Page 11 of Playing to Win

She puts the plates on top of the sticky bar we’re perched at. There’s something about a sticky wood bar in a sports joint that just works. And Mitch’s Sports Bar happens to have the best wings in the city.

“You want another two beers, Brooks?” That’s Mitch. Second-generation Mitch, who now runs the bar since his old man died a few years back.

I’ve wasted no time in getting my first wing to my mouth, so I nod with a mouthful of hot sauce.

Jake is already chomping through his first bite of burger like he hasn’t been fed for a decade. “Fuck me, they don’t make burgers like this in England. In London it’s all about presentation and good British beef. Screw that! I want good, hearty, mess-on-a-plate pulled pork. I don’t give a crap where the meat came from, I just want the thing to be smoked properly with a solid barbecue sauce. This is a burger. I ought to take a picture of this and tweet it to the Queen.”

I wash down my first wing with a swig of beer and subtly swallow the belch that threatens to pop up. “I don’t think the Queen is on Twitter, man.”

He takes another bite that has me in awe of the man. Showing me the half-chewed contents of his mouth, he says, “Yeah, maybe I should just eat it. Should you really be eating this stuff, Mr. My Body Is a Temple?”

“Are you kidding? I work out so that I can eat this stuff. You can’t starve yourself and build muscle. Wings are good protein.”

Jake gives me a disbelieving look from behind his beer bottle. “I’m sure that’s not what goes in those nutrition plans you’ve got every New Yorker raving about.”

I ignore his comment and work through another wing. I know my fitness brand has taken off. Damn, I have a wait list of hundreds for PT sessions and nutrition advice, but I feel weird when the guys blow smoke up my ass. They just know me as Brooks. Not Brooks “Trainer to the Stars,” as one magazine put it recently. I like being just Brooks.

I drop my bare chicken bone on my plate and jump from my stool when the Jets score a touchdown. “Yes! That’s what I’m talking about! Pay up, Jakey-boy! I told you there was a touchdown left in this quarter.”

“It’s a fucking rerun. You’ve already seen it.”

“I told you when we made the bet I hadn’t seen it. Pay up.”

“Ah, fuck. Here, have your five bucks. I can’t spend it in London anyway.”

I tuck his money into my back pocket and sit. “Ahh, are you sore, Jakey? Good luck to your hedge fund clients. With the bets you place…”

He thumps me in the arm but does it with a smile on his face. When the quarter ends, the television switches to commercials and I take a chance to really focus on working down my mammoth plate of meat.

“See, Brooks, this is exactly what I’m talking about.” I follow the direction of Jake’s pointed beer bottle to the large screen behind the bar. “This woman is selling fitness and not eating barbecue wings.”

I watch as a skinny blonde on the TV dances in front of a class. The words “Salsa Yourself Slim” flash up on the screen. The shot moves to an image of the same woman wearing purple yoga pants and a neon sports bra on the cover of a book. The voice-over says, “Look and feel great with Izzy Coulthard’s new book, Be Green. Be Clean. Learn her top tips to salsa yourself slim, and try delicious, detoxifying recipes.”

I suck the firecracker sauce from my fingers. “No way. Clean eating, all that raw carrot shit, will get you skinny. No doubt about it. But if you want to really be healthy from exercise and a good diet, you’ve got to eat. You can’t eat like a rabbit and put in a good workout. You need protein to repair your muscles and give you the strength to put in a solid session for your heart and lungs. I concede, maybe I don’t encourage sugar- and salt-laced barbecue sauce in my nutrition plans, but I do push eating meat.”

Jake holds up two hands as if in surrender. “Hey, I’m on your side, Brooks. But I’ve got to tell you, if it’s a choice, I’d prefer to wake up to her body than yours.”

“Jesus. Can we get back to talking football instead of you thinking about being naked in fucking bed with me?”

He doesn’t talk football. He starts talking baseball. With one ear focused on him, my eyes find the blond dancer on the large screen again. Yeah, I’d take her body over mine too.

Three beers, a win for the Jets, and a bout of meat sweats later, I let us into my apartment. I flick on the standing lamp in the living room and draw the curtains closed across the floor-to-ceiling windows.

I gesture to the sports bag slung across Jake’s shoulder. “You can take Cady’s room.”

“How is the little mite these days?”

I fill two glasses of water from the refrigerator filter and hand one to him. “Imagine yourself at eighteen, then give it female parts and a pretty face.”

“Fuck.”

“Exactly. Listen, I’m going to hit the sack. I’ve got a full day at the gym tomorrow. There isn’t a TV in Cady’s room but make yourself comfortable out here as long as you like.”

* * * *

I know I’m dreaming. I know that I’m not actually working out on the shoulder press in my gym, that I’m actually lying in my bed, sleeping. But it feels real enough for me to keep going. As I’m finishing up my final set of reps, the heavy fire doors to the main floor of the gym blow open, as if they weigh nothing. I raise a hand to shield my eyes as a bright light beams through the doorway, like rays refracted through a shard of glass. Through the intense light walks a blond woman. Her hair is tied back. She wears tight purple yoga pants and a blue sports bra, displaying every fine inch of her body. I recognize her from TV.

I get off the machine. The gym is full but the blonde is focused solely on me. She glides toward me, her feet barely touching the ground. Damn, she’s pretty.

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