Gym Candy

On Saturday night, Mick is excited for the 4A state title game because he wants to watch the team from Pasco. They had beaten Foothill the week before. Their running back, Ivan Leander, averaged ten yards every time he carried the ball. When the game starts, Mick is confused. Rogers, the team Pasco is playing, looks like a junior varsity team in comparison to Pasco. They don’t do anything special. But each time Pasco gets to the red zone—inside the twenty-yard line—it changes. They are able to shut down Leander and Pasco completely through the sheer aggression of their power and hits. Leander manages to score just before halftime, but only with great effort. 

During the game, Carlson spends his time talking with different groups of his players. He tells Mick that he was impressed with his play against Foothill. Then he asks them who they think will win the game. They all say that it will be Pasco. When he leaves them, it’s obvious that he believes Rogers will beat them, based on their red zone defense. Mick remembers something his dad said once: “Let a team hang around, and they’ll end up beating you” (97).

Carlson turns out to be right. He comes back later in the third quarter and points out that the Rogers’ players all still look fresh, while the Pasco players are now breathing hard and exhausted from the grueling Rogers defense. Suddenly, a Rogers player scores a touchdown after running the length of the field and it breaks Pasco’s spirit. From that point on, Rogers easily controls the game. As the final whistle blows, Mick realizes that Carlson knows a lot about football. 

Mick turns sixteen over Christmas break and passes his driving exam. The next morning, his father tells Mick that he’s taking him out to teach him to drive the Jeep, which has a clutch. He takes him to a cemetery to practice, since there are no cars there and no one is behind them to honk at Mick when he makes mistakes. Afterwards, Mike takes Mick to a gun range. He says that now that Mick is sixteen, it’s time he learned how to shoot a gun. He pays a man at the range—Bert Bronson—to give Mick a lesson. As they leave, Mike tells Mick not to tell his mother about the gun range: “She wouldn’t understand” (104). 

Mick’s grandparents arrive just before Christmas. On Christmas, Mick receives presents from everyone except his father. When Mick looks at him, Mike tells him “later.” His grandparents leave the day after Christmas and the family discusses how the grandparents’ memories seem to be failing. Then, Mike tells Mick that he is giving him the Jeep. He will have to work for him four hours each week to help pay for gas and insurance, but otherwise, the Jeep is his. His mother tells him that as long as he follows their rules—including always tell them where he’s going, when he’ll return, and who he will be with—the Jeep is his.

After his mother tells him that he can take the Jeep out for one hour, Mick leaves to pick up Drew and DeShawn. They drive to Piper’s Creek. DeShawn tries to convince Mick to take the Jeep into the creek and up the other side, since it has four-wheel drive. Mick says no and takes them home. 

On January 1st, Mick begins a weightlifting regimen. Carlson walks the team through the weightroom, to which he has made some changes. There are banners with the words BIGGER, FASTER, STRONGER on the walls, as well as posters from the Super Bowl. Near every machine is a clipboard where each player will record their weight and repetitions so that Carlson can stay updated on their progress. Mick partners up with a strong player named Middleton. They have a hard workout together. When they’re finishing, DeShawn tells Mick that Drager and Clark quit the team. They transferred to West Seattle, ateam in a different division. 

Mick is sore that night and realizes that he has never worked that hard in the gym. After a hot shower, he watches a supplement infomercial while he’s in bed. The supplement promises to add substantial muscle to anyone who takes it. Mick reminds himself that he is not interested in steroids but thinks it could be worthwhile to see what his natural options might be. The next morning, he drives to a supplement store, where an employee recommends a protein powder and various vitamins and weight-gaining pills. Mick adds up the numbers and realizes he would need an extra $150 per month to pay for a six-month supply. He goes home and asks his father. Mike says that if he wants to work extra hours, he’ll pay him so that he can buy the supplements. Mick immediately says yes, works for his dad that afternoon, and returns to the store a day later to buy his first batch of supplies. 

The next weekend, Mick is working for his father, painting a room in the house. When his father checks his work, he shows him a small mahogany box on a low shelf against the wall. Inside are some foreign coins and paper money. Mike tells Mick that he is going to be taking some trips for work soon, so he needs to show him something because he and his mother will be spending more time alone. He pushes a button in the box, which reveals that it has a false bottom. There is a gun in the hidden compartment beneath the money. After his dad leaves for work, Mick thinks about how much things are changing. He now has a Jeep and a gun. He no longer feels like a kid. 

Mike tells Mick that the radio station has just bought a fitness center called Popeye’s. Because he is a radio employee, he has a free membership, and he can get one for Mick as well. He says that it will pay off in better results than the school weight room can. Mick agrees to try a session with a trainer the following Saturday afternoon, and says that he’ll bring Drew as his guest.

When Drew and Mick arrive a week later, they are paired with a trainer named Peter Volz. Whenever he corrects Mick’s form on an exercise, he touches him to show him how the exercise should feel instead. “Is this guy gay?” (122) Mick thinks every time. When he and Drew finish their workout, they go outside and laugh, saying that they’ll never go back, even if Peter wasn’t actually gay. When Mick tells his dad that he’s not going back, Mike is angry. Before an argument can start, Mick’s mother tells Mike that Mick has made his decision and they’re going to respect it. 

Two weeks later, Mick has an argument in the weight room with a player named Nolan Brown. Nolan is one of Drager’s friends. “Everything gets handed to you” (123) Nolan says to Mick, while they’re exercising side-by-side. He complains that if Drager were still there, they would have won the game against Foothill. Mick does his best to laugh it off. DeShawn comes over and warns Mick that every word he says to Nolan will make its way back to Drager, but Mick doesn’t care.

