The Tell - 2. Chapter 2

Love can be described as a restlessness of the mind. At least, that is how it felt to me. And I did not hesitate to call what I felt love, because what part of what I felt towards him be any less? Had the Greek elders been at my table for dinner, I would not have changed my mind. Lust, infatuation, desire; they were merely subcategories, geni in the family of that miracle that Sophocles said frees us of all the weight and pain of life. But I was not restricted to any one of these. What I felt was a mix of romantic and brotherly love that had taken a new dimension since Stan and I had started training together.

The restlesssness showed itself in the way I’d obsessively check his online status, the way I’d scroll through old pictures, the way I’d examine the lyrics of a song he told me made him think of me because he, unlike me, has no inhibitions, or perhaps, has no reason to have any as I do; no reason to put on a mask or turn the volume down on his personality or outward behavior.

And the restlessness today was brought about by the thought that had wedged its way into my mind and had kept me ruminating late into the previous night and through today, and that was the look we shared at the gym. Had I seen something that was not there at all? That I maintained an ability to retain some modicum of rational thought even when overwhelmed by emotion was an upside of having loved and lost; and I understood that, when blinded by love, we see things we want to see. But this felt real.

And yet I was so sure of his sexuality. It was so concrete and immovable that the very idea that it could be budged was as real as the probability of me being able to push a brick wall down with my bare hands. But these things could happen, right? Brick walls aren’t immovable, they can be destroyed by immense force. But what force could I or my actions probably exert?

Worse still, what if, with that look, Stan was probing into my soul to discover what I was feeling at that moment? What if he had an inkling, a notion, or even a suspicion of my true affections, and that, with that look, he took aim at the deepest chambers of my inner heart to elicit a reaction that would give him the clue he was searching for? Had I given away a tell? I resigned myself to believing that it was all nothing; that I was overthinking the whole thing. It was that rational part of the brain again, but this time I let it take full control, partly out of self-pity and partly to stop myself from spiraling.

I was feeling in layers. Soon it would start again. It would start, and I’d kick into life again, as though I’d been dormant, as though there was nothing else in my life, or as though the things that were in my life had either ceased to matter or had become blurs on the periphery of my vision. There was an air of hopelessness about it all. An uncle of mine used to warn me not to gamble; so much so that it seemed his life purpose. He had no other advice to proffer, no other wisdom to pass down. At times it felt as though he was imploring me to avoid the vice. At such a young age, I thought nothing of it; shrugged it off with a laugh. And as I matured and found vices that appealed to me more than sitting in front of a roulette table or playing high-stakes card games with friends, I grew convinced that I could not be touched by addiction; that I walked with an invisible barrier that deflected both the physical and psychological urge to come back to these vices again and again. Yet here I was, unable to resist the temptation to see someone off limits over and over again. And so the layers of hopelessness and addiction were cloaked in all-encompassing self-hatred. Hatred in my inability to stay away, hatred in my pining for those who cannot reciprocate.

But brick walls are not unbreakable. Right?

***

A block of weights comes crashing down, causing me to jolt. I’ve been looking at nothing in particular, lost in thought. From the far end of the room, a pair of eyes quickly unglue themselves from mine as soon as I spot them. I lay back on the wall’s corrugated iron and gym music floods my ears again. From directly above, the Spin instructor’s voice shrieks motivations, and I wonder why I sat here. Shuffling over to my right, I try to resume what I’d started, but cannot recall where I’d left off. It wasn’t important. What was important was I had the lesson plan memorized. There was no way I couldn’t. I was once told that repeating something 28 times guaranteed you’d remember it, and had always wondered at the haphazardness of the number. 28 – like it was plucked from a hat. Perhaps they thought the randomness lended credibility to the number, or perhaps there was some real science behind it. But if double the repetition was required in thought rather than speech, I would still have been covered fourfold. There was no priority greater than this; no work, study, play, that could take precedence over my time with Stan.

There is still time to spare; time to ostensibly be spent stretching, and yet I cannot remember what I have been doing or what should come next, nor can I feel the afterburn of the last stretch I’ve done. It’s all random now – thoughts have taken priority. Around me, most re in their own world, with the exception of a group of regulars by the monkey bars that I dubbed the calisthenics club; a gaggle of young guys, around 3 to 5 of them, depending on the day, that regularly took up that particular territory to perform handstands and other amateur gymnastics. No matter how much I looked, or how much they peacocked, nothing could make me attracted to them. There was something in the explicit and obvious symmetry of their bodies, the perfectly toned and sculpted muscles, that paradoxically repelled me rather than lured me in. It may perhaps have been the deliberate and systematic routine by which they openly and explicitly sought to make their bodies attractive, the very bluntness and predictability of it, or perhaps it was that I didn’t know them personally and therefore could not develop an attraction. Or perhaps both. Their animal urge to sculpt their bodies stood in stark contrast to what I believed to be Stan’s virtuous desire to improve his health and physical ability, his pure, innocent desire, which is all I thought him possibly capable of.

