Chapter Seven Dog Day Afternoon, dir. by Sidney Lumet
“You’ll just need to sign this waiver here,” the gym instructor informs Eli as she slides the iPad across the counter.
“There’s a waiver?” Eli glances over the pages-long document, swiping through paragraphs upon paragraphs of legal jargon.
“Yeah,” the gym instructor, Helen, according to her nametag, says in a voice far too chipper over a document that includes
the words We are not liable for your death, accidental or otherwise . “It’s standard stuff, just acknowledging that you know the risks of rock climbing and using the equipment. Now, do you know
if you’ll be bouldering or rope climbing?”
“Umm... I don’t actually know.” His attention is now divided between the waiver in front of him and the odd harness that
Helen is showing him. “My friend, he’s the one who invited me.”
A friend who is still nowhere to be seen.
Eli texted before he left, on the long bus ride from the Castro to the Presidio, and even waited outside to see if Peter would
meet him there.
Nothing.
“Here, we’ll get you a harness, just in case. And what size shoe are you?”
“I’m an eight.” Eli signs the document with his finger without reading the rest of it. “Why?”
“Because you need climbing shoes.” Helen dips below the coun ter before she springs back up with a pair of ugly white shoes with a red strip down the center.
“Is this Velcro?” Eli asks, inspecting them closely.
“Yeah, they’re specifically made for climbing.”
And for making grown adults look like five-year-olds , he thinks. “Thanks.” Eli hands back the device to her in exchange for the shoes, climbing harness, and a locker key.
He steps away from the front desk, following the signs that lead him toward the locker rooms. It’s been a little over a decade
since he was in a gym, and he’d spent most of that time on the bleachers, lying about his period to get out of dodgeball.
All of a sudden, he feels out of his element, watching people lift, press, and lunge with little to no effort. He doesn’t
even own any proper workout clothes, just sweatpants that he only uses for lounging around the apartment, and Peter said he
should wear shorts or tights to avoid snagging.
So he had to borrow clothes from Rose and Patricia, which is why he’s currently sporting a tank top that drapes too loosely
on his body and makes it look like he isn’t wearing any shorts at all. Normally he might mind being thought of as a total
pervert, but the shorts advertise the phrase phoebe bridgers was robbed at the 63rd annual grammys written across his ass, so maybe it’s for the best that they’re hidden.
“Peter...” Eli sings softly. “Where are you?” He checks his phone again, typing a quick i’m waiting for you text before walking into the locker room.
Which is where he collides with a dense—yet oddly soft—wall of muscle, unable to stop himself from toppling back from the
force generated by hitting a man square in his chest.
A chest that belongs to Peter.
At least the floor is padded.
“Oh, God, are you okay?” Eli hears Peter ask him. Eli can’t help but laugh as Peter’s face hangs over his, slightly hidden in shadow. “Eli?”
“That’s me.” Eli chuckles softly.
Peter raises an eyebrow. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah, yeah. Just my pride, but that was already in shambles anyway.” Eli takes the strong hand offered to him, letting Peter
hoist him up without any effort at all. For a moment, just a fraction of a second, he wonders if Peter is strong enough to carry him around.
Just a fraction, though.
“Good, okay!” Peter reaches into his ears, pulling out small earbuds.
“How long have you been here?” Eli takes Peter in, very visibly sweaty in his gym clothes, his tank top showing off the strong
arms that Eli had imagined hidden under Peter’s hoodies.
“I came right after work, did some warm-ups, lifting. I was getting my phone and saw that you’d texted me.” Peter shows Eli
the screen with his family photo and the missed texts, along with about a dozen missed calls and Slack messages. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay. I was just worried for a second.” Eli smiles slyly. “Thought you might be late again.”
“The alarms are doing their trick.” Peter beams at Eli, like he’s proud of himself.
“I’m more surprised that you left your phone someplace where you can’t answer it.”
“It makes it hard to concentrate if I’m getting all these notifications and messages.”
“So...” Eli nudges, curious. “The gym is important enough to ignore your phone. But our date wasn’t?”
“Well, you know.” His ears go red. “I have to, uh...”
“No, I don’t, Peter,” Eli teases. “Tell me what I know.”
“It’s just that, well, it’s like—” It’s funny, seeing Peter so clearly worked up and bothered, but Eli also knows it’s torture to the poor man.
“Peter, relax.” He puts a hand on Peter’s broad shoulder, hoping that’ll ground him, but Peter’s cheeks only turn more flushed.
“I’m just messing with you.”
“Right, yeah... Right.”
