“Yo you looking hella ockey bro. For real,” Guy One says to Guy Two as they leave the locker room. The lights turn off. I notice that it’s 9:59 p.m. The last worker on shift wants to leave. Guy Three pulls up his weathered black Nirvana T-shirt to dab the sweat from his forehead, then pulls it off. His two friends follow suit. “My traps hurt like hell, man,” one of them says.
All three pull out their phones and tap on the Instagram icon. They gather in front of a floor-length mirror as I awkwardly attempt to slip past them without making eye contact. They tense up their cores, flex one arm, and take a selfie with the other before switching arms and repeating the process. “Gotta show them these gainz, bruh,” says Guy Two. They throw on sweatshirts and grab their bags. “Yo bro,” one says on his way out the door, “did you check if she saw your story yet?”
