Cowboy Ending - Overdrive: Book One (26 page)

And I was
starving.

My hands
trembled in time to the rumbling of my van’s labored engine.

“What the fuck
is the matter with me?” I whispered.

Chapter
22

Tamara’s eyes
were wide as saucers behind her naughty librarian glasses.

“I beg your
pardon?” she asked, her pert little mouth curving slowly into a
smile.

“Uhm …” You
fucking numbskull.

She crossed her
arms primly underneath her not unimpressive breasts and took a
demanding pose. “Would you care to repeat that?”

My face and
neck were aflame with embarrassment. “Not particularly,” I
muttered.

“Oh, I think
you need to repeat that.”

I ran my hand
over my weary, stubbled face with a heavy sigh. I was so damned
tired and my left forearm ached.

“Really,
Tamara?”

She
nodded her head once, giving me the
go
ahead
motion with one hand.

I sighed
again.

“Fine.” I
muttered sourly, squaring my shoulders and grimacing. “Tamara, can
you help me out with something?”

She waved her
finger at me admonishingly. “That’s not what you said.” Her voice a
cutesy little sing-song.

I ground my
teeth with frustration.

Damn you,
Freud!

We were
standing at the Fitness desk in the barren downtown YMCA. I had
been waiting for her to come on shift for over an hour, peddling on
a powerless stationary bike and trying to settle my nerves. The
events from the night before were burned into my mind, repeating
itself over and over in vivid Technicolor.

The rush. The
surge. My body buzzing. Sprinting. Power. Fear.

I had a copy of
the morning paper with me and I scoured it front to back for any
mention whatsoever about the incident. All I could find was a tiny
mention of a power outage off Waterfront Drive buried in a sidebar
beneath the ongoing story chronicling the missing women report tied
to the drug and prostitution issues in Winnipeg.

No mention of
an assault. Nothing about street thugs flattened like pizzas. No
description of a rusty piece of shit Windstar limping away from the
scene.

Nothing.

Sadly that
didn’t make me feel the slightest bit relieved.

When Tamara had
finally come bouncing into the gym in her red YMCA staff shirt and
dark yoga slacks I had almost made up my mind about what I wanted
from her. I let her make a round of the entire practically empty
facility before approaching, my mind debating over and over how to
bring up what I needed. And what I could trust myself to say.

Which of course
meant I was going to bungle it all horribly and come across like a
complete pervert.

“Tamara, can I
get you to check me out?” I repeated myself sourly, my face hot
enough to roast marshmallows.

She giggled
loudly.

Tamara’s smile
was infectious. Despite my embarrassment I could feel the corners
of my mouth starting to pull upwards.

“Oh to be given
straight lines like that more often,” she said still laughing.

“Figure you’ve
heard worse than that,” I said, chuckling ruefully.

“Oh, for sure!”
Tamara exclaimed rolling her eyes melodramatically. “You wouldn’t
believe the sort of things I hear from the beefed up, sweaty
self-important types around here.”

“Anything worth
repeating?”

“The best stuff
is always from the older patrons. They’re at least classy in their
attempts to invite me over for a private workout.”

“Nasty.”

“Not always,”
Tamara shrugged, my eyes following the motion of her body
unconsciously. “Sometimes it’s very sweet.”

“Huh,” I
grunted.

The overly made
up cougar ladies from the other day – the one where a treadmill
exploded and I pretended nothing was wrong like a complete nitwit -
sashayed past the fitness desk at that point. Both of them gave me
a faintly nervous smile as they walked by in their fresh off the
rack fitness gear. Once a safe distance past they began nattering
amongst themselves conspiratorially, casting the odd glance back
towards me.

Tamara shook
her head wryly as she watched them go.

“What?”

“Seriously, how do people get
that
dressed up to go to the gym?”

“Oh?”

“If I wasn’t
actually working right now I’d be in a pair of ratty tights and an
old tee shirt.”

I glanced
down at my ragged sweat pants and old
Thundercats
logoed tee shirt.

“So, I’m not
dressed in the height of fashion?”

“You’re a
goof.”

“True enough.
You gonna help me or what?”

Tamara
shrugged again, making parts of her move enticingly. I kept my eyes
focused on her face, afraid I was being tested.
“I don’t know, I’m
so
swamped
right now.” She smiled as she said it, her eyes twinkling as I did
another count of people down on the main floor of the gym.
Including myself and Tamara, I found seven heads total.

“What do you
need?” she asked brightly as I pulled a pre-loaded shaker cup out
of my gym bag.

“Grab a pencil,
some paper, one of your stopwatches and follow me upstairs.” I
stopped at the water fountain to fill my cup while Tamara got the
items I’d requested.

I had to be
careful filling it up today. I usually only used one scoop at a
time per shake but since the previous night’s incident, my stomach
had been demanding even more refueling than ever before. Every hour
the rumbling began. And since it wasn’t realistic to stop and have
a meal every hour, I loaded up every shaker cup I owned into my gym
bag before I left Mom’s house.

But if I kept
going through supplements at this rate I was going to need a WBBF
style sponsorship deal just to keep up with my stomach.

Tamara paused
as she came back to me, watching as I screwed the lid back onto my
cup.

“That is a lot
of protein powder,” she laughed.

My smile felt
forced. “Felt like a three scooper day.”

“That’s
nuts.”

“Cheaper than
steak,” I mumbled under my breath, the previous night’s dinner bill
still smarting in my mental wallet. I motioned with my head towards
the spiral staircase which lead to the weight pit in an “after you”
gesture.

