Overman.

Roberts, Jason

I walk through a pair of plate-glass double doors, pause and breathe deep. Before me, neatly arranged in a maze of mirrors and stainless steel, a gallery of machines whirs and hums. Blink and beep. Among the machines I see legs pumping, chests heaving, faces twisting with effort. The air rings with the clank of lead plates in a nearby weight room, in the cardio room the high-frequency keen of a bank of TVs airing sports, music videos and CNN Headline News. The floor shakes--vibrations of the whump-whump-whump of an aerobics class downstairs. Dance music, piped through a PA and full of bass, drowns out all other sound: "Move your body; move to the groove; you can do it if you let your body move it." I know the song well: Digital Orgasm's 1980s techno smash, "Groove Train." It's poetry. Spent exercisers pass me on their way out, wiping themselves down with towels, and nursing bottles of Gatorade. They smell like effort and fresh sweat.

This is the stuff. For those of you new to the party: life is one big Becoming. Ongoing evolution to a better body, a better state of mind.

"Hail, Greek god of the gym!" bellows a man behind a gold-flecked Formica counter. He folds a freshly laundered batch of white towels.

Dave Clinton--or "Dr. Dave"--is thirty-something, I think, a grad student in European history at North Texas A&M. He has shiny hair with an immaculate part, a wicked underbite, and a mouthful of large teeth. He resembles a slightly doughy Arnold Schwarzenegger, Texas-style.

"Ubermensch!" he says in his best Deutschland accent. He frowns and puffs out his chest, flexes his arms. The frown looks silly, because Dr. Dave isn't the stolid, gruff type. He holds his rigid, Kaiser-like pose until I nod my approval, eyes wide open like I'm astonished, and give him a thumbs-up. My health club--Dallas-Fit!--is near downtown, so the uptight, corporate clientele who work out here consider Dave a bit of a rube. Personally, I think he's awesome.

"Livin' large," I say. "Must be really hittin' the bench; your chest has exploded."

Dr. Dave relaxes, satisfied and proud. He's older than me and there are power lifters in here that have me on size, so I don't know why my opinion matters. In fact, there's this awkward kind of hero worship thing. And I don't get the reference to ubermensch, who Dr. Dave says was Nietzsche's superman. I asked Dave once if he meant Clark Kent-Superman with the cape and the flying and all that, but he said no and went off on this long, philosophical spiel.

"Hey, thanks again for hooking me up," I say. Dave got me on as a personal trainer about three months ago and, thank Cod, because I needed the job really bad. Since I started college I've been short on cash, and I was sweating the upcoming summer-job-dilemma big-time. This is way better than flipping burgers or renting out movies. I can't stop thanking him.

"No problem," he says, dismissing my gratitude with a smile and a wave. "You've been here for years and you practically live here. You may as well get paid."

Dave's right; I practically live here. But I'm young and I don't know much about personal training. I'm not even certified.

"How's Kelly?" I ask.

"She's good," Dr. Dave says, turning serious--something he rarely does. "Not the complications we'd worried about, thank the gods. They might release her tomorrow."

"You decided on a name yet?"

"Jessica or Jasmine."

"Jasmine's nice."

"What about you?" Dr. Dave asks, his face brightening.

"What, like kids? I'm nineteen, man! Let's not even go there."

Deciding to go there, Dave says, "Speaking of, Yecenia's here." He grins and thumbs over to a nearby cardio room. Through a wall-sized pane of Plexiglas, the quintessential Amazonian, a raven-haired Latina Xena-warrior-princess, climbs a never-ending flight of stairs on a Stairmaster 2750. Yecenia's leggy volleyball player physique--the result of good genes and years of jumping and spiking--is extraordinaly. I pass her off like she's no big thing, and hope my not-being-impressed is quasi-convincing: "Huh."

Dave fixes his eyes on me and I wince. It's old news, really: a summer fling, promises of eternal love (mine), a thousand-mile relationship after Yecenia gets recruited by San Diego State, and a Dear John letter not two weeks after I drop her off at the airport. Occasionally, she comes back to Dallas, and every time I see her it's like a punch in the stomach.

I'm ticked that Dave brought this tip. Americans get blown up every day in Iraq; thousands of people were wiped out by Katrina; New Orleans is a disaster zone. There's the Darfur thing. Name your CNN headline of the day. There's way more newsworthy stuff out there.

