There would be some fucking serious competition.
No point pretending to myself that it would be easy. To add, I was inexperienced in competing.
But fuck all that. I could use the money, you get me.
It was 5pm at the Hackney Weightlifting Club on a Saturday afternoon. With my sweat towel wrapped around my thick, dark brown neck like a badge of honour, I stood in front of the notice board. It was plastered with a bunch of shit I did not care about apart from the poster about an Olympic Weightlifting competition:
Men’s Olympic Weightlifting competition
102kg (225 lb) Weight class
Location: Hackney Weightlifting Club
Date: June 2019
Prize: £1,500
Ages: 25-35
“So you finkin’ about entering it, yeah?”
Nickie had come to stand behind me. She was a mixed-race girl, skin the colour of semi-skimmed milk, with braids, one gold-tooth and more testosterone than most of the men lifting weights around here. Probably a lesbian. Not that it matters to me. Got bigger shit to think about.
“I am thinking about it,” I said, gripping my sweat towel around my neck. “Would be serious mandem competing.”
Nickie ribbed me lightly by my side. “What, you scared, fam?”
I kissed my teeth. “Nigerian blood flows through my veins. We man slap up fear, you get me.”
“Alright, big boi,” Nickie said. Before she walked away, she whipped the towel on my backside, but I ignored her. I looked at the poster advertising the Olympic Weightlifting tournament again.
There would be some fucking serious competition. But I am a black man. An ex-convict. And the son of a Nigeran General. Competition and struggle are my life. It is what it is.
*******
It's 10pm in the evening, and I was sitting in my dingy studio flat in Stoke Newington. It's a shithole. The floorboards are creaky like the bones of an old man. Paint from the white walls had already started to peel off as if the house were shedding its skin. And to top it all off, mould slowly began to emerge in the corners of the kitchen and toilet, like leprosy.
But I can’t complain about it too much. After spending five years in prison, I was just thankful I was lucky enough to get a fucking place.
As I eat my plain basmati rice with half a cooked chicken, I stare at the framed picture of my mother hanging on the wall in front of me. The dark eyes on her frozen, sunken face stare back at me. Even in death, I feel like she is still judging me.
She had brought me to London from Nigeria when I was fifteen years old. Can’t say I know the full story, my mother had been a secretive woman, but I know I was a love child. A Nigerian general had a brief affair with my mother, who was a simple housemaid at the time. I was the result of their tryst. But that bastard father of mine had wanted nothing to do with her once I was born. Without much prospects in Lagos, my mother somehow managed to come into money and then travelled to London.
If my mother knew how things had turned out for me, I doubt she would have been proud of me. I briefly remember what she had told me when I had first been excluded from secondary school years ago for my fifth fight in two days.
“Young choices become adult problems.”
Should have listened to her then. I continue to eat in the silence of my decaying surroundings.
Week 1 (3 weeks before the competition)
I fucking love the gym.
Even before jail, I craved the adrenaline rush that sends a buzz through me when I lift weights. I was weightlifting seriously by the time I was 18. The feeling of my muscles tensing and contracting is almost as good as fucking a woman. Almost as good.
Out of all the exercises one can do at the gym, Olympic weightlifting has always been my favourite. What you need to understand about Olympic weightlifting is that it is the only exercise that mimics the trajectory of most of our lives.
Take the ‘clean and jerk’ lifting technique, for example. First, you must grab the barbell and feel it out. This is like when you first learn to walk. After, you must lift the barbell from the floor to your deltoids. This entire sequence represents the growth of a child to a young adult.
Then comes the toughest part. After the clean, comes the jerk. At this point, you must use all your strength, both physically and mentally, to lift the barbell above your head. Think like how someone pushes for their dreams and goals. Finally, you either triumphantly raise the bar above you, with your arms and legs completely straight or you falter and drop the barbell. Success or failure. The narrative of life.
I stood before the barbell, which was loaded with two sets of 20kg weight plates on either side. Considering the weight of the barbell, the total weight was 100kg. Rubbing the chalk in my hands, which gave me a firmer grip and hyped me up, like revving the engine of a car before a street race, I straighten my back as I bend my knees.
There is now an audience who have gathered to watch me. I don't mind, I love an audience, you get me. My hands grip the barbell, I control my breathing…
Bang!
I execute a smooth, clean and jerk lift. I grunt loudly as I raise the barbell over my head. My arms are straight as I carefully bring my feet to align with the rest of my body. Then with a loud thud, I drop the weighted barbell onto the floor, which absorbs the shock.
“Jheeze, that was clean, big man,” Nickie says as she stands among the crowd of people.
It was a solid execution, but it was light work. I wasn’t about to get gassed. Never get complacent. That’s how you get caught off guard. I had to learn the hard way.
*******
Even from standing across an entire road, separated by parents, children, and expensive Range Rovers, I instantly recognised my five-year-old daughter.
How could I not? It was like God had taken my big, meaty nose, my thick lips and shaped them into something soft and pleasant for my daughter’s face. That way, she resembled me without inheriting any of my visual ugliness. The only thing she didn’t get from me was her straight hair. That came from her Italian mother.
My daughter ran out the school gates, her pink bag strapped to her back and bouncing up and down with each stride she took. She threw herself into the arms of this tall, Hugh Grant-looking motherfucker by the name of Charlie. This wasn’t the first time I had seen my daughter show love to her white stepfather, but it never got more comfortable to view. What kind of black man allows a white man to take over his position?
