The World's Strongest Man
I lift the first Atlas stone, the lightest, place it easily on the platform. I can’t hear the arena crowd: I can only see their hands clap, their mouths move. They cheer for me, but they don’t know me, not really, can’t see the woody pit of my heart. People used to tell me that time heals all wounds. Those were the same people who prayed so that they didn’t have to actually do anything. I knew from age 8, from when the accident happened, that prayers weren’t going to help me. It would be me and my little sister against the world.
The next stone is heavier, but I don’t feel much difference. I heft it up and onto the platform, ignoring my competitor Oleksii Novikov, pretending I’m alone. The crowd cheers again.
My sister and I had been taken in by a gay couple. No one wanted to adopt a pair of broken siblings, and no adoption agencies were going to give Frank and Jerry a baby back then, so the way I see it, we were made for each other.
It was Jerry that got me into weightlifting. He was a dedicated amateur and taught me well. He showed me how to funnel the hate of the world that had blossomed inside me as a child. He taught me and my sister that platitudes are meaningless and that hurt doesn’t shrink: it only gets more dense.
My little sister got the fever, too. She deadlifted 400 pounds on her 21st birthday with Jerry right next to her.
Our other dad, Frank, he cheers us on, though he finds it funny, this need we have to be so strong.
“Y’all are going to be hobbling by the time you’re my age,” he says.
Jerry shoots us a look. “No,” the look says. “You’ll be hobbled if you quit, if you let anything stop you,” it says.
Once you lift the third stone and place it on the platform, a kind of relief sets in. You’re over halfway done. There are only two more stones to lift, and if you have made it this far, you know you can do the rest. The other two will be nothing. The other two will float. My sister’s face flashes from the front row after I place the third stone. She is first on her feet as the crowd erupts.
I can do it this time, I know. I’m going to be The World’s Strongest Man.
With the fourth stone, I think of a young boy I saw on the news. He saw a man die on the street beneath the knee of a cop. I think of him often, how he had to be a witness at the trial, how he can never unsee what he saw. I think of how that moment was a hinge: there was the before and now the after. I know that boy’s life. That boy has been set on a path, just as I was set on a path, as my sister was set on a path the day we got out of the car and our parents didn’t.
I breathe deeply, help flush the lactic acid from my muscles. With the fifth stone, I think of Jerry and Frank and my sister and how this is for all of us. When it’s on the platform, everyone screams. Oleksii is still on stone four. I put my hands straight in the air, my fists balled tight. I’m one step closer.
The final event, the one I have been waiting for, is the vehicle pull.
“You’re going to do it,” my sister told me before the competition. “You can’t lose now, you can’t.” She put her head against my head, as we had done since childhood. The simple gesture calmed us. It was strange, I suppose, to still rest our heads together as adults, but we did it anyway, and Frank and Jerry, having learned it from us, did it too. Before the competition, we stood in a circle and all leaned our heads together. This was our prayer.
The vehicle pull means pulling a boxcar down a 100-foot section of railroad track using a rope and a harness. The boxcar is an ordinary double door brown boxcar, the letters BNSF painted on the side. I didn’t tell my family I’d be pulling a boxcar, and when they come out into the Florida heat and see it, my sister’s face goes to stone. Frank and Jerry set their lips tight and nod at me. “You will do it,” their faces say.
I put on the harness and position myself on the track, the pulling rope in my hands. Sweat beads on my forehead before I even move.
Then I pull.
My muscles scream against the weight. But I feel lighter with each step. With each step, the boxcar inches away from the Chevy sedan it had crashed into. With each step, I hear the metal of the car straighten, a great groaning. With each step, the accident is undone, my parents’ car sailing backwards from the railroad track, all of us singing along to Creedence Clearwater Revival as wind rushes through the car. My mother reaches her hand behind the front passenger seat, squeezes my small leg.
I pull harder.
At the end of the 100 feet, my face is a mess of tears and sweat. My sister is there. Then Frank and Jerry are there, hugging me. My sister and I put our heads together.
“You did it,” she says. “You really did it.”
“We did it. We all did it,” I say.
The crowd rushes in. Everyone wants to meet The World’s Strongest Man.
I shake hands; I smile. But I’m looking beyond everyone. Past the crowd, I catch a glimpse of something in the place where eyes see half-truths. I don’t question it: I know who is there. I know who is watching.
DARCI SCHUMMER is the author of Six Months in the Midwest (Unsolicited Press), The Ballad of Two Sisters (Unsolicited Press), and The Book of Orion (Bottlecap Press). She is co-author of the poetry/prose collaboration Hinge (broadcraft press). Her work has appeared in several journals, such as Ninth Letter, Folio, Jet Fuel Review, Atticus Review, and Pithead Chapel. She is an assistant professor of creative writing at Colorado State University Pueblo. Connect with her at darcischummer.com.