Don't Read in the Closet volume one (10 page)

Jesse shook his
head,
then
looked at the small crowd of people who had
gathered, and were watching them, through the glass walls of the PT room.

“You have got
to be kidding me.” Evan moved to the door, waving his hands like he was shooing
away a flock of geese.

“It’s okay,”
Jesse said. “Par for the course.” He picked up a pen off Evan’s desk, walked
out to the crowd of therapists and nurses and signed some autographs. He could
see a couple of folks were tucking cell phones into their scrub pockets.

Evan gave him a
few minutes, then ran the group off so they could finish. “So I take it you’re
famous?”

Jesse laughed
at him. “Apparently not with everyone. You have someplace a little more private
we can work? I like that Qigong. Feels good, easy movements. Might be a good
cool-down after a serious workout.”

“How long do
you usually work out in a normal day? When you’re in training for a fight?”

“At least six
hours. Sometimes more.”

“Wow, that’s a
lot. You get hurt much?”

“Very little.
I’m careful, and I take excellent care of myself.” He thought that sounded a
little pretentious. “I mean, it’s my work. I take it seriously, you know?
Nothing special. A lot of people take their work seriously.”

“The hydro room
doesn’t have see-through walls. Why don’t we do the therapy in there? And
before next session I’ll figure out a place we can work in private.”

“Thanks. That
would be good.”

Evan led him
down the hall and pushed open the door to a room with three big steel tanks and
a couple of therapy tables.

“Looks like you
guys are making beer in here.”

“I wish.” Evan
grabbed a couple of
towels,
lay them out on a table.
He studied Jesse’s clothes. “You have shorts on under the track pants?”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe let’s
work with just shorts then. Whatever you’re comfortable with.”

“Yeah, okay.”
Jesse tugged the tee-shirt over his head and slipped the track pants off, then
climbed on to the table.

Evan was
looking at him, eyes enormous. “You know, you’re really rather startling,
wearing just your skin and a pair of blue bike shorts.”

“Startling?
What do you think a heavyweight boxer looks like?”

“The thought
had never occurred to me, before this very moment. You don’t take steroids, do
you?”

Jesse rolled his
eyes at him. “Of course not. Do I look like a fool?”

“They’re
dangerous for the heart.”

“Yes, Evan. I
know.”

Evan threw up
his hands. “Okay, sorry, sorry! Let’s get started. I’m going to move my finger
around, and you try and touch it with your finger, okay? Right hand first.”

They went
through a series of exercises designed to develop position sensitivity. By the
time Evan had him face down on the table, and was giving him a brisk backrub,
Jesse was wondering if he was wasting his time. He rolled over, felt Evan’s
hands slide across his back to his flat belly, rest there. “My friend, I think
you’re going to have to bring your A game. This isn’t enough.”

“What do you
mean?”

“You’re gonna
have to push me harder. This has been fun and all, but it’s easy. I don’t see
me making any substantial improvements if it’s this easy.”

“When you
normally train, you work until you feel some resistance, and then you push
through it?” Jesse nodded. “This is different, Jesse. You can’t bull your way
through it. You have to use a delicate touch, give your brain time to adjust,
gather your Qi. I know it’s not the way you’re used to training, but I think
it’s the right way. You have disequilibrium because of a blow to the head, and
we need to work on proprioception. This is the way to do it.”

“I don’t have
much time. I’ve got a match in four months, a title fight. You understand what
that is?”

Evan shook his
head. “I’m not sure I do.”

“Once you’re
world champion, you only stay world champion as long as no one takes it away
from you. And people are always lined up to take it away. I either fight for
it, or the organization takes it away.”

“And it’s
important to you to stay world champion?”

Jesse stared at
him,
then
he sat up, slid off the table. “That’s the
only thing that matters.”

Evan frowned up
at
him,
put his hands on his hips. “You’ve got a tiny
scar on your brain, my friend, and your only goal is to get back into the ring
and get another one? What is the matter with you?”

“I usually
don’t get hit.”

“For how many
times in the ring? How many fights before it
happens
again?”

“Are you going
to help me out or not?”

Evan stared at
him, and his face relaxed into a grin. “Okay, I’ll help you. But don’t expect
me to stop trying to turn you away from the dark side, young Jedi. You’re like
one of those old men in cardiac rehab, sneaking off to Mickey D’s to get French
fries and piling on the salt.”

“Oh, God, I
want some French fries. I’ve had a craving for a week.”

Evan laughed,
handed him a towel. “How about pizza and a beer? Is that allowed on your
training schedule?”

Jesse thought
about supper, a piece of broiled chicken, some steamed kale, and yogurt and
peaches for dessert. “Absolutely not. Don’t let anybody take a picture of me,
okay? If my trainer finds out I’m eating pizza, he’ll kick my ass.”

Jesse ducked
into the shower, and when he came out, Evan was out of his scrubs, dressed in
jeans and a wrinkled shirt of wheat-colored linen. “I’m going to take you to my
favorite beer and pizza joint. You can get slices, and it’s really dark, so
back in the corner booth you’ll be incognito. Practically invisible. Like
Batman on the lam. It’s close. We can walk.”

Guido’s was two
blocks away, and like Evan promised, it had excellent slices and very cold
beer. Jesse got four slices with pepperoni and Italian sausage, and Evan
brought them a couple of tall bottles of Alaskan Amber. The joint was warm, and
it smelled good, like garlic frying in olive oil. Nobody gave him a second look
once he’d slid into the booth. Evan sat next to him, pulled one of the pieces
of pizza over and lifted it to his mouth. “Oh, man, that’s good.” He lifted his
bottle of beer and took a long swallow. “So tell me about you.”

