by Adam Knight
Yup. She’s still hot.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Fucking TV screen died.
I sighed and looked up from the built in monitor and into the gym, trying to find a distraction from my strained body to focus on. Training at the downtown YMCA had a lot of benefits but not for profit gyms had a hard time keeping up with equipment malfunctions. Seemed like every day I had an issue with one of these machines.
Irritating.
It was fairly busy for a Saturday evening. Most people seemed to get in and out before dinnertime on the weekends, bringing their kids in to play on the climbing wall or the jungle gym. So most of the kids left hanging around at this time of day were of the local neighborhood variety. Kids from poorer families getting a chance to hang out in a safe place off the streets.
A sudden squeal and the sharp smell of burning rubber was the only warning I had before being lurched forward as the treadmill band slipped it’s rotors. I caught myself painfully by the forearms on the front console, only slightly knocking what was left of the wind out of me on impact.
The ladies on the cross-trainers ahead of me looked back over their shoulders, distracted by the noise. Seeing the sweat soaked lard ass clutching the front of his treadmill console with both trembling arms must’ve given them an off putting visual. I can only assume that going by the scrunched noses and unhidden laughter.
At least I didn’t face plant.
Today.
I stepped off the treadmill and shook my head.
“You all right, Joe?”
Tamara was a bright bubbly ray of light in an otherwise dreary life. Trotting over to me in a very appealing way in her bright red YMCA staff shirt and shorty shorts. All of five feet and a few inches tall with a cute bob of hair. Sporting her red librarian style glasses and slim, strong legs.
Not that I was noticing. Friends don’t do that.
I kicked at the treadmills’ base with a snort. “Can you talk to maintenance, again? I swear they’re something wrong with these things.”
Tamara hopped up onto the belt and started fiddling with the knobs and buttons. She frowned slightly, her lower lip pursed as she concentrated.
“There’s definitely something weird happening with machines lately,” she said, motioning down the long line of treadmills. “Seems like every third one is on the fritz for one reason or another.”
The shoulder of my t-shirt made a convenient facecloth as I wiped away some sweat to hide a grimace. “Seems like every third one is the one I’m trying to use.”
“It’s not just you, Joe. Believe me.” Tamara hopped down off the now fritzed treadmill and led the way over to the fitness center helpdesk. Sparing the vile contraption one of my death glares I followed, trying to hide the limp as my bad knee started aching. Sudden stops give me grief and this one was no different.
Three hundred pounds is a lot of weight on your knees, even when you’re built to be big.
Once at the helpdesk Tamara rummaged around in a filing cabinet and pulled out two forms, sliding one over to me.
Incident report.
“I’m getting good at filling these out,” I muttered reaching for a pencil.
“Keep that up and we’ll put you on payroll,” Tamara smiled as she affixed some tape to a sign with the infamous Sorry, Out of Order note before heading back to the cardio equipment.
“If I get a free gym pass I’ll take the job,” I said to her back while watching her walk away wistfully.
“Don’t count on it,” she said while throwing a quick glance and smile back over her shoulder, completely busting me for checking her out in the process.
I smiled slightly in return. Tamara was solid.
Filling out the form took maybe thirty seconds. But I hung around and pretended to be working on it some more as I waited for Tamara to come back. She was doing a round of the main room, checking in on patrons and equipment alike. Place like this gets cluttered in a hurry with people leaving cleaning tissues and rags on equipment. Forgetting cell phones and ear buds. Turning the stationary television screens not attached to treadmills for better viewing. Leaving dumbbells in the middle of aisles.
People are pigs.
This person included. Good luck seeing the backseat of my van between all the fast food wrappers, empty coffee cups and miscellaneous pieces of clothing.
Don’t judge me. I grab and go a lot.
My breath slowly came under control and the sweat covering my flesh was starting to give me a chill. I contained a shiver and glanced up at the TV screen that Tamara had re-positioned so it was facing the correct way. The news again, this time with a long still shot of that most recent missing girl.
Almost six P.M.. according to the wall clock next to the TV. Enough time to rush home, make dinner for Mom and help her with her meds before showering and heading back to the club.
“You heading upstairs, big man?” Tamara asked as she returned with an armful of miscellaneous gym garbage. “Should be plenty of room in the weight pit right now. All the pretty boys have to do their faces up before going out tonight.”
I grunted. “You don’t think I’m a pretty boy?”
