CHAPTER 3

BACK AT THE indoor pool, Charlie and Roheed sat in the Yellow County cheering section. Roheed was enthralled with the proceedings, whooping it up for his home county of Yellow, while Charlie couldn’t keep his mind off Jill, trying his best to keep his peepers from peeping in her direction so as not to make eye contact with her again. Roheed was right to be caught up. Charlie was right too because Jill was now a super-hot, legal young lady.

It was the last heat. Matt Hedge, fully recovered from the hernia he sustained from sneezing while pooping and the subsequent surgery, and several more YCCC swimmers were lined up on their marks, as well as Scott, the Twinsley twins, and a couple of other Brown State swimmers.

Scott lowered his custom uni-goggle over his one functioning eye. Matt, Shannon and Channan, and the rest bent at the waist, poising their bodies to dive in and hit the water, hoping for an early lead. The whistle blew and the race was on like The King of Kong. The swimmers blazed back and forth, Matt and Scott neck and neck ahead of the rest of the pack. Scott craned his neck to locate Matt. He let out an angry burst of bubbles from his mouth when he saw they were tied. Matt’s muscled arms, one of them baring the generic tribal sun he had gotten well before his eighteenth birthday at the Red Octopus, dove in and out of the water, propelling him forward. On their last lap, Scott edged ahead by a single kick but Matt regained his ground. Their hands hit the side of the pool at the same second, and a whistle toot signified the end of the whole, as William Hung would say, shebang.

The officials conferred for just a tad, probably not long enough, until one of them walked over and handed the first-place ribbon to Matt Hedge. Scott couldn’t believe it; he about jumped out of his skin. He gave an unaware Matt the evil eye—he only had one, but it was evil as hell, and he knew how to give it. His view panned over to Jonathan yakking it up with the Yellow County team. Scott’s rage redirected to Jonathan. He shook his head as he stared at Jonathan, angry at his happiness. Scott used his index finger to point to his good eye, and then he pointed it at Jonathan. He took his thumb and drew it across his throat, and that’s almost never a good sign!

A little while later, at dusk, as the crowd dispersed from the event, Jonathan exited the Yellow County Community College Indoor Pool and Fitness Facility with Roheed and Charlie. They walked across the quad, heading towards Jonathan’s office in a nearby administrative building. An angry voice called out to them.

“Hey!”

Jonathan turned. It was Scott, and he was pissed.

“That race was a tie!” Scott clopped over to them. He was wearing a Brown State Swim tracksuit and Chain Male sandal slides over crisp white socks.

Roheed and Charlie were confused. “Which race?” Charlie said.

“Me and that clown Matt, we tied. Brown State would have won if it weren’t for that bull hockey call. You had the officials in your pocket like a dirty snot rag.”

Jonathan was about to pull his dirty snot rag out of his pocket to wipe his anger-moistened brow but realized that would only help Scott’s argument. “Sounds like your loser bone is a little sore,” Jonathan said. “Don’t worry, put a little ice on it, take two ‘I don’t give a cares,’ and don’t call me in the morning.”

That quip just riled Scott up all the more. “You think you’re really funny,” he said through gritted teeth.

Roheed, not knowing his role, piped up, “I actually thought that was pretty humorous.”

Scott looked at Roheed with a look that would make a dandelion die. “You know what won’t be funny?”

“Anything that hack Jerd McKinley craps out?” Charlie asked, not really in the conversation.

“No,” Scott said, confused but then ready to be angry again.

“Every human being on the planet’s certain and eventual death?” Jonathan ventured.

“Let me just tell you what won’t be funny,” Scott was done with letting these obvious jokesters give their jokety-joke answers to his, in his opinion, very serious question. “It won’t be funny when I get you back for cheating to win this meet. I don’t know when or how, but it’s going to suck for you. And I’ll be just laughing and laughing.” He let out a laugh that sounded like a duck choking on a chicken wing.

“I thought you said it wasn’t going to be funny,” Charlie said with a smirk.

Scott steamed. “You are so lucky that I have to ride home with my brother and sister or I would be stabbing you right now.” And he stormed off in a huff, leaving Jonathan, Charlie, and Roheed feeling like they had dodged a one-eyed bullet, but also with an impending sense of dread because who knew what a guy like that could be capable of.

The dread quickly passed and was forgotten when they arrived at Jonathan’s office and began catching up in earnest. Jonathan handed a beer to Charlie but when he offered one to Roheed he politely declined and asked instead for a tea or a sparkling water, perhaps. He was not yet of age and had never drank an alcoholic beverage before.

