by Shawn Inmon
Inside the cardboard box was a smaller box, the right size and look for a watch. He opened it, and there it was: the Azuul ExerTracker. It looked much better than the picture on Amazon. He had assumed it would be made out of dark rubber. Instead, the band was hand-tooled leather, attached to what looked like (but surely couldn't be) real silver. Not for ninety-nine bucks, no way. Instead of the cheap modern device he had expected, this was substantial, heavy, authentic-feeling.
A folded leaflet inside the box read: “Congratulations on choosing an Azuul ExerTracker, the most technologically advanced method to track your activities. Once you put the ExerTracker on, you never need to take it off again. It’s got a patented eterna-battery and is certified waterproof to 100'. In fact, we strongly recommend that you don’t remove it. The more you wear your Azuul ExerTracker, the better it will get to know you and the better it will be able to help you meet your goal to be a fitter, happier you. To get started, slip the Azuul ExerTracker onto your non-dominant wrist, adjust it for comfort, then go to http://azuul.com and download the free app. Don’t forget to also download the exclusive .mp3 file that you can listen to while you sleep, while you walk – any time at all!”
“Hmmmpph,” Chad said. That seemed a little too easy.
Being a lefty, Chad slipped the ExerTracker onto his right hand. It felt good, wrapping around his chubby wrist as if it had always been there, no adjustment needed, thank you very much. He went to the website, created an account, sent the app to his iPhone and downloaded the .mp3 file to his iTunes account.
“Well, that’s enough for one night. Well begun is half done, as Aristotle said.” He clicked off the desk lamp and turned his attention to the inability of teens to compose simple paragraphs without using text-speak.
Two hours later, Chad trundled upstairs to bed. He closed the bedroom door behind him and heard the shower running in the master bath. He and Sarah had always joked that their marriage worked, at least partially, because their showering habits were so compatible. Sarah was a 'just before bed' woman, and Chad a 'first thing in the morning' man.
Chad got into bed, turned on his Kindle, and settled back into the cozy mystery he had been reading the night before. He barely noticed when Sarah came out of the bathroom, donned her oldest, wooliest nightgown and slipped into bed beside him. “Night, hon,” she said, kissing him on the cheek, rolling over, and closing her eyes.
A strange feeling deep within himself soon drew Chad’s attention away from his Kindle. He had not felt it in so long, it took him a moment to process. Their sex life wasn’t quite embalmed, but 'comatose with hoses up its nose' might have suited it. He stared at the back of Sarah’s head; she had pulled her damp hair, gray sprinkled through the brown, back in a small ponytail. A few stray curls lay against her neck. Her shoulder rose and fell in an even rhythm. It was possible that she was already asleep. Sarah was famous for two things: her cheesecake, and her ability to conk out.
He watched her for a few minutes, waiting to see if the unusual warmth inside might subside, but it didn’t. Almost in a dream, he leaned over and kissed her neck, reaching out to pull her toward him.
Like most long-married couples, Chad and Sarah had a set routine. Sarah was invariably wide awake by six AM, and got up to start coffee. By the time Chad’s phone chimed him awake, the aroma worked the magic that enabled him to heave himself out of bed. Chad wasn’t a morning person, so Sarah customarily watched The Gab—an informal, inane roundtable between four D-list female celebrities and a guest, sometimes a male for them to toy with. While Sarah watched her show, she made breakfast in silence. She left Chad to stumble around for at least an hour before saying anything more to him than “Good morning, hun.”
On the first morning after the ExerTracker arrived, though, Chad’s eyes fluttered open at 5 AM. His daily fog of slogging incomprehension was absent, replaced by preternatural alertness. Even more odd, he felt motivated. He glanced down at the band on his left arm. It stared innocuously back at him.
What do they do, slip some sort of amphetamine into this thing?
