The Strongman

1
68-Pound Weakling

My locker stunk. It was the smell of a forgotten ham sandwich, sweat socks, and a particularly pungent fart. Still, I disciplined myself to wait until I’d counted to one hundred, like Mikey had warned me to. I heard the class bell ring, but no one suddenly appeared to let me out of my locker.

Ninety-nine. One hundred. I was just thankful she hadn’t told me to count any higher. I took hold of the string with a magnet attaching it to the inside of the locker door and gently pulled through the vent. The latch caught and I thought I’d still have to pound on the door to get someone to let me out, but then it popped up and released. The door swung open and I could breathe the fresh air of the school hall.

Fresher than the inside of my locker, anyway.

I was going to crush the guys who shoved me in my locker. Except they’d crush me before I even got hold of them. Stupid dumb jocks. My sister, Mikey, had foreseen something like that happening. She’d warned me. Before school ever started, she’d fixed the emergency release on my locker. As long as they didn’t padlock it, I could pull the string through the vent and it would trip the latch.

Not that it’s changed at all, but I wasn’t a particularly brilliant kid. Not stupid, but just a little slow. My sister was the smart one. A year younger, she was already in seventh grade with me, and three inches taller. She had her whole life planned out and she was only eleven.

It didn’t help that I was not only a little slow, I was a shrimp. Four-five and sixty-eight pounds. A sixty-eight-pound weakling. I thought that was funny. Dad said I’d continue to grow, but I doubted it. I seemed to have stalled in the past year. Maybe I’d grow a little someday.

I might have some kind of learning disability. Mom and Dad didn’t want to get me tested because the stigma of being a special ed kid sticks with you forever. And I wasn’t that bad—just slower. I had trouble paying attention and keeping up in class. I still have that problem sometimes, like keeping things in order when I’m telling about them. Mikey says my brain is just a wired differently.

Like this whole story about getting shoved into my locker in seventh grade happened a long time ago. But every time I walk into a gym, the smell reminds me of it and I automatically look around to see if those jerks are going to attack me again. Not that they’d get very far shoving me into a locker anymore. I’d like to see them try. I still had fantasies of stuffing one of the musclebound assholes into his own locker.

Of course, there were no threats to me in the locker room anymore. Especially not here at the gymnasium. I just always thought about it.

You might have heard of me if you follow sports. I’m an elite gymnast. And I have to say, I’ve got good prospects. They might not be what I thought they would be, but they’re still good. I have a few surprises cooked up for my next competition.

I know that doesn’t sound like where I started. That Paul was the Paul I used to be.

My family wasn’t poor or stupid. Just me. Dad was a campus engineer at the University. Mom was Human Resources Director at a big manufacturer down in Bloomington that made outdoor equipment for home and sports. Like golf carts and lawn mowers. We lived in a nice house that overlooked the lake near Uptown.

My parents suggested several times that I invite friends over. They were sure just having a lakeside house and game equipment and a home theatre would attract people. Yeah, Mikey’s friends. Not mine. I didn’t have any. And I didn’t much care. My classmates were even stupider than I was. What was I going to do? Invite the dumb jocks who stuffed me in a locker over so they could beat my ass at Xbox?

Mikey is my sister Michelle. She didn’t really have that many friends, either, I guess. She was younger than all the girls in our class and smarter than all the girls her own age. She just came home and studied after school. And sometimes helped me with my studies. She had her life all pretty-well planned out. Knew what she was going to study in college and where and how soon.

She’s also my best friend. She’s the one who started me on the path to change.

“What are you going to do, Paul?” Mikey asked me after the locker incident. It was looking like seventh grade was going to be a long year… or two.

“I don’t know. Wait in a dark alley after school and club ’em with a baseball bat?”

“Good grief! A baseball bat would just bounce off them, hit you in the head, and leave you with no memory of who beat you up.”

“You have a way with words,” I snorted. She laughed at me. I didn’t mind that because Mikey laughing at me wasn’t mean. She just had a way of seeing the humor in about any situation.

“Why don’t you change?”

“What? Presto-change-o; I’m a football hero. Oops! That didn’t work. Abra-cadabra; I’m an honor roll student. Damn! That didn’t work either. If I went out for a sport, I’d spend practice locked in a stinking gym locker. And nothing on God’s green earth is going to make me smarter or better looking or interesting to any girls.”

“You’re not that bad looking. The girls in our class are all too hung up on how they look to be concerned about how you look. They can’t see beyond their own budding breasts.”

“Neither can I,” I groused.

I’d started noticing girls, but none would even waste her time talking to me. I wasn’t that rich. It’s funny. Even now, girls kind of shrink away when I talk to them. I try not to be scary. Tough luck.

I didn’t need to worry about that with Mikey. She was a year younger than me and a year behind the budding breasts in our class. Besides, she was my sister. I was just thankful she helped me pass my tests. Barely, but I passed.

“Why not get stronger? That’s something you can control. There’s no medical reason for you to be a wimp.”

Good old Mikey. She didn’t mince any words. Not when she was talking to me. I could always depend on her to point out how stupid or wimpy I was.

“How am I supposed to do that?”

If I went out for a sport at school, I’d be dead before I could get strong. Besides, sports didn’t really interest me.

“You could start lifting weights,” Mikey suggested. “Dad has an old set in the garage. You could do that and no one would ever know.”

“I thought the idea was that people would know.” Sometimes my sister was too complex for me to follow.

“You want them to see the result, not the work it takes to get that result,” Mikey said. “Remember the old saying, never let them see you sweat.”

“I thought that was about fear.”

“What’s the difference? You’ve got a computer. Look up what exercises you should do and what you should eat to gain muscle. You don’t need to be a rocket surgeon to follow the instructions on YouTube.”

I guess what she said made sense to my underdeveloped brain. I went to the garage after school the next day and found my dad’s old set of weights. What the heck? I might as well start lifting them. Then I’d shove a couple of jocks in their lockers and see if they could find a way out.

I know this is out of order and all if you’re trying to make this into a sensible narrative, but it reminded me of the first time I walked into the high school gym my junior year—after the change. I walked over to where the team was meeting and sat down with them. They all kind of edged away from me.

“Ladies, I’d like you to meet Paul Bradley. He’s joining our squad this year,” Mrs. Cook announced.

The girls all stared at me with big eyes and open mouths.

“Did he, like, even try out?” one asked. Funny. I didn’t know any of their names.

“No,” Mrs. Cook said. “I selected him.”

I kind of thought she was just inviting the cheerleaders to object. One—a little girl I couldn’t believe was in high school—stood up and came to stand in front of me. I don’t think she was quite four-and-a-half feet tall. Well, I was still only a foot taller than I was at twelve.

“Lift me,” she demanded. Like a toddler with her arms outstretched.

“How?” I asked.

“By the waist, straight up over your head, then hold me there.”

“Okay.”

She turned away from me and I stood up and put my hands on her waist. It was tiny. She bounced once and then I lifted her straight up. Her legs were kind of dangling in my face, but I just held her there as she spread them until she was in the splits over my head.

“Put me down now,” she said. I lowered her to the floor and she turned to face me. She held out her hand. “I’m Penny Layne. I’m a flyer and you just became my base,” she said as I shook her hand.

“Pleased to meet you, Penny. I won’t let you down.”

“At least not until I ask,” she giggled. We sat down and Mrs. Cook started explaining what we’d be doing to compete in cheer. I hadn’t known cheerleading was a competitive sport until my gymnastics coach had introduced me to Mrs. Cook. I always thought they just jumped up and down at ballgames with their boobs bouncing, and slept with jocks. I was about to find out very different.

Like, all the beautiful cheerleaders I imagined in my fantasies were sitting right there and I was stuck partnering with a little girl.

Yeah, I’ll go back and pick up where I left off. Or near then if I think of it. But I have to warn you that if you’re expecting me to suddenly have a girlfriend and get to the sex part of my story right away, you’re shit out of luck. Because I sure was.

