Summer. As Fuss had said, twice as many customers wanted to move during their and their children's vacations, and the longest daylight in the year allowed him to accommodate them. During the rest of the year, he rarely asked his employees to exceed eight hours a day five days a week, but, during the summer, he usually needed them ten hours a day six days a week. They rarely complained, however, since they earned time and a half for overtime during the week, time and a half on weekends with double time for overtime then. If Doz deposited a reasonable portion of his weekly check in a savings account, he would be able to repay his debt to the convent by the end of the summer, maybe even buy a car. Nelly was right, you needed wheels to get around. Fuss had hired two hefty young men with weathered faces to help with the extra workload. The black one wore an orange T-shirt with a locomotive belching smoke and the white one, a light-blue T-shirt with a naked Greek god flying across it. The mystery deepened as they argued over a competition in which they had opposed each other.

"The ball was in the air!" protested Taylo, the black one whose build resembled Doz's.

"Split the uprights." He raised his arms.

"You hit him instead of the ball."

"The hell he did! 

"Next time... "

"Twenty-four to nothing!

At lunch time, they started throwing a round thing pointed at both ends back and forth between them. Noticing that Doz was watching, Taylo threw it to him and, to his surprise as well as theirs, he caught it easily in his hands. Grasping it by the back half in his left hand, he threw it to Blake giving it a twist so that it spiraled.

"Hey! He throws it better than you," Taylo chided Blake.

"All you know how to do is knock heads."

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They invited Doz to join them and some friends for touch on Sunday afternoon. From their explanations, he understood that it was a simplified version of the football they had been talking about. On the field they had indicated, he found eight young men and one young woman in a variety of sizes, shapes and clothes. Most of them wore shorts and colorful T-shirts with the name of a university or a team on them, including several with ZU or ZTech. The white ones were apparently Blake's friends and the black ones, Taylo's, while the girl, who was white, knew them both. She looked more like a mover than Nelly. Blake flipped a coin and Taylo said "heads!" Heads it was, so Taylo choose Doz first and Blake made a face. Janet was Blake's second choice, which surprized none of them except Doz. The kickoff and the initial play confused him completely, but then he realized that football started and stopped instead of continuing like soccer. You had to touch the player on the other team who had the ball to stop him. His teammates bumped into you to keep you from touching him. Blocking they called it. Offence and defence reminded him more of war than sport. You could use your shoulders, arms and hands on defence, but only your shoulders and arms on offence. Why? Taylo told him to center the ball back to him and block Janet. Where could he use his arms and shoulders on her? All he could see was a bouncing white sweatshirt with Gertrude Farr College on it. The first time, she shoved him out of the way so roughly that he fell down and she tagged Taylo. Though disconcerted, Doz dared not ask any questions! The next time, he met her chest to chest and moved back and forth with her trying to keep her from getting around him, yet she wriggled around him anyway. The third time, he tried a little harder and knocked her down on the ground. Mortified, he apologized so profusely that everyone laughed, including her.

Taylo was trying to throw the ball to teammates running down the field, but his passes weren't very accurate. Blake's resulted in three touchdowns, although his receivers didn't bother to touch the ground. Disgusted, a teammate told Taylo: "You can catch: why don't you let somebody else throw?" Taylo asked Doz. On his first try, Doz tried to throw to Taylo, but Blake caught it and ran for another touchdown. Furious, Taylo told Doz: "Throw it to me, not Slobbo!"

Blake amplified his voice: "Slobbo intercepted a pass from Chinsky intended for Malvern and ran for a fourth touchdown."

open," Taylo told him, "run!" On the next play, he did run and, to everyone's astonishment, all the way to the goal line. When they tried to converge on him, he changed his speed or direction so fast that they couldn't reach him. Everyone who lunged at him fell down, including Blake. Taylo amplified his voice: "Unable to find any receivers open, Chinsky ran forty yards and scored despite a desperate lunge by Erskin on the ten-yard line." Blake looked annoyed. Now that his team had the ball, Doz aggravated his annoyance by rushing the passer. Shoving Janet aside, he rushed Blake so hard that he touched him once, hurried him into throwing an incomplete another time and slapped the ball a third time so that Taylo intercepted it. Each time, he ran back to help Janet up and apologize. Back on offence, he threw repeatedly to Taylo, who was always open, and Taylo scored two more touchdowns. After both of them, Taylo broadcasted: "Chinsky completed a [so many yard] pass to Malvern for another touchdown." The second time, he added: "and the ZTech fans are going nuts."

The score was 25-20 with Blake's team in the lead. He and a few of his teammates said it was time to quit, but Taylo protested: "You are always trying to stop the clock ahead of time."

"Come on Taylo," he scoffed, "you always want to keep the clock going."

"I have to leave," Doz apologized. "... I have to cook dinner for my friend."

"Three? Who says you are going to score again?"

Janet told Taylo: "You are going to get him in trouble with his girlfriend."

"She is not my girlfriend."

"She is my landlady."

When he described the look on their faces, Becky started laughing and couldn't stop. Doz wondered why Blake and Taylo wanted to win so badly that they argued over whether the game should stop or continue. Shouldn't it end when the players have something else to do? Blake and his team's pleasure over winning resembled Taylo and his team's chagrin over losing. Neither seemed happy. Becky explained how the sports industry seduced youth by exaggerating the glory of victory. The propaganda persuaded each of them that he would win and others would lose, hence the disappointment of losing. One athlete or team in every dual competition and all but one in

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every multiple competition had to lose. Coaches drove their athletes to win, spectators applauded them when they did and those who did expected rewards for their success. While spectators paid to see the competition, however, coaches in high schools, colleges and universities used most of the proceeds to compensate themselves, leaving little to the athletes on the excuse that money would dishonor them. Most of the players dreamed of a lucrative career in one of the professional leagues, an ambition encouraged by coaches although only one in a hundred realized it. The naïveté of youth exposed athletes to a discipline by which coaches reduced them to obedience. Their coach could exclude them from competition or dismiss them from the team. Rather than recreation, such sports provided crowds with shortlived entertainment of little cultural value.

