The gym on Delancey Street looked more like an old storefront huddled between a barbershop and a bakery. There was a group of young guys gathered near the front door, smoking cigarettes and bouncing a basketball. Evan was glad he’d dressed casually that night. In his blue hoodie, jeans, and black work boots he could have joined the young guys and fit in perfectly.
When he entered the gym, he felt like turning around and going back home. There didn’t seem to be any gay people in there. He wondered if maybe his son and his best friend had been right about him dating a boxer. It all started to seem so bizarre to him. The only thing he knew about boxing was that guys put on cute outfits and punched each other around. They got all sweaty and people poured bottles of water over their heads to cool them down. The only boxing movie he’d ever seen had been Rocky, and he’d fallen asleep halfway through it. He figured this was a mistake. He could turn around and leave and he could call Carson and tell him something came up and he couldn’t make it. They didn’t know each other that well and neither of them was obligated to each other in any way.
But as he turned to leave, a large stocky man with silver hair grabbed his arm and said, “Are you Evan Littlefield?” He could have been in his early sixties.
Evan’s eyes opened wider. “Yes.”
The older man gestured to the back of the gym and said, “The Dog told me to bring you back to the locker room when you arrived.” He was missing a front tooth and he spoke with a thick Brooklyn accent. “I’m his trainer.”
“The Dog?” “Yeah, Savione,” the guy said. “He told me to bring you back to the locker room.”
The next thing Evan knew, he was following the overweight man through a long narrow gym where a makeshift boxing ring had been set up surrounded by rows of folding chairs. There were a few guys lifting weights in one corner, and a few people had already taken seats around the ring. Though the cinderblock walls and the concrete floor had been painted gray, and there didn’t seem to be any windows in sight, Evan noticed the harsh overhead fluorescent lights made the place brighter than he’d expected it to be.
While the man led him past two burly guys with thick stubble and hairy legs, Evan tripped over a brick that was holding the locker room door open and one of the guys caught him before he fell flat on his face. The guy grabbed him by the waist and said, “Are you okay?”
Evan glanced up and took a quick breath. He had one hand on the guy’s chest and the other on his shoulder. “I’m okay. Thanks.” But he felt his face getting hot and he wanted to turn around and run back out to the street.
But the older man led him through the main locker room, where a few guys were walking to and from the showers. One good-looking guy with dark hair and a goatee wore nothing but a towel so low on his waist Evan saw his pubic hair. Two other guys stood near a broken wooden bench wearing nothing but jock straps and talked about bench pressing. Evan shoved his hands into his pockets and stared down at the floor when a naked young guy holding a towel and a plastic soap container loped toward the showers in his bare feet. His thick flaccid dick bounced around in such an obvious way Evan was terrified to look at anything but the floor.
This boxing gym wasn’t anything like the high-end commercial gym he went to when he lifted weights, where there were expensive slate floors, luxurious steam rooms, potted palm trees, and fresh clean white towels stacked on shiny stainless steel shelves. Evan didn’t see a juice bar or a spin class room. No one got pampered here. This gym with concrete floors and cinderblock walls brought him back to his high school days, where he’d been afraid to take off his pants for fear he’d get an erection surrounded by all those other naked guys.
The smell of jock sweat, rubber, and damp towels also brought back all his old insecurities about being around so many wet, naked men. There was nothing sexual about it, not in the least. It was pure fear of being exposed—or rather, the association of what he’d experienced in high school during gym class. Even though he’d been out of the closet for years, he felt a pull in his stomach at the sound of deep hollow male voices talking about guy stuff mingling with the harsh sound of running water from the showers. The steam alone made him want to gag.
He found Carson at the back of the gym in a small room with a few lockers, a sink, and a high metal table that reminded Evan of an examination table in a doctor’s office. Carson was sitting on the table and two other guys were getting him ready for the match. He was wearing loose white boxing shorts with navy blue sports stripes down the sides, a sexy pair of red athletic shoes that came up to his ankles, and some type of thick blue wrist bands. He looked nothing like the conservative teacher Evan had met at Kenny’s school. He looked nothing like the nice quiet guy he’d had dinner with in Chelsea. In this boxing gear, he looked like all the other guys walking around in that gym and no one would ever have guessed he was gay.
When Carson saw him enter, he smiled and made a fist. “Hey, you’re really here.”
The heavyset man with silver hair left the room and the other two continued to help Carson put on his red boxing gloves.
Evan smiled and said, “I told you’d I’d be here. Why wouldn’t I come?”
Carson shrugged and laughed. “I had this deep down feeling you might not be interested in boxing and that you were being polite when I invited you.”
Evan smiled again. “I don’t know shit about boxing, but that doesn’t mean I can’t learn. Besides, I’m curious.” He chose his words with care, because he wasn’t sure if the other two guys knew Carson was gay. This came naturally, as it comes so naturally to all gay men when they are placed in situations with straight men.
When Carson’s gloves were on and he was ready to step into the ring, he asked the other guys to leave so he could have a moment alone with Evan. His exact words were, “I need to talk to my buddy for a minute,” which meant he didn’t want them to know he was dating Evan—or he didn’t feel the need to admit it.
Evan had been sitting on a small chair in the corner of the room watching them prep him for the fight. Although he didn’t have a clue as to what they were doing or what was happening, he smiled and pretended he’d been watching men get ready to fight all his life.
The moment they were alone Carson hopped off the metal table and said, “Can I give you a hug for good luck?”
“Is it safe?”
“Most of the guys know I’m gay,” Carson said. “And I don’t give a damn anyway at this point in my life.”