The Strongman
14
Adjusting to a New Life
“THERE AREN’T MANY gyms in the Twin Cities that are equipped for good senior elite level training,” Tara sighed. She’d arrived a few minutes after Jennifer left and I wondered if she’d been waiting for a signal. I greeted her with a kiss and she asked me to take her to bed. We were in my room, but we were just talking. Mostly.
“There are a few gyms that cater to kids,” I said. “I wonder if we could get one of them to give us a time to train elite athletes. Maybe during the day when the kids are supposed to be in school.”
“That’s a possibility. My athletes are all in school, too. Only you and Madison were training for senior elite pairs at Hennepin Gym,” she said. Then she kissed me before I could say anything. “No. I don’t expect you to go back to work with her. In fact, I’d be a little worried if you did. I guess it’s time for you to really focus on your individual routines. I’m so sad because I really loved working with you. We’re a great team and you’re a really good base. If you had a good flyer to work with, you’d be a candidate for a world championship.”
“Not now. Maybe someday. Now, I’ll need to find a coach. At the very least, a spotter. I’ve got ideas for my routines that are a little risky to practice without a spotter,” I said.
“That worries me a little, but I’m not strong enough and stable enough to be a spotter for you. We’ll have to launch a search.”
We kissed for a while and started shedding our clothes. Wow! She still just blew me away with how pretty she was and how enthusiastic about loving me she was. We took it slow and easy, but it wasn’t really long before I felt myself sliding into her and her little catch of breath as I opened her. The feeling always brought me to the brink of tears. She was just so unbelievably wonderful. If everything else in my life went to hell, I’d still be okay as long as I had Tara.
We were out of bed and preparing dinner when Mom, Dad, and Mikey got home from work. Us being there was a surprise and we had to go through the whole story and situation at the dinner table. Mikey was furious. Dad was quiet and I thought he might be mentally preparing a lawsuit. Mom was the MC of the questioning, even pointing to which of us she wanted to answer a question.
We finally begged off any more questions so we could go downstairs to the entertainment center and watch the opening ceremony from Paris. It was pretty spectacular. It wasn’t even in the stadium, but was right downtown along the Seine! Well, we’d have plenty of time this weekend and next week to watch the gymnastics and other events as they were broadcast from Paris.
After the show ended, I carried Tara to my bedroom and made love to her again before we settled to sleep in each other’s arms for the night.
I was sitting in Mom’s favorite chair Monday, reading. I couldn’t believe I was reading a book, just for pleasure! After finishing Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, I downloaded the sequel, Anansi Boys. I was just getting into it when I saw a car pull up in our driveway and, to my horror, Madison got out and headed for the door. I thought about just not answering it, but decided I’d better get this over with once and for all. I wasn’t going to face her alone, though.
Unfortunately, after spending two nights with me, Tara went back to her apartment. We were both pretty depressed about basically losing our gym, but gymnastics is a sport that requires a huge amount of trust, and we just didn’t trust anyone there now.
I had my cell phone in my hand and simply switched to camera and started recording. The bell rang.
“Madison. You shouldn’t be here,” I said when I opened the door.
“I need to talk to you,” she said. “Can I come in?”
“No. Say what you need to say and leave.”
“You have to come back. Coach Daniels said that if I don’t have a partner there’s nothing for her to coach me on and she’ll leave,” Madison said.
“Good. You’d do better with anyone else. But find a girl and do women’s pairs. No boy is ever going to trust you.”
“I apologized and told them all that you didn’t assault me,” she said.
“And that’s supposed to make me trust you?”
“I thought if we had sex, it would make us closer and we’d improve our routine.”
“You ruined my job and my training. That didn’t make us closer.”
“How can I make it up? Honestly, Paul, I’ll do anything for you. You can make me your personal plaything. I’ll do routines with you while I’m completely naked. I know you liked what you saw Friday. Let me in and I’ll give you a blowjob right now. You can have me naked and do whatever you want with me. I need you. I need you as my partner.”