It’s not that I didn’t like girls. I really did. I thought about them all the time. The pile of stiff socks in my laundry hamper was ample evidence of that. But at seventeen, I’d still never had a girlfriend, or even been on a date. And that wasn’t likely to change in the near future. I’d been too busy, really, to be concerned about it. And I was still a bit backward. I’d grown physically, but my emotional maturity was still a zero. Mikey was sixteen and had a date every weekend. She’d graduate in the spring and be off to college. Those poor college guys were in for a rough time if they got involved with her. I was sure she’d take the university by storm next fall. I’d be a senior in high school and my year-younger sister would be a freshman in college. How ironic.

Anyway, what Mikey told me back when I was twelve sort-of made sense. I went to the garage after school and found my dad’s old set of weights. I had to unload the plastic storage bin one weight at a time before I could move the bin to where I could easily get to them. I wasn’t sure I’d ever need more than the two-pound dumbbells I took out of the bin, but what the heck? I might as well start lifting them. Then, one day, I’d shove a couple of jocks in their lockers and see if they could find a way out. Yeah. I guess I said that before.

After about two weeks, I noticed the weights didn’t feel quite so impossibly heavy. I actually managed ten reps instead of five dumbbell curls and presses.

Dad surprised me by getting home early one night while I was doing my little routine. The whole thing took me about fifteen minutes.

“What’s up, son? You’ve never been interested in weights before.”

“Damn stupid jocks,” I muttered. Then I was dumb enough to tell him about the locker incident and Mikey’s advice. “One day, I’ll be strong enough to shove ’em in their own lockers. See how they like that. Maybe I’ll even get a girlfriend.”

“That’s a kind of vengeance. Can’t say I blame you for wanting to build up your strength, though I hope you never have to fight them, and that you don’t turn into a bully yourself. There’s more to life than the physical. Being strong carries a responsibility to help and protect the weak. It’s that way throughout the entire animal kingdom. The strong care for the pack, the herd, the flock. Whatever. Real strength is inside you—in the kind of person you are.”

He reached in the box and pulled out a twenty-pound dumbbell and joined me in curls. Talk about making me feel weak and puny. I figured my dad could have pulled any weight he wanted out of the box and casually started curling it. He worked outdoors at the campus most of the time and he was really strong.

“I’ll tell you from experience, just lifting isn’t going to do you much good unless you get on a program and get some guidance. Besides, that makes it more fun. Is that what you want to do?”

“Not really,” I said. “I don’t like the gym teacher yelling at me all the time. I’d rather work alone.”

“Hmm. I understand that. There are other kinds of activities that could build your body and get you active without an annoying guy with a whistle,” he said.

“Like what?”

“Well, there’s skating. I don’t mean rollerblades around the lake, though that’s a good activity. I was thinking of figure skating. Building up your body to do jumps and spins. Or Karate. Martial arts have a good focus on building your body and inner discipline. Gymnastics. Did you see the guys at the Olympics in gymnastics? Man, are they strong. And, of course, there’s bodybuilding with a good coach who will coach you through it and not scream at you.”

“Where would I get any of that?”

“Hmm. I don’t have all the answers. Why don’t you do some investigating and see what you find? I know there’s a skating rink downtown. A martial arts dojo up on Hennepin. Oh, the other direction on Hennepin, there’s a gymnastics and tumbling center. It’s probably the closest thing to us here. Check them out and if you see something that interests you, let me know. We’ll see if we can get you in.”

Dad was like that. He’d make suggestions, but if I didn’t follow through on them, it was my tough luck. My arms were going to burn like hell tomorrow because I kept curling the whole time he was talking. I put the dumbbells away and went to my room to look up the places online.

I hadn’t really paid much attention to the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. I was only ten at the time and they seemed like a world away. But weightlifting, figure skating, martial arts, and gymnastics were all Olympic sports, though not all in the summer. I settled in and watched a bunch of events online. They each had something going for them.

The weightlifters looked so musclebound they couldn’t bend over to tie their shoelaces. I wanted to be strong and muscular, but I didn’t want muscles piled up on top of other muscles until the only thing I could do was lift weights.

Figure skating was cool and the jumps and spins looked great. I could just imagine, though, that if anyone found out I was figure skating, they’d think I was gay. That’s what I thought. It was a really girly sport, even though they were obviously strong. So were the girls. I didn’t need to give anybody new ideas for harassing me.

Martial arts. Wow! I could just imagine myself twisting a little and throwing a 250-pound football linebacker over my shoulder. As I watched, though, I realized that in order to get to that level, I was going to get punished. A lot. I was already getting beaten up. I didn’t think my best bet would be to invite more of it.

Finally, I got to the gymnastics events. Some cute girls, basically dancing on a beam or doing somersaults on a mat. Nice butts that were just about fully exposed. But the guys. Wow! I’d never seen such self-control. Their bodies were sculpted. They stretched and pulled. The gymnasts could hold their bodies in any position and then just press to a different position. Impossible positions.

I stupidly tried to do a handstand in my room and fell flat on my back.

“You okay?” Mikey asked from my doorway. “Sounded like you just crash-landed.”

“Good way to put it,” I mumbled, picking myself up off the floor.

“Oh, God! That guy is gorgeous!” she said looking at my monitor. I didn’t think my sister was all that interested in guys, but if that was her opinion of a gymnast, it was worth considering. I did want to attract a girl someday.

I know you probably think this is going to lead up to me and my sister getting it on. Yuck! I love my sister. She’s cute. But sex with her? No. Just yuck! There are a couple of girls she hangs out with I’d like to see more of. Much more of. Like completely naked. Oh, geez, yes.

Even when I was lifting up Penny Layne my first week of cheerleading and her legs were dangling in my face, I wasn’t particularly turned on by her. I mean, sure, she’s athletic, but she’s really skinny. I’m sure if I’d been holding Georgia Nichols like that it would have been different. Georgia was in my class until a year previously when I extended my term in tenth grade. Now she’d graduate a year ahead of me. Georgia had boobs. And a butt that looks so soft and round. I sometimes imagined lifting her up like that, only she’s naked and I look up at her as she does the splits. That’s enough to get me hard in an instant.

Not that I’d ever actually seen that view. Except in porn. I don’t know why they keep cluttering up perfectly good porn with overendowed guys’ dicks. They really spoil the view. But Georgia. I can just imagine taking her clothes off. I know she wears a pretty sturdy sports bra when she’s cheering—all the girls do—but I’d dearly love to see those beauties unleashed.

Of course, Georgia had a boyfriend, and it just so happened that he’s one of the football players who once shoved me in my locker. Still, taking Georgia away from her boyfriend would be just as good as shoving him in a locker.

A couple of days after my conversation with Dad—yeah, we’re back to when I was twelve—I stopped by the Hennepin Gymnastics and Tumbling Center, a few blocks from my home.

“Hi. Welcome to the Hennepin Gym,” a guy said when he spotted me standing inside the door looking. People were all over the gym working with several coaches. Mostly girls, but there was a guy on the pommel horse doing a routine while a coach watched him and called instructions. “Interested in learning gymnastics?”

“Like… um… How old do you have to be before you can do that kind of stuff?” I asked, pointing at the guy on the horse. He was bald, but I wasn’t sure that was an indication of age. He might just shave his head. He was sure built strong.

“Eric is twenty-nine,” he answered. “I’m Coach Dawson, by the way. I’m forty-seven. We’ve got guys in here as young as six, learning basic tumbling. When you’re devoted to a sport like Eric is, you continue to grow and progress for a long time. He could do a routine like he’s doing now when he was fourteen. He does it a lot better and more confidently now.”

“I’m Paul. Twelve. Do you think I could learn to do that?”

Coach Dawson surprised me by tossing a bean bag thing at me. I caught it and it gave off a big puff of dust. I tossed it back and got ready to catch it again if he threw it.

“That’s chalk. Good reflexes. That’s one key,” Coach said. “How strong are you?”

“Not very. I’ve been lifting weights lately. Trying to get built up some.”

“Weights can be helpful, but remember, there is one weight you carry with you all the time, and which you have to support through every gymnastic exercise. That’s your body. Push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups, step-ups. They’ll not only build your body; they’ll build the muscles you need to be a gymnast.”

“I didn’t even think of that,” I said.

“If you’re trying to do it all on your own, you’re unlikely to think of things like that.”

“I looked at bodybuilding and weightlifting as a possible way to grow, but the guys all looked musclebound—like they wouldn’t be able to tie their own shoes.”

