by Liam Hurley
And I could do that. I really did stick to it for the week. It felt amazing. It was like I had this new secret life. Every morning I’d wake up, go to the Centre and work hard with Antonio. His work-outs were gruelling but manageable at the same time. I left the Centre feeling lighter somehow and each breath felt fresher. Then I’d sneak onto Market Street and blend in with the commuters. I regularly made my own meals at home and even got to bed early. It felt great to have some sort of guidance. I felt like I had a purpose for the first time in a long time.
Antonio continued with his lessons and teachings to me. I was trying to remain cynical but it was difficult when his energy was so contagious. He genuinely did make me feel like I could achieve my goals.
After six days, I went to bed feeling warm. I knew I’d worked hard that week. And the next day I was due at the Centre for my first weigh-in. I told myself that it didn’t matter if I lost weight, and all that mattered was that I’d worked hard and followed the rules for a full week. But deep down, I knew I had to lose something.
I was pacing outside the Centre at 6:25am the next day. I kept looking into the front door and round the back but it was all closed up. I was striding around like mad. Come on. I decided to light up and kill some time. I leant against the building and took a deep drag of my cigarette. I closed my eyes and slowly exhaled. It was then that I heard footsteps and whistling. I popped on of my eyes open to see Antonio bouncing up the alleyway.
“Jimmy?” he said.
“Come on, it’s weigh-in.” I said.
“Put that out.” He said, with a point at the cigarette hanging from my mouth.
“Fine.”
I flicked the cigarette away from me and followed Antonio into the office. He hadn’t even reached the desk and I’d already kicked my pumps off and removed my jacket.
“Eager.” He said.
I smiled and dived under the desk, pulling the scale out with me as I stood up. I placed the scale down in front of me.
“Okay.” I said to no one.
I took a deep breath and then exhaled long and slowly. I took a step onto the scale and closed my eyes. I gave it a few seconds before looking down at my feet.
19st 1lbs
Oh my god! Five pounds! Five fucking pounds! I jumped off the scale and clenched my fist.
“Yes.” I hissed.
“Very good Jimmy.”
I smiled at Antonio. I couldn’t believe it. I’d lost five whole pounds! I could do this I thought, I genuinely believed this now, I really could do it. This first week was hard but so worth it. Now I just had to crack on with the rest of the thirty days, and if I carried on, then, maybe, just maybe I could fix my life.
Chapter Seventeen- No Smoke, More Fire
For the next two weeks, my thoughts were dominated by losing weight and sticking to my new-found plan. I was eating lean and green. I was training five times a week at the Centre, then at home on my days off. I was drinking so much water that I was getting an extra work out every day just by walking back of forth to the toilet.
On my third weigh-in (day twenty-one) I hoped off the scale after dropping yet another four pounds. That meant I was one single pound away from losing my first stone. I was pissed off.
“You are not happy Jimmy.” Antonio said.
“No, one bloody pound away from a stone.”
“Jimmy, you will lose that pound upstairs today.”
He always had a way to find the positive in a situation. I smiled and shook my head.
“Yeah you’re right.”
I jumped up and took a step towards the exit.
“Jimmy, before we go up today. I have a challenge for you?”
“You mean besides losing weight, dieting like mad and training seven times a week, right?”
“Jimmy, I want you to stop smoking.”
I wasn’t too shocked. Antonio was always giving me dirty looks through the window when he saw me light up before or after a session.
“I know I know, it’s a bad habit.”
“Jimmy, the point will come shortly when you hit a plateau in training. And to reach that extra level you’ll need cardio vascular reserves. That is where smoking will let you down.”
“Okay, fine, I’ll give it a go.”
“You promise Jimmy?”
“I promise.”
“Good man. Now let’s go and kick your arse.”
I’d like to say that Antonio working me like a machine for ninety minutes in the morning was the hardest part of the day. But I’d have taken that work out six or seven times in a row just to get the sweet release of a post-food cigarette. I sat at the dinner table after inhaling salmon and kale. My fingers were rammed inside my mouth. I couldn’t think of anything better than smoking in that moment. I cursed myself for throwing my cigarettes and lighter in the Centre’s bin in an act of solitude. Shit. Fuck. I jumped up out of the chair and started to take deep breaths and stretch through my normal warm up routine. I had my arms raised high above my head and my foot was plastered to the inside of my opposite knee. I took a deep breath and began to count; 1…2…3…4…-
“James?”
Mum’s voice made me lose balance. I had to stick my bent leg to the floor to stop myself from toppling directly into the fridge. I span around.
“Hi Mum.” I said.
She was smiling at me.
“What’re you doing?”
“Nothing.” I mumbled.
I walked to the table and picked up my plate and cutlery.
“Have you lost weight?”
