In Gold We Spawned

Building was our theme in 1985. We were building…a new business, a new community network, and a new baby. My ‘starter’ husband, Paul, himself a body builder, saw our future in the booming fitness industry. Our business – a Gold’s Gym franchise in Timmins was both iconic and ironic as the mining town was known, due to its wealth of precious metal, as ‘The City With A Heart of Gold’. We were pioneers, bringing the world of fitness to the Northern country folk, that they might build physiques to rival Greek Gods – forged, we envisioned dreamily, of Gold’s.

Paul and I met in a gym where he worked as a fitness trainer. He was the gentle, simple, friendly sort – the son of a lumberjack, with a smattering of what might have been English in his Quebecois lexicon. He tenuously held a Grade Nine education, attained, he confessed, more by charm than effort. When I say ‘simple’, I wince recalling the moment that my Adonis fell from his proverbial Grecian pedestal. While purchasing show tickets over the telephone, he bleated suddenly, “Dat’s GREAT!” then added excitedly, “ And I gonna need anudder one for my ….sprout.” He frowned quizzically as the receptionist’s laughter peeled through the receiver, as I gaped at him through a billowing cloud of pedestal dust.

Gold’s Gym Timmins officially opened in September that year with over two hundred people swarming our inaugural opening, eager to join the Schwarzenegger spawned bodybuilding craze. A cacophony of clashing steel and pounding heavy rock music reverberated throughout the mirrored grotto. Frenzied throngs of grunting, heaving, sweaty beasts clad in spandex, strutted the rubber floors. (The men were even worse.) Bodies transforming, cell by screaming cell, into muscled masses of carved granite. I too was realizing a wondrous bodybuilding accomplishment of my own. Over a mere 40 weeks, I built a perfectly formed, tiny, nine pound person, accomplished mostly with tools I found lying around the house.

Despite his enthusiasm for the initial creative process, Paul was reticent about the ensuing practicalities of parenthood. Prenatal class, for example, saw my errant partner evade, avoid, excuse or vanish entirely prior to scheduled sessions. One evening, approaching my 36th week of rotundity, I towed him out of the gym and down the street to the local community health center where the Lamaze meeting was about to start. He trudged behind me like a distracted Labrador, scanning for any viable escape route. Swaying pendulously into the building with his elbow clutched vicelike in my grip, I flashed the receptionist a winning smile, announcing with exaggerated zeal , “I guess you know why WE’RE here!” as I propelled him down the hall and through the open classroom door.

Deducing his exit attempts would be hampered by strategic positioning, I chose front row seats furthest from the door. An odd assortment of people straggled in, yet there were no other pregnant women in the room. With some reassurance I noted that the instructor appeared to be in her second trimester.

My compressed bladder about to burst, I warned my fidgeting, recalcitrant spouse, “Don’t you move.”
I waddled off to find the washroom, looking remarkably like a rat hauling a stolen egg. As I my waited my turn in the hallway, a disheveled woman approached and stood directly in front of me. Too close. I shifted uncomfortably as she scanned me up and down, scant millimeters between us.

“Um,” I stammered, smiling politely, “….Were you, uh, .. here.. first?”

Her ferret face loomed in close, upper lip curling. The unrelenting stare continued until the door opened and I charged in, nearly flattening the exiting occupant.

When I shuffled back to the classroom and plopped into my seat, Paul was nowhere to be seen. As the instructor began her welcome, my Houdini-husband peeked through the classroom window, urging me to come out. I shook my head, pointing emphatically at his seat. “Get in here!” I hissed.

He hesitated, then beckoned more vigorously. I glared back, baring my teeth in menace – fully expecting him to bolt from the building. Instead he inched open the door, urgently gesturing “Come here!”

Oxytocin-fueled rage launched me from my seat. The audacity of him, I fumed, cancelling this last opportunity for the shared birthing experience that I envisaged. Penguin-like, I stomped over and planted myself, hands on inflated hips, in the doorway.

“What?!” I snapped.

He leaned in slightly, whispering, “They cancelled the class. This is a meeting for Schizophrenics.”