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he did not like to be seen with it and now he was thinking of that face at a boxing match. The face showed Eddie’s life: good grades, the state of grace, uncertainty about his body in a world of running, pushing, yelling boys, and an imagination that lifted him to other places, other deeds. Looking at Eddie he saw everything he had learned about him in their three years together and he knew that their faces were too much alike and he wished they or at least he had a sneer, a glare, a tightened jaw to show to the world.
    â€˜We ought to see Roland anyway,’ he said. ‘He’s fighting first. If we don’t like the rest we can leave.’
    â€˜Your hero.’
    â€˜He’s not my hero ,’ thinking of Bob Steele, the quickest fist fighter of all the Saturday cowboys, fading, almost gone, for in the nights now it was Roland he thought of, Roland’s quick fists on Larry’s face, and lying in bed it was him merging with the image of Roland, him hitting Larry, only the arms were Roland’s or his arms were like Roland’s, hard and bulging and fast, and then sometimes his face became Roland’s or Roland’s his so he didn’t know in his daydream whether he was watching Roland or Roland was watching him or whether he had become a stronger Paul or had become instead someone else.
    â€˜You talk about him a lot.’
    â€˜I don’t think so.’
    â€˜Sometimes he’s all you talk about.’
    â€˜Well, I like him. Come on; let’s go to the fights.’
    That night the gym was filled. Clusters of Paul’s classmates were scattered through the crowd of men and women and students; Paul and Eddie sat in front of some girls they did not know. They were from the public high school and smelled of perfume and chewing gum. The lights went off except for the light over the ring and then Roland was climbing into it, stepping through the ropes held apart by the coach; Paul’s gaze fixed on that. Paul was not close enough to see Roland’s eyes but he knew from his profiled jaw and lips and his arms stretched to the ropes as he worked his feet in the rosin box that he was not afraid. Then the bell rang and Paul knew it was true: Roland glided into the ring and in purple trunks and gold sleeveless jersey he danced and jabbed and hooked and crossed, and within a minute the other boy was bewildered, lunging, swinging wildly, and backing up. The sounds of Roland’s large stinging gloves filled the gym, grabbed yells from the throats of men and soft cries from the girls behind Paul. In the third round the other boy’s nose suddenly bled; the red spurt covered his mouth and flowed onto his shirt while Roland closed in with a flurry and the referee pranced between them and stopped the fight. Roland put his arm around the boy’s back, rested a glove on his shoulder, and walked him to the corner, toward his coach who was bringing a white towel.
    Every Friday night he won and when the fights were at home Paul and Eddie watched. Eddie liked it too and walking home from the Saturday serial and cowboy movies he talked about Roland last night with the speed of a striking snake. Since his fight with Wayne, Roland had moved among those boys who from the third grade had been the athletes and class officers and good students as well and who were growing into halfbacks and quarterbacks and fullbacks and ends. Larry Guidry did not go into that world. He did not seem to even look at it. Nor did they look at him. At the end of the season Roland went to Baton Rouge and won the state championship. When he came back to school, Paul waited for his chance, got it between classes, and shook his hand.
    On most days when the final bell rang and they had recited the last decade of the rosary Paul got quickly out of the door and was down the corridor and outside before Larry could hurt him. Sometimes as he fled Larry kicked his rump or punched his back. But usually he escaped and