Bodies and Souls

by John Rechy

  “Looking good.”

  “Oh, hi, Bob!” Mick pretended to have just now seen the man he had been performing for—Robert Newman. Only the top champions were bestowed the right to call him “Bob.”

  As always, Newman was dressed in tailored clothes of casual formality. Shortish, slender, a man in his middle fifties, with graying hair, he had the sharp face of an eagle, dark eyes that asserted they missed nothing except what they chose to ignore. He was one of the most powerful men in the world of bodybuilding; only his archrivals, Dan Lurie, Joe Weider, and Bob Hoffman, came near or surpassed him, depending on which loyalist was consulted in that bitterly factious world. Newman was publisher of Muscles magazine, president of one of the three federations that ruled over most of the leading physique competitions, a man with the papal power to excommunicate any bodybuilder from the small world of perfect bodies.

  Newman moved about to study Mick's body from different angles, as if Mick were a sculpture of flesh and Newman the sculptor. Mick slipped off the torn shirt—that was allowed when Newman was here—clasped his right hand over his left forearm and, inhaling, raised his chest, almost parallel to the gym floor. Newman's eyes raked the sweating tensed body. Now Mick thrust his arms up in a U over his head, fists out, flaring legs slightly arched.

  “You have a good chance to be Mr. Universal this year,” Newman dropped the ineffable.

  Mick felt blood pulse in ecstasy into every limb of his pumped body, every vein, every artery. He had already announced that he was entering the king of all contests, the one that proclaimed the most perfectly built man in the world, a contest open only to the superstars. The Mr. Universal!

  “That's because I've been using all your principles!” Mick was finally able to gasp.

  “Obviously,” Newman acknowledged.

  It was possible to lose the top title with Newman on your side, but it was impossible to win without his approval. He asserted his narrowed choices (the top six, then three, then—some said—one) by insinuating his contingent power over contest judges—gym owners, ex-champions, photographers, others in the field who stood to gain from his support.

  No one out of grace ever placed in a top show. Those who fell—by nature of having entered a forbidden contest, endorsed a rival's products, whispered a word of criticism about Newman, or trespassed within a shifting code of “morality”—were further banished from the pages of Muscles magazine, which claimed, as the other three top bodybuilding magazines did, to have the widest circulation in its field, in the world.

  A millionaire over and over, Newman owned an empire of health products, gym equipment, and hand-picked perfect bodies from whose ranks champions emerged. He did not own exercise machines. A rival entrepreneur had beaten him to them. Their use was too wide for even him to contain, and so Muscles magazine carried a monthly article denouncing the efficacy, safety, morality, and patriotism of the “unnatural machines.” That is why Mick Vale led a small exodus away from them.

  Until the last decade, bodybuilding had been a tacky, esoteric affair, contests held in drafty high-school gymnasiums or Y's, winners standing on quivering boxes covered with graying sheets. Now, choreographed displays of superb bodies posing against colored backdrops and to the gushes of music usually from movie-epic scores—were televised, sold-out, standing-room-only affairs held in major auditoriums before thousands of committed, demanding fans.

  Even so, only the top men can make a living from bodybuilding. Mick was one of those. He sold mail-order courses revealing his “secrets,” conducted seminars in gyms all over the country, gave guest exhibitions as a draw in minor contests; and was paid a smart secret salary—augmented by a full supply of expensive health products—by Newman, in exchange for his name on ghost-written articles, endorsement of products, and photographs of him working out on Newman Equipment. That, added to constantly growing prize money, allowed Mick to live very well.

  Mick heard a despised roar of vulgar laughter. The Gorilla had just entered the gym, he knew without looking. The Gorilla—Mick dubbed him that in secret—was Herbert Lichtenstein, Mick's main rival in the Mr. Universal, a man who seemed crushed by his own rampant muscles. He was last year's Mr. Universal. And there he was now, clowning his way into the gym, slapping ass, parodying other bodybuilders. Look at his waist, Mick thought triumphantly. Herbert claimed it was 30 inches, but Mick knew it was closer to 36. Photographers knew how to obscure that fact. Most bodybuilders lie about their arm size, waist girth, and age. Mick himself claimed his 32-inch waist—admittedly hard and ridged—was 29, exactly the way he reversed his age.