Almost every high school, college and university sponsored teams to represent it, advertise it and entertain its alumni as well as the local population. This entertainment encouraged support for the institution, either by gifts or favors. The institution compensated its athletes by a free but easier education, although they usually took a greater interest in their sport than their studies. Few institutions disciplined or expelled them for neglecting their academic responsibilities. Stars often received secret presents from alumni or fans eager to encourage them to improve their athletic performance. Since these presents were illegal, a scandal erupted when the press discovered them. The institution always expelled the guilty stars and sometimes fired the coach, while the corrupting alumnus went free. Colleges and universities competed with each other to recruit high school stars, resorting to legal and sometimes illegal enticements. Distinguished from other students by their prestige and privileges, stars often indulged in vanity and arrogance. A career in sports appealed to athletes with little hope of living a comfortable life by other means, yet many of them succumbed to poverty at the end of their career.

Doz continued to play touch with Taylo, Blake, Janet and their friends on Sunday afternoons, despite complaints by Siss. She wouldn't have minded watching if she hadn't been afraid Taylo or Blake might mention her in front of Fuss. After enlightenment by Becky, a furtive invitation by Taylo to spend an evening with him and a separate one by Blake came as no surprizes. Each offered to come and pick him up in his car and take him to a steak house. After a drink at the bar, they could get some food, then they could join friends and have a good time. There would be a plenty of women, both

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assured him, as if talking about the same kind of thing as food and drink. Thanking them more politely than they expected, Doz explained that ten or more hours on the job didn't leave him much time for sleep and other needs. How about Friday or Saturday? Well, he already had plans for the weekend. Next weekend? He didn't know, but he would speak to them early next week. Siss wouldn't like it, he thought, and he didn't either. Taylo's and Blake's persistence made him feel even more reluctant. Judging by the cigarettes they consumed on the job, he assumed that smoke would fill their restaurants and nightclubs. After leaving the orphanage, fellow workers had persuaded him to try a puff on a cigarette and he had spent the rest of the day trying to spit the taste out of his mouth. He hadn't minded having a drink with them, but he had noticed that people who had drunk more than that exaggerated their humor, good or bad. A good time, he suspected, implied a noisy show of friendship behind which people tried to deceive or seduce each other. Doz didn't like noisy crowds in small rooms anyway. If he accepted these invitations, Taylo and Blake would expect him to return the favor. Rather than squander his money on entertainment, he wanted to save it to pay his debt, buy a car and... start a family.

"What them studs want wif you?"

He smiled: "How did you know they wanted something?"

"Each of them invited me to a restaurant and a nightclub."

"I said I didn't have enough time during the week."

"I said I had something else to do."

Surprized: "Thank you, Nelly! You taught me."

"I don't know. What do you think I should say?"

"Yes... I don't think I will stop... I think... she loves me too."

"She has a job this summer. She will be a waitress in a hotel at Lake Arthur."

"We aren't very happy about it. Maud got her the job. Their church owns the hotel."

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Startled: "She doesn't know about me."

"... I hope Maud hasn't told Fuss."

"Dutch?"

"All right... How did you know about Taylo and Blake? Could you tell by looking at them?"

Mack and Doz accepted a proposal by Fuss to work an hour overtime every day for two weeks, so Mack could teach Doz how to drive the big truck. Bulging muscles gave Mack a round figure, which rocked back and forth as he walked. Stern and taciturn, he had suspicious little eyes in a puffy face that peered at Doz as if expecting him to do something wrong. As a driving instructor, therefore, his attitude differed entirely from Nelly's. The slightest grinding of the complicated gears made him growl in Doz's ear: "You are striping my gears!" Nothing imperfect escaped Mack's sarcasm and he took contemptuous pleasure in reminding Doz of mistakes he had already made, even counting the number of times. Around and around they drove in the parking lot at the Fossez office and warehouse in Wheatfields, while Mack had Doz shift from one gear to another and back, again and again. When Doz had satisfied him several times, Mack didn't bother to let him know, but told him to drive a little faster so he could practice shifting into and out of the next higher gear. Once he had convinced him that he could drive the truck forward at speeds allowed by the confines of the parking lot, Mack drilled him in backing up and then in parking. Mack placed cartons in various places to similate obstacles or other vehicles and, when Doz ran over one, the bear growled. By Wednesday, Doz could do everything in the parking lot that Mack could, so Mack took him out in the streets around the warehouse. He had Doz use higher gears, stop at streetlights, change lanes, turn into other streets and cope with traffic. He badgered him about watching the blind spot in back, where an impatient driver might be lurking in a small car, and about steering wide around corners to keep the rear wheels from cutting across them. The next day, Doz drove up and down hills, backed into loading docks and dead ends, parked in less and more difficult places. When he had mastered these problems, Mack confronted him with a number of unusually difficult ones, such as backing up and down a curving

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ramp while other trucks waited. When one of them blew its horn in exasperation, Mack laughed: "Once you decide to put your foot in the shoe, forget everything and everybody else. Blind and deaf. You got me?"

"Yes Sir."