Tamara laughed. Not a giggle. A full on good natured laugh. “I don’t think you want to be a pretty boy.” She leaned on the counter and whispered conspiratorially. “Pretty boys need a manicure before they lift weights.”
I examined my chewed up and cuticle filled fingernails. “Knew I forgot something.”
More laughter. “You’re hilarious.”
“Chicks dig humor. They think it’s hot. Robin Williams is a sex god.” My back cracked loudly as I pushed back from the counter. Somewhere in the back of my brain I could feel the beginning of an ice-pick-behind-my-eye headache beginning. I closed my eyes and groaned. Headaches have been coming more often and more fiercely than I liked to admit. “That hairy, sexy beast.”
Opening my eyes I looked down at Tamara, who always looked so tiny when I stretched to my full height. Her face was concerned.
“What?”
“You look terrible.”
“So you won’t go out with me?”
She pursed her lips and leaned against the desktop, staring up at me on an angle that I willed my eyes not to take advantage of. “I’m serious. The bags under your eyes have bags under them. Do you ever sleep?”
“Sure. I sleep. Just a busy coupla days.” I waved a hand at her. “I’m okay.”
Tamara was unconvinced and shook her head slowly. “I don’t know how you push yourself this hard without falling over. I would be asleep on my feet.”
“Maybe I’m asleep now.” Six-oh-five, time to roll. I pushed back off the desktop. “I’m good, I promise. If you and your friends are still coming out tonight ask for me at the VIP door around back. I never have guests so they should send someone right for me.”
“Leave me your number. If we end up going out I’ll text you.” Tamara reached for a pencil as my face flushed.
“Yeah … uh, just ask for me at the back.”
“What? You don’t want to give me your number?”
“No, I can’t give you my number.”
“Why not? Wait, do you have a girlfriend?”
“What? No, that’s not it.”
“So you do have a girlfriend?”
I ran my hand down over my face for what seemed the thousandth time that day.
“No girlfriend. I promise. My cell is … Sorta non-existent at the moment.”
Tamara quirked her eyebrow. “You broke it?”
“Uhm …”
“How’d you break it?”
“Didn’t break it. Well I did break it. But now I don’t have one.”
“Who doesn’t have a cell phone?”
I showed her both my thumbs and then pointed them directly at my chest. Hopefully the look on my face came across as funny instead of embarrassed.
Tamara leaned away from me with an exaggerated look of disdain. “I don’
t know if we can be friends now. “
“Cute. Just ask at the VIP door. I gotta jet.”
She waved and turned her attention to another staff member with a question as I turned and walked down the hallway past the basketball court towards the locker rooms, thankful to get away with a few shreds of my dignity intact.
How do you not have a cell phone in this age? When your credit rating with the phone companies sucks so bad no one’ll give you a contract anymore is one way.
I used to have a cell. Several in fact. But when they kept breaking and malfunctioning on me I got tired of paying reconnection fees and contract cancellation charges. Cell companies are worse than loan sharks, I swear to God. They create an environment where you suddenly feel you can’t live without them and then they nickel and dime you for every little thing.
Though it’s damned inconvenient at times not having one.
Stupid phone companies.
A few feet from the door to the change room I passed by a group of young native toughs. Now don’t get out your “Racist Pig” banners on me, I am just being descriptive. Walking through downtown Winnipeg was tough to do without running into groups of aboriginal Canadians (happy now?) congregating in groups. This group was like many others. A bunch of kids in their mid to late teens wearing three sizes too big clothing sporting angry and arrogant looks on their faces for anyone who walked by.
It wasn’t uncommon to see this group or others like it leaning on the other young kids who populated the YMCA, trying to intimidate them or sell drugs or whatever. There’d been at least two occasions where things got violent when I was nearby and helped to break up skirmishes.
It was too bad really. The YMCA strived to provide a safe place for kids of all ages from all walks of life. And kids like this who can’t see beyond the rough gang lifestyle they’ve grown up with don’t understand how they’re perpetuating the cycle by taking a venue like this and turning it into a haven for crime and intimidation..
Things like this make me glad I never got into law enforcement. Too many gray areas.
A lot of haughty expressions greeted me as I purposefully walked directly through their little group, not allowing them to intimidate me. Heard a couple of them whispering insults behind my back as I walked past. Whatever. I get called worse by the snobby bitches waiting in line at Cowboy Shotz.