  “Of course, you'll have to face Herbert— …” Newman waved at the Gorilla, who smiled broadly and waved back. “… —unless he retires this year; hasn't decided.” Champions often did that—retired after winning the top title. Losing it was remembered more than having won it.

  “You know which of your principles I found most beneficial, Bob?” Mick recited what he had to say. “The Newman Prime-Attention Principle.” This was simply working more on the muscle you felt needed improvement. Obvious techniques known for years to bodybuilders were rebaptized by Newman into new “principles” bearing his name.

  “And did you try the Newman Perfect-Imperfect Principle?”

  I introduced that! “All the time,” Mick couldn't help but mumble.

  “I saw you on the machines.” Newman reacted to the tone by placing a bomb between them.

  Mick defused it. “Just trying them out, Bob, so I can say in interviews why they don't work. Didn't even give me a pump.”

  “Sandra and I would like to have you to dinner,” Newman bestowed. “Tonight?”

  Mick gasped, “I'd love to have dinner with you and San— …”

  He had seen her photographs in Bob's magazines: “Robert Newman's biggest fan, his beautiful wife, Sandra.” “… —and Mrs. Newman,” Mick retreated. He'd have to call his girlfriend, Josie, to tell her he couldn't make it tonight. She'd understand. Dinner with Bob and his wife! And at a time so close—so very closel—to the Mr. Universal Contest! God! Mick would have canceled attendance at the funeral of a beloved for this.

  “I may be able to offer some pointers on your posing routine,” Newman said. Those “tips”—sometimes granted in the gym—Mick himself had earned some—were valued not so much for their instructive quality as for indications of committed support. Newman was now offering private instruction along with dinner. “What do you pose to?—Exodus? Dr. Zhivago?” Every silver cloud has a dark lining, and Mick was slightly chagrined that Bob, who had seen his routine many times at shows, didn't remember. “The Ten Commandments,” he said. He had tried it privately to the return-to-Tara theme in Gone With the Wind, but Josie made a strong case against evoking the image of Scarlett O'Hara with her fist clenched swearing to lie, steal, cheat, and kill and never be hungry again.

  “The Ten Commandments! Excellent! Six-thirty, then. We eat early.” He gave Mick a printed map to his home in Encino—a rich suburb in the outlying San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles. Mick was grateful for that; he doubted that he could have steadied his excitement long enough to write directions.

  “That new bodybuilder shows promise,” Newman moved toward a youngman doing heavy squats. He was always scouting for potential champions; he would then claim to have built them, no matter how long they'd been training.

  There is a forced euphoric camaraderie among bodybuilders in a championship gym—they must be regular guys, even when, as is often true, they despise each other. It is, after all, a world of constant, tense, internecine competition, further exacerbated by a religious seriousness and devotion to winning. This often produces raging bitchiness among the huge musclemen.

  Mick was on his way to the showers when Herbert Lichten-stein—stripped to a cut t-shirt and trunks—sidled over. That waist wasn't a millimeter under 37 inches, Mick gauged with pleasure. The Gorilla was a notorious “joker,” famous for crushing frail egos encased in huge musculature. He called out to Mick
in his heavily accented voice, “Hoy, Mick, vhen ya gonna gain some veight so you can be really a competition? Ho, ho, ho!”

  “When you get your gut smaller, Santa Claus,” Mick said.

  Blasphemy!

  Weights clanged onto the floor. Nobody talked about the thick waistline of the acknowledged king.

  “Vot?” Herbert's mouth shot open. “Vot?”

  Newman stood between the two massive men.

  What if he takes sides! Mick wanted to rush into the shower. Had he been too emboldened by Bob's invitation to dinner? Herbert was one of Newman's very top boys. A smile! A slight smile? The barest trace of a smile—at the edge of Newman's lips? Had Mick seen it or just hopefully put it there?