On Friday, they began with two, three and four-lane highways, where Mack told Doz to respect the 55 mph speed limit. "Let cars pass. They go five mile an hour faster because they know the cops won't stop them. You can go sixty downhill, but no faster. Fines cost more money than you save by getting there ahead of time. Cars don't like trucks because they slow down uphill and speed up downhill: don't pick any fights." Once Doz felt at ease on highways, they drove onto the Singletree Freeway, where Mack took advantage of the Friday evening rush to subject him to a series of challenges increasing in difficulty. Back and forth they went along the three-lane stretch that curved around the city center with exits and entrances on both sides. Doz had to find room in adjacent lanes and move into them without forcing the following car to brake or the bear growled. Several times, Mack had him exit, take a bridge over the freeway and enter on the other side. Merging gave him more trouble than changing lanes because, in addition to finding enough space, he had to accelerate ten tons instead of two. Mack kept telling him that, in any collision between a truck and car, the judge was more likely to blame the driver of the heavier vehicle. "Besides, the cost of accidents, lawsuits, increased insurance premiums and bad publicity come out of our pockets. You got me?"

"Yes Sir."

"Yes Sir."

"Yes Sir."

"Whose fault?"

"The guy in the green Buick."

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"Because he should have slowed down when he saw... What did you call it?"

"When he saw the Corvette in his rearview mirror."

Silence. Mack didn't believe in compliments. Let arrogant or reckless drivers pass, he recommended, and pass sleepy or careless ones, on the left if you can, on the right if they clung to the far left lane. Leave bad drivers as much room as you can without crossing the line on the other side.

Doz was just beginning to enjoy the lesson when Mack glanced at his watch and told him to take the exit to Wheatfields. The rattle of the power in front of him and the feel of the weight behind him felt good. He dreamed of taking Siss for a drive. Although he negotiated some narrow streets with ease and parked the truck right in the middle of the white rectangle in the parking lot, Mack made no comment. As soon as they had locked up, however, he nodded in the direction of a bar across and down the street: "Time to celebrate." Paychecks had filled Raunchy's with wage earners, laughter and smoke, but Doz and Mack found two empty seats at the far end of the bar, where they ordered Pabsts. Mack took a pipe with a low bowl out of his pocket, packed it with a pungent tobacco, lit up with a match and puffed away. After five puffs, he moved it the side of his mouth opposite Doz, where he held it with his teeth, patted him on the shoulder and asked: "Five more hours of overtime next week or your driver's licence on Monday?"

Five more hours with Siss: "My driver's licence."

Doz declined the game of touch on the Sunday afternoon before Siss left for Lake Arthur. He invited her to lunch at the Orchid, where Smyrna and the waitresses welcomed them. Afterwards, they went swimming in Amos Fletcher Park and Siss looked even skinnier in her bathing suit than her yellow cotton dress. How did she managed to stuff all of her hair under her bathing cap? She loved to swim, swam better than he did and taught him how to flutter kick and breathe after every other stroke. He learned the crawl so quickly that he surprized her, although she beat him when they raced. "You are a needle!"

"I am not!"

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They were hanging on the ladder to the float when she pushed away to swim out to the rope separating the swimming area from the rest of the lake. As she kicked to bring her legs up, one of her calves hit him in the crotch. Gasping with pain and pleasure, he had the hardest erection he had ever known. Mortified, she hung on the rope and he, on the ladder, each pretending to wait for the other. He didn't dare leave the water for a half hour.

Lying on the beach: "Will you come back as skinny as you are now?"

"I'm not so skinny!"

"That's not very nice!"

"I'm going to stuff myself and come home fat."

"You wouldn't like me if I were fat."

"What if I just got a little rounder."

"You wouldn't?"

"I like baked potatoes better."

"After one, I don't have any more room."

Making a face: "They fill you up and you feel hungry an hour later."

"Dad always wants a slice of cheese with his."

"I tried it once. It's not so bad."

"Anything else?"

"Ugh! I hate milk!"

"It tastes like stables."

"To listen to you, one doesn't eat for the taste either."

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"See! You do want me to be round!"

Becky had invited them to dinner that evening. Afterwards, as he walked Siss to the bus stop, they promised to write each other. When one had received and read the other's letter, he answered it as soon as he had an opportunity. At first, their letters were no longer than the front and back of a 5½ x 8½" sheet of stationary. They described their work, incidents on the job, relations with or between other employees, people and things that interested them only because they were telling them to each other.

"I tried to eat another potato. I only managed to nibble at it."

"You were trying to tell me something in a dream last night and I couldn't hear you. What was it?"

They saved what they felt about each other for the end, teasing when they were happy and endearing when they were sad.

"I could pinch you!"

"Where?"

"If I were, you wouldn't dare."

"I miss you, Doz."

Although he said nothing of the evenings he spent with Blake and Taylo, he hinted: "I have never even danced with you."

"Let's go dancing next time!"

Doz had agreed to spend an evening with Blake and another one with Taylo, each on condition that he pay his share. These evenings paralleled each other. When he ordered a coca-cola at the bar, they tried to persuade him to order a beer as they did. Since he persisted, they mocked him, insinuating that he should act his age. At the table, they flirted with the waitress, attracting the attention of other diners, which flattered them and embarrassed him. The prices of the food and the quantity of the servings seemed excessive to him, yet they ordered the most expensive dishes and devoured them, neglecting the manners they had learned as children. Blake had begun to eat holding his fork between his thumb and the next two fingers. Soon, however, he grabbed it in his fist

