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drive from the Olympic Village is Aliso Village, where Gonzales, 20, was reared, where he survived a shotgun blast to the back of the head at twelve, where he narrowly ducked another bullet just two months ago, and where as yet no pastel pennants have arrived.
Gonzales is a light flyweight, a good boxer when he remembers to be. "I've been a hothead, but I'm not going for that macho trip this time," he promises. "If someone catches me with an elbow, I mean to drop back, collect myself and box. I'm going to be the first Mexican-American to win a gold medal." It pleases him that some of the volunteer workers in the Olympic Village have familiar faces.
He recognizes them from Aliso Village. "Even old gang members. They're shocked to see me too. I'm proud that they are working, especially for free." If he wins, Gonzales says he will stand them all to a block party.
Winning this week has probably not occurred to Kathy Johnson, 24, America's oldest woman gymnast, 5 ft. tall, 100 lbs., blond, lovely, lonely, happy and sad. But other things have, as she nears the finish of a 13-year devotion, wondering what all the athletes must eventually decide, whether it is worth it. "I've never been to a prom. I was always out of town," she says slowly. "Six girls make the Olympic team every four years, and if that's your dream, it's tough. Because when everyone else goes to get ice cream, you will have to go get sweaty instead. Of course they haven't felt the highs I've felt—they've felt different ones, sure.
'So-and-so asked me to the dance.' And that's great, maybe even just as good. But I've thought about it quite a lot, and, I'll tell you, I wouldn't trade the feelings of complete satisfaction that I've had in athletics.
It's not just the Olympics. It's not. It's the trip along the way, maybe just a single routine in practice, one perfect moment."
Perfection is not copyrighted by the Games. Nor, indeed, ensured. Nothing could prevent a mad motorist from driving a gruesome path through a sidewalk crowd (see NATION). Nothing could slow down the athletic world's ostracism of South Africa; it was extended to ignoring that country's journalists, even those from media that have historically campaigned against apartheid. Since South Africa is not a member of the International. Olympic Committee family, it just does not exist. The I.O.C. issues no credentials and the L.A.O.O.C. arranges no television feeds for phantoms. Also unacknowledged are eleven murdered Israelis of 1972. A repeated request for a simple moment of silence, or any other Olympic commemoration of that black day in Munich, is still denied.