I make a sour face and toss my car keys and gym bag on the front counter, nearly knocking over a stack of Dave's towels. "Key to a locker."

Disappointed because I won't play the game, Dave drops the grin and acts hurt. "Want your usual? Eighty-one?"

"Yeah, thanks," I say. Dave hands me the key and I turn toward the locker room, nose in the air. ! make a mental note to snub him the rest of the day.

"Hey!" I hear him shout behind me. I turn. "Ubermensch!"

Dave puffs out his chest and flexes--an olive branch, I guess. I accept it by dropping my bag, rotating into a low sweeping bodybuilding pose. I curl my biceps into tight balls. I realize it's cheesy, but why not have fun?

As I'm putting my gear away, my cell phone vibrates in my track pants. My gym bag is twice the width of the narrow locker so I have to jostle it, and by the time I grab the cell, I've missed the call. It's Shelly Wariner, my two o'clock. She leaves a message: she's late coming from a power lunch with some corporate bigwigs and the mayor or somebody, and will be here in twenty minutes, blah, blah, blah. I walk out of the locker room, into the main lobby, nod to Dr. Dave and take a seat in a waiting-room type chair. I pick up Muscle & Fitness and read a piece about a new brand of Creatine.

I'm still insecure about my "personal trainer" persona, so after a few minutes I put down the magazine and use the time for visualizations. It's an old bodybuilding technique: if you can see yourself doing it, you can do it. I see myself as a trainer extraordinaire, the Master of Disaster, helping my clients on their road to Becoming.

Someone enters my peripheral vision; a disembodied voice asks if the seat beside me is taken. Still visualizing the training session with Mrs. Wariner, I wave it off. The gym isn't crowded right now, so I guess the question is rhetorical anyway. Moments later, feeling satisfied about the gauntlet VII put my client through, I look at my neighbor. It's Cathy Ball. Cathy Ball?!

Cathy Ball is a freak. F-r-e-a-k. But a freak in the good sense. For two of my four years working out at Dallas-Fit!, Cathy Ball has cast a shadow of perfection that no one else--man, woman or child--could crawl out from under. Take Yecenia, for example. Yecenia's fantastic, but she still looks girly; Cathy is a woman. Not an old woman like my mom's old, but a young woman. Maybe thirties, Dr. Dave's age or a little older. Chestnut colored hair, tan honey-colored skin that glows. Five-six or seven, I guess, weighs about one-twenty-five. But numbers don't say anything about Cathy's hotness--an eleven out of a possible ten on the hotness scale.

I've heard through the rumor mill (well, Dr. Dave) that Cathy hails from SoCal. No surprise there: the west coast was the birthing place of the fitness industry as we now know it. Think of Venice Beach. Cathy doesn't work here but I've seen her doing promo stuff for Dallas-Fit!--photo shoots, commercials and such.

I don't know Cathy Ball, personally. I've teased Dr. Dave that it's because she's still getting up the nerve to talk to me, but I'm just talking smack. Honestly, she scares me a little. She has an established reputation, her physique appearing on the covers of all the top-tier trade mags--Health Magazine, Muscle & Fitness, Shape. When Cosmo ran its series last year on "Top 10 Women to Listen to about Weight Loss," Cathy Ball headlined the article. Dr. Dave thinks she might be an ex-Lakers cheerleader.

"What's up?" she asks, not looking at me. She drinks from a bottle of Pettier.

"Not much," I say. I don't know if she wants to talk or she's just being polite. I look at my hands, then my veiny forearms, and I wonder if the tank-top I'm wearing makes me look small. It's too loose, I decide. I should have worn a tighter, white cotton wife-beater. It would better define my chest.

Cathy asks, "You took third in the FICC competition in Phoenix, right?"

"Sort of," I say, astonished that Cathy Ball bothers to know this about such a small-fry as myself. "Third overall--but first in my weight class."

"I saw your picture," she says, pointing to the bulletin board by the PowerAde machine. A blurb and my mug is one of a dozen newspaper and magazine clippings. Dallas-Fit! tooting its own horn about its staff, which l guess includes me now.