“What part of ‘No!’ do you not understand? I’m not interested in you, Madison. I never have been. I’ve never wanted to be your pairs partner. I don’t like and I don’t trust your coach, you, or your sister. And now I don’t trust Coach Dawson, either,” I said. “Now, leave.”
“All right, you bastard! I tried to make it nice for you and give you what every boy wants. I’ll get what I want eventually. You don’t know my father. Let me tell you that with my story and Penny’s story from cheer, he’ll make sure you never work or train in the Twin Cities again.”
“Go away.”
I closed the door.
She rang the bell half a dozen times and then pounded on the door. I made a call.
“9-1-1. State your emergency.”
“There is a crazy woman trying to break into my house. She’s already threatened me. She won’t go away.”
“Domestic dispute. I’ll have a patrol car come by, but please try to settle your differences before they get there.”
“There’s nothing domestic about it. She doesn’t live here and I have no relationship with her. She’s a former work associate.”
“Okay. A car is on its way.”
Of course, after Madison had kicked the locked door a couple of times, she turned around and headed for her car. I’d have had a lot to explain to the police if she’d just gotten in her car and driven off. Instead, she dislodged one of the bricks that line our walk to the door and came running toward the house.
What kind of damage can a 110-pound woman do with a brick? Well, don’t forget that Madison is a gymnast with incredible upper body strength. She rushed the house and heaved the brick at our front window, just as the patrol car pulled up. The lights came on and the siren wailed as the glass in the big picture window crumbled out of the frame. Two cops got out of the car, one circling wide and the other headed directly to Madison. She screamed and turned to run to her car where the other policeman trapped her and immediately cuffed her, pushing her against her car and quickly patting her down.
That’ll get him a lawsuit for sexual assault, I thought.
Then she turned around and I saw it was a female officer. She marched Madison straight to the squad car as her partner knocked on our front door.
“Are you okay?” the officer asked.
“Yes,” I said. I came out of the house and closed the door behind me. There was no reason to invite the police into the house.
“What did you do to her that set her off like that?” he asked.
“What did I…? I didn’t do anything. She showed up here a little while ago to try to convince me to return to the gym and be her partner. I refused. I don’t think anyone’s ever said no to her before,” I said.
“You know, with a big strong guy like you, it’s going to be hard to sell that you didn’t do anything,” he said.
“I have video of the whole encounter.”
“Why did you do that?”
“I was sitting over there reading when I saw her pull in. She made a false accusation against me Friday that resulted in me quitting my job and leaving the gym.”
“Is that under investigation?”
“No. As soon as I left, she retracted the accusation.”
“What were the circumstances around that?”
“I’m a massage therapist. I knocked on the massage room door and she said to come in. When I opened the door, I saw her lying entirely naked and exposed on the massage table. I immediately backed out while yelling ‘No!’ When she dressed and came out of the room, she accused me of molesting her.”
“And you didn’t?”
“I didn’t even go all the way into the room. The door was never closed.”
“So, why did you leave your job?”
“My coach and her coach sided with her. I can’t do gymnastics in a gym where I don’t trust anyone. Now she’s threatened to get her father involved—whoever he is—and make sure I can’t work or train anywhere in the Twin Cities.”
“And you got all that on video?”
“Yes. Do you want to see it?”
“No. If I saw it, I’d have to take it and log it as evidence. Since we don’t have any charges yet, other than property damage, that would be unnecessary. Save it for when the father tries to press charges. I assume you will want to charge her with the property damage?” he asked.
“My parents own the house. They’re both at work right now, but I’m certain they will want some action.”
“Okay. Probably better call them and get one of them home. You’ll need to get this boarded up. I’ll give my report to a detective and he’ll come by to talk to you. Since we actually saw her throw a brick through your window, we have grounds to arrest and hold her for vandalism and property damage. I wouldn’t have thought someone so little could create so much damage.”
