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he said, “Yes, no, Hochmeyer, take your time, make your own decision. But come out and practice with us today. Th ose boys want to see you in action.”
    Th e 1970 season at Princeton would start in two weeks. I was intensely aware that I was still only going to be a high-school kid. Quitting the Wreckers had made me different; nothing that had been important before had remained important after. And meeting Sylphide had turned me one notch again in the direction of this undefined thing I seemed to be straining toward, nothing to do with hair, more to do with the ambiguities I’d begun to notice in the world, a new feeling that nothing was black or white, nothing either/or, that no one could truly lose or win. I thought of the dancer’s not exactly delicate hands on me there in front of her kitchen stove. I was no gridiron brute, took no pleasure in my own powers, didn’t need to stomp anyone, didn’t want to play out my father’s dreams, or Coach Keshevsky’s, these stale old guys with their failing testosterone.
    But there was no way around it. I dressed for practice and worked out with the college fellows, shadowing the quarterback, Matt Morrissey, my once hero, a senior everyone knew was going to play for the Green Bay Packers. In a scrimmage Coach Keshevsky let me take the helm of the freshman team. Th e varsity drubbed us, of course, and the real first-year quarterback, left on the sidelines, was visibly pissed. I ran plays perfunctorily, completed a dozen solid passes, slowly got inspired, ran for the only freshman touchdown—an arrogant quarterback sneak against the coach’s call, purposefully knocking over my own man, the enormous freshman center (guy from Hawaii, later to do well in the bigs), using his bulk as a ramp to launch myself over the opposing line, then dancing through the secondary, breaking one tackle, two, head fakes, spins, straight-arm right, straight-arm left, lots of simple ducking, and then, all alone out there, a colossus racing seventy-nine yards with the whole varsity defense chasing me, the best tackling team in the Ivy League.
    So what?
    Rumbling Rick was stern with me after, of course—I’d gone against orders—but I just gazed at him, nothing to say, this little tyrant without his stool. I was through apologizing to coaches. As a parting gift—a little more incentive towards my decision—Keshevsky gave me an envelope with six box-seat tickets to the upcoming game at Yale—the opponent’s homecoming. “Closer to Westport for you,” he said in a way that was warm and cold all at once.
    â€œHey,” said my dad.
    I was indifferent until I had the obvious thought: I could invite Katy to her own homecoming game. Of course the coach would have known where she went to school, would have known everything there was to know about me, including my plans to major in Philosophy and Culture, a new field being pioneered at Princeton, as it happened. But none of that would have occurred to me then, the extent of a coach’s manipulation.
    He said, “Okay, mister. No more bullcrap. Time to grunt or get off the pot. Can I tell the boys yes? Can I give Professor Lunkins the good news?”
    Lunkins was the chairman of the philosophy department. From him I’d had three stirring letters in a week. “I need some time to think,” I said.
    â€œNothing to think about,” said my father.
    â€œHe’ll think, ” said Rumbling Rick approvingly.
    Dad drew himself up, handed over a business card, barked in imitation of the coach: “Mr. Keshevsky—Rumbling Rick, if I may—telephone me at your leisure. Have I got investments for you !”
    C RUISING UP THE Jersey Turnpike on the way home Dad and I laughed about the coach’s face at that moment—his dismay, disgust, disdain for my father all barely hidden—but I must have let on that I’d been embarrassed.
    Pop said, “I know, I