Gym Candy

by Carl Deuker

  "I don't need to; I lift with the team at school."

  "Come on, Mick," he said. "Be serious. Popeye's is state of the art. What do you have at school? Some rusty old free weights and a couple of old Smith machines? Am I right?"

  "Pretty much."

  "Popeye's has a machine designed specifically for every muscle group. They've got cable stuff, dumbbells, barbells, ellipticals, treadmills, bicycles, medicine balls—everything. I can even get you some time with a personal trainer. That's not free, but I do get a discount. One hour at Popeye's would be like three hours at your school." He paused. "You said you wanted to get bigger, faster, stronger, right? Okay, here it is, an opportunity."

  He was right. The equipment in the weight room at school was old and there wasn't much of it. I spent too much time waiting and not enough time lifting. "It sounds good," I said. "Only..."

  "Only what?"

  "The other people there—they'd all be adults, right?"

  He scowled. "Mick, you're sixteen; you're not a child."

  "I know," I said.

  He sighed. "Call Drew. He can be your guest the first time, and then after that we'll figure something out. Maybe you can pretend he's your brother, although with your red hair and his big ears, you two don't look alike. I'll arrange a trainer for next Saturday afternoon."

  The next day I asked Drew. "That gym on the Burke-Gilman trail?" he said.

  "Yeah."

  He shook his head. "I don't know, Mick. I always figured that place was kind of gay."

  "I know," I said, "but my dad really wants me to go. He's going to get us a personal trainer. One time, okay?"

  I picked Drew up Saturday and drove to Fremont. I parked the Jeep in front of a red house on Canal Street and we walked along the waterfront trail to reach Popeye's. When we were twenty yards away, we could see shirtless guys working out in front of floor-to-ceiling plate-glass windows. "You sure about this?" Drew said.

  "No, but we're here, so we might as well give it a try."

  Inside the front door was a black semicircular counter. A musclebound guy, his head shaved bald, sat on a barstool, paging through a magazine, but he looked up the moment we walked in. "Can I help you?"

  "I'm Mick Johnson," I said, suddenly afraid my dad hadn't called. "My father—"

  "The guy on the radio at night," he said. "The guy who owns us."

  "My dad doesn't own—"

  "Wait here," he said, and he disappeared behind a door. He returned a minute later accompanied by a blond guy in his early twenties. The blond guy was pure muscle, too. "Peter Volz," he said, sticking out his hand. "I'll be your trainer."

  I told him my name. "This is Drew," I said.

  Peter led us to the main workout room. There were about two hundred machines, a whole section full of free weights, and only about twenty guys working out. My dad was right; there'd be no dead time. "Okay," Peter said. "Let's get to it."

  He had us do hack squats, leg extensions, and bench presses on a brand-new Smith machine. Peter was very particular about form; every time I did something, he'd put his hand on my arm or leg to show me what I was doing wrong. I tried to listen, but whenever he touched me all I could think was Is this guy gay? A couple of times I looked over at Drew and I knew he was thinking the same thing.

  After what seemed like six hours but was only sixty minutes, Peter stopped. "Well, that's it," he said. "What do you think? You want to sign up for more sessions?"

  Drew looked at me. I stood, frozen.

  Peter Volz shrugged. "Hey, don't sweat it. You change your mind, I'll be here."

  Once we were outside, we started laughing. "I am never going back there," I said.

  "Me neither," Drew said. "Though the guy probably wasn't gay."

  "I know," I said, "but the way he was always touching me was too weird."

  ***

  When my dad came back from Miami, he asked how I'd liked Popeye's. "Not too much," I said.

  "So you're not going back."

  I could tell he was angry. "I lift at school," I said.

  He shrugged. "It's up to you, Mick. But you've got the chance to use a state-of-the-art facility—"

  "Mike," my mom said, "he doesn't want to go."

  He threw his hands up. "Fine, Mick. Suit yourself."

  10

  A couple of weeks later I got into it with Nolan Brown, a junior tackle and one of Drager's friends. We were doing curls side by side in the school weight room. When Brown finished his set, he put down the barbell and turned on me. "You're one lucky son of a bitch, Johnson. You know that, don't you? Everything gets handed to you."