Somehow, this posh wanker had some sixth sense because he looked across the road and stared right at me. At the sight of me, he winced, as if he had eaten something too spicy, and hurried to his white Range Rover, my daughter holding his hand. I could only watch as this prick ushered my daughter into the backseat, and then he dashed to the driver's seat. No sooner he had he got into the vehicle; my ex-wife stepped out of it.
Here we go.
“You know you can’t be here,” my ex-wife says to me as she strides towards me in high heels, a black blazer and pencil skirt. It still shocks me how prim and proper she had become. When I had met her and married her, she had been a bad girl; a hood chick from Stratford who had long forgotten her Italian heritage. But I had to give it to her, she had stepped up. Guess she had no choice really.
"I just wanted to see her," I say, taking a step back as my ex-wife stops in front of me. Till this day, I can't look her in the eye for too long. Not after all the shit I put her through. An argument could be made that, yeah, I was young, too fucking young, to get married let alone have a kid. But passion and sex are a dangerous cocktail for an angry, young black boy without a father and an emotionally distant mother.
"Well, you're not allowed to see her. You're not legally her parent, remember? Even after all these years, her spite for me still coloured every word she spat at me.
“I did not come here to upset you, man. I just wanted to see her. I do love her.”
Fuck’s sake. Why would I say that? My ex-wife let out a high-pitched laugh which pinched at my patience and stabbed at my pride. But I knew I had no comeback. Nothing I could say could take back what I had done. As pathetic as it was, pleading was the only thing I could do, you get me.
“I just want to have a role in her life. Make amends, alright. That’s all.”
But my ex-wife was having none of it. She turned around and walked back to the white Range Rover. But I had to try one last time.
“You have my number, Gaia. Just text me. Let me just see her, man. Please.”
Maybe she heard me, maybe she didn't. But my ex-wife didn't look back at me as she got into the car. A minute later, the Range Rover was pulling out of its parking space in front of the school’s gates. Just before they speed away, my daughter glanced at me from one of the rear windows. No word of a lie, she gave me a look like she knew who I was, even though I haven’t spoken to her since she was one year’s old.
Week 2 (2 weeks before the competition)
The snatch.
What you gotta understand about the snatch lifting technique is that it's all about explosive power. It's the first method a lifter must use in an Olympic weightlifting competition.
120kg. That was how much weights were on the barbell in front of me. As usual, a crowd of people in the gym had gathered around to see me execute this snath lift. Good, let me show these people what raw, Nigerian power looks like.
Nickie is standing a few feet away from me. “Gwan, big man.”
I take my position in front of the barbell. Like the clean and jerk, the snatch is also a metaphor for life. However, it's from a different perspective. You see, the snatch is all about the three pulls. The first pull is about lifting the barbell off the ground until it reaches your midthigh. Think about the first day you walk into a new job.
The second pull is where the explosive display of power comes from. At this stage, you must use all your body strength, keeping your heels on the ground and giving yourself an upward momentum with the heels of your foot, to lift the barbell to your chest. In a job, this is the point where you're doing all you can to pass that probation or get that promotion.
Then the final pull is where you must lift the barbell overhead. This part is tricky because anything can fuck you up, you get me. For example, your elbows do not bend out to the side properly, so the barbell isn't perfectly balanced as you bring yourself down to an overhead squat. Or you don't move your feet quickly enough from a jumping stance to a wider squat position.
But if you manage to make all the motions correctly, then you can stabilise the barbell by keeping your back tight as you squat with the barbell over your head. After all that hard work, you raise the barbell and yourself triumphantly upwards. You did it, you got that job promotion. If you're really good, you made it look like piss easy.
The first two pulls I execute with ease. But I fuck up the third pull. I scream in agony as I drop the barbell in front of me. It hits the floor with a violent bounce and rolls away.
“Fuck’s sake,” I mutter to myself, bending down with my hands on my knees and breathing heavily.
"Oi, you bless, yeah?" Nickie says as she comes to my side.
"Yeah, I am good," I snap back at her but then immediately regret my tone of voice.
"Sorry I am alright. Need to improve my form."
One thing I absolutely hate is failing when all eyes are on me. Imagine getting arrested by police in front of your screaming mother and your one-year-old daughter. Fucked up, right? Well, that shit happened to me. And right now, I felt exactly how I did on that day.
*******
“The fuck you mean it’s my last shift, Bennie?”
I am standing in Bennie's square office, but when I say office, I basically mean some square room the size of a toilet cubicle.
Bennie is Turkish or Lebanese. To be honest, I can’t really tell. All people from that region look alike to me. But whatever, for the past six months, Bennie employed me as security for his popular nightclub in Shoreditch. It wasn't the best pay, and I worked from 7pm – 6am in the morning, making sure drunk young people didn't impale themselves onto a railing or get their teeth knocked out for trying to act hard. But it was a job that covered my rent, food, and gym. Plus, I was a 30-year-old, six-foot, black ex-convict. So yeah, beggars can’t be choosers.
But it looked like I would be back to begging again.
"I am sorry, you know I am. It wasn't your fault, I know. But the media attention is too much. It was an acid attack in the club. The club is fucked. And I don't know for how long."
“Fuck,” I say, letting out a heavy sigh. “This is some bad timing, Bennie. I need this money, man.”
Bennie rubs his chubby fingers over the sizeable bold patch on his bowling-ball shaped head. "Yeah, I know, my brother. Listen, I am going to pass your details to some people I know who run a security organisation. You will be ok. You’re a big man. You’ll find work again.”
