the locker room before the exhibition: Loach on one knee at the ankle

The liturgy's officiant at his altar. Loach kneels to shave and wrap Hal's chronic ankle, and the posture of the whole rite is here — the trainer down on one knee, the player's hands steadying on him: That last line is the scene's quiet center: in a building where the bodies are otherwise untouchable instruments, "everybody's had his hands on Loach's shoulders" — the trainer's table is the one place sanctioned contact happens, the servicing of the ankle the closest thing E.T.A. has to a laying-on of hands.