by Cody Ryder
Time.
Or lack of it. Ever since turning thirty, Joe had felt like he’d boarded a bullet train to the end of the line and the years were rushing past. He didn’t want to pass the station where it’d be too late for anyone to hop on and join him on the journey. It seemed to all be coming so quickly, and his business was all he had.
Would he be satisfied if that were all he had in the end?
Joe passed by his bed, just a mattress on the floor, the unassembled frame standing propped against the wall. He flicked off the light in the living room and shut the front door behind him, plunging the condo into empty darkness except for the orange glow of a streetlight slanting through partially shuttered blinds.
Three
Bruce sat in his car in the gym parking lot, watching the steady flow of people in their workout clothes moving in and out of the building. Truthfully, he didn’t want to be here tonight. It’d been an even slower day than usual at the shop, putting another tick in the downward trend of his daily revenue. Things were bleak—another year of this and he didn’t think he could afford to keep LeFlorette’s open. And that was if things didn’t get worse.
He felt somewhat guilty coming in to the gym or doing anything that didn’t involve thinking about his situation, like he didn’t deserve to be doing anything else as long as the business was suffering. It’d taken a major effort to work up the motivation to leave his spreadsheets and remind himself that no matter how hard he stared at them he wasn’t going to achieve some revelation on how to get things back to normal.
You could’ve checked out The Standard yesterday. Maybe you would’ve learned something about how to save your fucking business.
He tensed as the thought scathed him, and he drove a palm down onto the steering wheel in frustration. The horn let out a brief report, startling a couple who were passing by the car. Bruce gave them an apologetic wave, and then with a resigned grunt, scooped up his bag from the passenger seat and headed out to the gym.
The clank of iron and the light smell of sweat and exertion welcomed him back. Frank spotted him from across the gym and came over to give him a firm clap on the back with a meaty hand.
“Good to see you in, Bruce,” he said.
Bruce gave him a nod of acknowledgement, but his thoughts were floating around somewhere else.
“Let me tell you, I was worried about you,” Frank continued. “Build up too much steam and you’ll pop. Ain’t nothing better than to let it off into somebody, that’s the truth.” Frank grinned and shot out a few mock punches to Bruce’s stomach. “See you in class.” He clapped him on the arm and gave him a friendly wink before strolling off.
Bruce gave Frank a distracted wave and headed to the locker room to change his clothes. Even when he set down to his usual free weight routine, his mind was not entirely there. He hoisted two thirty-five pound dumbbells off the rack to start his warmup, but a flurry of thoughts weighed down each pump of the iron. Even going harder didn’t help. He exchanged the dumbbells for the squat rack, grunting with exertion as he took on his max weight, but his mind still refused to focus in and empty itself as it usually did when he lifted.
He exhaled sharply, lifted the barbell off the rack, and squatted into his third rep. His legs burned with the burden of the weight, but he kept his form clean and precise. His thoughts were distracted, but not enough to get in the way of discipline. That was just not how Bruce operated.
With a sharp clang, he lowered the bar back onto the rack, pulled his towel down from where it was hanging and wiped the sweat from his forehead. He glanced at his watch—class would be starting soon.
“Are you still using this?” A voice came from behind him, and Bruce turned around to face a tall, platinum blonde haired man with chiseled muscles and a jaw that looked like it could cut through granite. He flashed a warm smile.
“No,” Bruce said. “Go for it.” He turned to leave.
“You know,” the man called after him. “I don’t want to sound like a creep, but I’ve seen you around here before. I couldn’t help but admire your…” The guy’s eyes made a quick flick up and down Bruce’s body, and he knew at once what he was after. “…technique.”
“Thanks,” Bruce said with a slight smile, and again made his way to leave. Yeah, he knew what blondie wanted…and he was entirely uninterested. Sure, his mother’s words had been dredged up from the depths of his memories for the first time in ages, but Bruce still was aloof to the idea of romance. He didn’t have time or energy to spare.
“What’s your name?” blondie asked, stopping him with a touch on the arm.
Just someone who wants to work out in peace, Bruce thought, ignoring the question. He gave him a nod and a polite smile, and moved to go back to the locker rooms.
“I’m Kevin. You can call me Kev. Or Kevy, Kaykay, whatever you want.” He followed Bruce. “You know, if you need a workout partner, I’m one hundred percent available. I can spot you.”
“Thanks,” Bruce said. “I prefer to work out alone, though.”
“How about this then. How about I get your number, we can meet up for coffee. I know this great new place. The Standard. It’s nearby and—”
Bruce’s eye twitched, with any desire to stay polite and patient sucked away as suddenly as a pile of dust into an industrial vacuum. “Not interested,” he said. The ice in his tone was enough to make blondie take a step back. “Look, I’m here to exercise, not get hit on. Take that shit to a bar if you’re so desperate to meet someone, don’t bother me with it.”
