Boy's Poem Reverence is a part of fear. -- Plato, Euthyphro His name wasn't Jack LaLanne -- but close. Lean, lazy, a drawling ironist older than us, sauntering backfield while we ran like zealots beneath the hope of his pass. He smoked dope in the basement -- till his dad called in a cop, who arrested him right there. Then they drafted him: suddenly stricken, he tried to build up his asthma, trudging in wool round the damp fields after dinner. But he got healthier; and they took him. We heard he became a sniper, and with confused pride we assured each other that he was "the best at it." Playing full court next July, we saw him stroll up in fatigues and boots; nobody said much, but we shared the benediction of power-handshakes. Next game he covered me -- I was so parched my armpits were foaming this weird jizz, but I spun like Earl the Pearl, dribbling "betwixt and behind," tapping almost above the rim. At point game I hitched him right, then dabbed down the lane -- an easy hoop. Halfway through my tomahawk he hammered me sideways, and I got up seeing him clomp off with the ball. He bulled down the lane and stretched toward the hoop, but low, the long floating jump of man who's lost his spring. The ball was lost in a canopy of arms, there was a ragged scrum at the key and then the ball skittered toward me like a righteous answer and we won. I couldn't complain or celebrate -- He wasn't playing a game. I took off, and saw him only once after that: standing in Friendly's Ice Cream counting his change, his head bent over his hand like his own palm reader, a thoughtful fake suburbanite, a vault of motives. . . . Later I heard he went back, moving in trees or ditches, silencing households. I began to forget him that fall, but the milky comfort of my victory welled within me. I skipped football and saved my knees: I was taller than Dad even, made varsity, and started. And when I jumped they gave me new names, they called me Reindeer and Blitzen, they called me Geewee and York and Thor, I dunked golf balls and skewed myself toward the glass, dustdevils at my heels as I leapt cleanly. -- David Gewanter