Thomas was dry now. He could feel a cold drop of sweat roll down his ribs, and he shivered. What kind of game was the coach playing?
“All right,” said Coach McPhee. “Put on your underwear.” He threw the boxers at Thomas. They landed on his chest, where he grabbed them and quickly put them on. Then he put his towel on the bench and moved for the rest of his clothes.
“Not so fast,” said Coach McPhee. “I’m not finished with my story. Did I tell you already we’re the only ones in the building? Dan Farnham used to live here, but he’s away now. He got arrested for killing Cynthia Warden and Robert Staines and Russell Phillips and that boy in the movie theater in New York. I never knew that boy’s name.”
Why was he going through all this old business? Thomas felt his face go hot with dread. He was about to learn something terrible. He stood still in the locker room and listened.
“The mind is a delicate thing,” said Coach McPhee. He picked up Thomas’s jeans from the bench and flicked the zipper. Thomas remembered the knife he had in the pocket.
“A very delicate thing,” said McPhee again. “The rational part sometimes succumbs to the emotional part. My wife in Boston was very emotional. She was not rational at all. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Yes sir,” said Thomas. “I understand.”
“Reason gives way to passion,” said McPhee. “My wife would not listen to reason. She said that she was going to leave me because of my abuse of her son. She said that I hit him too hard. Did you know my stepson?”
“Yes sir.”
“Did you ever know him to have any bruises? Did he ever look unhappy to you?”
Thomas could remember the broad-shouldered, pimply, quiet boy with the scraggly blond hair and the nervous eyes who turned away whenever you walked up to him and tried to talk. At lunch in the dining hall he would sit by himself.
“Did you ever see him looking the least bit unhappy?” said McPhee again.
“Yes sir,” Thomas said. Maybe he should have lied. But he had told himself that he was not going to lie anymore.
To Thomas’s relief, McPhee said he was not surprised to hear that.
“Michael was undisciplined. He was spoiled,” said Coach McPhee. “His mother spoiled him before I met her, before we were married. I told Angus about it. He was never married himself, old Angus. I never met my stepson until he was fourteen years old. By then it was too late. Diane had spoiled him. Discipline is a tough form of love, don’t you think?”
“Yes sir.” Thomas just wanted to forget all this, to put on his clothes and get out of here. It was way after 6:00. Would anybody miss him at the Somervilles’ tea and come looking?
“We disagreed over how to train that boy. Diane was too easy on him. I know the kinds of urges that young boys feel, and I know how dangerous they are. You need to discipline those urges out of them. You need to keep the filth out of their minds. Diane used to take him into town for Sunday night meetings at the church. And why? So that he could meet girls. Can you imagine? The boy’s own mother contributing to his corruption?”
Thomas said he found it tough to imagine the Sunday night youth group at the Presbyterian church in Montpelier to be all that lurid an evening. Coach McPhee was not interested.
“One day this past Thanksgiving break I found Michael in his room with a girl,” he said. “I blew up. In my own home on this very campus, this stepson of mine had imported some female playmate. I suppose I did shout at him. Is that so bad? Does your father ever shout at you?”
Thomas said yes.
“Diane wouldn’t listen to reason,” said McPhee. “She defended them. She said they were doing nothing wrong. But that was typical of a mother, don’t you think? To defend her child? She said they were simply having an innocent visit in a quiet place. But in his room? They were fully dressed, yes, at that point they were dressed, but they were touching each other. She was sitting in a chair in Michael’s room, and Michael was brushing her hair.”
Thomas felt as though he ought to understand how serious that was, but he could not.
“So after I hit him, Diane took him with her to Boston,” said Coach McPhee. “I was wrong to hit him, I admit it. So I flew to Boston to apologize and to ask her to come home, for both of them to come home. And they refused. They simply refused. I was humiliated, and I sold my plane ticket and went to New York. I got a ticket for the biggest, loudest musical I could find. It was terrible, nothing but noise and spectacle. I know a lot about theater, you know. I was an English major in college. I would have graduated with distinction if one professor hadn’t hated my honors thesis.”
“Yes sir.” Thomas could not see why he needed to hear all this right now, but if Coach McPhee wanted to talk, he would listen.
“You see, the traditional way of reading the story of Adam and Eve is that Eve tempted Adam into sin. But I don’t believe it was Eve’s fault. Women can’t help being sensual or attractive. That’s just the way they are. It’s up to the
