I should have been on “American Gladiators.” My gladiator name would have been “Bones,” being the only skinny warrior of the bunch. While Lazer and Zap could flex their anabolically-enhanced musculature, my keen hunger for blood would kick in when in the midst of a challenger, inspiring me to pounce him/her and gnaw on their bones like a rabid dog. No “Eliminator” for them. Why am I sure of my ability as an incensed marauder of the holy order of all that is cardio? Because I have braved the evil trenches, fought off the demons and dodged the disgusting offspring of vermin in a place that can only be referred to as “the gym.” People talk about having “gym rage,” a syndrome of the avid gym-goer that manifests itself in gritted teeth, clenched fists and stern warnings of “get off that bike before I EAT YOU.”
A similar condition exists for me, but I refer to it as Gym Conquest. People with the “rage” just look mean – I divide and conquer. I have had to; I’ve been walked on, lifted out and balance-ball-bounced off many gym apparatuses. I had reached the point of no return.
I decided after a particularly upsetting incident with an old man and a stair stepper (in which I lost) that the time for being nice, calm and collected was over. I had become Crouching Street Runner, Hidden Machine-Hog Killer. If you see my face when you walk into a gym, run away, or keep your distance, because I’m ruthless and I mean business. I am an exercise addict. I’m OK with it. I go to the gym five times a week on top of running 50-70 miles on the street. It’s an addiction that borders on unhealthy some weeks, but exercise centers me and calms me down, except when I go to the gym.
When I’m at home, I go to the YMCA in my town instead of the World’s Gym to dodge people I went to high school with. World’s Gym is home to all the boys from my school who are not in jail, or whom are not in an advanced stage of “perma-high” resulting from hourly use of cheap suburb-weed. Anytime I see the majority of my classmates, I have to quell the overwhelming urge to set myself on fire with a combination of old prescription drugs that stand by like vigilant soldiers in my parent’s linen closet.
There are types of gym-goers; the Liftin’ Boys, the Baby-weight Women, the Strange and Terrible Elderly, and me – Captain of the S.S. Touch My Treadmill and You’re Dead. The Liftin’ Boys are the best. I love them. I have dated them. Liftin’ Boys come in all shapes and sizes, but they share one commonality: they think that bicep girth equals the status of “I’m Wicked Jacked, Dude.” The advent of “I’m Wicked Jacked, Dude” to the boys who pursue it means fame, fortune, good looks and their first pick of any orange-skinned girl from Southwest or a sorority. Their arms are big, some quite big, but for most of these boys, the rest of their figure remains untouched by any form of exercise, their beer guts hanging proud in a sheath of a Hooter’s T-shirt. There are Liftin’ Boys at our own school, we see them in the gym getting Wicked Jacked, or in the dining commons eating a dozen hard-boiled eggs and a slab of raw beef to fuel their all-important arms.
The Strange and Terrible Elderly are just that – strange and terrible. The elderly women look at me, a young man in his 20s, as the symbol for all that is wrong with the world, simply because they can and want to. It could be worse for me though, if I was African-American at my hometown YMCA, the elderly woman would probably have me removed citing rap music as a reason that I am dangerous.
We now travel to the locker room, the metal-door jungle. Steam billows over our heads, the sound of faucets and air dryers fills the cement halls. Suddenly, we are being stalked on our safari, its too late, the predator has us in his sights, and when we turn around we will not be able to escape the encounter with the Strange and Terrible Old Man and his uncovered testicles. No matter what locker room I venture into there is always one old man walking around with his testicles boldly hanging out for the entire world to see. When outside the arena of a sexual encounter or a look down at myself in the shower to make sure I didn’t get my business caught in my zipper and forgot about it, I need to be significantly prepared to see male genitals, and even more thoroughly prepared to see the effects of aging on the aforementioned body part. The starkest and most haunting thing about this species of the gym-goer is their blind conceit; they truly do not realize that their low-hanging hammock is offending anyone else.
The most dangerous and cunning of the gym-goers is by far the Baby Weight Women. These women have had it with the world. They have gotten pregnant, gained weight while being assaulted by images of thin women in the media, and they have given birth to their ingrate child or children and all they got were some lousy stretch marks. They’re mad as hell and they’re not going to take it anymore. Not only do most of these women not know how to use gym equipment, they don’t want to know, and I can’t blame them. They don’t want to be looking at terse old women or smell my sweaty armpits next to them on a treadmill. Their smug demeanor, however does not scare me and neither does their mismatched leotard outfit.
I go to the gym for one reason, the elliptical trainer. It burns a lot of calories in a short amount of time and I usually put it on the highest level setting and cross-country ski as fast as I can for 50 minutes, transcending this plain of existence in favor of the anaerobic astral plane that usually causes me to vomit discreetly in the bathroom after the session is over. If you come in between me and the elliptical trainer, you’re dead. Before I even go to the gym, I have usually gone running for an hour or more, so my endorphins are pulsing to the drumbeat of my heart. The Baby Weight Women never understand the elliptical trainer. There are two kinds, one with the arms that I use, and one that just works your legs. If you are using one with the arms, you better use the arm pieces, or I’ll kick you off. I’m serious.
One woman made this mistake once. She stole the elliptical machine from me, which was her first mistake, she saw that I was preparing to use it. She blatantly cut me off and proceeded to neglect the arm-pieces, enraging me. I asked her if she would mind using one of the legs-only machines and she gave me a look of death. I thought to myself, “OK, Mother-of-Four, I’ll just go out to the parking lot and key every mini-van and I’m sure I’ll have gotten you back for this.” I made my way for the door when all of a sudden I heard her fall off. She uttered some obscenities and stormed over to the bubbler. I had been reunited with my lover and grinned garishly at Mother-of-Four as I did what she could not: conquer the gym.
Thomas Naughton is a Collegian columnist.