I froze to the spot. This was the first time anyone had noticed. I tried to remain calm. I turned my head slightly her way and said;
“Erm, yeah, I’ve lost a bit.”
“I can tell.”
I nodded and carried my plate to the sink. I twisted the hot water tap and started to scrub my plate clean.
“How’ve you done it?” she asked.
“I’ve been going to… yeah to the gym.” I said.
“Wonderful. Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Well it’s no big deal, is it?” I said.
“I’m just saying it suits you. Have you got a goal in mind?”
Antonio had already trained me how to answer this.
“Just to get through today.” I replied.
Mum smiled. I put my plate away and strode past her. As I left the kitchen I caught a glimpse of my dad sat outside with a cigar stuck firmly between his lips. Arsehole. I took a light jog up the stairs and then up the second flight into my room. I slammed the door shut behind me.
I fell onto the bed and stared up at the ceiling. I needed a cigarette desperately. I could hear them calling me from the corner shop. Jimmy. Jimmy. They were hissing. Just one cigarette, you can do it, come on.
I buried my head in my pillow and screamed softly. I could feel cold sweats begin to form around my hairline and roll onto the pillow. I needed a distraction. I grabbed at my phone and went to the internet browser. I needed a distraction so obviously my first port of call was pornography. Thirty-eight seconds later I found myself once more screaming out for a cigarette.
I opened Facebook and began to scroll through my feed. It was the same old nonsense. Pictures of baby scans, prank videos, people looking for recommendations (use fucking Google) and The Simpsons quotes. Shit. I was in dire straits here. I was scrabbling for something to do. Facebook was still open in front of me.
My thumbs seemed to act independent to my brain. Before I knew what I was doing, they were in the search bar typing E… R… I…
And there she was. Her face was leering up at me. It was a new picture on her profile. She was wearing bright red lipstick and looking up at the camera. She wasn’t smiling which I took as a good sign.
I flicked down to her page but I couldn’t see much seeing as I’d deleted her as a friend. Her face glowed up at me from the screen as I saw pictures of her on various nights out. I opened one of the pictures of her leant against a bar in a club. She had he
r head tilted back and she was laughing.
Fuck her. Fucking laughing. I checked the date. New Years’ Eve. Oh great, so whilst I was throwing a kebab at PC Kelly, Erin was laughing the night away in a club. I had to get her off my screen so I flicked to the right and went through other pictures the club had put on their Facebook page.
I spotted Charlie on a few pictures lurking around in the background. She would have made a great oil painting I thought, she had that classic miserable face. I smirked to myself and continued to flick through pictures. I was calming down a little now. The club looked shit. There was a foam machine going off in one of the images, like it was a fucking under-16s disco.
I continued to chuckle to myself as I looked through the pictures. I was laughing away until I suddenly came to a dead halt as Erin came on my screen once more. This time however she wasn’t laughing or hugging Charlie. She was wrapped around a muscular body and a mop of blonde hair. She was kissing him. He was kissing her. Daniel and Erin were kissing on my screen.
I threw my phone as quickly as I could across my bed. It bounced off the mattress and clattered into a wall. I felt my mouth drop open and pushed myself into a seating position. What the fuck had I just seen? Why did this feel so shit? I knew it would happen, I’d been dumped for this to happen. But seeing the actual reality of it made it all so much worse.
I shrugged off my joggers and dragged the duvet over my head. I tried to stay positive. Fuck them both. I’d lost a stone (pretty much), they were welcome to each other. They could skip away into the sunset for all I cared, I had my own sunset now. But they were all empty thoughts. I knew it. I knew it bothered me. And it bothered me because she broke my heart and this was the last bit of evidence I needed to show that she did it for her own short-term gain rather than to spare my long-term pain.
I don’t know how long it took me to fall asleep but when I eventually did drop off my dreams were full of Erin offering me cigarettes and then snatching them away just as I went to grab one. She’d scream at me ‘you failed, you failed, I knew you would!’ as she waved the cigarette packet in my face.
I woke the next morning almost as sweaty as I was after a big gym session. I sloped downstairs and drank a gallon of water. I made my way back upstairs and retrieved my phone from the floor, thankfully it was unbroken. I punched a quick message out to Antonio asking if I could go down to the Centre. I needed a distraction.
I made a good nutritious breakfast of eggs, mushrooms, and spinach. I ate it in silence and tried to wipe the image of Erin and Daniel from my mind. I stared into space trying to clear my mind. My thought process was interrupted by my dad opening the patio door. He walked into the kitchen covered in mud, clearly, he’d been up for a few hours.
“How’s the garden?” I asked him.
“Fine.” He replied.
He was still a bit mad at me from the New Years’ fiasco. I smiled at him and picked my plate up, intending to take it to the sink.
“So, how much have you lost?” he asked me.
