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Elmo got up and the guy took a swipe at him. Then Tanneran picked up one of those round-bottomed wine bottles they use for candle holders and coldcocked the guy. It wasn’t funny. The bottle broke and the guy went down like he was dead. Gene went back to his ribs and Elmo dragged the guy outside. I was grateful to Gene, but since then I’ve been a little afraid of him. He got so mean so fast, and then he was so normal again. I still like the guy a lot and I admire him, but I’m not too anxious to talk to him about Carla.
    Elmo says, “You are my mainest man.”
    The dinner orders have started to come in. Sally, thecashier, hands me the slips. Number 611 is on top. Crab Newburg, tea, lemon pie. He’s still here. I give the slips to Elmo and he hands me my solitary burger.
    I have no control—it’s gone in two bites. Christ, I’m hungry! I fight it with a book of fiction.
    I read quite a bit. This may be why I’ve done pretty well in school so far. There may be a correlation between reading a lot and appearing to know things. Downstairs in the employees’ bathroom, along with my secondhand copy of Gray’s Anatomy , I’ve stashed The Confessions of Nat Turner . At home in the downstairs bathroom I keep Pathology , a gigantic book by a physician named Robbins. When I’m tired of reading it I balance it on my head to strengthen my neck. Upstairs at home I keep Upjohn’s Manual on Nutrition . I don’t use the upstairs bathroom that much, and I’ll go with Adelle Davis on the subject of nutrition, at least until I’m something other than a layman in the field.
    Next to messing around in the woods up along the Columbia where Dad grew up, I’d have to say that learning about the human body is the thing that interests me most. Next comes the human mind, I guess, or the human heart—whatever it is that makes us act the way we do. I love reading and watching movies and talking with my friends, even standing with a tray of dirty dishes and eavesdropping on the guests at the hotel, gossiping over their dessert. Wrestling combines these things for me.
    After I first thought seriously about a profession I decidedI’d become an exobiologist. I was going to be one right up until the start of this season. Since I’d decided to try to come down a weight class and give Shute a go, I thought I’d consult a specialist about my chances of losing twenty-nine pounds while still retaining enough strength to shake hands before Shute osterized my body. So I made an appointment with a nutritionist. His office was in a huge old house on the Southside near where Mom’s naturopath had had his clinic. An old Mercedes 190 SL sat halfway in the garage. I couldn’t tell what year it was. If it was the doctor’s, he sure had good taste in autos. If the guy did his own decorating, he also had good taste in furnishings. The place was paneled in brown leather, carpeted wall to wall in a dark wine color, and filled with black crushed-leather chairs and davenports. It was also filled with some very svelte ladies and a few hog bodies. I was the only guy. I was surprised when I got to see him—he looked like a regular young doctor. He asked what it was he could do for me. “Consultation,” I said. He looked at me as though I’d called him a chiropractor. He said he didn’t hand out pills. I told him I didn’t take pills, except vitamins. He thought I was after some speed. I told him how much weight I needed to lose, the length of time I had to lose it, and why. I explained that I thought I could do it if I kept to one thousand calories a day and kept my nitrogen balance positive. I described my workout and my diet, relating the luck I’d had in the past with vitamins E and B 12 . He grimaced when I mentioned Adelle Davis. Before I could ask his opinion hewas up and out the door. I sneaked a look at the chart he’d written up on me. After