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and shoveled the food in his mouth. Doz's disgust climaxed when he waved it at a girl who had just entered the restaurant, calling her "a pretty good fuck" and failing to cover the potatoes in his mouth with his teeth. Once he had "unbuttoned her belly," she was shaking as if she was having an epileptic fit. Although Taylo behaved better, his manners also suffered from his appetite. As for the nightclubs they took him to afterwards, he couldn't see much difference between them except that everyone was white in Blake's and everyone, black in Taylo's. Dimly lighted, filled with smoke and young people, both reverberated with laughter and pop music, both smelled of bodies and stale beer. They had dark walls, a bar, tables with chairs, a jukebox and floorspace for dancing. Bright eyes and big grins welcomed Blake and Taylo, along with exaggerated enthusiasm and admiration. Doz guessed that they had already drunk a few. Introducing him, Blake and Taylo said: "he has a good arm and doesn't even know it," a joke they had been cracking on the job. Both hinted, less subtly than they assumed, that he hadn't found out yet how much fun you could have in America. Their friends took the hint, trying to get him to drink and smoke. The girls also made more or less pressing overtures depending on the success they usually had. The more he declined, the more Blake's and Taylo's friends persisted, taking his negatives for affirmatives. Torn between tact and anxiety, he tried to make them understand that he wasn't going to smoke or drink more than one beer, but he didn't have the nerve to tell them that he had a girl friend. When he danced with some of the girls, they pushed up against him, both exciting and disgusting him. Neither had the girls at the orphanage done that, nor would Siss have. In a lesson on Joseph and his brothers, one of the sisters had taught his class that nothing tormented the guilty like the presence of an innocent among them. If they failed to corrupt him, they would try to punish or even kill him, hence the martyrdom of several saints. Although Doz had forgotten the saints, he remembered Joseph and he was determined to keep these false brothers and sisters from corrupting him. It was hard to discourage them without giving offence.

Another parallel between the two evenings was the discovery that these young people were warming up to a former classmate because he had made a name for himself. His success assuaged their lack of it. The effort of trying to appear happy barely concealed the misery of some. The obligation to enjoy himself tired Doz more quickly than the hour, which he nonetheless used as an excuse to leave. At midnight, he found Blake with his back to the bar and an arm around a girl on either side. One girl would take a puff on a

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cigarette and stick it between his lips so he could take one, then the other girl would remove it and take a puff. Meanwhile, each would take a sip of beer from a glass moving in the opposite direction. When both the cigarette and the glass reached one of the girls at the same time and she forgot which one she should send back first, all three burst out laughing. As soon as they had stopped laughing, Doz approached, thanked Blake for a wonderful evening and for introducing him to his friends. Blake regretted that he was leaving so soon, offered to give him a ride and, when he declined, said he would see him on Monday. Both of the girls smiled, said "goodbye!" and waved. He had practically the same dialogue with Taylo, who was in a clinch with a girl on the dance floor, where they were rocking and shuffling their feet. Instead of saying "goodbye!" the girl gave him a lackadaisical wave of her hand. The busses had stopped running, so he had to walk home, but the air cleared his lungs and the leisure, his mind.

The two evenings, which occurred on successive Saturdays, resembled each other so closely that they tended to merge in Doz's mind. On the following Mondays, Blake and Taylo each took him aside to see whether he had made a bad impression on him. He assured them both that he had enjoyed the evening and left only because he was tired, although he felt guilty about lying. When the three of them were working together, he noticed that they had begun to make fun of him.

"Shit!" shouted Blake when he cut his hand on the ring of a barrel.

Another time, Taylo was accusing Blake of hitting the referee because he couldn't block the kick.

"There goes Crybaby slobbering again!"

"Hey! Doz can hear you."

Blake and Taylo looked at each other mystified, while Jason and Plug laughed.

Once Doz had said "goodbye" to Nelly in the evening, he would run to the entrance at 16 Shelby Street and open his mailbox, where he nearly always found a letter from Siss. One of them announced that the Cone and Needle Lodge allowed its employees two weekends off during the summer. They could spend one somewhere else and invite a friend for the other, provided

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a bed was free for him on the men's side or for her on the women's side. Siss let Doz guess which option she preferred, but her enthusiasm promptly dissipated the mystery. Since there had been unoccupied beds on the men's side every weekend so far, Dad, who didn't have to know where Doz was going, could choose the most convenient Saturday to let him off. Having solved this problem, Siss told him the trains to take and even how to change in Mammoth. They could go boating, swimming, hiking, dancing... and she would serve him his meals! Forgetting his supper, Doz wrote an answer which, once he had expressed his enthusiasm, bogged down in doubts. Would Fuss let him go? How could he explain why he needed a Saturday off? Would he have enough time between Friday evening and Monday morning? What if Fuss or Maud found out where he had gone? He didn't write another question that bothered him: could he afford the trip? Regretting that he had no telephone, he grabbed a handfull of change and ran to a phone booth at the corner. Siss couldn't come to the phone just then, the lady said, because she was serving dinner. She told him to call back at nine, so he returned to his apartment and had supper. Then he paced his apartment and the neighborhood trying to speed time up, yet the hands of his watch slowed down as they approached nine o'clock. Hearing each other's voices excited them so much that they forgot to discuss their problems before Doz's change ran out. They wrote each other that evening and, from then on, asked questions already answered in mail underway and answered questions already asked. What happy confusion! Two evenings later, Doz received a letter containing a round-trip ticket to Arthur and, the next morning, he sent Siss one with a check for the amount. From letter to letter, they argued about who should pay for the trip. Siss apologized for not writing in so many words: "I invite you. I want you to be my guest. Please!" She also recommended the precautions he should take so Mom and Dad wouldn't find out, as if he hadn't already thought of them. If he considered spending a weekend with her unwise, she cautioned hypocritically, he should decline. She didn't want him to think she was brazen. Of course she wasn't brazen, Doz replied. He didn't like brazen girls, he added without mentioning the ones he had encountered recently. The enthusiasm reached fever pitch by the Friday evening when Nelly dropped him at Centennial Street Station with his suitcase: "Behave yoself, you heah?"

