Treadmill (3 page)

It was hard for Cooper to tell what the next remark was supposed to be, although he knew it had to be some sort of probing question. Cooper decided to skip it, and both men sunk back into silence. Soon after, Cooper left. He waved good-bye, Parrish barely grunting in acknowledgement.

They did not speak again until the next day, when both men were sprawled naked in the sauna, the heat opening their pores.

“Feels good,” remarked Cooper.

“Yeah.”

There was a long gap of silence. Then Parrish spoke again.

“You can really make a life out of this,” he said, slapping his hard ripped stomach.

“Seems so,” Cooper said, glancing at Parrish, noting that the dog tag around his neck was not engraved.

“As a kid I never gave a shit. Smoked, drank, ate garbage. The only weight I ever lifted was a beer can.” Parrish shook his head.

“Me too,” Cooper lied.

“I’m really into all this,” Parrish murmured.

“I don’t know what I’d do without it,” Cooper replied.

“Beats working.”

“Yeah.”

Parrish leaned back. “Pick up my check at the unemployment office every week. If that runs out, I might be able to scratch together enough money to carry me. I don’t like change, and I don’t like authority—for example, the twelve bucks they scored on us.” His speech was clipped and hard. He avoided eye contact when he talked, which gave Cooper a chance to study his face unabashedly. He had a hawk-like look, a bony face, curved nose, high cheekbones, deep-set eyes, slightly receding brown hair. They were about the same height and weight, and Cooper figured him around his own age. They were similar—not a mirror image, but close.

“You can control your body, but controlling your own destiny…that’s a lot harder,” Cooper said.

“Depends,” Parrish said. He got off the bench, took a scoop of water from the bucket beside the coals, poured it over his head, then took another and poured it over the rocks. A cloud of steam hissed and rose filling the wood paneled room.

“The trick is to not make yourself a victim,” Parrish said, hopping up to the top bench and stretching his long body along its length. He put his arms under his head and the dog tag slid to the bench seat. “Carve out your place. Keep your head down and stay out of the line of fire.”

Cooper held his silence and waited, sensing that Parrish was on the verge of saying more. But Parrish remained silent. Cooper felt a bit put out; he had hoped for some sort of revelation.

He felt an odd kinship with this man, a type of camaraderie, which took him by surprise. They had spent every day, seven days a week for the last five months side by side—and at times, like now, balls ass naked. Proximity like that, Cooper supposed, counted for some type of male bonding, an experience that had always eluded him.

Cooper would not go so far as to attribute fate in their coming together, like the odd victims of the bridge collapse in Thornton Wilder’s
The
Bridge of San Luis Rey
, but he felt that the coincidences—the similarities between them—could not be ignored. Cooper tried to brush away the idea as false profundity. It was nothing more than pure coincidence.

“I was married for seven years,” Cooper found himself confiding in Parrish, a week later in the sauna. “My wife fell in love with another man and gave me the boot.”

“You’d never find me in that deal, brother,” Parrish said.

Brother?

“I lost my mother, my wife, and my job, all in one month,” Cooper continued, unable to cease the flood of revelation.

“Shit,” Parrish grumbled. His brown eyes showed his sympathy. “I never knew my mother, and I’ve never had a wife. Other than freelancing, I haven’t had a real job for nearly twenty years. Try to match that, brother.”

There it is again: brother
.

“Were you an orphan?” It was the first question that Cooper had posed to him.

“Yup.”

Cooper waited, expecting more. Nothing came.

“Were you adopted?”

“Never officially.”

Had he spent his entire childhood in an orphanage? Had he lived in foster homes? Who had raised him? Who had guided him through life?

“Actually, you wouldn’t believe it,” Parrish said, emitting a sound that was probably meant to pass for a chuckle.

“Try me,” Cooper responded. By now, his body was steaming in the intense heat, but he was too curious to leave.

“I was stolen,” Parrish said.

“Stolen?”

“Something like that,” Parrish continued. “Some lady stole me from the hospital.”

“And raised you?”

“No. Just stole me. They said she was off the wall. Kept me for about six months, then they found her and put her in a nut house.”

“And what happened to you?”

“It’s a long story,” Parrish said, getting up and stretching. Cooper followed him out of the sauna and into the showers. The place was empty. After the shower, they toweled themselves off and shaved side by side as they had done for the past five months. Cooper waited for Parish to finish his story. He didn’t. Parrish was dressed and out the door before Cooper had fully dried his hair.

Cooper found him sitting at his usual place at the lunch counter already biting into his BLT. Cooper hesitated, wanting to ask Parrish’s permission to sit next to him. He decided against it. He went to his usual seat and waited for the woman to take his order.

In not asking Parrish to sit next to him, Cooper realized that his insistence on repetition was compulsive; same routine, same time, same place, same seat, same food, everything unchanging.

