by Peter Harmon
Florence stretching out in her bathing suit, catching some rays. Judas lowering his sunglasses and checking her out from the guard chair. Her feeling his eyes on her and looking at him. Him raising and lowering his eyebrows in a confident manner. Her rolling her eyes and doing the international “barf” sign.
Roheed doggy paddling pathetically. Jonathan shaking his head and demonstrating the proper technique.
Judas, shirt off, sweating and muscular, doing push-ups in an obvious attempt to catch Florence’s eye. Her taking no notice.
Roheed holding his nose with two fingers and blowing bubbles with his mouth underwater. Jonathan putting his head in the water and blowing bubbles without holding his nose. Roheed smiling and nodding. Roheed putting his head under the water without holding his nose.
Moments later Jonathan giving Roheed CPR until he sputters and spits up the water he’d swallowed.
Jonathan, Florence and Judas swimming lap after lap. Roheed watching.
At night Roheed feebly swimming once across the length of the pool and gasping for air at the other end.
Jonathan applauding.
And again, if this were a movie, but it’s not, but if it were, because the movie would be set in Yellow County, Maryland, there would be an obligatory scene of our cast eating steamed blue crabs, covered in Old Bay seasoning, and everyone of age would be drinking Natty Bohs and maybe UTZ would do some product placement. Charlie and Judas would expertly insert their knives and gut the things, pulling the legs off and diving into the sweet, white meat, while Roheed would hammer the thing, not knowing what to do, until Florence would take pity on him and give him a picking lesson. Close-up shots would show greasy fingers dipping pinches of meat into hot butter and cold vinegar. And that scene would show that Florence was warming up to Roheed and that the team was growing together and we, as the audience, would think for just a second that this ragtag group of misfits might actually have a shot at preserving this utopia that Bill had tig welded together.
That’s probably where the montage would end, and we’d jump right back into the story as the music ended and the last shot faded out on the glorious pool compound at dusk just as the sun was going down. Magic hour.
CHAPTER 15
IT WAS EVENING after a good, solid pool day. Yellow County had won their tennis meet against Glenarden, which took them down a peg because they had spent all day bragging about how they just tied for second place as the safest community in Maryland. Freaking smug Glenarden. Jonathan had held an impromptu belly flop contest—the flopper with the reddest belly got a free chocolate ice cream taco. And the appropriately named Stephanie Heiney had worn the bathing suit with the bottoms that had a knack for wedgifying themselves in her ample posterior. You could almost hear Sisqo doing a one-handed cartwheel on the beach in delight as she walked by. So, all in all, like Ice Cube once put it, so correctly and concisely, it “was a good day.”
Jonathan, Florence and Judas were stretching to prepare for that eve’s swim practice. Charlie sat by the pool eating mozzarella sticks. Roheed brought him a dip cup of marinara sauce.
“Thanks, dude.”
“I think I’ll be able to practice with the team tomorrow morning. My swimmer’s ear is clearing up.”
“I thought it was tennis elbow.”
“Right, and swimmer’s ear.”
“Are these really your ailments, or have you been playing too much Operation?”
“What?”
Jonathan walked over and said, “I say we figure out the relay order tonight.”
Unbeknownst to the Yellow County crew, the Brown Town Hall and Recreation Relay Race Team watched them from the bushes bordering the pool compound. From afar they heard Jonathan coaching his team. They chuckled vilely and rubbed their dry-skinned hands together for several minutes until their laughter died and their hands were tingly from all the friction. An hour later, they slunk away into the twilight.
Practice was over. Jonathan and the team toweled off.
“I think we were looking pretty good out there,” Jonathan said.
“Not good enough,” Judas scoffed. “I’d still put my money on Brown Town. They have that chick with the fin.”
“I know that probability is against us,” Roheed said, “but dammit, every once in a while it’s time for the one to happen in the one in a million chance.”
Florence nodded. “I actually kind of agree.”
