Conceding that listening to Carla, the private detective, yap about her onion bagel is preferable to the sweaty, frozen night walks of his past, he then spots, to the left of the barbells, a man who looks familiar and foreign at the same time. He’s sure he has seen this face many times before, but the body, the clothes, the hair — they just don’t add up. It is only after a fellow exerciser tells a lame dirty joke and the man laughs that Overman identifies him as Gary Sheslow, his ex-therapist. There is no mistaking the wheezy cackle of the legend whose most memorable line was, “We have to stop now.” This goniff, currently hoisting two-pound free weights and sporting a hideous dye job, had accrued thousands of Overman dollars during a span of nearly twenty years, only to conclude that his client was hopeless and toss him out on the street. In Sheslow’s defense, Overman had ignored or refused any piece of advice the therapist offered, precipitating a lengthy and expensive stalemate. The end had been unpleasant, to say the least. Sheslow denied Overman’s request to refund his money, instead recommending a psychiatrist and daring his former client to sue him.
What would the dipshit have to say now? Here was Overman, poised to climb his personal Everest while Sheslow the Clown was dipping his head in Kiwi shoe polish. He is tempted to go over and broadcast this salient point, but Sheslow has made an unforeseen exit to the locker room. Overman is not so tempted that he wants to follow his former shrink, confident that their day of reckoning will come further down the line. The therapist is not gone a minute when Overman notices a pleasant-looking brunette lying down to use the leg machine. She looks familiar as well. He knows they have not met yet she somehow conveys the essence of a brunette from his past. As the young woman pushes the platform with her feet and both calves extend, it triggers the rush of an earlier Overman memory, hands-down the saddest moment of an adolescence that had been defined by the Sad Moment.
Janie Sweeney is on her back in an alcoholic fog. The cacophony of the male chorus eggs Overman on as Marty Merkowitz shoves him on top of her. The others pin him down and he is forced to unzip his fly in order to make his inauspicious presence known. Janie emits a slight, but unmistakable cry at the moment of entry, a whimper not unlike that of a small wounded animal. The sequence of events had lodged itself within him and tortured Overman throughout his subsequent years. Why didn’t he get away? How come he didn’t report the incident? Moreover, if it had affected him this deeply, how badly had it damaged Janie Sweeney? Janie’s parents moved to New Jersey for the next school year and he never heard anything about her since. Not that he tried very hard to track her down.
As Overman picks up the five-pound free weights to do his lateral lifts, it dawns on him: on that fateful night when his good friend Rosenfarb abandoned him by the onion dip, he had been forced into penetrating another against his will. Since it was out of his control, didn’t that make him a victim as well? He had never thought about it in such terms, but technically, Ira Overman had been raped.
However one chose to interpret it, Overman’s first sexual experience with a woman was an act of violence and criminal behavior. Neither Spiderman nor Batman could boast that kind of dysfunction in their pasts. Overman wasn’t proud of it. The mere thought of that sperm-filled night rendered him pale and lifeless. But the resurfacing and ongoing crystallization of this memory also made him want to exercise harder and toughen up. Nobody would rape Ira Overman ever again, not even figuratively.
There is a pristine pleasure in being able to radiate confidence after a lifetime of unhappiness and insecurity. When Overman marches through the doors of Steinbaum Mercedes that morning he is still pudgy, his hair still thinning, yet he carries himself as he supposes a superhero might: not boastful (that was Rosenfarb’s domain) or unnecessarily talkative (Detective Carla’s yammering was still ringing in his ears), but self-assured and businesslike. He realizes that the change he has undergone has yielded a dividend he’s never before known: dignity. Working on a car lot, this quality was arguably in even shorter supply than superpowers. In fact, no salesman at Steinbaum had ever experienced such a thing in a co-worker. His new demeanor baffled the entire dealership. Not only did Overman refuse to kiss the boss’s ass, he didn’t seem nervous about meeting sales expectations in a recessionary marketplace.
A young couple walks in to purchase a car they clearly can’t afford. The Garrisons have decent enough credit but should be using it toward something like a Ford Focus rather than a $50,000 automobile. Big fucking deal. Overman has done this dance a thousand times. Suck them in with zero down, put them into an upside-down monthly payment that gets higher as they “advance in their careers and have more disposable income.” Nine times out of ten the buyer can’t afford to keep up with the increases and winds up selling the car back at a loss or having it taken from him by the bank.
Even though he is far from a superhero, Overman feels obliged to consider: Would Spiderman engage in such deplorable activity if he worked at Steinbaum? Selling this car to these people would be tantamount to Batman taking candy from a baby while he’s fucking the baby’s mother. Overman is not desperate to close this deal. The deals would come when they were the right ones.
“Mr. and Mrs. Garrison, I really don’t think it makes sense for you to buy a car from us,” Overman says, within earshot of an incredulous Hal Steinbaum.
The Garrisons are naturally surprised. They thank him for his forthrightness and he is pleased. Overman then decides to amble over to say “hi” to Maricela, who looks exceptionally fetching this morning.
“Hey, how’s everything going?” he smiles. It comes out naturally now. Sincere, completely unforced, they are friends and words flow as they are meant to.
“I’m good. It’s nice to see you,” she smiles.
“You and Rodrigo seem to have come to an understanding.”
“I guess. He’s a shithead but I’m working on him.”
“People can change,” Overman assures her, now having experienced the concept firsthand.
“Want anything from the Coffee Bean?” he asks. “I was thinking of driving over.”
“A vanilla ice-blended sounds great.”
“You got it,” Overman winks, starting for the door.
“Ira.”
He turns around.
She whispers. “I’m glad we got to make love.”
“Me, too. You’re incredible.”
Her whisper becomes even softer.
“There’s so much more I’d like to do to you.”
“Oh Jesus,” he moans, suddenly interrupted by a noxious whine that could only belong to Hal Steinbaum.
“Overman, get in my office.”
“I was about to go to Coffee Bean. You want anything?”
“I want to rip you a new sphincter. You let those laydowns walk.”
“They couldn’t afford that car.”
“Get in there,” Steinbaum points, as if scolding a small child.
“I’m going to Coffee Bean. I’ll talk to you when I get back.”
“You walk out that door, you won’t be coming back, Overman.”
The gauntlet had been thrown down. If he had been faced with the identical scenario last month, he would have blown off the Coffee Bean run and followed Steinbaum