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MY SECOND PERIOD GYM CLASS WAS THE ONLY CLASS that Howie and I shared. Neither of us could play basketball very well, so we never actually participated with the rest of the class. Coach Waters didn’t mind letting us skip out on playing as long as we were doing something “active”, therefore we always lied and said we would lift weights in the adjacent weightlifting room.

  As I entered the weight room, I noticed Howie, dressed in gym clothes that were slightly to large for him, already laying on a weight bench pretending to prepare to bench-press a bar that was loaded with over 300 pounds of weights.

  “You can do it champ!” I shouted in my finest impersonation of Coach Waters’ scruffy voice.

  Howie chuckled, then pushed hard against the weights. I was surprised to see that he was actually able to lift the bar upward about a half-inch before his arms gave out. I was sure that he wouldn’t be able to move it at all. The bar made a loud clacking sound as it slammed back into the flimsy grooves that held it in place above Howie’s head. Howie and I always joked that the dated equipment in our weight room must have been among the first weightlifting equipment ever manufactured. Almost all of the public schools in our area were extremely underfunded, but our school took the cake by far. They could barely afford to provide us with proper textbooks. Therefore, we all knew that state of the art weight training equipment was never going to happen.

  “Nice try, bud. You actually got it off the bar this time!” I chimed as I sat on an adjacent bench.

  “I’d like to see you do any better!” Howie said as he sat upright and wiped sweat from his brow. I tried not to laugh aloud at how easily it was for him to work up a sweat.

  I looked at the weights and actually felt like giving it a try myself. For some reason I was feeling great that day. Eating leftovers from Dr. Kate’s dinner that morning probably had a lot do with it.

  “How did you even get that much weight on the bar? That's got to be close to 300 pounds!” I said as I studied Howie’s bar.

  “What can I say?” Howie smiled. “I’ve been working out.”

  “As far as Coach Waters knows, we have,” I said as we broke into laughter.

  Howie raised an eyebrow as our laughter died down. “Hey, you never filled me in on your encounter with Dr. Kate. What happened? Did you get in trouble?” he asked.

  “Not really. She sent us both to the office but when she called me in, it got all weird. I thought she was gonna talk about the fight, but instead she started asking all kinds of bizarre questions. It was like she didn’t even care that I had gotten into a fight.”

  “What kind of questions did she ask?”

  “Stupid stuff. Nothing important,” I replied, hoping he wouldn't push the issue. I certainly wasn't about to tell him that she was concerned that I didn't get enough food at home because I was so skinny, but I didn't feel like having to lie about it either.

  “What kind of punishment did you get?”

  “An invitation to dinner at her house,” I chuckled.

  Howie’s face lit up with excitement. I could tell where his mind was headed.

  “No, it wasn’t like that, you idiot! You’re such a creeper, Howie,” I said, shaking my head in disbelief. “I think she’s concerned about me or something.”

  “Did you go?” Howie asked, eager for more details.

  “Yeah, I did. I must have eaten over twelve plates of food, too! And you'll never guess who answered the door once I got there.”

  “Who?” Howie asked as he leaned against the metal weight bar behind him. Neither of us noticed the metal grooves that held the weights and the bar in place starting to give out.

  “You know that new girl that transferred here from New York? The really pretty one in our grade?”

  Howie pondered for a bit before his eyes widened in disbelief. “No way!” he said as he realized I was talking about Monica.

  “Yup, that's the one. It turns out that she’s Dr. Kate’s daughter. I’m actually not supposed to tell anyone, though. She’s sort of ashamed of it.”

  Howie narrowed his eyes at me. “I see what this is. You're making a move for my girl, aren't you?” he said jokingly.

  “No, it’s not like that at all,” I lied. “Believe it or not, things didn’t go as well as I had hoped. We actually got into an argument.”

  Howie dipped beneath the 300 pounds of weights once more and placed his hands on the bar. “Well, either way, you’re not going to stand a chance after she gets a load of these guns.”

  Howie pushed the bar with all his might. He managed to lift it a full inch before his arms gave out under the 300 pounds of weight. As Howie allowed the weights to fall back in the metal grooves, my heart sank deep within my chest. Adrenaline flooded my body as I heard the loud snap of the grooves as they gave in to the pressure of the weights slamming against them. Howie’s eyes were wide with fear as the bar and weights headed straight for his head.

  It all seemed to happen in slow motion, just like when Fat Pat had tried to sucker punch me. Every muscle in Howie’s arms fired away as he tried desperately to stop the 300 pounds of death from descending upon him. Despite his best effort, he wasn't nearly strong enough to stop them.

  Help him! I shouted to myself, but I was ten feet away, frozen in shock. The bar was inches away from crushing Howie’s skull when my body finally snapped into action.

