HIS FATHER STOPPED boxing with him when he was five. Till then he had often stood between his father’s knees, throwing punches while his father, sitting on the edge of a chair, feinted and parried, occasionally taking one of his small fists in the face. When he asked his father why he didn’t box with him any more his father said that he was getting too big. His father gave the same reason for not playing pickaback or lifting him upside-down by the feet. He thought there was another reason, but he did not know what it was. He and his friends fought with their fists to settle grudges or respond to serious insults. Lesser differences were settled by wrestling. Wrestling established the fighting hierarchy of the group. His own position was high: no one younger than he could beat him, and he could beat a number of older boys. His greatest victory came at thirteen, over his brother, who was twenty. He fixed a cup of water on the frame of his bedroom transom in such a way that when the door was opened the cup would spill. He then went to his brother’s room, where his brother was studying, and pounded on the door, a traditional act of incitement. He heard his brother rise; noisily he raced toward his room but hid in a nearby closet. His brother entered the room, and the cup tipped. He had never seen his brother so angry. They wrestled for a long time. Finally he pinned his brother to the floor. He later ascribed his victory to the fact that he had been wearing his Boy Scout uniform. During his first week of college the gym instructor, who was also the wrestling coach, chose him to demonstrate various holds. He resisted one of the holds, the instructor pressed, still he resisted, and soon they were wrestling. He threw the instructor in what the instructor later explained to the class was an unorthodox manner. After the class the instructor invited him to join the wrestling team. He won his first three matches, although he had not mastered basic wrestling techniques. His fourth match was against a blind student. He had no will to win, was pinned in record time, and the next day quit the team. In the army he called a Southern soldier a cracker. The soldier challenged him to a fight. The entire company gathered to watch, splitting into two factions, city boys and country boys. He wrestled while the other soldier boxed. Bleeding at the nose and mouth, he established himself on the soldier’s chest and was proclaimed winner. The soldier got to his feet and challenged him to duel with mounted bayonets. He declined, and the soldier’s faction proclaimed their man the moral victor. His distaste for army training rid him of any desire for physical contact for years afterward. However, now and then he arm-wrestles and feels a surge of pleasure at male contact. Before long an old friend who had wrestled with him in college will suggest at a party that they give an exhibition. He and the friend will be drunk, and although he will not want to wrestle he will agree because his friend’s wife will be present and he will have been thinking of initiating an affair with her. At another party, given by an opera singer, a heavy basso some years younger than he, he will suddenly feel very strong and challenge the singer to Indian-wrestle. The singer will grin, assume the proper position, and with wrist alone bring him to his knees. This will be his first indication that he is weakening with age. He will frequently have contests of strength with women in bed, usually trials of restraint and escape. One evening when he is in his mid-fifties he will be making love to a woman fifteen years younger than he; they will struggle to see who can mount the other. He will be startled and amused at her relative strength, and although he will win he will wonder if other women had falsified their strength to please him. One day when he is parking his car he will pull in front of a Cadillac that had been there before him. The Cadillac owner will blow his horn in protest, get out of his car, grasp him by the lapel, and raise a fist. He will be transfixed by a gold ring on the Cadillac owner’s little finger, then look at the man’s face and see the anger change to shame because he is too old to be threatened.