“So you had this really important subject you just had to discuss with Richard Blackburn,” said Mr. McPhee.
“Yes sir.”
“You can’t tell me what it was, but you had to tell Richard right away.”
“I just had to tell somebody.”
“So why didn’t you talk it over with your roommate?”
I tried, I tried, Thomas wanted to shout. Coach, can I help it if my roommate is a jerk? “I guess I figured I could talk it over with him anytime,” said Thomas.
Greg was motionless at his desk. He had changed from dinner clothes into a red tee shirt from the University of Maryland.
Mr. McPhee asked Thomas if he was planning to quit basketball to take a part in the play.
“No,” said Thomas.
“Because Mr. Farnham asked me after dinner what time I let you out of practice today. He said he was expecting you for an audition.”
“It wasn’t anything as formal as an audition,” said Thomas.
Mr. McPhee said nothing.
“Believe me, Coach,” said Thomas, “if I do take a part in that stupid play, it’s just going to be a little one. I want to play basketball.”
“I believe you,” said Mr. McPhee. “But I don’t like to hear you use the word ‘stupid’ so carelessly.” Mr. McPhee still spoke with the Boston accent he’d grown up with. Everybody in Virginia said it was a New York accent, but they said that about every Yankee, even the ones from Ohio. Mr. McPhee, who had played basketball for Boston College, was the only major college basketball player Thomas had ever met.
“Tell you what,” said Mr. McPhee. He uncrossed his ankles and put down his hands and stood up. “I’ve got to make my rounds. I’m not going to stick you tonight, Boatwright.”
Thomas was ready to start believing in God.
“But I’m going to check back here later,” said Mr. McPhee. “You need to get two things accomplished before lights out tonight. Are you listening? I want you to do all your homework. And I want you to find out about your roommate’s art project. He and I were just having a very interesting conversation about all sorts of things. You talk to him after study hours are over. You understand?”
“Yes sir.”
He picked up his hat, coat, scarf, and gloves from Greg’s bed and left.
Thomas sat down at the desk next to Greg and pulled out his heavy black Pelican edition of Shakespeare, just in case McPhee decided to pop back into the room immediately. Greg was sitting and staring straight ahead at the open notebook in front of him.
To hell with waiting until study hours were over.
“What’s the problem?” said Thomas. “I come into the room before dinner, I want to talk with you, and you act like I’m poisonous.”
Greg didn’t answer.
“What’s wrong with you?” said Thomas. “Why have you turned into such a snob?”
Greg stared hard at the switch on the light in front of him. Thomas assumed he was not going to answer and opened his Shakespeare anthology. At least he had covered his agenda.
“I guess maybe I’m jealous,” said Greg.
That was not what Thomas had expected to hear.
“Jealous of me?”
“You got it so good here,” said Greg. “You do what you want, nobody tries to pigeonhole you.”
Thomas asked him what in the hell he was talking about.
“Everybody pressuring me to play on your football team and your basketball team. Everybody pushing me to perform.”
Thomas argued that they merely wanted him to be one of the guys. “Everybody else plays basketball. You’re good at it. Why shouldn’t you play, too?”
“I play.”
“On the team, I mean.”
“I don’t like the way your team operates,” said Greg. “All you care about is a winning score. You don’t care about the people at all.”
Thomas said that wasn’t true, they were all friends on the basketball team.
“You and Robert Staines? You can’t stand the guy, but you put up with him because he’s good,” said Greg.
“So?” said Thomas. “Being on a team is all about getting along with other people.”
“I’m not talking about just getting along,” said Greg. “You let the guy run without a leash because he’s the best player. Whatever he does, whatever he says, nobody confronts him. If you guys didn’t care so much about winning, you’d tell him to go to hell.”
Thomas reminded him that the coaches were in charge of picking the teams and keeping the players disciplined.
“I mean off the court,” said Greg. “After practice. On the dorm. You treat Staines like he’s some royal prince nobody can contradict.”
“Staines does plenty of stuff I can’t stand,” said Thomas. He was dodging the issue.
“You never tell him so,” said Greg. “You just go along.”
That was true. It had happened this afternoon. It happened all the time. A couple of days into the school year, Thomas and Greg had been playing a pickup basketball game with Staines and some of the other sophomores. After Greg had blocked one of his shots out of bounds, Staines had thrown the ball straight into Greg’s face. That had started a fight, which had broken up only when Coach McPhee, who lived in one of the gym apartments, had heard the ruckus and come in to break it up.
Thomas had stood by with the others and watched. He was embarrassed to remember.
“I’ve always been sympathetic with you over the way Staines acts,” Thomas said. Since the fight, Staines had behaved as though Greg were invisible. He wouldn’t make eye contact with him in the halls, wouldn’t speak to him, wouldn’t acknowledge him.
“Why don’t you show it once in a while?” said Greg. “Why don’t you tell him?”
Thomas was exasperated by the question; it was exactly what he had asked himself earlier in the day. Moreover, it was
