Black Hole (5 page)

Some guys flip tractor tires. Another couple of guys slam a tire with a sledgehammer. Guys lift bars with strands of chains attached beside the weights.

Then, there's a whole group of guys I don't know what they're training for. In one corner, a Russian growls and yells at a flight of kettlebell lifters. At the opposite end, guys in Speedos curl and press dumbbells in front of a mirror. Two guys alternate dips like a pair of pistons. There are pull-ups with weights chained to the waists. Medicine balls. Indian clubs. Battle ropes. Sandbags.

Past that, there's saunas, steam rooms, tanning beds, and a cold plunge. Russians hitting a guy with a branch. Masseuses that look more like old butchers pounding on living slabs of flesh, blank-faced old men twisting and stretching the bodies into pretzels as their victims scream in agony.

Then shit gets weird.

There's a giant Swede with a live goat on his shoulders on a stairclimber wearing nothing but a pair of tighty-whities. I see the goat shit on him, but he doesn't stop. The thing that freaks me out is that he looks bored.

A fat black man wearing a sumo thong does squats, and every time he stands up, a fat white guy wearing a sumo thong punches him in the stomach. I can only assume they're taking turns.

There's a skinny German walking around in a lab coat with a jet injector. Lifters flag him down, and he comes by and injects them, like the way they used to do mass vaccinations. I can only assume it's roids. But who knows with these freaks? There's probably some next-level shit they're doing.

Big Mike gives me the rundown. They're buying the horsemeat because the French bodybuilder Serge Nubret ate something like four pounds of it a day when he was training. In the offseason, he supplemented that with a pound of rice and a pound of beans.

Four pounds. That's a lot. Take the patties out of sixteen quarter pounders. There's a lot of guys who can eat one pound of meat. But four, every day? That's a whole different kind of thing. It's hundreds of grams of protein. The thing is, these guys need it just to maintain their bodyweight.

The horsemeat is tainted with all kinds of drugs. Unless the horse is a stud candidate, they burn those poor fuckers out until they drop dead. They're pumped with the same drugs you would give an athlete, but crazy horse-powered versions for enormous hearts and a few extra miles of circulatory systems. But this crowd is made of the last people who would give a fuck about having drugs in their meat. Hell, they probably pay extra for it.

In his office, Mighty Mouse cuts lines of a pale green powder I don't recognize on his desk.

What is this?
I ask.

Doesn't have a name yet. It's good though. Painkiller. Takes out the soreness in the muscles without making you tired. Want a bump?

Always
, I say.

I lean over and snort half a line in each nostril. Feels good right away. Counters a raw feeling I didn't notice I had. I can't handle the wear and tear like I used to. I'm a senior citizen in drug years.

You like danceclubs?
he asks, thumbing and fingering his nose to get all the crumbs.

I like the drugs at danceclubs. If the drugs are good enough, I like the music, too.

Mighty Mouse takes us to Pumps. It's a gay club where the bodybuilders dance on platforms. I've never been here. Middle-aged men wait to get in, a few old geezers mixed in.

We skip the line, a hulking mass pulls the rope aside, and we walk in. The bass beats rattle my molars. Most of the clientele is slender gay men with a thing for huge men. Some like the cut bodybuilders; some want the biggest man possible. Some want them smooth and oiled; others want the hairy, pro-wrestler-looking guys. Big-screen TVs on the walls are showing
Conan the Barbarian
. We follow through the crowd up a flight of stairs and through a door, down a hallway, and through another door.

There's a whole bar upstairs no one's in but one bartender. There's no music up here, but we can still feel the vibrations of the bass beats. Life-size pictures of bodybuilders of days past adorn the walls: Arnold, Ferrigno, Dave Draper, Sergio Olivia, Serge Nubret, and even Eugen Sandow.

Mighty Mouse leads us to a table and motions for us to take a seat. He waves at the bartender. Three vodkas and a Tupperware container arrive. He opens the container and slides it toward us. It's a powder, looks like Tang.