“You don’t know how true that is. We call it hypertrophy and gymnasts have to train carefully to avoid it. There are two more components that we emphasize: flexibility and endurance. When you work in a program here, you will have balanced training in five areas: balance, reflexes, strength, flexibility, and endurance.”

“I just want to grow big enough and strong enough to not be picked on at school all the time.”

“There’s never a guarantee of that,” Coach sighed. “I truly wish there was. We don’t teach self-defense. But being healthy and strong will make you confident, and confidence is a good defense in itself. Anyone who sees you perform will respect you physically.”

“How do I get started?” I asked. I was ready to go try my hand at the pommel horse right now.

“We’ll need a parental authorization first. You know, I hate to mention it, but someone has to pay for training. We also need a doctor’s statement that there are no signs that you would be hurt by athletic training. Then we need to set up a program that is customized to your goals. How much are you willing to do? How hard are you willing to work? Those aren’t judgments I make for you. That’s a difference between Hennepin Gymnastics and a lot of other training programs around. There’s no pre-defined color of belts you earn like in martial arts. There are levels of expertise, but they indicate when you’ve gained a specific skill, not when you’ve beaten a certain person. I want to make you as good as you want to be. If you just want to be stronger and healthier, we can do that. If you want to compete in gymnastics, we can get you ready for that. If you want to compete in the Olympics, like Eric’s goal, we can get you ready for national and international competition. It’s really all up to you and how much you want to work.”

“I want it all,” I said. I reached out and touched his biceps. “I want this. And I want that,” I said, pointing at Eric, who had switched and was standing on his hands on the rings. Yeah. I wanted it all.

2
Working Out

Do you have any idea how much work it takes and how long it takes to change from being a sixty-eight-pound weakling to a strongman? I didn’t get ‘all that.’ I mean, not right away. I got results, though. I felt stronger and I even grew a few inches in height. I didn’t get winded walking to school—even in winter. Gymnastics was hard work. Coach Dawson was so encouraging and so gentle in his ways that he soon became my best friend.

At first, either Mom or Dad accompanied me to every workout. I get it. They’d sit in the bleachers and read a report or surf online. They were putting their tender young boy in the hands of men who coached him and worked with him and made him their friend. We’d all been given a class in internet safety and knew the signs of grooming. Better than most adults who panicked over having a gay teacher or letting kids read a book about transvestites. That’s not grooming, parents. That’s just education. It’s not like going to church.

But Coach wasn’t like that. He never touched me inappropriately or made any lewd suggestions. He worked the same way with both boys and girls, and there were always several coaches in the gym. I even got instruction from a couple of the women coaches.

I started going to the gym every day after school, once Mom and Dad had decided it was safe. It was what made my day worthwhile. I still had a thing about not going into locker rooms or showering at the gym. I went home for that. I trusted the coaches, but I wasn’t sure about some of the guys who worked out there. Or some of the girls. I think a couple of the girls could have stuffed me in a locker without much problem.

Almost everything I did in that first month or two was getting me strong enough to do other things. I used the apparatuses to build strength, but you sure couldn’t call anything I did a ‘routine.’ I supported myself on the parallel bars and did dips and leg raises. I hung from the rings and did pull-ups. I turned somersaults on the mats, and did jumping jacks. I did push-ups, v-ups—a kind of sit-up where you raise both your shoulders and your legs until you can touch your toes above your head—hanging leg-lifts on a high bar, and pegboard exercises. Those take a while to learn and actually be able to do them.

I didn’t lift weights anymore. Coach told me that lifting tended to create the hypertrophy we were trying to avoid. He wanted me to stay flexible, so we did stretching exercises every day. I also jumped, and did backward and forward rolls. I really missed the gym on days I had off.

Nothing was automatic. Just exercising wasn’t enough. I was still skinny, even though I’d put on a little weight. Coach said that was just replacing fat with muscle. When I asked Mom for healthier meals, she looked at me and told me to get in the car. She took me to the grocery store and made me select the food I thought we should eat, then she stood over me in the kitchen to teach me how to prepare it. Before long, I was pretty good at half a dozen different meals and I took my turn in the cooking rotation.

Mikey wasn’t as enthused about that. Oh, she liked my cooking, but if I was cooking a couple of nights a week, she had to cook a couple of nights a week, too. I traded helping her in the kitchen with her helping me with my homework.

Oh! And did I ever start sleeping well! I used to stay up late at night playing on my computer. Then I’d be half-asleep through my morning classes. But by the end of seventh grade, I was zonking out as soon as I got in bed. Half the time, I didn’t even masturbate! And I got up early enough to do my morning exercise routine before school.

I took a test at the gym, and according to Coach Dawson, I’d achieved a Level 4 Junior Olympic rating. I didn’t know what it meant exactly, but it sounded impressive.

I don’t know if I actually had more confidence in school, but it didn’t bother me as much anymore. I still barely scraped by with the lowest possible passing grades. I still avoided every athlete I could identify in the halls, and there was a fair share of tough guys on the route home after school. The only time I got beat up, though, was when I stepped between a bunch of guys and my sister with her friends.

The guys didn’t appreciate it. I got slugged in the stomach and punched in the nose. Oh, I fought back, but I don’t think I landed any lucky punches before the school security guy came rushing up and broke it up. My mom wasn’t happy and would have spent all afternoon yelling at the principal if I hadn’t been bleeding and she needed to take me to the hospital. I was out of school for a week with cotton stuffed up my nose, and then had a metal bridge guarding my nose for a month while it healed. That sure helped my popularity at school—dipshit with a broken nose.

I still went to the gym every day to work out, and I didn’t see that particular group of toughs around school again. I noticed that a couple of my sister’s friends got boyfriends to join them as they walked home, and I was always included in the group. Not on purpose, I don’t think. I was just going to the same place Mikey was. They could scarcely tell her brother to bug off. Besides, the girls I’d taken a beating for at least tolerated my presence now, even though they didn’t really talk to me.

“You know, I’m impressed with your work and dedication,” Coach Dawson said that summer. I was afraid he was going to tell me I was abusing my gym privilege by hanging around all the time. That wasn’t it. “I think you could become a real gymnast if you wanted to work that hard at it. Think about your goals and let’s arrange a meeting with your parents to talk it over.”

A real gymnast. I immediately had a vision of myself hanging from the rings in the Olympics and wearing a gold medal. I talked to Mom and Dad and invited Coach over to dinner one weekend before school started in August. I cooked so he’d know I was following the diet, too.

“We know Paul is in better condition and we’re all eating better,” Mom said as we sat at the table. “What do you mean when you say upping his training?”

“As is usual, we’ve spent a good year in basic physical training,” Coach said. “Paul is stronger and he’s grown some. What’s your weight and height now, Paul?”

“Five feet and a hundred even,” I said proudly. My voice chose that moment to split on me and go in two different directions.

“And you’re maturing,” Coach nodded.

“Are you going to be a soprano or a bass?” Mikey teased. Everybody laughed and I just shrugged it off.

“By upping his training, I mean shifting from the Junior Olympics track we’ve been on and starting seriously to build routines on the apparatuses as a Junior Elite. Paul, you have good flexibility and reasonable strength. Now we want to put it to work. There are Junior Elite competitions this fall I think you should participate in.”

“Please, Mom?” I asked.

“Frankly, I never thought you would be interested in anything beyond playing Fortnite,” Mom sighed. She looked at Dad and he nodded.

“It’s good to see you develop a healthy interest,” he said. “You know eighth grade is a critical year before high school and isn’t going to be easy. We don’t want you to shirk your studies.”

“That said, I guess it’s okay to work out a more advanced training program,” Mom said.

Mikey gave me a high five.

I got Mom to buy me a regular uniform with the gym logo on it. Coach made sure I got one that fit and for the very first time, I went into the locker room to get dressed for my training. I changed into my spandex tank top and stretch pants. I stood admiring myself in the mirror. I wasn’t just a skinny guy anymore. I was wiry. I liked that term. You could see my arms weren’t just sticks. I wasn’t built with huge muscles, but I was doing okay.

I headed out to the gym to start my warmups. Coach had given me a complete routine he wanted me to do every day before we started really working. I headed to my usual mat and started stretching.

