Free Signs of Struggle by John Carenen Page B

on the balls of his feet, moving like an amiable bear on street speed. I put up my hands as he approached.
     
    “You look friendly,” I said. He laughed a peculiar, high-pitched giggle that immediately put me at ease. Most people that big and strong are docile, like bullmastiff dogs, understanding their strength. Good thing.
     
    “Mike Mulehoff,” he said, peeling off his right glove and offering a handshake. The grip was not for the faint of heart.
     
    “Thomas O’Shea."
     
    He looked me over. “Bodybuilder?”
     
    “No. I just work out to delay decay.”
     
    Mulehoff smiled, revealing a gap between his top front teeth. I nodded at the bench in the middle of the room. “I couldn’t do one rep with four-o-five.”
     
    “You could if you worked out here. I guarantee it.”
     
    “You sound like an entrepreneur.”
     
    “Naaa, I’m Scandinavian,” he deadpanned, “and trying to make a couple of bucks on the side to supplement my meager teacher’s income.”
     
    “What do you teach?”
     
    “History, Dubuque Senior High School. Down the river a ways. Know it?”
     
    “Used to,” I said, “a long time ago when I attended Clinton High and used to bang heads with the Rams in the old Mississippi Valley Conference. Nice campus.”
     
    “That it is. I like it there. Good kids.”
     
    “Nice gym,” I said. In addition to the weights and machines, the place offered a complete array of treadmills, recumbent bikes, and elliptical trainers. “No tanning booths? No Day Care?”
     
    “I’ll add them in when membership hits two thousand.”
     
    “May you never reach that number.”
     
    “That’s the way I feel, too. You want to give us a try? A free week and a t-shirt if you buy a monthly membership. You ought to consider us. Unlimited workouts. If you want music, bring your own iPod and keep it to yourself. No television sets. Tell you what, if you can bench two hundred pounds once with a three-second pause, I’ll give you a free month. If you can push the poundage, you can’t lose.”
     
    “Thanks, but I plan on buying my own equipment.”
     
    Mulehoff shrugged, then assessed me. “You don’t look familiar. You live around here?”
     
    “I’m new in town, and I live south and east of here, on a bluff. House that Gunther Schmidt built a few months back.”
     
    “Oh, so you’re that guy! Okay, now I understand,” he said softly, nodding his head slowly. “So, welcome to the Greater Rockbluff Metroplex, future sight of the Winter Olympic Games.”
     
    I smiled and nodded and started for the door. Mike’s voice interrupted my flight.
     
    “It’s okay to work out by yourself, but you might do better here. Scripture says ‘iron sharpens iron.’ If you can bench two hundred with that short pause, you can save money and still have people to work out with, or not. No one will bother you if you choose to work out solo.”
     
    I went back. “I guess I have nothing to lose. Do I have to sign a waiver in case I blow out my shoulders? They’re creaky.”
     
    “I think I can trust you not to sue.”
     
    Already in t-shirt and jeans, I walked over to an empty bench, set an Olympic bar on the rack, and slid a pair of forty-five pound plates on my end of the bar as Mulehoff did the same on the other end. I sat on the bench and swung my arms across my chest a few times to loosen up.
     
    “That’s two twenty-five, you know. You only have to do two hundred.”
     
    “If I’m going to win a free month, I want to remove all doubt,” I said.
     
    Mulehoff grinned. “I’ll spot you.” He moved to the head of the bench.
     
    I laid back and scooted up. Then I reached up to the bar, gripped the cold, gnarled metal at shoulder width, popped the bar off the supports, steadied it, then slowly brought it down to my chest and held it there.
     
    “One thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three. PUSH!” Mulehoff shouted.
     
    I pushed. The bar went up smoothly and I racked the