A tycoon had discovered Lake Arthur about a hundred years after the indians had left it unspoiled. He hired a few locals to paddle him around in a canoe, show him where to cast his line and reload his shotgun for 

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him. Enjoying his wilderness without exploiting it satisfied him for a few years, but then he got the urge to show it off to a few friends. One thing led to another until a rustic lodge stood on the shore with a view of the lake, the forest and the mountains. His family, other friends, younger men, women and finally children hinted that they wanted to share his pleasures with him. The joy of owning what others coveted yielded to the even greater joy of rewarding affection and esteem by giving modest portions of his treasure away. Thus a few other lodges, scarcely less rustic than his, appeared along the shore at reasonable distances from each other, but then a rival he hadn't even noticed bought a tract of land high on a mountain overlooking the lake. Construction of a big house, which our tycoon, his family and friends thought out of place and in bad taste, began. Despite his encouragements, his lawyers could find nothing legally wrong with the purchase of property subject to no restrictions on land use and willingly sold by the rightful owner for a price paid in full. As the next generation began to inherit family fortunes, other houses appeared on the slopes around the lake, rivaling with each other, more in magnificence than elegance. Yet a vast park surrounded all of them, separating them from each other. Another kind of competition tended to replace the original beauty of Lake Arthur by landscaping that appealed to those who paid for it. Soon locals had access to the lake only by the permission of the owners and others, only by invitations from them. The third generation split between those who wanted to keep the lake as it was and those who wanted to develop it. The latter fought tooth and nail to establish a grocery store and a service station with a few houses for the families of the people who worked in them, thus founding Arthur. Once they had persuaded the railroad to build a line to the town, however, the opposition beat a retreat from the crowds. The latter came for sunny Saturdays and Sundays until a new hotel encouraged them to stay for weekends and even weeks. Yet the two factions agreed at least on confining these newcomers to the town and the lake by keeping them off of their property and away from their shores. Both also took advantage of the stores, including new ones that sold newspapers, recreation equipment, vacation clothing, souvenirs, jewelry and crafts. They even frequented a café, a restaurant, a nightclub, a movie theatre and a shooting stand. The fourth generation split into three factions: those who wanted to keep the place as it was by then, those who wanted to develop it further and those who wanted to sell at the highest possible price. Those who wanted to develop it further attracted wealthier non-residents by enhanced facilities and opportunities. Lake Arthur bored those who wanted to sell, other resorts attracted them or their debts left them little choice. One by one, the

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houses around the lake displayed signs advertising Hotel This and Hotel That. Crowds took tours of the old estates as well as a fake steamboat with fake side wheels, which turned out of sync with the motion of the craft. As it followed the shore around the lake, the loudspeaker amused them with facts about the owners, such as his habits and hobbies, and figures, such as the number of fireplaces and chimneys in his house.

It was dark and late when the train slowed approaching Arthur. Doz tried to guess the topography of the town by the lighted windows. When he got off the last of three cars, he found the air pleasantly cool after a sweltering trip and it carried a faint scent of flowers. The locomotive was breathing huskily trying to catch its breath after climbing a long, twisting incline. Against the station lights, he saw a silhouette of Siss approaching and glancing this way and that as the passengers passed her. She had a graceful stride and a halo around her hair. Then she came running. Without the slightest hesitation, they hugged each other and he lifted her off the ground, swinging her around in circles. How wonderful it felt!

"You are even skinnier!"

She grabbed his suitcase, he tried to take it away from her and they yanked it back and forth laughing. In front of the station, they took a taxi to the Cone and Needle, where they said goodnight before the young man at the desk showed Doz to his room. A noisy breakfast early the next morning introduced him to her workmates, with whom she enjoyed much popularity judging by the way they teased her.

"Is he the one you have been writing all those letters to?"

"You are going to share him with us, aren't you?"

"I bet she sneaks him off somewhere by himself."

"Hey! I'm jealous!"

"Tell him to jump in the water. I bet he will like it!"

"That will put hair on his chest."

"Unless he already has some."

They took a path along the shore and, after a meandering mile, they took another one uphill and back behind the houses and hotels. The sun appeared and disappeared as clouds drifted beneath it, while a breeze started and stopped, wrinkling and smoothing the water. The breeze decreased the warmth when the sun shone and increased the chill 

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when it hid. The clowds drew shadows across the slopes on the other side of the lake. Clinging to the terrain, they slipped over the relief, the buildings, the rocks and the trees. The silence impressed Doz, but Siss warned him to enjoy it while he could. People were lingering over their breakfast in dining rooms and on terraces where the view lulled their leisure. Soon the lake would attract most of them, the mountains, others and the town, a few. Doz and Siss were following a path beaten by many predecessors, who had headed in the same general direction, avoiding the same obstacles. It went up and down, left and right, around or over boulders, skirted ravines and clung to ledges along cliffs, beckoned with root or stone steps, sometimes treacherous. Trees and trees with a little sky peeking through here and there, the scent of pine needles and decaying leaves. Alone with the birds and squirrels, Doz and Siss had never felt more intimate and yet they didn't touch each other. Nor did they say very much for fear of spoiling something they knew not what.