The upper deck
weight pit was jam packed with free weights and resistance machines
of all shapes, sizes and brands. Around the outer perimeter of the
building was a two hundred meter track for those folks who wanted
to experience all the tedium of running inside but disdained the
use of treadmills.

I sipped at my
overly thick protein shake as I shook out my legs. Already I could
feel my body responding. Not with the dread I usually felt at the
prospect of running. But with eagerness. Excitement.

The balls of my
feet twitched and I found myself starting to bounce very lightly
from side to side, still sipping at the shake. The tingle at the
back of my neck was minor but present.

“You’re really
amped up today,” Tamara noted with surprise, a clipboard in her
hand and the stopwatch hanging around her neck like any coach in
the world. She peered at me cautiously, her smile starting to slip.
“Are you … Are you feeling okay?”

I drained the
rest of my shake before answering, dropping the cup into my gym bag
where I’d left it on the floor next to the track. “Honestly, I feel
tired.” And terrified. Don’t forget terrified. My stomach gurgled
loudly. “And hungry.”

She chewed her
lower lip, giving me that judging look women do so much better than
men. “Seriously, Joe. It’s been less than three weeks. Do you
really think that …”
“My doctor’s asked me to do some basic fitness tests,” I lied. I
suck at lying. I have a great poker face for bluffing and
bullshitting people. But actually concocting a lie? “You know, to
see how my progress is going.” Horrible.

Tamara’s face
went from concerned to skeptical. “Really?”

“Yup.”

“Your
doctor?”

“Yup.”

“The one you
hate?”

“Yup.”

“The one who’s
appointments you told me you were planning on blowing off from now
on.”

Shit.

“Uh …Yup.”

Tamara
eyeballed me skeptically.

“What kind of
tests?”

“Endurance.
Speed. Strength. You know, the basics.”
Tamara looked down at the clipboard briefly. “Well, most of the
doctors I know through university don’t usually recommend
self-conducted therapy testing.”

“That’s why I
need your help. So it’s not self-conducted.”

“You need an
accomplice?”

“An assistant.
A lovely, helpful assistant. Like Vanna White or one of Barker’s
Beauties.”

“Sexist
comparisons aren’t going to help you here.”

“Come on, you
never wanted to be one of Barker’s Beauties?”

“That’s beside
the point, Joe. You could hurt yourself doing this.”

“Maybe,”
I admitted. A small part of me was hoping I
did
hurt myself. The tingle behind my eyes at the
back of my neck remained steady. Eager but contained. “I just need
someone to help me out. Someone that I trust.” Someone to witness
things, convince me I’m not crazy.

“You trust
me?”

“Yeah.
Shouldn’t I?”

Tamara’s
expression changed again. I couldn’t read whatever it was,
something vague and inscrutable.

She grabbed the
stop watch up and began fiddling with it. “What do you want to
start with?”

“I’m not sure.
I figure I’ll start running. See how things go from there. After
that, I’ll hit the weights for a bit. See what’s what.”

“Okay. But be
careful. You’re too big for me to carry if you pass out.”

“Well if that
happens at least we know that CPR works on me.”

“I’m not doing
that again,” she muttered.

I blinked at
her in surprise.
“What?”
“Are you going to start running or what?” Tamara stammered, her
voice a little flustered.

Weird.

My legs were
practically bouncing with excitement. The upper floor was
completely empty of people aside from myself and Tamara.

“Start the
timer,” I said and bounded onto the track.

Chapter
23

“This is
unbelievable,” Tamara muttered, staring at the notes she’d made on
her clipboard.

“Well …”

“Joe… This is
impossible.”
“I don’t know about impossible ...”

“Two weeks ago
I saw you laying half dead in a hospital bed. Today you ran a seven
minute mile and followed it up with a three hundred pound bench
press!”

“Well my
previous best was three-fifty-five, so I’ve still got ...”

”You did it
twenty-seven times!”

I had nothing
witty to retort with. So I let my stomach dictate my actions and
took another huge bite of my foot long sub.

It had been an
interesting two hours in the gym.

Nothing blew
up. No light bulbs fritzed out. Nothing freakish in that regard to
speak of. That’s part of the reason I wanted to test myself in the
weight pit with no one else around. I had no idea what I was
getting myself in for.

Unlike the
previous night when the feeling behind my eyes took me over from
eyebrows to toenails, the buzzing at the back of my neck remained
steady. Slightly pulsing in time with my heart beat but not totally
consuming me. More than anything it felt like a constant
reassurance. A pressure point to draw from and shore me up as
opposed to one that took me over.

After a few
laps around the track without getting winded I began to push
myself, reaching slightly for that tingling sensation. “Reaching”
isn’t the right word exactly, but it’s the closest one that fits.
Just like with the treadmill, my body reacted accordingly. My
stride became longer. My heart rate began to pound. But my whole
body seemed to cool off from the inside, feeling light as a feather
as soothing energy flowed down my spine and shored up my limbs as
they continued to pound away around the track. Tamara’s eyes
widened as my lumbering frame picked up speed on each and every
lap. I wasn’t going a full Barry Allen or anything, no clouds of
smoke or Roadrunner action. But I was running pretty damned
fast.

After about
fifteen controlled laps at an all-out sprint my stomach began to
growl painfully. The tingle in the back of my neck sharpened in
intensity, going from a soothing pulse to a stabbing pain up into
my head. I took the cue and bumbled my way to a stop, only barely
managing to keep my feet in the process. Tamara rushed over next to
me, stammering away and showing me her stopwatch and the numbers
she’d written down as I fumbled desperately for my second protein
shake.