sort ofhard to get a read on.”
“She’s honest, she’s steady, she’s always present.She’s pure without being a puritan.She’s liberated without being a libertine.”
“All right.Now you’re starting to frighten me.”
Daniel blushes;in the company ofanother man, the pitch ofhis own ardor seems suddenly absurd.“I’m being undone by this whole thing,”he murmurs.“I’m totally in lovewith her, Bruce.”The reliefoffinally being able to say this to another person has upset his balance, the way you would lose strength in your legs and stumble forward after finally being relieved ofa load offirewood.
“Oh dear,”Bruce says.His sneakers are laced;he stands up and puts his hand on Daniel’s shoulder and gives it a comradely pat.“It’ll pass,”he says, as ifto comfort Daniel.“Let’s not even talk about it.”
The squash courts are on the second floor ofthe gym, a row offive white rooms with hardwood floors, the back wall ofeach made ofshat-terproofglass so that the games may be observed.All ofthe courts are empty when Daniel and Bruce arrive;they take court number one and Bruce teaches Daniel the rudiments ofthe game, beginning, as is the masculine custom, with the rules.Bruce seems fixated on the rules, rat-tling them offin a stern fashion, as ifsuspecting that Daniel might be try-ing to figure a way around them.When they finally begin to hit the ball, Daniel is confused by how little it bounces, how its hollowness and soft-ness render it practically inert, and he wonders how this game will ever provide him with exercise.But the ball becomes livelier as it heats up, and after twenty minutes on the court Daniel is breathing heavily and feels the first trickle ofsweat going down his spine.
They hear the thump ofa ball being hit on an adjoining court;another game is in progress.
“You’re a good beginner,”Bruce says.“Want to get a drink ofwater?”
They open the glass door and walk out into the broad corridor, at the end ofwhich is a water cooler.The first thing Daniel sees is Iris sitting on one ofthe brightly colored red-and-black benches in the hall.His heart flaps like a toucan in a cage.Iris sits there, with Nelson draped lan-guidly on her lap.She wears a copper-colored down vest, a Baltimore Orioles cap, jeans, and rubber boots.She glances at Daniel, and then looks away.Surely she has known all along that he is here, they all must have seen him through the glass on their way to court two.Is this really her strategy?That they should ignore each other? It doesn’t seem wise.
And he is, ofcourse, incapable ofcarrying it out.
“Iris!”he calls out, as ifseeing her here were one oflife’s funny little surprises.He grasps Bruce by the elbow and steers him over toward Iris.
”I believe you two know each other,”Daniel says.He feels hot breath on his leg and looks down.It’s Scarecrow, hitched to a dark-blue leash, wag-ging her tailless hindquarters and panting excitedly.Daniel is unreason-ably happy to see her, as ifthe old dog had risen from the dead.
”Scarecrow!Are you a member ofthe gym?”
“Hello, Iris,”Bruce says.Noticing the confusion in her face, he adds,
“It’s Dr.McFadden.”
“Oh yes, I’m sorry.I…”
“I’m out ofcontext.”He gestures toward his long legs.“You never saw me in shorts.”
Daniel chooses to take this remark as somehow scaling the pinnacle ofwit.In the midst ofhis laughter, he notices that Nelson is scowling openly at him, an exaggerated grimace, completely unencumbered by any sense ofsocial grace.He is like a bad actor miming displeasure in a silent movie.Quickly, Daniel diverts his own attention to the squash game taking place in court two.
Hampton is playing against his younger brother, James.JamesWelles has his brother’s—and, indeed, his entire family’s—light copper com-plexion, but his appearance is far from Hampton’s carefully groomed, businesslike image.While Hampton wears tennis whites, James is dressed as ifto go fishing with a bamboo pole:in cutoffjeans, a faded rustT-shirt torn at the shoulder, black sneakers splattered with paint, and no socks at all.He has the merry and defiant eyes ofa boy who always knew he was his mother’s favorite, no matter what sort oftrouble he caused.He has recently grown a little scraggly beard—hardly a beard, really, just three sprouts ofwhisker, a kind ofFu Manchu fountain springing from the center ofhis chin.His long hair is a complex nest of braids, culminating in a thick, glistening ponytail.
