Short Story

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I sat on the old stone wall that jutted out from the changing room and watched the tall guy lifeguard with hair that was longer in the front than in the back scoop leaves out of the tranquil pool. Over to the right, past the chain linked fence and cart path, beyond the swaying rushes, was the Hudson River. From my vantage point I could even see a tiny section of the Tappan Zee Bridge through the low branches of the surrounding forest. That spot under the eaves of the stone changing room was the only place where I could both see the bridge and remain in the shade. That’s why I sat there for so long each day.
I looked at the clock. It was ten am. The head lifeguard would arrive soon in a whirlwind of energy. He had short cropped red hair and whenever he wasn’t caressing his waxed chest in one of the two lifeguard chairs, he did dips between the stone benches.
Life moved slowly there at Tallman pool; sit on the wall, pick up the pool cashier in my ranger cart, sometimes give out surveys, prevent food consumption by the patrons. Those were my official duties. After the year that I’d had, I was glad to find a job that let me take it slow. Even my mom, the woman who, when I was a kid, had packed energy drinks in my backpack, told me to find a job that wouldn’t demand too much.
I’d gotten back from India less than two weeks before I got the job and I was tired, but I was riding an emotional high. I had, in a sense, just changed an Indian girl’s life, but I don’t want to talk about that just now. For now, I’m just a normal guy who has a bigger than average heart.
The other electric ranger cart buzzed along the path down the grassy hill from the pool area. The pool cashier would be inside. It wouldn’t be long before patrons began ambling with their lawn chairs and their lotion, their footballs and their gallon sized KFC sodas. I once stopped this three hundred pound guy who had a soda in his hand because I thought it was a ten piece bucket. One of my jobs was to stop everyone from eating inside the pool area and I was vigilant, but for their own sakes I should have confiscated their food and never given it back.
I was kind of an aberration there. I went to Amherst College and had traveled around India for six months. Everyone else had at best only graduated high school. Well, the other ranger attended community college, and the short, dweebish lifeguard was getting a business degree, but those don’t really count. Life experience is the real educator, in my book. Whenever I talked about India, the other employees cracked their knuckles or picked at their cuticles. They obviously didn’t have the same appreciation for other cultures that I have. Ronny was the worst. He thought that just because he had been working there for six years and was the “pool operator,” he could make me do anything he wanted. I think he resented me because I didn't need the job. Well, at least I didn’t work there year ‘round like him.
On my first day, when I heard that the pool operator’s name was Ronny, I was worried that it would be this kid from my old neighborhood who went south to play football for some big college. Then, when a chunky brown head with deep set eyes and a short beard appeared from the stairs to the basement, I thought the worst. But luckily, this was a different Ronny.
Every day I dressed in the thick grey khakis and rough grey button down shirt the park gave me. Sometimes the New York State Park emblem across from the breast pocket irritated my right nipple so bad that I had to protect it with a piece of toilet paper attached with electrical tape. I wore a green baseball hat with the same emblem and carried an oversized walkie talkie. My costume came together with the boots. I had these cheap camouflage boots that were four sizes too big when I was in eighth grade. They still fit me now and made my feet sweat when I walked. Truth is, only the shirt was required. But whenever I looked in the mirror and saw this person who was supposed to be an authority figure, it cracked me up.
So whenever I saw people eating- something they did obstinately despite the numerous signs- I went over to them and said something like, “No eating in the pool area. Didn’t you see the signs?” I don’t know, maybe it's because they couldn’t read. After I’d left, I would swing around at random times and see them ferreting a cheese doodle out of a bag. Didn’t they know that we had those rules so that they could enjoy a clean environment?
At 10:15, the first patrons arrived. A porky Hispanic woman with a brown paper bag jammed in an empty stroller appeared from the woman’s changing room. I had no doubt there was food in there. Then came her tubby offspring behind her, like little waddling ducklings. Porky girl number one had an inflatable ring around her waist and was missing her two front teeth. She was the biggest and oldest. Her younger sisters were behind her grabbing at her ring, trying to pull it over her head.
As they walked past me down the cement ramp, I asked the mother, “You don’t have any food in there do you?”
“Si,” she responded with her head cocked dumbly to the side. “Si, I have.”
“Listen, didn’t you see the signs?” I asked.
“I see, but yesterday many, many people eat” she responded innocently.