With the beginning of the school year, there was an influx of new kids in the gym. A lot of elementary school kids started with the beginning of the school year. So, the majority of those in the gym were young. That went for both boys and girls. I guessed most of the girls were between eight and eleven years old. I understood there were special classes for pre-teen girls who were self-conscious about their bodies and only women were in the gym during their training time. Most of the teenage girls worked out then, too, or assisted with the younger ones. I was always gone by then.

There were a few boys in the eight to twelve range, but as they got older, there were fewer and fewer who continued. Even at that, most of the kids were better than I was at almost everything. Then there were a few guys I only usually saw when they were working out early in the morning before school. High school guys who kept pretty much to themselves. The rest of the guys were above high school level, anywhere from college to Eric’s age.

Anyway, I was stretching and warming up when I saw the group of four or five girls, younger than my sister, watching me and whispering. Then they outright laughed. Nice. Real nice, little bitches. I could see the ridge of bra straps through their leotards. Training bras for girls who had nothing to train.

“Hey, partner,” Coach said. “Come over to the desk with me for a minute.” He motioned me around behind the front desk of the gym and grabbed a pair of scissors. “You missed a tag on your new uniform.” He efficiently clipped off the tag and handed it to me. I sighed and tossed it in the trash. Then I looked at him and we both snorted. “Let’s get started on the parallel bars,” he said.

Oh, well. Why would I care about what a bunch of ten-year-old girls think? I went to work and actually managed a couple of the moves coach had me try. It was the first time I managed a swing up to a handstand. It was a short handstand, but I made it. I was proud my arms could hold my body upright like that.

“Hey, dude!” one of the guys coming into the locker room said. Four of the high school gymnasts—senior elite, I was told—had followed me in. I tensed, ready to defend myself if I had to. “Nice handstand on the p-bars today,” he continued. “You’re coming along.”

“Keep up the good work,” said another. “Andy is going to be a senior next year and then we’ll be looking for a replacement for him on the team.”

“I see you work out every day, man,” the one identified as Andy said. “That’s what this sport is all about. Keep working every day. You’ll get this.”

“Thanks, guys,” I said. They went on to their own lockers and for the first time in my life, I felt accepted.

I remember the first time I asked a girl on a date. I know, this is out of order again. I was fourteen and in ninth grade. It was damn near the last time I asked a girl out. I don’t think I heard anything in class all day because I was thinking about how to ask her out. It was the New Year, 2020, and I was determined that I was going to start remaking my image. I was nearly five-three now and I was pretty strong. I wasn’t going to be a wimpy little pissant. I caught up with Cathy at the end of the school day on Thursday.

“Um… Hi, Cathy.”

“Hi?”

“Um… Yeah… uh… Paul,” I said, pointing at myself. “From your English class.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“I was wondering… um… if… uh… you might like to go to the game… and uh… the dance after with me… um… tomorrow night? I’d… uh… walk you home afterward.”

Cathy looked like she was about to be attacked by a madman. I could see her shrinking in front of me. I looked around to see if we were about to be attacked and I guess that didn’t help.

“No!” she practically shouted. “I mean, I can’t. I can’t date until I’m sixteen. And I’m not. Even close. So, no. Bye, Paul. See you in English.”

She didn’t quite run, but I was pretty sure the direction she headed off in wasn’t toward her home.

Okay. Fine. I wasn’t fifteen yet, either. I didn’t think that made a difference when you were just going to an event at school and walking home together. And I sure didn’t think the first girl I ever asked out would just turn and run away from me.

I sniffed at my pits, but I couldn’t smell anything through my parka. One thing was sure. I wasn’t going to do that again. What the fuck? I didn’t know how to dance anyway.

I headed for the gym, and I might have worked out a little harder than I usually do. I was late getting home and getting dinner ready.

Eventually, like four years later when I was finally a senior and eighteen, I did ask a girl out and she accepted. Dana was cute and bubbly. I thought she’d be a lot of fun. And she was. We saw a movie and shared popcorn. We laughed as I walked her home and she took my arm to steady herself when she almost slipped on an early patch of ice.

We got to her house and I wasn’t quite sure what to do, but I figured starting by saying I had a good time would be all right.

“Thanks for going out tonight. I had a really good time.”

“Me, too. It was fun.”

“Would you… um… like to plan something for next weekend?”

“Oh. Well… I don’t think so. You’re a nice guy, Paul. I had fun. But I’m, like, not into you like that. Thanks for the nice evening.”

And then she darted into her house and closed the door. WTF? I tried to figure that one out all the way home. I put in a really intense day at the gym the next day.

Well, one thing was for sure: I was progressing in the gym. After my first rejection when I was fourteen, I’d started spending even more time working out. I could do some pretty good flips in both tuck and pike positions in my floor exercises. I’d even placed in a Junior Elite competition for my level. It was my first medal. I was getting a good feel for the pommel horse and was gaining confidence on the parallel bars. Coach Dawson introduced me to Coach Anders. Coach Anders was working on my rings and horizontal bar work. Those were the two aerial events and were the ones that required the most upper body strength. I hadn’t done more than the required vault yet, but that really felt like flying.

In case you didn’t pick it up, there are six apparatuses in men’s gymnastics: Floor, pommel horse, still rings, vault, parallel bars, and horizontal bar. Yes, the floor is an apparatus. It actually has springs under the floor and mat. You get a lot more bounce on that than if there was just a mat on the gym floor. That’s the big difference between cheer and gymnastics. Cheer doesn’t use a sprung floor. You only have the lift you get from your legs and hands. There’s nothing that bounces you up farther. I’d learn a lot about that difference when I started cheerleading.

About half my daily exercise was on routines. The other half was all building the skills and strength needed to create a routine. I did two or three hundred push-ups and sit-ups each day. I walked all around the gym on my hands. I did jumps and flips. I supported myself on the p-bars and did dips and raises. And every single move was done slowly and deliberately. I was getting to the point I could stand straight, then flex my knees and propel myself into a full back flip without touching my hands to the floor. Forward flips required at least a couple of steps to launch, but I could do them.

I realized I was becoming a real gym rat. Any time I had available was spent in the gym. I’d been late to school a few times because I lost track of time during my morning workouts. Mom and Dad noticed.

I guess I’m all out of order again. Let’s see. I turned fifteen on March 16, 2020. Coach told me I was doing really well and I’d be ready for more advanced competition this spring. It was possible I’d have my first Senior Elite competition this year.

I don’t know if it was good or bad, but life intervened. I mean, I know it was bad. Awful, really. Two days after my birthday, the Governor ordered all schools closed and all non-essential businesses closed. Guess what isn’t an essential business. The gym was ordered to close. I didn’t care about school. It just meant I had to listen to the teachers drone on over my laptop. Mikey latched onto the process like it was designed for her. All our classes met online and she could work as far ahead as she wanted to. Occasionally, she’d pause to help me catch up.

Uptown was a ghost town. And then the riots hit after the cops murdered George Floyd. Mostly, I tried to stay low when I was outside, and not be seen by any police. You never knew who they’d kill. Or why.

I went crazy fast. My body craved the workouts. I found myself back in the garage doing push-ups and sit-ups. There was only so much I could do on the concrete floor. I did pull-ups from the rafters. We’d been told the shutdown would only be for two weeks, but it kept stretching on. All the competitions I might have been in were cancelled.

It was no easier for Mom and Dad. Mom was home from the office and working remotely. Dad had to get us a faster internet connection because three of us were online all the time. He still had to go to work. Being a campus engineer was considered an essential job. He was responsible for keeping buildings operating and problems dealt with.

As the lockdown stretched on, I rigged makeshift bars and rings in the garage. Dad got mats to put under me, but they were right on the concrete floor. Whenever I got tired of working out, all I had to do was go inside and turn on my computer to get the day’s lessons. As if…

“You passed, but barely,” Mom said at dinner the weekend after Memorial Day. She was looking at the printout of our school reports. “You’ll both be sophomores next year. Yes, Michelle, we’ll approve the AP courses you have requested for next year. Don’t ask yet about the International Baccalaureate. We can consider that course of study when you’re a junior. But you need to find some non-academic interests as well. You know colleges look at your extra-curricular activities as well as your grade-point.”

