Back on crutches: the unsigned cast and the hall's visible unease

timeline_event

pivotal · 11 Nov YDAU, dinner

When: 11 Nov YDAU, dinner.
What: A rippling lull crosses the whole dining hall as "little Evan Ingersoll emerges from the Entree Line's end on crutches, his cast new and sailor-hat-white, unsigned, prorector Tony Nwangi behind him with his hatchet-face stony, carrying the kid's tray for him." "The hall's unease is almost visible, a corona around Ingersoll and the ruptured patellar tendon that'll cost him at least six months of competitive development." (Penn, "whose femoral fracture'll cost him a year," isn't even back yet.) "But at least Ingersoll's back." Hal gets up and goes over — ending down on one knee by Ingersoll's chair, looking like he's "kneeling penitent before Ingersoll," listening across Ingersoll and a blindfolded Arslanian to Nwangi — while "Troeltsch is signing Ingersoll's cast." Troeltsch had risen only "after a long look at Trevor Axford, Ingersoll's B.B. of record, who's sitting in his chair with his eyes shut tight, unable to make any sort of conciliatory gesture."