We go eat a discount lunch in the Food Studies kitchen, which is kind of unnerving because they watch you eat it. Today it’s lasagna, and I’m no expert, but it’s either overcooked or needs more sauce. There’s always something wrong with the food that we can never pin down, but it only costs a dollar fifty, and it’s better than those sixty-forty soy burgers and vitamin-fortified tater wedges they pawned off on us in high school.
Patuni is pretty worked up about the Power Team, going on and on about it. We eat on metal stools above a Formica island, and he keeps showing me the flier. “Look at the pecs on those guys,” Patuni says. “Think of the babes you’d pull.” He keeps leaning his stool back on two legs, which is against the rules in the Food Lab.
“I think I’m going to check out this Power Team thing,” I say, acting like there was never anything weird between us. “You want to do it together?”
He squints at me, shrugs. “Sure, yeah.”
On the exit ballot, I rate the meal an 8.5, while Patuni cuts them with a 6.
In the gymnasium, we sit on retractable wooden bleachers and wait for the exhibition. Only about thirty people show up, mostly guys, but Patuni points out that there’s nobody from the college here, and we take this lack of official endorsement as a good sign. There are several weight sets on the basketball court, including a bench press on the free-throw line with black plates stacked deep enough to bend the bar. We’re trying to act cool, but really, we can’t take our eyes off all that iron.
In the front row I catch Cheryl looking back at me. She waves.
Suddenly, “Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor plays over the public announcement system. Five guys in tight, red wrestling suits come running out. They jog circles around the weight gear, clapping in an exaggerated manner meant to make us join. Nobody does.
The Power Team doesn’t really say much. They just start lifting incredible amounts of weight, which is how we like it. An enormous man in a flattop ducks his head under the bar of a squat rack and takes the weight on his shoulders. He backs up in slow, staggering steps while the other guys crowd around, chanting, “feel the power.” He looks at the ceiling, chugging air, and dips down until his ass touches the ground. His rise is so slow we can’t take it. He braces his teeth, snatches great gasps of air, iron plates trembling.
“My God,” I say.
“Jesus,” Patuni says. He keeps spitting on the floor between his knees and rubbing it out with his foot, a habit of his when he’s excited.
The weights slam back on the rack, and the other guys ask him how heavy it was. He looks out to the audience. “I didn’t feel a thing,” he announces.
Patuni and I look at each other. “There’s cocky,” Patuni says, “and then there’s pissing in people’s faces.”
Another Power Teamer does a tremendous military press while the others jog in place and chant “yeah, uh-huh” over and over. When the bar is over his head, and his elbows lock, he manages to stutter, “I used to be weak. Then one day I found strength.” He drops the weight, which visibly moves the hardwood floor. They all high-five.
“Is this like a skit or what?” Patuni asks.
“I think they’re gonna try to sell us weight sets,” I say.
The black Power Teamer lies down on the bench.
The flattop Power Teamer asks him very loud, “Do you want a spotter?”
“No thanks,” he answers. “I’ve already got one.” He goes ahead with the press alone, and now we know they’re running some kind of scam. But the lift is magnificent. It has us. The iron rumbles like storm drain covers, the floors moan, and we are left gripping our own elbows. Cheryl looks back at me. We shake our heads in disbelief.
Another man presses a nail into a block of wood with his bare hands, and then, in what is the most terrifying thing I have ever seen, he blows up a hot water bottle. It takes forever, veins throbbing, tendons straining, and you can hear the dry hasp of his throat rattle through a balloon that now matches the color of his reddened skin. The sight has the same life-threatening grip as the natural childbirth video they scared us with back in Health and Hygiene.
Finally, a man steps forward with a chrome crowbar, and I know this is Jack. He is older than the others, with a thick mustache and blue eyes that scan us all. His tanned skin runs loosely over his muscles as he grabs the hook and spade ends of the crowbar in his fists. He starts the bend by wrapping it around the back of his neck, but then does the final crunch, elbows out, right in front of his face. It looks like he is bending it with his mind, and when the bar starts to fold, the chrome plating crackles off into mist of sparkly flakes.
“How did you bend that?” the black Power Teamer asks.
“I didn’t bend it,” Jack says. “Jesus did.”
You can tell it took a lot out of the guy.
Then Jack goes for the grand finale, a long, boring struggle with a phone book, and it is only the white pages, from a town the size of Tucson at best. The process involves a lot of folding back and forth, and mostly it looks like he is giving the book a massage. Afterward, Jack can barely breathe. “You don’t need a phone to dial up Jesus,” he says, and then leans over, hands on his knees, panting.
“Such bullshit,” Patuni says. “What are we, dupes?”
“This is such a lie,” I say. “Everything is so rigged.”
Yellow pamphlets entitled “Yield to Jesus” file down our row and as soon as the Power Team opens things up for Q&A, I stand up.
“Answer this,” I say. “Wasn’t Jacob stronger than the angel?”
The Power Teamers look at one another.
“Forget the Old Testament,” the black Power Teamer says. “Jesus is where it’s at.”
We all wait for one of them to expand on this, but they don’t, and we’re not sure if things are over. What’s clear is that Jack is beat. I wonder if he maybe strained something. Cheryl is down by him, running a hand over his back, and even bent over, his lats are like Corvette fenders.
* * *
Toward the early afternoon, an unusual weather front moves in. It sweeps up from the Baja and stalls in the Phoenix Valley. Cloud heads rise, threaten, and dissipate, leaving the city overcast and hot. The mugginess gives my father a considered mood as he works quietly in the heat, finishing the last pink panels that will seal us into Treen’s back lot. The blocks flow with method and precision — he tamps down a row, steps back, eyeballs the line, hefts another block. Already, I have a mixer of bright yellow mortar turning for the curved, decorative wall out front, and as I feed him the last of the pink block and mortar, I keep thinking about Jack, about how much that phone book meant to him.
Halfway through the yellow wall out front, my father loses his steam. He does not like the weather, he says, and we take a late lunch. We search the back roads of Chandler for a Burger King, but we are forced to settle for a tavern that in some way appeals to my father. There used to be an air force base out this way a long time ago, and the tavern is called The Lazy Jet.
We sit at two empty stools in the center of the long bar and order drafts and a microwave Tombstone pizza. Everyone in the bar watches TV, including the bartender, whose wild, choppy hair looks like it was cut in an emergency room. Four or five people to the left of us look up to a TV that shows One Life to Live, while those to the right watch a documentary on Africanized bees.
The TVs are loud, especially all the buzzing, and we don’t really talk much. The tavern’s air-conditioner struggles to keep the place cool in this humidity, and when the pizza comes, I am hungrier than I thought, even after eating earlier. Dad lets me have the extra piece. The bar phone rings, and the bartender answers in front of us. He mutes the TVs with the remote.