Check it out, fellas,
he says
. Our new proprietary club drug. Made exclusively for use at Pump. We call it Pump, of course.

Proprietary drugs are the hot thing right now at clubs. You custom-order your own drug to match the mood of the club you run, and a Dutch chemist designs it for you and sends the formula to a lab in China, and then you get it discreetly shipped
to you labeled as something else, like laundry detergent or some shit. You get a pallet of drugs—literally a ton of drugs dropped off for you at the docks.

Anyone can get the same music at clubs, but you can only get Freakout at Club Freakout, Boogiewoogie at Get Down, and Yeah Baby at Shagadelix. It's great for the club experience because everyone's on the same shit, and it's pretty much impossible to police as it's hard for a cop to prove that a new mysterious substance is actually an illicit drug unless he takes it and starts tripping balls.

So if you design the most popular drug, you have the most popular club. There's no better draw to a club, if you ask me. Drugs and clubs go hand in hand. People need somewhere to get high and people to get high with. They need the anonymity of the darkness and the music to keep them from having to talk to people. You can pump in whatever smell you want. You can change the lighting. People taste what you have in the club. So you're controlling every aspect of the experience, and if you control the drugs, you control the way all of those aspects are perceived.

Mighty Mouse spoons a small amount in the vodkas. You don't have to twist my arm. My favorite drugs are free drugs.

What's in it?
I ask. Not that I care, really, just curious.

The usual dance-club mix: a little bit to keep you up, a little bit to make the music sound good, a little bit to make you want to touch the other homely fuckers in the club. But the thing that's going to make me a rich man is a thermogenic. It actually burns more calories than the vodka contains. You can drink all night and actually lose weight. Do you have any idea how popular this is going to be with gay men and women?

I take a drink. Tastes like grapefruit juice that went bad.

This is fucking horrible.
I shake the taste out of my head. Then, like the problem addict I am, I finish it in a big shot.

And it makes you sweat a little more than normal. And if you drink too much, it probably will induce renal failure. And fuck up your endocrine system over the long haul. But hey, did I tell you you'll lose weight? You'll never go broke underestimating the vanity of the American public.

The pump comes on slowly. This song sounds great. I know I'm high when I like this fucking music. I know objectively it's horrible, but it's sounding good right now. I feel like I look better. Better? Hot. Yes, I look good. Hot enough to fuck. God damn, this shit is good.

Mighty Mouse takes us downstairs to see what he calls the Big Show. He won't tell us what that is. Right now, I don't care. I will fuck whatever it is.

On stage, a Hulk Hogan impersonator and an Andre the Giant impersonator are singing “You're The One That I Want” from the
Grease
soundtrack. They look pretty good, but they're not the same size as the originals. They're normal-sized people, and it looks weird. Fake Andre is only like, five eight, and his wig is coming off. I think this is the Big Show, but I'm wrong. It's the end of the show right before the Big Show. Fake Hulk and Fake Andre have a big finish, with Fake Andre jumping into Fake Hulk's arms. They pose for the adoring crowd, then scatter off stage, taking props with them.

There's a lag in the music and a drug-stoked tension in the air. Gay catcalls ring out. Everyone's clearly waiting for whatever's about to happen.

The DJ plays a mashup of
Godzilla
music, Bonnie Tyler's “Holding Out for a Hero,” and “Big Bad John.” Fuck, I am high. The crowd goes fucking nuts, and I go nuts, too. I'm cheering. For what, I don't know. But they're excited, and I'm one of them. We're excited. Holy shit, what the fuck is coming? I yell for it to come out, whatever or whoever it is.

Through the crowd, a man walks, and as he gets closer, I can see he's completely naked. He's oiled up, shining like a fish pulled out of the water. His face has all the expression of a mannequin.

