He asks, “Are you in high school?”
“Yeah, one more year left.”
“Nice.” He searches for another plate. I guess his previous set was a warm-up. “If they have a gym there, that’s probably where you should work out when school begins.”
“Throw some wheels on that bar!” Alpha shouts from across the room.
“On it!” Rogelio shouts back, and smiles.
I may hit the school weight room when classes begin. Who knows? It would save me time and money, though I also may be bulked up enough by then.
Rogelio slides a plate on the other side to even out the bar. Two large plates and two medium-sized ones against my two tiny ones. I wanna disappear.
“Why would the school weight room be better?” I ask him.
Across the gym, Tower starts another set while Alpha barks encouragement.
Rogelio smiles and says, “Let’s just say there’s a lot going on in this gym that has nothing to do with fitness or being healthy. I only come here because I live down the street.”
I nod. He’s nice and seems worried that I’m impressionable. As if I’d ever do drugs. I’ve never even taken a puff of tobacco or weed.
“Four hundred and five pounds ain’t shit!” Alpha shouts at Tower, who’s doing deadlifts. “More reps! Let’s go!”
Tower lifts the bar back up from the floor, straightening out one last time, and lets loose a wild sound in the gym, something between beast and machine. A chill runs through me.
Right away he reaches down for his bucket.
I turn to Rogelio, who’s already shaking his head in disgust.
An hour and a half later I’m totally wrecked. My weekly trail run with Karina has nothing on this. I feel the throb of the post-workout pump. That’s the warm blood swelling around my worked-out muscles. My chest and triceps burn with a sweet intensity. I’ve never been more aware of my body in general. How muscles cover all my bones, stretching from joint to joint. How you can actually make them bigger by lifting weights and setting them back down, again and again, and eating right.
Vomit-bucket Tower, chest-pounding Superman, and Rogelio have left. Fine for them, but I’m gonna start on the workout meant for tomorrow. Double the effort might double my results. I could gain even more than twenty-five pounds of muscle this summer.
Alpha, one of the greatest bodybuilders on the planet, wouldn’t give up after twenty-eight sets.
But when he notices me about to sit down at the lat pulldown machine, that’s what he tells me to do.
“You’re done, Little Man. Don’t add back to your chest and triceps day.”
Little? At least he called me a man.
“I have some energy left,” I say, hoping to impress him with my determination.
“You’re going to burn out. You can’t hit too much in one workout, because muscles need days to fully recover. If you work chest and back and legs today, what muscle group will you work tomorrow, or the day after?”
Good point. I thank him.
“I love your determination though.” Alpha puts out his fist for me to bump. “Now it’s time to go feed your muscles and get rested so you can do it again tomorrow.”
I take a superlong drink from the fountain, overwhelmed with pride and joy.
Then I put the hood over my cap and step into the midday heat outside, hoping nobody spots me while I bike back to the safety of home.
6
Eighty-one days until school begins
FIVE DAYS into my twelve-week transformation I’m a walking, talking bruise. Every muscle is in some stage of soreness. That’s how I like it, because that’s how muscles grow. After you destroy them with resistance training, they repair themselves and get bigger.
Destroy and build. Destroy and build. The aches I feel, even if I’m just getting outta bed or scratching the back of my neck, are a constant reminder that I’m putting in the work.
Today sucks, though. It’s a rest day, which means zero gym time—a day off so my entire body can fully recover. Tomorrow I go full force, starting with the chest and tris workout again. Tomorrow seems so far away.
I’m hoping Dad needs lots of help at the shop today so I can keep busy. He’s called midafternoon every day this week for my help, but the work was done within two hours.
Though I don’t wanna be out in public, I need money badly. Who knew trips to the supermarket, and whey protein for shakes and two important supplements would cost so much?
I’ll have to wait even longer for my used car. That sucks, but I remind myself what matters.
Karina calls. “Guess where I am,” she says. “Guess who with.”
I don’t have to guess. Miguel called earlier, trying to get me to go to the movie we talked about seeing last week. I keep telling him we’ll hang, but that hasn’t happened yet. Karina has only come over once since this whole mess started. She ate chicken and brown rice with me, because she likes to eat healthy anyway, while my dad and Gaby ate enchiladas. The whole time I felt shame, looking at Karina. Because she’d seen the video.
She’s keeping plenty busy these days. A sleepover at Janelle’s, a trip to Clearwater beach, another one to the Dalí museum in St. Pete. Plus working part-time at the retirement home with her mom, just like she did last summer.
“Is everybody there?” I ask.
“Janelle, Liliana, Miguel, and Enzo. I’m the only one without a date. Miguel says he hasn’t seen you at all, so I’m not taking it personal.”
“Come over tomorrow if you want. It’s not so bad hanging out here at home, is it?”
“I worry about you,” she says. “Stuck at home doing nothing.”
“Doing plenty, actually. There is something called the internet, with lots of articles to read and videos to watch. Don’t worry about me.”
The articles and videos are all about bodybuilding. Plus every 2.5 hours there’s a meal, which I have in front of the computer screen while a weightlifting YouTuber talks about an aspect of my new lifestyle. This nineteen-year-old guy who goes by Natural Nathan is my favorite.
I’m so not bored, so busy with this new world, that I haven’t hung out much with Gaby either. When I leave my bedroom for more food, she comes to the kitchen to talk while I heat up a container of my prepped meals. This morning she asked to go with Dad to work because it’s “too boring at home now.”
“I got my mom’s car today,” Karina says. “I can come pick you up real quick and we won’t even miss the trailers. Come on, David. That video is old news.”
“Not true. I took your advice and didn’t search for it since the weekend, but yesterday . . .”
I was weak. I couldn’t help it. I explain that YouTube took the original slap video down but two other people, at least, uploaded it. Exactly what I knew would happen.
What surprised me was the video entitled Bitchslap David Remix.
“Have you seen that one?” I ask her.
“I’m not going to watch it, and you shouldn’t be watching that crap either.”
“In that video, Ricky slaps me across my face to a Kanye West beat, over and over again for almost three minutes. I used to love that song.”
“You can still love the song if you want.”