  "What got handed to me?" I said.

  He laughed. "What got handed to you? The starting spot on the team, that's what. If Matt were still around, your butt would be sitting on the bench next year."

  I put the barbell down. "What makes you so sure I'm not better than Drager?"

  Brown snorted. "What makes me so sure? Do you think that Foothill kid would have stopped Matt Drager, one-on-one, the way he stopped you? Do you think Matt would have come up one foot short?"

  "No," I said, my face burning. "I think Drager would have come up two yards short."

  It took Brown a second to figure out what I meant. When he did, he shook his head. "Very funny, Johnson. Ha, ha."

  Once Brown moved off to another station, DeShawn came over. "Mick, every word you say to Brown goes right back to Drager. You know that, don't you?"

  "I don't care."

  "Yeah? Well, you should care. No sense in smacking a hornets' nest with a stick."

  The next day I was eating lunch in the commons. I'd poured my milk into a glass and added the protein powder. I was starting to stir when Drew leaned toward me. "Don't turn around, but Drager and Clark are headed our way."

  I kept stirring, but I could feel them reach our table, feel them stare over my shoulder. "What's that crap?" I looked back. It was Drager.

  "It's a protein shake," I said.

  "What do you take it for?"

  "To get stronger."

  "What do you need to get stronger for? I thought you were the strongest guy in the school. That's what you've been telling everybody, isn't it?"

  I didn't answer. I put the spoon down and lifted the glass to my mouth. Before I could drink it, Drager grabbed it out of my hand, took a sip, grimaced, and then spit it out over the rest of my food. I jumped to my feet and faced him, my hands balled into fists at my side.

  He grinned. "Oh, sorry. Did I ruin your lunch? I didn't mean to; it's just that that stuff you drink tastes like crap and piss mixed together."

  "What's going on there?" I looked past Drager and saw Mr. Chavez, the vice principal, hustling toward us.

  Drager was up in my face. "Nothing's going on here, Mr. Z. We're just talking."

  Chavez pushed himself between us. "Don't give me that, Drager. I'm not stupid."

  Drager leaned back. "Ask him," he said, pointing to me.

  Chavez turned to me. "Is there a problem here?"

  "I'm fine," I said. "No problem."

  Drager rapped the tabletop twice, then looked at Chavez. "See, Mr. Z. Nothing's happening. Just a friendly chat, that's all." He looked back to me. "We'll finish this another time, Johnson." Drager and Clark turned and walked away.

  Mr. Chavez watched them go. "Drager gives you trouble, you tell me. You don't try to take him on. You understand?"

  11

  A couple of days later, just after Coach Carlson had left the weight room to do his custodial work, Drager and Clark slipped inside. "Hey, you guys change your minds? You coming back?" Brad Middleton asked, a big smile on his face. That was Brad.

  Matt Drager scowled. "No, Middleton, we're not coming back. I wouldn't play for Carlson if he got down on his knees and begged me."

  "So what are you doing here?"

  Drager nodded toward me. "I wanted to see just how strong Muscle Boy over there has gotten. Taking protein powders and lifting weights every day—I figure he must
be a mountain man by now."

  With that, Drager strode over to where Drew was doing bench presses. "How much weight you got on that barbell?"

  "One twenty," Drew said.

  Drager snorted. "One twenty. Put on a hundred eighty." Then he turned to me. "That's the weight NFL teams use to see how strong a guy is. Can you press it, or do you need to drink some barf powder first?"

  "I can press it," I said.

  "So let's see you do it."

  With Drager and Clark and the rest of the guys watching, I slid onto the bench. Middleton eased the barbell into my hands. I got a good grip and pushed it straight up. Once ... twice ... three times. I could feel my face turning red, feel the veins on my forehead and neck filling with blood. My arms were wobbling, but I pushed it up a fourth time, a fifth. I might have made one more but Middleton snatched the weight away from me.

  Drager clapped real slow as I stood, and then he stripped his shirt off. "My turn," he said, settling onto the bench. Again Middleton spotted him. Now the entire team was crowded around.