“Did you see me yesterday?”
“Well, no, pero I thinks-“
I slid off of the wall, grabbed the brown paper bag and looked inside. Sandwiches, just as I thought.
“Bring the food outside ma'am, there is no eating allowed in here,” I said. It was so funny. It was just me, but behind the ranger outfit I was someone else. It’s not like I let the power get to me though. I was just doing my job.
The porky woman looked upset, but thought better of saying anything to me. “Teresa, Cleudette, venga,” she called out to her daughters who had already thrown their towels on the slab of grass and were standing poised next to the pool. They threw up their arms in frustration, but came running when they saw the look on their mother’s face. They followed her into the woman’s changing room. Her ass quaked in her bathing suit with each waddle. I climbed back onto the wall.
Within five minutes the patrons really started filing in. There was an old saggy woman with a back hunched from years of baby carrying, and a black woman with a crying child. She couldn’t be much more than eighteen. I bet she just got her driver’s license. Then came in the Fat Family. They came almost every day. The father was the one I told you about earlier who came in with the gallon bucket of KFC soda. I had secretly nicknamed him Sumo. His hair was pulled back into a pony tail, and whenever he stamped his foot down, I got scared the earth was going to split. His wife was nearly as big. She sat on the bench surreptitiously snacking on god knows what. I'd caught her with chicken nuggets more often than anything else. Guess they were her favorite.
Being a ranger was great. Except for Saturdays. When the sun is fierce in the sky and the blacktop sizzling, the whole entire city goes out to Tallman to swim. It always seems to be around three in the afternoon when the pool reaches its capacity. Two hundred and twenty one means two hundred and twenty one, I would say. They just never got it. And then, one Saturday, when I told the patrons to get out, they wouldn’t leave. I told them I would call the police and file for civil disobedience if they didn’t leave, but they just cursed me out. One kid, he couldn’t have been more than six, threw a rock at me. What kind of parent raises their kid to throw rocks at an authority figure? So I had no choice but to call the cops. I didn’t want to, but I had to do my job.
Sitting under the eaves on the other wall, the one coming out perpendicularly from the woman’s changing room, was the other ranger. Her name was something like Beth Ann. She didn’t talk very much. She usually just listened, her face dumbly blank. Then sometimes she would quietly add something like, “I learned about that at college.” She was the one, remember, who went to community college. I mean, I’m all for community colleges; they are great for the poor. It’s just not Amherst, that’s all.
The three fat girls came running out of the changing room and down the cement ramp and jumped into the pool.
"No running," I called out pointlessly from my perch. The mother returned to the pool area with her stroller now empty. She saw me out of the corner of her eye and looked away, continuing down the ramp towards the grass. She obviously held it against me. I didn't get it. I mean, if you were a night watchman and someone was breaking into the store you were paid to protect, wouldn't you stop them? If anything you'd get a little blurb written about you in the Rockland Journal News.
By eleven I had thought about how the Yankees were sucking, got pissed about how Rob was bailing on the house for next year, wished I had lunch, got annoyed that the other workers never offered to include me in their lunch runs into Montvale, thought about how I need a girl, and inevitably wound up thinking about Angali, the Indian girl whose life I had changed.
By eleven thirty I had only gotten up twice; once to take a piss, and another time to prevent an old man, probably Polish or something, and his grandson from eating ice cream sandwiches on the near bench. By then the sun was beating down and the pool was crawling with patrons. It's not that I didn't like them, it's just that they had no respect for the rules and looked at me like they were better than me or something. As if me having this simple ranger job made me a nobody. But who were they to judge? They probably worked at McDonald's or something while I spent the last six months in India. They probably didn't even know where India is.
I got down from the wall and stretched. I was bored. Why had no fine girls arrived yet? The day before had been a feast for my eyes. Which had meant only one thing, of course: I got a lot of surveys filled out. As I began walking towards the men's changing room, I saw through the chain linked fence two fine ass Dominican girls walking up the path towards the pool. Finally, I said to myself. I clomped through the wet room and heard the spattering of the unoccupied shower. Come on, what the fuck. I went over to the shower, reached my sleeved arm in and wrenched the handle to the left to turn the water off. The shower soaked my breast pocket, and the electrical tape and tissue fell off. Just my luck, I was going to have another irritated nipple day.