"Congrats," she says. I let eyes scan my body, starting at my hairline, making its way around my jaw line, down my neck, chest, stomach, groin, thighs and calves. Her gaze doesn't "go right through me" or anything like that; instead, it kind of rests on the surface of my skin, and it feels a little weird. She leans back in her chair. I'm dying to know how I measure up.

"You're in good shape," she decides. "You should place in a few more amateur competitions and then go pro. But move to California, don't stay in Texas. And don't be so snobbish about your choice of venue. You're one of those el naturale types. But 'Natural Bodybuilding' is no different than conventional bodybuilding." She sighs, and I wonder if this exchange bores her. Like she's had it before and is just repeating it, for me this time. "Do anything you like, as long as you get out of here," she says.

"Huh," I say. She's right. Like many amateurs I haven't juiced, yet. I'm only supplementing: weight gainer, amino acids, a potpourri of herbs and a homemade brew of vitamins. My hope is that natural bodybuilding develops a greater following before I'm faced with jamming a needle in my ass. I don't want to be that guy--the one everyone points to and whispers about. I don't want the mood swings and acne and shriveled 'nads and all that. But then, some of the juicers I've talked to say those are just scare tactics.

I check my watch. Nothing from Mrs. Wariner. I look into the cardio room. After forty-five minutes, Yecenia is still huffing away on the Stairmaster. Somehow, with Cathy here beside me I don't feel so jilted. If Cathy Ball will talk to me, even down to me in an offhand sort of way, I can't be a total loser.

"Cathy," I say, risking a familiar tone like we've been longtime friends, "So what do you mean as long as I get out of here?"

"Pardon?" she asks, like I've shaken her from some daydream.

"Just now. What you said. Anything as long as I get out of here."

Maybe she thinks her remark hurt me, because she says, "I know you just got this job--and you don't want to hear this. But the sooner you know, the better. You should choose another part time job. Go wait tables."

"What do you mean? I find this all way cool," I say, with a sweeping gesture at the exercisers on their treadmills and stationary bikes and elliptical trainers. The floor still vibrates with the whump-whump-whump of the aerobics class. I can hear the instructor yell over the music to step, kick, step, kick. "Can't you just smell the energy in this place? Dr. Dave's got a word for it I really dig: 'Becoming: That's what all this is."

"Wait till you've worked here a while," she says.

"That sounds a little bitter," I offer pleasantly.

"Does it?" Cathy says. She shifts her weight in the chair and leans toward me. I lean away, like something powerful has moved inside of her and is dangerously close. "Take a look at that girl over there." Cathy points to a 'tween on an elliptical machine. "Cute, huh?"

I don't know where that question leads; Cathy's asking me if I find a twelve year old girl hot? Thinking the question loaded, I answer noncommittally: "I dunno."

Cathy shakes her head, like she's disappointed. "No. Look. At her arms and legs. Those knobby knees. And how her forearms are thicker than her biceps. How thin and undefined her thighs are. She's young so I bet she doesn't have much in the way of tits right now." I flinch at Cathy's use of "tits"--do women talk like that about other women? "But if we took off that oversized T-shirt, we'd see her breastbone sticking out like a spearhead. Rib cage exposed. See that vacant look in her eyes? She's in some Paris Hilton never-neverland. You know what's sad? Look at how narrow and stooped her shoulders are, her broad hips. She's short--even for twelve or thirteen. She'll be on that elliptical machine the rest of her life and never have Paris Hilton's figure."

Cathy points to a man on a treadmill.

"Six-five on the dot. Lanky with a gut. Skinny man paunch. Thin pointy face, with a jowl that says 'alcohol: Hair's thin and gray--but not totally gray, see?--so he's fifty-seven, fifty-eight. What's he's doing? Reading the newspaper, walking on the treadmill at two miles an hour with no incline. He might as well be at home on his couch. You know why he's not? Because his doctor told him to exercise. Paying sixty a month for the privilege of doing it, too."

Cathy's hot, sure, but this unexpected cynicism throws me. I wonder what her deal is. Inferiority complex? Feelings of inadequacy? Someone screwed her over? I took psychology last semester. I know about this stuff. This jaded outlook isn't gotten for nothing.

"That girl on the stationary bike," Cathy continues, picking up momentum. "See how she's pumping her legs? Impressive body."

"Yeah."