The pair of eyes that I’d met when I’d snapped back are long gone. I don’t care like I would have used to. Shallow things are of little interest to me. Slips of the tongue, faux pas, small social miscues – they no longer bother me. The substitution of emotion, the reordering of priority, is something I am no stranger to. Whether the change is detectable to others is more of a concern.

I look down at my watch. 5 minutes late. Nothing to worry about. My foot starts tapping the floor involuntarily. Behind me, two young guys, one younger than the other, carry free weights towards a leg press machine with considerable difficulty and set it up.

"You said you don’t use this machine for leg press. So which do you use?” The older one has an Australian accent. The other, shaggy haired and fresh-faced, muddles through a response with an Italian accent, unsure of himself. Immediately, I surmise that they must be flatmates; my common theory about any duo of training partners I occasionally observe at the gym. How else could two male friends who don’t live together, or even in the same neighbourhood, consistently arrange to meet and exercise? Surely it would be strange if that were the case? People would surely draw assumptions about their relationship? The thought struck me like cold ice.

“You know, after we were alone, she was telling me about her ex-boyfriend, that is also from Italy, and she thinks Italian boys are the best. ” The Italian boy speaks in a more cocksure tone

“She wants it, man.”

“Yeah, I know.” They smile at each other like hyenas. All it took to dispel the awkwardness between them was the one subject that unites all boys with nothing else to say. The Australian spots the younger one and they intersperse their training with more testosterone-fuelled talk. My eyes home in on the calisthenics club again, and on one of the members in particular. He, like the rest of his group, has the ability to draw attention from both men and women, almost against their will, but there is something about his aura that separates him from the others. His shoulders sit perfectly in his blue tank top, his biceps have a natural form, the potential of which training only brought to fruition. And he executes handstands and front levers with the greatest of ease. He is one of those – a gifted one.

“Just go for it tonight. I’m telling you, she wants it.” Their voices have grown louder. Unable to listen anymore, I begin to walk towards the break station, and from there I see him striding in, late by 10 minutes. Excused. Excused completely and wholeheartedly, no questions asked. What was another 10 minutes of waiting?

“I’m not doing planks again.”

“Hello to you too. Did you buy those training gloves?”

“Ah shit, no, I forgot.”

“It’s ok. Just means your hands are going to get a little more calloused.”

I attempt to smile and when I do, I am caught up in such mental gymnastics, torn as I am between indicating that I am speaking in jest and appearing friendly, that what comes out is a grotesque fusion of grimace and grin that drudges up so much self-revulsion that I quickly look away and march towards the exercise mats. Convincing myself he didn’t notice is something I’m used to, and I find myself having to do it again as I wait impatiently for him to emerge from the changing room. Why didn’t I wait to be in there with him? The amount of time it takes him is no consolation – he stays in there for at least 10 minutes. Imagine all the things I could see in 10 minutes…

“OK. So what are we doing?”

28 times. Repeat 28 times. Had I only done it that many times, the blank in my mind may have lasted longer, but as it is, I pause for a second, and it hits me again.

“I’m going to get you started on some shoulder training. Sound good?”

“I think it’s my weakest point, though.” He grabs an exercise mat from the rack and places it next to mine. I try to tell myself that he does it to be near me and not because the paucity of space on the floor has forced him into that position.

“Even more reason to work on them. What have you done previously for shoulders?”

“The machine that you push upwards, you know –“

Before I can respond I need to pause. He’s beginning to take my breath away, to start me on that inevitable spiral that threatens to crash land into the tell, whatever that may be. Sitting on the mat, he hugs his legs, his hands grasp the impossibly soft translucent brown hairs I wish I could touch, his eyes innocently betray the self-consciousness he feels when talking about himself.

“Shoulder press.”

“Yeah, that one. And the one where you’re sitting on a bench and raise dumbbells over your head.”

“Overhead dumbell press.”

“OK. I get it. You know the names of things.” He claps sarcastically, and my head sags in embarrassment.

“Is that all?”

He nods.

“OK. I’ve got some ideas.”

Stretching is one of the most difficult pleasures to endure. The way Stan contorts himself, the way his body twists and bends, so tantalizing, so alluring, his every muscle aching and straining under his warm peach skin, makes it difficult for me to restrain myself. He kneels in a child’s pose and passes one arm through the bridge of his torso under my instruction. Lower, I command, and when he doesn’t bend low enough, I push him gently down from the middle of his back, feeling the warmth of his body through his t-shirt, that same grey t-shirt he wore almost every time, the one I vowed to replace, but only when I had the courage to do so. Invariably, he would grimace and breathe in sharply every time I pushed him that little bit further in a stretch, and every time, it hurt me to hurt him. But what hurt I felt causing him pain was made up in the euphoria of that physical contact, that rare gift that Stan had conferred to me when he had agreed to these sessions.

