“Take care of yourself—start that application.” And then Price turned and walked away as though he had forgotten about Ben completely.

Did Ben know how to kill? It had really only been six months that he had been winning, when overpowering his opponents felt inevitable. If he could have described it, he would have said that he loved letting some energy pass through him as unopposed as possible. Was that killing? Was murder part of that energy? The other Um Club kids came up to him. What did Price say? What did he want to know?

That night after winning the final—turning to the crowd and seeing them all looking at him, not even hearing their applause but taking the weight of their gaze—Ben told his dad that Price had said hello.

“Was he excited?” Ben’s dad asked.

“Yeah. He was really nice. I mean, I think I might play pretty high up there.”

His dad hugged him and Ben could feel him restraining himself from hugging too tightly. Ben wished Teddy had been there to see it. But, also, he was glad that Teddy was with friends spring skiing in Vail.

And so, as though it were blossoming just for him, the new St. James squash center was finished the summer before Ben’s first year: twelve International courts, ASB brand, the building’s interior totally remade without changing the staid brick exterior. When the architect had finished the plans, Ben’s dad spread them over the dining room table and the family ate in the kitchen for three weeks. He would finally and permanently hold his own against his brother Russell.

And now on the first day of school, as Ben and his dad in a medium sweat set down the last box, they nodded to each other in agreement to go look at the new courts. Ben had expected his dad to be shuddering with excitement, but still he was quiet, and Ben guessed that he was worried about leaving, or maybe he was afraid of meeting an experience that he’d anticipated for too long.

In the bright heat they walked up to the giant furnace, furry with rust, now bolted down on a ten-foot-by-ten-foot concrete slab in front of the courts building. It looked like the sire of ancient mechanical bulls. Below it, on a sloped granite block, a bronze plaque.

THE DRAGON

1935–1993

ST. JAMES SQUASH

The two of them went inside the courts, still not speaking maybe from reverence, and after they had admired the two stadium courts below the bank of carpeted steps, they came back out into the obliterating light and walked very slowly to the dorm amid all the other students and adults moving around them. Ben realized that part of him had expected that Price would be living in the courts.