“It’s worth investigating, though,” Eli continues. “Why do you think it’s okay to put your phone away now when you’re working
out, but not on a date?”
“I guess it’s like muscle memory in a way,” Peter says. “I mean, I’ve been working out since I was in high school. So maybe
force of habit? I don’t know.”
Eli nods, making a mental note to ask Peter more about his high school experiences for the article. “Makes sense. Kind of.”
Then Eli stops. “Wait, you had earbuds in, but your phone was in your locker?”
“I just use them for the noise cancellation.” He hands them to Eli, both fitting in the palm of his hand. Sure enough, when
Eli tests one of them, there’s no sound. “Did you sign up already?”
“Yeah, actually, and I need to discuss with you how I might die doing this. Like that’s an actual concern?”
“Don’t worry about it, the floors are cushioned.” Peter’s straight line of a mouth finally cracks into a smile.
Eli does a soft bounce on the three-inch-thick black padding that covers the floor. “You’re not inspiring any confidence in
me.”
“The climbing section has extra padding. It’ll be fine!” Peter gives Eli a very heavy pat on the shoulder. “Go get ready, and I’ll wait for you here.”
Eli obeys, walking into the locker room, trying his best not to take notice of the gym showers that are just on the other
side of the half-wall, the sound of what has to be very naked men laughing about something as Eli leaves his things in a random locker and fixes the Velcro shoes that pinch the tips of his toes.
Just as he promised, Peter is waiting for Eli near the entrance.
“So, what do you want to do first? Bouldering? Rope climbing?”
“Which one doesn’t involve the harness?” Eli asks, showing Peter the straps that he can already imagine causing the wedgie
of the century.
Peter smiles. “Bouldering it is, then.”
And as Peter leads Eli through the gym, past the cardio machines and weight benches, past the front desk, Eli notices a very
odd phenomenon.
Peter greets almost everyone.
Sometimes it’s just a wave, or, to someone like Helen, it’s an entire conversation where he asks about her cat’s vet appointment
before Eli returns the harness and she tells them to have a good climb. It’s almost like there’s a different man in front
of Eli, a Peter that he doesn’t entirely recognize.
“You seem very... comfortable here,” Eli offers, stepping next to Peter as they walk past more machines.
“I guess you could say that,” Peter replies. “I’ve been climbing every Wednesday since I moved into the city.”
“So, you do have hobbies outside of work. Impressive.”
“Huh...” Peter stares like he’d never actually considered it. “I guess I do?”
“When’d you start?”
“After I moved here for college. My first weeks were rough, to say the least. I went through a pretty bad depressive episode.
I tried to tell my mom, but she didn’t get it and just mailed food.”
“But the rock climbing?”
“One of my classmates, a friend, I guess... he’d suggested that I do my best to be active again. So I went to the school’s
gym; they had a whole bouldering section, and I just fell in love with it.”
Eli follows Peter, stepping up onto an elevated part of the floor and nearly falling again. It’s only Peter who saves him from dropping to the floor.
“ That’s what you meant by cushioned floor?” Eli stares down at his feet, marveling at the way they sink in like he’s five years old
in a moon bounce. He even rocks up and down, grinning as Peter stares at him.
“As you can see, your chances of an untimely death are low.”
“But not impossible,” Eli corrects.
He follows Peter up a short flight of stairs, each step decorated with the colors of the Pride flag, right next to a steep
cushioned incline meant to catch climbers who dared to take on the task of climbing upside down on the wall hovering above
it.
“I think the newbie wall should be up here.”
“Newbie wall?” Eli challenges. “What makes you think I’m new at this?”
Peter gives Eli a quick glance from head to toe and moves on without another word.
“I resent that.”
“I didn’t say anything!” Peter argues.
“You didn’t have to.” Eli laughs.
They come to the top of the stairs, an area that looks out onto the rest of the gym, giving Eli his first look at the entire
building. Along with the novice wall, various other skill-level walls wrap their way around the gym, along with a tall tower
situated in the middle. And that’s only half of it; the other side of the gym is entirely dedicated to the rope-climbing mechanics
with walls that seem so impossibly tall that Eli is confused as to how they actually fit in the converted warehouse.
“Here should be good.” Peter stops in front of a set of bright yellow bricks marked N-0. “Try these out first.”
“N-0?” Eli ponders.
“Novice zero. This is the most beginner wall you can climb.”
“Okay, okay. Give me some space.” Eli waits for Peter to take a step back, swatting his hands back and forth as if that’s
how he’s choosing to warm up. After all, it’s rock climbing; how complicated can it be?