Aces and Knaves

tougher."
    "I guess you never know when you might have to climb up the side of a building in the business world," I said. "Is that part of being a corporate raider?"
    Jed smiled and said, "Listen, Karl, I don't agree with everything that I have to do, either, but you learn to roll with it. Especially when the stock is going up. James gets a bug in his ear about team-building about every six months. So just relax and enjoy it. Let me show you how to tie a bowline."
    We had a rope that I wrapped around my waist. I felt like a sailor as I put a loop in the rope, took the end and passed it through, then around the rope and back through the loop again. A bowline wasn't hard to tie, but once tied it didn't come undone. My confidence grew another notch.
    Fortunately, the rock we were climbing had a walking path up the back of it. Only one side was steep. I watched a couple of the other guys climb the route first. I noticed where they placed their hands and feet and how they used their centers of gravity to bind them to the rock rather than tear them away from it.
    I didn't have any special climbing shoes. I wore my running shoes, but we weren't supposed to tackle anything difficult enough to require advanced equipment.
    When it was our turn, Jed walked up to the top and lowered one end of the rope to me. I tied the bowline securely around my waist and called up to him, "Belay on."
    Jed pulled the rope taut from above and I gingerly started looking and feeling for the footholds and handholds the others had used.
    I slipped when I was just a few feet above the ground, but Jed held me easily before I had fallen six inches. Knowing that I was safe made me bolder and soon I was using cracks for footholds that I wouldn't have trusted with my weight before.
    I received some coaching from several others and after 20 strenuous minutes I climbed over the last pitch and onto the relatively flat surface at the top, fifty feet above the ground.
    Jed sat there with his feet firmly braced against a large rock, hauling in the rope, which went around his body.
    "Good job," he said. "Now you can belay me. Remember, if I fall you hold my weight with the hand gripping the end of the rope that has gone around your body. That gives you a mechanical advantage and all the work is done by your legs, which contain your strongest muscles."
    "Sounds logical to me," I said. "If you're willing to trust me I'm willing to trust myself."
    I sat where Jed had sat, with my legs firmly braced and the rope around me. He pulled on it a few times until I became confident that I could hold his weight. Then he walked down to the bottom and made the climb while I belayed him. He did it without falling, for which I was thankful.
    Later in the morning we made another climb, somewhat tougher than the first one. I slipped once, but Jed held me and I made it to the top with muscles straining.
    The picnic-style lunch wasn't bad. It turned out that several of the guys were pretty good cooks and they whipped up potato salad and sandwiches. The banter was what you would expect from young men, ribald jokes, talk about sex. I got the impression that most of them were straight, sexually speaking. It shouldn't be too bad rooming with one of them. They joked about James, too, but they all seemed to respect his business acumen.
    I had about decided that I should fit into this group without much of a problem. After lunch we did two more climbs, with about the same difficulty level as the second one we had done in the morning. We were resting in the shade and watching others climb when Stan appeared.
    "Karl," he said, heartily, slapping me on the back, "I hear you're a natural rock climber, a regular mountain goat."
    "Not quite," I said. "I think I'm a bit too big to make this a career. The more compact guys seem to have an advantage."
    Stan, who qualified as one of the more compact guys, said, "In some ways, yes. Perhaps in balance, as an example. But with your long arms and legs you have an advantage in reaching for handholds and footholds. I know an interesting climb I'd like you to try. Come with me; I'll be your partner."
    "I'm not sure I'm up for another one," I said. "I'm discovering muscles I never knew I had. And they are rebelling against having to support my weight with my knees constantly bent and my body in awkward positions I've never been in before."
    "Not even when having sex? Well, just let me show it to you. If you don't feel up to it you don't have to do