A man with a small child walks past a toilet cubicle on a dark stormy night in a Johannesburg university.
He misses his small brown dog, whose name must remain a mystery. The child’s name remains as mysterious as the little brown dogs. Which makes you wonder why they are even mentioned.
He tut-tuts at the rubbing noises emanating from the cubicle as well as the clear massaging of one body against another. He wonders what the world has come to.
What the world had come to for me was indeed most worthy of a thought or two.
He sees two pairs of feet facing in the same direction. Patches of brown goo cover the pairs of feet.
One pair belongs to me.
And this is my story.
“When Did You Become Weak and Give Up?”
“When did you become weak and give up?” asked my friend Michael when visiting me at my part time job one evening.
I was shocked.
Mortified.
Insulted.
Betrayed, even.
A presumptuous and insulting question deserves an equally presumptuous and insulting answer, I decided. A real humdinger. Something so quick, clever and off-the-cuff that it would flatten his comment and leave him grovelling in apology.
I could not think of one.
So I just stood there. I stood my ground, and continued to be insulted and offended in a deeply presumptuous way.
Michael didn’t notice. Michael was not a good listener.
So he carried on insulting and offending me most grievously and gratuitously.
“Just come back to the gym,” he said. “It’s as simple as that.”
Physically, I was improving. Mentally, as usual, things were questionable.
“I can’t,” I said.
Hurts.
Need help.
I added some more exculpatory evidence “Dr… mutter… mumble… grumble… can’t ever train… have to play tennis,” I explained, offering him my best tragic monologue.
“Look, you’re already walking around like a grumbly, grumpy, crooked little man,” said Michael. “You may as well be a crooked man with big biceps. Although your biceps will never be as big as mine,” he added, flexing his unfairly Arnold-like “guns”.
“You’re clearly in pain and unhappy. You might as well come and see what happens in the gym and be in pain and unhappy there”
He was partially right, of course.
It had been four months since my little oopsie-doopsie on the motorbike. Physically, I had made great strides. I was walking around. I was back at school. I had returned to my student job of being abused at a local steak ranch.
Physically, I was improving. Mentally, as usual, things were questionable.
The Drs Rooms
Cedric Father and Mother Dearest did their best to tell me what I was bad at so that I could “improve.” Strangely, this did not generate the inspirational gravitas one might hope for.
Until my bodybuilding had arrived on the scene my future in academics and sports looked a bit grim. Bodybuilding had been my saving grace. After the accident it was almost as if I had this one important thing that meant so much to me had been ripped away from me. Ripped away so soon and so unfairly.
The orthopaedic surgeons had said I could not be expected to walk straight again, as if I had ever been walking straight previously.
“Weight training,” said Dr Knox (the orthopaedic surgeon, while checking my testicles during a back examination), “is only for overgrown toddlers and genetic throwbacks. It’s right out of the question.”
Father nodded his head in rapt and repugnant agreement. Weight training was certainly not seemly and parliamentary behaviour, and now he had support in his views. “Acting like an overgrown toddler! What are you?” asked Cedric father.
“You can walk around a bit,” the great Dr added. “No running, though.”
“What about sex?” I asked.
“Hmmm,” Supreme and Invisible Oneness Dr replied. “I am married… but you do look a bit like a girl.”
“No, I mean for me, not for you.”
“Tennis,” said my father, “He asked if he could play tennis. He has a problem with his pronunciation and hearing” Father continued, helpfully, to Dr Knox. “And that’s not the only problem he’s got. If I told you the whole list you’d vomit. He’s also a bit slow…” He tapped his superior and perfect forehead for emphasis.
This was not going well. A medical hand was creeping around in areas that were nowhere near my back. I was not going to be able to walk upright again, let alone train with weights. My bodybuilding career, my identity, my self esteem, my pride, all cut short by fathers appetite for salad greens and Italian pasta.
There is a silence that occurs mentally during that split second of an accident or catastrophic incident. My life didn’t flash before my eyes. I just forgot everything. It’s a blissful silence.
And then you wake up.
“Time to wake up to the reality my boy” chorused Knox and Cedric Father, “You will never train with weights again”.
If you’ve ever had an itch that really needs a scratch, then you may relate to how I was feeling at the time. I was not done. I was really itchy. And not just because some hairy medical hand was tickling me. It’s an itch that only a manifestation of my potential could scratch. The inner and desperate need to amplify my strange and unusual gifts.
