I would like to say before I start that I have been going to the gym for the past five years and to the Newport gym since I arrived in the States and in that time I have never had any problems with any other patrons of any gyms that I have ever been to.
I was coming to the end of my chest work out and only had one exercise left to do, the ‘pec-dec.’ I saw that it was in use and decided to get a glass of water and do some brief stretching whilst the woman and her boyfriend finished off their set. After a few minutes when it was clear that the woman was n
ot going to leave the machine in any hurry I asked her very politely if she had many more sets to do, unfortunately for me I had just met the most rude, obnoxious, vile and mean woman in my whole life. To the completely normal question I had asked I was told in a VERY abusive manner that ‘she would be all day and take as long as long as she wants’, keeping my cool I then asked politely, that since she was in actual fact just sitting on the machine resting and not even using it would it be okay if we worked in (i.e. use the machine whilst she was resting) again a completely normal question and one of gym etiquette. I was told in no uncertain terms and very bluntly that despite the fact that she was just sitting on and not using, the machine I could not work in with her. I pointed out that that one; it was not her gym, it was everyone’s gym and two; manners cost nothing and I had not been rude to her. Being informed that this was not her gym and that manners cost nothing must have been deeply offensive to this woman as I was told to ‘go fuck myself’ called a ‘motherfucker’, ‘a stupid bitch’ and told that I would be waiting for the machine ‘all night long motherfucker.’ At this point it occurred to me that the woman was probably mentally unstable so I told her boyfriend that he should control his lady and tell her to watch her mouth, all he could say was ‘you heard the lady.’Things got a little bit heated and an argument ensued whilst we were waiting for the vile lady to finish her work out. Realizing that things had got completely out of hand and that all I wanted to do was finish my workout so that I could head into Manhattan for a night out I calmed down and decided to be the bigger man and apologized for my audacity in asking how long the termagant had left on the machine. The boyfriend seemed to begrudgingly accept my apology whilst his obstreperous girlfriend was muttering insults under her breath about me.
They left and I thought that I could finally work out, since she had taken so long on the machine there was another gym member who wanted to use the machine and we worked in together with no problems whatsoever. About five minutes into my workout the nasty woman comes storming in with a particularly incompetent gym instructor, she made a bee line straight for me and told the instructor to ‘tell that motherfucker not to harass me whilst I’m working out’- I told her to go away, three times. Meanwhile the instructor was attemp
ting to explain ‘gym etiquette’ to me. If I were not involved I would have found this hilarious. I acknowledged what he had to say and assured him that the fault did not lie with me.All the while the vicious woman was hurtling abuse my way, to which I was calmly telling her to go away. She called me a motherfucker three times, and I told her to not call me motherfucker she then replied ‘you think just cos your white boy and I’m a nigger you can hurry me up, motherfucker?’ At this point I lost my cool and called her bitch and told her to go and see a doctor to see if he could help solve her excess testosterone problem. I called her a man and a bitch I told her that she needed to shave, get her balls cut off and take a dose of estrogen and tuck her dick back between her legs. In hindsight I should not have said this but I was continually provoked indeed I had already apologized and she had come back to reignite the whole incident. At this point she became even more aggressive and took her long metal chain of keys, wrapped them around her fist and started swinging them at my head shouting like a psychopath that she was going to murder me. The bungling gym instructor did nothing to hold her back or detain her so I had to dodge her various blows. At this point her ferocious boyfriend decided to come and ‘defend his lady’s’ honor. All the while other members of the gym were watching on and disgustingly a second gym instructor who is about 6”4 and weighs at least 16 stone stood to the side allowing the boyfriend to come and try to attack me. He was grossly negligent and should have been attempting to hold the boyfriend back instead of watching on as if this were a prizefight for his entertainment.
So I am now dodging the insane woman’s keys that are being swung at my head and I have to look out of my other eye for her fast approaching boyfriend. I said numerous times someone hold the boyfriend back but no one did, so I had to run behind a machine (not my finest hour, but he was bigger than me) and seeing that no one was going to do anything and bearing in mind that just over four months I had a big operation on my nose, in addition to the metal rods in my spine, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I sidestepped t
he boyfriend who had lunged at me, bounded across the gym. With the boyfriend in hot pursuit, I picked up a ten pound weight and threatened to batter him if he came any nearer. For the first time in the evening Medusa and her boyfriend did something right and stayed on their side of the gym. I was called a ‘Pussy’ from Medusa’s heroic boyfriend, I reminded him that I was ‘a pussy with a weight’ and he should stay on his own side of the gym. This seemed to calm things and Newport security came and since I no longer felt threatened, I calmly put the weight back and went into the office to have a word with the security. I spoke to the security guard who apologized for the situation that I had found myself in, as I believe he had had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of woman. Then New Jersey’s finest came and after explaining the situation they asked me to leave, told me my membership had been revoked and explained that I should call customer service on the Monday to sort out my account with the gym. If I had of had the presence of mind I would have pushed for the woman and her boyfriend to be arrested for aggravated assault but since this is not a normal occurrence for me I was in a somewhat state of shock.Whilst I could have handled things better, I was persistently provoked and was defending myself at all times. A large amount of the blame must also be levied at the workers of the gym who did nothing to calm the situation and up until I picked up the weight were quite happy to watch a bloodbath ensue. As I told the police at the time, the gym has video camera the video only needs to be played back to exonerate me.