“Can we get to the lifting already?” Stan’s impatience is uncharacteristic, and again I find myself looking for the fault in my actions. Simple conclusions are no longer easy to reach in such circumstances. I can no longer see that stretching is boring, or that people have other things to do in their lives than spend two hours at the gym, or that the impatience to see one’s body grow is as natural as metabolism’s tendency to drag progress down. Instead, I ask myself why I haven’t been able to make it as exciting for him as it is for me. But Stan’s personality has a cooling effect – it is impossible for him to bring harm on anyone, physical or otherwise, and so I am soon relieved when he clarifies that it is the stretching that is boring him, and not my routine.

“See this? Ever used this before?”

“Sometimes, but not for shoulders.” He looks up and down the cable & pulley machine I’ve brought us to, passing his fingers over the carabiners.

“Well we’re using it for shoulders today.”

It must be against some code of conduct to enjoy watching poor form on a trainee; but I wasn’t a professional, and this wasn’t a paid arrangement. And where some trainers relish it as an opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge, or, in the worst of cases, to feel better about themselves, for me it was an opportunity to correct Stan’s technique hands-on, which is exactly what I was now having to do. I undertook the task with no reluctance whatsoever. From cable pulls to lateral arm extensions, Stan needed instruction, and even if he hadn’t, there was no guaranteeing I wouldn’t provide it anyway.

“OK, this one’s a bit challenging. Bring the pulley down to shin level.”

I watch him unclip the pulley and clumsily bring it down a few notches before fiddling to snap it into place, and I do so so intently that it almost feels like I lose track of time.

“Let me guess,” he says, and this time he sits on the ground and performs the same exercise he’d been doing standing up.

“No,” I laugh, “not this again. Bring it down.”

He’s laughing at himself. The comic relief is a bit of a respite, which surprises me. I explain that we’re doing shoulder presses, just like the ones he’s used to doing on the bench, except with a cable & pulley this time, and instruct him to grab both handles with his palms facing outwards. Per my command, he brings them up to waist level.

“How’s the resistance?”

He nods to show he’s up to it. “Good. Now lift them up over your head.”

One rep in. “Hey, hey stop. You know what I’m going to say.”

He sighs, handles back down at his mid-section.

“Yeah. Keep the core stable.”

“That’s right. That’s what we do planks for. That’s what we do core training for. Everything stems from the core. So next time, don’t underestimate the importance of planks, will you?”

“Alright. I get it. Core is important. Can I continue?”

He goes in for another rep, this time with a clear focus on keeping his back straight, but on the second, he falters, and I take the chance to hold him with one hand on his stomach and the other on his back, stabilizing his core as he lifts, and, feeling the warmth of his body, the contraction of his muscles, I melt.

By the fourth rep, I am having to clutch his torso with considerable strength, and so I tell him to stop. As much as I desire to help him improve, and with that, to build a dependence on and appreciation for me, it hurts me to see him fail, or see him go through what he perceives to be failure. Yes, he struggled to perform a full set of overhead presses at only 27 kilos, and yes, his muscles were not as developed as everyone else’s in the gym, as he was only in the early stages of bodybuilding, but to me, he’d already ascended above everyone else in stature.

“I’m going to ease up on the weights a bit, OK? But don’t you dare let that get you down.”

He puts his hands on his hips, looking away and shaking his head. “Hey, look at me.”

He turns his head reluctantly. His blue eyes shimmer slightly with emotion, and it kills me. “Don’t even. In 3 weeks you’ll be doing double this. You’re going to improve at the speed of knots. I promise.”

I know that even if he doesn’t buy it on the spot, he will come around sooner rather than later, astute and level-headed as he is. And besides, at this very moment, he has no option but to trust me.

On the new weight, Stan gets through a full set with only slight banana’ing towards the end, and I pat him on the back – he seems pleased.

“Good job. Trust me when I say that even half a set at the lower weight is far better for you than a full set of what you were doing before.”

“Yeah, yeah. So you keep saying.”

“And so I will until it sinks in. Now go back and do a circuit from the beginning, one set of eight each, while I go to the toilet.”

Leaving him alone is harder than I imagine. I turn back to monitor him, and, seeing him adjust the handles to the right height, I can’t help but feel proud. Would he remember the technique? The sequence? The resistance? And if so, for how long? Until long after I’ve outlived my usefulness as personal trainer? Do I want him to remember, so that I can feel I’ve made my imprint, or do I want him, like an oasis that reappears every day on a desert trek, to be a constant quenching to my thirst?

If my guess was correct, he would be on lateral arm extensions by now. As I turn the corner and come within sight of the cable machines, what I see sends a cold shiver down my spine.