At 8:30 p. m., the noise in the banquet hall gradually subsided, and the banquet officially entered its main event: the charity auction.
The local auctioneer hired by the foundation was an elderly white man with gray hair. He held the catalogue of items in his hand, speaking in a clear, articulate voice at a pace as slow as if he were reading a financial statement from a listed company. The first two items presented were a 19th-century West African wood carving and a contemporary avant-garde oil painting. The business tycoons and Back Bay celebrities in the audience were actually focused entirely on Lin Qi at the head table that night, showing no interest whatsoever in the artworks on stage. Few bid, and in the end, the two items only symbolically sold for eight thousand dollars.
Seeing that the atmosphere was getting a bit dull, the hostesses pushed a specially made transparent display stand onto the stage.
A beautifully framed Celtics green home jersey with the number 55 is displayed in a glass case. It was the jersey worn by Dikembe Mutombo in Game 6 of the NBA Finals during Boston's four-peat when they won their second championship. The jersey is signed below the number by all the team members who won the title at that time with a gold Mark. The starting bid is set at $5,000.
Someone in the audience held up a sign and shouted eight thousand dollars, then fell silent.
Gary Payton, sitting at the head table, couldn't stand it any longer. He threw his napkin on the table, pushed back his chair, stood up, straightened the hem of his dark red silk suit, strode onto the stage, and snatched the wireless microphone from the bewildered old auctioneer.
"Ladies and gentlemen, this fellow's reading has almost made me fall asleep in my chair. Now, I'll take over this precious item."
Gary Payton walked to the edge of the stage with the microphone, and a burst of laughter and applause immediately erupted from the audience.
Gary Payton turned and pointed to the number 55 jersey on the display shelf, raising his voice into the microphone. "Eight thousand dollars? You Wall Street tycoons and Back Bay bigwigs managing billions of dollars, is this all you can offer? Look closely, the owner of this jersey once single-handedly blocked over a dozen layups in the paint at New Garden, helping Boston win the championship trophy! More importantly, this is a genuine historical artifact!"
Mutombo, sitting in the audience, sensed that Gary Payton was about to start spouting nonsense again, and smiled helplessly, waving his finger at the stage.
Gary Payton cleared his throat and spoke into the microphone in a low voice.
"As everyone knows, according to the NBA's official registration, Dikembe was born in June 1966 and is 37 years old this year. But I believe that none of you here believe this nonsense!"
" Kevin ( Garnett ) and I have been pondering an unsolved mystery that has perplexed the entire league: how old is Dikembe really?"
The entire audience erupted in deafening laughter, and the reporters' flashbulbs went off everywhere.
"Last week in the training facility, Dwyane Wade was asking Dikembe how old he was," Gary Payton gestured vividly. " Kevin overheard this and told Dwyane right away, 'Rookie, don't waste your time, he already asked.'"
"Guess how Dikembe explained it to Kevin back then? He said that in his hometown in Congo, the city hall doesn't issue birth certificates when a child is born. Instead, the family plants a tree in the backyard, and later counts the number of rings on that tree to know how old the child is. Kevin and I pooled our money to send someone to Kinshasa to find that tree, Dikembe didn't even blink, saying that the tree was struck by lightning twenty years ago and had long since burned to charcoal!"
The audience roared with laughter, and even several bank directors at the next table, who usually maintained a composed demeanor, were wiping away tears with napkins.
Sitting at the head table, Mutombo stood up, both amused and exasperated, and pointed at Gary Payton on the stage, protesting loudly. " Gary! I have Georgetown University's student records and a visa issued by the United States. State Department! I was only twenty-one when I went to Washington to study in '87, and I'm thirty-seven this year!"
"Don't try to fool me with that visa!" Gary Payton waved his hand on the stage, directly exposing the truth. "Every scout in the league knows that when the United States. Agency for International Development awarded Georgetown University that scholarship for Africa students in '87, there was a strict requirement that applicants must be under 22 years old. Coach John Klay Thompson, in order to get you onto the Georgetown University basketball team, had a friend at the Kinshasa consulate write a few words and make you look several years younger!"
"You think you've kept it a secret? Ladies and gentlemen, tonight I'm going to reveal irrefutable evidence that Dikembe let slip in 1998!"
All the guests and reporters in the room perked up their ears, and even Lin Qi smiled while holding his teacup.
Gary Payton held up one finger and pointed at Mutombo in the audience.
"In the winter of '98, we were on the team's private plane traveling to Chicago for an away game. At the time, the in-flight television was showing a boxing documentary, depicting the world championship fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in Congo Kinshasa, in October 1974—the famous 'Battle of the Jungle'."
"According to Dikembe's passport date of birth, he should have been only eight years old in 1974. But that night, the old guy had two glasses of red wine on the plane, and while watching TV, he suddenly got excited and started bragging to Kevin and me. He said that at four in the morning on the day of the 1974 fight, he rode a big motorcycle with his first love on the back, bribed the stadium security on May 20th, and sneaked into the stands to witness Ali knock out Foreman in the eighth round!"
Gary Payton spread his arms and shouted at the crowd, "You be the judge! What eight-year-old in the world would ride a motorcycle with his girlfriend to watch Ali box at four in the morning? Judging by the age he was riding the motorcycle, he would have been at least sixteen in 1974, and definitely over forty-five this year!"
The laughter from the entire banquet hall nearly lifted the ceiling off the second floor.
Pierce and Garnett were laughing so hard they were slapping the table, while Wade and Chandler were doubled over with laughter.
Mutombo stood beside the seat, a rare hint of embarrassment showing on his dark face, waving his hand and shouting, "I said my brother took me there on a motorcycle! You were drunk that night and misheard, Gary!"
"I drank a glass of soda that night, Kevin heard it all!" Gary Payton pointed to Dr. McGee, the team's chief physician, sitting at the third table below the stage. "Our team doctor said that regular X-ray bone age tests can no longer determine Dikembe's age. Luckily, we're in Boston, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology is just across the Charles River."
"I'm making a bet tonight! Whoever can bid over $100,000 for this championship jersey, before the dinner is even over, I'll pluck two hairs from Dikembe's head and send them to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology archaeology lab tomorrow morning for radiocarbon dating to see which century he was born in!"