Cooper knew that psychiatrists would identify such behavior as obsessive-compulsive. But labeling it that way seemed too pat an explanation, too harsh and forbidding. Cooper saw his conduct as safe, comfortable and familiar, not a disorder. It was anchoring, and held him securely in his orbit. He was certain that Parrish’s behavior served a similar function.

That day Cooper decided that he would not intrude on Parrish’s privacy. He could wait. And yet it was impossible to dismiss Parrish from his mind.

A stolen baby? Brother?

Such thoughts disturbed his concentration while reading. He was just getting into Thomas Mann’s
The
Magic Mountain
, but the book about Hans Castorp’s life paled in comparison to Mike Parrish.

He couldn’t wait until he saw Parrish again.

The next day Parrish was at the club, and Cooper was relieved to see him. They ran on their treadmills in tandem, and although Parrish acknowledged him with a nod, they did not speak. Cooper, oddly alert to the people around him, noted that the Doctor was sweating, working his leg muscles on the quadriceps machine. Blake stood beside him, supple and firm in his spandex tights, as he added weights to the machine. The room hummed with the sound of the exercise machines and the exertions of their occupants.

The blonde woman with the ponytail worked the step machine with her usual zeal. Anni Corazon worked feverishly; she had increased the weights on her machines. The other women huffed as they plied other equipment, their faces agonizing as they strained. Melnechuck, his muscles bulging from his workout, wiped his sweaty bald head, and headed for the locker room, acknowledging no one as he left the gym.

Cooper’s thoughts were now elsewhere. He wanted to know more about Parrish. It had become a matter of some importance, a priority. For the first time in months, Cooper sensed a loss of control, a sense of dependence.

“I was thinking about what you said yesterday,” Cooper began when they were in the sauna, which, in his mind, had become the environment in which to initiate conversation. He fixated on a strategy to get Parrish talking again. He had deliberately waited until they were both settled in, and the sweat had just begun to seep out of their pores.

“Were you?” Parrish responded with an ominous air of indifference.

“About what you said… about being stolen,” Cooper said, trying to introduce a casual tone to counter his opening gambit.

“Oh, that,” Parrish said.

When Parrish did not respond further, Cooper felt compelled to probe.

“Did you ever find your real family?” Cooper asked.

“Hell, no.”

“Guess you were raised by a relative then?”

“No relatives,” Parrish said. It seemed to Cooper as if Parrish was deliberately drawing out the explanation, mostly out of reluctance, but maybe to tease and tantalize him. Cooper expected at any moment for Parrish to cease further discussion or say something like, “Why am I telling you all this?” But he didn’t, and Cooper felt it might be appropriate to wait out his silence. The strategy worked.

“The lady who helped turn in that crazy woman was a neighbor. She ended up giving me my name. It wasn’t anything formal. By that time I was one, and she decided to call me Mike. She didn’t have a husband. Only boyfriends. She died when I was seven.”

“She died?”

“Murdered. One of her boyfriends pushed her out a window.”

“My God. You saw that?”

He nodded. “Weird, huh?”

“Where was this?”

“Philadelphia.”

“‘All in all, I’d rather be in Philadelphia,’” Cooper said, as if his own inner tension required an interjection of calming humor. “W. C. Fields had that put on his tombstone.”

“Yeah.”

Parrish got up, poured water over his head, then over the coals. Again, he stretched out on the top bench. Cooper cautioned himself not to get impatient. It was perhaps the suspenseful way in which Parrish was doling out the information slowly, perhaps he was relishing the idea of torturing Cooper with curiosity, or perhaps Cooper was giving Parrish a much awaited opportunity for a confession. Only, it wasn’t a sin to have been stolen. There was no shame in this confession. It was more like an unburdening.

“The boyfriend took off to Baltimore,” Parrish continued. “Took me along.”

“I’m surprised. You were a witness.”

“He wasn’t a real killer type. She just pissed him off.” An odd laugh erupted from deep within Parrish’s throat. “His name was Nick…Italian guy. He liked me. Knew I wouldn’t tell anyone. Saying anything now wouldn’t do a thing. It was all over a long time ago. In the end, he couldn’t take care of me so he gave me to his buddy and his wife. The Caluccis.”

“Just like that?” Cooper asked. “Passed you around like a piece of meat?”

“Wasn’t bad at all,” Parrish said. “Everybody was nice to me. I was a cute kid, although I don’t have any pictures to prove it.”

“I was a cute kid,” Cooper said inexplicably. “And I have the pictures to prove it.”

“But baby, look at you now,” Parrish said, chuckling. Cooper marked the moment as genuine warmth between them. He wanted to hear Parrish call him ‘Brother’ again.

“So the Caluccis raised you?”

Parrish shook his head. Cooper waited. Parrish remained silent for a long time.

Not again
, Cooper thought.

“I think they sold me,” Parrish said.

“Sold you?”

“I guess they needed money. They went off to live in Nevada somewhere. I never heard from them again.”

“Who did they…?”