“Well my bad,” Kevin huffed, putting his hands up in a sorry to offend gesture. “You could, you know, appreciate the compliment.” He gave a spirited flick of his wrist and sauntered off to find someone else more receptive, apparently having never intended to use the squat rack in the first place.
“This is why I don’t date,” Bruce muttered under his breath as he briskly strode back to the locker room. He was annoyed, but at least he was now in the mood for some boxing. He opened his locker, pulled out his water bottle and took a long draw from it. He then took out a protein bar from his bag and sat down onto the metal bench in front of his locker to eat it. The sharp click of dress shoes sounded on the locker room’s tile flooring, and a slender man in a tailored dress shirt and slacks took the locker next to Bruce’s.
Bruce found himself watching the man simply because he found it interesting to see someone wearing such sharp clothing into the gym. The man had a gym bag slung over his shoulder that seemed as tastefully expensive as his clothing, and he slid it off his arm and set it down onto the bench beside Bruce. He then opened it, removed a set of workout clothes and shoes, and then unbuttoned his dress shirt, revealing a swell of cut pectorals. Bruce took another bite of his bar. He wasn’t as entranced as he looked like he was; it was more that his eye was caught and his brain was still distracted with all the usual, and so it might’ve seemed like he was staring. The stranger’s eyes met his, and he smiled.
Bruce blinked and smiled back, suddenly realizing where his gaze had been lingering. He looked away, slightly embarrassed.
“I saw you met Kevin,” the stranger said.
“Huh?” Bruce said, surprised.
The man pulled off his shirt, neatly folded it, and put it into his locker. He was tall and a bit lanky; though it was obvious that he took care of his physique. Bruce thought he was probably in his late twenties or early thirties—the clothes he wore made him look older.
“Kevin. The guy hitting on you by the squat rack.” He slipped out of his dress shoes, then unclasped the gold buckle of his leather belt, then drew down the fly of his slacks and slid out of them, revealing perfectly sculpted calves and a tight ass hugged by a pair of form fitting boxer briefs. Bruce felt his pulse jump. The combination of this stranger addressing him and his sudden nakedness took him by surprise.
“Oh, man. You saw that?”
“As I was walking in.” The man pulled a pair of gym shorts and a tank top out from his bag and pull
ed them on. “I was his target last week.”
“I’ve been coming to this gym for a while,” Bruce said. “First time that’s ever happened to me. First time I’ve ever seen that guy around here too. If he’s making a habit of hitting on every guy he sees, he’s gonna get into trouble at some point.”
“Hm.” The man pulled out a pair of gym shoes from his bag and sat down onto the bench next to Bruce. “I just moved into town—well, back into town. It’s only my second time working out here. Do you know how the boxing class is here?”
Bruce chewed the last bite of his bar and looked over at the man, wondering for a moment how the guy knew he was going to the boxing class, and then realized it was just coincidence.
“It’s great. Frank is a great instructor.”
The stranger brightened. “Oh, so you’ve been? You’re going tonight?”
“Yup.”
“That’s fantastic! We should go together. I always find group classes more fun when there’s someone I know there.”
The slight hesitation must’ve shown through on Bruce’s face, because the man laughed and smacked him on the shoulder with the back of his hand. “Don’t worry, man, I’m not hitting on you.”
“I’m sorry,” Bruce laughed, his face flushing with embarrassment. “I didn’t think you were. Okay. Let’s go together.”
“Fantastic,” the man said, offering his hand. “I’m Joe.”
“Bruce. Good to meet you, Joe.”
“Likewise, Bruce.”
Four
The class gathered in one of the gym’s large exercise rooms, a section in the middle of its hardwood floor lined with rubber mats to make a boxing ring. The participants milled about the perimeter of the room; some were chatting, some were on their phones, and Bruce and Joe stood by the wall-length mirror, stretching out and warming up.
“Alright, class,” Frank announced as he walked to the center of the mat ring. “C’mon in, c’mon in. Let’s get started. Good evening, everyone.”
“Good evening,” the class echoed back.
Frank clapped and rubbed his palms together and glanced around at his students. He always prefaced his classes with a message or a pep talk, like a preacher setting the stage for his sermon. It was always stuff that his students, who were all regular folk doing boxing only to stay fit or let off steam, could relate to. The last time Bruce had been to class, Frank had talked about the importance of being present minded. Before that, it was about repetition and discipline. Typical stuff. Bruce enjoyed the pep talks. They weren’t deep or anything, but that was exactly what he liked about them.
“Today I wanted to start the class with a little talk about stress. So, the first thing I want you to do is grab a partner and a pair of mitts and start with some jab drills.”
“You and me?” Joe asked Bruce.
“Yeah,” Bruce nodded, and got a pair of boxing mitts from a plastic storage box against the wall. Joe pulled on his gloves and Bruce donned the mitts. “Alright. Go to town,” he said, giving them a slap together before holding them up as targets for Joe’s jabs.