Chapter 4
“All I need is a ten gallon hat and spurs,” I grumbled, staring at my reflection.
Sometimes being big truly sucks. My bathroom mirror was at the perfect height when I was thirteen years old and had moved into my parents’ basement for the first time. Now most of twenty years later I had to bend at my aching knees and scrunch my head down in order to see under the forty watt vanity lights flickering above the mirror.
My torso spilled out of the mirror’s frame but given the lack of space in the washroom, it was the best I could do. While I actually think the “western look” is a good one on me, I just never feel comfortable in the black, long sleeved button up shirts that Aaron makes all the bouncers wear at Cowboy Shotz. It was more Roy Rogers then Clint Eastwood. All heavy cotton with white embroidery at the cuffs and trailing up the arms to flare at the collar, connecting with the big SECURITY logo written on the back in some rustic “wanted poster” font.
‘Course if the damned shirt actually fit right I probably wouldn’t have cared.
Apparently I wasn’t a double XL anymore and no amount of shirt tucking and re-tucking would help me disguise that fact.
I blew out a heavy breath, staring into my tired and unshaven face. “Maybe if I had a hat and duster,” I muttered.
Turning away I flicked off the lights and grabbed my coat on my way through the rec room and up the stairs.
The clock over the kitchen sink told me I was once again behind schedule, so I tossed my coat in the general direction of the back door and ran my eyes over the kitchen critically. A short moment later I sighed again and began the process of tidying things up in as quick and efficient a manner as possible.
Mom coughed from the living room. “I told you to leave that, Joe. I’ll clean it up before bed.”
Yeah right.
“Not a problem, Mom,” I called back to her while loading leftovers in Tupperware and turning on the sink’s hot water tap. “ I got plenty of time and this’ll only take a moment.”
Well it would only take a moment for me specifically. One pot to clean. A few dishes to rinse and stack. A dishwasher to run. Some extras to put away. Five minute job. For my mother, it might take her five minutes to get off the couch and into the kitchen depending on how she was feeling.
“I am not a complete invalid you know,” she said after a short coughing spell. I grimaced and spritzed some Palmolive into the soup pot, shoving it under the hot stream to get the soap all a bubbles. A quick soak of the dish rag into the hot water made me wince but being all manly and stuff I didn’t make a fuss. Just scrubbed the pot clean and put it away using the remaining soap to hastily wipe the counter down.
“Are you going to be late tonight?”
“No later than usual.” Did the floor need a quick sweeping too? There were probably crumbs under the lip of the cupboards but surely that could wait.
“You know I don’t like you working so late, Joseph.” More coughing, into a tissue this time it sounded like. “It’s such a dangerous job and I’m always afraid you’ll get hurt.”
“Oh you know me, Mom.” The floors’ll hold until tomorrow, I figured. It was already after eight and mom was within half an hour of passing out on the couch again. “Nothing hurts me.”
“Don’t be silly, Joseph.”
“Man Mountain Joe,” I said using my deep and theatrical radio announcer voice. “Walks through walls, pitches drunks down stairs and always comes home safe and sound. New from K-Tel. Order now and receive your free Hunky Bill’s Perogy Maker only at 863 Main Street so come onnnnnn down!””
I could hear her laugh weakly. That voice gets her every time.
I grabbed a clean glass form the cupboard and filled it from the water filter in the fridge before walking out of the kitchen and into my mother’s living room.
Technically I suppose it was “our living room” but in truth I spent so much of my time living downstairs and out of her way that it was hard to think of it differently. Many years ago this room had been a disaster zone of toys, spilled milk stains and the sight of many a flashcard session to learn me some basic mathematics as I grew up.
These days it was a much quieter place.
Dad’s old chair was still near the little used fireplace, next to the side table with Mom’s reading lamp. A two person faded loveseat that had seen better days stood off to the left while it’s full length couch counterpart sat on the other side of the room. An older knee-high imitation oak coffee table sat in the middle of the room covered with used and unused tissues, several dirty dishes, a half full coffee mug and a variety of pill containers. Over on the old tube-style TV screen Dennis Beyak and the local TSN crew was deep into the action during the first period of the Jets game. Sidney Crosby hadn’t caught the old “Lemieux Flu” and had actually shown up to play in Winnipeg, giving the high priced ticket buyers a chance to see the top player in the league in action against our local boys.