“Be careful. She’s an acrobat. She’s a lot stronger than she looks.”
“No matter what gripe your daughter has with my son, the fact is she threw a brick through my living room window. That was witnessed by two police officers who were coming to investigate the 9-1-1 call my son made because she was pounding on the door and had threatened him,” Dad said on the phone. Mom, Mikey, Jennifer, Tara, and I sat nearby listening in.
“My daughter is under eighteen and your son molested her. I can easily plead that the brick was an aggravated attack,” Mr. Layne, Madison’s father, shot back.
“You’ll have a difficult time proving that in the face of the video that recorded the entire encounter. But if you want to have a go at my son, that’s between you and him. The fact remains that your daughter, who you have said is a minor and therefore you are responsible for, threw a brick through my window. I expect to have the expenses of having it replaced and cleaned up covered by you. I’ve had an estimator out to give me a price for a replacement like the one that was broken. If you’d like a second estimate, let me know when your estimator is coming to assess the damage.”
“Tom, you’re making this more difficult than it needs to be. You know I’m the best civil law instructor at the university. I’ll have to make it really hard on you.”
“Neal, you’ve let your daughters run wild. Don’t threaten me with what you can do at the university. You know who keeps the lights on in your building. Who makes sure there’s heat. Who knows where all the buried lines are, where they come into your office and how close you are to a bathroom that’s prone to flooding. You have an easy way out with me. Pay for my goddamn window. If you insist on going up against my son, I’ll enlist Dr. Abrams to defend him. It’s just the kind of case he’d like to use as an example in his classes.”
“I’ll have an estimator at your house tomorrow at noon. Just understand, your son is going to have a hard time getting a job in the Twin Cities ever again. There’s nothing Abrams can do to stop that.”
“We’ll see. Have a good day, Neal.”
Dad hung up the phone and we gathered around the dining table for a family conference.
Madison’s father was one of the most renowned law professors at the university. Unfortunately for Madison, my dad knew nearly everyone in the law school because he supervised the re-engineering and updating of the building they were in. Several of the professors felt they owed him for the state-of-the-art facility they could now work in. They’d pressed business cards into his hands when the building was re-opened and told him if he ever needed legal help to just call on them.
Madison’s father had been one of those law professors.
Of course, neither Madison or I knew that our fathers knew each other. She might have been a little slower invoking his name if she’d known. It was apparent, though, that he’d bailed both his daughters out of several sketchy situations. I’d heard Penny and Ethan were headed toward a rushed wedding before he went to off to college because Penny was pregnant.
“Nonetheless, you need to take his threats seriously,” Dad told me. “He doesn’t teach a legal ethics class. He teaches how to do the most damage to your opponent.”
“That’s vicious,” Mikey said.
“It’s unfortunately the way a lot of the world works,” Mom said. “There are people out there who don’t even care if they win, as long as they do the maximum amount of damage to those who oppose them. You found that out when you were taken to the farm.”
“Don’t remind me.”
“Just know that we’ll back you,” Jennifer said. “There’s already a rumor that people have started to leave the gym. When your Saturday morning class showed up and you didn’t, parents started asking questions. I was given this list of names and addresses to contact if you can start the class somewhere else.”
“Don’t worry, Babe. You never let me fall. We’ll never let you down,” Tara said.
I spent the rest of the week studying for the National Certification Exam under Jennifer’s tutelage. Tara was my only massage client that week and she got a couple of really long massages as Jennifer quizzed me on every move.
We also spent time calling other gyms and athletic facilities. I told one gym that I could bring a dozen kids for a tumbling class on Saturday mornings and they immediately enlisted me for that. It was a small gym that didn’t really have any of the men’s apparatuses. They were equipped for girls to get their start. They did have a sprung floor for exercises, so I got to do a little work after my class Saturday morning. The gym had gone to work getting more kids in and Tara came to assist me with the eighteen kids in the class.
