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and yet to come.
     
    He stands naked before the mirror in the empty locker room, appraising his enigmatic body. Arms and shoulders still defined, still strong at thirty-two, despite some seven years at a desk job, ten since he last played third base, in college. Legs lean and muscled, but less so since he stopped mountain biking. But his abs, or more specifically the belly that covers them, are something in which he can take less pride. Not fat, but loose, settling in a roll on his hips, rounding out beneath his navel.
     
    On other days, when he looked at his belly he thought of defibrillators and fat-clogged arteries in waiting, of corpulent bodies sprouting tubes in ICUs. He felt a certain age creeping in and another slipping away.
     
    But today his wistfulness is focused on his testicles. Almost six weeks since they were shaved in preparation for surgery, three since the last of the prescribed icings. They ’ re once again covered with fine brown hair, once again looking very much like Henry Tuhoe ’ s testicles of old . Yet despite this superficial r eturn to testicular form, Henry feels a rumbling churn in his lower abdomen just thinking about them, a knifing pain in the top of his skull just looking at them. And when he lets his left hand drop to touch them, to gently tumble them like Queeg ’ s steel balls, he feels as if he ’ s holding not a surgically altered reproductive organ but two tiny bombs planted by terrorists of the self, waiting to blow his life apart.
     
    Not Journey. Foreigner: “ I Want to Know What Love Is. ”
     
    When he looks back up, balls still in hand, Henry sees the reflection of the old muscle man in the purple-and-white unitard staring at him with a disgusted look on his face.
     
    ~ * ~
     
    “ Five, six, seven, eight. ”
     
    Henry is on his back on the bench press, listening to the voice of Norman, his personal trainer. But he ’ s not lifting anything. Hasn ’ t since the count of two. The bar sits racked above his head; his breaths are silent and regular, not the breaths of someone working hard.
     
    “ Nice job, Henry. Really excellent, ” says Norman, who agreed to see Henry on short notice because he had nothing better to do.
     
    “ Really? ”
     
    “ Yeah. You ’ re making real progress. ”
     
    “ What if I told you I didn ’ t do a rep after two? ”
     
    “ I ’ d be shocked and offended, Henry. I ’ d consider it a breach of an understood trust. One more set, then we ’ ll do some, what? Some incline. ” Henry pumps out a set of twelve reps. When he sits up, he sees that Norman is staring across the gym at an unoccupied hack squat machine, and that he is crying.
     
    At first he tries to ignore it, to pretend he hasn ’ t noticed that his personal trainer, the man he pays $30 an hour to get him energized, motivated, and physically transformed, is crying. Again. He ’ s also trying to ignore the fact that Norman is wearing street clothes: black polyester slacks, an untucked black button-down shirt covered with yellow daisies, and flip-flops that have a bottle opener built into the sole. But Norman ’ s sobbing now, and Henry ’ s afraid if he doesn ’ t at least acknowledge this, things may escalate to a genuine scene, a spectacle, and the last thing he wants is to attract the attention of the disgusted old musclehead and the kickboxing man-hater.
     
    “ Norm? ”
     
    “ Yeah. Give me a second. You did great. That an NPB? ”
     
    “ Norm? ”
     
    “ A new personal best? ”
     
    “ Christ, Norman. I don ’ t know. Why are you crying? ”
     
    “ Just some tough times, Henry, man. I just feel sometimes kind of down, you know? ”
     
    “ Is it because you ’ re, you know, taking downers again? ”
     
    Norman scratches the dry, thinning hair of his scalp, which looks like it needs a good scratching. “ Painkillers. Not downers. Percocet. Mostly they help a lot, but sometimes even though the physical pain subsides the mental anguish