Ben considered all the time he had put into squash, all the ad hoc afternoons he had just stayed at the Um Club hitting out of inertia, all the time other people had invested in him so that he could be excellent at this thing. Human beings are so often ridiculous, petty, confused, bored, scattered, ugly, wasteful, a detriment. Through a combination of luck and dedication, Ben had been able, in this one limited way, to defy all that, to be directed and efficient. He could access and create beauty without any of the embarrassing attention-seeking that other kinds of beauty required. He had adapted to the task; the task itself had shaped him so that his own will didn’t botch the job.

The Dragon—this other thing supremely shaped by the simple task of generating heat—stood there stating its own past purpose, constantly reminding Ben of the potential he was shirking.

On any given day Ben would become distracted—absorbed in a class, studying for pre-Christmas exams, waiting to see Alice in the halls, talking about other girls with Hutch—but before Seated he would start heading back to Hawley. Then, just as he turned toward the quad, he knew the Dragon would be there standing in the cold.

And behind it, the building that his father had lavished so much money on. Lavished his effort by drawing money from other people in order to build it. The Dragon was nothing but itself, an ultimately useful and dependable object, now set out on a block with its use ablated. But the courts had been built on leverage, a whopping overextension, and they still hadn’t peeled off the stickers from the Andersen windows.

*  *  *

The Thursday before the first meet, the wrestling upper-formers brought together the wrestling newbs, the wets. Every year as initiation they had to pull a prank, and the other wets had been thinking about it all year. Every suggestion was ruled lame. Until Ben said, “What about the Dragon?”

Everyone’s eyes went wide.

“Totally,” said Simon. “Totally.”

Ben thought, TP it?

“We could spray-paint it,” said Matt. “Like, write graffiti on it.”

“Whoa,” said Simon. “Whoa, that would be so intense.”

“Wait, spray-paint it?” said Ben.

“You’re doing it, Weeksy,” said Simon. “You’re the one who has to come up with what it’s going to say.”

The next night Ben sat alone on the bottom step of the Hawley stairwell near the back door. He hadn’t eaten lunch or dinner, and he had spent all day spitting into a cup to get to 132. Now that he was here on the steps, studying earlier that night for his geometry exam seemed like a luxury. All the wets were supposed to congregate behind the courts at one a.m., then do the tag and disperse. With luck it would not be known to all. It was 12:53.