Love and Fatigue in America: The Fall (An Excerpt)

So, one day a man walks into a gym.

Tuesday April 23rd, in fact. Nineteen ninety-one.
An Englishman.
The Sta-Fit gym, Spokane, Washington, USA.
Eight p.m.

He’s doing OK. Well, there was that bout of flu two weeks ago, but he’s over that. That’s why he’s here tonight. To get back into shape.

And he didn’t let the flu slow him down. No, he finished writing that book in the midst of it, riding the fever for its intensity. Met the deadline. Prepared the classes for his new job too. Bravo!

Sure, the girlfriend, the painter, dirty blonde, has gone, back to New York, feeling neglected, couldn’t be helped, leaving behind this joint membership of the gym. But she might come back, and if she doesn’t, well, there will be space for a new woman in his new American life.

No time for heartbreak.

His gym clothes are on the drab side compared to the other two in the weight circuit room: black swim shorts, tennis shoes held over from London. He hasn’t yet picked up the American custom of shopping for new costumes to match each new activity. The other two have. The male has one of those skinny weight-lifting vests over a tee-shirt, and a broad weight-lifter’s belt. The female’s got shiny purple Spandex that makes her bottom sleek as a seal. They are the only three in the room, and no smile or greeting has been exchanged, creating that special gym tension of mutually denied awareness. They share the rock music.

He’s the oldest, early forties, and the least fit. The other two are around thirty, her with a pony tail and attitude, and him with I-don’t-need-anyone stoniness.  So, our man is doing his circuit, the leg raises, then the shoulder pulls. He’s surprised at how much the flu took out of him, that he’s having to notch the weights way down from where he was a month ago. But he does not let the others see he’s struggling, keeps cool. He’s a little impatient with his muscles tonight for their laziness, and determines to push them harder, as if they are not quite him. There was that thing he heard once, that you have to tear your muscles to build them.

He moves on to the next station on the circuit, the simple step. Up down, up down, to get the heartbeat and the breathing going, a sort of respite between the hard stuff. But he’s finding it a strain, the heartbeat is not playing the game. Gives it another kick. Then he’s stopping, standing, shaking his head as if to clear it. Now shaking his whole body as if to clear that too, like a boxer. Sort of acceptable gym behaviour. Trouble is, his eyesight is breaking up and a wave of wooziness is travelling up through him. The scene, the chromed machines, the teal walls with pink trim - the decade’s favoured colours for airports and hospitals - has gone kaleidoscopic, shot through with shifting jags of light. Shaking isn’t helping.

He hangs his head, as if in thought, and makes his way slowly to where the wall last was, and finds it. Slides his back down to the floor, adopts a slightly rueful gym-appropriate grimace and gives a keen glance towards the others, whom he can no longer actually see. A dizzy spell. Stupid to overdo it the first time out after flu. He knows that now. He’ll wait it out, like a planned interlude between - what do the gym people call them? - yes, reps.

Funny how the sitting down doesn’t end the going down. It’s like gravity does not know where to stop, and its giant hand is continuing to push on his shoulders, insisting he go right through the floor, or failing that, be flattened on it, like paint. Can’t do that; it would look bad. Might attract attention. He concentrates on the countervailing force offered by friction, back pressed against the wall, feet pulled up and flat on the carpet. He stares out with unseeing eyes - they are busy playing their own games of light and dark - a hint of a smile on his lips.

The weight feels enormous, too much for his muscles, which have themselves turned into dead weight. After receiving an urgent petition from the neck, he lets his head drop. His heart has gone deep. It’s beating down there, but so slowly. Nothing to do but wait, he tells himself.

He’s been dizzy before. There was that time in the parched bush of northern Nigeria. It was malaria and dehydration then, and three days unconscious as far as he could find out later. This is nothing like that. He’s surrounded by teal, pink and shining chrome. In Spokane, America. The other two are still clanking their machines. That’s good.

Ah, it’s quiet. He must be alone now. When did that happen? It is, perhaps, closing time. He wants to be flat on his bed. He does not want to be discovered sitting here by the snotty young receptionist who has never once greeted him, compact as a battery in her official black shorts. She’d just be annoyed at the trouble; she’s that sort. Well, his sight is recomposing. Welcome back. There it is, the empty gym, with just a few bolts of white light shooting through it. OK, this is it. He braces against the wall, pushes up with his arms, pushes back with his feet. He’s rising. He’s pushing, and gravity is pushing back: tough battle. But, he’s up. Still leaning, but up. Shaking a bit. Keeps the head down.  Why fight it more than you have to? It’s pretty high up there. A good distance down to the carpet. The carpet wants him; he knows that.

Who knew standing was such a trick? The madness of it! Those feet; he’ll never be able to balance on them. The body, you see, by nature wants to topple this way and that. It’s not stable. So you have all these pulleys and pivots to check and balance it. He hadn’t realised until now what a complicated job it is. The muscles used to carry the burden without complaint. Now they are the burden. But, here he goes. He’s moving. Pretty comic, the way he’s swinging his legs instead of lifting them. And so slow. He just needs to make it to his pick-up parked outside the door. Only a mile to drive to bed.

Oh look, he’s trying to be normal while he passes the nifty receptionist, who isn’t looking at him. He’s even saying something. What was that sound, and from where did it issue? Somewhere far away. But now she’s looking up, following his unnatural progress towards the door. What exactly is that expression on her face? Not quite annoyance, not quite astonishment, more…fear.

To himself he says: a good night’s rest and I’ll be right tomorrow. Overdid it, damned old fool.