In One Person

wanted to share with Tom Atkins.
    “Can you
imagine
, Bill—” Atkins began, when Coach Hoyt had left us for the locker room.
    I interrupted Atkins. “Yes, of course I can
imagine
, Tom,” I told him.
    We were at the exit to the old gym when Delacorte stopped us. It was
me
he’d been waiting for.
    “I saw her—she’s truly beautiful!” Delacorte told me. “She spoke to me as she was leaving—she said I was a ‘wonderful’ Lear’s Fool.” Here Delacorte paused to rinse and spit; he was holding two paper cups and no longer resembled a death-in-progress. “She also told me I should move up a weight-class, but she put it in a funny way. ‘You might lose more matches if you move up a weight, but you won’t suffer so much.’ She
used to be
Al Frost, you know,” Delacorte confided to me. “She used to
wrestle
!”
    “We
know
, Delacorte!” Tom Atkins said irritably.
    “I wasn’t talking to
you
, Atkins,” Delacorte said, rinsing and spitting. “Then Dr. Harlow interrupted us,” Delacorte told me. “He said something to your friend—some bullshit about it being ‘inappropriate’ for her even to be here! But she just kept talking to me, as if the bald-headed owl-fucker weren’t there. She said, ‘Oh, what is it Kent says to Lear—act one, scene one, when Lear has got things the wrong way around, concerning Cordelia? Oh, what
is
the line? I just saw it! You were just
in
it!’ But I didn’t know what line she meant—I was Lear’s Fool, I wasn’t Kent—and Dr. Harlow was just standing there. Suddenly, she cries out: ‘I’ve got it—Kent says, “
Kill thy physician
”—that’s the line I was looking for!’ And the bald-headed owl-fucker says to her, ‘Very funny—I suppose you think that’s very funny.’ But she turns on him, she gets right in Dr. Harlow’s face, and she says, ‘Funny? I think you’re a
funny
little man—that’s what I think, Dr. Harlow.’ And the bald-headed owl-fucker scurried off. Dr. Harlow just ran away! Your friend is marvelous!” Delacorte told me.
    Someone shoved him. Delacorte dropped both paper cups—in a doomed effort to regain his balance, to try to stop himself from falling. Delacorte fell in the mess from his rinsing and spitting cups. It was Kittredge who’d shoved him. Kittredge had a towel wrapped around his waist —his hair was wet from the shower. “There’s a team meeting after showers, and you haven’t even showered. I could get laid twice in the time it takes to wait for you, Delacorte,” Kittredge told him.
    Delacorte got to his feet and ran down the enclosed cement catwalk to the new gym, where the showers were.
    Tom Atkins was attempting to make himself invisible; he was afraid that Kittredge would shove him next.
    “How did you not know she was a man, Nymph?” Kittredge suddenly asked me. “Did you overlook her Adam’s apple, did you not notice how
big
she is? Except her tits. Jesus! How could you not know she was a man?”
    “Maybe I
did
know,” I said to him. (It just came out, as the truth only occasionally will.)
    “Jesus, Nymph,” Kittredge said. He was starting to shiver; there was a draft of cold air from the unheated catwalk that led to the bigger, newer gym, and Kittredge was wearing just a towel. It was unusual to see Kittredge appear vulnerable, but he was half naked and shivering from the cold. Tom Atkins was not a brave boy, but even Atkins must have sensed Kittredge’s vulnerability—even Atkins could summon a
moment
of fearlessness.
    “How did
you
not know she was a
wrestler
?” Atkins asked him. Kittredge took a step toward him, and Atkins—again fearful—stumbled backward, almost falling. “Did you see her shoulders, her
neck
, her
hands
?” Atkins cried to Kittredge.
    “I gotta go,” was all Kittredge said. He said it to me—he didn’t answer Atkins. Even Tom Atkins could tell that Kittredge’s confidence was shaken.
    Atkins and I watched Kittredge run along the catwalk; he clutched the towel around his waist as he ran. It was a small towel—as tight around his hips as a short skirt. The towel made Kittredge run like a girl.
    “You don’t think Kittredge could lose a match this season—do you, Bill?” Atkins asked me.
    Like Kittredge, I didn’t answer Atkins. How could Kittredge lose a wrestling match in New England? I would have loved to ask Miss Frost that question, among other questions.
    T HAT MOMENT WHEN YOU are tired of being treated like a child—tired of adolescence,