Praying has entered into my daily routine now, specifically when I go to the locker room. I pray not to get an erection there, on the cement benches, confronted with the display of undress. In fact, it’s wildly unlikely, since I am so nervous in the jostle of naked boys I can barely breathe. I look straight ahead and hold myself stiffly and seriously as if to say, these images will not penetrate me, I am entirely indifferent to this scene; often it’s true, and I am, since the pale and pimpled ranks of fourteen-year-old boys can seem unlovely. But there are those images which do register, when I sit on the bench tying my hateful regulation sneakers and pulling up my hateful striped crew socks and suddenly look right into the passing revelation of some naked, athletic boy. That boy’s body and mine seem fixed in our separate realms, no commerce between us, no real resemblance. At home, tonight, I’ll unfold this image secretly, longingly, but right now I’m bargaining with God, asking for my dick to stay small. I bargain all the time; I say, tonight I’ll think about a woman, if you try you can. If you think about women sometimes then you’re okay. Think about a woman once, and then you can think about men three times.

I’m a disaster at football, soccer, running, gymnastics, and especially climbing ropes. Softball’s less dreadful, since I can dream away the period in right field, at least till I miss some fly ball and the earnest boys start yelling. Wrestling’s not so bad, since my size means I am inevitably paired with fat boys, who have even less strength than me, but then there I am, pinning some inert kid who’s given up, holding to the mat his sad, yielding weight.