  He was older than I was, and he was strong, but he hadn't been in the weight room once that winter. I expected he might match me or even beat me by a couple of reps, but he pumped one hundred eighty pounds the way I pumped one hundred twenty. He did five reps in about five seconds. He flew right through ten. He slowed a little at fifteen, but when he stopped at twenty, everyone knew he had more in him.

  Middleton took the barbell from Drager, who stood and then wheeled on me, pointing his finger. "Still think you'd beat me out?" he said, coming toward me so that we stood nose to nose. "What's the matter, you little puke? Got nothing to say?"

  I should have gone for his gut. If I'd hit him in the gut, he'd have lurched forward and I could have followed with a fist to his face and then maybe I'd have had him. But I went for his head because I wanted to hit him so hard he'd go down and stay down. He might have, too, had I connected.

  But he ducked out of the way and my punch barely grazed his ear. A second later Clark grabbed me from behind, pinning my arms against my sides. Then Drager drove his fists into my stomach. The punches came fast and hard, like pistons. After what was probably ten seconds but felt like ten minutes, Clark released me. I slid to my knees, both arms covering my gut. Clark kicked me, and when I rolled to my side, Drager spit in my face. "See you around, Muscle Boy," he said, and the two of them walked out.

  Once they'd left, DeShawn and Drew bent over me. "You all right?" Drew said, pulling me to my feet. I was almost standing when my knees buckled, but I didn't let myself fall back down. Once I was all the way up, I pushed Drew away. "I'm okay."

  "You're not okay," DeShawn said, and he took my elbow.

  I shook free. "I'm okay," I choked out. "Just leave me alone."

  Somehow I made it into the bathroom, staggered to a stall, stepped in, and slid the steel bar into place, locking it. Then I went down on my knees, this time to throw up. I knew DeShawn and Drew were just outside the door. "Go away," I gasped between retches. "Go away."

  They left, their footsteps echoing on the tile floor.

  I could have stayed in that toilet stall for an hour, but they were waiting for me—DeShawn and Drew and the rest of them. I forced myself to stand; I forced myself out of the stall; I forced myself to wash up even though my ribs ached each time I raised my hands to my face.

  When I returned to the weight room, the other guys stopped what they were doing and looked over, but nobody spoke. I walked to the corner where the dumbbells were, picked up the twelve-pounders, and made myself do some curls. That burned. Every couple of minutes I'd catch somebody looking over at me. Each time the guy would quickly look away. They were my teammates, and they'd stood there and let Drager and Clark beat me. Two against one, and no one had done a thing. After a while, the first guy left. Then another guy, and two more, and then I zipped up my duffel and headed for the door.

  I wanted to get into my Jeep and drive off, but Drew hustled to catch up. "I'm sorry, Mick," he said. "I know I should have done something, but it happened so fast. I thought it was going to be a fair fight—you against Drager. What Clark did was gutless. But I didn't see it coming. Nobody did. And when it happened, I froze. And just when I was going to jump in, that's when Clark let you go. It happened too fast."

  I looked up at the sky. The wind was pushing black clouds toward us, and that fit, because there was a black cloud over our friendship and words weren't going to make it go away.

  "I'm not blaming you, Drew," I finally managed.

  "But I'm blaming me."

  "Well, don't."

  We'd reached the Wrangler. "If anything like this ever happens again," Drew said, "I'll be ready. I won't stand and watch."

  "Forget about it," I said. "That's the best thing." I started the Jeep up, managed a small wave, and drove home.

  ***

  My ribs were so sore, I didn't return to school for two days. My gut was an ugly yellow-purple from the bruising, and I had trouble eating. I could have stayed home a third day, but by then my mother was suspicious. "A twenty-four-hour flu does not last seventy-two hours," she said. "If you don't feel well enough to go to school tomorrow, you're going to the doctor's."

  As I started up the stairs leading to the main entrance of the school, I heard a voice call out: "Mick. Wait." I turned. It was Kaylee Sullivan.

