Kierk’s ID card gets him through the automatic gates of the gym near his apartment. As he passes the wide-screen TVs and upscale juice bar he feels like an imposter in his new running shorts and bright squeaky sneakers. First he heads to the weight room and lifts, feeling joy as his body assumes the proper forms, the burn and rush and release. After an hour he heads up the stairs to the indoor track to start jogging. About three or four laps in he begins to get that jouissance, that exuberant flushing all over, and he laughs wildly as he starts to push himself. There aren’t that many people on the circular track and Kierk has been smoking past everybody, breathing hard, yes, but there’s still that internal engine. Then there’s a rush of clothing and an undergraduate blasts past him wearing an NYU track-and-field sweatshirt. The kid gets about fifty feet ahead of him before Kierk growls and takes the lead once more. Kierk holds the pace a while, hearing the footsteps behind him as the two do a few more laps almost in lockstep, and then the frequency of footsteps increases and the young man easily sprints ahead. Kierk, now feeling the riptide of each breath surge through him, catches up, and for nearly a mile they run side by side, the pair thundering past the other runners who scamper out of the way, close to a five-minute-mile pace, and Kierk, his legs wobbly, his lungs on fire, feels everything inside shutting down but musters one last burning push and starts truly going all out, sprinting as fast as he can, and just as he gets around the bend out of view of his competitor he wheels off the track and through the nearest doorway, frightening a girl who leaps out of his way, and he’s gasping so loud it sounds like he’s screaming as he makes it into the men’s locker room, his vision narrowing to a blurred tunnel as he’s heaving trying to get air, a shaking figure busting open one of the stall doors and, every part of his body trembling as he kneels, vomits up a clear stream into the pool of the toilet bowl.