Frank weaved around the room, walking between the pairs of students to inspect their form as they shot jabs at the mitts. “Stress is something each and every one of us deals with in our daily lives,” he said. “We all carry it different ways, all feel it different degrees. Troubles at school, at home, your business—” Frank’s eye caught Bruce’s for a brief moment. “Relationships. Fights with friends. Money. So many things. We can’t escape it. The thing about stress is that it builds. Pressure, right? It’s like pressure. You blow up a balloon, it gets bigger until, bang! It pops. Nice jabs, Christine. Keep that rhythm going.
“When we come in to the gym, it’s our refuge from that stress. When you come in to class, when you pump the iron, when you hit pads and hit each other, it’s your chance to release that stress. Deflate that balloon before it pops. It’s important to deflate that balloon. Don’t let it get to that point, that bursting point. Use whatever your dealing with to your advantage.” Frank cracked his fist into his open palm. “Throw those punches harder. Push that extra weight. Take it one step further than you normally would.”
Bruce leaned forward into Joe’s punches. Encouraged by Frank’s words, they were coming harder now, the gloves echoing loudly off the vinyl mitts. Everyone had their stresses, and he wondered what Joe’s were. What was pushing him?
His hands were stinging now from Joe’s rapid blows. The guy moved with speed and power that matched his disciplined physique—it was obvious he was the kind of person who dedicated himself to whatever it was he took on. Bruce was eager to switch roles and lay into the mitts, but even more than that, he was eager to spar. His body thrummed with a tense energy that was now begging to come out. The distracting thoughts that had been occupying his mind the whole day were slowly loosening their grip, and were giving way to a competitive drive that sometimes took hold of him when he paired up with someone he sensed could match his affinity for boxing. All the stress was ammunition now, and he wanted to let it out.
“Thirty more seconds!” Frank called.
“Thirty more seconds,” Bruce echoed, pushing Joe. “C’mon. Only thirty seconds. Is that all you’ve got? Harder. Come on, faster. Faster.”
Sweat beaded on Joe’s forehead. He was already pushing himself hard, throwing out jab combos as quickly as he could, but Bruce’s words were like gasoline on a fire. Joe was not one to back down from a challenge. He machine-gunned his fists into the mitts, matching each punch with a sharp exhale from his lips.
“That’s it, Joe. Come on, harder!”
Joe grunted with exertion, sprinting the last of his energy into his punches. The rest of the class, filled with people far less outgoing and dedicated than the two of them, was inspired by their energy. The muffled cracking of gloves against mitts grew louder and faster as everyone pushed themselves to keep up and finish strong.
Frank clapped his hands together. “Time! Great start everyone, great start. Alright, trade the mitts…”
Joe tossed his gloves into his bag and took the pair of mitts. “I’m glad I partnered with you,” he told Bruce with a mild smile. “I think we’re on the same page.”
Bruce pulled on his gloves and tapped them together. “Good. So, you don’t mind if I go all out then? I’ve got a lot of steam to let loose.”
“Likewise. By all means, knock yourself out.”
“Three minutes,” Frank announced. “Start!”
The room filled again with the chatter of boxing gloves against pads, and Joe, despite preparing himself to receive Bruce’s punches, was still caught off guard by the intensity of them.
“Now,” Frank said, continuing his pace around the room, “I want you all to focus whatever is stressing you out. Think of whatever it is and put those thoughts into your punches. Defenders, I want you to imagine those hits as your stress. Your guard is stronger than your stress. Be that impenetrable wall. Take that energy and keep it in your mind.”
“You call those punches, Bruce?” Joe baited. “What happened to going all out?” He said this even though Bruce’s punches were perfectly hard—harder than he was used to—but he wasn’t going to back down. Bruce had pushed him harder, and so he’d return the favor—besides, he wasn’t about to let him think he’d gotten the best of him already. Bruce’s punches came as solid and focused as pistons, and Joe wondered what it was that Bruce could be letting off. It was obvious that he’d been wound up by the instructor’s words. He really has something to let off, he thought. Any harder and my hands might explode.
The distracted anxiety that had gripped Bruce had loosened its hold, and he took control of the thoughts of the shop, of his future, of love and everything else and channeled them into his strikes. He didn’t even see Joe holding the mitts anymore. For the first time in a while, he felt collected, almost calm. But he still had a lot to let out.
At the halfway point through the class, Frank called a break and Bruce and Joe slum
ped against the wall and drank from their water bottles. They’d gone through several rounds of intense drills and both of their shirts were soaked through with sweat, their chests heaving as they tried to catch their breath.
“So, you just moved into town, Joe?” Bruce asked. He’d been apprehensive at first when Joe had suggested they go to class together—he’d been feeling extra reserved because of the unwanted encounter with the guy at the squat rack—but now he was glad to have met someone who could match his intensity. Plus, he just seemed to feel comfortable around Joe. Often times when he paired off in class, even with someone who was ready to give and take a hard punch, there was no dynamic other than being someone to hold the bag for the other person. Joe was different. There was a familiar energy to him.