Have you been there?
It (whatever “it” is) has been taken away from you, but you are not done. I was not done, and neither are you. Until your last breath on this earth you are not done. If only there had been someone in that room who believed in me, because the people present certainly did not.
I was not done with bodybuilding and I was not done pursuing the things I wanted to pursue.
I had not made my point, have you made yours?
It’s how I approach many things in my life, including my studies, my fitness, and my work:
#ImNotGoingBack and #ImNotDoneYet.
“I am not going back to being that skinny boy, I am not done!” I cried out, the tears of defeat beginning to run.
“Sounds like a mantra,” chuckled the indivisible and all mighty wise Dr, “but facts are facts, mantras are NOT facts”.
“Indeed” agreed mother, “a mantra is a type of fish with wings”.
“Mantra, Mother Dearest. Not manta.” I said.
“Flying fish don’t really have wings,” added Cedric Father, helpfully. This was, of course, something he would know. Nobody liked to argue with Cedric Father, so we left it there.
Steak Ranch, Donkey Fur and Influence 101
Dr Knox’s creeping hand brushed against my testicles once again. It was time to leave and be depressed all on my own.
I’d been back at school for a month, not catching up on my work. I’d also started working as a casual waiter at a steak ranch in the neighbourhood. Which is of course where Michael found me. I said this earlier, go and look.
A delightful eating establishment where you could be simultaneously abused by quick-tempered managers and have great job satisfaction serving BBQ-flavoured meaty things of extremely suspicious origin and genesis.
“This is certainly not lamb shank,” complained an insufferable know-it-all customer. “It’s got orange fur on it. And what the flip is this?” he asked, pulling something unmentionable out of the sauce.
“Well,” I said, “you’ve got some free combos as well.”
“I don’t eat pork,” he snarled.
“To be fair, I don’t think this is pork either,” I replied. “That fur looks like it comes from a donkey. Pigs don’t have orange fur like that.” I pointed helpfully to the carpet-like substance on his plate. He had a point. Part of the meat could arguably be described as a rib, or a knuckle, or a skull. I wasn’t really an expert, so we just stared at it together.
I poked it with my finger.
“At least it’s dead,” I said. “Look, it doesn’t move.”
“Could be sleeping,” said Ruth, my friend and fellow worker, as she walked past with a returned meaty, pork-ish thing.
I’m sure you get the picture.
My short-lived but successful sporting career in bodybuilding had been taken off my menu of earthly delights.
It was good work when it came to tips, though. You needed to grovel a bit and laugh at stupid jokes (not too sure how that’s changed in my life). You learned the fundamentals of being a salesperson:
- You identify needs and wants.
- You let customers act like wine connoisseurs and experts.
- You make recommendations and gently guide them in certain directions.
- You sell the sizzle, not the steak. Especially if the steak may once have answered to the name “Pertunia the Friendly Donkey.”
It was here, in my first training ground of sales, persuasion and influence, that my first coach came to drag me screaming, shouting, resisting back to the gym. In doing so, he completed one of the most important unifying circles of my life.
My weekends had become a big party of fun, fleshy, earthly pleasures since my return to the real world. Most serious athletes don’t actually spend too much time in the real world. Its benefits and pleasures are greatly overstated. I only returned to the real world because it had been thrust upon me due to catastrophic circumstance.
My short-lived but successful sporting career in bodybuilding had been taken off my menu of earthly delights.
There is a silence that occurs mentally during that split second of an accident or catastrophic incident. My life didn’t flash before my eyes. I just forgot everything. It’s a blissful silence, a blessed moment of peace, oblivion, and nothingness.
And then you wake up.
“It’s time to wake up,” my mother would say.
“It’s time to wake up,” said Michael now. “You are going downhill. What a waste.”
“Screw you,” I said. “I’m happy.” I reached for a Camel cigarette. “By the way, you smell like an otter. You eat too much fish,” I added, thinking of the worst thing I could say to my old friend.
“You smell like alcohol and smoke and you look like a has-been,” he said.
There was no reply to that comment. Michael 1, Miles 0.
“I can’t train anymore,” I told him. “My bodybuilding days are over. Boo frigging hoo,”
Michael didn’t listen. Michael was not a good listener.
The First Step Back: One Set
So yes, Michael’s insults got me to visit the gym again on a Monday afternoon, screaming and thrashing and resisting and grumpy and all that.
