A Writer's Life by Gay Talese Read Free Book Online Page B

black, all the American starters were white women, who as a group were fair-haired and photogenic enough to be courted by the makers of commercials in the mainstream market and to be poster-perfect for schoolgirls in the suburbs. The American players also tended to be larger, taller, and yet just as fast as the Chinese—I could see this myself from watching the Rose Bowl game on television—and it also appeared to me that the Americans’ bodies were more curvesome and fully feminine than the Chinese. The latter were inclined to be quite narrow-hipped and boyish in figure, and, with one or two exceptions, to have smaller breasts than the Americans. Actually, I had not noticed large-breasted women on either team. Perhaps there were some seated among the substitutes, but, since the television cameras were not catering to the sensual concentrations that might enliven my afternoon, any women so endowed existed beyond my purview.
    Still, from what I had read about the American team, they were not especially prudish. One of the starting players was apparently proud enough of her body to pose in a bikini for
Sports Illustrated
’s swimsuit issue. Another starter was photographed in a squatting position in
Gear
magazine, wearing no clothes at all while holding a soccer ball in front of her breasts. I could not imagine the Chinese coach allowing his players these liberties even if they were so disposed, but this was conjecture on my part, the musings of an elderly man who, for lack of anything better to do at this particular time, was watching fleet-footed and sweating female athletes chasing one another around the playing field while momentarily imagining them gamboling in G-strings in a rain forest on the Playboy Channel.
    This game was now nearly over and the score was still 0-0. The regulation time of a soccer match is ninety minutes—two forty-five-minute halves—and so far every shot aimed at the net had either been misguided or blocked by the opposing goalkeeper. The Americans got off more kicks than the Chinese, and they seemed to boot the ball harder and farther and to cover more ground as they roved widely around the field before settling into their offensive or defensive formations. But the Chinese impressed me as having the edge in teamwork and in anticipating where the ball was going to be before it got there. They were prescient about what footwork and ball movement would lead to, and, like the onetime rebounding basketball star Dennis Rodman—a veritable geometric genius in the way he foresaw and acted upon the projections of errant shots caroming off backboards and rims—the Chinese women arrived just ahead of time at the spot where a pass from a teammate was due or where they might intercept an intended exchange between their opponents. The Chinese minimized their own turnovers by advancing with short passes, and they also maintained possession of the ball through feigning—keeping the ball between their feet while
pretending
they were about to kick it. Instead of kicking it, they sidestepped it, danced around it, did the jig, the rumba, then wiggled their hips and their heads just enough to keep the opposition off balance and allow sufficient space through which they could get off a quick kick downfield toward a teammate dashing in the direction of the rival goalkeeper.
    At one point in the closing minutes, the Chinese had an opportunity to break the deadlock. After the Americans had allowed the ball to roll out of bounds on the sidelines deep in their own territory, the Chinese corner kicker booted the ball back into play at an angle that spun inward through the air and then tailed down within reach of two Chinese players who stood ready to kick or head it in for a score. But before they could getto it, the American goalie leaped forward with a clenched fist to punch it away, clobbering not only the ball but also the head of a teammate with such force that the American girl was