"Thick thighs, muscular shoulders. A tri-athlete. Look at the way her head's hung. That's drive. But she's just as much a slave to her body. She thinks in numbers. Calories burned. Miles per hour. Target heart rates. She's not punishing herself in the same way wannabe-Paris Hilton is, but she knows to the calorie how much that slice of pizza was last night and how many miles she'll cycle to burn it off. People like her call Lance Armstrong champion. Hero. Not because he beat cancer, but because he cycles eight hours a day."

Cathy runs her fingers through her hair, then reclines in the chair and closes her eyes and rests her head on the back of the chair, like she's spent.

"Well, no offense, Cathy, but look at you. You're a fitness model. Are you any less," I want to say "neurotic" but instead I say, "concerned about your body?"

She rolls her head back and forth on the chair's headrest. Through squinted eyes, "There's a difference. I'm an artist."

That smells like cow crap to me. To be nice I nod and say, "Oh."

"And if you think differently," she says, reading my doubt, "then you'll never reach the top. You're a male version of me fifteen years ago. You've got promise--vascularity, tone, proportion. But right now I see a cautionary tale waiting to happen. You'll end up working here fifteen years from now, an aging musclehead, only you won't be as supple when you're thirty-five and you'll lose clients to guys like yourself now.

"Or you'll be like those washed up jocks that come in on the weekends to lift weights, because they think muscles get guys laid. Look at Dave."

I scowl. Hey, Dr. Dave's off limits. Don't do that to Dave.

"I know you're friends with Dave," Cathy says. "And he's an all-right guy. But he doesn't have a foundation. VII bet he didn't play sports when he was young. Probably in the German club or on the yearbook staff. Something brainy. Marching band. One day he decides he's tired of being the band fag--horrible label, but it's his, not mine--so he picks up a dumbbell. In college he figured he'd 'recreate' himself. Little does he know it's too late by then. Look past his height and weight, at those flaccid muscles--no tone. And he can't control his diet. Thick skin, subcutaneous fat smoothing over any chance of definition. That's dairy. Cheese or ice cream."

Cathy pauses. Then, "He's talked to me before about you. Why do you think he idolizes you so much? Calls you this 'uberman'--is that what it's called? It's because he respects you; you have something he thinks he lacks--a body, which to him is everything."

I want to remind Cathy that Dr. Dave has a lot going for him--a wife, a kid. He's in grad school. He's no loser. But I'm appalled by Cathy's shallowness and I just counter, as acidly as possible, with, "Well, whatever." Cathy's hot, but not that hot. Not hot enough to keep me interested in her spiel. In fact, I come to the conclusion that she might just be a superficial bitch.

"There's more to people than that," I say.

"No, there isn't," Cathy says, seemingly unfazed by me or my indignation. "People are exactly who they appear to be. When you do what I do for twenty years, you can read them like a book. I know who smokes (and who's quit and who's cheating), who drinks (and who's hiding it), who's just had sex--God, you can smell that a mile away. I know which men in here fantasize about me when they're all by themselves in the shower; I see the desire in their eyes when they look me over." Cathy pauses and takes a sip from her Perrier.

"Show me someone at forty and I'll know if they'll have arthritis at sixty. The people who walk through these doors--I can tell if they're here to work out, they're here on doctor's orders, or they're here for a hookup. Give it time; you'll be able to read them, too. It's all right there on their bodies. It doesn't matter one bit what people say, what their intentions are."

Sounds like a bunch of New Age bunk to me. Seriously, where does Cathy get off? Lamely, and not really wanting to continue this one-sided conversation, I say, "Yeah, I can see how you think this place is pretty depressing."

"It's not depressing at all," Cathy says. "I wonder why you'd think that." She rises from the chair and bends over. In spite of myself, I can't help but peek at her magnificent quads. Jesus. Whatever stirred inside of her is gone. Now she's bored with me, bored with her lecture and she signals its end with a yawn.

I'm grateful. Wanting somehow to end on an up note, and maybe give her a chance to redeem herself, I say good-naturedly, "You're not making people very mysterious."

"There is no mystery," she says. "People are what they are. Get a couple competitions under your belt--whatever it takes to get sponsorship--and go pro. Get away from personal training. Health clubs. Making people over. Using 'Becoming,' or whatever Dave's stupid slogan is. Don't whore yourself to a lie."