Jesse was
enjoying the show, watching Evan stuff his face and get pizza sauce all over
his chin. He reached over with a napkin and wiped the sauce up. “You’re a pig.
Why don’t you tell me about you? I talk about myself all the time.”

“I’m just a
lonely PT, looking forward to beer and pizza at the end of a long day.
Especially when my patients do not take my
suggestions,
and nobody does what I tell them to do.”

“Yeah? Is that
what would make you happy? If everybody did what you told them to do?”

Evan gave him a
quizzical look. “I’m already happy, bud. That’s like my baseline state of
being. Aren’t you?”

Jesse opened
his mouth,
then
hesitated. He picked up his beer and
took a sip. It was good, cold and rich tasting. “It’s not on my list of necessary
emotions in order to be the heavyweight champion of the world.”

Evan reached
for another piece of pizza. “I can’t tell if you’re full of shit when you talk
like that. I’ve never met another world champion at anything, so I don’t know
if its hubris or some massive inflated ego, or if your trainers have just done
a number on you. You don’t really think you have to give up being happy to be a
champion?”

Jesse shrugged.
“Sometimes, when you want something long enough and hard enough, you have to
forget about everything else. It just gets to be a habit to feel hungry. What
did you call it? The baseline state of being. My baseline state of being is
hungry. Haven’t you ever wanted something enough to give up everything else?”

“When I was
younger I played guitar and sang. Sort of late sixties soft rock. I was okay, I
guess, but I didn’t want it enough to give up everything else. When it got down
to the bones, I just didn’t care that much. I loved the music, but I was bored
with all
the me
, me, me. I looked
around,
thought I really wanted to talk to other people all day, see what they thought.
See what I could do for them.”

“Do you still
play?”

“Sometimes. For
my friends. If I’m trying to talk some good-looking boy into coming home with
me, I might play him a tune on my guitar.”

“Good reason to
play.” God, the pizza was good. Rich and cheesy and spicy. He cracked a caraway
seed between his teeth, wondered if Corry was going to smell garlic on his
breath in the morning.

“Is it hard
being a gay boxer? Do the other guys hassle you?”

Jesse barely
heard the question, drifting along on the bliss of the pizza. “Who says I’m
gay? Besides, when I’m in training, I’m not anything. There’s no room for
distraction. You’ve got to keep your eye on the ball, concentrate, you know
what I mean?”

“You’ve given
up happiness and sex to be the heavyweight champion of the world? You sure it’s
worth it?”

Jesse felt that
hunger
again,
hunger down in his chest like he’d
swallowed a bit of the sun. “Yeah, it’s worth it.”

“I can tell you’re
gay.”

“Whatever. One
more beer. I’m buying.”

They walked
back to the Elks Hospital, climbed in separate cars, and drove home. Jesse
fixed a cup of green tea, did some of the Qigong movements again, the bamboo
floor under his bare feet cool and smooth. He loved the way these movements
felt, so liquid and elegant, but powerful. Powerful in a different way than a
strong right upper cut. Then he climbed in bed, sat up against his headboard
with the cup of tea, wondered what Evan was doing.

Jesse imagined
he was climbing into a bed with the sheets and blankets still tangled up from
this morning. His place was a mess, clothes thrown over a chair, a stack of
books next to the bed. A big music
system,
and his CDs
were in order, carefully put away. Did he have a pet? A dog? No, he had a cat,
probably an old cat he’d adopted. Jesse could see it curled up in the blankets
at the end of his bed.

What was his
life like? What would it feel like, to have a life filled with mild chaos and
happiness and the occasional boy over for some guitar playing, and his work
trying to help people who did not always follow his suggestions? How did that
life feel? And what would Evan think of his life, his beautiful condo, one wall
solid glass for the light, and the view, the cool bamboo floors, the wide clean
spaces. It was empty of distraction, because his life was empty of
distractions, a perfect mirror of his inner world. It didn’t seem lonely to
him, not really. Not usually. Just focused, free of extraneous detail.

The tea was
perfect, clear and pale green, and he set the cup down on the bedside table and
turned out the light. Not really lonely at all, and then he wondered who he was
talking to. Who was he trying to convince? He curled up on his side, just for a
moment let
himself
think of what it would feel like to
have a messy, smiling boy curled up next to him.

CHAPTER
THREE

The
gym was like an old buddy, rough and tumble
, with the
satisfying thump of gloves hitting bags, little grunts of effort from men who
felt the hunger like he did. Corry was pouring coffee from the never-empty pot
in the trainer’s office. “Hey, kid. How was the PT?”

Jesse pulled up
a chair. “I don’t know,” he said. “It was a lot easier than I expected. He did
a bunch of balance tests,
then
we did this Chinese
exercise.”

“What, tai
chi?”

“Qigong.” Jesse
looked at him curiously. “You do tai chi? I wouldn’t have guessed it.”

“I’m doing it
for my arthritis. My doctor told me it would help once I got the ulcer and I
couldn’t take the pain medicine anymore.”

“I read some on
the Qigong last night, about healing energy and balance. It seems like the
right approach, but I wasn’t expecting it to be so easy. I mean, I didn’t have
to push at all.”