Week 3 (1 week before the competition)
“Fuck!”
I had messed up again on the 120kg clean and jerk lift. Needing a punching bag to let out my frustration, I literally slammed my knuckles into a dangling punching bag nearby, sending it swinging. Back in the day, I would have punched a wall or someone's face. So when I say I’ve come a long way, I mean that.
“You sure you’re up for this, big man?” Nickie said, sitting on a squat block in front of me.
“There you go with that negativity shit,” I say to her, wiping my face with a towel. “What you saying? I should just quit.”
“I am saying you might need more time to prepare for a competition like this. There’s gonna be an audience, you know that, right?”
“Good,” I say, bending down to shift the weights on the right side of the barbell back into place. “All the more reason I can’t fuck it up, you get me.”
Even though I don't see it, I know Nickie has rolled her eyes but fuck her. She doesn't understand a man's pride. A man's dedication to bettering himself. A man like me does not throw his hands in the air when shit ain't going right. I am the bastard son of a Nigerian general. Struggle is in my blood.
Plus, I needed that money.
*******
I sit at my wooden table in my desolate flat. This place is really fucking depressing sometimes. In front of me is a bowl of porridge mixed with honey. Beside my bowel is my mobile phone. As I put a spoonful of soggy porridge into my mouth, I stare at it. Still no text from my ex-wife.
After spending most of the day in the internet café applying for security jobs and courier jobs, it dawns me on how lonely it can sometimes get, this solitary life. The only company I have in my flat is the dusty photo of my dead mother hanging on my wall. I am not even sure when that photo was taken. But she looked happy in it or be pretended to be. It had always been difficult to read my mother.
The competition is tomorrow. My mind is all kinds of fucked up. Losing my job had really thrown my concentration off, but I needed to remain focused. It’s times like this where I remind myself that I’ve been in more desperate situations before. In fact, this was nirvana right now compared to some of the shit I had experienced growing up in Hackney. Several burglaries. Street fights. Police breaking into my flat, pointing a gun to my face as my daughter wailed in the adjacent room.
I am the son of a Nigerian general. I come from war and struggle.
It was nearing 9pm, and so I decided to start preparing for bed. Tomorrow, I would have to prove to myself that I was still a warrior and the top man out here. And I would have an audience to see it.
Competition Day
There must’ve been around 60 people sat on wooden benches that had been set up around the gym. All the gym machines had been stored away to make space for the competition. Thick, heavy-duty 16mm garage tiles covered the centre of the gym. On top of the mats was a silver, metal barbell and a set of stacked weights on each side. A full course meal for the strong.
I stood behind a big, Eastern European motherfucker who was flexing his muscles on his hairy, thick arms. As I studied the man's build, I could feel the adrenaline begin to rise in me like water overflowing on a sink. As I bounced on the spot, wearing my green powerlifting suit, random thought about my father materialised in my mind. How I was feeling right now, was this how he felt when he was ready to lead his soldiers into battle?
Per the rule of an Olympic Weightlifting competition, each lifter would have to complete a snatch and a clean and jerk for each weight. In that order. Each competitor has three attempts at each. The load on the barbell is increased as the competition goes on. The prize money is awarded to the competitor who lifted the most weight successfully with both techniques.
There were six lifters. Three white and two black, which includes me. The other brother was a man by the name of Adam. He was West Indian from what Nickie had told me. I did not really talk to him much, but he regularly attended the gym, and we had spotted each other on a few occasions. We acknowledged each other with a nod as we stood side by side. This was not a time for chit chat, you get me.
The Eastern European man was up first. The lowest weight to be lifted was 60kg. Light work, in my opinion. But not for this guy. He had, with some struggle, managed to lift the weight using the snatch technique. But he was unable to do it with a clean and jerk. The poor fool could only let out a shout of frustration as the barbell dropped in front of him, as he failed to summon the strength to lift it over his shoulders for the third time.
Twenty minutes later, the four other lifters had successfully lifted the weight using both the clean and jerk and the snatch. I was the last to go up. First was the snatch. I rubbed my hands together with chalk, bent my knees and made sure my back was straight. Then in one swift and smooth motion, I lifted the barbell from the tiles and above my head. I held the weight above my head for a few seconds before dropping it in front of me. A round of applause. It was a clean lift.
Next came the clean and jerk. Just like the snatch, I had executed this lift like I was lifting an infant from the floor. I held the barbell triumphantly over my head, feeling everyone’s eyes on me, and then I let the steel bar drop in front of me. As I walked away from the competing area, I took in the applause of the audience, impressed by my display of power.
As the competition went on, and the weights on the barbell increased, so did my confidence. Maybe I could actually win this shit. While Adam had also been breezing through, the other competitors had started to show some cracks. It was taking them two or three attempts to lift the barbell with both techniques.
By the time it came to the heaviest weight, 120g, it was clear to the spectators and the competitors that the competition was now between Adam and me. To secure my chance of winning this, I had decided that I would go first.
Once the weights had been added to the barbell, I was called to attempt the first snatch lift. I walked onto the mat and took a deep breath. I flexed my shoulders and bounced on the spot with the soles of my feet, feeling the adrenaline mixed with a little fear. Fuck that, I couldn’t let doubt creep in. Not now.
