The guy I want to become is a guy I've never met, but I see him at the gym almost every day. He's in his mid to late sixties. He carries a newspaper with him while he works out and he pauses between sets on the weight machines to read from it. He's short and built like a wrestler—in pretty great shape for his years—and he walks kind of hunched, like he's walking into a very strong wind. He always wears a baseball cap and his skin suggests he works outside. He's got hair in places he shouldn't. And no hair in places he should. But his thick white mustache fucking belongs right where it is.

Aside from the way he looks, everything else I know about him is a product of my imagination: He's smart, but he doesn't talk unless he has something to say. His humor is understated, like his strength. He loves the people in his life to the point that it hurts.

Outside the gym, we are strangers. Except for that one time when we found ourselves standing next to each other in line at the Shop Rite. He was buying a frozen dinner. I probably was buying ingredients to make a smoothie. Or getting a fresh bag of rawhides for Honey. We were both still in our gym clothes. Familiar looking people outside the normal setting. There was this brief moment of recognition on our faces. Like, Hey I know you. We nodded at one another. In my nod, I said something like, I think I am like you. He said, Be careful what you wish for.

I don't need to know him. I'm pretty sure I don't want to. The way he is in my head is the way I want him to stay. He is alone, but not lonely. He understands that his life is about performance and playing the role of the person he wants to be. And he can become it by living each day like he believes it. Not believing it is not believing anything. And not believing anything is dying. And he came close to that once, and he's never going to do that again.

And I think he probably comes to the gym because he needs to get out of his head. In his life, there are these days he can't escape. Some of them are good. They are so good they make his heart burst. And some of them are bad. They are so bad—they make his heart burst. But none of them are forgettable. And remembering them is what makes his life good. And remembering them is what makes his life unbearable. And so he comes here, day after day, and he reads the paper, and he lifts these weights, and he walks against a strong wind, and he fights his mortality. Because he still can. And if he believes in anything, he believes in the pain, because it makes him feel alive. And he wonders how many more of these days there will be. How many more weights he'll find himself under. How many more papers he'll bring with him.

I spoke to you about this the other night. And you said you liked my weight on you, even as you pushed against it. My hand, hard set against your cheek. Fingers touching your hair, wet with sweat. My thumb penetrating your lips. Your head back, your mouth opened to me. I said, I am like you. You said, Be careful what you wish for.

Category: InBetween