A middle-aged woman approaches us, and Cathy gives her the same calculating once-over she gave me.

"Like this right here," she smirks. "Look at that swivel in her hips. You have fun, cowboy." Cathy Ball leaves me.

"I'm so sorry I'm late," Mrs. Wariner pleads, clasping her hands together like a sinner begging forgiveness. I half expect her to fall to her knees. "But when you're lunching with a city councilman and the Bank One vice-president, it just can't be helped. And traffic on I-35 was just horrendous."

At two-thirty? I wonder. And Dallas-Fit! can't be five minutes from downtown. "Don't worry about it," I say. You have fun, cowboy? "Do you need a few minutes, or are you ready to go?"

"I'm ready when you are," Mrs. Wariner says.

I review my notes: Shelly Wariner. Age 52; height: 5'3". Weight: 151 pounds. Occupation: Part-time fundraiser for the Dallas Chamber of Commerce. Husband: Tom Wariner, 58, accountant at KPMG. Two kids, Casey and Tom, Jr., 21 and 24. Goals: Look good in a swimsuit--trip to Cancun in October. Weight loss goal: 30 pounds. Note to self." Motivation may be an issue. Motivate to Become!

"Okay, let's do this!" I say, trying to shake off all that negativity with Cathy. "You ready to sweat, Mrs. Wariner?"

"Please, call me Shelly."

"Ready to sweat, Shelly?"

I sit up from the bench, after demonstrating the proper way to bench press, and Mrs. Wariner--or, Shelly--says, "Goodness, I just don't get it. How is it you've got a bigger chest than I do?" She looks down at a too-small sports bra and pushes her boobs together. Her chest isn't small at all. It isn't particularly toned or firm, either, but I figure it's my job to change that. Unfortunately, I'm zoning. And I'm not paying attention, so I smile and nod reflexively to whatever Shelly says next. Is it true? Can Cathy Ball really read bodies? Is it all just surface? I wonder what she read in me.

"Come on. Let's get started over here," I say and point to an empty bit of floor space. "Sit ups."

"Oh, abs?" Shelly whines. I've been a gym rat long enough to know the typical gripes, and though I've only been a personal trainer for a few months, I can see a pattern. If women don't want to do something they'll whine or purr--like they could do it but it hurts, and you're being mean by making them. Guys will fake an injury, like their back. They'll look at you, ashamed, and say they can't do it--though the heart is willing. "Abs?" Shelly repeats. "Right off? Can't we do something easier?"

"No." I stand firm. "Haven't you heard--pain is good? Pain don't hurt," I say, quoting a cheesy line by Patrick Swayze in Road House. I suspect half my time this session will be spent affirming and motivating, but I can't turn Shelly on to Becoming overnight.

We walk over to a piece of floor and Shelly drops down and lies on her back. I straddle her, taking inventory of her body. She was probably pretty twenty-five years ago. Before the marriage, the kids, the money, a two-hour commute, those labor-saving devices. I drop to my knees and hold her feet together.

"I pay you the big bucks because you put me in so much pain," Shelly jokes. "But I don't mind laying here so much."

"Come on," I urge. "Up."

Shelly struggles to sit up and squeals, "One."

"Down," I say, and Shelly drops back. "Up."

Shelly again struggles to sit up. Her pot-belly prevents a full range of motion. White, pasty skin and fat has spilled over the waistband of her flimsy, peach-colored gym shorts. White, pasty skin: I wonder if Shelly doesn't get much UV. She's slender in her limbs and legs and carries her weight in her gut and lower back, so taking Cathy's cue I wonder if it's alcohol. I have to find some friendly way of reminding Shelly that exercise is only half the battle. Diet is crucial.

"Eight," Shelly wheezes, now almost out of breath. She exhales in my face and her breath smells like onions, hamburger meat, sour cream and some fruity mixed drink. Tex-Mex with a pina colada for lunch.

"Nine."

"Ten."

Shelly collapses on the floor. "Pick me up," she says, beckoning me by raising her arms.

I smile and walk away. "Come on."

