Disclosed from the weightlifting is the manner of such brawn the likes of which made me swoon. I relished not in the musculature, the venation, or the drips of sweat

It was weights themselves, their number and variety. both shiny and rusty. The utility of them, a singular one at first glance. And yet, with some imagination, they could back a door, crush a foot, herniate a disc.

But for me it was their true job that awed me. For changing the look of another person.