“I know. It seems so stupid, but I’ll find something to get involved in. As long as it doesn’t take time away from studying,” Mikey said. I kind of snorted and Mom and Dad both glared at me.

“You, young man, are going to need to cut back on gym time to focus on your grades,” Dad said.

“No!” I exclaimed before I could get control of myself. I knew they would suggest something stupid like that. Mikey and I had talked it out and she hissed at me. “I mean… Um… Like… maybe there’s a solution without cutting back on gym time,” I said. “Um… Actually, I’m really doing well as a gymnast. Coach Dawson and Coach Anders both say I’m on track to compete in senior elite by next spring. Mom. Dad. It’s the one thing in life I’m good at. Please don’t take it away!”

“Dad, you guys are giving me the opportunity to excel academically. Thank you,” Mikey said. “And I’ll try to add that extracurricular stuff so colleges think I’m more attractive. But it wouldn’t be fair if you denied me the opportunity to take AP courses until I became a cheerleader or some stupid thing.”

“That would be a stupid thing,” Dad laughed.

“It’s just as unfair to deny Paul the opportunity to excel at something he’s really good at because his grades aren’t good.”

“Even with a sport, though, no college will admit a student with grades like this,” Mom said.

“I’m not interested in college, Mom,” I said.

“Where would you compete after high school?”

“If I can make the grade as an elite gymnast, I don’t need to have a college team. There are several independent gyms in the country that train elite athletes for professional competition all the way through to the Olympics. College is just one route. And you know, only a dozen or so colleges even have men’s gymnastics teams. It’s the same with things like figure skating and martial arts. Those just aren’t big NCAA sports. Oh, women’s gymnastics is, but not men’s. There would be no reason for me to attend a college to be a gymnast.”

“Why can’t you learn your math and history as well as you learn your sport?” Mom sighed. I glanced at Mikey and she nodded.

“You and Dad could teach me,” I said quietly.

“What?”

“You guys are smart. That’s a great idea. Why don’t you home school Paul?” Mikey jumped in enthusiastically.

“What makes you think we’d be more successful than the school?” Dad chuckled.

“Um… school just goes too fast,” I said. “I learn the stuff, but by the time I learn something, the class is two more chapters ahead of me. If I could just limit what I studied to the necessities and not rush it, I know I could learn it.”

Mom and Dad were silent. I could see the wheels turning in their heads. It was all I could do not to burst out with another argument, but Mikey had warned me about that.

“If that’s really what you think you want to do, we’ll investigate the possibility,” Dad finally said. Mom nodded. “That isn’t saying it’s a done deal. We need to find out what the standard is and how we can manage a homeschool curriculum. And you’ll need to show as much motivation to achieve the standard academically as you do physically. And son, you need to also be prepared to take longer than your classmates to get through the next year of high school. If we take a year to home school you, you might not be at the level that your current class is. You’ve got some catching up to do. In other words, your little sister might graduate with your class while you graduate with hers.”

Wow! That was a sobering thought. I was a crappy student, but I’d managed to keep up with my year—though just barely. It was going to be a huge adjustment.

Or not. I was always considered behind in class. My teachers had pretty much given up on me keeping up with the class and were passing me anyway. They didn’t want me around an extra year.

On June sixth, Coach Dawson called me.

“Paul, I’m going to open the gym to select trainees. There won’t be more than a dozen people there at a time. And we’ll all have to wear masks and wipe down the equipment every time it’s been used. This COVID thing is serious. We’ve got a couple of coaches down with it. But with all the precautions in place, you can start coming back in to work.”

“That’s great, Coach. I can come right over.”

“Easy, sport. We won’t be open full hours and right now, no one is there. Let’s plan on starting next Monday at ten. If you need more exercise, go out and run around the lake a couple of times. Then do all your body weight exercises. Just keep your mask with you.”

“Okay. I’ll do that. I’m kind of going stir-crazy here already.”

“They say we’ve weathered the worst of it,” he said. “Just be careful.”

3
Idol Worship

I’ll probably get back to talking about the lock- down and how it affected school and all. The remote learning environment on the laptop made home schooling supplemental. I did okay, but with just half the course curriculum. With that load, I could keep up. I was spending around six hours a day working out. As predicted, I ended up taking two years to finish tenth grade as Mikey went zooming past me. But I actually got it. I wasn’t unable to learn. As Mom predicted, Mikey graduated with my class in 2023 and I officially became a member of the class of 2024. And a cheerleader.

Then, my senior year, I met the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. It wasn’t long after my one lone date with Dana that I arrived for cheerleader practice and saw Tara White with Coach Cook. I was instantly in love. I’d seen her in the Acrobatic Gymnastics World Championships in Geneva. You wouldn’t believe the obscure sports channel I had to subscribe to in order to watch that on my laptop. It was beautiful.

But Tara had been injured in the dynamic routine qualifying round and was carried off the floor on a stretcher. There’d been a flurry of stories about the extent of her injuries—unknown—over the next several days, and then the story dropped out of the news until it was reported that her partner, who had dropped her in the routine, had passed away.

The woman I saw talking to Coach Cook looked far more elegant, refined, and beautiful than the little girl I’d seen in the competition three years ago. She also sat regally in her wheelchair. I wanted to rush over and bow at her feet.

I restrained myself when Penny grabbed my arm with a grip hard enough to leave a bruise.

There was nothing between Penny and me except our cheer partnership. She had a boyfriend. She was still possessive. I have to tell you that Penny wasn’t the only flyer on the cheer squad. She was the smallest and did some of the most difficult tricks with me, but two other girls were often the ones who mounted my shoulders or stood on my hands. I was the all-round base for the team. If all three girls were flying, or standing on top, the other two were each supported by two more girls.

I didn’t cheer at ballgames or other sports events. From the first day I walked onto the gym floor with the cheer team, it was made clear I was there for their competitive routines where they did more acrobatics than when cheering at a game. I wasn’t the only one. There were sixteen of us on the competition team. Usually, only five cheered at a sporting event. They were the ones who bounced up and down with their boobs flying and slept with the football players. No thanks.

“Paul, come here, please. Penny, you, too. Flyers and bases,” Coach called to us.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said as we ran up to stand before her.

“I’d like to introduce you to our new acrobatics coach,” she said.

“Tara White,” I finally broke in. I was too excited to see the phenomenal acrobat in person. “I was so afraid you wouldn’t survive three years ago. I’m so happy to see you.”

“Well, you have a fan,” Coach Cook laughed. “For the rest of you, this is Tara White, one of the world’s top acrobatic gymnasts until a tragic accident at the World Championships three years ago. She has recently relocated to Minneapolis and has volunteered to help coach our cheer squad this year. She will work primarily with our five bases and three flyers, but will have choreography suggestions for the entire team.”

“Happy to meet you, Miss White,” Penny said politely.

I thought Tara’s smile was a little forced. She didn’t really look much older than any of us. When I did the calculations, I finally decided she wasn’t more than a year older than I was. Like all the tops in acrobatic gymnastics mixed pairs, she’d looked twelve when I saw her perform. I glanced at Penny. She would be eighteen soon and still looked twelve, as well. Tara looked much more mature.

We moved to a separate area where Tara rolled her chair to work with the acrobatic cheerleaders. We all did tumbling and flips, but only the eight of us did formations that involved two levels, lifts, and throws. We’d had some discussion as to whether we could do a three-tier pyramid formation, but hadn’t come up with an answer. We weren’t far into demonstrating our moves when one of the girls asked Tara if she’d teach us a pyramid. I saw her heave a big sigh and drop her head.

When she raised it, there was fire in her eyes.

“Paul, would you be kind enough to remove your shirt, please?”

I was really surprised. Our uniforms weren’t even form-fitting. There were cheerleading rules about what we could wear and high schools were instructed to de-emphasize form-fitting tops and ultra-short skirts. There were specific rules about what panties girls had to wear and instructed men to have full-length bottoms. We all had to wear specific shoes.

But I’d probably do anything for Tara White. I pulled my shirt off.

Since I didn’t dress with the girls, I couldn’t think of a time when any of them had seen me bare-chested. It was a little embarrassing—not that I have anything to be ashamed of in that department. There were a few gasps or catches of breath. I’d been training in gymnastics for six and a half years now. I was not the skinny runt I was in seventh grade. I had a six-pack and nice set of pecs and guns.

