Exits and Entrances - Chapter Five - Continued by Dave Jaffe

   Chapter Five continued
  

    As my knees decayed, John's life went downhill too. His landlord, a friend of John's killed himself. John then broke off all contact with me.  I saw it was necessary for him  and in hindsight it was the best thing that happened to me. I also realized that John may have been gay and his super-masculine front was built up by him to protect him from any hints of being gay.
     Of course not all the weight lifting people in the Y.M.C.A. weight room were like John.  Gunter was a husky brick layer who was intelligent and a kind and decent man. Another Dave, towered over me and remembered me from our days at McGill University. He was an ESL teacher, and at one time tried to get me a job teaching ESL.
    Art, a bearded energetic man did find me a clerical job at B.C. Institute of Technology. Al was a husky bearded man from east end Vancouver. he worked at a local community centre with some tough young men. Yet Al was a kind person.
    Still, there were other people there who I steered clear of. One huge man from eastern Europe grabbed a modern dancer and one day pinned him up against the wall. "Don't you ever change the weights on this barbell when I'm using it," he growled at the dancer. Another man who had tatoos on his arms, gave me looks that terrified me. A third man I knew had a father who killed himself. This man scared me too sometimes.
    Yet my wonky knees and John's new mood pushed me out of the 'Y' weight room and into another totally different place. And as young people would say to-day in 2016, "It was all good."