbach looked at Leon without speaking, raised his eyebrows and said, "How is it?" I knew it was a bit difficult, I thought the community center would send a few more people, but you were the only one, and it looks like I'm going to find some volunteers to help tomorrow. You can move as much as you can today, you can leave by half past five, and come back tomorrow......"

Auerbach was about to turn away, but heard Leon speak: "A total of 231 chairs, 151 green ones, 80 white ones, if you want to arrange a clover pattern, you need a 15X15 square shape, with 2-7, 2-8, 14-7, 14-8, 7-2, 8-2, 14-7, 14-0 as the four boundaries of the clover, you need 150 green chairs, 75 white chairs, can form a clover shape, although it will not be too good-looking, the chairs are a little less, But it should look good from a high place......"

Auerbach swept Leon from top to bottom, thinking that this guy who looked tall and big, with only strength and appearance, and a ball of straw bales inside, was frightened by the work he had arranged and the big push, but he didn't expect that he had drawn a pattern in his mind how to arrange the chairs.

To Auerbach's surprise, he didn't know why Leon knew that there were 231 chairs here, so he asked, "Did you count the chairs here one by one?" ”

Leon replied, "No, I count twenty and twenty, and though there are many chairs, they are arranged quite neatly, and I divide them into pieces, twenty each, plus some odds, and count them out quickly." ”

Auerbach heard Leon's words and looked at the piles of chairs that had been pulled by the convoy from the warehouse at the Boston Celtics' old training gym, and he really didn't know where they were neatly placed.

"How long will it take to get this done?" Auerbach seemed to move quickly out of surprise and asked very seriously.

"An hour and forty minutes, if I can get a free dinner here." Leon replied quickly.

The free dinner is also very important to Leon now, because the community service center does not care about the meal, and he needs to live on less than $200 in his pocket for the time being, and it is good to be able to eat a meal.

"Okay, deal, if you finish today's work, then I can also provide breakfast tomorrow, and I will give you more important work tomorrow." Auerbach agreed neatly, and his words sounded as if Leon should be honored by it, when in fact the more important task was to wipe all the glass windows outside the training hall - the large floor-to-ceiling windows were three meters high.

This is Auerbach's style, who, though eighty years old, is always pragmatic in dealing with problems, whether he is a criminal from the community center, a big fool or a hidden genius, Auerbach has only one point of concern - to solve the problem at hand, and if the other party wants to negotiate terms, then promise him, and with this offer more conditions.

After negotiating the terms, Auerbach drove his golf cart around again, leaving Leon alone with more than 200 folding chairs.

The two months of prison life did not weaken Leon in the slightest, he lived a very healthy life, his diet and rest were very regular, he had a lot of free time to exercise every day, Fox Leon had a good physical foundation, his limbs were thick and strong, but he was addicted to alcohol all year round.

The life of the prison puritans restored his body and made him more robust and powerful, he found two thick hemp ropes from the arena, a large iron basket cart for basketballs, piled more than 20 chairs at a time into the iron-framed cart, tied them with thick hemp rope, and pushed them into the gymnasium.

This repetitive work alone took more than an hour, and then in the gymnasium, Leon relied on his imagination and used the lines of the court as a reference line, placing 225 chairs in place one by one, and standing in the stands, you could see a slightly rough white clover pattern.

By the time he had finished his work room, exactly an hour and forty minutes had passed, Auerbach had come back from his golf cart and was greeted by neatly arranged and patterned chairs, and a sweaty and panting Fox Leon.

Auerbach didn't expect that this guy could really do this work in one hour and forty minutes, knowing that in previous years, it would have taken twelve volunteers two hours to complete this work.

"If you go to a construction site and build brick walls, trust me, you can build an Empire State Building on your own. So, why go to prison for a crime? Auerbach asked, in the tone of an elder, with a slight lesson.

Leon shook his head and said, "If I didn't go to jail, I wouldn't be able to stand here today, would I, Mr. Auerbach." Also, for dinner, I want to eat turkey. ”