Wearing a long-sleeved white shirt with the sleeves rolled up halfway and blue jeans that clung to her slender midsection and legs, she fascinated him by her energy, agility and grace in negotiating the obstacles along the trail. No wonder he stubbed his big toe, the one he had broken, on a stone he hadn't noticed. They began to glimpse roofs and walls between the trees beneath them as they approached the Cone and Needle. Noticing that he was limping, she told him to sit down on a bench, take his shoe off and let her see. When she touched his red toe, he grimaced with the pain. With tender reproach:

"Why didn't you tell me, Doz?"

Big eyes: "You didn't?"

"You were?" Blushing: "Am I that interesting?"

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Doz apologized to Siss for spoiling the weekend, but she laughed and said that it only made it more interesting. After they changed into their swimsuits, she was helping him hobble to the dock. "Need any help?" yelled one of the other girls. Sitting side by side, they rowed out onto the lake, now cluttered by other rowboats, canoes, a few motor launches and three small sailboats. One of the motor launches was towing skiers, while the steamboat rolled into view on its sidewheels rounding a bend in the lake. Siss and Doz rowed to a cove where trees, left uncut by the owner, lined the shore. Again she pitted her cunning against his strength as each tried to turn the boat towards the other. When they reached the cove, they let it drift and dove overboard. The water caught Doz in a sudden icy grip that startled him. Siss laughed at the shock in his face and swam away knowing that he would chase her. As they circled the boat, she would gain on him as long as he followed her around the circumference, but he would close the gap by cutting across on a chord. When he caught her, he grabbed her, they sank, she wriggled free and the chase started over. She felt like a Hindu goddess struggling with all of her arms and legs. Exhausted, he climbed back into the boat and, shivering, began to dry on his towel. An icy splash smacked him in the back and she laughed at him. She had swum under the boat and surfaced on the other side. Now she was swimming away, daring him to chase her, so he dove back in the water. Time seemed to have stopped and yet it had jumped ahead.

The manager of the Lodge, Myra Shelton, had left Siss a note inviting her and her friend to visit her after their swim. Meeting at a church conference, Maud and Myra had arranged Siss's job for that summer. Siss and Doz were afraid Myra might mention him to Maud, but what could they do about that? They decided not to say anything that might raise her suspicions and hoped she wouldn't have an opportunity to tell Maud. Myra had reached the age where women seem neither old nor young, but rather suspended. A silky pattern of green and purple diamonds covered her bulging white anatomy with efficient decency. Doz's efforts not to notice the dazzling expanse of her bosom pleased her. Attached to a silver chain around her neck, she wore lavendar glasses shaped like sidewise teardrops. After years of telling employees what to do and what they should or shouldn't have done, her voice resonated with authority. Both a business woman and a church militant, she took more of an interest in Doz than he expected. He realized that the less he said about himself, the more he would excite her curiosity.

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He explained how the sisters had found and raised him in Carminia and the bishop of Mapleton had found him a job. Thus he put his Catholic background beyond the reach of Myra's Protestant claw, but his job within that of her business claw:

"What kind of business is it?"

"Trucks? Trains? Ships? Airplanes?"

"What do you ship?"

"Furniture: that's nice. Are you in orders, operations, billing...?"

"That's an advantage. You will learn more about the business that way."

"You must be a valuable employee."

"I noticed you needed Siss's help to get around. How did you do it?"

"Well, your employer will find you more useful sitting down than walking around. Mind earns more money than muscle."

As they left, he saw that Siss was so upset that she didn't even want to talk. They avoided the subject for a while, but it kept popping up until, exasperated, she asked him:

"Why were you so nice to her?"

"You were impressed by her big bare bosom."

"Is that why you told her so much about your job?"

"Maybe it would have been better to let her be suspicious."

"She will tell Mom."

"Mom will tell Dad."

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"He will send me away to school."

She shrugged. "If he fires you, you will have go back to Carminia."

"That might not be so easy. Even if you got one, they wouldn't pay you as well and they wouldn't give you the same opportunities."

"What else can we do?"

"Do you really think I would do that?"

"Five kids!"

"If you are going to marry me, don't you think you better ask me?... Mom and Dad will say I'm too young."

"No! It's me you are going to marry."

"You haven't tried. I'm not too young for that."

"What business is it of theirs?"

After supper, they sat with the other young people at the end of the pier, dangling their legs over the water, watching the lights from the opposite shore dance in the water. A crescent moon rose behind a mountain into a dark blue sky sparkling with stars. They were kidding, joking, telling stories and singing songs that Doz was hearing for the first time. Sometimes the words puzzled him, but Siss and the others couldn't always explain them.

"Mary Lou lost her shoe,
Lost her shoe, her shoe,
Traipsing through the dew,
Do, do, do."

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it had been almost as soft and smooth as hers before he left the orphanage. Presently, she gave his unstubbed toe a nudge and soon they were nudging each other back and forth. A furtive nudge invited him to nudge her back, a stroking nudge conveyed her affection, a forceful nudge provoked him and he would tickle her under her ribs, which made her squirm and giggle. The rules of the Lodge required the girls to return to their side by midnight. The ones on the pier, who had learned how much time it took, began to stand up two minutes before the hour. Soon they were all trooping to the dormitory as merrily as possible without waking the guests. Bringing up the rear, Doz and Siss kissed goodnight just beyond the light.

The next morning, she went to mass with him and he went to church with her. He explained that mass was a duty that the sisters had taught him. Although she recognized a few things in common with the Free Faith liturgy, she wondered if Doz could understand what the priest was saying. Yes, because he had learned Latin in school, but most Catholics had to depend on the gestures of the priest and the bell rung by one of the acolytes. Afterwards, she supposed that God wouldn't mind how you worshipped him as long as it didn't hurt anybody and he agreed. Each had heard much disapproval of the other's religion, yet none of it seemed significant to them now. In the Free Faith Assembly, the singing and recitation by the worshipers surprized Doz, but likewise the ease with which he could follow a service he had never attended before. Praying God in English to forgive you for doing what you shouldn't have done and not doing what you should have done moved him. Though used to being noticed and especially when he was with Siss, Doz wondered why, after the service, so many members of the congregation came up to them and spoke to them so cordially. The church encouraged them to do that, Siss explained proudly. It stressed the importance of fellowship with others who shared your faith. Yet Doz had recognized an unfriendly glint in the eyes of some.
 