Interestingly enough, the full-time job that sounded most promising for me was a potential job with the local women’s basketball team. They used athletic men to practice against to toughen them up. It was mostly because men tended to be more physical than women when they played. They were harder to push around. I told them that as a gymnast, I was very strong and hard to push around.
I went back to Hennepin Gym once that week. I had a locker there and I wanted my things out of it. I thought I’d be in and out before anyone really saw I was there, but Coach Dawson was at the front desk when I came out.
“Paul. I’m sorry to see you cleaning out your locker. You know you don’t have to leave here. You can keep training and even keep massaging. You have your certificate now?”
“I passed the test,” I said. “I wouldn’t feel safe working here.”
“That was just a little misunderstanding. Madison was just shocked that you came into the room before she was covered.”
“Jesus, Coach. Are you still holding that line? I knocked at the door per protocol and she said to come in. She wasn’t in the process of covering herself. She had no intention of covering herself. She was there to get me in a compromising position. And you supported her and her bitch coach against me. How could I come to train here? Who would I trust? I wouldn’t even trust you to be my spotter, let alone my coach,” I ranted.
“Well, you’re doing a good job of burning your bridges, young man. I brought you from being a scrawny weak kid to the athlete you are now. Don’t forget that.”
“And then when a bigger opportunity walked in, you sold me off to her as your part of the deal. You abandoned my training and relegated me to a pairs base. And I’m the last senior man you have in the gym. You betrayed me, so don’t lecture me about burning bridges.”
“Take your gear and get out, Paul. Don’t come back.”
I left.
I had visions of myself flipping burgers as I walked to the office of the women’s basketball team. I hadn’t received many invites for interviews. As we approached the end of the Olympics break, a lot of college guys that worked for the team were headed back to school. I wasn’t certain how much work I’d have with the team after the season ended.
“Paul Bradley? Come in. We may have made a mistake inviting you here. I see you are only nineteen and a recent high school graduate. That’s a little young for working with us. Where are you going to college?”
“Ma’am, I am not an intellectual powerhouse. I don’t have any college prospects. It took me an extra year to get out of high school. I’ve spent the past eight years becoming a gymnast. I hope to return to it in the future.”
“Why are you out now?”
“I had a falling out with the management at the gym. I need to find a new coach and place to practice.”
“And you figure we might keep you in shape?”
“I’d like to believe I’d help your team stay in shape,” I said.
“Hmm. That’s a refreshing perspective. You know we use men on our practice teams to add bulk and strength. You look small to go up against six-foot-four women. You might get pushed around a lot.”
“It takes quite a lot to push me around,” I laughed. “Though I was used to it as a kid. I can jump. Pretty high. From a stand or a single step.”
“Well, we can try you out. Understand, though, that we are in the middle of the women’s basketball season, just coming back from the Olympic break. While we want you to be physical and present a barrier for the women to get around, we don’t want our players hurt. The pay is not too generous. This is women’s sports, not men’s. It’s looking better this year than in the past, but our pay scale is negotiated with the union.”
“Would I need to join a union to work here?” I asked.
“No, you wouldn’t be a member of the union. It’s a players’ union. But you would still be governed by its pay scale.”
“Gymnasts aren’t represented by a union and have notoriously low compensation,” I laughed.
“Let’s go to the gym and get an assessment.”
My ‘assessment’ included putting on some pads to increase my footprint on the floor. I had a pad that extended my arms a foot so my reach was longer. Then I was given a station, not a player to guard or anything. My station was along the arc on one side of the court. Whenever a player entered my station, I joined whoever was guarding her to up the difficulty of her escaping or getting a shot off.
It was hard work. I was used to women who had a lot of upper body strength, but the legs on the basketball players were incredibly strong. I didn’t think any of them would ever be afraid of me. I was a little worried about them.
It wasn’t long before I was being challenged in my station. I mostly jumped around and took up space, but eventually the player decided to try a three-point shot. The first time, I was caught flat-footed and the ball sailed over my head into the net. One of the trainers stepped up to me and hollered that I was supposed to be able to jump and keep my pads in front of the player’s face.
