I spend the next hour and a half strung to pulleys, encumbered by weights of all sizes, pulling and pushing objects that would be far better left where they lay on the floor. Nearby Crispen and Breffni are a couple, shouting encouragement, grunting like warthogs, stooping over each other and occasionally stopping the weights from crashing down and crushing the other’s windpipe. Augustus is as strong as tequila—by himself, heaving huge chunks of metal that, from here, look like ballast. I’m relegated to the Nautilus area, along with women, children, and the occasional rehab patient. I strap myself into bizarre machines that would have brought a tear to Franz Kafka’s eye. These devices work muscles I didn’t know I had but am distressed to find out I own. I learn that gravity even works sideways. Soon my arms become so heavy they have to be operated by remote control. Ligaments in my legs snap like turtles. Somehow I seem to become stronger when a woman walks by. I flush with embarrassment when one of them waits for me to finish, then climbs on and lowers the peg to an even heavier weight.
I corner Breffni at the water fountain and ask him if they’re done.
“Almost. One more set.”
He said the same thing after the rowing machine and the step master. I point to a short man working out on a nearby bench. “Isn’t that that guy from Forever Warrior?”
“Paul-Claude Leloup? Yep. That’s him.”
I’m surprised and pleased to see he’s doing biceps curls with the samesize dumbbells I was using. Only he hasn’t put them down since I spotted him five minutes ago.
“They all work out here. Steve Davis, Volchenkov, Mark Ramsay, everyone who’s in town making a movie.”
“I know it’s a cliché, but I’ve got to say it, anyway. I can’t believe how short he is in person.” Paul-Claude looks as if he could walk comfortably between the arch of my legs. “And who’s the other guy?” The other man looks like Paul-Claude’s doppelganger, only his features are slightly distorted. It’s like peering at Paul-Claude in a rearview mirror.
“Probably his stunt double.”
“Cool. So...can we go?”
“Just one more set.”
When we finally do leave, my legs are petrified wood. I have to hold my swollen breasts as I go downstairs. From somewhere in the car Augustus has pulled out a bottle of thick, proteinaceous sludge. He tilts the bottle toward me, but I’d rather lick the sweat off his nose. Then I see the comforting red-and-white stripes of Kentucky Fried Chicken off to the right. “Can we get something to eat?”
“Are you mad?” Crispen almost shouts. “You can’t eat that junk. You know the fat content of that stuff? There’s enough fat in the skin to burn a candle for three months.”
“I’ll peel the skin off,” I lie.
“Plus,” Breffni says, “I hear their chickens are grown without brains. They genetically engineer them with tiny heads and huge bodies. Big fat eating machines with no brains.”
“Isn’t that a good thing? That way they don’t think about the crappy conditions they’re living in.” I’m not upset that my meat is intellectually deficient. I’m not worried that my meat lacks moral fibre. But Augustus doesn’t turn off at the red-and-white arrow, and I slouch back into the seat. “Freaking vegetarians.”
“It’s for your own good,” Crispen says. “You looked a little soft in there, partner.”
“A little?” Augustus snorts. “He had trouble lifting the bar, and it didn’t even have plates on it yet.”
“Now that you’re doing this modelling thing full-time, you should start watching what you feed yourself,” Breffni says. “And definitely join a gym.”
“Right. How much is it?”
“About forty bucks a month.”
“Forty a month? I can’t afford that.” In almost two weeks of professional modelling I’ve only landed one shoot.
“Don’t worry,” Crispen says. “We can top you up if you’re short. You can pay us back when you hit it big.” Breffni nods. Augustus looks less sure.
“Now can we eat?” I almost whine.
“No,” Crispen says. “Let’s go play a little basketball at St. Anthony’s. It’s 4:30. We’ll be right on time for the after-school crowd. You have a ball in the trunk, Biggs, don’t you?”
“Always, Pappa.”
I groan. “You’ve got to be kidding. After working out? I can barely lift my arms to feed myself.”
“It’s good for you,” Crispen says. “It’ll get out some of that lactic acid.”
That’s the first time I’ve heard of more exercise being the cure for too much exercise. It sounds suspiciously like the dubious theory of drinking tequila to cure a hangover.
“Besides, Stace, you need a little practice,” Crispen says. “Remember that Punch Cola audition a couple of weeks ago? You were an embarrassment to the race.”
“Both races,” Breffni adds.
“Fine,” I say reluctantly. But then I’m suddenly buoyed by the thought of the Burger King across from the basketball court. If I can’t sneak in while they play, at least I’ll be able to nibble on the breeze and sniff discarded burger wrappers. Long live the King!
The court at St. Anthony’s always seems hot, even in October. It’s small, roughly paved, between the church parking lot and a small field where people from the apartment buildings surrounding the church walk their dogs when the weather’s nice. Both basket rims are bent, and only the one by the parking lot has mesh. The steel mesh gleams like barbed wire if it’s hot enough. Last week Willie, a tall Haitian, ripped two of his fingers badly and needed stitches after he tried to dunk.
The lines on the court might have been yellow once, and there’s a free throw line at each end that no one can see anymore. The asphalt is pitted like an asteroid. Apparently one of the bigger craters snapped a boy’s ankle the previous summer. The players complained to the people who run the church. They listened and nodded gravely, but the holes were never fixed. Recently they replaced the nylon mesh with steel and raised the rims an extra foot after the poor kids from the apartment buildings started playing there, fought with the Sunday School children, and ripped down the mesh and bent the rims. But the higher rims and the steel mesh don’t seem to help. The kids who can jump and are tall enough still dunk, and one mesh is still missing and both rims are still bent. Augustus, who goes to St. Anthony’s, says the church officials are always talking about tearing up the court and turning it into a parking lot, but they can never quite justify the cost of having the baskets taken out and the court repaved just to add ten parking spaces or so, though the vote’s always close.
It’s still early—the white kids are the only ones here, shooting jump shots and practising free throws at one end. They’re always here first, despite strict warnings from their parents who usually live in the big houses with pools across from the Pavilion. The richer kids are very white, except when they get red, and always seem to wear Boston Celtics or Indiana Pacers or sometimes Detroit Pistons shirts and shorts, and are usually good shooters, and are always picked last. I still can’t figure out why they come to St. Anthony’s to play—they all have expensive metal hoops mounted in their driveways. Most of the poor kids around here have no choice.
“Yo, pass the pumpkin,” Crispen says, swizzling a toothpick. Augustus tosses him the ball, and the three of them start knocking down shots on the one rim with mesh. It swishes like a metal skirt. I try a few halfhearted lay-ups, but after working out, lifting the ball is like lifting the sun.
Four Haitians