  I'd known Kaylee since middle school when we'd done a science project on landforms together—known her and liked her. She is tall, with brown hair and brown eyes. She is also an athlete: a sprinter and a volleyball player. All year I'd seen her around Shilshole High and said hello every time. And every time she smiled and said hello back, but we didn't have any classes together, so that was as far as it went.

  "I heard about what Drager and Clark did to you," she said as we walked into the building. "They are just animals—two against one like that. Animals and cowards. That's what everybody says. They'd have no friends if they were still here. None at all."

  "What do you mean, if they were still here?" I said.

  She looked confused. "They're gone. Didn't you know? The day they beat you up—that was their last day. That's why they did it; they knew they could get away with it. But if you told Mr. Z., he'd get them suspended from West Seattle."

  I shook my head. "I'm not telling anybody."

  "I had a feeling you'd say that."

  I looked at her. "Do you think that's wrong?"

  "No. I guess not." She paused. "Well, I've got to go to math now. See you around."

  ***

  Kaylee wasn't the only person who approached me that day. So did her friends Natalie Vick and Heather Lee. So did Russ Diver, a fat guy in my last-period class who I've known since first grade. And so did a kid with green spiky hair who I didn't know at all. It was as if every single person in the school had heard every detail. They were all trying to be nice; they were all saying that two against one wasn't fair. But I didn't want pity.

  For the rest of the week, I went straight from one class to the next, keeping my head down in the hallways. I ate lunch by myself on the steps leading down to the tennis courts. And when the school day ended, I walked straight to the parking lot, hopped in my Jeep, and drove home—skipping weight training.

  That weekend my dad had me turn over the soil in a spot behind the shed where my mother grew vegetables. The earth was wet from all the rain, and my arms ached from the work. As I shoveled dirt, my muscles burning, I kept picturing Drager, on his back, bench-pressing one eighty pounds like it was nothing. Then I saw myself, straining every muscle but only managing a fraction of what he'd done.

  It would have been okay if Drager had been a little stronger than I was. That would have made sense, even—he was older and outweighed me by fifteen pounds. But Drager was a lot stronger. And I knew there were other running backs on other teams, guys born naturally strong like Drager but who also worked the weights every day. Drager didn't put in the work, so I could see myself catching up to him. It would take
time, but I'd do it. But how could I catch up to guys who were just naturally stronger than I was and who didn't dog it?

  Monday I went back to eating lunch with Drew and DeShawn, but nothing felt right. One of them would say something and I'd laugh too hard, and then I'd say something and they'd laugh too hard. After school I returned to the weight room. Guys nodded to me, said "Good to see you," but basically they left me alone. On Tuesday, Nolan Brown came over while I was doing squats. "What those guys did sucked, and Drager is no friend of mine," he said, and then he returned to his station.

  That week I hit the wall. Bench press, squats, curls—you name it and I was stuck. I looked at the clipboard where I kept track of my personal bests and I saw that if anything, I was slipping back. In the hall the next day I asked Carlson what I should do. He shrugged. "Everybody hits a dead spot. Keep working and you'll get past it."

  For the next weeks I worked and worked, but nothing changed. Around me the guys were laughing, having a good time. I pretended I was, too. I pretended that the whole thing with Drager was over. Over and forgotten. But I kept picturing Drager grinning at me, mocking me.

  One Friday night, after my third straight miserable week in the weight room, I was up in my bedroom listening to music, my mind working like crazy. I had an alarm set to remind me to drink my final protein shake. It started beeping and I automatically got up, stepped into my bathroom, and reached for the protein powder.

  Then I stopped. I looked at that stuff, and I hated it. I thought of the work I was doing to pay for it: the painting, the pruning, and the cleaning. I might as well go back to eating Snickers bars and drinking Coke, because if I wasn't getting stronger, then all the sacrifices made no sense. My dream of being a big-time football player—it was just that ... a dream.

  "Mick," my dad called up from the stairwell. "Do you know where the bucket is?"

  "I think it's in the yard," I called down.

  "See if you can find it. Your mom's looking for it."

  I went downstairs, out the back door, and started across the yard toward the shed. A full moon was shining down. I didn't see the bucket, but in the middle of the lawn I spotted an old football. Without thinking, I picked it up and tucked it tight against my chest.