Chapter 69: Iron and Discipline
Monday, January 4, 2016
Michael pulled his gray Corolla into the "24 Hour Fitness" parking lot. It was a square concrete and glass building in the middle of a strip mall, flanked by a donut shop and a laundromat.
He sighed, looking at the building as if it were a torture chamber.
His body no longer hurt as much as the week after the concert, but the memory of his physical weakness was still fresh. Almost collapsing after twenty minutes on stage wasn't an option for his future. If he wanted to do world tours, he needed lungs, not just talent.
He adjusted the hood of his black hoodie over his head and made sure his sunglasses were on straight. It was his uniform. He didn't mind being recognized —after all, his face was on YouTube with millions of views— but he preferred to go unnoticed. He didn't want to sign autographs while trying not to die on a treadmill.
He got out of the car and went inside.
The blow was immediate. It wasn't a blow of heat, but of noise and humanity.
As he entered, he realized his mistake. It was the first Monday of the year. The official day of New Year's Resolutions. The gym was packed.
It wasn't a training ground; it was a zoo. There was a cacophony of metal weights clashing against the floor, exaggerated grunts of effort, and a mix of generic pop music and reggaeton blaring from the ceiling speakers. The air was a warm soup of fresh sweat, cheap deodorant, and burnt rubber.
Michael made his way to the counter. He registered for a monthly membership with no contract, paying in cash. The guy at the counter didn't even look at his face; he was too busy processing the line of people behind him.
Michael passed the turnstiles and entered the weight room. He felt immediately lost.
There were machines everywhere, metal and leather contraptions with cables and pulleys that looked like instruments of the Inquisition. And they were all occupied. He saw an older man doing biceps curls with technique that looked painful. He saw a group of teenagers occupying a bench press just to look at their phones.
He needed help. He had no idea where to start.
He scanned the room looking for a uniform. He saw a man in a tight red t-shirt that said "PERSONAL TRAINER" on the back.
The instructor was a muscular, tanned guy with slicked-back hair. He was leaning against a cable machine, but he wasn't training anyone. He was busy trying to pick up two girls in branded sportswear who were laughing at everything he said.
Michael approached. He stood a meter away, waiting for a pause in the conversation.
"Excuse me," said Michael, his voice quiet.
The instructor didn't even turn his head. He kept talking about his "macros" and his leg routine, blocking Michael with his shoulder.
Michael waited a second longer. He realized he was invisible. To that guy, he was just another skinny kid in a hoodie in January, another tourist who would stop coming in two weeks. He wasn't worth his time.
'Fine. Fuck you too,' thought Michael.
He turned around and walked away. He decided to do it alone. He started doing what he could.
He found a machine that looked simple. "Chest Press". It was free.
He sat down. The seat was too low, so the handles were at ear level. He tried to push. The weight was set to 150 pounds by the previous user.
His arms shook. The machine didn't move a millimeter. He felt weak, stupid, and exposed. He lowered the weight by half. He tried again. This time it moved, but his shoulders creaked in a way that didn't sound healthy.
The weight stopped halfway. Michael's arms were shaking violently, his triceps screaming in protest. He had committed the classic rookie mistake: ego.
He had lowered the weight from 150 to 80 pounds, thinking it would be easy, but his body, weakened by months of sedentary lifestyle and sleepless nights, disagreed. The chest press machine bar was stuck a few inches from his chest, refusing to go up.
Michael gritted his teeth. He felt the heat of shame rising up his neck. He could feel the stares of others, real or imagined, pinned to his back. The kid in the hoodie who couldn't even lift his own weight.
He tried to give one last push, a desperate effort that made his left shoulder crack alarmingly. His elbows flared out, breaking form, seeking any mechanical leverage to move the load.
He was about to drop the weight abruptly, risking a muscle tear or making a thunderous noise that would attract the entire gym.
Suddenly, the weight lightened.
A pair of hands appeared in his peripheral vision, grabbing the machine handles from above and pulling them back with surprising firmness.
"Let go," said a voice. It wasn't a suggestion. It was an order.
Michael let go of the handles. The weights returned to their place with a soft clank, muffled by the stranger's intervention.
Michael collapsed against the backrest, panting, rubbing his sore shoulder. He looked up to see his savior, expecting to see some giant bodybuilder coming to mock him.
It wasn't a man. It was a girl.
She would be about twenty years old, maybe a little older. She wore her dark blonde hair in a high, tight ponytail, revealing a washed face shining with a thin layer of sweat. She wore no makeup, only determination.
Her clothes weren't fashionable; they were functional. Black leggings, a gray tank top that showed defined shoulders and toned arms. She didn't look like one of the January "tourists" taking selfies in the mirror. She looked like someone who lived there.
She looked at him with a critical expression, hands on her hips.