“Really?” Roheed smiled like a goof.
“Okay, dudes.” Judas continued with his negative Nancy ’tude. “Whatever. I’m still gonna update my resume for when this place shuts down.”
“And what would be on that resume?” Roheed asked.
Florence almost smiled, seeing the set-up.
Judas, oblivious, said, “Crushing beers, hazing frosh, chasing tail…and data entry.”
Roheed nodded. Florence bit her lip to keep from smiling.
“Anyway, you’re going to have a whole month of being unemployed before school starts.” Then Judas turned to Jonathan and said, “And you’ll have a whole month of being unemployed before, uh…whatever it is that you do when you’re not here…starts. Or finishes or whatever.”
Jonathan waved an invisible white flag. “That’s enough. We’re meeting here early tomorrow morning, and we’re training. That’s it.”
Minutes later, Judas and Florence each got in their cars. Judas sped off.
Florence pulled out of her space and drove down the road, slowly passing Roheed, who was walking on the sidewalk. He looked up hopefully. She avoided eye contact and kept driving.
Roheed sighed and continued to trudge home.
•••
That night, Charlie again faced off against his typewriter. The page before him still read FADE IN: toward the top left corner. He typed fast and furiously for a single moment. He stopped and admired his handiwork.
The page then read FADE IN: and a couple lines under it, INT.
Charlie sighed, got up from his typewriter, and lay in bed.
•••
Jonathan snored loudly on his cot in the guard office as Shannon, Channan, Carmichael, and Susan snuck into the YCCSRC compound. All dressed in black, they quickly and stealthily made their way to the edge of the pool, communicating using hand signals. The twins grabbed a thick hose and began emptying the pool.
When the pool was drained, Carmichael ran a hose up the stairs, out of the pool compound into a nearby hydrant that had been wrenched open. A larger than average wrench lay beside the hydrant on the grass. He began filling the pool with fresh water. Susan dumped in numerous twenty-pound bags of salt.
The twins carried a large fish tank between the two of them. Even if Jonathan were awake, it would have been too dark for him to see what floated in that aquarium.
When the Brown Towners were done, they covered their tracks. On their way out of the compound Susan glanced into the guard office and saw Jonathan sleeping. She motioned to the rest, and they all peered in, stifling their laughter. Channan snapped a couple pictures with his phone; then they all made like a couple of eggs at IHOP and scrammed.
•••
The next morning Jonathan awoke bright and early. He yawned and stretched and tried to remember the weird dream he had had the night before but couldn’t. It didn’t bother him though.
CHAPTER 16
AND I THINK everyone had had weird dreams the night before in kind of a group-collective-consciousness-type deal. Charlie had that recurring nightmare where he was pushing a giant typewriter up a hill, only to find a giant at the top who rolled the thing back down. Roheed swam in a vast, dark ocean, waves crashing on top of him while girls with shark fins on their backs circled. Judas was funneling a never-ending beer. Even Florence, although she had taken a Xany and turned on her white noise machine (not that it played a steady, unvarying, unobtrusive sound, but rather that it played things that white people like, like NPR and Dave Matthews and podcasts about productivity)—even she had a weird dream where
she posted a selfie on her Insta and didn’t get that many “hearts.”
But they had all awoken, unrested, taken their morning dumps and headed to the pool for practice. They were going to do a relay run-through at full speed. It was kind of a big deal for them.
Judas knelt by the pool. “I just gotta check the pH and chlorine count. You guys can stretch or something if you want.”
“I’m gonna jump in and warm up a little bit,” Florence said.
“Cool.” Jonathan produced a small water-testing kit.
Florence jumped in the pool and shivered. “The water’s colder today than ever! It’s colder than the lake by my dad’s winter house.”
“Hmm, that’s strange. It was so hot yesterday you would think the water would be warmer.”
“I’m going to try to swim it out.”
