Word: gyms
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...edges of the crowd--for 500 have come to watch--bodybuilders no longer teenage stand, moving in and out of the 90-degree sun and the dark, cooler, canvas covered hall. They all weat T-shirts bearing the name of their gym; they all wear their hair medium-length and lacquered; they all wear disinterested expressions or slight scowls; and they don't talk much to each other, or the short, breasty women beside them...
...than this, but then, the kid really has been working hard. The mothers, by now all masters of high protein cooking, worry; they don't quite believe their sons that it won't all turn to flab someday; and they don't much like the other boys from the gym. The high school buddies are a little jealous, maybe, all of them thinking for a minute that they might want to give this a try, planning out what nights of the week they could lift, how much it would cost. Who knows what the girlfriends are thinking...
...only. It's near Rte. 128, and the very smallest computer firms start out here, in the brick office parks put up in the 50s. When they leave, different businesses move in to the treeless complexes. One parking lot has a dance studio, a musical instrument store, and a gym...
...gym seems to be crowded most of the day and well into the evening. It's got rubber mats on the floor, the kind they put out at skating rinks to keep blades from scratching the linoleum, but here they serve to keep barbells from crashing through the floor. Inside, everything is sweaty, and but for the air-conditioning it would be sweatier still. I knew Bob in grade school, said "hi" when we passed in the hall in high school. He was a funny, pleasant guy, not really smart, thin and wiry, not big enough for most sports...
...needs the grace required for his posing, the stamina to hold the painful, blood-pumping poses for seconds that stretch and stretch. So he doesn't miss workouts, not ever, though it means spending less time with his family and his girl. And when he's at the gym, he sneers a little inside at those who gossip and horse around when they could be doing flys and bench presses and straight leg raises and squats. By the time he's done, he has to drive home in the right hand lane, at ten miles an hour...