For the next forty-five minutes, I put Shelly through my rehearsed, pre-visualized gauntlet of sit-ups, pushups, lat pull-downs, bicep curls and overhead presses. For some reason, while chaperoning her through the weight room, I get a sinking feeling in the depths of my bowels. I can't shake Cathy's cryptic remark: "You have fun, cowboy." What the heck is that supposed to mean?

I think I have an idea by the time Shelly and I reach the squat rack. The implication of each word hits me like a fifty-pound dumbbell. And I hope I'm wrong.

I've shown Shelly the proper form for squats once before--the first week I took her on as a client, so for the past few weeks, Shelly has clone unassisted squats. She isn't the most graceful creature on God's green earth, nor is she strong, but she has fair balance. Right now she's totally not squatting correctly at all. She teeters and totters and the bar tips, forcing me to grab it before the weights slide off. (I should have used weight collars.)

"I just can't get the hang of it," Shelly complains. "I feel all, I don't know how to say it, 'weird.' I don't think I'm doing it right. Can you show me again how to do it?"

"Sure," I say. Maybe she's tired, looking for some excuse to bail on the workout. Friendly reminder number two: nix the drinking before the gym. Not good for attitude or energy level.

I remove the twenty-five pound plates from the bar and replace them with forty-five pounders. I walk under the bar, crane my neck, and hoist the weight onto my shoulders. I take two steps back from the weight rack, squat down, and push up.

"See," I say, breathing heavily. "I squat down," I say, squatting down. "Head up, lean forward slightly, back straight, and then up," I say, pushing up. "Watch me again. Keep an eye on my legs and hips." I squat down and push up.

On the fifth repetition a pair of hands cups my ass, one hand on each cheek. They don't pinch or grab but sit there, unmoving. I'm stunned by the boldness and the reality of it; maybe Shelly misread what I meant? I push up quickly and waddle the weight over to the rack. I turn to her and smile. "You know you really didn't have to do that; I said watch me, you." I'm close enough that I see the creases in her face and the makeup poorly concealing them. It freaks me out that this woman who was power lunching with city bigwigs an hour ago just grabbed my ass. It freaks me out double when I consider she's flirting with someone her kids' ages.

Shelly grins like that cartoon cat from Alice in Wonderland. I try to silence the words: "You have fun, cowboy."

I replace Shelly's weight on the bar. "Come on. Your turn," I say. I punctuate it with, "Mrs. Wariner."

"Shelly," she corrects. She begins squatting, me standing behind, spotting her. With every repetition she thrusts her ass out more and more.

"Come on now, don't push your butt out so far," I say. "It's not good on your lower back." When I exchange looks with her in the mirror, I see that she's still grinning. With her last repetition she makes contact; her butt grazes my crotch.

Our last lift is the leg sled. I'm working on autopilot at this point so I re-rack the weights and hustle her over to the sled. Shelly slips under it and kicks her legs up, placing her feet on the foot plate. I crouch beside her. After a couple reps, her gym shorts slide up her thighs. I notice that she has a nice pair of legs; her figure has its weaknesses, but her legs aren't one of them. She catches me looking, so she wraps her hand around the inside of my calf muscle and gives it a faint squeeze.

I stand up casually and back away. "Okay, I think one set will be enough."

"But we normally do three," Shelly pleads. Her eyes are glazed over, on fire.

"Ah, I know. But today let's try something a little different--just a slight variation of the leg press," I lie. I make up some exercise, one that doesn't require me to stand over or behind her. I look to a corner of the gym near the dumbbell rack. "It's a new thing: the standing dumbbell lunge. Targets your quadriceps more effectively," I say, bullshitting to the very best of my ability. The area near the dumbbell rack is crowded with people. There's no way she can try something funny.

"Aw," Shelly says, pouting. "If you say so." She eases herself out from under the leg sled and stands. Her shorts still ride high and she makes no effort to pull them down. I suppress the urge to yank them down for her.

"I say so." I take one forty-five pound plate off the leg sled and re-rack it. I'm about to remove the other plate when Shelly sneaks up behind me and, stepping on her tiptoes, whispers in my ear.

"Take me home and fuck me."

You have fun, cowboy.

