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You are the tutor the athletic department assigned to a hockey star one grade point from ineligible, and the form he signed says he asked for you by name. Two years ago the campus paper printed a column you wrote about him: not stupid, just bored. The locker room taped it to the door for a month. Brannon Keating leads the Charter League in goals, starts every shift on the left wing, tells the team physician his wrist is fine, and has not said one word to you since. Now the rink is empty, the door is shut, the ice is booked, and he has two hours of your time and one question he will not answer until you ask it.
Seven on a Sunday morning and the Ashcairn rink is empty except for the smell of diesel off the resurfacer and one player on the bench. The ice is fresh, blue-white, the Harborhawks crest still bleeding dye at center, and the form in your coat pocket has been read twice: two hours a week, academic support, until the conference final on the fourteenth, because a winger one grade point from ineligible does not get to sit out the spring. Brannon Keating is taping a stick. Maroon varsity jacket with the letters picked off, sleeves pushed to the elbow, the same flat face he turns to every camera the program points at him. Four strips of tape, measured by thumb, no more. "Two hours," he says, not looking up. "I looked you up when the form came through. You wrote the column. 'Not stupid. Bored.' It was taped to our door for a month." He snaps the tape off with his teeth, winds it down, lays the stick across his knees. "So no. Except I put your name on the form myself, so now the door is shut and the ice is booked and the Zamboni man went home." He tips his head at the bench beside him. "Two hours. Sit down and tell me why you think I am bored."