Daniel stands behind the glass wall and watches transfixed.James moves around the court as ifscarcely subject to the laws ofgravity, bounding and whirling, airborne, his braids flapping, his shoelaces flapping as well, letting out little yelps ofpure animal joy, his youthful, handsome face alight with the bliss ofhis own physicality.The ball hits against the back wall, and James runs after it with the antic, spendthrift energy ofa pup, in fact he overruns it, but no matter—he returns the ball by hitting it through his wide-open skinny legs, punctuating the cir-cus shot with a whoop and a raised fist.
Hampton’s reply to his younger brother’s showboating is to return the ball in the most rudimentary, formal, and correct way possible.In fact, all ofHampton’s moves on the court could be used in an instructional video, the way he cocks the racquet over his head before each stroke, the way he bends his knees, his short, punchy follow-through, his return to the center ofthe court after every stroke.His movements are dogged, mechanized, and tireless.The only emotion he shows is a slight reddening around the ears and throat when James makes a particularly unorthodox shot, since these are met with squeals and cheers from Nelson.
“Don’t cheer against Daddy,”Iris whispers to her boy.
”Uncle James is funny,”Nelson says.
Bruce catches Daniel’s eyes.
Daniel forces himself to turn away from the game, though by now it feels as ifthe fate ofhis love affair with Iris
“I’m all right.Nelson’s Uncle James is visiting us.”
“I see that,”Daniel says.Daniel has always been moved by the quality ofIris’s mothering;her kindness and her aptness around Nelson have ap-pealed to Daniel so deeply that it is practically an erotic experience to see her with her boy, but just now Daniel wishes that she would speak only to
Still, he goes along with it.“Are you pretty excited to see your Uncle James?”he asks, directing his question to Nelson, who at first seems not to have heard him, and who then leers at him, first pursing his lips and then showing his little milky teeth.
“What’s the score?”Nelson screams at his father and uncle.He squirms out ofIris’s lap and hits his hard little hands against the glass wall.“Who’s winning?”
“I am,”James says, flipping his racquet up and then catching it by the handle.“I’m on fire, I’m unconscious, I can’t be stopped.”
Nelson doesn’t shout in triumph, but he squeezes his hands into fists, goes rigid, and whispers to himself:“Yes.”Nelson’s expressions are ex-aggerated, feverishly intense;it’s difficult to say whether these grimaces and gestures come from some molten, unmediated part ofhim, or if they are deliberately theatrical and insincere.Whatever their source, there is something troubling about them.
Hampton, in the meanwhile, has hit the ball in a slow, lazy arc over James’s head, who then bats it wildly, with an equally wild accompany-ing whoop.The ball sails across the court, barely reaching the front wall, which it grazes, before dropping dead and unplayable, another point for the younger brother, who celebrates by spinning around on one foot with his arms outstretched.
James, having won the point, serves, and Hampton makes his usual methodical return—it’s art versus science.James returns the shot with a dazzling and picturesque behind-the-back stroke, but from that mo-ment on Hampton proceeds to dismantle him, wearing him down with his own refusal to lose.Hampton rallies to win the game9?7.
Nelson has retreated to Iris’s lap, and he sits awkwardly on her, his legs dangling, his arms folded over his chest, outraged over some shady business.Bruce, uncomfortable with standing there in light ofwhat Daniel has told him, and also anxious to use his workout time, has gone back to court one, where he hits the ball to himself.Daniel, however, is powerless to move.He must see the match out to its bitter end.He has been crouched a few feet from Iris, as ifhe were a squash scout studying the game, looking for new prospects.He doesn’t dare say anything to Iris, though he continually looks at her reflection in the squash court’s glass wall.She glances at him and it seems as
