ANGRY GYM CLOSES, MEAN PEOPLE NEEED NEW ANGRY ROOM

A chunky man eases down on the angry gym bench press bench and starts his weight climb. Turns out he was chunky, AND, strong.

After he warmed up and took off his hoodie, he wasn’t chunky either.

I thought of him after collecting the weights I use for my climb, and the jackass who lifted off my bar them while I was lifting.

His excuse?

Let me quickly explain for non-gym people. If we’re benching 315 lbs we need six forty five pound plates. To climb the weight ladder we also need ten pounders and twenty five pounders. Throw in five pounders, too.

(Don’t bench 315, or lie that you do. Lifter, please.)

Find an open bench and rack the weights ahead of time. That’s what I did when a guy picked my tens.

“I’m sorry, man, I’m using those two tens for my next increase,” I said with a nice smile.

“Come on, you’ll never be as strong as you used to be. What are you trying to prove?” he said walking away.

And that was it, because I’m not Transfer My Failures To The Angry Gym guy. Why add another title to the list, right?

Try Friendly Exchange First

I knew the guy well enough to once steer him away from an enticingly beautiful woman who had taken an interest in him, a married man with kids.

“If you don’t know, you start talking to her, she talks to you, you talk together, interrupt each other, laugh together, spot each other on the squat rack, help each other keep your elbows up, and you fall into a trance that lasts until you leave here, but you don’t forget, you look forward to coming back because of her and the rest of your life becomes the trance, a ghost wife and what’s their names little people always standing in front of you, pulling you back. All I’m saying is look at her without staring. Now look at yourself and ask what’s going on. That’s all.”

And that was all. We didn’t speak to one another again for a year in which I had emerged from a health scare and he became tangled in a web of gym-love. And he helped me mind my manners.

I told him to choose who to motivate next time because telling someone bouncing back from cancer chemo and radiation that they’ll never be as strong as they used to be aren’t all like me, brother.

I told him by the time I’m done he should take a picture of me with my shirt off and photo shop his head because he’ll never look as good. You know, gym-guy talk.

Another cancer survivor might take it the other way, though, and leave, drive home, and park in the garage with the engine running and windows down. That’s why there’s such a thing as Oncology Social Worker and why they check in with people who check in for treatment.

He listened until he heard a click, then returned to his workout partner.

From Angry Gym To Lost Love

A sharp faced man in a loose tank top showed up near a new woman. I noticed her because she was screwing around at the lift I wanted to do next. Then him.

Like a gym-boy charmer he loaded the pull-down with the sort of self-deprecating humor that always cracks me up. The guy was funny. I said as much in a funny way after they finished and moved on together.

They turned their faces toward me at the same time, a perfect ballet of attention. She smiled. He turned to her and said, “He thinks he’s a real social commentator,” loud enough for me to hear, then turned back to me with a stink face. How did he know me so fast?

After months of lifting and gesturing and hugging good bye every day, she stopped coming to the gym. He stayed on schedule, she moved on. Or something. In short time he started training another young woman who had come in with extra effort.

Loser Love Gets Lost

I tried to listen in like a spy. He said the same things to the new woman as he did the last. And it was working the same way with the same love expression and twinkle eyes, the same embarrassed hand to mouth smile after saying something that could be taken as “Give it to me baby, uh huh, uh huh.”

Their clock ran a few months, then one day that walked past each other like strangers. She looked sad and hurt. He looked like the hunt was on for his next challenge.

A week later he climbed the stair master next to the enticingly beautiful icon, the sort of woman Rodin could only dream of sculpting, a woman too dangerous for Picasso to muse on. But not too much for gym Romeo.

Gym Juiliette balanced between the married man who adored her, and the hunk she could use and throw aside. No matter what, she wasn’t dying for either. The contest began to see who threw who aside first.

The married guy flew on her first throw. He looked sad and hurt, like he’d never be as strong as he was before going all angry gym guy.