”The way we’re going now seems nice,“ I said.
”No,“ she said. ”It is momentary and therefore finally pointless. It has no larger commitment, it involves no risk, and therefore no real relationship.“
”To have a real relationship you gotta suffer?“
”You have to risk it,“ she said. ”You have to know that if it gets homely and unpleasant you can’t just walk away.“
”And that means marriage? Lots of people walk away from marriage. For crissake, I got a lady client at this moment who has done just that.“
”After what, twenty-two years?“ Susan said.
”One point for your side,“ I said. ”She didn’t run off at the first sprinkle of rain, did she. But does that make the difference? Some J.P. reading from the Bible?“
”No,“ Susan said. ”But the ceremony is the visible symbol of the commitment. We ritualize our deepest meanings usually, and marriage is the way we’ve ritualized love. Or one of the ways.“
”Are you saying we should get married?“
”At the moment I’m saying I love you and I’m waiting for a response.“
”It’s not that simple, Suze.“
”And I believe I’ve gotten the response.“ She got up from the bar and walked out. I finished my beer, left a ten on the bar and walked back to my room. She wasn’t there. She also was not on the terrace or in the lobby or in the parking lot. I looked for her small blue Chevy Nova and didn’t see it. I went back to the room. Her suitcase was still on the rack, her clothes hanging in the closet. She wouldn’t go home without her clothes. Without me maybe, but not without her clothes. I sat down on the bed and looked at the red chair in the corner. The seat was one form of molded plastic, the legs four thin rounds of dark wood with little brass booties on the bottom. Elegant. I was much too damn big and tough to cry. Too old also. It wasn’t that goddamned simple.
On the top of the bureau was a card that said, ”Enjoy our health club and sauna.“ I got undressed, dug a pair of white shorts and a gray T-shirt out of the bureau, put them on and laced up my white Adidas track shoes with the three black stripes, no socks. Susan always bitched at me about no socks when we played tennis, but I liked the look. Besides, it was a bother putting socks on.
The health club was one level down, plaid-carpeted, several rooms, facilities for steam, sauna, rubdowns, and an exercise room with a Universal Trainer. A wiry middle-aged man in white slacks and a white T-shirt gave me a big smile when I came in.
”Looking for a nice workout, sir?“
”Yeah.“
”Well, we’ve got the equipment. You familiar with a Universal, sir?“
”Yeah.“
”It is, as you can see, a weightlifting machine that operates on pulleys and runs, thus allowing a full workout without the time-consuming inconvenience of changing plates on a barbell.“
”I know,“ I said.
”Let me give you an idea of how ours works. There are eight positions on the central unit here, the bench press, curls, over-the head press…“
”I know,“ I said.
”The weight numbering on the left is beginning weight, the markings on the right are overload weights resulting from the diminishment of fulcrum…“
I got on the bench, shoved the pin into the slot marked 300, took a big breath and blew the weight up to arm’s length and let it back. I did it two more times. The trainer said, ”I guess you’ve done this before.“
”Yeah,“ I said.
He went back toward the trainer’s room. ”You want anything, you let me know,“ he said.
I moved to the lat machine, did 15 pull downs with 150, did 15 tricep presses with 90, moved to the curl bar, then to the bench again. I didn’t normally lift that heavy on the bench but I needed to bust a gut or something and 300-pound bench presses were just right for that. I did four sets of everything and the sweat was soaking through my shirt and running down the insides of my arms, so I had to keep wiping my hands to keep a grip on the weight bars. I finished up doing twenty-five dips, and when I stepped away my arms were trembling and my breath was coming in gasps. It was a slow day for the health club. I was the only one in there, and the trainer had come out after a while and watched.
”Hey,“ he said, ”you really work out, don’t you?“
”Yeah,“ I said. There was a heavy bag in one corner of the training room. ”You got gloves for that thing?“ I said.
”Got some speed gloves,“ the trainer said.
”Gimme,“ I said.
He brought them out and I put them on and leaned against the wall, getting my breath under control and waiting for my arms to stop feeling rubbery. It didn’t used to take as long. In about five minutes, I was ready for the bag. I stood close to it, maybe six inches away, and punched it in combinations as hard as I could. Two lefts, a right. Left jab, left hook, right cross, left jab, left jab, step-back right uppercut. It’s hard to hit a heavy bag with an uppercut. It has no chin. I hit the bag for as long as I could, as hard as I could. Grunting with the effort. Staying up against it and trying to get all the power I could into the six-inch punches. If you’ve never done it you have no idea how tiring it is to punch something. Every couple of minutes I had to back away and lean on the wall and recover.
