Chapter 4

The following afternoon, your wife comes home from the gym with an expression you recognize immediately. It is the look she gets when she has learned something scandalous and cannot wait to share it. She closes the front door, drops her gym bag beside the stairs, and comes directly into the living room, where you are sitting with your laptop. Unlike yesterday, she does not appear particularly angry.

In fact, she seems almost delighted with herself, although she makes a reasonable effort to disguise her excitement beneath an expression of exaggerated disgust. "Well, I found out about your friend Grudge," she announces. You look up, amused by the suggestion that the enormous stranger is somehow your friend.

You ask what she means, and she settles onto the sofa beside you, apparently preparing to deliver a comprehensive report. "Remember that disgusting guy I told you about yesterday? The one who was staring at me on the exercise machine?" You assure her that you remember her telling you about him. In fact, you remember him considerably better than you would care to admit, but you see no reason to volunteer that information.

"Well, I was talking to some of the girls after my workout, and apparently everybody knows about him. He's practically infamous." You close your laptop. Your wife notices, and a small, satisfied smile appears at the corners of her mouth. "First of all, he really is an ex-con. Or at least that's what everybody says. Supposedly, he did some serious time."

You ask what he went to prison for. She lowers her voice, despite the fact that the two of you are alone in your own living room. "Sexual assault." The words hang between you for a moment. You ask whether anyone actually knows that for certain, and she shakes her head. "Nobody seems to know the whole story."

"One girl says he was locked up for almost ten years. Another says it was longer. Apparently, somebody heard it from somebody who used to know him. You know how gym gossip works." You certainly do. Still, the allegation changes the way you imagine Grudge. Yesterday, he was an enormous, vulgar stranger who had behaved outrageously toward your wife.

Today, there is the possibility that he is something considerably more dangerous. You find yourself remembering the ease with which he apparently dismissed her objections, and you feel a genuine flicker of concern. Your wife seems to recognize the seriousness of the rumor, because she quickly adds that nobody has offered any proof. She is repeating what she heard, not claiming to know whether it is true.

"But honestly," she says, "after the way he talked to me yesterday, I wouldn't be surprised." You tell her that she ought to be careful around him, particularly if there is even a possibility that the rumors are accurate. "Oh, believe me, I am." She says it emphatically, although she does not appear quite ready to abandon the subject.

"Anyway, apparently he's a biker, too. A real one, not some accountant who buys a Harley for weekend rides. One of the girls says he belongs to some motorcycle club, but she couldn't remember which one." She describes a battered black motorcycle she noticed parked near the entrance that afternoon, with high handlebars, loud exhaust pipes, and a collection of stickers on the rear fender.

She cannot say for certain whether it belongs to Grudge, although she has already decided that it probably does. "And get this. He's there practically all the time. Morning, afternoon, evening. If he's not working or sleeping, he's at the gym." You ask whether anyone knows where he works. "One of the guys said he works at a garage, but nobody seems to agree on anything."

She shakes her head. "I swear, the man is like some kind of urban legend. Everybody has a story about him, but nobody actually seems to know him." You suggest that perhaps his appearance encourages people to invent things. She concedes the possibility, although she reminds you that his behavior yesterday required no embellishment whatsoever.

Then she remembers something else. "Oh! And you're going to love this." She sits up straighter, visibly amused. "Apparently, Grudge has decided he's going to become a personal trainer." You stare at her. She bursts out laughing. "I know! Can you imagine?" She explains that someone has posted a handwritten flyer on the gym's community bulletin board.

The paper is plain white, with large black letters advertising personal training, strength conditioning, and individual workout programs. At the bottom is a telephone number and his name written in thick marker. "Just Grudge," she says, laughing again. "No last name, no certifications, no qualifications, nothing. Just this ridiculous flyer telling people to call him if they want to get in shape."

You ask whether he has any experience training people. "How would I know? He certainly looks like he knows how to lift weights, I'll give him that. But can you imagine having that man standing over you for an hour, telling you what to do?" The question produces an unexpectedly vivid image.

You picture your wife seated on a weight machine while Grudge stands nearby, his enormous arms folded across his chest, watching her movements with the same uncompromising attention she described yesterday. You imagine his rough voice correcting her technique, demanding another repetition, and refusing to accept excuses.

It is not difficult to imagine him being an effective trainer. It is considerably harder to imagine him being a pleasant one. Your wife apparently reaches the same conclusion. "Who in their right mind would hire that creep? Seriously! Can you imagine paying somebody to insult you and treat you like shit for an hour?"