  Newman left the gym. On his way out, he merely nodded at Joe Jones—"the Black Sultan”—a phenomenal bodybuilder with muscles like black marble who had defied Newman by having his hair woven into African tresses. Cold dark eyes barely acknowledged Newman's nod.

  Engorged bodies resumed their stations about the machines and the free weights. Herbert Lichtenstein raised a loaded bar in a standing press, and then he flung it down with a quaking clang, as if it were Mick.

  Newman didn't take sides! Mick exulted in the shower. He felt damn good. He had clobbered the Gorilla, and Newman had not taken sides. If there had been a smile, that was added victory. There were a few other bodies within the mushrooms of steam—difficult to tell because the showers had small partitions. Only by standing slightly forward were you able to see others fully out of the hot mist. So often derided as “fags” because of their devotion to the masculine body, bodybuilders are sensitive to overtones of homosexuality. Although several of the top champions are homosexuals, they keep their sexuality quiet. Many contenders, who spend hours in the gym, make little or nothing from their sport, and so find “sponsors” among homosexuals who glorify the muscular body. Some of them use contests as showcases for that purpose. Several pose nude for mail-order businesses and magazines directed at homosexuals. Some—especially among the lower-ranked contenders—are callboys, occasionally for women, but mostly, and by far, for other men. None of that makes them “fags” or “queers” as long as money or gain is involved; sexual identity is not defined by same-gender activity. Unpaid choice defines that. Choosing sex with other men in mutual, unpaid encounters makes a bodybuilder “queer.”

  For these reasons, the ritual in the showers is a strained one, where the strident enforced camaraderie in the gym bursts into euphoric hysteria among the carefully developed bodies. Loud laughter, anxious banter, passionate discussions of techniques—thrust across the stalls by heads bobbing out of steam—anything to dissipate the forbidden eroticism of perfect naked bodies constantly comparing themselves, without looking.

  Out of the steam, Mick Vale saw Bo Sanders, the quiet one, a handsome blond youngman, an up-and-comer who had already won several of the lower-echelon, but necessary, contests.

  “Been working on your delts, huh?” Mick was secure enough to compliment Bo's when he felt his eyes on him. Bo said yes and continued soaping his cock—disguising a hard-on? Mick loved it when others got hard looking at him.

  When he emerged from the showers, the Gorilla was gone. Just like him to walk out sweaty, smelly. Mick was aware of a buzzing excitement. Chuck Harris! Chuck Harris was in the gym!—sitting on a bench and holding court. He was one of the greats of the “old-timers”—one of the superstars of the Fifties, the first to claim twenty-inch arms. One of the handsomest of the bodybuilders, he had made some Son of Hercules movies, in Italy—at a time when the short fad was passing. His last two pictures were unreleased, and he was stranded in Rome several weeks. Years ago he had left Los Angeles. A retired king, a legend. He owned a gym in the Midwest—or managed it.

  The bodybuilders who, like Mick, had been inspired by Chuck Harris—his photographs—gathered about him now. Mick approached him. Though done carefully, the edges of his temples revealed they had been colored; still, he looked terrific for his age—over fifty! Or was it that the aura of his radiating myth still protected him? He was dressed in loose clothes, difficult to know what his body looked like; it seemed in very good shape.

  Sure of his own fame—he was, after all, in the body magazines every month—Mick Vale worked his way through the sweaty delts, traps, and pecs gathered about Chuck Harris, and he introduced himself with a smile.

  “Vale? Mick Vale! Yeah! Good to meet you, man!” Chuck Harris said.

  “Great to meet you, Chuck.” Mick meant it. It was so difficult to know what Harris really looked like—how old, how different—even this close up, because Mick's memory of him was so overwhelming that it stamped itself on the man surrounded by his fans, some of whom had not been born when he was winning contests. At age fourteen, Mick had pinned Chuck Harris's full-body photograph—for heroic inspiration—to the wall of the makeshift garage-gym where he had lifted his first weights.

  “Good to get a look at my,competition,” Chuck Harris said. Wrinkles scratched his eyes as he smiled; the skin under his chin was beginning, just barely beginning, to loosen.

