Empty Hand Revolution

A Stranger in The Gym

The Gym’s first sounds of life creaked and echoed from upstairs.

Cosmo had been up for an hour, hunched over the slop bucket and leaning on the mop. He had mopped the main level first. As he finished the basement of the weight training facility aptly named “The Gym,” he envisioned the owner and head coach, Bhupinder Dhawan, re-straightening equipment Cosmo had already aligned.

Bhupinder’s footsteps echoed on the cement steps leading to the basement. The kindly owner flipped the lights on. “Why do you insist on working in the dark?”

“Why waste electricity?” Cosmo straightened with difficulty. With the lights on, he scanned the room to ensure he’d done a quality job. He had.

“I think you like the darkness. It’s not healthy.” Bhupinder tapped the side of his own head. “Get your mind healthy, and your body will follow.”

Cosmo sighed while depositing the mop and bucket back in their place. “My body is broken. I broke it.”

“Nonsense. You think you’re the only young man who has made mistakes? You think I haven’t done bad things?” Bhupinder shook his head. “Perhaps if I live to be a shriveled old man, I will have done more good. Vishnu knows.”

Cosmo stared at the man who’d given him a job and a place to sleep. Bhupinder had been welcoming and friendly when no one else had. He had trusted Cosmo. Still, Cosmo had no response. “I’m ready to carry a load of towels to the washers. Are there more upstairs?”

“Here, eat something.”

Cosmo lowered his gaze.

“Take it, Cosmo. My wife always cooks too much.” Bhupinder placed a bowl covered with a towel on a nearby bench. “Look at me.” He shook his belly with both hands. “My athletes will stop paying attention, I’ve grown so fat.”

“I’ll work for it.”

“I know you will. You always do.” Bhupinder gripped Cosmo’s shoulder. “I’m doing you no favors, young man. Truthfully, I’m taking advantage of you. No one else has taken such good care of my gym for so little in return.” With a smile he turned to go. “Oh, there are more towels upstairs. If you would have turned on the lights, you would have seen them.”

“Sorry, Coach—”

“Nonsense. Eat your breakfast. Too many smelly gym rags on an empty stomach isn’t healthy for anyone. You can bundle the towels after the morning rush.” Bhupinder disappeared up the stairs.

Cosmo headed straight for the bowl of curry. He had smelled it before Bhupinder had flipped on the basement lights. He lifted the towel. Instantly the odors carried him away. He closed his eyes and allowed himself to leave the gym basement. Palm trees rooted on a sandy beach temporarily replaced weights and mirrors and smelly rags.

Bhupinder called the dish mutton vindaloo, based on cuisine from Southern India. Cosmo was developing a taste for it. He sat and held the bowl beneath his chin. In this case, the steamed rice steeped in a bowl of mutton curry.

As he gobbled down the dish and licked the bowl clean, Cosmo wondered if Bhupinder had come from Southern India or perhaps married from there. In his five months of living and working in the gym, Cosmo had never asked the jovial owner any personal questions.

Securing the empty bowl in his locker, Cosmo limped upstairs to finish the rest of his duties before the first regulars turned up for their morning workout. On the way, he wondered if Bhupinder was right.

Perhaps languishing in the dark and thinking of nobody but himself wasn’t healthy. Here he was, six months after the doctor had given him six months until paralysis, and Cosmo was still waiting for it to happen.

No money. No school. No certificate. No martial arts. No fighting. No life.

Bhupinder had spotted the heart of the matter. Cosmo’s mind was broken worse than his body. Instead of counting the days until he could no longer walk, he should be thanking God for every opportunity. Whatever the future might bring, Cosmo had to rely on God’s plan for his present.

Cosmo bundled the towels in a corner and hurried downstairs. A small window of time remained before paying customers would need the equipment. Cosmo stood in front of a punching bag for a long minute and wrestled his inertia.

He glanced in the mirror covering the wall. He’d lost weight. His stomach gurgled and he suddenly saw the boy clutching a package of hawai mangan wrapped in used notebook paper. He tasted the spicy beans, felt the hollow ache. He remembered the scream of his mother when he offered her a handful of snakes.

Cosmo was not that boy anymore. But he remained bound by the promises he’d sworn during those years—to take what was his, to never show weakness. Yet, for all his striving, for all his hard work, he hadn’t even a handful of snakes.

He hadn’t helped his people. He hadn’t helped himself. If God had given him a second chance, Cosmo had done nothing with it. For all he knew, time could be running out. Healthy mind, healthy body. Cosmo lingered on Bhupinder’s favorite mantra.

Grimacing, he stretched his back and rolled his head from side to side. Sounds of life echoed from upstairs. Now or never. He hadn’t struck a bag or tried a kick in six months. Not since the morning he coughed up blood in a gym only kilometers away.

After a deep breath, Cosmo focused on the bag and exhaled through his nose. Blocking out everything else, he spun, raised his leg head-high, and struck the bag.

With a thud, his heel dented the heavy canvas. The chain holding up the bag jerked. Cosmo held his stance, his leg frozen in the air a centimeter from the surface it had just struck. His balance remained perfect. A thrill coursed through him, overriding the ache in his back.

The discipline remained in his blood. Broken body or not, maybe Cosmo could still do something with it—something selfless. Rather than telling God what that something was, he would finally listen. He would follow God’s lead—wherever it took him.