You smile and suggest that perhaps some people respond well to aggressive coaching. "Well, they can have him. Nobody I talked to would go anywhere near him." She folds her arms, looking thoroughly satisfied with this assessment. "Besides, he probably thinks being enormous automatically makes him qualified. Like anybody with muscles can just announce they're a personal trainer."

You observe that he must have spent a considerable amount of time working on his own physique. "Oh, there's no denying that. He's built like a brick wall. But that doesn't mean I want him telling me how to exercise." She pauses. "Especially after yesterday." You agree, although you notice that she has now brought up yesterday's encounter several times without any prompting from you.

There is another small silence before she looks at you with an expression of barely contained amusement. "And apparently there's something else everybody talks about." You raise an eyebrow. She glances toward the hallway, then leans closer as though preparing to reveal a state secret. "This is absolutely disgusting, and I cannot believe I'm even repeating it." You encourage her to continue.

"Well, supposedly, some of the guys in the locker room say he's hung like a horse." You blink. Your wife immediately starts laughing at your expression. "I'm serious! That's what they said!" You ask how on earth that particular subject came up during a conversation about personal training. "I have no idea! One of the girls was telling us what her boyfriend said, and apparently the men have been talking about him, too."

"I guess somebody saw him in the showers or something." She shakes her head, still laughing. "Honestly, the things people gossip about." You agree that it is a remarkably strange subject for gym conversation, although the information has caught you more off guard than you expected.

Until now, your mental picture of Grudge has consisted of his size, his tattoos, his battered face, and his outrageous behavior toward your wife. The latest rumor adds another dimension to the exaggerated masculine reputation that seems to surround him. You recognize how little of what you've heard is actually established fact, yet you find yourself assembling the fragments into an increasingly vivid portrait.

Your wife is doing much the same thing. She would never admit it, but the locker-room rumor has stayed with her since she heard it. She laughed along with her girlfriends, rolled her eyes, and made an appropriately disgusted remark about men comparing themselves in the showers. Yet she found herself remembering the information afterward, wondering whether it was true and feeling embarrassed by her own lust.

Now, sitting beside you, she watches your reaction more carefully than she realizes. You ask whether she actually saw Grudge today. "Oh, yes. He was there." You look at her and she shrugs. "He was over by the squat racks when I came in. Same filthy tank top, same tattoos, same horrible expression. I don't think he even owns another shirt."

You ask whether he said anything to her. "No. Not a word." There is something peculiar about the way she answers. She sounds relieved, certainly, but there is also the faintest suggestion of disappointment. "He looked over when I walked past, though." You ask whether she looked back. "Of course not." She answers quickly enough that you wonder whether she has considered the question before.

Then she adds, almost as an afterthought, that she noticed him watching her through the mirror while she was using one of the cable machines. You ask whether he approached her. "No. He just watched for a little while and went back to what he was doing." She shrugs again. "Maybe somebody told him to behave himself."

You suggest that perhaps he has simply lost interest. For some reason, she does not seem particularly pleased by that possibility. "Well, good," she says. "That's exactly what I want." She reaches for her water bottle and takes a long drink, apparently satisfied that the conversation is finished. You reopen your laptop, although your attention has already wandered elsewhere.

You think about the handwritten flyer on the bulletin board, the crude nickname printed beneath an advertisement for personal training, and the extraordinary collection of rumors surrounding a man you have never met. You wonder whether Grudge really is a convicted criminal, whether he belongs to a motorcycle club, and whether anyone would actually be foolish enough to hire him.

Beside you, your wife begins scrolling through her phone. After several minutes, she speaks again. "You know what's funny?" You look over. "That flyer was still up when I left. Nobody had taken any of the little phone-number tabs off the bottom." She smiles to herself. "I almost felt sorry for him."

You laugh and ask whether she is developing a sympathetic streak toward the neighborhood menace. "Hardly." She returns her attention to her phone. But a few moments later, she adds, "I mean, he probably does know a lot about weightlifting." You glance at her. She does not look up.

"I'm just saying. You don't get arms like that by accident." You agree that she has a point. The conversation drifts toward other things, but the name Grudge remains lodged in your thoughts long after your wife has stopped speaking. You know more about him than you did yesterday, although almost everything you've learned is secondhand gossip.

You have acquired a nickname, a collection of alarming rumors, and the knowledge that this enormous stranger is apparently willing to sell his time to anyone who wants him standing beside them in the gym. And despite your wife's repeated insistence that she wants nothing to do with him, you have begun to suspect that she finds him every bit as difficult to forget as you do.