  In an instant, my reality went from slow motion to a blur. I don’t even remember standing or crossing the ten feet that had once separated us, but there I was holding 300 pounds of weights inches above my best friend's head when the dust settled.

  I didn't know what to think. How could I have moved that fast— and why did 300 pounds of steel suddenly seem as light as a feather to me?

  Howie’s eyes were still clinched shut as I stood over him. When he finally opened his eyes, I was still holding the weights inches away from his face. We locked eyes for what seemed like an eternity before he finally crept out from under the weights.

  I thought he would freak out, but for some reason he stood there and continued to stare blankly at me. It was as if he was more accepting of this newfound strength of mine than I was.

  I took a step back and dropped the weights to the floor. The deep thud of the weights hitting the floor snapped Howie out of his trance.

  “What just happened?” he finally asked, still staring at me.

  “I-I don’t know.”

  “Adam, how did you do that?”

  “I don’t know.” His questions were making me uncomfortable. I wasn’t good at hiding my mood so I knew he could tell by my facial expression.

  “How were you able to support that much weight, Adam? I have never seen you even lift the bar!”

  “I don’t know. I just saw you in trouble and I reacted. I don’t even know if I could do it again.”

  I followed Howie’s eyes down to the weights that lay before me.

  “Try it,” he suggested. It was obvious that his curiosity had suddenly matured into excitement.

  I looked down at the weights, wondering if I could recreate the magic that I had just displayed. I certainly felt like I could. I woke up that morning feeling better than I had felt in years. I wasn’t sure why, but for the first time in my life, it didn’t feel as though my body was about to shut down at any second.

  I wrapped my fingers around the cold steel bar and exhaled. My heart rate drastically increased as I summoned the courage to attempt to lift the weights again. Howie adjusted his glasses and watched on in silence.

  Finally, I gripped the bar as tightly as I could and forcefully pulled it upward. That was a huge mistake. I had yanked the weights from the ground with so much force that I almost threw them into the ceiling. Fortunately, I was able to secure them before they left my hands. Howie watched in awe as I let my left hand fall from the bar and continued to hoist the weights above my head using only my right hand. This has to be some kind of mistake, I thought. These can’t be real weights.

  “How are you doing it, Adam?” Howie
asked, his voice dripping with astonishment.

  “I told you, I don’t know,” I said with the weights still held above me.

  “This is incredible, Adam! This is absolutely incredible. And I think you can do more. I think that you can lift considerably more.”

  I quickly sat the weights down in front of me using just one hand.

  “Maybe you’re right, but- I-I don’t want to.” The excitement in Howie’s voice was freaking me out. I could tell that he was no longer looking at me as a friend. In his eyes, I had somehow been relegated to something entirely different.

  Howie was not unlike my older brother PJ in that they both seemed ashamed of their hyper-intelligence. Howie did a good job of blending in most of the time, but whenever he discovered something truly fascinating to study, we got a chance to see the real Howie. In those moments, he didn’t care if his speech was too verbose or laden with science jargon. The only thing he cared about was the subject at hand. As he stroked his chin and gazed at me with his dark and curly mop top bouncing about with every move of his head, I knew that I had become nothing more than the basis of some hypothesis that he was already formulating as we spoke.

  I guess he must have realized something was wrong because suddenly his demeanor changed.

  “Listen, I understand completely and I am not trying to force you to do anything-”

  “Can we talk about something else?” I interrupted.

  “Adam, whatever is happening to you, we’re in this together. You don't have to shut me out, man. This is me we're talking about! You know you can trust me, and you don’t have to be ashamed around me, either. You should know that by now. I just want to help you figure this thing out, and I'm probably one of the only people you know who can actually do that.”

  I relaxed a bit as I looked him in the eyes and digested his words. He was absolutely right. I had no idea where my newfound strength had come from, but I knew that if anyone could figure it out, it was Howie. I took solace in knowing that instead of considering it weird, he considered my condition to be fascinating. I had long accepted the fact that I was an outcast in terms of the popularity hierarchy, but this was different. This was a brand of odd that could end with me permanently being labeled a freak; the “scrawny” 700-pounder with the strength of a mule.

  “You don’t think I’m a freak, do you?” I asked.

  “Of course not. You’re my friend. That’s all that matters to me. Whatever is going on, I will do everything in my power to help you figure it out. And you can be damn sure that whatever we uncover stays between you and me for as long as you want.”

  “What about Jason?”

  Howie twitched his mouth from side to side like he always did when he was thinking.

  “That, my friend, is up to you,” he finally said.

  “Let’s just keep it between the two of us for now. At least until we know more about it,” I replied.

  “Agreed. Now I would like to test a theory if you don’t mind.”

