She was fifteen years old. She was repeating ninth grade.
For a few weeks that winter she’d played basketball on the girls’ high school team. It had happened like a miracle, so suddenly. There’d been a vogue of Dawn Dunphy—She’s not so bad. She’s kind of shy actually. Too bad she smells when she gets excited. Dawn Dunphy had not been the fastest player on the girls’ basketball team nor had she been the most skilled player but she’d been the most reliable player, the strongest and one of the tallest at five feet eight inches, 147 pounds; she’d been the most indefatigable player capable of playing a full game without a break, panting, frankly sweating, in a glow of perspiration in her dark green uniform and always willing to pass the ball to those girls who could sink baskets far better than she could—A fantastic team player, Dawn Dunphy. If she didn’t run you down like a horse.
Just once, Dawn Dunphy had been so conspicuously tripped to the floor by a player on the opposing team that the referee had declared a foul; Dawn was given two foul shots—both of which she’d missed.
But applause in the gym had been deafening along with cheers, cries, foot-stamping. Dun-phy! Dun-phy! Enthusiasm for ruddy-faced Dawn Dunphy with her thick, muscled, dark-haired legs solid as a man’s legs was laced with laughter but it was good-natured laughter, Dawn was sure. It was not mean.
(“This is the happiest day of my life. Thank you, Jesus”—for Dawn had known that Jesus had allowed this to happen; but He had not assisted her in sinking the basket for that was something other, a matter of what was called “free will.”)
But then, there’d been complaints. Girls who hadn’t been chosen for the team complained to the principal that the girls’ gym teacher had favored Dawn Dunphy who wasn’t, strictly speaking, eligible for the team since her grades were low, barely passing, second time in ninth grade yet barely passing, also Dawn Dunphy was only in ninth grade and so (in theory) there was plenty of time for her to be on the high school team in subsequent years. (As if Dawn Dunphy was likely to remain in school past the age of sixteen.) And so Dawn had had to be dropped from the team and had never quite recovered from the shock, as she’d never quite adjusted from having been invited to join the team initially, and from having been singled out for such attention for a magical three weeks.
Dawn I’m truly sorry. But next year, I promise. OK?
The girls’ gym teacher who also refereed the games had genuinely liked Dawn Dunphy. Possibly she’d felt sorry for the girl (knowing of the notorious Luther Dunphy on Ohio’s Death Row) but that wasn’t why she’d invited Dawn to join the team. She’d invited Dawn to join because Dawn was a good enough player, and her size was intimidating to players on opposing teams, and the other girls on the team had not objected, or at least not strenuously. For the vogue of Dawn Dunphy at Mad River Junction High involved students feeling good about themselves for behaving magnanimously and not meanly. But it had ended abruptly as it had begun.
Often there were such surprises in her life. She had grown immured. Or wished to think so.
“‘Dun-phy’—ug-ly!”
“‘Dun-phy’—done-for!”
She’d been so distracted thinking about the basketball team, and the foul shots she’d missed, or rather had almost made—(on the second throw the ball had circled the rim teasingly, as the audience erupted)—that she’d taken no notice of her surroundings, and had not heard the boys approaching her from behind as she descended into the dripping underpass at Fort Street. Suddenly then their voices came loud and gleeful and echoing in the concrete underpass and she walked quickly, half-ran, to escape them. Their chanting words were scarcely intelligible to her, for the hard-pounding of her heart—“‘Dun-phy’—done-for!”
It was her father they mocked. Dully she realized this, with an ache of fury and shame.
There were five boys, or six or seven. They were older than she but in their behavior they were younger, like middle school children. She knew the names of some of these boys, she knew their faces. She did not think that they disliked her. She did not think that they hated her. But there was something about her that made them angry, jeering—something to do with her body that was a female body yet carried like a man’s, with a rolling gait, a way of bringing her feet down hard on her heels, pushing herself forward as her arms swung free. Her eyebrows grew heavy above her deep-set eyes. Her forehead was low, and often furrowed. Her shoulders and upper arms were strong. She wore clothing that might’ve been a man’s clothing, dark, or khaki-hued, without color—corduroy trousers, flannel shirt, dark cotton T-shirt beneath, polyester jacket and frayed running shoes. She observed them sidelong, with narrowed eyes.