I took my position in front of the barbell, loaded with 120kg, and made sure my pre-lift form was correct. Back straight. Feet hip-width apart. Shoulders positioned slightly over the barbell. Then I gripped the barbell and lifted it.
Fuck! I had completely messed up the final part of the lift where I needed to perform a double kneed bend, extending my hip, ankles, and knees to bring the barbell over my head. The strength I needed just did not turn up for me. I breathed slowly as I rubbed my hands together. No big deal, you get me. I still had two attempts.
On the third attempt., I managed to lift the barbell successfully with the snatch technique. But now I could feel the aching pain in my muscles. Not good. And I still had to do the clean and jerk lift with the same weight. As I walked away from the lifting area, Adam passed me. It was his turn now. He looked light on his feet.
One clean attempt was all it took for Adam to lift the barbell with the snatch technique. And he had made it look too easy. Three of the other competitors had failed to lift the weight across all their three attempts.
There was a short intermission, and then there was the final clean and jerk event for the 120kg weight. By this point, I could feel my muscles tighten and slight pain in my knee joint. But I had to ignore the physical discomfort and keep mentally sharp. Sometimes, your mental resolve is what will be the difference between you coming out on the other side or not. Being locked up taught me that.
I was first up. As I walked to the platform, feeling the stiffness in my thighs and calves, I knew that if I didn’t execute a clean one in the first attempt, then I could forget about that prize money. But fuck that defeatist attitude, you get me.
I took a deep breath as I looked down at the barbell, lifeless and intimidating. I rubbed the chalk on my hands and took my position with the correct form. I put my hands on the barbell’s cold steel, straightened my back, and pulled the barbell from the floor.
Immediately, the tearing pain exploded from my calves. It travelled like a speeding train to the top of my thigh. It was like someone had shot me in the fucking leg. I dropped the barbell just as I had brought it mid-chest. A scream, one I did not even recognise, came from the depths of something horrible within me.
As I sat on the tiles, massaging my thigh, a referee ran towards me. He asked me if I wanted to continue, but I shook my head.
I had lost the battle.
It was over.
*******
After that display at the competition, I stayed away from any kind of weightlifting for a straight three weeks. This was the advice from the doctor but also the voice of my body. As you get older, you gotta listen to what your body is telling you even if you don't like what you’re hearing, you get me.
So for the first week, I just sat in my flat, slumped, and depressed. I did nothing but eat, watch rubbish daytime television while ignoring the portrait of my mum. I wanted to take it down from the wall, but I couldn’t betray her memory like that.
But then the second week became one of the best weeks in recent memory.
As I sat on my wooden table on Monday of that week, eating my usual chicken and plain rice, my phone beeped. I thought it might be my landlord chasing me for the overdue rent.
But it was a text from my ex-wife. No word of a lie, I had to reread her text over and over, making sure the words on the screen wouldn’t fade away.
You can see her on Friday evening for an hour. Come at 7pm. We will talk about regular visitation later, ok. Take care.
On Wednesday, with a renewed zest after my ex-wife's text, I had decided to clean my shitty flat. I spent a few hours cleaning the cobwebs, dealing with the mould, repainting the walls, and wiping the dust from the window ledges. As I stood in the middle of my studio flat after my deep clean and makeover, it felt a bit more homely. Still a crap place and too expensive but it was more bearable now.
The following day, while doing some push-ups in the living room, I heard my phone ring on the dining table. I ran to it as if it were a bomb that might explode if I didn't answer. It was Bennie calling me. When I answered it, Bennie sounded bare gassed.
“Hey, my brother. Good news! The club has been officially allowed to open again. We are throwing a big party this weekend to celebrate. Would you be available?"
As soon as I got off the phone from Bennie, I was in the best mood I had been in all year. Believe me when I say that. Then without really knowing why, I looked at my mother's portrait hanging on the wall.
You know what, I am glad I didn’t take it down, after all.
Four weeks after the competition
“Oi, the gym is closing in like ten minutes. I am gonna go get changed but you still coming out for drinks, yeah?”
I was back at the Hackney Weightlifting Club and had been training for a few days. Nickie and a few other gym regulars were going to The Cock Tavern for a round of drinks. I would be joining them later, but I had something I wanted to do first.
“Yeah, I am coming. Don’t wait on me, man. I’ll meet you lot there.”
After Nickie had left the gym, it was just me, the weights, and the workout machines. In front of me was a barbell totalling 120kg with the loads I had slotted on either side. It probably wasn't a good idea to attempt a clean and jerk lift just a couple of weeks after my injury but fuck it, you get me. Something inside of me wanted to do it.
So I took my position. I made sure my back was straight as I grabbed the barbell with a hook grip. Then I closed my eyes, feeling my muscles tense as I focused on concentrating on the moment. I then lifted the barbell with an explosive strength above my chest to rest on my shoulders. Without even thinking about it, I then dropped to a squat position. I propelled myself upwards, with the barbell raised over my head and my whole body vertical. Feeling like the strongest man in Hackney, I stood in the middle of the gym, the barbell raised over my head as if I were showing off a tiger I had killed with my bare hands.
Then I dropped the barbell on the mat, after successfully executing the clean and jerk lift. Breathing with adrenaline, I looked around me. There had been no audience to witness what I had done. Not a single person.
And I just started laughing. It was the kind of laugh that brought tears to your eyes and stitches to your stomach. Trust me, I hadn’t laughed like this since my mother used to tickle me when I was a small child.
At that moment, all alone in the gym, I had never felt more victorious.