“Ladies, I detect that you have not seen this shape revealed before. I want you to notice the musculature and the core strength. Paul, please bring your partner to your shoulders so we can see the muscles at work,” Tara said.

Penny stepped up to me and did a stairstep mount to my shoulders. When she stood up, I held her ankles next to my ears.

“That move requires every muscle in the upper body, and several in the lower body I won’t ask Paul to show you,” she said. There were some giggles. “So, when any of you can show me comparable musculature and control, I’ll discuss building a pyramid with you. You can gain that strength, by the way, by working in your trios on artistic formations. Anyone care to show me now?”

“Hardly,” said one of the girls.

“You can come down now, Penny,” Tara said.

Penny gave a little bounce and jumped off my shoulders into my arms. I set her on the ground.

“I want you to know that this is what happens to a flyer when her base drops her.” Tara used her hands to lift one of her legs and then let it drop. It was completely limp. She maneuvered it back onto the footrest of her chair.

“Oh, shit. I mean… I’m sorry, Miss. I didn’t mean to be vulgar,” Penny said. She turned and looked me up and down.

“It’s something I say on a regular basis,” Tara said.

“What happened to your base?” one of the other girls asked.

“He killed himself rather than come to visit me,” Tara said. “I’m not telling you any of this to make you feel bad. It’s been three years since the accident and I’m more mobile than most paraplegics. I have strong arms and torso muscles, and even limited use of my legs. I want you to know, though, that I am deadly serious when I talk about the importance of your strength and support for each other. Now, let’s work on some other formations you can do with a top and a base—or two bases.”

During the COVID pandemic—I said I was going back to that—I didn’t have to go to school. I mean at school. We all thought everyone was going back in the fall, but the damned plague just kept on and on. It was fine with me. Mom and Dad had agreed to help me at home for my sophomore year, even if it took two years. And it did.

Dad and I finished converting the garage into a gym for me so I could work out when I couldn’t go to the gym. The gym was permitted to open in June, but on a limited basis. My time there was strictly for coaching, then I had to leave so they could get someone else in. I averaged only two hours a day. But I had a six-hour training regimen.

Dad borrowed a set of parallel bars, a pommel horse, and a set of rings that were being stored at the university. The rings were strictly for exercises, not for practicing a routine on. The rafters in the garage weren’t high enough to do a routine. I practiced rings, vault, high bar, and floor exercises at the gym. I also got a pegboard and we laid a wrestling mat he salvaged on the floor.

Dad and I installed a metal carport from Home Depot in front of the garage and he made it clear that I was responsible for seeing that snow was cleared between the door and the carport and out the driveway to the street. We had about eight inches of snow on the ground from November through February, but it started melting off then with only a few storms through April. I never stopped to think about what all this was costing my parents, or to make a special point of thanking them until much later.

Between being locked down inside and my time in the gym or garage, I didn’t have anything really to personally spend money on, so my allowance just got dropped in a dresser drawer. I had no idea how important that would become in the future. I was really lucky to have parents who were employed at a pretty high level and believed in providing for their kids. I’ve often mentioned that to them as I got older.

As soon as I had a space, I moved my laptop to the garage with me. When I took breaks from working out, I did my assignments for the day. I took classes on the school’s remote access, like Mikey did, and we studied some together. Mom and Dad both checked over my homework each evening to be sure I was doing the studies and not just ‘hanging from the rings.’

I couldn’t do routines on the rings in the garage. There just wasn’t enough height. I could do exercises on them, but… People don’t realize when they watch a competitor on the rings, his coach is giving him a boost up to the rings which are hung 8’2” off the floor and 20” apart. But the rings are hung from straps anchored 18’ off the floor. If you figure the angles and relative force it would take to press your body into a cross with your arms straight out, you’d be pushing the rings roughly five or six feet apart. You’d be forcing the straps out at a much higher angle if they were only anchored three feet above your head. You’d practically have to be touching the anchor.

Mom made me figure this all out in a geometry lesson. She’s done that with a lot of the equipment. It was some of the stuff I understood best!

The rings in competition are called ‘still rings.’ That’s as opposed to swinging rings, I guess. Part of the artistry is that the gymnast is supposed to do his entire routine without having the rings swinging from that eighteen-foot-high anchor.

I tell you all this to explain why, three years later when I was a senior and told to take off my shirt, my chest and arms were something to look at.

But… Oh yeah. Back in 2020 when I was doing two-thirds or more of my exercises in the garage, I was just building upper body strength on the rings, not doing a routine.

The same was true with the pegboard. Think of approaching a climbing wall. You find a new handhold and pull yourself up with your foot pressure and the pull of your arms. Two differences between that and the pegboard. First, you don’t use your legs at all. Your feet are dangling. Second, there aren’t multiple handholds. There are multiple holes for the pegs. To move up or across the pegboard, you have to pull one peg out of the hole while you are dangling from the other, then put the peg into the next hole and pull yourself up on it.

There’s just enough height in our garage that I can do a limited routine on the parallel bars or the pommel horse, except I have to be careful with dismounts. Have to be careful regardless because I’m working without a spotter. I don’t have a death wish.

Dad took us all to the university to get vaccinated in September. We were back a month later for the second dose. It didn’t look like people were taking it seriously, though, and cases started increasing again. You guessed it, the gym was closed again. Coach Dawson met with me by video link every day for the rest of the year.

There was a big protest to demand businesses reopen just before Christmas. The gym didn’t. It wouldn’t have made a difference to me because Mom and Dad wouldn’t have let me go anyway. They took the whole warning system seriously. That didn’t prevent Dad from coming down with the damn plague right at Christmas. He was home, but Mom was the only one who ever saw him when she took him meals in his bedroom where he isolated. We all wore masks in the house—and everywhere else. I know the masks were to protect other people, but even with our precautions, it was always possible we’d be carrying the virus and inadvertently expose someone else.

Because he was vaccinated, Dad’s case was mild and in two weeks he tested negative and went back to work. Too bad for his end-of-year holiday break. Mikey didn’t return to school yet either, even though they were doing some kind of alternating days thing so only half the students were in class at a time. It actually looked like I might be keeping up with my class for a while. Except it was only in three subjects. I was considerably behind in everything else.

It wasn’t until May of 2021 that I returned to the gym. Coach Dawson was on me from day one. I’d maintained my body building and stretching, but was way behind on my routines. And there were competitions coming up in June. He really wanted me to test and see if I qualified for Senior Elite.

I didn’t. I would compete at the Junior Elite level for the summer and some of that was a stretch. I worked out nearly every day, doing my routines with a spotter. The gymnasts took turns doing their routines and spotting for each other. We worked hard and even though I didn’t yet qualify for Senior Elite, I spent my workouts with the high school team at the gym. It looked like there wouldn’t be a team the next year at that level. I was the only male gymnast working up to that level from our gym. The other guys I knew had graduated or didn’t stick with things through the shutdown.

Things were almost what I called normal by January of 2022. I was going to the gym every day for six or seven hours. Then I studied for four or five hours, doing the lessons Mom had left for me. She’d returned to work, but was the primary parent monitoring my studies. I think she was depending on Mikey to help keep track of things.

Regardless, I was told that I needed to return to school in the fall. I’d managed to get far enough that I was considered a junior with a lightened workload so I could continue to train. The trade-off was that I needed to join the cheerleaders.

“Hey! I know you have to put your hand there to support me, but you don’t need to squeeze,” Penny complained to me after a lift.

“I didn’t mean to,” I said. “Really. It was just kind of a reflex.”

“Boys! If I brushed a pacifier across your lips, you’d start to suck, wouldn’t you?”

I had to think about that. Well, maybe.

“I guess, I’m sorry.”

“Paul, you’re okay, but every girl on the team thinks you could force yourself on her. We know you’ve got muscles that are ten times what we have. Just try to make sure there’s no reason for any of us to be afraid of you,” Penny said.

“I wouldn’t hurt any of you! I’d never try to force myself on you. Jeez! What kind of asshole do you think I am?”