I stamped out the other side of the changing room, crossed the asphalt, passed the gate and ticket booth, and entered the hallway to the kiddie pool. Ronny's office and the supply room were off of the hall to the right. I stood quietly at Ronny's open door. Ronny was reclined in his chair with his boots on the cluttered desk watching a movie on his iPod. He laughed a quick stuttering laugh that seemed oddly suited for a guy so big. His desk was covered in half-completed sudoku and crossword puzzles, and unused in the far corner were the vials for testing the ph of the pool. His only job was to take the ph once an hour and fix the pump's computer, but he didn't do either. Yet whenever he took lunch breaks, he told me to cover for him, "And I better see that vial wet" he threatened each time.
I cleared my throat and he looked up. His smile vanished.
"Can I help you?" he said, annoyed.
"Where are the surveys?"
"Oh, some girls walk in?" he asked mockingly. He always got jealous when I gave surveys out to girls, and he tried to interrupt me. He would stand next to the men's changing room, resentful, and make the motion with his hand of pushing me to the side. Then he would command, "Pete, move it along."
"No," I lied. "No girls yet."
"You're wet," he said flatly.
"Damn kids left shower on again."
"I see you didn't do a very good job of sweeping the cobwebs out of the rafters yesterday," he said, taking his feet off of the chair and spinning so that he was facing towards me.
"I did them all, like you said," I lied.
"Not the ones on the woods side."
"But no one goes there," I replied, holding in my exasperation.
Ronny made one of his signature pauses. He relished the discomfort they caused. After an uncomfortable five seconds he said, "I go there on my way down to the basement. Clean them up. And while you're in the mood, mop the changing room. Those surveys can wait."
Let me tell you, I was pissed. Not only was it not my job to do maintenance, but Ronny never made Beth Ann do anything. He had it in for me I tell you. But I could never say anything back to him because technically he was my boss. Not my boss boss; Clark was above him, but since Ronny had worked there year-round for so long, I couldn't really mess with him.
After an hour of de-cobwebbing, another half an hour of sweeping, and a quick trip to each pool to fill Ronny's vials while he ate lunch, I finished with my busy work. I went to Ronny's vacant office and pulled a stack of light green surveys from the bottom drawer. The surveys were filled with stupid questions such as "Would you come to this park again" and "on a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate the signage." It really is a testament to my character that I was so successful at getting people to fill them out. And the truth is, Ronny's right, they were a great pick up device.
When I was finally back in the main pool area, the Domican girls I had seen before were gone, but some other worthy specimens had replaced them. Sprawled out in the grass near the fence were two girls who looked to be around twenty. Both had nice toned bodies on which much time had obviously been spent. They were lying face up on identical navy towels, with huge overlapping white NY's on them, and were hidden behind sequin-studded sunglasses.
As I approached, my shadow caught the attention of the girl closer to me.
"Excuse me miss, I don't mean to interrupt your tan, but I was wondering whether you could fill out this survey?" I asked politely.
"What's it about," she asked diffidently, wary of being guilted into filling one out.
The other girl sat up. She had a lighter complexion and wore a white bikini with a top spotted in red flowers. Her straight brown hair had been dyed reddish in the parts that fell closest to her ears.
"Carmen, what's this?" she asked the first girl.
"Es una encuesta," the first girl responded in Spanish, twisting around. She had curly hair, and as she turned back to me she flipped back her sunglasses, revealing smiling chestnut eyes.
"It's very simple," I said with an air of confidence. "It will only take a few minutes. I have to collect thirty today." I lifted the stack in my hand ever so subtly and continued, "It will only be a minute, I promise."
"Okay," the first girl said. "Pass me one, I'll do it right now."
"Thank you," I said, smiling at first girl. "I bet that you are from the Dominican Republic, and you are from Puerto Rico."
"Close," chimed in the lighter girl in the white bikini. "We're sisters from Puerto Rico. How did you know though? Most white people have no idea where we are from."
"Oh, you know," I responded smoothly, "I've traveled a little bit. I actually just got back from my latest trip, a six month tour of India."
"Are you serious?" asked the first girl looking up from the clipboard. She was obviously impressed "What is it like there?"
"Oh, it's like no place you've ever seen. You really have to go there to understand it. I was there for a full six months and it was a while before I really got how things work. Did you know that they still use the dowry system there? You have to pay to have your daughter married. That's how crazy it is over there."