"You're going to dislocate your shoulder if you keep that up, new kid," she said. Her tone wasn't mocking, but it wasn't sweet either. It was the tone of a mechanic watching someone trying to fix an engine with a hammer. "Your elbows were flying all over the place."
Michael felt incredibly stupid. He pushed up his sunglasses, which had slipped down his nose due to the sweat.
"Thanks," he said, his voice still a bit breathless from the effort. "I thought I had it."
"No. You didn't have it," she said, approaching the machine. "And the seat is wrong. You're pushing with your neck, not your chest."
She crouched down and adjusted the seat lever, raising it two levels with a fluid and audible movement. Then, she pulled the pin out of the weight stack. She moved it from 80 pounds to 40 pounds.
"Hey..." Michael started to protest, his pride hurt.
She looked at him. "Do you want to lift a lot of weight once and break yourself, or do you want to lift the right weight a thousand times and get strong?"
Michael closed his mouth. The logic was irrefutable. It was the same logic he applied to music production: it didn't matter how loud the bass sounded if the mix was broken.
"The second one," admitted Michael.
"Good," she said. She held out her hand. Her fingers were wrapped in athletic tape. "I'm Amy."
Michael shook her hand. Her grip was strong, calloused. "I'm Mike."
He didn't say "Michael Demiurge". He didn't say "the viral video kid". Here, sweating and failing on a basic machine, he wasn't a star. He was just Mike, the rookie.
Amy smiled slightly, releasing his hand. "Well, Mike. Welcome to the jungle."
She gestured toward the chaos of the gym around them. A guy was screaming in the free weights area while dropping a barbell. A Zumba class was blaring in the background. There were people lining up for the treadmills.
"It's crazy, right?" said Amy, taking a sip from her water bottle.
"It's horrible," corrected Michael, looking at a group of three guys occupying a bench just to talk. "I don't know how you can concentrate."
Amy laughed. "It's not always like this. It's normal for the first few days of the year to always be full."
She leaned against a neighboring machine, crossing her arms. She seemed to have taken a break from her own routine to take pity on him.
"It's the New Year's resolutions," she explained, pointing discreetly at different people. "Look at that one over there. New clothes, expensive shoes, looking at his phone every two seconds. Tourist. And that group over there, the ones taking photos. Tourists."
Her gaze returned to Michael. "But don't worry. It'll change in a couple of weeks."
"You think?" asked Michael.
"I know. I've been coming here for three years," said Amy. "By January 15th, half will be gone. By February 1st, it'll be back to just the right people. The ones who come to work, not to post on Facebook that we're working. It always happens. It's gym natural selection."
Michael nodded. He liked the way she spoke. It was cynical, but practical. She reminded him a bit of Leo.
"So, are you a tourist, Mike?" asked Amy, challenging him with her gaze. "Or are you going to be here in February?"
Michael thought about his resolution. He thought about how weak he felt on the Observatory stage. He thought about the need to survive the world tours he knew were coming.
He took off his sunglasses completely and put them in his hoodie pocket. He looked Amy in the eye.
"I'm going to be here," he said. "I have no choice."
Amy evaluated him for a second. She saw something in his expression, perhaps the same silent determination he put into his music.
"Good," she said. She stepped away from the machine. "Then, let's do it right. Sit down. I'm going to teach you how to do a chest press without sending you to the hospital."
Michael sat on the machine. The seat, now adjusted by her, felt much better. The handles were at the correct height, aligned with his mid-chest.
Amy stood beside him. "Shoulders back. Chest out. Don't push with your arms, push with this," she said, lightly touching Michael's pectoral to indicate the muscle.
Michael pushed the handles forward. The 40 pounds moved with a smoothness that surprised him. Without the excessive weight he had tried to lift before, he could feel his pectoral muscles contracting and stretching.
"One," counted Amy, standing beside him with her arms crossed. "Slow on the way down. Don't let the weights crash. You control the weight, not the other way around."
Michael obeyed. He resisted gravity as he returned to the starting position.
"Two. Breathe. Exhale when pushing. Inhale when returning."
He followed the rhythm of her voice. It was hypnotic, almost like following a metronome in Ableton.
"Three... Four... Five..."
By the tenth repetition, Michael felt a clean burn in his chest. It wasn't the sharp, dangerous pain of his joints screaming; it was the heat of real muscle work.
"And rest," said Amy.
Michael let go of the handles and exhaled loudly. He felt good. He felt... capable.
They stood there during the minute of rest. Around them, the gym was still a chaos of people who didn't know what they were doing, but in that small bubble around the chest machine, there was order.
"So," said Michael, wiping his forehead with his hoodie sleeve. "Do you do this every day?"
"Monday to Friday," said Amy. "Sometimes Saturdays if I'm bored. It's my therapy. People go to bars, I come here to lift heavy things."
Michael nodded. He understood the concept of therapy through repetition.
