The Front Runner

barked.
    He turned. I slapped him hard across the face, being careful not to hit his glasses. It was a slap like that famous one Patton gave a soldier in the hospital, that was meant only to be therapeutic. Even Zen Buddhists use the slap. They say it causes "psychic shock," which opens the mind to revelation.
    The crack of my hand against his face sounded
    like a shot across the quiet track. The kids all gasped.
    Billy's face went white and twisted with anger. The next thing I knew, he had swung his arm and slapped me right back. It was a slap in the highest tradition of the U.S. armed forces, and of the Zen masters. I had been making him do weight training and he was now nearly as strong as I was.
    My face and nose stung. Livid, I seized his arms and he seized me by the front of my jacket. His eyes were about six inches from mine, blazing with fury.
    "You big, stupid Marine," he cried in a strange broken voice.
    He twisted loose from me and walked off. Then he broke into a jog and went off across the wide lawn.
    I turned back to the kids, my face hot with anger and pain. By the expression in their eyes, I could see that I had plummeted in their estimation. Vince Matti was on his feet now, raging. By the expression in Vince's eyes, I could see he was going to kill me.
    "What's the matter with Billy?" asked one of the girls piteously.
    "He's getting his period," said one of the straights on the boys' team.
    Everybody laughed. Instantly Vince Matti started toward his straight teammate to kill him. By the time I got the two of them apart, Billy had disappeared around the corner of the athletic building.
    When the class broke up, Vince hung back, glaring at me. "Look, Mr. Brown," he said, "there's something you ought to know."
    "Since when is it your business?" I said.
    "Billy is acting so crazy because he's in love with you."
    I felt that blow in my stomach, and a roaring in my ears.
    "He knows what my rule is," I managed to say.
    "It's that you're so harsh with him," said Vince, hardly able to control himself. "At first, you were, like, kind to him sometimes. But now he's convinced that you've got some kind of grudge against him. He
    knows it's hopeless to want a relationship with you, man, but if you aren't a little more human with him, you're gonna lose him off the team."
    I had to turn away. I wondered if Billy had told him of the scene in the locker room yesterday.
    "Did he ask you to talk to me?" I said hoarsely.
    "Christ, no. He'd kill me if he knew. His father knows too, and Billy's forbidden him to say anything."
    I went through the rest of the day in a daze. I was shaking with exhaustion and emotion. The whole campus was talking about the way we'd hit each other in yoga class. Everybody seemed to agree that Coach Brown was a monster. All I could think was: He loves me. How had he managed to hide it so well?
    That evening I went to his dorm. All three of them were sitting silently in his room. Jacques was sitting in the middle of Billy's unmade bed, playing a mournful tune on his recorder. Vince was sitting on the end of the bed, his elbows on his knees. Billy was sitting hunched at his desk in front of his typewriter.
    When I appeared in the door, Vince and Jacques looked at me, then got up and walked out past me without saying a word.
    I closed the door to shut out all the talking, laughing and rock music that echoed up and down the hall. I sat down on the end of his bed by the desk, where Vince had sat, and looked at him. His research papers were spread out everywhere, books, notes in his backhand script—he had been trying to work. He sat there with quiet wounded dignity, staring at the typewriter, one hand on the keys. The light of his study lamp picked out the gold in his curls and the gold rims on his glasses. He loves me.
    It occurred to me, looking at his emotionless profile, that I had better straighten this out to both our satisfactions right now. Without, of course, breaking my rule.
    "Billy, I apologize," I said.
    "Why did you do it in front of the others?" he said, Still not looking at me.
    "It was inexcusable, and you gave me exactly what
    I deserved. I'll apologize to you before the class next time."
    "I keep asking myself," he said, "what I've done to make you so . . .so hostile to me. I know I get you very pissed at me all the time, but somehow that doesn't explain . .."
    "The only way I can explain it," I said awkwardly, "is that I am under some pressures of my own. I've been taking them