The next day, at lunch, Clark and Drager appear while Mick is making a protein shake at his table. Drager grabs his drink, takes a mouthful, and then spits it all over Mick’s food. Mr. Chavez, the vice-principal, intervenes before there is more trouble; as Drager leaves, he tells Mick that they will finish their conversation another time. 

Two days later, Drager and Clark sneak into the weight room when Carlson leaves. Drager announces to the team that he wants to watch Mick work out, to see how strong he is. Drager challenges him to put 180 pounds on the barbell and see how many times he can bench press it. Mick gets six reps. Drager gets onto the bench and does 20 reps with ease. He gets up and mocks Mick, causing Mick to take a swing at him, which Drager dodges easily. Clark grabs Mick’s arms and pins them behind his back, and then Drager hits him in the stomach several times. Clark lets Mick fall, and Drager spits in his face. Mick gets up after they leave, but won’t allow anyone from the team to help him. He goes into the bathroom and vomits. Then he goes back out to the weight room and resumes his workout. He’s furious that no one from the team helped him when Clark grabbed him. Drew tells him that it just happened too fast, but that if anything like that happens again, he’ll jump in.

Mick’s ribs are so sore from the beating that he stays home from school for two days. When he goes back, a girl named Kaylee Sullivan—a sprinter and volleyball player—stops him. She says she heard about the fight with Drager and Clark and says that “[t]hey’re just animals—two against one like that. Animals and cowards. That’s what everybody says” (131). She says that the reason they beat him up that day was because it was their last day at the school and they knew they could get away with it. She says that if Mick told the principal, he could get them suspended from West Seattle, their next school. Over the rest of the week, many students approach Mick and say the same things, but he refuses to talk about it.

That weekend, Mick is working for his father in the yard, fuming about how much stronger Drager had been. He knew that Drager didn’t work in the weight room, so how was he so strong? When Mick goes back to the weight room the following Monday, Nolan Brown approaches him and says that Drager is no longer a friend of his. That week, Mick hits the wall with his lifting. He can longer increase his numbers on anything. This pattern continues for the next three weeks. One night, when he is about to drink his protein shake, he realizes that he has come to hate them, and to hate the weights. If his efforts aren’t making him stronger, then why is he doing it at all? 

The following week,Mick tells his father that he wants to go back to Popeye’s. The weight room is not working, so he can either give up or trying something different. Mike sets him up with another appointment with Peter.

Mike goes to tell Carlson about his decision. Carlson is sitting in front of a computer that monitors the school grounds. He notices that Mick is surprised that the job of a custodian might involve anything complex, and says, “There is one thing you should always remember: nothing in life is simple” (137). Carlson tells him that he is free to lift at Popeye’s if he likes, he’s not going to check up on his players. But he says that Mick also risks losing the friendships that can form in the weight room. Afterwards, Mick thinks about it, but the truth is that since the fight, he has spent less time with Drew and DeShawn. He can’t let go of the fact that no one helped him. At the end of the week, he tells Drew that he can’t give him a ride home from school anymore because he’s going to be lifting at Popeye’s. Drew asks him if it’s because of what happened with Drager, but Mick only says that he has to get stronger and he thinks Popeye’s will be his best chance. 

When he goes back to Popeye’s, Peter takes Mick next door to Jamba Juice for a conversation. First, he shows Mick a photo of his girlfriend and says that he’s definitely not gay. Mick agrees, and says that it won’t be a problem if Peter has to touch him during weightlifting corrections. Then Peter asks what’s really driving him to get stronger. He says that the better he understands Mick’s motivations, the better a trainer he can be. He tells Peter about the events of the last year, finding out that his father was an NFL washout, and that he wants to do this so he doesn’t let him down.

Peter says that the only thing he really needs to hear is that Mick wants to be a football star and that he will do it for himself. When Mick agrees, Peter says “We’ll get you there” (144). Mick takes two of his supplement pills and Peter asks to see them. He says that they’re not bad supplements. He seems to want to say more, but then changes his mind and takes Mick to the gym for a hard workout. Peter has him work out with a different progression scheme that Carlson, and it’s harder than Mick would have thought possible. When they’re finished, Peter tells him that his supplements might make him a little bigger, but that if he really wants to reach his potential, physically, he’ll need to use “gym candy” (146). He’s referring to steroids, and Mick says that every coach he had ever had told him that steroids would damage his system, adding, “No. Not steroids. I’m not taking steroids” (146). Peter nods and says that he’ll see Mick next time.  

As he continues training with Peter, Mick’s lifts go up in weight as his body fat drops. Spring football begins in early May. Carlson has a different philosophy than Downs: he will start the best players, regardless of their age. Mick knows that the only challenger for his position is an eighth-grader named Dave Kane. Under Carlson’s guidance, Mick’s footwork and speed both improve.

On the final Friday of spring football, the teams hold a scrimmage. Mick plays well, but Dave plays better, and Carlson calls more running plays for Dave than for Mick. Near the end of the scrimmage, Mick gets tackled during a run and fumbles the ball, leading to a touchdown for the other side. Afterwards, at the team meeting, Carlson reminds them that they can’t officially practice as a team again until August, but that they are welcome to work on their own, on the field and in the weight room. Then he asks Mick if he ever considered playing another position. Mick is stunned. He believes that Dave may actually be able to take his spot.