No point pretending to myself that it would be easy. To add, I was inexperienced in competing.
But fuck all that. I could use the money, you get me.
It was 5pm at the Hackney Weightlifting Club on a Saturday afternoon. With my sweat towel wrapped around my thick, dark brown neck like a badge of honour, I stood in front of the notice board. It was plastered with a bunch of shit I did not care about apart from the poster about an Olympic Weightlifting competition:
Men’s Olympic Weightlifting competition
102kg (225 lb) Weight class
Location: Hackney Weightlifting Club
Date: June 2019
Prize: £1,500
Ages: 25-35
“So you finkin’ about entering it, yeah?”
Nickie had come to stand behind me. She was a mixed-race girl, skin the colour of semi-skimmed milk, with braids, one gold-tooth and more testosterone than most of the men lifting weights around here. Probably a lesbian. Not that it matters to me. Got bigger shit to think about.
“I am thinking about it,” I said, gripping my sweat towel around my neck. “Would be serious mandem competing.”
Nickie ribbed me lightly by my side. “What, you scared, fam?”
I kissed my teeth. “Nigerian blood flows through my veins. We man slap up fear, you get me.”
“Alright, big boi,” Nickie said. Before she walked away, she whipped the towel on my backside, but I ignored her. I looked at the poster advertising the Olympic Weightlifting tournament again.
There would be some fucking serious competition. But I am a black man. An ex-convict. And the son of a Nigeran General. Competition and struggle are my life. It is what it is.
*******
It's 10pm in the evening, and I was sitting in my dingy studio flat in Stoke Newington. It's a shithole. The floorboards are creaky like the bones of an old man. Paint from the white walls had already started to peel off as if the house were shedding its skin. And to top it all off, mould slowly began to emerge in the corners of the kitchen and toilet, like leprosy.
But I can’t complain about it too much. After spending five years in prison, I was just thankful I was lucky enough to get a fucking place.
As I eat my plain basmati rice with half a cooked chicken, I stare at the framed picture of my mother hanging on the wall in front of me. The dark eyes on her frozen, sunken face stare back at me. Even in death, I feel like she is still judging me.
She had brought me to London from Nigeria when I was fifteen years old. Can’t say I know the full story, my mother had been a secretive woman, but I know I was a love child. A Nigerian general had a brief affair with my mother, who was a simple housemaid at the time. I was the result of their tryst. But that bastard father of mine had wanted nothing to do with her once I was born. Without much prospects in Lagos, my mother somehow managed to come into money and then travelled to London.
If my mother knew how things had turned out for me, I doubt she would have been proud of me. I briefly remember what she had told me when I had first been excluded from secondary school years ago for my fifth fight in two days.
“Young choices become adult problems.”
Should have listened to her then. I continue to eat in the silence of my decaying surroundings.
Week 1 (3 weeks before the competition)
I fucking love the gym.
Even before jail, I craved the adrenaline rush that sends a buzz through me when I lift weights. I was weightlifting seriously by the time I was 18. The feeling of my muscles tensing and contracting is almost as good as fucking a woman. Almost as good.
Out of all the exercises one can do at the gym, Olympic weightlifting has always been my favourite. What you need to understand about Olympic weightlifting is that it is the only exercise that mimics the trajectory of most of our lives.
Take the ‘clean and jerk’ lifting technique, for example. First, you must grab the barbell and feel it out. This is like when you first learn to walk. After, you must lift the barbell from the floor to your deltoids. This entire sequence represents the growth of a child to a young adult.
Then comes the toughest part. After the clean, comes the jerk. At this point, you must use all your strength, both physically and mentally, to lift the barbell above your head. Think like how someone pushes for their dreams and goals. Finally, you either triumphantly raise the bar above you, with your arms and legs completely straight or you falter and drop the barbell. Success or failure. The narrative of life.
I stood before the barbell, which was loaded with two sets of 20kg weight plates on either side. Considering the weight of the barbell, the total weight was 100kg. Rubbing the chalk in my hands, which gave me a firmer grip and hyped me up, like revving the engine of a car before a street race, I straighten my back as I bend my knees.
There is now an audience who have gathered to watch me. I don't mind, I love an audience, you get me. My hands grip the barbell, I control my breathing…
Bang!
I execute a smooth, clean and jerk lift. I grunt loudly as I raise the barbell over my head. My arms are straight as I carefully bring my feet to align with the rest of my body. Then with a loud thud, I drop the weighted barbell onto the floor, which absorbs the shock.
“Jheeze, that was clean, big man,” Nickie says as she stands among the crowd of people.
It was a solid execution, but it was light work. I wasn’t about to get gassed. Never get complacent. That’s how you get caught off guard. I had to learn the hard way.
*******
Even from standing across an entire road, separated by parents, children, and expensive Range Rovers, I instantly recognised my five-year-old daughter.
How could I not? It was like God had taken my big, meaty nose, my thick lips and shaped them into something soft and pleasant for my daughter’s face. That way, she resembled me without inheriting any of my visual ugliness. The only thing she didn’t get from me was her straight hair. That came from her Italian mother.
My daughter ran out the school gates, her pink bag strapped to her back and bouncing up and down with each stride she took. She threw herself into the arms of this tall, Hugh Grant-looking motherfucker by the name of Charlie. This wasn’t the first time I had seen my daughter show love to her white stepfather, but it never got more comfortable to view. What kind of black man allows a white man to take over his position?
