Before long I realized that we had already come four miles. “Last mile, Mr. Bryson. Let’s make it a good one, shall we?” I quickened my pace, as did he. We didn’t speak, our breath coming harder and harder.

There comes a moment when you decide to truly compete against someone that your mind ceases to function conventionally at all. One becomes only windmilling feet, flying arms, the will to win. I entered this space as we ran the last 500 yards or so. I was pushing myself as hard as I could, harder than I have in years. My breath was loud in my ears. The boy was clearly pushing himself too, but I kept on his shoulder until we were roughly a 220 from the finish. Then my legs gave out. There is that moment, too. When one has run as fast as one possibly can and the body simply says, “Enough.” It is much as it has been described, like hitting a wall. I didn’t fall. Thank God. The boy kept up his pace and finished well ahead of me, easily. I jogged the last few yards, fighting the nausea that comes when you’ve run as fast as you can for a little too long. Bryson jogged back toward me with a smile, one of the first I’d seen from him. “Not bad, Mr. Washington. I thought you had me there for a minute.”

“No.”

“Well, that was fun anyway. Are we done for the day?”

“Yes.” I was still having difficulty talking.

“Okay, then. See you later,” he said. He jogged back toward the campus and the locker rooms, the picture of grace. I stood there, trying to catch my breath, for a long time after he’d gone.

When I first arrived at this school, not long after the upheavals of the 1960s, Henry Murdoch, who was then head of the Classics Department, pulled me into his office. “Look here, Washington,” he said, “I’m going to be frank. I didn’t want you in this department, and I didn’t particularly want you in this school. There’s been too much agitation coming from outside, pandering to your kind. The headmaster had the final say, but I’ll say this to you. You put one foot wrong, deliver one subpar performance, and I’ll be only too glad to see you out the door. Do we understand each other?”

He did not raise his voice during this speech, nor did he show any signs of outrage or anger. He used much the same tone of voice that he might have used to inquire about my trip up to the school and my move into faculty housing. I said nothing for a moment. Then finally, “I think you’ll find that my work far exceeds your exacting standards, Mr. Murdoch,” I said. “I understand you perfectly.”

“Good. It’s time for your first class, then.”