In Florida: Lock Up! And the Pulse Pounds

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That description fits women like the blond girl with polio who drags her crippled legs up to the table and competes in the only sport she can. And it fits men like Joe Elmizadeh, 36, an Iranian immigrant, who was a long-jump champ in the 1974 Asian Games. Now Joe is a garage mechanic who beat all his cohorts in matches at the shop, which is why they have dragged him to today's event, his first. "He's got himself in a fix today," says his wife Adrienne.

Joe shakes his head. He lost his first match to Ray Taglione, and he can't understand it. He is more muscular than Ray, who is slightly built. It is not uncommon, however, to see a thin-armed man slam down a hulking, muscular arm in a split second. "He had some trick," says Joe. "He knew this thing with his hand." When Joe won his second match in this double-elimination event, his friends leaped out of their seats and cheered. Joe put his head down, embarrassed, and joined his wife in a far corner of the room.

Most of the arm wrestlers are mild-mannered men like Joe who are not much used to the spotlight. They are the kind of people who may have frustrations but have learned how to bury those frustrations beneath a veneer of placidity. Still, those frustrations are there, simmering, and it is arm wrestling that gives them their release. Which is why Emcee Jones is nervous. He doesn't like to see arm wrestlers get tense. He speaks into the microphone. He tells the competitors that there will be an hour break so they can go outside to watch the "Teenie Weenie Bikini" contest by the pool. Someone in the audience yells, "No!" Someone else yells, "Lock up!" A third: "Pull! Pull!" Now everyone is chanting, "Pull! Pull! Pull!" Keith smiles, shrugs and calls two competitors onstage, Ray Taglione and Joe Elmizadeh.

Joe takes off his shirt and hands it to his wife. Ray takes off his arm wrap and gives it to his sister. Joe stands at the table onstage, his elbow locked in place, and waits for Ray. Ray is stalking around the far end of the stage, talking to himself. He does not seem to notice the pinup calendar photos of , the Candy Store girls on the wall in front of him. The girls are naked, in suggestive poses, and they are smiling at Ray. Suddenly, Ray barks like a rabid dog, whirls around and charges the table with wide, glassy eyes. The referee, a tall skinny man, bends over the table like a question mark. He fidgets with the competitors' hands until they are satisfactorily locked in place. Someone in the audience shouts, "Knuckles up! Knuckles up!"

A second referee, a body builder with a shaved head, is sitting bolt upright, like a naughty choirboy, at the other end of the table. The stage lights glisten off his scalp. The audience is shouting wildly now "Smoke him! Smoke him! Top roll!" Teresa has crept up to the stage. She kneels only a few feet from her brother and begins screaming encouragement to him.

Like a priest giving a blessing, the skinny referee cups both his hands over the two arm wrestlers' locked hands. "Ready!" he says. Ray and Joe tense up. "Go!" the referee says. The audience erupts into shouts and cheers -- "Pull him! Pull him! Slam him! Slam him!" -- as Ray Taglione, a stockbroker, and Joe Elmizadeh, a garage mechanic, pour every bit of strength in their bodies into their clasped hands.