Chad silently slipped out of bed and started toward the shower when a new thought occurred to him. I’m up ahead of schedule. I could go for a nice little walk and still be back here before Sarah wakes up. Instead of the shower, he took a quick pit stop to relieve himself, then opened the bottom dresser drawer. Stuffed at the back was a pair of dark blue sweats, the residue of a previous let’s-get-into-shape venture that had crashed and burned after less than a week.
He slipped on the sweats, remembered that he had a new pair of Nikes at the back of his closet, put them on, and walked downstairs. At the front door, a question crossed his mind: do I have to shake this thing to wake it up? He fished his iPhone out of his pocket, opened the Azuul ExerTracker app and saw a reading: “Daily Activity: 48 steps. Let’s get moving!”
Chad took two tentative steps forward and watched, fascinated, as the number rolled over to 50. He shook his head and smiled a little. What’s next? A machine that exercises for you? Broccoli that tastes like a cheeseburger?
He remembered to put on his headphones and open the audio file he had downloaded the night before. A swell of classical music filled his ears as a smooth baritone voice said, “Welcome. Welcome to the first day of your new life.” He opened the door and saw an unfamiliar sight: the pink glow of a sunrise just beginning to bathe his neighborhood. It was cool, but not cold, and Chad decided he didn’t need his jacket.
Maybe just one quick lap around the neighborhood. That will be enough for the first walk.
Stepping out onto the sidewalk, he felt the crunch of the leaves that had fallen overnight. The early-rising birds were chirping.
It’s like a goddamned Disney movie out here.
Across the street, Sam Savage waved at him, a surprised little wave that said both 'Hello' and 'What in the hell are you doing up and around already, Chad?'
Chad returned the wave and set a nice pace toward the end of the block. After completing the first lap around the neighborhood, he looked at his watch and saw that he’d only been gone ten minutes. According to his phone, he had now taken 828 steps. The encouraging voice spoke into his ear on cue: “Come on, let’s do some more steps!”
Don’t mind if I do.
He probably hadn’t walked more than four or five thousand steps in a day since Ashley's birth, but it didn’t take him long to capture the long-distance walker's rhythm: one foot in front of the other, hands swinging, his blood pumping. He could hardly believe the energy he felt. Chad veered off toward the high school and walked a lap around the athletic fields, the morning dew soaking his shoes.
By the time he walked up the driveway to his house, Chad had been gone forty-five minutes. He had worked up a light sweat despite the morning coolness. The ExerTracker app showed 3,978 steps. Tired but happy, he went inside.
Chad couldn’t remember the last time he had made the coffee, but after a few minutes of rifling through the cupboards, he located the coffee and filters. Before the pot was half done, he heard Sarah’s slippered feet on the stairs.
“Good morning, oh sleepy one.”
Her puffy eyes suggested that she hadn’t gotten enough sleep the night before. No wonder, after the workout I put her through last night.
She stopped at the bottom of the stairs, her hand resting on the railing, and looked him up and down. She took in the damp Nikes, the sweat suit, the disheveled hair, and the slightly dopey smile. Sarah narrowed her eyes in what was not entirely mock concern.
“Who are you, and what have you done with Chad?”
At first Sarah teased Chad a bit about his sudden enthusiasm for exercise, but she hadn't expected it to continue. It did. Rain or shine, he was up early every day, walking. When he got home at night, no matter the hour, he put on his Nikes and went for a walk. Saturday, Sunday, the Monday of a three-day weekend, it didn’t matter. Every day, morning and night, Chad walked.
Results weren't long in coming. He ate less, and
what he did eat was healthier. The bathroom scale reflected the changes. Three weeks after beginning his new regimen, he strolled out of the bathroom, puffed his chest out just a bit, and announced: “Twenty pounds, Sarah. I'm down twenty pounds!”
He began shopping at every successful dieter's first stop: the back of his closet. He tried on khakis and blue button-down shirts that he hadn’t worn since Clinton was president. If Chad’s style had ever changed, they would have been out of date, but the only thing about his dress that had changed over the years was the sizes he bought. No one noticed.
