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months away. The coach who oversaw the EE. class hadn’t known what to do with him. Finally he’d asked if Nick would like to lift weights. Sure, Nick had said.
    Nick was working up a sweat with over two hundred pounds on the bench press that Friday afternoon when the big, fatlegged dude with the thinlipped mouth began to hassle him.
    “A little heavy for you?” the dude asked, taking up a position near Nick’s knees. Lying on his back, Nick could see that the weight room was fairly crowded, about twenty guys pumping iron. He suspected they were all on the football team, and that not a single one of them would rally to his side if this guy started to get rough. He knew instantly the guy was looking for a fight. He had an instinct for such things.
    “It’s not bad,” he muttered, letting go of the bars and sitting up. Perhaps if he went on to another machine, he thought, there was a chance the guy would leave him alone. Unfortunately, the guy was blocking his way.
    “What did you say, boy?” the big white kid asked.
    “Nothing.”
    “Yeah, you did. I heard you say something. What was it?”
    Nick scooted back to where he was able to swing his leg around the bench press table without touching the guy. “I said, it was not bad. The weight wasn’t.”
    The guy smiled. A couple of his buddies behind him stopped lifting to watch. “You must be pretty strong, boy. How many pounds were you lifting there?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “You don’t know? How come you don’t know?”
    Nick stood up. tI wasn’t keeping track.”
    The guy followed him to the next machine, which exercised the hamstrings. To use it, Nick would have to lie face down, which was not something he wanted to do at the moment. He stood undecided as all around him more guys stopped working out to stare.
    “What are you waiting for?” the dude asked, moving closer. Nick estimated the guy had forty pounds on him, but knew that his gut was soft, a swift fist in the diaphragm and the white kid would go down. Nick also estimated that about twenty guys would jump him the moment the guy hit the floor.
    “Nothing,” Nick had never mastered the art of talking his way out of a fight.
    “Aren’t our machines good enough for you?”
    Nick lowered his head. “They’re all right.”
    “Just all right? You sure spend enough time on them, time that someone else on the team could be using. Are you getting my meaning, boy?”
    Nick got it very well. But suddenly he didn’t feel that he should. This is how it had always been with him. He would try to avoid a confrontation up to a point—and then he just wouldn’t bend anymore. He would explode. He hated being called boy.
    “No.”
    The guy lost his smile. “No what?”
    Nick looked him straight in the eye. He hadn’t really looked anyone in the eye all week. “I have as much right to use this equipment as you do. If you think I don’t, that’s your problem.”
    “Really? Well, I think it just became your problem.” And with that, the guy shoved him hard in the chest.
    Nick had been expecting the move, and it was still his intention to floor the guy without seriously injuring him. But what followed proved unexpected. Absorbing the blow without losing his balance, Nick moved slightly to the right and forward. He planned to grab the guy by the left arm, spin him around, and put him in a choke hold. He figured that would be the best way to keep his teammates at bay. He couldn’t believe it when the overweight tub anticipated his move and caught his right hand, whipping him into the nearby wall with incredible force. On the wall hung a mirror the guys used to admire themselves. It splintered on impact beneath Nick’s skull, cutting into his scalp. Then he was on the floor, trying to stand. Blood trickled down the side of his face. The guy’s feet were approaching.
    “You goddamn piece of—M the dude swore as he let fly a kick toward Nick’s forehead. Nick was through treating him carefully. He