“Oh, that’s insane!”

“No, it isn’t, man!”

“That’s how it was, with you and your woman?”

After a pause. “Hey, listen! I want you to be honest, you know, tell me straight, look very carefully, and tell me like you talk to a stranger: do you think I’m sort of… fatty, or that my forehead’s growing underneath my hair?”

Saying this, Johnson stands up and pulls his hair backward, very serious, waiting for an objective examination. He’s a guy of about 36, with some idea of a ‘belly’ and a soft, dark hair, which will inevitably make way for that unwanted wisdom suggested by baldness.

“Ah, get out of here! Sit down back there! What on earth has come onto you? Would you look at that?! You’re as fit as a fiddle, my friend! So what? A hair or two every once in a while, that’s nothing! It shows (he tights his fist against the air) intellectual strength!”

“I was thinking, maybe I should go to the gym…”

“Oh, but that’s something else!”

“You going?”

“But of course! I don’t go there for muscles, or not to grow fat. The gym is something intimate; you make a lot of acquaintances there, many friends with relations, important people! It’s a different society; friends to keep. You never know when you may need something, a favor, a word…”

“The friendships bound so tight?!…”

“Well, even for a phone number, an address or a clue, it’s still worth the effort! Once you know your way about people, you learn how to deal with them…”

“Why, I never thought about that before…”

“You have no idea what kind of people come to the gym! Judges, doctors, lawyers, the City Hall secretary, the doorman at the Opera, what characters, man, what quality of conversation! Well, how do you think I sweet talk chicks that fancy themselves as intellectuals? …”

Anxiously. “And they all come just for the company, the society of this club?!”

“Why, you don’t suppose they come to sweat with air conditioned by the pool?”

“Ah, man! I was…we were…we’re… I was talking about body-building!”

“Yes, my friend, I know we were! Heh, my gym has a pool. The drinks come paid in your subscription fee…”

“Where, exactly is this gym you go to?”

“It doesn’t really matter, everywhere is the same! Well, all right, I’ll tell you if you want to know I go to ‘CAESAR’S’. But it doesn’t matter…”

“Hey, listen! … You don’t… think I’m loosing my hair?”

“Oh! Listen, man, if I were you, I’d shave my head! Really, honest to God! What’s wrong with you, man? Getting ready for Miss Universe? Look at him! Whining ‘my hair, my tummy’. Have you checked yourself in the mirror lately? You look like Prince Charming and you worry like a primadonna! The man is a MAN, man! Period.”

Johnson nods absent-minded.

“Yeah, you’re right…right…”

A longer pause follows. Shepherd is discouraged by the sudden lack of interest from his dialogue partner, so he shuts up somewhat embarrassed. Johnson pays his drink and his eyes insist for some moments upon the timepiece above the bar. After a few more seconds he stands up to leave. He says, as if to himself:

“This morning my wife told me that I should stop sitting on my forehead and start working on my abdomen. She must have been kidding, then…”