Vision Quest Read Online Free PDF Page B

last year. Each morning during my two study halls, if I don’t go for a workout, I read Dr. Ralph Besson’s Obstetrics and Gynecology . So far I only understand the conjunctions. Dr. Besson is down at the University of Oregon, but I didn’t get to meet him when I was invited down there. About all I ever get to talk to when I’m invited to a college is the athletes and occasionally a sorority girl.
    I feel spacy now, light-headed. My hunger is out of control. I’m a little nervous to read anatomy, so I sit here on the employees’ toilet with a good story. I’m just to the part in Styron where Nat is given to the Reverend Eppes, who, as Styron says, “gropes malodorously” after Nat’s “virgin bum.”
    *  *  *
    Elmo has the order ready. I take it on a cart rather than a tray, thinking I want to have my hands free.
    The guy is nude again, I know. I can hear the shower running.
    He is. He stands shivering and toweling, his stubby cockflapping. I push the cart past him, in front of the mirror.
    In the mirror I see him come up behind me. He’s a round man. Young, maybe thirty, but getting bald. He’s hairy as hell—like me. He takes care of himself, and that’s not easy for an endomorph.
    I see myself staring at him. He’s smiling. His cock cranks up. He drops the towel at my feet. I’m sweating, and I don’t sweat much anymore. My hands shake on the edge of the cart. Softly he knocks me into it. The dishes clank. The tea spills a little. The lemon pie quakes. He’s shorter than I am, almost resting his head on my shoulder. He brings his hands around and cups my cock. He sighs. His head rests on my shoulder.
    â€œWould you like me to blow you?” he asks.
    I look in the mirror. I look scared and he sees it. But I’m not scared of him. I breathe deep. We sometimes get four thousand people in our gym for a match. I hear them roar, chant for a takedown, a reversal, a pin. I breathe deep again and stop shaking. If I ever experiment with this stuff, it won’t be now.
    â€œNo, thanks,” I reply.
    He backs off, looking at me in the mirror.
    â€œDon’t be nervous,” he says. “Would you like to look at some pictures?”
    â€œNo, thanks,” I say at the door.
    I do a hundred pushups before the elevator reaches six.

V
    I leave my white shirt and black slacks in my hotel locker, stuff my school clothes into my packsack, and run home in my rubber sweat suit. I look pretty weird running down Riverside. But it’s eleven thirty, so downtown Spokane is pretty deserted. Fridays and Saturdays you can’t get across the street for all the kids cruising. I run down alleys on Fridays and Saturdays.
    Up on the Northside a two-cycle bike blows by me, wound tight. It must be Kuch!
    This is mid-December. The streets sparkle. The moon is cold. Nobody rides in December in Spokane.
    Whoever it is brakes and goes down, sliding a half-circle, ramming the snowbank at the curb.
    It is Kuch! I know his fall. We haul his bikes to the races in Dad’s truck when Kuch’s dad has to work. Kuch is good. No shit. He’s already an AMA Junior, and I bet he makes Expert next year. He’s mainly a motocross rider. He spends all his money on his racers. He’s got two 360 Yamahas—one for motocross and one for flat track and TT. I don’t know what Kuch would do if he had a choice between living his life over as an Indian in the early 1800s or becoming a world-class motocross rider.
    â€œI came down to the hotel to see you,” he says, looking up at me.
    â€œYou okay?” I ask.
    â€œSure,” he says. “You kicked the holy living shit out of me today,” he says, getting up.
    â€œI’m bigger than you are,” I say.
    â€œYou’ll murder Shute,” says Kuch. “You’ll pound up on him.”
    Kuch knows plenty about Gary Shute. Shute’s been the only guy to pin him in