Oddly, this isn't as shocking as the initial ass-grabbing; I guess I expect it by now. Anyway, I'm not going to let it bother me. Not going to accept that Cathy's premonition came true. Not going to admit that my House of Becoming is really just a high-class meat market. Not going to be a piece of equipment blue-haired women can rent by the hour. Still, what do I do? My mind races. How to respond? How to turn her down politely? I can say I've got a girlfriend, but Mrs. Wariner (I refuse to call her Shelly from this point on) is married so fidelity obviously doesn't mean diddly. I can say I'm gay. I can claim it's a professional no-no, but that might backfire: Mrs. Wariner hires another trainer so there's no conflict of interest, and then expects me to put out. And who knows--am I overreacting? Maybe this is just normal, an occupational hazard? Do other trainers here ball their clients? After a really long second I give Mrs. Wariner a non-answer: "Uh, hmm."

She grabs me.

"Now you behave," I command like some father figure, backing away. "And get over there to the dumbbell weights." I smile like a chump.

"Oh, you're no fun," she says.

I don't need expertise in reading bodies to see Mrs. Wariner means that. She wants man-handled; she could care less about Becoming or a healthier state of mind. And if I don't give it to her, she's not going to stick around. The future unfolds before my eyes: like some cornball breakup, she'll start skipping appointments, making excuses that her fundraising work is keeping her from the gym ... and she'll disappear.

I walk toward the locker room to get my gear, so I can take off. I feel beat up. On my way, looking into the cardio room, I notice Cathy Ball talking to Yecenia. Yecenia has finished a two-hour workout on the Stairmaster and stands fast, listening eagerly--no doubt absorbed by this fitness matron's great wisdom about bodies and body language.

I glare at Cathy through the Plexiglas. She pauses mid-sentence, and then glances at Mrs. Wariner, who is now up at the front counter talking to Dr. Dave, wiping off with one of his towels. Cathy glances my way. Then, a wan smile. A sympathetic I-told-you-so.

You bitch, I think. Can you read that?

Cathy resumes her conversation with Yecenia, who is also now looking at me like I'm some kind of pariah.

Back in the locker room, I wash nay face and smooth back my hair. I look at myself in the mirror. I've done it a million times, but this time it's the weirdest thing: for a moment I don't recognize what's reflected back. I'm embarrassed by my own six-pack abs, my broad chest. Like it doesn't belong to me; and even if it does, I'm not sure I want it. All that stuff about Becoming? Well, maybe there is no Becoming. Maybe it's just a big sham. But if there's no evolution, then what the hell are we supposed to do? Hit on people less than half our age? Work out three hours a day? Fold a never-ending supply of white towels? ... I try not to think any deeper about this and turn away from my chisel-bodied reflected half.

There's a motivational poster on the wall beside the mirror, framed in thin plastic with cheap gold borders. A man and woman are pictured hiking in some Rocky Mountain wilderness. The man offers the woman his hand, and she steadies herself on some massive boulder. Healthy Bodies; Healthy Spirits, reads the caption. I wonder what the hell that has to do with the picture.

I wrestle my bag from the narrow locker and set it on the floor. I sit on the bench between the lockers and play with the zipper, zipping and unzipping the bag. I'm doing this for a while until some guy comes in and startles me. I head-nod to him, say, "What's up?" and act like I'm putting something in the bag. Then I leave the locker room.

"Hail, ubermensch!" Dr. Dave bellows after I hand him the locker key. He thumps his chest. "Returning to his mountain? Ascending the peaks, only to descend another day to bless us with his presence! See you tomorrow?"

I love Dr. Dave, but why does he have to talk like that? Maybe those corporate types who scoff at Dr. Dave are right: he is a rube. Why was Dave talking to Mrs. Wariner earlier--a woman who in my estimation is the sickest twist on the planet? Does he have any idea she came onto me? And what's with this "returning to my mountain" crap? But then I'm too tired to deal with this anymore. I just want to go home, drink beer and watch Springer. I imagine my mountain-top: a second-floor efficiency in a beehive apartment complex at the busy intersection of Colt and Beltline. The complex is jammed between a Long John Silvers and Dickey's Bar-B-Q, half-hidden from the road by a nail salon, a Chinese buffet and a cellular phone service.

Some mountain-top, some superman. You've got the wrong guy, Mr. History Professor. I scan the gym for Cathy. I can't find her, so to appease Dr. Dave I answer finally, "Yeah, returning to my mountain, so I'll see you. You're right: I am the superman."