"Is it a duty to befriend strangers who attend your church?"

"They enjoyed it too much."

"I'm not like other visitors."

"You know what I mean."

He wanted to stop, but he couldn't. "If you had come with your brother..."

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"They would have treated us the same way."

He gave her a skeptical look.

"I didn't say that."

He shrugged.

"Sometimes they pretend to be friendly. Curiosity isn't necessarily friendly."

"Excuse me."

"What do you say?"

"Yes, I am. I'm sorry... How do you reply?"

Hugging her back: "But you are still crying."

"Is it all right to tell you that I love you?"

"Yes."

"I love you... Five children?"

Doz had to catch a train early that afternoon in order to reach Mapleton that night. Since lots of other people were taking the same one, the couple couldn't find anywhere to kiss goodbye. Finally they hugged each other at the entrance to his car as others passed. "Nobody else matters," she whispered. As the train left, he leaned out of his window and she ran along beside him on the platform. When she stopped at the end, she kept waving until the train went around a bend away from her. During the entire trip, he kept remembering her waving. No one waved like she did with her entire body, such energy and enthusiasm. He didn't care how many millions of others had parted at train stations, it couldn't have been the same. No girl could have had a figure like Siss's, hair like hers, eyes like

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hers, a smile like hers with teeth in braces. It occurred to him that he had forgotten those braces, he didn't notice them any more, they were a part of her. Again and again, the scene reappeared to him during his return, during the few hours he managed to sleep that night, on Monday as he struggled to overcome his fatigue, even for days and weeks after that. The absence in his eyes inspired Nelly to dig her elbow in his ribs, laugh and ask: "Doz! Where are you, honey?" He saw Siss waving in daydreams, nightdreams and especially when he spoke with her on the phone after he had come home for work, for he had had one installed. Taking turns calling each other, they tried to keep the conversations short and the bills down, but to no avail. There was so much to tell each other.

Every Sunday afternoon from then on, he met with Taylo, Blake, Janet and others for a game of touch. His team always won by a whopping score, even though Taylo and Blake were both on the other team. Since he was choosing his team, he always took Janet first. On defence, she rushed Blake, while he covered Taylo, who seldom got away from him. Janet forced Blake to throw early or run and, when he ran, Doz came back and caught him before he went very far. Doz was intercepting a few passes every Sunday. With Janet blocking for him on offence, he lofted passes right into the hands of the receiver not covered by Blake and Taylo, busy with the other two. Occasionally, he threw a short, quick one to Janet, who almost always caught it and craddled it against her breast. When she caught one, she beamed with such pleasure that she sometimes forgot to run. Doz ran when he couldn't find an open receiver or sometimes even when she told him it was time. Since she knew more about football than he did, he always followed her advice in huddles. He scored at least one touchdown every week by running. He was even learning how to punt and kick off.

Then one Sunday afternoon, Blake brought a friend with a build like Doz and Taylo's. Ray, who was in his upper twenties, had "played for ZU."

"Played?" laughed Taylo. "He just scored touchdowns and things like that."

"You ain't got no character to build." Taylo nonetheless agreed to the proposition.

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Worried, Doz suggested that Janet play on Taylo and Blake's team. Everyone laughed, including Janet. On his first offensive play, Doz had agreed to throw to Ray on a down and out pattern. Used to protection by Janet, however, he was watching for Ray to turn, when, bouncing on a white sweatshirt, Gertrude Farr College loomed in front of him. He felt as if his feet had stuck to the ground and she shoved him so hard he fell down. The young man he had told to block her was also on the ground. Elated, Taylo and Blake praised Janet, while Ray, who had been open, scolded Doz. After telling a more robust young man to block Janet, Ray faked Taylo and cut behind him, where Doz threw him the ball. Ray didn't even have to break his stride. They scored several touchdowns that way and Doz ran for another. On defence, Doz and Ray each intercepted Blake once and allowed Blake and Taylo little yardage. Hardly did Blake and Taylo hide their frustration. With the score at 27-6, Ray started teaching Doz how to throw a running pass. At first, the difficulty of leading Ray when both he and Doz were moving resulted in an incomplete and an interception by Taylo, who ran for a touchdown. But then, Doz began to hit Ray with a persistance that exasperated Taylo, who was trying to cover him. Since he was left-handed, he had been running to the left, but now Ray had him run to the right, which made it more difficult for him to release the ball. After a few tries, however, he mastered this difficulty. Finally, Ray told him to run one way while he ran the other. After three incompletions, Doz hit Ray, who scored. 41-13.