"So could you talk to any women?" asked the fairer girl. "Or were they like, off limits?"
"Funny you should ask," I said. This conversation was following the regular script. By the time I told the whole story they, like all the others before, would see me in a new light. "I happen to have fallen in love in India, but I don't want to bore you with the story."
"Tell us," they begged nearly in unison.
I told them about my trip to a cafe on a beach in the southwestern state of Kerala, and how when I met Angali, she took my breath away.
"Aww," said the first girl, looking up at me with these deep brown eyes. I knew she wanted me.
"Go on," said the fairer girl, inching closer.
"She couldn't speak any English, and I couldn't speak any Malayalam, the language they speak there, but we managed to convey something to each other with our arms, hands and smiles. I decided I would stay at that beach for the rest of the six months to be with her, however indirectly that might be. I picked up a little Malayalam and she picked up a little English. I found out that the family she was from was too poor to afford a dowry for her. She was working to save money for her younger sister's dowry." I looked down at the girls. The first one had stopped writing the survey and was looking up at me in awe. The second one had moved entirely onto the closer towel. This is how it always went.
"You were in love?" asked the fairer one, enchanted.
"Completely," I responded. "I even met her family. This is where it gets interesting. Before I left, I went to the ATM and took out all of the money I had, twenty five hundred dollars, and gave it to her as a present so that she could get married."
Both girls blinked hard. The fairer one said, mesmerized, "That is the most romantic thing I've ever heard. You really did that?"
I leaned over and put the surveys on the ground. Then I sat down cross legged on the grass in front of them. I looked each of them in the eyes and then said, "Every word of it is true." I paused, then said convincingly, "I now know what real love is. I've been transformed. Before I went, I was just another guy. Now I know that the only thing real in life is love."
"So why didn't you marry her?" asked the fairer girl. She now looked skeptical. The question jolted me. The script was not supposed to go like that. What did she mean, why didn't I marry her?
"I don't understand what you mean," I said, bewildered. I cocked my head to the side. I had never been asked this before.
"I mean, if you truly loved her, and know love and all that, why didn't you marry her?" she inquired again.
"I couldn't," I blundered. "I mean, maybe if I asked her father, but I couldn't speak Malayalam with him. And she probably wouldn't be able to adjust to life in America."
"Ok. Maybe I just don't understand the situation, and I know you did a really good thing and all, but it just doesn't sound right. I think you could have gone all the way."
"Pete, lunch," came a bellowing voice from behind me. I swung around and saw Ronny leaned against the stone changing room. "Take it now so that Beth Ann doesn't have to wait too long." He turned and disappeared through the door.
I turned back to the two girls feeling discombobulated. "I, uh, have to go. Umm, bye," I stuttered.
I went through the changing room, paying no heed to the two little boys splashing each other in the shower. I dragged myself to the vending machine, bought three bags of Doritos, and sat down on the bench near the gate, my head in my hands. My mind raced out of control. I had been found out. That Puerto Rican girl made me feel like a fake. Was I a fake? Why did I feel like a fake? I mean, I did give her some money. I had been telling that story everyday. Was it all for the admiration of girls? No, the story was almost true. It was just an exaggeration. I had been doing it all to cherish the memory of Angali, who I really loved, didn’t I? I was no longer so sure.
Sitting right there on the bench next to the gate, with a lap covered in blue Doritos bags and a raging right nipple, I cried. I got up and walked towards the vacant kiddie pool. I didn't want anyone to see me like this. I rounded the bend, passed Ronny's office and sat down on the solitary lifeguard's chair. The forest hung low over this pool, and the shallow pool was ringed with grass. I sobbed uncontrollably into my palms.
I felt a hand on my shoulder. I picked my head up. It was Ronny.
"What's going on Pete?" Ronny asked.
I looked up at Ronny's unsmiling face. "Nothing," I replied, pulling myself together.
"I saw you crying. You can take the rest of the day off," he said, already edging away towards his office. "I'll cover in the pool for you."
"Thanks," I responded through sniffles.
Ronny turned, and lumbered back to his office. I looked over to the Hudson. The rushes were swaying and the sun danced across the surface of the shimmering river. A lone cardinal landed on the top of the wire fence, looked at me and warbled.

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