I guess the idea to get into body building started because Mr. Burkholz showed us the movie Helter Skelter during personal finance class. Which was weird and ended up getting him in trouble. But, I wanted to learn more about Charlie Manson after that, so I got the Helter Skelter book from the library on the way home from school.
Coach McNeal, our football coach going on twenty years now, saw me reading it outside of the cafeteria. I expected him to give me shit for reading an ‘adult’ book. But we ended up talking about it for the rest of the lunch period. A couple of weeks later he found me in the hall again and said I thought you might like this one and handed me a paperback about the serial killer Ted Bundy. Maybe don’t tell anyone I gave it to you, he said as he walked away.
Ted Bundy bludgeoned his victims. I had to look that word up. Now that word pops into my mind a bunch of times a day. And every time I think the word, I see the action, and then the aftermath — all bloody and pulpy. Sometimes Coach McNeal's face pops up when I’m thinking of it.
The next book we read was Perfect Victim, about a couple who keep a girl as a sex slave for seven years. I was walking home from school and Coach McNeal rolled up next to me and handed it to me out his car window.
I tried not to read these books right before I went to bed or I'd have nightmares, but I liked the profiling, the zeroing in on the killers and kidnappers. What were their childhood’s like? What made them that way? Was there anyone like that in our town?
The last book we discussed was The Michigan Murders. We live in Michigan, I have been to the towns in the book. I told him I didn’t have time to read outside of class anymore. He said he understood, but you never know, right?
I joined Fowler’s Gym the next week. Fowler’s Gym is on my way home from school and it’s super cheap. $24.99 a week. I use my tip money from bussing tables. It's not a fancy place. The smell, musty and metallic, took some getting used to. So did the grunting and heavy breathing. My grandma says Fowler’s Gym is no place for a fifteen year old girl, or any female of any age, for that matter. I know my friends kind of agree with her, but so far, they haven’t said much about it to me.
At first the guys lifting in here gave me confused, weird looks. But now they’re used to me. They spot me and cheer me on. And they give me shit. Like the day I came in with my hair shaved on one side, they razzed me through my whole circuit and called me flock of seagulls.
Gary Fowler, the owner, is here most days. When I first came in he told me most of the ladies in town are doing Jazzercise at the racquet club. I told him that really wasn’t my thing. He just handed me a towel and told me not to hurt myself. I like it when Gary Jr. is working, he’s really cute and jokes around and plays AC/DC and Van Halen. We all pump a little harder on those days. Sometimes he’ll play some Duran Duran or Pat Benatar for me — the guys complain, but they know all the words.
Trisha Thompson told me that her mom’s boyfriend came home one night and said that he’d met a girl body builder at the gym and asked if she knew me.
I’m getting a reputation. I feel strong, I am strong. I’m ready.