At this point, Ray proposed to change sides with Taylo and start a new game at 0-0. Everyone agreed although Doz wanted Janet back on his team, which Ray and Blake conceded indifferently. It was a very different game. On offense, Doz threw to the receiver not covered by Blake or Ray, or to Janet. When blocking, she was using her weight more and more like a man. Once, when Doz was running the ball, she even blocked Blake, much to his surprise. By the time he had wrestled her out of the way, Doz had gotten around him. When Doz ran parallel to the line of scrimmage, the other team never knew whether he would throw or turn downfield. He kept gaining on Ray and Blake, until Ray lost his patience and tried to cover Taylo and another receiver at the same time. Taylo broke into the open and caught a long pass from Doz behind the goal line. On defence, Doz covered Ray, staying behind him and never letting him get more than five yards away. Twice Blake threw a pass intended for Ray, who had gotten away from Doz, but Doz closed the gap while the ball was in the air, deflecting it once and intercepting it another time. On offence again, he ran to the right

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and Taylo cut to the left, while, in the middle, Janet ran five yards downfield, stopped, waved her arms and, jumping up and down, yelled. Since Ray was covering Taylo and Blake was covering her, only two other players stood between Doz and the goal line. Turning the corner, he eluded them easily and scored despite an attempt by Ray to catch him. Few players had outrun Ray during his football career. Rarely had he seen a player run as smoothly as Doz, change direction or speed as suddenly, exploit the situation as promptly. The more Doz played that afternoon, the more he improved and he was enjoying the game more than ever before.

When Janet caught a pass for an extra point, the score was 41-6 and they decided to stop. She pounded Doz on the back so hard that she knocked the wind out of him. "You ought to be playing college ball!" Pointing at Blake and Taylo: "You made monkeys of these creeps."

They were grinning.

"She made a monkey of you too," Taylo told Blake.

"Well," said Blake, "if you are going to lose, you might as well lose to the best. But a girl...! "

Doz declined at first, but everyone insisted, so he called Becky, who graciously agreed to skip that Sunday. They sat on both sides of a long table under a grape arbor on the terrace of Napoli's. Janet was on one side of him and Ray on the other, while Taylo and Blake sat on the other side of the table. Janet told Doz he was crazy to move furniture when he could get a football scholarship to any university he wanted. Why waste his youth? He had a good build, he could throw, he could run, he could kick, he even had good instincts. All he had to do was ask and coaches would beat a path to his door. After a year on a freshman team, he could quarterback any team in college football. If he made it to the pros, he would be rich the rest of his life. Even if he didn't, he could still get a better job than the one he had now. Although Doz listened politely, Nelly's and Becky's words were echoing in his ears. Ray was nailing Janet's remarks down with proposals. An assistant coach of the freshman team at ZU, he invited Doz to visit the campus, meet the head coach and his staff, tour the athletic facilities and the campus. The athletic department would pay for transportation, room and board. Realizing

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that it was already paying for his beer and pizza, however, Doz regretted accepting Ray's invitation. Ray had fierce eyes that crossed slightly, a long, broken nose and a wedge-shaped chin; his hair curved up and back like the crest of a hawk. His voice purred in seduction mode and rattled in persuasion mode. Doz had faced determined salesmen since his arrival in Mapleton, but they had only tried to sell him something, while Ray was trying to buy him. He even saw that Ray had detected his embarrassment and was trying to exploit it.

He looked at his watch, stood up, said it was late, reminded them that tommorrow was a work day, thanked Ray for his invitation, promised to think about it and give him a call. Goodbye and he was gone. At work the next day, Blake took him aside and tried to persuade him to accept Ray's invitation. The coaches would lavish their hospitality on him, he would see how nice ZU was and he had nothing to lose, nothing to lose. Glancing over his shoulder and pushing Doz further out of sight, he told him that Ray couldn't say so but Doz would receive full compensation for his unearned wages during the time of his visit. Doz said he hadn't decided yet and, in any case, he would prefer to go in the fall when Fuss didn't need him as much. Narrowing his eyes, Blake replied: "That's too late, Doz. Football season begins in September."

"OK. I will make my decision and I will tell you."

"Sweet-talking me? Yes, perhaps."

"But he wants me to play for ZU."

"If I let them do that, they will think I want to play for them."

"I haven't decided yet."

His career! He had been hearing this word a lot lately. It seemed more like a game to him. Or worse...

Smyrna and Becky advised him to decline the invitation, but Nelly was afraid he would regret it if he didn't know what he was refusing. It was an opportunity other young men would jump at. He should tell Ray he didn't think he wanted to play football, but he was willing to accept his invitation and consider the possibility. Nelly's husband had played football and hadn't been no count ever since. "Football knocks their brains loose. They's rattlebrains after that." Fuss took Doz aside to ask why Blake and Taylo were after him all the time. Once he had heard, he confirmed everything Becky and Smyrna had said, adding that nearly all football players had injuries sooner or later. They often hurt their knees, which seldom healed properly and tended to buckle. He had seen it happen to one of his employees:

"Bosh Kodek was one of the strongest young men who ever worked for me, but, after he hurt his knee playing football, he didn't have any more strength in his knee than a little girl... I would hate to lose you, Doz. You have a future in this business. But maybe you better accept that invitation, go up there and ask a lot of quesitons. I will tell you which ones. And don't agree to anything until you come back down here and think about it a week or two. A week or two, you hear? If you want to talk to me and Maud..."

He gave Doz his look and Doz nodded. Although he hadn't said so, Doz didn't even want to accept the invitation. Wouldn't he have to accept another one from ZTech? The coaches at both universities would subject him to the same kind of pressure as Ray had. A half hour had seemed intolerable. Could he stand two or three days?

He called Siss that evening.

"They will take you away from me, Doz."

"There were some nice boys in my class at school. They play football now and they aren't so nice any more."

"... He doesn't want you to regret the opportunity or resent his influence on you. He wouldn't hold it against you if you decided not to go."

"He did? How sweet of him! We will need all the sympathy we can get from him when he finds out about us."

"You want me to decide?"

"... All right, go and don't forget me, not one second, you hear?"

"You can't decide now that you will say 'no' then. That would be unfair. And even if you say 'Yes'... Oh Doz!"

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