Miami sunshine put Big Al’s garb to shame. It blazed yellow, much like Al, but, unlike Al, it was the source of life on the planet. Al was human, as he himself would have been the first to admit. “There’s many things I am,” he said, “but a seething ball of molten fucking gasses ain’t one of them!” Miami’s finest laughed. Al was known for the size of his heart, and often spoke about it. It sometimes made for confused but lively exchanges with those more fortunate than himself. In ‘matters of the heart’ there was, after all, Al’s deep love of opera and there was also that which lay in the middle of the chest cavity between two lungs. Monogrammed silk might be said to cover both in Al’s case. As was his wont, Al made much of the confusion, hoping thereby to lighten matters that might otherwise furrow the brows of the young. If nothing else, the yellow of Al’s Miami experience would be a crucial factor in forming much of what he later came to call his “disposition”. For whatever his foibles, this much is certain: Al sought to shine on all, whether they wanted shining on or not. He would be the man dressed as the sun: a vision in yellow serge, with matching hat, silk tie and shirt, just the kind of solar presence a windy city on earth might require. That was Al all over. It was the opera in him.