I did. The next time a player launched a shot from deep, I had both hands up in the air and jumped straight up to block her. Even at that, I barely touched the ball as it sailed by, but it was enough to knock it off course. I worked with the team for half an hour with one trainer or another or a coach or something shouting instructions to me as I maintained my blocking stance.
Once, a player tried to go right through me. She found that I was harder to move than I looked like I’d be. She fell back after hitting me and instinct kicked in. I dove behind her and caught her in my padded hands before she hit the floor.
That was the end of my tryout.
“Not bad,” the manager said as she watched me strip off the pads. “I’ll show you to your locker and you can get cleaned up. We’ll provide a uniform and laundry service. The locker rooms are fairly well supplied. $22.50 an hour to start. You will be working eight to ten hours per day. Sometimes in a practice session like the one you just participated in. Sometimes, you’ll be engaged one-on-one. Sometimes you’ll just be retrieving the ball during a player’s shooting practice. Sometimes we’ll need you on a Saturday or Sunday. Sometimes, you’ll just be told to do something else. People will give you instructions as you go.”
“Thank you, ma’am. I’ll work hard.”
“Let’s see how it goes this week.”
I had a new job and it was physically demanding. I definitely would stay in shape. The team had a weight room with a couple of devices I could use for my own workouts, including a peg board and a bar for pull-ups. I was often in the room to act as a spotter for players using free weights. I got to use the room after most of the team had left for the day. There was always an attendant on duty, though, so a couple women would be around getting physical therapy or using the therapy pools.
I was on the high bar doing pull-ups one evening when Chantell saw me. She was a veteran baller in her fifth year with the team. I saw her watching me as I pulled myself up. Her mouth was open and she just stared.
In all fairness, there was good reason for her to stare. I did gymnastic pull-ups. On each rep, I didn’t pull myself up my chin and then back down. I use the same muscles I used on the rings and high bar to pull myself up until my entire torso was above the bar to my waist. Then back down. I guess most athletes don’t see that very often.
“How did you learn to do that?” Chantell asked when I finally dropped to the ground.
“Oh. It’s pretty much required to be able to do that when you’re a gymnast. Even my girlfriend can do it.”
“Your girlfriend. If I could do that, I think my range would increase. I’m a good three-point shooter, but you wouldn’t block my shots if I was shooting back four feet. Can you teach me?”
“Sure, if you’d like. It’s really mostly repetition and engaging the entire torso in the lift. Most people work their arms and traps when doing pull-ups. In order to do the waist-high pull-up, you need to pass the engagement down the torso. You’ll get a lot more work on your pecs and abs. I bet you could do one right now.”
“You think? Coach me through it.”
She reached up and did a little hop to reach the bar that took me a solid jump to reach.
“Okay, palms away on the bar and farther apart. You might be used to doing them with palms toward you or one each direction, but this requires you to use your pushing muscles.” She took the position. “Now, regular chin-up and hold at the top. Good. Now engage wrist and triceps to push yourself on up.”
She made it up to her shoulders before dropping back down.
“Let’s try it again. Did you feel what was engaging as you started shifting your center of gravity to above your hands? I can help lift you so you can feel the muscles engage all the way up. I’d need to touch your waist.”
“Yeah, that’s fine. Let’s do it.”
She went back up and when she stalled out, I gave her just enough boost that she could pull herself the rest of the way up. At the top, she gave a whoop and dropped back down.
“I think I’ll work on this in the morning, before we’ve gone through a full day’s practice. I can tell this will make me sore.”
“I can give you some tips on that, too,” I said without thinking. “I’m a certified massage therapist.”
“For real?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Maybe I’ll take it a little easier tomorrow so I don’t need that service. We’re traveling to Dallas in the afternoon,” she said. “Uh, what was your name?”
“Paul,” I said.
“Nice to meet you, Paul.” She left and I finished my own workout.
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
