the challenge-match endnote: the locker room as body-inspection chamber — "It’s the best mirror in the…"

The empty locker room's real function surfaces: it's a body-inspection station. The plate mirror has "projecting side-mirrors so you can check out the old biceps from either side, see the jawline in profile," the athletic body studying itself from every angle, rehearsing a candid look at its own surface. "The best mirror in the Academy," built on purpose: the founder engineered the vanity apparatus knowing exactly what a body-obsessed sixteen-year-old needs to see.