Jonathan looked at his water-test strip. “According to the test the chlorine count is zero?” He put his finger in the water and tasted it. “Is that salt?”
Under the surface of the water dozens of huge jellyfish floated slowly and rhythmically. Florence swam toward them unknowingly.
“The water looks weird.” Jonathan squinted into the pool. “What are those white things?”
“Scyphozoa!” Roheed yelled.
Jonathan shook his head. “What?”
“Florence, look out…jellyfish!”
Florence swam right into a huge jellyfish. The tendrils grazed the length of her back. She screamed in pain. “What the…It burns!”
Roheed sprang into action and dove into the water. He blazed through the pool to Florence and grabbed her with one of his thin arms. The other arm propelled them to the edge of the pool, where he jumped out and helped her out gently, a sting wound already reddening on her lower back.
“It hurts,” Florence whimpered.
“I don’t think we have anything that will immediately stop the toxins except human urine,” Jonathan offered.
“What?”
Judas’s eyes widened. “Are you saying someone is going to have to pee-pee on Florence?”
“I’m afraid so,” Jonathan said.
Judas, solemnly, said, “I volunteer as tribute.” He dropped his swim trousers.
Roheed had to turn away.
Florence covered her ears and shut her eyes.
As the deed was being done, Judas reflected, “You know, it’s funny. This is the first time something has stopped burning when I pee.”
•••
Jonathan, Roheed, Judas and Charlie sat outside of the guard office at the guard table.
“Who do you think did it?” Charlie asked, even though he had a pretty good idea.
“Who knows?” Judas said. “Probably someone who hates Florence.”
Jonathan put on his metaphorical thinking cap as well as a mesh trucker cap that said “Thinking” in bubble letters. “It was obviously someone, or a group of someones, who don’t want us to train.”
Roheed thought the answer was obvious and said, “Brown Town Hall and Recreation.”
“I doubt it,” said Judas defensively. “Why would they be worried about us?”
“Because we’re getting good, dammit, damn good, and they damn well know it,” said Jonathan damningly.
Judas continued, “But they have those twins that are into each other, the Olympics guy, and the chick with the shark back.”
Jonathan stood up. “And we have an Eastern Indian kid with a set of big, shiny brass ones.” He patted Roheed on the back. “He really saved Florence.”
Charlie looked around. “Where is her majesty by the way?”
“In her fourth shower in a series of five showers to get Judas’s urine off of her skin,” Jonathan replied.
Florence walked out of the women’s room and into the conversation, wearing a towel and shaking. “It was so warm…so warm.” She shuddered.
“I’m glad you’re semi-okay,” Jonathan said to her; then he turned to everyone. “I don’t want to be a jerk, but the race is tomorrow. We obviously can’t open the pool as it is now. We have to drain the water, get the salt out of the drains, and restore the chlorination. If we don’t fix this, we can’t host the race and we’re done. So let’s get to work.”
Judas pshaw-ed. “I’ve got a job interview at the Chain Male store. It’s like Under Armour, only it showcases your abs better.” And with that he walked away.
Jonathan and Charlie walked toward the pool, knowing they had their work cut out for them, which seems like it should mean that their work was going to be easier because they already had their work cut out. Like, here’s your work, oh good, it has already been cut out for you so all you have to do is complete it. The saying should be, you have your work, and it’s not even cut out yet, so you have to cut it out and then complete it. But that might be a bit wordy…
Anywho, Florence approached Roheed, still wrapped in the towel. Roheed wasn’t sure what, if anything, was underneath that towel clothing-wise, and that excited him, but he didn’t have too much time to ponder it before she spoke.
“Thanks…for earlier,” she said.
Roheed blushed. “I couldn’t just see you in pain.”
Florence began to smile but caught herself mid-smirk. “Don’t think we’re friends or anything just because you played hero for a minute.”
She walked away, leaving Roheed feeling like he’d gotten his balls flicked.