“I hate to be the one to tell you this, but you are a really strong and not very smart jock. At one point or another you have to touch nearly every girl on the squad. Some of us have to let you put your hand on our butts or inside our thighs or practically across our breasts. We just don’t need you to be squeezing when you do.”

“Oh, shit. I didn’t even realize it.”

“What? You don’t realize you have our butts or our breasts in your hands? Be real!”

“No! I mean… You three are like little girls. That’s the only reason I can lift you like that. What do you weigh? Eighty pounds? How would I even know I had my hand on your breast? How is it different than anyplace else on your ribs? Hell, I feel guilty if I even have a stray thought about one of you—like I’m a pedophile. I’m not interested in any of you like that.”

“Strangely, that makes me feel more insulted than comforted. I am not a little girl. So, I’m small. I’m seventeen years old. I’m a woman. Stop thinking of me as a little girl!”

“Wait! I don’t want to think of you like that! I don’t want to always be wondering if my hand is on your breast. I don’t want to think of your butt as more than what you sit on when I’m picking you up. Jeez! You want me to think of you sexually? No!”

“Oh, crap! That sure turned out backwards. I started out telling you not to think of me that way and then I complain that you aren’t. Okay. Just, for what it’s worth, no matter how you think of me, remember I’ve got a boyfriend and I’m just plain not available.”

“I…”

“Don’t say it! Even when it’s what we want, we don’t want to hear you actually say we aren’t desirable.”

“I will never in a million years understand girls,” I said.

Which brings me back to Tara White.

Believe me, when I saw her compete, I thought she looked like a twelve-year-old with too much makeup on. But when I saw her in the gym, I got a completely different impression. For one thing, I would never mistake exactly where her boobs were. They were right there. The rest of her frame was still slim, but I understood the signs of atrophy in her legs. She was strong and the top half was absolutely gorgeous. I think her face had matured, too, and she didn’t wear as much makeup. Of course, she wasn’t performing. No one wears that much makeup unless they’re performing.

Except Brenda Wilson in my civics class.

I remember when I first met her when we were freshmen, I thought she was kind of cute, but she had red hair like a burning bush and enough freckles to populate Manhattan. And I think she was really self-conscious about them. Guys weren’t always kind to girls who were a little different. I commented on it because I thought she was kind of cute and Dad told me that redheads got a freckle for every soul they ate, so to be careful. Well, I never got around to really talking to her after I asked Cathy to the ballgame and dance and found out we weren’t supposed to do that until we were sixteen.

Then when I came back to school as a junior, Brenda was a senior and had gone through as much of a transformation as I had. She was nearly eighteen, had an absolutely stellar figure, had colored her hair black, and found some kind of makeup that covered her freckles completely. She used a lot of makeup to get what girls called ‘the goth look.’ Pale skin and dark outlines around her eyes and lips.

Of course, at this point, I was a year behind her in school and she didn’t even know who I was anymore, if she ever had.

When Tara asked me to take my shirt off and pointed out my physique to the other cheerleaders, I got a real shiver of pleasure. I think even Penny was a little awed when she took my hand to mount up to my shoulders. And Tara was going to work with us to develop some new routines. This was going to be a great year!

At least that was one thing to look forward to.

I’d competed at the Senior Elite level the previous summer—2023—and did okay. I didn’t win any medals and I’d certainly not scored high enough to qualify for the upcoming Olympic trials. I’d asked Coach Dawson about entering some of the competitions after the first of the year that could qualify me, but he didn’t hold out much hope for me this year.

“You could compete at the Nationals in Fort Worth or at the Winter Cup in Louisville, but you’d need to place on the podium to get an invitation to the Olympic trials. Remember all the gymnasts who have been competing in college will declare themselves as pros before those competitions and will have an edge on you.”

I was disappointed, but more determined than ever to get there. I was doing well, but I wasn’t at that level of competition yet.

So, I was excited to have a real competitor at the World Games level work with Penny and me. It took me a while to get Penny on board.

“Well, like what, for example?” she asked when I’d suggested upping our routine a bit.

“You know how I hold you up in the air on one hand?” I said.

“Yeah. Thank you for having not squeezed my butt lately.”

“You’re welcome. It wouldn’t be an issue, though, if you were standing on my hand instead of sitting on it,” I said.

“If I was… You mean you could lift me, or support me while I was standing on your hands? Really?”

“For me, it would be about the same as you sitting there. It would all be about your balance, really. I mean, you weigh the same up there whether you’re sitting or standing.”

“I’d be up… I mean… My feet would be… um… around six and a half feet off the ground. That’s a long way down!” Penny said.

“I think that’s why Coach White was emphasizing the importance of not being dropped by your base. We could do all kinds of formations if we worked on it. And I know neither Coach Cook nor Coach White would ever allow us to attempt something like that without a spotter,” I said. “Preferably a couple of them.”

“That could be kind of cool. Okay. I’m up for it. Geez! Don’t ever drop me.”

“I promise I won’t.”

Tara White was a good coach and knew exactly where to start us. She had me lie down on the mat with my hands palm up on either side of my head. Then Penny stepped onto my hands supported by spotters on either side. It took us a few tries before we succeeded, but eventually, I was able to rotate my forearms to a vertical position with her standing on my palms. Can’t tell you how many times she started to lose her balance and bailed on me. Fortunately, she only jumped on me once.

Penny had been all concerned about me squeezing her butt when I held her up, which I’d managed to discipline myself not to do. But this was a completely different challenge. When I raised her up on my hands I was looking straight up between her legs. Well, that was a view I’d imagined a few times—with other girls—but I never actually saw the shape of that crease right above my face. Maybe three feet above my face. I actually saw what was known as a camel toe.

The first time I became truly aware of what I was seeing, my lower body started to respond. When she jumped off of me, I got up and made an excuse to leave the gym and use the bathroom. I stayed in there until Paul Junior managed to relax.

Of course, working with Penny wasn’t enough. Lana and Melina wanted to work with me, too. There was a bit of competition developing to see who would get to be the lead flyer. And the view of all three girls was inspiring. From this angle, I couldn’t see that they looked as young as they appeared from the top. I spent more time with my eyes closed while we were working on that move than I care to remember.

From having them stand on my hands with my elbows on the floor, we progressed to me pressing them up until my arms were fully extended. By that time, I was working hard enough not to notice what was in my hands. I was basically just bench-pressing a hundred pounds. In fact, Coach White had me raise and lower them several times.

All this took a couple of weeks before we really worked on any cheer formation that involved lifting the girls to a stand on my hands. I was wondering if we were ever going to progress to something we could really use.

And then one day, my world changed. I walked into the Hennepin Gym to start warming up and saw Tara working out on the mat. She motioned me over and I sat next to her to do stretches.

“I came to Minneapolis for just one reason, Paul,” she said. “To work with you.”

4
Portals of Opportunity

In six years of training, no girl ever expressed the least bit of interest in me. The girls on the cheer squad tolerated my presence, about the same way they’d treat a table if they had to stand on it. They had parties and went to events together, but I was never invited to go along. It was too much like asking a boy out, I guess.

I’d once been working out in the gym when one of the coaches called to me.

“Paul, please go spot for Andrea. I don’t want her trying this flip without a spotter.”

“Sure, coach.” I dismounted the parallel bars and rushed to the vault where Andrea was set to try a new vault.

“It’s okay,” Andrea said, waving me away. “I don’t think I’m ready for this today.” She turned around and headed for the locker room.

“That wasn’t directed at you, Paul,” the coach said. “Andrea’s been having some confidence issues lately and it was just the idea of someone other than me watching her that set her off.”

“Yeah… um… sure. No problem,” I said. Except it was a problem. It was the typical shun I got from girls. She had her hands chalked and was bouncing at the start until the coach said my name. Then she spun away so fast she must have left her shadow on the mat.

I don’t get it. What was so terrible about me that girls couldn’t stand to be around me? I showered daily—most of the time twice daily. I’d always been polite and tried not to stare at any girl. I mean… shit, I was eighteen. I couldn’t help but notice girls. I just wanted to be treated like a human being, you know?

“I came to Minneapolis for just one reason, Paul,” Tara said. “To work with you.”

“Uh… What do you mean work with me, Miss White?”