Somehow, this posh wanker had some sixth sense because he looked across the road and stared right at me. At the sight of me, he winced, as if he had eaten something too spicy, and hurried to his white Range Rover, my daughter holding his hand. I could only watch as this prick ushered my daughter into the backseat, and then he dashed to the driver's seat. No sooner he had he got into the vehicle; my ex-wife stepped out of it.
Here we go.
“You know you can’t be here,” my ex-wife says to me as she strides towards me in high heels, a black blazer and pencil skirt. It still shocks me how prim and proper she had become. When I had met her and married her, she had been a bad girl; a hood chick from Stratford who had long forgotten her Italian heritage. But I had to give it to her, she had stepped up. Guess she had no choice really.
"I just wanted to see her," I say, taking a step back as my ex-wife stops in front of me. Till this day, I can't look her in the eye for too long. Not after all the shit I put her through. An argument could be made that, yeah, I was young, too fucking young, to get married let alone have a kid. But passion and sex are a dangerous cocktail for an angry, young black boy without a father and an emotionally distant mother.
"Well, you're not allowed to see her. You're not legally her parent, remember? Even after all these years, her spite for me still coloured every word she spat at me.
“I did not come here to upset you, man. I just wanted to see her. I do love her.”
Fuck’s sake. Why would I say that? My ex-wife let out a high-pitched laugh which pinched at my patience and stabbed at my pride. But I knew I had no comeback. Nothing I could say could take back what I had done. As pathetic as it was, pleading was the only thing I could do, you get me.
“I just want to have a role in her life. Make amends, alright. That’s all.”
But my ex-wife was having none of it. She turned around and walked back to the white Range Rover. But I had to try one last time.
“You have my number, Gaia. Just text me. Let me just see her, man. Please.”
Maybe she heard me, maybe she didn't. But my ex-wife didn't look back at me as she got into the car. A minute later, the Range Rover was pulling out of its parking space in front of the school’s gates. Just before they speed away, my daughter glanced at me from one of the rear windows. No word of a lie, she gave me a look like she knew who I was, even though I haven’t spoken to her since she was one year’s old.
Week 2 (2 weeks before the competition)
The snatch.
What you gotta understand about the snatch lifting technique is that it's all about explosive power. It's the first method a lifter must use in an Olympic weightlifting competition.
120kg. That was how much weights were on the barbell in front of me. As usual, a crowd of people in the gym had gathered around to see me execute this snath lift. Good, let me show these people what raw, Nigerian power looks like.
Nickie is standing a few feet away from me. “Gwan, big man.”
I take my position in front of the barbell. Like the clean and jerk, the snatch is also a metaphor for life. However, it's from a different perspective. You see, the snatch is all about the three pulls. The first pull is about lifting the barbell off the ground until it reaches your midthigh. Think about the first day you walk into a new job.
The second pull is where the explosive display of power comes from. At this stage, you must use all your body strength, keeping your heels on the ground and giving yourself an upward momentum with the heels of your foot, to lift the barbell to your chest. In a job, this is the point where you're doing all you can to pass that probation or get that promotion.
Then the final pull is where you must lift the barbell overhead. This part is tricky because anything can fuck you up, you get me. For example, your elbows do not bend out to the side properly, so the barbell isn't perfectly balanced as you bring yourself down to an overhead squat. Or you don't move your feet quickly enough from a jumping stance to a wider squat position.
But if you manage to make all the motions correctly, then you can stabilise the barbell by keeping your back tight as you squat with the barbell over your head. After all that hard work, you raise the barbell and yourself triumphantly upwards. You did it, you got that job promotion. If you're really good, you made it look like piss easy.
The first two pulls I execute with ease. But I fuck up the third pull. I scream in agony as I drop the barbell in front of me. It hits the floor with a violent bounce and rolls away.
“Fuck’s sake,” I mutter to myself, bending down with my hands on my knees and breathing heavily.
"Oi, you bless, yeah?" Nickie says as she comes to my side.
"Yeah, I am good," I snap back at her but then immediately regret my tone of voice.
"Sorry I am alright. Need to improve my form."
One thing I absolutely hate is failing when all eyes are on me. Imagine getting arrested by police in front of your screaming mother and your one-year-old daughter. Fucked up, right? Well, that shit happened to me. And right now, I felt exactly how I did on that day.
*******
“The fuck you mean it’s my last shift, Bennie?”
I am standing in Bennie's square office, but when I say office, I basically mean some square room the size of a toilet cubicle.
Bennie is Turkish or Lebanese. To be honest, I can’t really tell. All people from that region look alike to me. But whatever, for the past six months, Bennie employed me as security for his popular nightclub in Shoreditch. It wasn't the best pay, and I worked from 7pm – 6am in the morning, making sure drunk young people didn't impale themselves onto a railing or get their teeth knocked out for trying to act hard. But it was a job that covered my rent, food, and gym. Plus, I was a 30-year-old, six-foot, black ex-convict. So yeah, beggars can’t be choosers.
But it looked like I would be back to begging again.
"I am sorry, you know I am. It wasn't your fault, I know. But the media attention is too much. It was an acid attack in the club. The club is fucked. And I don't know for how long."
“Fuck,” I say, letting out a heavy sigh. “This is some bad timing, Bennie. I need this money, man.”
Bennie rubs his chubby fingers over the sizeable bold patch on his bowling-ball shaped head. "Yeah, I know, my brother. Listen, I am going to pass your details to some people I know who run a security organisation. You will be ok. You’re a big man. You’ll find work again.”