I see everyone looking at him. We're all high on the same shit. We're a crowd of horny lizards. We want to consume; to eat, fuck, and kill. They're higher than I am, which puts them completely beyond humanity. And they look great. Great in the way tweakers and junkies look great right before they go to shit. It's the thermogenic in the drinks. They're burning calories faster than they can eat them, but who gives a fuck when you're thin, right? Their eyes are all the same. They're all looking at this man walking through the crowd, the champion of Pump.

He takes the stage, and you know, I haven't seen a whole lot of cocks, but I doubt I'll ever see another one this big. It's hanging there like a sock with a cue ball in it.

A bass beat kicks in, and a look of fierce determination takes over his face. It's like he's angry, but not at anyone. He grits his teeth and begins sweating in front of us, and I realize he's not oiled—he's slickened with his own sweat, and it runs off him in a slow sheet.

Slowly his cock awakens, like a cobra coming out of a snake charmer's basket. The crowd roars its approval. I cheer too, and although I know I could really give a shit, it's impressive seeing a cock this big get hard in front of everyone. He must be getting light-headed.

When it's fully hard, it looks around the room with its hideous gaping mouth-eye. His eyes are closed and his head is tilted back. I would think he's passed out, but he's still upright and his fists are clenched so hard his arms are shaking. The crowd can't take it. Men shove their way to the front. Bodybuilder bouncers keep them from rushing onto the stage.

The man stands there, his cock quivering, like it's having a nightmare or it's confused or something. It swells and pulsates. Veins throb on the shaft and on each fist, running up in gutters across his arms, up his neck, and into little squiggles on his forehead.

How long this goes on, I can't tell. I've lost track of time. He's glowing bright red as his capillaries swell and burst.

Precum glistens off the head of his cock, a simple milky tear, and now I know what the Big Show is. I back up through the crowd, trying to get as far away from the stage as possible. His penis shakes at us like an old man's angry fist, and then it happens.

A shot of cum like the ghost of a snake shoots out, and men jump to catch it like it's a free T-shirt at a stadium. It's followed by short angry jizz bursts. The man's yelling, but I can't hear him over the noise of the crowd. The spectators rush the stage and dog-pile him. I head out the door. I need some air, but nothing is going to top that. Maybe ever.

The cool night air of Folsom Street hits me. I'm soaked with sweat. I didn't notice so much inside, but out here, it's freezing.

A dank, sour, shit smell hits me. I look for a pile of bumarrhea but don't see anything. I must be coming down off the birthday cake.

A convertible Jaguar rolls by us. I want to fuck it. Those curvy, beckoning lines. The light changes, and the driver hits the gas, leaving brakelights trailing like toothpaste in its wake.

THE BOSS

MY ARM HURTS
.
It's wet. I look down. I'm at work. Arm's in a tank. Moby Dick whale biting the fuck out of me. Fucker. I hate this guy. He lives up to the dick part of his name. Dick. Asshole whale. I wrestle him a while. The only way to get him to let go of you is to stick a finger in his blowhole. I jam my finger in knuckle-deep, and he lets go and swims to the corner of his tank.

I don't remember coming in. This isn't good. Entire chunk of lost time. I remember the gym. Going to Pump. The Big Show. Being on the curb, sweating my ass off. Then I'm here. Hell. Something's wrong. I need to fix my mix. More drugs? Different drugs? Less mixing the drugs? More of just one?

Eirean rolls in, literally, on a pair of vintage Nike disco skates. He's wearing his best power-plaid flannel. There must be a meeting today.

Eirean O'Malley, the boy genetic genius. The guy who figured out the dwarf genome in the whales. The man who made an empire of making the world's biggest mammal into the world's most collectible.

Eirean is barely into his twenties. Drives a Tesla Roadster, owns a pair of Tibetan dogs he bought from a temple while on a trip and bribed them back to the US. He has a condo in one of those mirrored buildings that stands tall over the Bay Bridge on-ramp. He's a rich fucker selling things to other rich fuckers.

Chuck, bro, we need to talk.

Fuck, I think, I'm caught for something. I could be busted for any number of things.

What's up, boss?