Garp is shot dead in the wrestling room

Garp is shot dead in the wrestling room during a school practice, in an attack carried out by Bainbridge Percy while disguised as a nurse. Helen intervenes and prevents a further shot, but Garp dies in the room before help can move him. The scene brings his life to an abrupt end in the place where he has been watching boys wrestle and calling the remaining time in a match; its final image is not of action but of his effort to communicate with Helen through his eyes.

The Scene at the Wrestling Room

The room is hot and growing hotter, with the temperature near 85 degrees as the boys grapple on the mat. Garp watches the time clock and calls out that one minute remains. Helen enters, but he has a whistle in his mouth and does not kiss her as she passes. The details establish a familiar, busy setting: Garp is occupied with the practice, the wrestlers are breathing hard, and the match is almost over.

A nurse then catches Garp’s attention. He initially takes her for Dotty, the nurse who had helped him escape from the first feminist funeral, and smiles back at her. He glances at the clock, which shows ten seconds. The apparent familiarity briefly masks the threat; when he notices the gun, the woman’s clothing and appearance disclose that she is not what he first assumed.

Bainbridge Percy’s Disguise and Attack

The attacker wears a Jenny Fields Original, recognizable by its red heart, rather than an actual nurse’s uniform. Her youthful build and the family resemblance lead Garp to identify her as Bainbridge Percy, also known as Pooh Percy. Her disguise draws on the trust Garp associates with nurses, while her presence in the wrestling room converts that ordinary sense of safety into danger.

The first shot knocks the whistle from Garp’s mouth and the time clock from his hands. He falls back against the padded wall. Bainbridge fires again before the clock runs out, and the second shot leaves him sitting against the wall. The boys, stunned by what has happened, are initially unable to move. The scene’s countdown has a grim reversal: the match’s last seconds continue to matter, but the clock no longer measures sport. It marks the instant in which Garp’s life is being ended.

Helen and the Wrestlers Intervene

Helen tackles Bainbridge to prevent her from firing again. Her screams bring the wrestlers into action. A second-string heavyweight restrains the attacker, while the starting 145-pounder takes the gun from her. In the confusion, Helen is injured, but she hardly registers it as she focuses on stopping the attack. Their intervention prevents a third shot, though it cannot save Garp.

As Bainbridge is restrained, the others recognize that she has recently undergone the tongue-cutting associated with the Ellen Jamesians. The revelation links the attack to the movement’s protest practice and shows how recently Bainbridge has taken it up. The episode also exposes a disturbing contradiction: she has adopted a form of protest centered on silence, yet brings violence into a room filled with children. The narrative identifies this recent change as part of her madness, without making it a justification for what she has done.

Garp’s Last Communication and Death

Helen holds Garp upright as he begins to slide down the wall. He knows he cannot speak or feel; his remaining awareness is limited to smell, brief sight, and memory. He looks at Helen, who tries to smile at him. Unable to answer aloud, he attempts to reassure her with his eyes, turning toward the thought that life continues after his own and that memory can outlast death.

That inward, silent exchange is the scene’s final counterweight to the gunfire. Garp’s words are unavailable, but the narrative gives substance to the message he tries to convey: Helen should not lose hope, and should remember him. The contrast between his inability to speak and the effort to communicate makes memory, rather than physical survival, the last bond the scene emphasizes.

Garp dies in the wrestling room before anyone can move him. He is thirty-three, the same age as Helen. Ellen James is just entering her twenties, Duncan is thirteen, and little Jenny is nearly three; Walt, had he lived, would have been eight. These ages measure the loss across a family, not only the end of Garp’s life: his children are left young, and Helen survives him as his widow.

Context and Significance

The attack’s connection to Bainbridge’s recent adoption of Ellen Jamesian practice places Garp’s death within the story’s continuing conflict over protest, speech, and political identity. Earlier, Garp had been close to women in Jenny’s care, including Roberta Muldoon, whose transition and public dispute over sports broadcasting had made her a prominent figure. The wrestling-room attack is not presented as a consequence of Roberta’s experience; rather, the wider history underscores the differences among the women gathered around Jenny and the movement that Bainbridge has joined.

The scene also reverses Garp’s familiar role as a guardian. He is at practice, monitoring the boys and the clock, but neither his watchfulness nor the wrestlers’ presence can prevent the attack. Helen’s decisive intervention saves the people in the room from a further shot, while the boys’ eventual response shows them acting together in a crisis. The protection is real but limited: it stops the assault from continuing, not the death already set in motion.

The narrative closes the event on an intimate exchange rather than on the attacker’s capture. Garp’s effort to reassure Helen gives the ending its emphasis on attachment and remembrance, while the ages of the surviving family register the future that his death has altered. The wrestling room, a place of timed contests and disciplined physical effort, becomes the setting for an irreversible loss; the stopped clock and Garp’s final, wordless message hold together the scene’s abruptness and its insistence that memory remains.