Week 3 (1 week before the competition)
“Fuck!”
I had messed up again on the 120kg clean and jerk lift. Needing a punching bag to let out my frustration, I literally slammed my knuckles into a dangling punching bag nearby, sending it swinging. Back in the day, I would have punched a wall or someone's face. So when I say I’ve come a long way, I mean that.
“You sure you’re up for this, big man?” Nickie said, sitting on a squat block in front of me.
“There you go with that negativity shit,” I say to her, wiping my face with a towel. “What you saying? I should just quit.”
“I am saying you might need more time to prepare for a competition like this. There’s gonna be an audience, you know that, right?”
“Good,” I say, bending down to shift the weights on the right side of the barbell back into place. “All the more reason I can’t fuck it up, you get me.”
Even though I don't see it, I know Nickie has rolled her eyes but fuck her. She doesn't understand a man's pride. A man's dedication to bettering himself. A man like me does not throw his hands in the air when shit ain't going right. I am the bastard son of a Nigerian general. Struggle is in my blood.
Plus, I needed that money.
*******
I sit at my wooden table in my desolate flat. This place is really fucking depressing sometimes. In front of me is a bowl of porridge mixed with honey. Beside my bowel is my mobile phone. As I put a spoonful of soggy porridge into my mouth, I stare at it. Still no text from my ex-wife.
After spending most of the day in the internet café applying for security jobs and courier jobs, it dawns me on how lonely it can sometimes get, this solitary life. The only company I have in my flat is the dusty photo of my dead mother hanging on my wall. I am not even sure when that photo was taken. But she looked happy in it or be pretended to be. It had always been difficult to read my mother.
The competition is tomorrow. My mind is all kinds of fucked up. Losing my job had really thrown my concentration off, but I needed to remain focused. It’s times like this where I remind myself that I’ve been in more desperate situations before. In fact, this was nirvana right now compared to some of the shit I had experienced growing up in Hackney. Several burglaries. Street fights. Police breaking into my flat, pointing a gun to my face as my daughter wailed in the adjacent room.
I am the son of a Nigerian general. I come from war and struggle.
It was nearing 9pm, and so I decided to start preparing for bed. Tomorrow, I would have to prove to myself that I was still a warrior and the top man out here. And I would have an audience to see it.
Competition Day
There must’ve been around 60 people sat on wooden benches that had been set up around the gym. All the gym machines had been stored away to make space for the competition. Thick, heavy-duty 16mm garage tiles covered the centre of the gym. On top of the mats was a silver, metal barbell and a set of stacked weights on each side. A full course meal for the strong.
I stood behind a big, Eastern European motherfucker who was flexing his muscles on his hairy, thick arms. As I studied the man's build, I could feel the adrenaline begin to rise in me like water overflowing on a sink. As I bounced on the spot, wearing my green powerlifting suit, random thought about my father materialised in my mind. How I was feeling right now, was this how he felt when he was ready to lead his soldiers into battle?
Per the rule of an Olympic Weightlifting competition, each lifter would have to complete a snatch and a clean and jerk for each weight. In that order. Each competitor has three attempts at each. The load on the barbell is increased as the competition goes on. The prize money is awarded to the competitor who lifted the most weight successfully with both techniques.
There were six lifters. Three white and two black, which includes me. The other brother was a man by the name of Adam. He was West Indian from what Nickie had told me. I did not really talk to him much, but he regularly attended the gym, and we had spotted each other on a few occasions. We acknowledged each other with a nod as we stood side by side. This was not a time for chit chat, you get me.
The Eastern European man was up first. The lowest weight to be lifted was 60kg. Light work, in my opinion. But not for this guy. He had, with some struggle, managed to lift the weight using the snatch technique. But he was unable to do it with a clean and jerk. The poor fool could only let out a shout of frustration as the barbell dropped in front of him, as he failed to summon the strength to lift it over his shoulders for the third time.
Twenty minutes later, the four other lifters had successfully lifted the weight using both the clean and jerk and the snatch. I was the last to go up. First was the snatch. I rubbed my hands together with chalk, bent my knees and made sure my back was straight. Then in one swift and smooth motion, I lifted the barbell from the tiles and above my head. I held the weight above my head for a few seconds before dropping it in front of me. A round of applause. It was a clean lift.
Next came the clean and jerk. Just like the snatch, I had executed this lift like I was lifting an infant from the floor. I held the barbell triumphantly over my head, feeling everyone’s eyes on me, and then I let the steel bar drop in front of me. As I walked away from the competing area, I took in the applause of the audience, impressed by my display of power.
As the competition went on, and the weights on the barbell increased, so did my confidence. Maybe I could actually win this shit. While Adam had also been breezing through, the other competitors had started to show some cracks. It was taking them two or three attempts to lift the barbell with both techniques.
By the time it came to the heaviest weight, 120g, it was clear to the spectators and the competitors that the competition was now between Adam and me. To secure my chance of winning this, I had decided that I would go first.
Once the weights had been added to the barbell, I was called to attempt the first snatch lift. I walked onto the mat and took a deep breath. I flexed my shoulders and bounced on the spot with the soles of my feet, feeling the adrenaline mixed with a little fear. Fuck that, I couldn’t let doubt creep in. Not now.
