Nonfiction Story Rough Draft - "My Gym"

I call it my gym because I have worked there for almost two years, and because it’s really become like a home away from home. Well, it’s become a slightly smellier, more dramatic home away from home, but something about it’s kept me working here for this long, for whatever reason anyway. Every day in my gym it’s the same thing, the place has this timeless quality. I could move half way around the world for a decade and return home to hear the same thumping of feet and whirring of the motor on the treadmill, the same indistinct clanking of iron from the weight pit and the same smell of battling odors, air freshening anti-bacterial deodorizer versus perspiration.

The contemporary design elements of the small space are meant to present a non-threatening place for individuals the fitness industry affectionately refers to as the “de-conditioned market”. These are the house moms that have gained a little extra padding while placing their kids needs before their own, the ex-military men whose beer guts march eastward as their days of mandatory personal training disappear into their youth and every other average Joe or Josephine with a few extra inches to lose.

Pastel greens and purples cover the walls while ergonomic, friendly looking equipment powder coated in sleek silver ornaments the landscape. You won’t find intimidating meat heads slamming around rusty weights and carrying on as if they were in a fraternity house. My gym’s weights are covered in rubber. Big red safety buttons and lanyards with little green buttons are there to be depressed at any moment that someone may need a paramedic. Members are typically cordial and clean up after themselves.

I lean back in my office chair and crack open a water bottle and begin to sip as a member, John, leans his head into my office, “Hey there how’s the weather treating you old Brandt?” John’s a great big old Aussie and he carries his accent with him. He has red, sun bleached hair which makes him look like he’s just returned from spending years in the Great Victoria Desert. He’s about as wide and stout as a compact car and I can picture him playing rugby with a bunch of other Brits in his heyday, raising hell and chugging one liter cans of Fosters. “Not too terrible I reply, how’s your car holding up in this stuff?” John has single handedly help sharpened my small talk skills over the past two years. I’ve learned a lot from him. One time when he asked how I was doing, I told him I hadn’t been accepted for a second round interview at a large firm, and that I was pretty bummed. He told me, “Those bloody human resources manager are idiots. Worthless as tits on a bull they are, you need to knock down their door or they’ll have their way with you.” The next day I put in a dozen calls and emails to their various departments and within the next two weeks I had my interview. John’s “Fosters Keg”, what he refers to as his mid section, hasn’t diminished one inch since he joined the gym, but the membership keeps him active and meeting new people and that’s enough for him.

“Hey, hey, man, how ya doin?” Here comes tall Tom, the guys like 7 feet even and he sells insurance. In fact I became his client after a year of knowing him. Then Jay struts like a rooster through the front doors, Jay’s a real estate developer with one hundred plus properties, some of which are in Barbados. George, a struggling mortgage broker, is right on Jay’s heels and they’re batting it back and forth while they relive old high school sports days, shoot the breeze about ESPN or howl over some young honey that just joined up. Alex the bank manager shuffles in. I must’ve met half a dozen more like him that have offered me positions once I graduate. The usual flock of house wives rolls in and the outgoing one of the bunch makes it her business to tell me what all the others are all thinking. “We all want to know whether or not Bobby and Phil are offering free classes anymore and where we can sign up. Aren’t you here late Mr. Brandt, were you waiting just for me?” She is a bubbly Brazilian lady that has less trouble flirting than some of the more reserved women who frequent the gym. I laugh sarcastically. “Yeah I’m here just for you,” She laughs. We small talk about working out and I listen to her same old story. She is eating bad again and put on weight, in two weeks she is going to some wedding or reunion or dinner with the in-laws, to be honest I don’t even keep track anymore, and she needs to “look pretty quick.”

Every person has a different motivation and their walks of life are all vastly different. What they have in common is they all have bodies that at one point or another have whispered to them, “time for a change.” And at my gym we collect them all. I used to think we collected membership fees, but we collect more than that. We collect dashed and new romances, born again track stars, quitters of vice and winners of competitions. We collect new mothers, the silently determined, the outwardly apathetic and the willingly malleable. We also collect ones like me. I’ve never been great at saying what my strengths and weaknesses are, so I’ll just tell you where I came from before the gym and you can guess for yourself.

“Can you bring me some more ketchup please? Sir!”

“Sure thing,” I whistle from between porcelain teeth and a forced smile. In my mind I’m picturing turning the plastic ramekin of ketchup upside down and plopping it on his head so it looks like one of those little hats that the tambourine playing monkey wears in the Stephen King movie. It’s near the end of my shift and I feel like I’m going snow blind from the reflections of the novelty stained glass lamps in the shellacked wooden dining tables. Little kids run free from their parents around my feet flailing forks and knifes like a mini-swashbucklers. They begin to look like good field goal opportunities that might end up in the novelty fish netting hanging from the ceiling if my straw finally snaps. More than eight hours serving tables on slip resistant Sketchers weaving through this madness and little Cindy-who down in who-ville turns into the saltiest old Grinch on the mountain, 20 minutes after I’m out of there and I’m back to level again.

