But to see him play, to see his arms and legs moving in such a coordinated way, so soon after he had hardly been able to stand up on his own, to see him brush the slate-black hair out of his eyes, to see him fold a bandanna to the perfect width in a way she had never showed him how to do and then knot it behind his head—all of it, his mere supple existence, sometimes surprised her, made her afraid that he would turn out to be less gentle than his father, less openhearted.

Teddy was out of her hands; she had known even before Teddy could speak that he would be out of her hands. She had to concentrate to remember the times when of his own volition Teddy had treated something or someone gently. But there was tenderness in Ben, and so it worried her when Ben became so good at squash because she knew that tenderness needed tending. There was something of her brother-in-law, Russell, in him that had maybe received too much oxygen when Ben started beating everyone.

Even with his mother’s apparent worry, and with the changes in his old Um Club friends, Ben luxuriated in the future waiting for him on the St. James squash team, Manley Price’s legendary team, the Tide. The wood plaques in the St. James lounge listed in gold paint the thirty-four times they had won the New England Championships. Eleven times between 1979 and 1991: the Long Streak. SJS number one Blake Perkins had won the Independent School League individual championship four straight years starting in 1984, and twice he had beaten the number two SJS player for the title.

This dominance had two causes. One of course was Price, whose two constantly repeated maxims were now stitched on felt banners in the lounge:

SOME OTHER TEAM MAY BEAT US

BUT THEY WILL HAVE TO BLEED TO DO IT

and:

PLAY THE PERCENTAGES

Price ran sprints with his kids, even into his fifties. He could clearly explain stroke mechanics but stopped before making a player self-conscious. He was a widower and a rumored late-night alcoholic, which gave him a tragic majesty that allowed the kids to build a kind of crusade narrative for each season: the world had wronged their coach and they could rectify that through their own selfless contribution.

The second cause of the Long Streak was the furnace under the St. James courts. Since the forties it had been the pet of Ed Poniatowski, the school’s head maintenance man, and he had made so many provisional fixes and had memorized such a vast complex of minute adjustments that when he died in 1976, the furnace left the control of men. The Athletic Director set aside funds to replace it, but Price convinced him to leave it alone and instead coached directly to it.