I took my position in front of the barbell, loaded with 120kg, and made sure my pre-lift form was correct. Back straight. Feet hip-width apart. Shoulders positioned slightly over the barbell. Then I gripped the barbell and lifted it.
Fuck! I had completely messed up the final part of the lift where I needed to perform a double kneed bend, extending my hip, ankles, and knees to bring the barbell over my head. The strength I needed just did not turn up for me. I breathed slowly as I rubbed my hands together. No big deal, you get me. I still had two attempts.
On the third attempt., I managed to lift the barbell successfully with the snatch technique. But now I could feel the aching pain in my muscles. Not good. And I still had to do the clean and jerk lift with the same weight. As I walked away from the lifting area, Adam passed me. It was his turn now. He looked light on his feet.
One clean attempt was all it took for Adam to lift the barbell with the snatch technique. And he had made it look too easy. Three of the other competitors had failed to lift the weight across all their three attempts.
There was a short intermission, and then there was the final clean and jerk event for the 120kg weight. By this point, I could feel my muscles tighten and slight pain in my knee joint. But I had to ignore the physical discomfort and keep mentally sharp. Sometimes, your mental resolve is what will be the difference between you coming out on the other side or not. Being locked up taught me that.
I was first up. As I walked to the platform, feeling the stiffness in my thighs and calves, I knew that if I didn’t execute a clean one in the first attempt, then I could forget about that prize money. But fuck that defeatist attitude, you get me.
I took a deep breath as I looked down at the barbell, lifeless and intimidating. I rubbed the chalk on my hands and took my position with the correct form. I put my hands on the barbell’s cold steel, straightened my back, and pulled the barbell from the floor.
Immediately, the tearing pain exploded from my calves. It travelled like a speeding train to the top of my thigh. It was like someone had shot me in the fucking leg. I dropped the barbell just as I had brought it mid-chest. A scream, one I did not even recognise, came from the depths of something horrible within me.
As I sat on the tiles, massaging my thigh, a referee ran towards me. He asked me if I wanted to continue, but I shook my head.
I had lost the battle.
It was over.
*******
After that display at the competition, I stayed away from any kind of weightlifting for a straight three weeks. This was the advice from the doctor but also the voice of my body. As you get older, you gotta listen to what your body is telling you even if you don't like what you’re hearing, you get me.
So for the first week, I just sat in my flat, slumped, and depressed. I did nothing but eat, watch rubbish daytime television while ignoring the portrait of my mum. I wanted to take it down from the wall, but I couldn’t betray her memory like that.
But then the second week became one of the best weeks in recent memory.
As I sat on my wooden table on Monday of that week, eating my usual chicken and plain rice, my phone beeped. I thought it might be my landlord chasing me for the overdue rent.
But it was a text from my ex-wife. No word of a lie, I had to reread her text over and over, making sure the words on the screen wouldn’t fade away.
You can see her on Friday evening for an hour. Come at 7pm. We will talk about regular visitation later, ok. Take care.
On Wednesday, with a renewed zest after my ex-wife's text, I had decided to clean my shitty flat. I spent a few hours cleaning the cobwebs, dealing with the mould, repainting the walls, and wiping the dust from the window ledges. As I stood in the middle of my studio flat after my deep clean and makeover, it felt a bit more homely. Still a crap place and too expensive but it was more bearable now.
The following day, while doing some push-ups in the living room, I heard my phone ring on the dining table. I ran to it as if it were a bomb that might explode if I didn't answer. It was Bennie calling me. When I answered it, Bennie sounded bare gassed.
“Hey, my brother. Good news! The club has been officially allowed to open again. We are throwing a big party this weekend to celebrate. Would you be available?"
As soon as I got off the phone from Bennie, I was in the best mood I had been in all year. Believe me when I say that. Then without really knowing why, I looked at my mother's portrait hanging on the wall.
You know what, I am glad I didn’t take it down, after all.
Four weeks after the competition
“Oi, the gym is closing in like ten minutes. I am gonna go get changed but you still coming out for drinks, yeah?”
I was back at the Hackney Weightlifting Club and had been training for a few days. Nickie and a few other gym regulars were going to The Cock Tavern for a round of drinks. I would be joining them later, but I had something I wanted to do first.
“Yeah, I am coming. Don’t wait on me, man. I’ll meet you lot there.”
After Nickie had left the gym, it was just me, the weights, and the workout machines. In front of me was a barbell totalling 120kg with the loads I had slotted on either side. It probably wasn't a good idea to attempt a clean and jerk lift just a couple of weeks after my injury but fuck it, you get me. Something inside of me wanted to do it.
So I took my position. I made sure my back was straight as I grabbed the barbell with a hook grip. Then I closed my eyes, feeling my muscles tense as I focused on concentrating on the moment. I then lifted the barbell with an explosive strength above my chest to rest on my shoulders. Without even thinking about it, I then dropped to a squat position. I propelled myself upwards, with the barbell raised over my head and my whole body vertical. Feeling like the strongest man in Hackney, I stood in the middle of the gym, the barbell raised over my head as if I were showing off a tiger I had killed with my bare hands.
Then I dropped the barbell on the mat, after successfully executing the clean and jerk lift. Breathing with adrenaline, I looked around me. There had been no audience to witness what I had done. Not a single person.
And I just started laughing. It was the kind of laugh that brought tears to your eyes and stitches to your stomach. Trust me, I hadn’t laughed like this since my mother used to tickle me when I was a small child.
At that moment, all alone in the gym, I had never felt more victorious.