I looked back at my dad. He was staring out onto the garden.
“Erm about a stone.”
“Good. Keep it up.” He said.
He then finished off the glass of water he was drinking and strode back outside. I watched him through the glass retake his position amongst the dirt and grass. Balls to him as well I thought, I bet he thinks I’m losing weight because of what he says to me all the time. Dick.
My phone sprung to life via a message causing me to drag my eyes away from my dad digging what looked like a moat. I had a reply from Antonio. He said I could come down anytime. I decided to get ready and head that way. However, before I did that, I needed to do one last thing.
I closed the message from Antonio and again opened Facebook. Just like the night before I began to type Erin’s name into the search bar. This time she popped up on the letter ‘e’. I quickly hit the ‘more’ button and then saw the option to ‘block’ and ‘report’ fill my screen. I toyed for a moment with the idea of reporting her. Just to stick it to her. It was pointless though, so I committed to my original intention and pressed ‘block’. She was instantly eradicated from my screen, and as much as I searched for her, she was nowhere to be seen on Facebook. I breathed a deep sigh of relief. Hopefully, this would mean the end.
Two hours later I found myself bent over in the Centre with Antonio pushing my head towards the floor.
“Breathe Jimmy, breathe” he implored me.
Sweat streamed down my forehead and dripped to the floor like a freezer being defrosted. I was straining as best as I could but the floor still seemed a mile away. My neck was being pulled and my back being bent all at once. I gritted my teeth together.
“Loose Jimmy, be loose, be the sea remember.”
I tried to breath in a bit softly and let my neck become somewhat lubricated. Antonio grabbed the back of head and pushed it a bit further down.
“Arghhhhhh.” I moaned.
“Three more seconds Jimmy.”
I breathed in deeply again as I counted in my head. After a suspiciously long three seconds, Antonio released the pressure from the back of my head and my back suddenly snapped upright.
“Slower Jimmy.” He scolded me.
“Sorry.” I gritted.
“Now, for your last session of the day, come with me.”
I followed Antonio in his wake. The gym was much busier than it had ever been before. Saturday day time seemed to be the day when all of Antonio’s clients showed up. I looked around at them. They all seemed to be independently working. Only I seemed to have a ‘trainer’ for lack of a better term. As I was watching a girl jog gently on a treadmill I noticed that Antonio had stopped by the side of the large leather boxing bag. He was holding a pair of red boxing gloves in his hands.
“Boxing?” I said.
“The sweet science.” He replied.
I walked up to the bag and placed both hands on it. I pushed it softly, it was a lot heavier than I expected.
“Jimmy. Hands.”
Antonio was nodding at my hands. I held them out in front of him. He shoved each glove on and tied them off above the wrist. I held the gloves to my face and took a deep breath in through my nose. They smelled of an odd combination of leather and sweat. I held my arms up in what I believed to be a boxers’ pose.
“Have you ever had a fight Jimmy?” he asked.
My mind shot back a month or so earlier to my failed punch up in Ronnie’s. I thought about the guy rolling around on top of me as I clung on to his neck for dear life. Then I thought about my pathetic punch which barely caused the Santa hat to move from his head.
“Erm. Not really, no.”
“Okay so first of all Jimmy, we must fix this stance.”
Antonio pushed me so I was nearly side on with the bag.
“Okay, now left foot at twelve o’clock, and right foot at three o’clock.”
I shifted my feet to the two positions requested. Antonio softly pushed me in the chest, I remained steadfast and sturdy.
“See, Jimmy, strong!” he patted my chest. “Okay, now left hand to your jaw and right hand to your temple. Keep the inside of your hands pressed against the face.”
I did as Antonio instructed and realised my line of vision was almost entirely blocked off.
“I can’t see.” I complained.
“Good job the bag won’t hit you back.” He said.
Antonio stood in front of me on the opposite side of the bag, mirroring me. His stance however seemed to be much more fluid than my statue-like posture. Antonio rocked back and forth from his back foot to his front foot.
“Now when I say ‘jab’, Jimmy do this.”
He threw a quick straight punch with his leading hand which snapped into the bag with a ‘whack!’.
“That is the jab Jimmy. The jab.”
I nodded. I pushed my own version out in slow motion towards to bag.
“And then we have the straight right or the cross.” He continued.
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Antonio sprang back and forth again, he threw another jab but then on the follow-through came back across the bag with his opposite hand in a diagonal motion, causing the back to swing backwards towards me. I pushed it back into the centre.
“Okay Jimmy, let’s see you.”
I tried to imitate Antonio by bouncing on my feet slightly. He was eyeing me up and down.
“Jab!” he shouted.
I pushed my left hand out. It was a straight punch but it barely made a ‘thud’ on the bag compared to Antonio’s ‘whack!’.