He ignored all of that and helped me do what I needed to do.
A good coach does not actually tell you what to do.
You already know what you need to do.
A good coach just stands there and refuses to accept your bullshit.
“Let’s just start with a little bit of bench press,” he said. “Just one set and then you can go home.”
I did one set of light bench press.My muscles tasted something and the taste was good.
I didn’t go home.
I did another set and it was good. And another set. And another set.
Soon my chest and shoulders begged for more. The muscles pumped up in a way that they hadn’t pumped up for nearly five months.
Arnold Schwarzenegger described the bodybuilding pump as better than an orgasm.
He was right.
I hadn’t experienced either in a suitably authentic way for a long time. My chest wanted more. Other parts of my anatomy always wanted more.
The next day was legs.
“We cant squat”, I told Michael. “Drs orders”.
Michael was not a good listener.
“Thats fine,” said Michael, “you can do one set of leg extensions and then go home.”
I didn’t go home.
I had been told never, ever to put a weight on my shoulders again because my back would simply break. Squatting was definitely out.
“Screw that,” said Michael.
“Screw that,” I agreed.
I loaded up the squat bar and did ten sets of squats. The next day my legs cried.
I didn’t.
I was certainly not going back to being a skinny boy and I was definitely not done.
The Toilets
I would tell you about the thrill of winning a trophy of being applauded by 1000s of people, of the camaraderie of bodybuilders “backstage”. But that you can read anywhere.
The real magic is how two boys from a small town in the Eastern Cape that nobody really knew, could do what needed to be done to make their skins look brown for the stage lights. And that, dear reader, is what really happens behind those toilet cubicle doors.
There are certain things that go on behind toilet cubicle doors that are deemed unparliamentary and grimy, but not today.
Today is the bronzing of parts.
“Its all running down my legs.”
“Lift your pants.”
“No, stand still, I need to get in there.”
“No, you’re rubbing too hard.”
The tools of the trade are not what you may think.
No hypodermic syringes, no drugs, no elaborate electronic toys.
It was self-tan. Bronze instant tan. Small bottles of olive oil and baby oil.
That rather uncomfortable walk we did past all the “normal people” as we slithered into the last toilet cubicle to strip down and check that our artificially bronzed skins had been equally attended to. Especially those pesky, hard to reach bits.
Resilience Can be the Hardest Bit to Reach
And on the topic of those pesky “Hard to Reach Bits”. You will have “motorbike accident” seasons; a business failure, a toxic job, a divorce, a financial mess. Resilience may be hard to reach.
In those seasons, your brain lies to you: “you’re done, you’ll never be that person again, just drift”.
A good coach doesn’t “fix you”, they stand next to you, ignore your drama, and say “Just do one set. Then decide.”
Sometimes they rub what you need into those “hard to reach bits”.
Your identity as “the person who can still do hard things” is rebuilt through tiny proofs, not big vision boards
You may think that you are done. You are not done. You might just need a Michael, a boring little plan, and one very unglamorous first set.
To all those Michaels out there, especially my Michael. Keep doing the great job that you are doing. You never know how much a simple word of encouragement may impact someone’s life. Thank you for helping me on my path.
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” Winston Churchill.
“Fall 7, Rise 8”. (Nana korobi ya oki) Japanese Proverb.
A Man with the Child and No Little Brown Dog
Later, we stumble out of the back door of the theatre where we have just stood in our underpants hours earlier. There is peace, anticlimax and the lingering dopamine rush of achievement. The last stragglers of supporters whimpering their last acknowledgements.
We walk to the car, trophies in hand.
We are tired in that just-won-a-battle, muscles-empty, brain-fried kind of way. I close my eyes when we sit in the car.
Exhaustion begins to envelop me like custard sometimes covers a slipper, should you be such a person that pours custard onto slippers…just me then?
As I begin to slumber, drool and drift, I dream of a man…
Walking his small child…
In a nondescript bathroom…
On a dark and stormy night in a Johannesburg university.
He tut-tuts as he looks into the cubicle which has discharged its noisy rubbing participants.
He sees that the blue tiles have brown smears and he sees empty bottles of baby oil and an odd pill container.
He covers the child’s eyes, whose name must for now still remain one of life’s great mysteries, (as indeed must his little brown dogs name). He wonders what the world has come to but, even more importantly he ponders one of life’s great question
Why has he never been invited into a toilet cubicle?
