Dan's Papers - June 27, 2008 - Twentysomething...By David Lion Rattiner

My brother, Gabriel Rattiner, who is an accomplished guitarist and teaches music at Crossroads Music Shop in East Hampton, has been pumping me up lately. Gabe is back from college and is spending the summer at my dad's house, and nearly every time we hang out with each other, we talk about how we want to get in better shape.

"You want to do some pushups?" he asks.

He laughs. "Yes, now. Come on, let's just do some."

We go into the living room and each do a set of 25 pushups, have some brotherly bonding and complain about how out of shape we are. Then we do another 25 pushups, and then we are done - at least that's how it went, until recently.

The other day Gabe suggested that we go for a run, which was a big step for us as far as fitness, and as brothers, for that matter. I used to run every day, but had literally not gone for a real run in six months, and ever since I have known Gabe, we have never run together.

I agreed to the run, and the two of us decided we would get a real workout and run three miles. We slapped on some sneakers and headed out along Three Mile Harbor Road in East Hampton and planned a loop around Copeces Lane, up Springs Fireplace Road, and then down Abrahams Path. How bad could that be?

Probably within three minutes of the run, both Gabe and I felt like we were going to die, and we talked about how we were confident we were both going to die on the run. I'd say something like, "I can't breathe," while he'd say something like, "Is it normal to feel like I'm going to have a heart attack?" But we marched on and made it back to my dad's house.

The two of us collapsed in the yard like wounded soldiers. "Is it always this bad?" Gabe asked me.

"Well, if you do it more often, you grow a tolerance to it and then it's not like this. But in the beginning, it is pretty rough."

After about 10 minutes, we recovered and I got in my car to head to my place in Montauk. Sometime later, Gabe and I talked about how we should go for a run again. It has been three weeks since then, and we never spoke of running again.

A few weeks later, however, Gabe walked into the television room. He looked like he had broken a sweat. "Dude, you want to play Dance, Dance 360?"

He was talking about a video game that you can get a decent workout on because you have to jump on certain squares at certain times. The more you play, the more of a workout you get. I followed him into his room and played a round of the game, and felt like I was going to die. "You can get a real workout from this, huh?"

"Yeah, and it is pretty fun, too."

I played another round and then got bored with it and headed back to the television.

"We should play this all of the time," Gabe said.

"Yeah, definitely," I said. "This will really get us in shape."

Two weeks went by and sure enough, Gabe found me on the couch watching television, and sat down next to me. He was silent, and I gave him a head nod and he began switching between a documentary on famous serial killers and the space race. He then turned to me and said, "Dude, next time, don't eat all of the guacamole, ice cream, chips and chicken salad."