PROLOGUE

THE YELLOW COUNTY Community College of Yellow County, Maryland, was originally supposed to be a prison. It was intended to be the East Yellow County Correctional Facility, to be more precise. Midway through construction, the script was flipped, and the campus that was meant to confine and rehabilitate Yellow County’s criminals was reimagined, rezoned, and revamped. The campus was then meant to confine and educate Yellow County’s junior collegiate students. The thought was that a place of learning would quell the need for a place of imprisonment, Lord willing.

When the powers that be made the decision, the dining hall was already built for the prison, so that was a plus; not much needed to be changed in that regard. A shipment of convict gruel was already ordered, so when it came the head chef dubbed it “vegan goulash” and served it to the unsuspecting community college herbivores. The junior college vegan community was sparse, but luckily, they were usually very hungry and their taste buds were none too discriminating. They managed to polish off what the dining staff secretly referred to as “gruel-ash” pretty quickly. Nobody seemed certain what was in it.

A fairly charming chapel had been constructed on the sprawling lawn, or “yard” as it was referred to, and three walls of one of the main cell blocks were already up, which is the reason why three sides of the Yellow County Community College Library lack windows.

Even the solitary confinement basement was slickly repurposed to be what the administration referred to as “solo study cubicles.” The bank of payphones for calls to lawyers and loved ones was rebranded “the hall of forgotten technology.”

Once that whole snafu was de-snaffed, the rest of the construction of the Y-triple-C went relatively smoothly. Buildings named after great Yellow Countians of the past were erected. There was The Wittles Performing Arts Center next to the library, the Wilkenshire Facility west of the quad, and Grant Hill Hall over on Grant Hall’s hill.

The crown jewel of the campus—the reason why students commuted from as far as Chevy Chase or even Brown Town—was the YCCC Indoor Pool and Fitness Facility. They moved weightlifting paraphernalia intended to pump up the prospective prisoners inside of the massive, many-windowed structure that housed the college’s gymnasium. The facility donned a sauna, aquatic center, juice bar, indoor tetherball arena, trampoline park, and for some reason a fully functioning Dave & Buster’s, where the tickets that you won playing the arcade-style games could be used as tender at the campus book store.

The swim team was renowned. For a community college, Yellow County was the winningest in the tri-county area—so good, in fact, that they were bumped up a couple of divisions and competed against four-year state colleges like Towson University and Brown State, the latter with whom there was a bitter rivalry. Brown Staters and YCCC-ites routinely sabotaged each other’s campuses, with mostly harmless shenanigans like painting the dean’s car brown or dying the practice pool’s water yellow. One year, a trio of co-eds from YCCC even stole Brown State’s mascot, Bernie the Brown State Brown Recluse; the abductors painted poor Bernie yellow. Bernie didn’t play along; he bit the YCCC intruders, who all had to be medevacked to Prince George’s hospital center for treatment for their oozing spider bites. In retaliation, some Brown Staters anonymously sent laxative brownies to their college apartment. The three pranksters thought it was a gift from sympathizers and took the bait. They spent the next few days scurrying to the toilet.

The YCCC Indoor Pool and Fitness Facility was still the mecca for community college-level swim meets. Those boys and girls on the YCCC swim team would really get to swimming. The bleachers were always packed with yellow-painted faces waving their yellow foam fingers formed into the sign for Y in sign language, which was often confused with the hang loose hand gesture. They would chant one of their trademark chants like, “I swam across, I swam across for you. Oh what a thing to do, ’Cause the pool is all Yellow!” or “Yellow, it’s YCC, I was wondering if after all these years you’d like to lose a swim meet.” And when that indoor pool was a-rockin’, all were invited to come a-knockin’ for a spectacular sports experience in a premiere natatorium.

The indoor pool had vaulted ceilings to accommodate the diving platforms. Blue-tinted windows let in cool light that shimmered off the water. A Maryland flag and an American flag hung on the wall. Names of prestigious swimmers also graced the walls with plaques that, from a distance, looked like a mouthful of unbrushed teeth.

If former lifeguard Jonathan Poole had once felt at home at the Yellow County Community Swim and Racquet Club (and then subsequently made it into his home for a spell) then this facility was an apt stand-in, if not replacement, for the pool where he had secretly lived a couple of semesters previous.