  Competition! “You entering the Mr. Universal?” Mick asked casually.

  “Yeah—Bob talked me into it. Said it was time we showed you new guys what we can do without drugs and machines.”

  It was true that many of the top champions were now well into their forties—maybe most of them—though they tended to linger at thirty-nine for six or seven years. Still, they had kept up with steroids, new techniques. Harris was older, belonged to a historical generation. Bodies had changed.

  “Welcome back,” Mick said. He felt an exhaustion that did not have to do with his heavy workout. That always felt great. He looked back at Chuck basking in the aura of a past which had begun over thirty years ago. Now, a comeback!

  The image of the new Chuck, the middle-aged—old—Chuck, pursued Mick as he ran on the late afternoon beach from Venice to Santa Monica. How would he remember Chuck now? His bewildering concern was swept away by a loving breeze coupled with the awareness of what he courted on his almost-daily runs on the beach: the sight of his extraordinary body pulling eyes, eliciting whistles of admiration from women, and men, and some derision in falsetto male voices, mostly from skinny young punks. That did not faze Mick—not even the word “grotesque,” which often flew at him—he accepted all that as envy, and it all acknowledged his proud specialness, a prized specialness that was worth the hours and hours of working out, worth the rigid diet, worth it all, a hundred times over and then some—worth it all, all, all—for this body, this uniqueness.

  The ocean frothed blue and white. Hot clouds bunched on the horizon. What would Herbert Lichtenstein, the clumsy clown, say when he learned that Chuck was making a comeback? Mick did not like these feelings of protectiveness. After all, Chuck might turn out to be a formidable rival. He had said Bob had talked him into entering. Maybe he is in terrific shape! And if he was now taking, for the first time, some of the bodybuilding “aids,” like steroids, whose effects were already being neutralized in the newer bodybuilders, then— … !

  The sense of protectiveness evaporated like the sweat on Mick's cooling body as he lay on the sand on an isolated stretch of beach where the wind had formed clean rivulets. An early summer, technically still spring. He hoped this didn't mean that summer, precious summer, would be niggardly. Cool summers occur now and then in Southern California. Days on the beach, awaited for the eternity of a few months, are rationed. That then becomes a period of desolation for those who measure their lives by the length of summer. The beginning of summer always saddened Mick anyhow, because it ended the anticipation of it, and another summer would soon be over; that was the cruelty of spring.

  Propping his head on his hands, Mick looked down at his body. It was beautiful. The Gorilla's remark. Maybe he could use a little more bulk, perhaps five, maybe ten more pounds—if he kept it defined. Tomorrow he was due for a shot of Decadurabolin, one of the many steroids—hormones—he and other b
odybuilders use regularly for added bulk—although each must deny using them, attack them violently in Newman's magazine. He'd ask the doctor to increase the potency, and he'd double up on the oral steroids. Just before the Universal, he'd hit the zero-carbohydrate diet, and the day before, he might lock himself in a hot, hot room, dress himself in heavy sweat-clothes, and take a diuretic—define the added bulk. Wait. Maybe the Gorilla, who was famous for his “psych-outs”—sabotaging the confidence of other bodybuilders before a contest—wanted him to bulk up, afraid of his striking definition.

  He left the beach when the sun was reddening the clouds and the horizon glowered like distant fire—like a city on fire. There was a hint of gathering heat even in the moist air.

  In his neat, two-room-and-small-kitchen apartment just a few blocks from the beach—with an awesome view of the sand and the ocean, so dark and dramatic at night—Mick called his girlfriend, Josie. As soon as they found a large enough place both liked, they would move in together. Of course she understood—wow—dinner with the Newmans didn't happen every day of the week. When he told her what he had said to the Gorilla, Josie was ecstatic. She was a pretty girl—and not one of those new women bodybuilders Mick disliked so much, making themselves look like parodies of skinny bodybuilders. Josie was on the curvaceous side. A great help to Mick, she kept track of his mail-order courses and gave him the needed support to sustain the rigorous training. She liked how people looked at him when they went out. And they had a good sexual relationship; she liked everything he liked, and told him so each time.