Body Building

 

I sit in the library, at the computers, two seats down from a man in a collared shirt with a more pinkish than beige hue. Cuffs are rolled to just below his elbows revealing a Casio watch with a calculator accessory. His tennis shoes are all black and possibly Velcro.  He tucks them beneath the plastic chair. He is mostly bald but the hair that remains is long and slicked back to the nape of his neck. He is only a little overweight but it doesn't manifest on his face. He doesn't wear glasses but would look more sophisticated if he did. Next to his keyboard sits a piece of paper that once belonged to a pad but has been ripped away. On it is a cheap tie dye plastic pen.

The only reason I notice a man in such detail is because he notices me.  Or rather, I think he objectifies me as a conscious being that might be able to empathize as a fellow sufferer of the slow internet.

"Its like dial-up"

"What's that," I say.  There is a girl at the last seat on the other side of the computers but it is obvious that he talks to me.

"The internet, its like dial-up," he pauses for a couple of seconds as if he is a lawyer in a courtroom and he has just bequeathed his opening statement.  He continues with the evidence, "I am trying to load a picture here and it’s coming up in inches at a time."

Dial-up is a term he remembers much better than I do.  Dial-up petered out in my fledgling years of elementary school.  I do not need the speed of the internet; he has not found sympathy.  I look over at him and disinterestedly acquiesce, "yeah."

But even that's not enough.  He has broken the ice and from there he slips into conversation.

"I'm looking at this body builder.  It says here she weighs two hundred pounds and they call that skinny."

I hesitate to respond.  They say that silence can at times be one of the more potent forms of speech.  Maybe he takes it as a sign of active listening.  Or maybe he isn't even aware of my disinterest, doesn't even care.  His case with the internet is closed; now that he has found someone to talk to he is content to wait for the loading of the picture.

"This one here is six foot eight."  He looks over at me.

I respond, "and that's a girl."

He corrects me.  "A female.  I like to look at female bodybuilders."  He considers it an important distinction.  As if I was accusing him of pedafiliac acts.  He vindicates himself and continues, "I used to be really into body building –much more amateurs than pros.  The pros get too big for me.  I try to keep following it but if your not down in LA," he takes his left hand and throws it up in the air as if this body language serves as adequate punctuation to end a sentence, or at least that is how I translate the ambiguous gesture.  "Most of it goes on down there, I still try to follow it but," he repeats the same motion suggesting that he has completed the paragraph.

For the next ten minutes, except for the obnoxious scraping on the sides of the library in preparation to paint, silence ensues.  In that time he is avidly focused on the computer screen.   So much so that the strain on his eyes is too much and he picks up his sunglasses, which up to this point have lay aft of his pen, and places the stems around his temples.  They are large and circular but not quite aviators and have plastic rims.  They are much too large for his face.  Eminem's "Eight Mile" starts to stream through the headphones at his computer cubicle.  He dons them over his sunglasses onto his ears as if he will not be able to take in the full experience of the web page without the added element of sound.  His expression remains unchanged.  His lips are apart: not like a man drooling but like a man deeply entrenched with concentration and a lack of self-awareness.  Every now and then he picks up his pen, scratches his forehead, and jots something down.  He suggests his departure by picking up his pen, rotating it so that the clip faces away from him and fits it over the ledge of his left breast pocket.  He then folds his piece of paper and places it in the same pocket.

I hear the printer warm up.  It piques my interest; I assume it is his.  He ruffles in his seat, takes off his sunglasses, looks intently at the screen once more, gets up, and fetches his sheet from the printer in the center of the room.  He retrieves his sheet and peruses it for a few minutes and then as he nears me, lowers the sheet and points, "see, that's the gal that's six eight." 

By now, two more people have sat down at the table of computers.  Nobody seems to notice.  Nobody seems to consider as I would, if he hadn't already informed me of his obsession with bodybuilding, that he could be holding pornography.  I look. Unimpressed, I nod my head, "oh yeah, hmmm."  It is not just the six foot eighter but a collage he has assembled of an amalgam of body builders.  He stands at his computer, logs out, puts his glasses back on his face.  As he walks by he lowers the sheet once again to give me one last look as he leaves, "I can't imagine that a gal could be that tall."

It is a statement; he doesn't expect a response.  As he approaches the front desk, he holds the paper out readying himself to show the librarian, like a child eager to demonstrate his productivity.  He leans on the desk and slides it over to where she stands, behind her computer.  I see his lips move.  The lady who has maintained an expressionless face up until now releases a forced smile probably pondering in the back of her head, with this sheet in front of her, whether this is an appropriate use of the computers and wonders what would be the most effective way of reprimanding this elderly but infantile man.  But before she finishes her thinking, he says one last thing, smiles, and walks out the door.  She goes back to the computer.  And I wonder, has this man discovered his passion?