To Sarah, more remarkable than the weight loss was their rediscovered sex life. Even back in their college days, he'd never been this horny. Now he wanted to have sex every night. At first, it was nice, but she was starting to remember their maybe-once-a-month schedule with increasing fondness. Chad had offered to order her an ExerTracker, but she worried that if it had the same effect on her, they might spend all their time rutting like teenagers. They might never get anything else done.
Chad’s daily step count charted like Microsoft’s stock value during its first ten years. For the first few weeks, he was lucky to hit eight thousand steps before his body started to show wear and tear. Blisters appeared on his feet. An old ankle injury flared up and pained him, but he pushed through it all. After the first two weeks, he cleared ten thousand steps every day.
Seven weeks in, Chad was hitting twenty thousand daily steps and was forty pounds lighter. He was nearing his pre-Ashley weight.
After three months, he walked every minute he wasn’t working, sleeping, or having sex. His step count began to reach thirty thousand per day. He had lost those sixty pounds plus an extra ten. For the first time in his life, a stranger described him as “slim.”
Two weeks before Christmas, Sarah managed to catch the incredible motion machine that was her husband in the hallway, returning from his first walk of the day. He had started getting up earlier and earlier, trying to get more steps in.
“How many so far today?” she asked, more morbidly curious than interested.
“Eighty-nine hundred so far, but it was pretty wet out. That slows me down a little bit.”
“Chad, it’s six AM. What sane person thinks that walking more than four miles before it’s light outside is ‘slow?’”
Chad smiled at her, but it was a smile of distant condescension. He looks at me like I can't understand where he's coming from. And he's right; I can't. I feel like these miles he's putting on are becoming the distance between us. Sure, we were in a bit of a rut, but we were happy, and I always felt like he noticed and cared about me. We had some great moments.
Since he had started walking, those moments had ceased. His eyes, normally warm, had grown Arctic cold.
Sarah sensed that a discussion would not be productive, though, so she practiced the ancient art of picking her battles. She dropped it. “Listen, Ashley will be home for Christmas break soon, and my parents are flying in from Billings.”
“No problem. We can make up the hide-a-bed in my office. It’s not the most comfortable place to sleep, but maybe we could move down there and let your folks have our room.”
“I’m sure that will work, because you hardly sleep at all any more.”
“I know! Isn’t it great? I think that getting back into shape has opened up some kind of inner energy source, because I almost feel like I don’t need to sleep at all.”
Sarah nodded. After their nightly tryst, which Chad always initiated, she wasn’t sure if he even slept. Maybe he just listened to that damned motivational chatter and music while he waited for her to drop off, then snuck out so he could get a few more steps in.
“While Ashley and my folks are here, could you do me a favor?”
“What is it, what do you need?”
“Could you maybe…walk a little less? Just for the few days that my parents are here? You know how Dad is, and I don’t want to get him going. You know how we both hate that.”
Sarah’s father was a retired psychiatrist. Since retirement, he had a tendency to turn his keen eye on his family. It had been touch and go as to whether Sarah’s parents' marriage would survive, but they had eventually negotiated a 'no Freud' zone when it came to their home life. Things had been better since then, but at the cost of an in-home outlet for his years of practiced skill.
Chad’s brows knit into a frown, his eyes hooded. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, instead of trying to walk forty thousand steps, or whatever crazy number you’re walking every day now, could you knock it back to something a little more reasonable? Maybe focus on the family while they’re here, instead of just putting one foot in front of the other?”
Chad turned his back on her. Underneath his sweat-soaked Seattle Seahawks T-shirt, she was surprised to see his shoulder blades poking out. She had known he was getting thin, but hadn’t realized just how thin.
Without turning back to look at her, Chad mumbled, “Whatever.” He jogged lightly up the stairs, and soon she heard the shower running.
