Robbing the Bank at Super Fitness

“You’re the only one who comes to Super Fitness with a stash of books. You think you’re such a maven, don’t you?” says the leather-skinned consultant behind the glass and chrome counter. I look at her royal blue spandex leotard and I think I need one of those all I wear are my spaghetti strap cottons maybe I should ask her, I talk about shopping to distract her while I rob the bank, because I’m getting in shape─two machine circuits, slipping the stick on the weight stacks lower and lower, two aerobic classes back to back. “You think you’re overdoing it?” an instructor on the floor asks, her thick legs in sturdy black cotton. She says she used to be a skater. Her hair is black, cropped close to her head and curly. I open my hardcover Schwarzenegger “Weight Training for Women” and strap on my metal sandals. “Thanks,” I say, “But I’m on a mission.”

I’m going to be thirty-six on March twelfth. I belong to two exercise clubs. Christine named the Laureleaf location after herself. She’s in all the Super Fitness commercials and when she walks onto the gym floor the women size her up: how even is her tan, look at the heeled sandals she’s wearing with those sheer shiny tights and high-legged leotard, “she sure doesn’t have a Jewish ass,” one woman in hot pink whispers and her friend says, “if she had more in the ass, she’d have more on top.” The pink woman elbows her friend. Christine says if I want to do Nautilus then I have to work out three times a week and recommends the Sutton Place location.

“It’s going to cost more,” Abie says. “Maybe she thinks I’ve outgrown the women,” I say, “and besides I have the gold membership that lets me into any Super Fitness club.” And anyhow Caroline is going to school nearby, another private school─we’re always behind in payments. Mrs. Drummond, the obese accountant with short sandy hair and oversize plastic glasses, calls me and I say “oh I didn’t realize and I’ll have to talk to my husband he’s one of those forgetful business men, no problem, I just have to take over, you know how it is” and then I go to Abie─ “I’m there everyday and I’m embarrassed. I know they know and they don’t say anything, but they know.” Abie shrugs his shoulders.

“It’s like this,” I say to Abie one night while he twisting the fat on my inner thighs, “There are women’s days and men’s days, but it’s neat, see, because I just stride up and the stack’s at two-hundred maybe one of the guys from the day before and I hop on and press like it’s no big deal.”
“You crave attention, you know that? Turn over.”
“Why should I turn over?” I say.
“You want me to do your ass or not?” he says.
“You’re a leach.”
“Same as every other man. You know they tell the male instructors to flirt with female members. It’s part of the hype.”
“No one’s flirting with me,” I say. Although that morning a fresh-faced instructor with a crew cut showed me how to use the squat machine and placed his hand on my right quadriceps. “Not bad,” he said, “what are you worried about?” and walked off to a lady with impressive thighs on the Nautilus inner thigh machine. You have to open and close on that machine and I started checking for hints of stray pubic hairs. It’s hard to concentrate when you’re spreading ninety pounds and doing the old pubic check. So I’m buying one-hundred percent cotton tights. I want to look, need, to feel strong, Atlas strong and lean and competent in an effortless kind of way although I work out two-and-a-half hours a day, five times a week.