Denis and I, working out alongside each other on crosstrainers tell stories and share our impressions of various things and people. A man who works at the gym walked by…

“Now that guy I like,” I said. “Do you know Doug?” I asked.

“Yes. Doug is good man.”

“I’ll say. Do you know I have been going to write about him for five years? For five years I’ve had the intention but I never can seem to find the words. I can’t capture him for some reason.”

“I’ve only seen him get upset… one time,” Denis said, holding his index finger up for emphasis.

“Yeah, he’s a cool head. The coolest. What happened? What pissed him off?”

“Some black guy was dumping his trash in the dumpster.”

I glanced at him because Denis and Doug are both “black”.

“And he started yelling at him. And I said, Doug, Doug. What are you doing? Everyone knows that guy is crazy. Leave him alone. Let him use the trash if that’s what he wants.”

I nodded. ‘Well I have never seen him lose it. And I have given him plenty of chances over the years. You know. I have been a pain in the ass more than once. Way more than once. Like when they had some control freak girl in the day care who wanted us to bring out kid’s birth certificates to prove they were our kids. I went crazy on that.”

He laughed.

“Yeah, I have definitely gone off a time or two. I go down there and start in, blah, blah, blah, with all this fervor. And no matter what I say, he stays totally cool. It’s amazing. He’s completely unflappable and it really helps me. He’s able to just… take anything, I guess. Transcend it? He listens to anything from everyone and he just stays real cool and diffuses things.”

“Yeah, Doug is like that.”

“And then one time… this was awhile ago, but I used to walk on the track up there and there was a guy who would follow behind me and make comments about my ass.”

Denis laughed.

“Well it was really getting to me. It went on and on and I wasn’t sure how to handle it. I thought about killing him, for example,” I said.

We both laughed.

“Yeah, I suppose I could have just killed the guy, but really, I was just not equipped to deal with this at the time. And I didn’t think he was supposed to be doing this. I mean, I think it’s against the rules to harass people like that.”

“Yes… you shouldn’t be doing that.”

“Uh huh. So I finally asked Doug about it. I wanted him to help me and he said he would. He was going to talk to this guy for me. He was going to run him off. Get rid of him. He was going to confront him for me, which you know would not be in his comfort zone at all. He’s too polite.”

“Nope. Yes, he is polite. Doug is very polite man.”

“Yeah, he’s classy. He would not be comfortable telling some guy to stay away from my ass, that’s for sure. But he was going to do it anyway. For me,” I added. “But in the end, I handled it a different way and that didn’t have to happen, thank God. But I have never forgotten the fact he was willing do that for me. He was gonna take care of it, even though I am a questionable person in all ways.”

“You’re questionable?” he said.

“Well yes, Denis. I think I am. I would question me if I were me. And apparently you agree because you question me all the time.”

Is there someone out there who you respect? Someone you quietly admire?