Falls Street (6) “Randy,” I said. “Teach me how to lift that fucking thing.” I think I finished the sentence before he punched me in the gut. I walked into the hall and had a drink. Then, I filled my mouth full of water, went back in and spit it all over him. A couple of the other guys didn’t like me spitting on the weights and then grabbed my arms. Randy hit me a few times, and then they threw me down the stairs. Well, they kind of rolled me down the stairs. I stayed there for a little while. It was nice and cool. After that, I took a break or a nap or something, because I didn’t catch up with him until later when he was getting picked up by his brother Kyle. I said, “Yo, why don’t you fucking show me how to lift those weights?” He got in the car, but Kyle got out of it. “What do you want to learn to lift weights for?” Kyle said. “You don’t play sports or nothing.” “I figured if your brother’s going to keep kicking my ass,” I said. “I might as well make it interesting for him, right?” And Kyle actually kind of laughed, until I sneezed and the blood started again. “Shit man,” he said. “You’ve got to learn to pick your battles better or you’re going to get the shit kicked out of you worse than that.” “Yeah,” I said. “Either that or one of these dicks will teach me how to lift weights. Either way, I’m at least getting some exercise, right?” My tongue ring hurt, I kept figuring that I swallowed it. It was there, though, the metal and the blood tasted the same. It was hard to tell if my tongue was bleeding or if it was just blood from my nose falling down my throat. “You want to learn to lift?” he asked. “What gave you that idea?” I asked spitting some blood on the ground. It bubbled on the gravel, kind of neat to look at. “Then, be here tomorrow morning at eight o’ clock,” he said. “But, I’m warning you. I don’t waste my fucking time with losers. You better get your shit together, and I swear to God if you start giving me this smart ass shit, I’m gonna knock you on your ass myself.” “Great,” I said. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.” “Don’t piss me off in the meantime,” he said. “Stay away from my brother and his friends. I’ve heard about you.” He said this as he got into his car. I knew he wanted to run my ass into the ground the next morning, watching me struggle with weights he could lift in his sleep. That’s all right, though, because as soon as I didn’t need him, I was going to wail him in the nuts. No matter how bad a beating you take after the fact, nothing beats the priceless expression of someone after they take a shot to the balls unexpectedly. No one’s expected me for years, and that makes it all the more painful for them and humorous for me. Not that I like touching men’s balls. It gives them a great reason to call me fagot. “Why?” I asked. “Are you looking for a date?” “Fuck you,” Colombo said. He lifts weights, but he’s a fat fuck. “Come on,” Kyle said. “You’ve got to lift more than that. Don’t you use those arms for nothing at all?” “I jerk my dick,” I said. “That’s about it.” If you say something like that before they get the chance, they kind of get puzzled and just give you a look like they want to smash your face in. It’s not something they can do when you’re on the bench press, though. Some unwritten law says you’re not supposed to do anything to them when they’re lifting. I tried to respect that law and use it to my advantage. Of course, some had the right to retaliation. My balls really hurt after Randy stepped on them while I was lifting. Kyle caught the bar before it hit the floor. It was actually quite funny, and I laughed. Randy looked like he wanted to hit me again. That’s what everyone does when they can’t decide whether or not to laugh. “Come on,” he said. “I want you on the leg lift. You look like shit.” “I thought so,” I said. I think I meant it, because I had a long way to go before I looked anything like Randy or Kyle. Kyle’s legs looked like part of a stone sculpture and Randy had actual pecks that bulged out underneath his shirt. I had nothing, but a rib cage, and a gut that couldn’t decide whether to come out or stay in. I had to want it more than both of them, and I had to wait for them in order to get started. After a while, I learned to change the weights and memorized the routines Kyle gave me. After that was settled, I stopped talking because we didn’t need each other. Kyle would yell whenever I was lifting wrong, and then I changed to make it right. I strained to lift what I could, and it was never enough for him or anyone to respect. Randy wanted me gone, and sometimes he showed it by tripping me on the stairs or holding my face into the water fountain. I didn’t do anything. I didn’t have the energy to waste. That’s how I knew I would beat him, because everyday, I could barely make it the half a block to home. Everyday, when I left just after sunset, I knew by the way he ran to the car, that I was climbing fast through a world of hurt, and he was somewhere floating in the atmosphere. Beyond the fence, on the second Friday, I saw the shadows of the people on the field. In the evening, they looked like a picture book of distant scarecrows running across orange and pink light. I stopped to watch the sun give up racing Kyle and Randy’s car for the edge of town. And I listened hard to hear the sound