  “What theory?”

  I didn’t like that he used the words “test” and “theory.” I suddenly began to feel like his lab rat all over again.

  “I noticed how easily you hoisted the weights on that last attempt. There were almost no extreme muscle contractions in either of your arms. Even as you lifted and placed them down with one hand, your muscles were barely flexed.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I believe it indicates that you can lift a lot more than 300 pounds. Are you up for trying more?”

  “How much were you thinking? 400?”

  “Not quite,” Howie replied, with a strange grin on his face. I didn't like it but kept reminding myself that Howie was my closest friend and that he wouldn't do anything to hurt me.

  “How much?” I finally asked.

  “700 pounds,” he said evenly.

  “No way. That’s not happening, Howie.”

  “Adam, trust me!”

  “Trust you?! You’re trying to kill me! There's no way I’m attempting 700 pounds!”

  “But you can do it, Adam! I know you can!”

  “How can you possibly be so sure?”

  “Because I can bench press 140 pounds,” Howie said, nervously.

  I narrowed my eyes as I stared at him. “What are you saying?” I demanded.

  “140 pounds is my body weight, and like the average male, I can bench press pretty close to what I weigh. With that said, I’m sure you can lift your body weight as well,” Howie said, looking away as he finished his sentence.

  My face grew warm as I wondered how he could have known about my weight. It was true that I weighed 700 pounds, but in no way did I look like I weighed a pound over 140. I was tall and as scrawny as they came, but somehow, Howie knew. Somehow, he had figured it out.

  “How long have you known?” I demanded, feeling betrayed.

  “Don’t worry, Adam. Your secret is still safe. You do a great job of hiding it. It would take someone else as smart as me to figure it out on their own.”

  “What gave me away?”

  “I've always noticed the effects that you have on vehicle suspension, so I knew you had to be a lot heavier than you actually looked. Also, you've broken quite a few desks and chairs over the years as well. Blaming it on the age of our desks was a good cover but I knew it was more than that. It wasn’t until you fought Fat Pat on Tuesday that I was able to estimate how much you weighed. You both left foot impressions in the mud, but your footprints were twice as deep as his, meaning that you have to weigh twice as much as he does. Fat Pat's football profile has him listed as 340 pounds, which means you have to weigh anywhere from 660 to 700 pounds.”

  An uneasy silence crept over the room.

  “So you were investigating me this entire time?” I asked.

  “Of course not, Adam. I just couldn’t help it! This is just how my mind works! I just notice things. I didn’t say anything to you because I didn’t want you to think I intentionally tried to uncover your secret. I just want to help you, Adam. That’s all I've ever wanted.”

  I nodded my head, and then looked at the weights. “Okay. I’ll give it a shot,” I said with a sigh. Something told me that he was telling the truth. I knew Howie was my best chance of figuring out what was happening to me, so I finally decided to go through with his “tests.”

  I loaded 700 pounds of weights onto a nearby bench press bar without breaking a sweat. As I pushed the last 100-pound metal plate into position, I realized that Howie may actually be right.

  That “lab rat” feeling washed over me once more as Howie studied me intensely while I lay down beneath the weights.

  After a deep breath, I gripped the bar.

  “Here goes nothing,” I said as I pushed against it and lifted the weights into the air. The bar curved slightly under the pressure of the weights, but it felt as though I was lifting paper instead of hundreds of pounds of steel. I let the weights fall to my chest and easily pushed them into the air once more. I couldn’t resist doing multiple repetitions. By the time I reset the bar, I had bench-pressed 700 pounds over ten times.

  Howie rubbed his chin as he pondered the significance of my actions. “Interesting,” he said as I climbed from beneath the weights.

  “What’s interesting?” I asked.

  “I didn’t anticipate 700 pounds being so easy for you. In any case, I have come to the conclusion that your maximum may be several thousands of pounds.”

  “Thousands?! Are you serious?”

  “Absolutely. You just tossed around 700 as if it were paper. I would bet a small fortune that you could lift as much as 5000 pounds after that display. What we need to figure out is not only what you can do, but why you can do it.”

  “How do you suppose we do that?”

  “I’ve actually developed a hypothesis, but I need to test it before I can substantiate anything. Can you meet me at the junkyard after school today?”

  “Sure,” I said, trying to hide the feeling of dread brou
ght on by the idea of being subjected to more “tests”.

  “Good. I’ll see you there,” he said with a smile. Howie was back in that mode that I didn’t like, but I knew he meant well.

  The bell finally rang, signaling that it was time to change classes. We both smiled at each other and shook hands as we prepared to part ways. As I left the gym on that day, I wasn't sure of what was happening to me but I was glad that Howie was there to help me figure it out.

  10. DIFFERENCES