While Jonathan heated up some water to prepare a yerba mate for Roheed from his emergency mate stash, Roheed perused the brochure for the Yellow County Community College Chapel.

“That’s our venue,” Jonathan said, referring to the chapel the brochure was describing.

The chapel itself was cute, the brochure poorly made, highlighting the inadequacies of the location. Blurbs proclaimed “Nearly asbestos free” and “Come smell our pews!” In one of the photos of a decorative mirror, you could see the photographer and he was wearing Crocs. Roheed thought it was a bit silly that the ornate windows were referred to as “purposefully stained”—they should have just said “beautiful stained glass windows”—but brochure-making wasn’t his game, so he guessed he’d let it go. He was happy for Jonathan and excited to be back in town for the affair.

“Exquisite venue,” he said to Jonathan, who smiled and handed him a hot gourd of yerba mate, “and thanks for the mate.”

Jonathan smiled, “Yerba mate is myba yerte, my friend.”

Swim team trophies and plaques lined the walls and the shelves, most from the Yellow County Community Swim and Racquet Club swim team, and some from his new gig at the college. A photo of Jonathan and “Wild” Bill Peterson, Jonathan’s mentor until he died tragically, sat on a frame on the large desk in the corner. A CPR dummy (Tim) dressed in YCCC garb stood proudly in the corner of the room. There was a cot set up as well.

Roheed gestured to the cot. “Are you secretly living here now?” referring to a couple of summers before when Jonathan was caught living in the guard house of the YCCSRC when he was the head lifeguard.

• • •

Jonathan remembered the particular summer that Roheed was referring to and the previous summers when he had lived in the small room with the timecard clock and the safe and the calendar on the wall and the CPR dummy (Tim) and everything else needed for a fully functioning lifeguard office. He had slept on the cot meant for sun-stroked seniors and bee-stung boys and girls. He would get up early before the pool opened and shower in the men’s locker room, wearing his faded red lifeguard shorts and whistle dangling from a lanyard.

The shower was an open area with four communal showerheads, and sometimes, if he felt like treating himself, he would turn on all four, point them to the center of the tiled room, and let the steaming water cascade down his body over his generous chest hair. He would pull his shorts away from his body with his thumb and drip soapy, sudsy water down into his nether region.

In the snack bar he would make himself breakfast as he licked a red-white-and-blue Rocket Pop or a purple Fla-Vor-Ice or even sometimes a Sonic the Hedgehog Popsicle with gumball eyes. He always wore his favorite apron, the one that said, Kiss the Cook . . . Please!!!?! Then he would eat his breakfast at one of the picnic tables in the outdoor dining area as he looked out over the pool.

On the surface, he had enjoyed those summers, the seasons in the between not so much. It was very lonely living in the closed club. He had known deep down that the lifestyle could not last. It took finding a love like Chris, and being kicked out of course, to wrest him from his womblike haven. He knew he would always feel bittersweet, even nostalgic, when he looked back at that time, like one might romanticize a high school relationship that in reality hadn’t ended well. Hindsight had a way of clearing things up, but that same time playing tricks on your memory, rose-coloring what, at the time, was actually pretty sucky.

• • •

Charlie brought Jonathan back from his thoughts. “Yeah, are you going to get fired again?” Charlie asked.

“I’m just staying here until the wedding,” Jonathan replied. “After we got engaged, Chris and I thought it would be romantic to live apart for a while. That way the wedding night would be extra spicy.” He wiggled his eyebrows up and down in a way that Charlie found very unsettling. Charlie shuddered. “The Dean knows the plan,” Jonathan continued. “She’s cool with it. She said it was romantic.”

“Good,” Roheed said, he and Charlie trying their darndest to keep from picturing Jonathan and his bride-to-be in any sort of sexual scenario.

“I’m really glad you guys are here for the wedding by the way,” Jonathan said.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Roheed said genuinely.

“I just live super close to here, so it wasn’t an issue,” Charlie began. Jonathan shot him a look and he finished with, “But I’m excited, too!”

• • •

Chris “The Diving Broad” Partee had sauntered into Jonathan’s life when she came to the pool to sell them a new high dive after their former diving board had come unlashed in a freak storm and landed on the patriarch of the pool, “Wild” Bill Peterson, killing him instantly. Chris was unique, masculine in a feminine way. She was outspoken and seemed like a good yang to Jonathan’s yin.

She had worn her company polo a little tight in the sleeves to show off her size L guns. The back of the shirt had read, The Diving Broad: More Splash, Less Cash. At first, Jonathan thought the word Broad was a typo for Board and wondered why she would still wear a misprinted article of clothing. She was chewing tobacco and she was a little sweaty and her gruff confidence had attracted Jonathan instantly, even though it confused him.