"I used to... well, I used to work a lot," said Michael, without giving details. "But it was physical, not exercise. Washing dishes, carrying boxes. I thought I was in shape, but the other day I almost collapsed after running a little."
"Physical work tires you out, but it doesn't necessarily make you strong," corrected Amy. "Here you build the engine. Outside you just use it."
The minute passed. "Second set. Let's go."
Michael settled in. This time, he felt a rush of confidence. The 40 pounds felt light. Too light. His male ego, hurt by having failed before, raised its head.
"I think I can increase it a little," said Michael, reaching for the weight pin to move it to 60 pounds. "It feels easy."
Amy's hand intercepted his before he could touch the metal. It was a quick, reflexive movement.
"No," she said. Her voice wasn't angry, but it was firm, like a door closing.
Michael looked at her, surprised. "But I can do it. Seriously. I have strength."
"I don't doubt it," said Amy, releasing his hand but holding his gaze. "You could lift sixty. Maybe eighty one more time. But on the third rep, your form would break. Your shoulder would roll forward. Your back would arch. And tomorrow you wouldn't be able to move your arm."
She crouched down to be at Michael's eye level.
"Listen, Mike. This is what kills all the new guys. Ego. They see the number on the machine and they want it to be high."
She pointed to the weight stack.
"It doesn't matter if you can keep going. It doesn't matter if you can lift more. The goal isn't to move the weight from point A to point B. The goal is to stimulate the muscle without breaking the joint."
Michael withdrew his hand from the pin, returning to the starting position. He felt scolded, but in a way that made sense.
"You have to follow a routine and not overexert yourself," Amy continued, returning to her coaching stance. "Consistency is key. If you injure yourself today because you wanted to impress no one, you'll be out for two weeks. If you do a little today, but do it perfectly, you can come back tomorrow. And the day after. And in a month, you'll lift those eighty pounds without thinking."
"It's better to do little but with good technique than a lot and overexert yourself," she concluded. "That way you avoid injuries. And that's how a real body is built. Brick by brick."
Michael processed her words.
It reminded him of music production.
He could put a limiter on the master channel and turn up the volume until everything was in the red, distorted and loud. It would sound "loud", yes. But it would sound bad. It would sound amateur.
True skill was in the mixing, in the balance, in leaving space for each sound to breathe. 'Look At Me!' was an exception, an intentional distortion. But his career couldn't be based on blowing out speakers every time. He needed the clarity of 'White Iverson'. He needed technique.
He nodded, feeling a new respect for the girl.
"You're right," said Michael. "Brick by brick."
"Exactly," smiled Amy. "Now, give me twelve reps. Slow. Four seconds down, one second up. Make those 40 pounds feel like a hundred."
Michael pushed. He concentrated on the form, not the weight. He felt every fiber of his chest working. Burning. Trembling.
But it was a controlled pain. It was the pain of progress.
They finished the set. Then they did a third. Amy didn't let him cheat even once. She corrected his elbow, reminded him to breathe.
At the end of twenty minutes, Michael had only used one machine. But his arms felt like jelly and his chest was pumped. He felt more exhausted than if he had been throwing boxes for an hour, but he felt no pain in his joints.
He got up from the machine, wiping the sweat from the backrest with his towel.
He looked at Amy. She wasn't sweating, but she looked satisfied.
He had found someone who spoke his language: the language of discipline and process over immediate results.
"Okay," said Michael, taking a deep breath. "I understand what you're saying. I'll be back tomorrow."
"You better," she said. "Tomorrow is back day. And believe me, that hurts more."
Michael said goodbye and walked out of the gym.
The fresh January air in the parking lot was a welcome thermal shock. The sun was setting, the California sky turning orange.
He walked toward his gray Corolla. His movements were slow, deliberate. It hurt to lift his arm to open the car door.
He slumped into the driver's seat. The inside of the Toyota smelled of pine and old fabric. It was a safe haven.
He started the engine and rolled down the windows. He drove out of the parking lot, heading toward his canyon house.
As the wind hit his face, he reflected on the pain he felt.
His muscles burned. He was exhausted. But it was a different pain than he felt after the Observatory concert.
That pain had been damage. From pushing his body beyond the limit without preparation. From screaming until he bled.
This pain... this was construction pain.
It was the pain of breaking muscle fibers so they would grow back stronger. It was the pain of discipline. It was the entry price to becoming the version of himself he needed to be.
He looked at his hands on the steering wheel. The same hands that controlled millions of dollars in cryptocurrency and produced viral hits. Now, they were also learning to lift iron.
He wasn't just building a financial empire or a music career. He was building the vehicle that would carry him through all of that.
He reached his dirt road. The house was dark and quiet.
He smiled, despite the fatigue.
'Tomorrow is leg day,' he thought.
He knew he would go back. The routine had begun.