CHAPTER 16 1/2
AS JUDAS INTERVIEWED at the Chain Male store in the Annapolis Mall, answering the question “What is your greatest weakness?” with a thinly veiled actual strength, “Sometimes I care too much about dry-fit exercise clothing,” the rest of the team worked to get the pool back into swimmable shape.
Charlie scooped the jellyfish out with a huge net and deposited them into a trash can full of water, where they would be taken to a local sushi restaurant…to put into their aquarium, not to be eaten.
Roheed rigged hoses to drain the pool into the storm drain. Florence (out of the towel and back in clothes, to everyone’s dismay) scraped salt out of a drain with a long brush, and Jonathan turned on the pool’s water system to fill the pool.
As the water level rose slowly, Jonathan added chlorine and routinely checked the water with his testing kit. The team toiled, and the morning became the afternoon. Florence fell asleep on a deck chair.
At a certain point Jonathan shooed Charlie, Roheed and Florence away, promising that he would leave soon as well. But he continued to work.
The dusk predictably became the night.
Jonathan crawled into bed as the sun was just starting to peek above the horizon.
CHAPTER 17
THE SUN ROSE on the day of the Tri-County Relay Race. Jonathan slept hungrily as he had just gone to bed. He hadn’t changed his clothes from the night before, so he was sweaty and dirty, salt comingling with the sleep that was crusting into the corners of his eyes.
His sleep didn’t last long. When he awoke, he showered. When he came out of the men’s room, he found June and a clipboard-toting Tri-County official standing with the box of his belongings.
Jonathan rubbed the water out of his left ear with his towel, and although no one had said anything yet, he broke the silence with, “Um, what?”
June was eager. “Well, hello, Mr. Poole,” she said through a smile that only comes from sick satisfaction.
“I can explain—”
June cut him off. “No explanations necessary. Your cot, your things…I think what has been going on here is obvious.”
“It was just last night. I had to get the pool ready for today, I swear.”
But the writing was on the wall, like, not literally, it didn’t say “Jonathan lives here” or anything like that, but once you had the idea that maybe a person was living in the guard office, you started to make connections like Bruce Willis at the end of Unbreakable when Sam Jackson was all like, “They call me Mr. Glass.”
And June was a huge “b” word, yes, but no dummy, plus somehow she had r
eceived the picture that Channan had snapped of Jonathan sleeping in the guard office the night before last. “You’re fired. Gather your things,” she said.
Jonathan looked at the official. “He’s already got my things, right? Or are there more things to pack up?” Then he realized the full extent of what was happening. He got angry.
“You can’t do this. I’ve poured a lot of blood, sweat and tears into this pool.” He looked at the official. “Not literally.” Then he looked back at June. “I live and die by this club and the community that spends time here.”
“Then maybe you should get a life,” June sneered.
“I can’t believe this. You’re going to ruin everything I stood for, everything I’ve worked so hard for. The membership dues and profit margins aren’t the problem. You’re the problem. You’re the reason membership is declining. No one wants to be around you!” His hands shook with anger.
June looked like she was going to be upset for half a jiff, but then just shrugged. “Be out by the end of the day.”
“I can’t believe this,” Jonathan said.
The official had been staring at his shoes for most of the conversation, but at that moment he looked up hopefully. “The good news is your club has passed inspection. The Tri-County Relay Race festivities will go off without a hitch! Hurrah!”
Jonathan just glared at him.
•••
Charlie woke up at his typewriter again, his back aching like a son of a witch. He looked at the page before him. It read: FADE IN: in the top left. INT. was whited out and TITLE HERE: had replaced it.
Charlie guessed that progress was progress. He didn’t want to rush anything.
Then he heard a call from downstairs.
“Charlie,” Art yelled. “We have to talk!”
•••
Charlie walked into the kitchen with his trench coat costume on. Art and Hilda sat at the kitchen table, Hilda visibly nervous, tearing a paper napkin into long, thin strips, muttering something about Langoliers.