the locker room before the exhibition: Loach on one knee at the ankle — "Hal had his hands on Loach’s…"

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.