of the soccer ball taking off, grass tossed in a trail behind, and I watched the shadow flutter that became of it before in landed on the other side of the field. One of them was probably Crash, but I didn’t think about it. Colombo could have asked me to be there, but I didn’t care. There wasn’t the vaguest desire to go under the chain to get inside the fence. Far beyond that field, someone was running the track at a steady pace. Barely visible, I saw flashes of yellow that could have been the sun caught up in the movement. A great distance separated us then. I walked over to the hill, straining just to get moving. I could barely walk, and she was running. Neither one of us were going to stop. *** Chapter 6 – Villains Versus All those radio commercials that aren’t funny, all those TV shows that you could have done better, all those songs that sound like shit, you have to let them go. The sensitive man is a not equip to deal with the pain of progress. “What’s with that hair!” someone would say. “What the fuck is he trying to prove,” someone would say. “Don’t be a hero,” they’d say. And I wouldn’t say a damn thing to anyone except Kyle and Randy. I spoke when they spoke to me, and only in short bursts. They were my connection to the whole world. My muscles ached. They hurt worse if I didn’t lift. Everyday, I didn’t feel strong. I felt paralyzed, addicted to ritual depletion. My potential was constantly being tapped out. I was using myself. I was my own little bitch. And it was fun to finally put the screws to all I had been, the physical resultant of my previous life. I kicked my ass in, and when that wasn’t enough, I let Randy punch me in the gut. And I laughed, and people thought I was one sick fuck. That’s what my new gimmick was. “Hey, that’s Jason, don’t fuck with him, because he’s one sick mother fucker.” And that was how I got known for a while. The numbers crawled up. I could lift a lot more, but not for very long. Everyday was like being on crutches, sometimes lifting less and less just to be sure I was spent. Randy walked around a lot and joked with the others. I had to learn that, too, but the weights were easier. It was just me against me, and I could always handle that. I was on the bench most of the time, just thinking while I lifted. Then, I realized that I was reverting back, staying in my head, taking the easy way out. So when I could get the energy, I went up to Randy and said, “show me how to fight?” He punched me in the face and walked away laughing with his friends. The next day, I went up to him and said, “show me how to throw a punch.” He hit me in the face again, but I didn’t go down. I just stood there hurting, trying not to cry. My voice cracked, but I said, “are you afraid to let me hit you?” “Fuck you,” he said and kneed me in the balls. I was beginning to think that we would never be friends. A few days later, I tried another method. “Hit me,” I said. And he refused. “Hit me. I want to learn how to fight.” “Why?” he asked. “You’re just going to get your ass kicked.” “Yeah,” I said. “Probably. So, show me.” “No,” he said. “You’re fucked up. You’ll probably cry to your mom about it.” Then, I punched him in the eye. He grabbed his head and started swearing. “What the fuck!” he shouted. “Are you going to help me out or what?” I asked, and he was at me with both hands punching my head and chest. I fell over, and he kneed me in the stomach. Kyle came out of the weight room and broke us up. “What’s wrong with you two?” he asked. “It’s okay,” I said. “Randy’s supposed to show me how to fight.” “In the fucking hallway?” Kyle said. “You guys are lucky the fucking security guard didn’t see this shit. If you little fucks want to fight, let’s get the gloves out, all right? You’re not going to learn anything bouncing each other off the damn walls.” And so, we got gloves and helmets, and everyone cheered for Randy as he bounced around the gym floor. We don’t have a ring or anything, just some tape in the shape of a rectangle on the floor. Kyle shouted things at me from my corner, while Randy kind of jumped around a bit on his tiptoes. He ran out of gas, though, and just started leaning over at me calling out, “come on, come on.” He started punching me in the shoulders. They bruised up real easy. It wasn’t even worth hitting him in the arms. He was unfazed. I could have hit him in the face, but I didn’t want to move close to him. I didn’t want to have to be quick and risk being awkward, falling over. With this dead on shot, he hit me in the chin and my vision got all weird. I thought it was sweat in my eyes. The next time he did it, I couldn’t feel my face anymore. After that, I tried the punches I knew I could have landed. I missed. I got bruised up on the arms, then finally I had to let them down. He got me in the right cheek after hooking my right arm. Kyle yelled something, but I still fell to one knee. He leaned on me, and I fell over. Everyone cheered for him, even though he really couldn’t have lost. The next day, I demanded a rematch. He wouldn’t give me one, and then I elbowed him in the jaw. I got my rematch. “Keep your hands up high, damn it!” Kyle shouted. “You little bitch that’s no way to take a punch.” I was getting beat up pretty bad, but I was having fun trying to jump around a lot. The more I was moving, the less I thought