“Oh, please, Paul. I’m the same age you are. You can call me Tara. Let the bitches on the cheer squad keep calling me Coach White. It keeps them from sassing me. But I want to be um… friendlier… with you.”

“Tara? I guess maybe you don’t know who you’re really talking to. I have no idea what you mean. I don’t even want to think you might mean what I think you might mean. I’ve only ever been on one date in my life! And it was a disaster. I mean, the date was fun, but she never wanted to see me again. I’m a year older than everyone else in my class because it took me two years to finish tenth grade. I’m dumb as a box of rocks. And I think I’m going to hyperventilate.”

I started gasping for air. What the hell was my idol suggesting? Friendlier? How friendlier?

“I’m sorry, Paul. Wait! Don’t panic. I’m not more experienced at that kind of thing than you and I probably came off meaning something way differently than I meant. I mean sounding like it. I want to work with you. On gymnastics. Together. I need a partner.”

“A partner? Um… What do you mean. Can you still perform? That’s incredible. I’d do anything to see you perform again!”

“Thank you. I’m not completely crippled. I’ve been in physical therapy for hours every day for three years. I’m in PT or training most of the day still.”

“That’s really wonderful! How can I help?”

“I accept that I’ll probably never be the performer I was before the accident. But I want to perform again—even if only once. It will show people that even though I use a wheelchair or crutches, I can still be a coach. But I can’t do it alone. I need a partner who is strong and steady and sure. I need someone I can trust.”

“Why me?”

“I saw you at the Chicago Elite Competition this summer.”

“I sucked.”

“Not so bad. You were less experienced than just about everyone else on the mats. I called your coach and he told me you were working with the school cheer squad. That’s as close to Acrobatic Gymnastics as you can get without actually being in training from cradle to grave.”

“I don’t really know anything about performing in mixed pairs. But if I can help you, I will. Where will you perform?”

“We, Paul. We’ll perform at the Gymnastics for All National Championships and Gymfest. In June.”

“That’s at the National Olympic Trials. I didn’t qualify,” I said. That was a disappointment. I just didn’t have an adequate point total.

“You didn’t qualify as an individual for the Olympic Trials. But the Gymnastics for All Gymfest isn’t an Olympic Trial and it won’t advance anyone to higher level competition. Specifically, we’ll participate in the HUGS program.”

“Isn’t that like for special needs kids?” I asked stupidly.

“Uh… Paul…” she held her arms out to the side. “Who do you think I am?”

I gasped.

“Oh, geez! I didn’t think of… I mean… I thought they were all… You just don’t impress me as being handicapped even when you’re in your chair,” I spluttered.

“Thank you, I think. HUGS stands for Hope Unites Gymnastics with Special Athletes. When I damaged my spine, I became a special athlete. There’s no way I could compete again in mixed pairs, or in any individual gymnastic event. And there is no mixed pairs category in the HUGS event. I’ve petitioned the committee to allow a special demonstration. Pending a review of our performance, they’ve agreed. We have five months to put together our routine and make it work. There’s the Winter Cup qualifier in Louisville in February. We won’t be on the program, and we won’t be announced. We’ll simply demonstrate our routine for the judges.”

“Tara, I’m flattered that you think I could do this with you. Why don’t you want a real competitor to work with you? There are several guys in the gym who are a lot better than I am,” I said.

“Honestly? No one of a higher rank would be the least bit interested in working with a cripple. It would take time away from preparing for their own competitions. Paul, you aren’t a last resort, but you’re my best hope. Please say you’ll work with me.”

I just wanted to pick her up and carry her around—be the legs she didn’t have working. Do whatever she wanted. All I could do was nod my head yes.

I wasn’t expecting her to wrap her arms around my neck and give me a hug. I really wasn’t expecting her to pull herself around until she was sitting on my lap. I about passed out when she kissed me on the cheek. Then she whispered in my ear.

“And I won’t care if you squeeze my butt when I’m sitting on your hand,” she giggled. “I might not feel it, but I won’t care.”

What have I done? I just agreed to work with a national champion mixed pairs acrobatic gymnast who only has partial use of her legs. And I’ll have to dedicate the next nine months to her. And still get through school and cheerleading.

This whole thing had catastrophe written all over it. I needed to talk to my sister. That would be the smart thing. She was living in a dormitory on campus, but she never turned her cell phone off. It was almost dinner time, so I was pretty sure I could catch her when she wasn’t too busy. She never missed a meal.

“Mikey! I’m glad I caught you. Can we get together?”

“You mean in person? Hmm. Yeah, that would be a great idea. It’s Friday night. I know you don’t cook on Friday. Meet me at the Lucky Dragon buffet in half an hour. We’ll have dinner.”

“Wow! I didn’t expect you to be so fast. Especially on a Friday night.”

“I’m trying to slow down on dating so I can keep track of guys’ names,” she laughed. “I’m at the library right now and a librarian is giving me the stink eye. I’ll see you in half an hour.”

“Okay.”

Whatever the subject or the mission, my sister could take over and get it organized. I guess that was what I was hoping for. I hadn’t been anywhere near as organized this fall since she moved over to campus. I needed to make sure I left time this weekend to get my statistics assignment done. I only had four classes to complete for my diploma. That was due to taking school at a slower pace, but having class year-round.

My English course was focused on reading comprehension. We had to read something and then answer questions about it. A lot of the kids in that class were non-native English speakers, but it was a pretty good course. I had statistics for my math course. I was pretty good at math as long as I didn’t skip any steps. I was getting along in world history. The biggest problem with it was having to read so much. And then there was my US Government class. We joked a lot about it being almost obsolete since our government was abandoning the constitution and legal precedents of cases. But we’d all be eighteen and able to vote before the next general election, so the course was taught from that perspective.

I got vocational credit for my gymnastics work. That was cool. I had to sign a paper that said I was working toward a career in gymnastics and had to list ten jobs that a gymnast was qualified for. That stretched my mind a bit. And it made me think about what I was going to do with my life. I started gymnastics to get strong, but now that I was strong, I was doing gymnastics because I loved it. It didn’t feel like I needed a big goal. I would keep training for national competition and hope to advance next year, and eventually compete in the Olympics. I was teaching a Saturday morning toddlers’ class, but that didn’t really pay much.

I jumped off the bus at Seven Corners and walked quickly to the Lucky Dragon. College students loved this place. It wasn’t badly priced and once you were in, you could just keep eating as much as you could hold. I’d have to restrain myself so I didn’t overeat. The food was good.

Mikey ran to meet me outside the restaurant and give me a hug. I thought that was a little more demonstrative than we usually were. But we hadn’t seen each other in a month, so I guess it wasn’t that strange.

“They have the best spicy string beans here,” Mikey started at once. “The food in the dorm is all bland. I miss your cooking!”

“I miss having you at the table,” I chuckled. We went inside and immediately stacked plates with our first round of food. “How come you’re available on a Friday night? I figured you’d be out with some guy for your usual date and I’d have to settle for seeing you for breakfast sometime tomorrow afternoon.”

“Things change, Paul. After a few weeks of dating college guys, I kind of swore off. They just want to fuck a seventeen-year-old like they never managed in high school. It’s like, if I want to actually watch a movie, I need to go alone or with a girl. And some of the girls I don’t trust much. I just quit dating unless I want to fuck. Then I’ll choose a nice enough guy and go out with him. We do just enough to convince him that he deserves to have me put out, then we screw. I go back to the dorm and I’m fine for a couple of weeks.”

Mikey was always pretty blunt about her activities. I knew she’d been screwing guys for a couple of years while she was in high school. I’d never really gotten used to hearing her talk about it.

“Well, I’m glad you’re on an off week,” I laughed. “I think I got myself in over my head.”

“Whoa! What? Is someone picking on you? Can’t you defend yourself now? Just having dinner with you will be good to keep guys away from me for a week. You’re strong!”

“Yeah. That’s the problem, I guess. It’s a girl. I don’t mean the classic girl problems—except that I can never say no to one. There’s this super gymnast who I practically worship and she’s asked me to be her partner.”

“Partner? You mean live together?”

“Not that kind of partner. Mixed Pairs Acrobatic Gymnastics. I’m afraid I’m nowhere near good enough.”

That was a preview of The Strongman. To read the rest purchase the book.

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