So, the crazy guy wasn’t at the gym today. That was a relief. Once was plenty.

Now, I’m not the overzealous, privacy-Nazi type, obviously. I sort of live in public after all.

I try to respect peoples privacy to the extent that my trade/hobby/obsession allows me, but I’m a street photographer at the end of the day. If you look like you probably have a home that you can retreat to or make yourself look nice in before you come out into the world, well then, you’re fair game once you hit the street. That’s the main reason I shy away from shooting pictures of the homeless, they’re in their home — nowhere else to go. It’d be like walking into someone’s bedroom when they just woke up and snapping off a couple.  Photographs don’t kill — they sometimes harm, sometimes help — but relatively few people are ever going to see the street images I produce on a daily basis, so I don’t sweat it too much.

Privacy, however you call or crave it, certainly doesn’t extend to communal gym showers though, does it?

I’ve already detailed one method I have for taking a shower, the other is the gym. A dollar a day for a bath, that’s Sally Struthers type money right there. I can swing that. It’s not the ideal situation but it works. Locations throughout the states, open all night long. I’ve never lifted a weight in my life. They don’t seem to mind.

I’m in Los Angeles for work and I go to the club I use the most, in the valley. SportsCenter blares from the dual TV’s in the locker room. World Cup fever is on. Germany or Spain? Easy call — Germany, 2-1. Remember, you heard it here first. First stall on the left is mine. My shower. The water pressure is good, the drain isn’t stopped up. I know just where to turn the knob to get the water to the perfect temperature.

I didn’t pay any mind to the guy in the stall across the way. What do I care, right? In and out. Brush my teeth afterward, I’m out of there. Routinary as hell. Not today.

“Hey man, why do you have to choose that shower?” Angry, annoyed voice. I ignore it.

“Hey!”

I turn around and saw a bit too much of the guy that was questioning why I chose my shower, the one I use every time I’m in the place.

“You couldn’t have chosen a different one, man.” “Now I have to look at your ass while I shower?”

What in the bloody hell? Everyone knows the rule in the gym, you just don’t bring up the nudity, not for any homophobic reason, really, just because it can only get awkward from there. I’m ignoring him. Still.

“Do you mind changing stalls?”

What, I have to move so you’re not tempted to look at my ass. This is my stall. Thing is, it’s mostly blocked from view, a good 8 feet from the one he’s in. You have to really try to cop a look.

I’m trying to be civil here. “Sorry man, I’m already wet.”

That should be the end of it.

“Yeah. Wet behind the ears,” he says as he exits the stall to come stand directly in front of my shower — challenging me to a fight.

Now, I’m sorry, but a naked, slippery brawl with the crazy guy at the gym just ain’t on my agenda for the day. This one of those life situations no one tells you how to handle growing up. How do I wrestle with the problem of the crazy naked guy, without wrestling the crazy naked guy.

Gladly, he seemed to recognize the ridiculousness of the situation. He scampered back to his stall after I shouted at him to shower in his own fucking house if he wanted privacy that bad.

“Well, I don’t have a house to go to,” he said in a voice half the volume of the earlier verbal attacks. “Maybe that’s why I got so upset.” This part completely trailing off, more to himself than to me.

I’m toweling off at this point. “Hey, man, I’m in the same boat.”

I exited the shower and couldn’t stop thinking. This could be me in a few years, ranting about naked mens asses in the shower at a local gym.