about getting hit. I wasn’t dodging, just trying to keep my mind off the sting of the punches. “You’re punching like a girl,” Kyle said. “Don’t you want to hurt him? Punch with your whole body.” I saw lots of ways to hit him, but I never let myself hit him hard. It was the only way I could have any self-confidence. I had to save something for a time when I knew I could beat him. After that fight, I saw two moves he missed. Of course, he wasn’t the same as he was the first time. So, I needed more research. The next day, I got knocked out. The day after that, I go my mouth guard knocked out. After that, I was pretty sure I knew when to hit him and where. The worse I did in the fight, the more Kyle would show me afterward. I learned it as best I could, but my muscles were pretty sore from lifting. Randy always seemed fresh. He never lifted for too long, but when he did it was always a lot of weight. I got punched out twice more before I decided to take a break from it. My mother and father wanted to go on vacation, and they were pretty upset over the way I looked. She started asking about the bruises, and I told her I was learning how to box to protect myself. She liked that, because she could tell her friend that things today are so bad that her own son has to learn to box just to protect himself. The more I did it. The more I really wanted to hurt someone, but I didn’t want to hurt Randy. What use would it be to punch him out? What use would it be in trying and failing? There was something else I wanted from him anyway. I wanted his ability to talk and say nothing in particular and feel good about it. I couldn’t get it, because I couldn’t even try. I just didn’t want to talk. At night, I started walking, because I couldn’t see the use in staying inside when I could still move. My legs would knot up, and everything moved faster than me or would have had it been moving at all. Nothing was there, really. Everything had moved on or turned off in a garage or driveway somewhere. I wish I felt a place like that where it seemed right and easy to turn off and still exist, ready for tomorrow. A nice car sits quiet waiting for tomorrow’s purposes. I was always turning, and when I felt like blacking out, I walked. My room would give me a strange vibe. I couldn’t take not being able to stay awake in my room. I heard my mother’s hum all the time up there, and I couldn’t stay awake. Once, I slept on the field late after all the soccer players had gone home. I just leaned against the fence thinking about what my mother would say and having the freedom not to hear any of it. It was the best sleep I had in a long time, but it didn’t last. I knew I should get home before my mother combed the neighborhood for me. She was like that. I watched television the rest of the night or tried to. Nothing much interested me. The new clothes I bought were hanging up, and I stopped styling my hair. The color faded over time, and all that seemed different was that I couldn’t think straight when I was alone. The room was still empty. I hadn’t bought any posters or anything. I didn’t want to anymore. I was starting to burn out. It felt like a long bad dream, not just the past months, but the whole life, the sum of all those half explained metaphors and weird senses I never got understood. All those things I carried and dropped were still striving for meaning on some intermediary plain that didn’t affect my appearance or my deeper thought. It controlled breath when I watched the soccer ball fly, it waved the hold of water in my eyes, and I figured I was just tired, looking for an excuse to crack. Maybe some of me had wished I were a good person, the type that couldn’t hurt anyone, the kind that knew better, and the kind that had an actual heart. Deep down, I know that was the reason I thought I was entitled. The sex was an afterthought. The feel was always there, and I let drop. I didn’t have the guts to hold it. I didn’t have the guts to write the truth, and I still don’t have the guts to write her name and say what is miserably true. And if it isn’t obvious as to why I walked those nights or why I never played soccer again, then I’ll just say that I lost interest. I always do. And there was this idea of changing my life still kicking around. Do I give that up, too? I was pretty much set on giving up, but if I did that, there was no reason I couldn’t beat the ever-loving shit out of Randy Ruth. *** That day, I lifted light. I changed into my farewell clothes, dark pants and T-shirt with a big company logo. I wore twenty-dollar sunglasses and gelled my hair up. It was the goodbye event of the whole dying summer. I waited out by the parking lot, and over the hill I saw Jeff with his flask. He offered me a sip. “She’s going out with a new guy, now,” he said. “I’m sorry,” I told him taking a drinking. “I’m sure it’ll work out.” “No,” he said. “It won’t.” “That’s all right,” I said. “Do you want to go down to the field and watch her play a little? You can pretend you’re talking to me.” “Sure,” he said. “Thanks.” “Don’t thank me,” I said. “You’re the one who brought the booze.” “It’s Jim Beam,” he said. “Learn the name and the taste. You have to know these things if you’re going to be running with that new crowd of yours.” “What?” I asked.
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