Gym Rats
by Stephen J. Lyons
Muscle bros flexing their barbed-wire tattoos circle each other like sumo wrestlers itching for a throw-down. Ear buds in place, they strain and grunt to the hearing-loss beats of gangster rap and conservative podcasts. They pose in front of mirrors.
They drink multi-colored concoctions of steroids purchased on the dark web from a former Eastern Bloc nation’s stockpile. They do not wipe down the sweaty, petri-dished weight machines when finished. Nor do they remove the 45-pound weights from the lift bars. They drive Teslas to stick it to the libs. They do not want to talk to me.
They groan as they lift, sounding like a woman in the throes of a difficult labor. I want to joke around with them and ask, “Hey, are you OK? but I don’t want to get punched in the face and have to replace my $800 glasses. Or my teeth. At my advanced age I need both, at least for a bit longer.
Meanwhile, I’m silently sweating away at 100 heartbeats a minute on the elliptical reading a novel by a Moroccan woman with (gasp!) an Islamic name. I assure you that I am the only one who brings a physical piece of writing to the gym. The owner once said to me, “You know, you are confusing people by bringing books in here.” I think he was kidding, but I wasn’t sure. One day, as I was on a bathroom break, someone turned the book I was reading upside down. What was the message? Literacy is bad? Printed words are woke? Why read when you can learn all you need to know from Steve Bannon’s War Room?
In response, I’ve taken to removing the jacket covers from my books. I mean, these dudes are too easily triggered by multi-syllabic words and books by foreign writers. I am not here to offend. (See earlier references to teeth and glasses.) Still, I occasionally will wear my Team Morocco soccer T-shirt, the one with Arabic script on the front. I really have no idea what it says. Perhaps it reads, “Make Morocco great again” Or, “Death to all non-believers!”
Am I being too harsh on my gym mates? Too judgmental? Too prone to stereotypical labeling? Naw. The “we’re-all-in-this-together” idea of reaching across political lines to reach some kind of kumbaya middle ground went out around the time Newt Gingrich was married to his first wife. This mass of muscle men are not out to achieve consensus, only complete dominance and scorched-earth annihilation, the kind that inflames their passions as they play the latest version of “Call of Duty.”
Are they armed? No doubt. One winter day as I was hanging up my coat (a Carhartt, that I unsuccessfully wear for rural cred), I spotted an open jacket pocket. It was brimming with bullets. Extra ammo!? What was the fellow expecting? That he would empty the clip on his concealed .357, then reload? Perhaps he was the one wearing the T-shirt that read, “My Second Amendment Rights Don’t Care About Your Feelings.”
In my younger days, I signed on with a city maintenance crew that repaired broken water and sewer lines. I received $4.11 an hour for my labors, paid out monthly. It was match made in Hell. Once again, I brought reading materials for lunch breaks, magazines like Harper’s and Atlantic Monthly. In contrast, scattered on the break-room tables were non-reading publications with sticky pages: Hustler and Penthouse. The bathroom stalls were often occupied for whatever time it took to, well, let’s just say, to rope the mule. Lovely work environment, eh?
Yet, the experience had a silver lining. These mule ropers convinced me that it was time to head back to college ASAP to finish that degree so that I would not have to spend the rest of my life around guys that preferred spread shots to spread sheets.
But now, decades later, they have returned—to my gym! Using my restroom for who knows what!—and they are more powerful than ever. They sit atop our nation’s political pyramid. Bro-Men are in; “radical left libtards” that read more than creatine dosage instructions are out.
The situation is dismal. Just where do I fit in to this new world order of puffed-up pecs and veiny vanities? Fortunately, there are a few like-minded folks at the gym. Like members of a secret club we talk in whispers Can you believe what Trump just did?! When the pec posers approach we fall silent and switch our conversation to sports. We signal each other with a subtle nod or a thumb pointed downwards. Yet, I know we are an endangered species of unarmed leftist losers. We lost the war of truth and literacy, of historical context and reason. We’ve been muscled out, but at least I still have my dignity. And my glasses and teeth.
Stephen J. Lyons’ Substack is “The Revolution Starts Here.”