If their relationship were to be judged solely on their first date, then you would have thought they didn’t stand a chance. Jonathan didn’t drive, so he opted to meet Chris downtown so he could take the metro. He didn’t know many spots, so he took her to Ben’s, a place he knew thanks to Charlie. He and Charlie had pulled off a semi-successful caper on Charlie’s dad there once, when Charlie needed Jonathan to pretend he was Charlie’s mentor at some internship he never really got the details about.

Chris was a meat-and-potatoes kind of gal who didn’t expect to be wined and dined at a chili-dog joint. Jonathan had left his wallet in his other lifeguard shorts and she ended up paying. All that, and a misunderstanding when Jonathan asked her if she wanted to “blow his whistle,” referring to the whistle he kept on a red lanyard on his person at all times, added up to a pretty disastrous date. Jonathan thought for sure he had blown it—the date, not the whistle—but his honesty and candor and unselfconscious humor delighted Chris. Just as Jonathan was intrigued by and drawn to her, so was she to him.

• • •

Charlie was excited that his friend had found love. Good for him; at least someone had something going on in their lives, Charlie thought. Jonathan is getting married, and Roheed seems to be on the verge of some success . . . He was the only one back in the rut where he seemed to fall every so often.

“You’re looking well, Jonathan,” Roheed said.

“I’ve lost some weight. I swore off all food that can be prepared in a snack bar so I can look my best for the wedding.”

Charlie nodded. Rock ’n roll, good for him.

Jonathan pointed to Roheed. “What are you up to Mr. Fancy? Mr. California?”

Roheed smiled brightly. “I just sold my app! It’s going to launch in the summer.”

“That’s awesome, congratulations!” Jonathan gushed. “How’s Florence?”

Roheed’s smile darkened a couple of shades. He had met Florence Comfortinn, the socialite heiress to the Comfort Inn fortune, the same summer that everything had happened with Bill dying and the Tri-County Relay Race. It had taken nearly all summer for Florence to cotton to Roheed, but they had been dating ever since, and they were happyish.

“She’s great,” Roheed said. “You know, her reality web series really exploded and that opened up a lot of doors for her. She’s been deejaying around Europe for a few months now. It’s just tough having a long-distance relationship.”

Charlie nodded, as if he knew. Roheed redirected the conversation towards him, “What is going on with you, Charlie? You never respond to my messages.”

Charlie sipped his beer. “Yeah. I’ve just been busy I guess. I take classes here at Yellow County Community and I work at . . . um . . . Popcorn Movies.”

“That’s cool.”

Charlie looked up. “It’s not, but thanks for saying that.”

“How’s the writing going?” Roheed continued, not picking up on the obvious social cues that Charlie was telegraphing that he absolutely did not want to talk about himself. “Whatever happened to In Sheep’s Clothing?”

Jonathan’s eyes darted to Charlie who looked at his shoes.

“You wrote that and had the table read. I thought some people might get interested.”

Charlie was bummed. “Yeah . . .”

Jonathan covered. “That sort of went away, right? But your next thing will be even bigger and better!”

Roheed narrowed his eyes and tilted his head.

“I’m saving up to move to LA though,” Charlie blustered, “so that will happen at some point.”

“Louisiana?” Jonathan asked.

“Los Angeles,” Charlie replied, wanting to jump out of his skin and take his skeleton for a spin.

Jonathan nodded.

“Do you have a time frame on that?” Roheed asked, still not getting it.

Charlie said “No” with finality, tipped his can towards the heavens, and took a healthy guzzle.

The room got too quiet. Up above in the rafters a couple of crickets looked at each other like this is awkward and started chirping to fill the silent void.

Charlie broke the conversational stalemate. “Can you pass me another beer?” He crushed his can and tossed it aside. Jonathan handed him a fresh one. Charlie sipped it and smiled, the cold liquid warming his body from the inside.

“Hey, remember a few summers ago, when we all worked at the swim and racquet club?”

“Totally,” Jonathan said.

“And like, June Summers was busting our beach balls and Roheed, you were just meeting Florence.”

Roheed smiled.

“And Judas, freaking Judas,” Charlie continued, “That traitor!”

“That was a total surprise,” Jonathan was grinning too. “I did NOT see that coming.”

“Right?” Charlie agreed.

And the gang fell back into their groove, reminiscing and laughing about the happenstances at the Yellow County Community Swim and Racquet Club a few summers before.

What they didn’t see was Scott crouched in the hallway outside the office, just under the little window in the door, listening . . . waiting . . . and plotting.