In One Person

tell her I’m all right,” I said quickly.
    “I never asked her to tell me the sexual details—in fact, I would just as soon know nothin’ about that stuff, Billy,” the coach continued. “But she said there’s somethin’ you should know—so you won’t worry about her.”
    “You should tell Miss Frost I’m a top,” I told him, “and I’ve been wearing condoms since ’68. Maybe she won’t worry too much about me, if she knows that,” I added.
    “Jeez—I’m too old for more sexual details, Billy. Just let me finish what I started to say!” Herm said. He was ninety-one, not quite a year older than Grandpa Harry, but Herm had Parkinson’s, and Uncle Bob had told me that the coach was having difficulty with one of his medications; it was something Herm was supposed to take for his heart, or so Bob had thought. (The Parkinson’s was why Coach Hoyt had moved into the Facility in the first place.)
    “I’m not even pretendin’ that I understand this, Billy, but here’s what Al wanted you to know—forgive me, what
she
wanted you to know. She doesn’t actually have sex,” Herm Hoyt told me. “She means
not with anybody
, Billy—she just doesn’t ever
do
it. She’s gone to a world of trouble to make herself a woman, but she doesn’t ever have sex—not with men
or
women, I’m tellin’ you, not ever. There’s somethin’
Greek
about what she does—she said you knew all about it, Billy.”
    “Intercrural,” I said to the old wrestling coach.
    “That’s it—that’s what she called it!” Herm cried. “It’s nothin’ but rubbin’ your thing between the other fella’s thighs—it’s just
rubbin
’, isn’t it?” the wrestling coach asked me.
    “I’m pretty sure you can’t get AIDS that way,” I told him.
    “But she was
always
this way, Billy—that’s what she wants you to know ,” Herm said. “She became a woman, but she could never pull the trigger.”
    “Pull the trigger,” I repeated. For twenty-three years, I had thought of Miss Frost as
protecting
me; I’d not once imagined that—for whatever reasons, even unwillingly, or unconsciously—she was also protecting
herself
.
    “No penetratin’, no bein’ penetrated—just
rubbin
’,” Coach Hoyt repeated. “Al said—
she
said; I’m sorry, Billy—‘That’s as far as I can go, Herm. That’s all I can do, and all I ever will do. I just like to look the part, Herm, but I can’t ever pull the trigger.’ That’s what she told me to tell you, Billy.”
    “So she’s
safe
,” I said. “She really
is
all right, and she’s going to stay all right.”
    “She’s sixty-seven, Billy. What do you mean, ‘she’s
safe
’—what do you mean, ‘she’s gonna
stay
all right’? Nobody
stays
all right, Billy! Gettin’ old isn’t
safe
!” Coach Hoyt exclaimed. “I’m just tellin’ you she doesn’t have AIDS. She didn’t want you worryin’ about her havin’
AIDS
, Billy.”
    “Oh.”
    “Al Frost—sorry,
Miss
Frost to you—never did anything
safe
, Billy. Shit,” the old coach said, “she may look like a woman—I know she’s got the moves down pat—but she still
thinks
, if you can call it that, like a fuckin’ wrestler. It’s just not safe to look and act like a woman, when you still believe you could be
wrestlin
’, Billy—that’s not safe at all.”
    Fucking
wrestlers
! I thought. They were all like Herm: Just when you imagined they were
finally
talking about other things, they kept coming back to the frigging
wrestling
; they were
all
like that! It didn’t make me miss the New York Athletic Club, I can tell you. But Miss Frost
wasn’t
like other wrestlers; she’d put the wrestling behind her—at least that had been my impression.
    “What are you saying, Herm?” I asked the old coach. “Is Miss Frost going to pick up some guy and try to
wrestle
him? Is she going to pick a fight?”
    “Some guys aren’t gonna be satisfied with the
rubbin
’ part, are they?” Herm asked me. “She won’t pick a fight—she doesn’t
pick
fights, Billy—but I know Al. She’s not gonna back down from a fight—not if some dickhead who wanted more than a
rubbin
’ picks a fight with her.”
    I didn’t want to think about it. I was still trying to adjust to the
intercrural
part; I was frankly relieved that Miss Frost didn’t—that she truly
couldn’t
—have AIDS. At the time, that was more than enough to think about.
    Yes, it crossed my mind to wonder if Miss Frost was happy. Was she