Eventually, Chad had promised Sarah that he would cut back over the Christmas holidays, but he soon reverted to his old patterns. He managed to hold himself in check until after dinner the first day company was in the house, then remembered that he had left some term papers at school that he needed to grade. On the way out the door, he snapped his fingers and said, as though it were a sudden inspiration: “You know, I think I’ll just walk to the school to get the papers. Save the planet and all that.”
His school was seven and a half miles from their house.
After that, he didn’t bother with the pretense. He just went back to walking, walking, walking.
When his pledge collapsed, Sarah had the thought that her father's need to dissect psyches would now do some good. Surely he, of all people, would recognize Chad’s behavior for the obsessive compulsion it was. She found no ally even there, though, as her dad praised Chad's healthy look and newfound stick-to-it-iveness, saying things like, “Keep after it, champ” and “attaboy.” It made no sense to Sarah, but seemed to please Chad.
After six long days, Sarah was more than relieved to bundle her parents into her Volvo and drop them off at the airport. “You tell that Chad to keep walking, Sarah. He looks ten years younger,” her dad said, as he pulled his suitcase out of the trunk and hugged her goodbye.
Sarah nodded, but wondered whether that was true.
He was certainly thinner, but the changes Sarah saw in his face weren’t flattering or rejuvenating. His eyes were sunken. His lips seemed pulled back in a skeleton’s rictus. She had always nagged him about his lackadaisical ways, but in truth, she had loved that softer side of him. That was now gone, replaced by steely eyes and a steely heart she didn’t recognize.
As she climbed back into the car, the soft mist intensified into a hard rain. She turned the wipers on high. When she turned down the street to her house, she saw Chad up ahead, walking through the puddles with his feet and hands a perfect metronome, seemingly unaware of the beating rain. Her headlights illuminated him as he reached their driveway.
Surely he'll come inside. He could drown in this downpour.
Chad didn’t even pause. He continued on past their house, intent on racking up more and more steps.
I wish he had never bought that thing. It’s like he’s possessed by it.
She turned off the car and sat inside it for a few minutes, waiting for the rain to abate enough for a dash into the house. Once inside, she changed into her comfiest pajamas. It wouldn’t make any difference to Chad what she was wearing. In the bedroom, as on the pavement, he had become a machine.
Half an hour later, she heard the front door slam and the sounds of Chad shucking his wet shoes and soaked sweats. A moment later, he stood in the doorway of the bedroom, water dripping off his small triangle of chest hair. With his wet clothes bundled in front of him, he looked like a demented butler in a nudist colony. Sarah gasped. She had seen him nude now and then, but this was the
first time she had fully registered the remarkable change.
He had walked off any fat he'd ever had, and maybe some of the muscle tissue that had been submerged beneath the fat. Bones that she had never seen before–ribs, sternum, hips—jutted out at odd angles all over his frame. “Like what you see?” he said, waggling his eyebrows.
“No. I don’t, Chad. It’s like something is eating you from the inside out and there’s not much left of you.”
“What? Come on, honey. You heard what your dad said: I look great.”
“You look like you’re auditioning for the part of the skeleton at the local haunted house, is what I think.” The barb sailed past, a clean miss.
Chad dropped the clothes on top of the laundry hamper and stood before her, flexing his wiry remaining muscles. “C’mon, baby, it’s time for a little Chad-lovin’.”
Sarah shook her head. “What we do every night doesn’t feel anything like love to me. It doesn't even feel like 'we,' just 'you.' It feels mechanical. I need a night off.”
His spreading smirk froze. His eyes became diamond-hard. He took one slow, deliberate step toward her.
Oh, my God. He’s going to rape me.
After that step, though, he seemed to think better of it. He shrugged, pulled on a t-shirt and boxers, and climbed into bed. In a pointed move, he turned his back on her, then unwrapped the earphones from his phone, plugged them in and closed his eyes. These days, it didn’t feel as though he really slept, but went into a deep trance for an hour or so before rising to continue his endless walkabout.
For once, Sarah was too distraught to fall asleep. She lifted up a bit to look at his face. He looked to be in some sort of daze, a small smile playing at the edge of his lips.