L.A.Observations 1: Swimming at Bally's

Copyright 2007-All Rights Reserved

Bally’s, the gym I used to belong to, has a pool at its facility on the west side of Los Angeles. I started going there regularly in 2000. It was a long drive from where I lived, but I like to swim better than I like using the treadmill or the cross trainer. At this point in my life, I had/have to do the aerobics, you know. Get the heart rate up. Keep the muscles from going on strike. Chase away the cholesterol blues. Get rid of couch potato-ism, stress, and too many other risk factors that I don’t want to know about. But, forgive me, I’m obsessing. Which I tend to do at times.

When I was going to Bally’s, there was always an interesting show at the pool. Covertly, I watched the old White men in swimming trunks roaming about as I swam my laps. And that’s all they seemed to be doing—roaming, not exercising. Why were they here? I would wonder. Doctor’s orders? To get away from the wife? To meet and greet? To recapture youth? To score … catch … fake it til you make it? Who knows? Some would bunch together at the benches near the swimming pool; others would drift over to the whirlpool. It’s the bellies that drew my attention straightaway. Rotund bellies—fully packed after years of gobbling down thick steaks, potatoes swimming in sour cream, and hard crust breads.

Some of them looked like pears, ripe for the plucking; others reminded me of pregnant women about to break water. More than a few sported handlebars of fat clinging to their sides like inner tubes. None of those golden boys had waists anymore; their behinds had gone bye-bye too.

Since they didn’t have the de rigueur L.A. buff bodies to show off, they put their jewelry on parade. A couple of them flashed big, pinky diamond rings. Others adorned their sunken chests with huge gold chains—some with medallions studded with diamonds. This affectation told me, one more time, that almost every popular fashion trend in America nowadays comes out of the Black neighborhood. Somehow, though, I was rather surprised that the golden boys had taken to this kind of jewelry. It’s tacky looking. Way too wannabe pretentious, if you ask me. Could it be that these old Beverly Hills-Brentwood boys still needed validation that they’d made it?

One day, one of the gang was dressed in drop-dead, orange trunks. Both of his big, drooping, womanly breasts displayed blue tattoos. The designs ran down both his arms—covering and smothering the front of his chest like Ray Bradbury’s “Illustrated Man.” His face reminded me of the guy on the old Smith Brothers Cough Drops box. Some might say he was more of a bald Santa Claus type: Bushy, long, white beard with a moustache decorating his top lip. It was a strange look, a combination of a 19th century face sitting on top of a twenty-first century body adorned with tattoos—tattoos being a fad straight out of the ghetto and the barrio.

Beside the tattooed Santa Claus was a white-haired poseur with long, Elvis-style sideburns. He had on white, almost see-through trunks, pulled down below his waist in hip-hop, gangsta style. I could see the crack of his ass just peeping above the elastic. Between his “walking” laps in the water, he strutted and posed, laughing with great animation at some remark that Santa Claus made from time to time. There were a couple of women lolling nearby the two old men. One was an older woman, in fairly good shape, smiling hugely at something one of the old boys had said. Another was young, sleek looking, an athlete by the look of her. Santa Claus leered from time to time. Elvis took great pains to loudly explain the benefits of “walking” laps as opposed to “swimming” them. Santa Claus kept leering and nodding his head. The women politely listened though their attention was plainly wandering after five minutes of Santa’s lecture.

Elvis suddenly hoisted himself up out of the pool and did a half-assed dive, despite the posted big “No Diving” signs all around. Apparently, some people think the rules aren’t for them. As Elvis came up for air, sputtering, I took note of the lane they were in—the sign said: “Loafers and Slow Walkers.”


Some of the Slow Walker men wore their gold-rimmed glasses. Water splashed on one old man’s specs. He didn’t bother to try to wipe them. Droplets ran down the lens and he just stood there looking at himself in the mirrors on the far wall. I find it very, very strange that you would get into a swimming pool with your eye glasses on. I wear glasses too, but not in the pool. Another old codger made his way down the lane, clinging to the lane’s marker. His eyes fascinated me. Nothing was behind them. No sign of life at all. They were light blue, so light that they were almost silver gray. His face, too, was void of expression. As though he was in shock. Maybe he was. Maybe. Because one fine morning he woke up and found himself a senior citizen…an old man, a has-been…spent, worn out, no longer useful…disrespected. Found himself an old codger who still leers at young blondes, brunettes, and redheads on the street. Found himself an old man whose reflex habit of a lifetime is still to stare, lick his lips, and wonder about how good the ride might be on that young thing. Maybe he was in shock because he woke up one fine morning and finally found himself a man—old…bitter … blue.

And that’s how life goes. But not in Los Angeles. In L.A., aging is taboo. Here one is supposed to be eternally young. Eternally. These old men were clearly chasing Youth as it receded into the distant horizon. I wondered what their reactions would be when they woke up one fine morning and realized that Youth had left them in the dust. Would they still come to the pool and pose? Still come to fake it, floss, and strut?

I turned away from them and focused on doing my laps. Youth was not what I was after. But I understood the bewilderment you feel when you wake up one day and look in the mirror only to find that the face staring back has changed. That time has changed it. And that you can’t call time back because it’s doing a double-quick march on down the road. Aging is a shock, I grant you. But it ain’t fatal. It’s only another rise in the road with more adventures out of sight beyond the hill. And I look forward to them.