by Sloan Devaney
The other day, I was at my fitness club. I was changing my clothes in the locker room and as I pulled socks from my gym bag, out came flying a condom. It flipped from the bag and landed at my feet. I really have no memory of how in the world the contraceptive device got into my gym bag. To make matters worse, the condom was wrapped in a cherry bright red wrapper. The locker room had two other men present. Did they say anything or even laugh at the expense of the fool dropping his latex? Heck no! There was a sudden uncomfortable silence and even quick ashen looks away. Have these Wilmington men never seen a plastic intended to prevent the escape of
semen? I should have made a joke myself. During the embarrassment and wondering why no one was reacting, I was leaning over to pick it up and right before I reached it the condom took on a life of its own. Somehow my foot kicked it and the condom skidded across the floor. The silence was still hanging in the air. The men more hurriedly got on with their various forms of changing clothes. I presumed they wanted to get out of there, anything to getaway from the rubber boy. You tell me how to be nonchalant about retrieving a runaway cherry red wrapped condom? I could not at this point pretend it was not mine. I picked up the darn thing and stuck it back into my bag. Maybe this crazy moment would make a good television advertisement?
The modern preoccupation with the health club, often seen as a sign of contemporary life, finds its real origin in ancient Greece. Our preoccupation with bodies and exercise is not new at all, but another classical inheritance. Choosing your gym, worrying about your appearance, exercising the body, adopting a diet, hiring a personal trainer—this is all good ancient Greek civic activity. If you attend a gym, are you looking to attract a mate or hoping to keep the one you have or trade up? Will making yourself fit and trim help you find miss right or mister right now? Is it an ideal that many people, consciously or unconsciously, share?
As an observer of human behavior, I watch how people conduct themselves in public areas. Often I compare these places to wilds where monkeys swing in the Amazon jungle, or more placid environments, like a field of dairy cows. The gym I attend is the third club in town that I have held membership with during my many years of living in Wilmington. Someone like me, a natural born cruise director, has a hard time in places like these. I come in saying, “Hey hey, is everybody happy!?” Socializing distracts the goal of getting fit but I cannot help myself and a lot of others cannot either. So how do we get around this performance of interacting with other gym members without interacting? In the animal kingdom a gym is a barn fowl-yard. The people in a gym are chickens and geese and pea-hens and that other funny looking bird no one recognizes.
The clients in a gym, moving from machines to the weights, are quacking ducks scooping mud from a puddle. They are puffed out turkeys who promenade back and forth in front of the stationary bikes and colorful peacocks, looking at themselves in the mirrors, wanting all the attention but pretending to hardly notice anybody else around. Everyone wants to be desired without being obvious about it. Isn’t that part of the game of love and sex?
In a fowl-yard there is the top-cock-of-the-walk. He struts into view and just by his attitude intimidates the other birds. Any gym I have attended has a top-cock too and he is usually the manager. In my gym, Rooster Rocco knows he is the top-cock. He is in tip-top shape. He has the perfect workout top-form and a perfect top-tan. When Rooster Rocco is working, the minion staff chickens (Snap, Crackle, Pop and Sue) scurry around doing his bidding. When Rocco is absent they tend to be more relaxed, and I say that kindly. Cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck.
Rooster Rocco has a top-cock strut. With a brooding disinterested mood he saunters around the gym floor, scanning the clients and staff but not always to see if they are well. He is most often aloof. Rocco physically reminds the subordinate fowl and want-to-be-top-cocks that he is the boss. I offer some free advice; try to keep friendly with the top-cock. He may let you walk through the barn-yard without leaping at you or withhold revoking my club membership for lampooning him in Bootleg. Garr-ruff roar!
My fitness club also has a mother goose. She is the top woman manager and if ever you need someone to walk down dark scary alleyways with you, Minerva is the one to bring along. She is no one to tangle with and like an upset goose, charges in and chases away interlopers. Interlopers are the dunderheads dropping weights on purpose. “Duhhh, me like the noise it makes.” One time Minerva was so angry at these guys she yelled, “ALL right, get OUT!” They left and everybody else in the place flocked for the door too, leaving machines in mid motion. You know when it is over before it begins. You don’t mess with mother goose Minerva. Thump!
In the barn fowl-yard, it is all about better plumage, laying more eggs and the pecking order. What is the real bottom line reason about making ourselves better? Is it about sex or is it about success or is it both? We believe our bodies display what sort of people we are and how we live. This all-round perfection is what athletics promises, and maybe that is really why we go to the gym. Cock-a-doodle-do.
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