I was two weeks into the job realizing that waiting may not be my cup of tea, but not wanting to quit, at least this soon. I walk back into the kitchen and see my manager looking at me with a serious expression, “Brandt can I talk to you for a minute?” I oblige and we retire to a spot by the dish washing station that is out of the constant stampede of employees. “There is an African American couple who complained that you are not serving them as well as the neighboring table with white guests. Now I’m not trying to imply anything but what’s going on here?” At the same time anger and humor boil from my depths, I’m already fed up, now this.
“You’ve got to be freaking kidding me,” I retort. “Those two are sitting next to each other in the booth and every time I walk up I’ve got to watch him with his hand up her skirt! You want me kneel down next to the table and take their order? I don’t care what race they are man but I’m not comfortable watching a skin flick while I’m trying to work!"

He looked shocked, “Alright Brandt, I just wanted to make sure, you know what kind of area this is.”

After working here a few weeks, myself and the others working at the restaurant began to seem like survivors of a shipwreck to me. This job was whatever flotsam we could grab out of the beach break, to give us at least one ounce of something with value and credibility, but at the end of the day we really had nothing.

“Hey Boss-man I need to talk to you when you get a minute,” The owner was a relatively young guy, I got along with him alright so I didn’t really have any problems with telling him.

“What’s up Brandt?”

“I’m going to have to put my two weeks in Steve.”

“Why’s that?”

“You guys told me I could make a hundred dollars a night and I’m definitely not doing that, less than half that actually.”

“You are just getting started but I understand and I appreciate you putting your time in because I’m short on the schedule as it is.”

I walked back out to the bar. One of the younger busboys was there fooling around with his bus tub pretending to work with a few of his Hispanic buddies. I’d played soccer with those guys and their families out in the parking lot after work. They weren’t like me and the busboy though, they knew the taste of hardship, worked for every penny they had. It seemed like not once in their lives had they taken anything for granted. The busboy and I had something in common, spoiled by the relative comfort of our native upbringing, lacking enough initial guidance to make strides too young in the game. He already had one foot in the slammer and he was only 17 years old. He was talking to his buddies about pot and booze again,
“Man I have to sell a little weed here and there to get by, so what? So Brandt, why are you quitting anyway?”

“Have I ever told you how they catch gibbons in the Congo?” I asked him.

“Nah man, what the hell are you talking about?”

“A really smart guy told me this story one time. First trappers in the jungle hollow out a coconut and carve a little hole in it just big enough for the gibbon to fit his hand in if he straightens his fingers out. They screw the coconut to a tree with the hole facing up.”
I could tell he thought I was crazy but he was still interested so I kept going. “The trapper fills the coconut with a handful of peanuts and goes home for the night. Later, the gibbon smells the peanuts and reaches into the coconut, grabbing the whole handful of peanuts in his fist. When he goes to pull his hand out he can’t because the hole that let his straightened fingers pass through will not let his clenched fist back out. Now the gibbon knows deep inside that there are other meals he can find over the horizon, but he’s mesmerized in the moment at the big handful of treats in his hand. He tries all night long to get his clenched fist out of the hole. In the morning all the trapper has to do is walk up and cut off the monkeys head or shoot him from a short distance. The gibbon has done all of the trapper’s work for him.” I stood there for a minute shuffling back from foot to foot in my slip resistant Sketchers in an attempt to alleviate the aching in my feet.

“So what in the hell does that mean yo?” the busboy asked after he’d grown impatient with the riddle.

“It means never be afraid to let go of the peanuts.”

Two weeks passed and after my last shift at the restaurant I headed to my gym, the best place I knew how to blow off some steam. As I drove there I thought about how hard it had been for me to get this far with school. I didn’t want to ask my mom for money. My dad was decently well off but a private consulting firm venture that he had launched on his own quickly became unmanageable and the IRS was taking him for a ride to tunes I’m sure he had never wished to hear. I had no idea where I was going to get a job. It was too early in my academic career to land an internship and too late in it to go looking for a burger joint. I could feel my lungs getting ready to bellow as I laced up my sneakers. I decided to take a lap outdoors around the complex in the night air to loosen things up before I went inside my gym. As I rounded the corner heading back to the main doors I noticed a small, beat up Isuzu Rodeo slowing down as it pulled out from the parking lot, as if it were waiting for me. I realized it was John, the owner of the club. I knew he was a multi-millionaire and he drove around that beat-up little SUV everywhere he went.
He rolled down his window as I jogged up to meet him. He said, “Who’s that?”

“It’s me Brandt. How you doing man?”

“Oh Brandt, what’s up boyyyy.? What are you doing? Running out here?” John is over fifty years old yet he talks and acts the age of someone half his senior. It’s obvious for most to see that the years have been kind to him even though his youthful mannerisms can make him seem somewhat eccentric.

“Yeah man, just trying to get my mile time down,” I wheezed trying to catch my breath.

“What are you doing it in? Like 7:30?” he asked.

“Yeah, like 7:30. More like 6:45 if I didn’t stop to talk,” I ribbed at him a little bit.

“So what have you been up to? How’s school?” John has a genuine concern for most people that he meets.

“Yeah school is good. Just trying to find a job right now you know.”

John looked like he had an idea and then looked like he was rolling something over in his mind, “I’ll tell you what. My sales person, you know Emily, just quit to go over to the FAA. Why don’t you call me tomorrow and we’ll see if we can work something out.”

“Yeah man definitely that would be great,” I was excited.

“Alright bro I’ll see you tomorrow,” John sped off in his tiny beat up SUV and I decided to get in another lap just for old time sake.