“To this couple in Vineland, New Jersey. They were old, in their sixties. Mr. and Mrs. Baxter. Never had kids. Made me call them ‘Gramps’ and ‘Granny.’ Told everybody I was their daughter’s child, and that she had died. They were always hinting that I was well worth it.”

Parrish’s story was a whopper. But it seemed all so far-fetched that Cooper was slightly skeptical.
Stolen?
Passed around from person to person?
True or not, it was the longest Parrish had ever spoken.

Once again, the sauna’s heat made it unbearable to stay any longer, and they moved out to the shower stalls, then shaved, and met again at the lunch counter. Cooper assumed that the camaraderie in the sauna had bridged some gap between them, and for the first time since he had joined the club, Cooper took a seat next to Parrish.

It turned out to be a mistake. Parrish ignored him. Cooper didn’t want to pester Parrish in front of the counter lady, and was too embarrassed to move to his old seat at the other end of the counter. Instead, he left the health club before he had finished his sandwich. It was the first break in his regular routine in more than six months, and it shattered his poise.

That evening, putting aside
The Magic Mountain
and the peregrinations of Hans Castorp, Cooper tortured himself with hypothetical conversations with Parrish, most of which were confrontational.

He was less than alert when he got to the club the next day. Parrish, as always, showed no remorse for any rudeness he might have exhibited. Cooper decided to be indifferent to him, concentrating with renewed vigor on his workout, pushing himself to a level he might not have been ready for.

The Doctor was there, with trusty Blake by his side. Only the blonde with the ponytail seemed to notice Cooper’s increased burst in activity. Cooper noticed that she was looking at him with more interest than ever before, and unlike previously, he did not acknowledge her whatsoever.

A muffled grunt from Parrish shattered their concentration. He had punctured a finger from a sharp object imbedded in the rubber handle of the bicep machine. Parrish sucked the wound and Blake came over and looked at it.

“I’ve got a first aid kit in my office,” he told Parrish, who followed him into the office. As an afterthought Blake turned toward Cooper.

“Hold up on that machine ‘til I take care of it.”

Cooper nodded. Parrish was out in a few minutes with a Band-Aid wrapped around the index finger of his left hand.

“No big deal,” Blake said. He came out with a pair of pliers and pulled out the sharp object. “How the fuck did this get here?” He turned to Cooper. “Okay. It’s safe now.”

Cooper began to work his sets on the machine. Parrish did his, and said nothing.

“You okay?” Cooper called over.

Parrish barely acknowledging the question. Cooper was immediately sorry he had asked it.

Cooper contemplated waiting to go into the sauna until after Parrish had left, but became fearful that another break in his routine would add to his stress. He was determined to reunite himself with the present and avoid any temptations that would risk his peace of mind intact.

In the sauna, Cooper found Parrish sprawled on the top bench. He felt himself becoming resentful of Parrish. Why had he become so involved? Clearly, the man was incapable of any kind of a civilized relationship, no matter how fleeting. Cooper speculated that Parrish’s pillar to post upbringing had obviously left him scarred, unable to muster the insight and ability to relate to people. He thought of Margo, her insensitivity, her cruelty. The pain of it all, which he had held at bay thus far, seemed to be striving to break through.

Couldn’t Parrish see how badly he was treating Cooper? Had Cooper told him that he had lost sleep over their conversations, Parrish would undoubtedly find that incomprehensible. Even Cooper had found it incomprehensible. Why had this man taken such a hold on his imagination? Parrish was dominating his thoughts. It was becoming an obsession.

“You look a little piqued, brother,” Parrish suddenly said, turning to face him dead on, something he had never done before. His intense stare intimidated Cooper, and he looked away. It was the first time that Parrish had expressed any interest or concern for Cooper.

“I’m okay,” Cooper muttered, determined to remain disinterested. He was pouting, no doubt about that. It had been Margo’s frequent ploy during their relationship and he hated it.

“You can survive anything if you put your mind to it,” Parrish said.

Cooper shrugged.

“I helped Granny with her Alzheimer’s when I was thirteen years old,” Parrish said, picking up his narrative exactly where he had left off. “Gramps had already bought the farm. Then Granny died, and I was on my own. I arranged for the house and its contents to be sold, put together a stake, and headed back to Philadelphia.”

“Why?”

“I got it into my head to find the woman who had stolen me. I wanted to know who I was.”

“And did you find out?”

“Nope. She was so far off the deep end that she couldn’t remember anything.” He suddenly looked down at his dog tag and picked it off his chest. “When I find out, I’ll put it on this. So far I’m just blank piece of sterling silver,” he said.

“So she took your identity too,” Cooper said. It was a fact that had troubled him from the beginning. Parrish was in limbo. He would always be in limbo.

Suddenly Parrish laughed. “I have no documentation to prove I was even born. As far as the government, or anyone else knows, I don’t exist. ”

“Is that good or bad?”

“Both.” He stuck a thumb to his chest. “But I’m still here, brother,” Parrish said.

“So you are,” Cooper said.

But the next day he wasn’t.