When the last day of the Labor Day weekend hit, the summer season was over. The town looked like a tornado warning was in effect and a massive evacuation was underway. Bennys piled into their cars and pointed them North for the fall, winter, and spring. Cars with New Jersey and New York license plates were lined up, smashed headlight to dented trunk. That was when the town released all its anger against the Bennys. Locals would line up along the highway that led back to the city with signs reading, “GO HOME, BENNYS!” and “GET THE HELL OUT!”

I walked along the highway to the hardware store to get the type of AC adapter that screws into a light-bulb socket. My bike tire was out of commission, and I didn’t feel like fixing it now. There was too much broken glass on the road, and I was repairing so many flats, I felt like I was running a bike shop.

A local man, wearing a Pac-Man Fever baseball cap, a tank top, and a tank-like belly, shouted across the bot-tled-up highway at me.

“Hey, you fucking chink, you get the hell out of my town!”

I stopped and stared at him. He smiled at me a little, then waved and turned back to the Bennys.

My new teacher in the fall was Mr. Hendrickson. In the summer, he worked as a rent-a-cop pounding the boardwalk. Mr. Hendrickson showed authority as he weaved through pedestrian traffic, his huge frame sweeping through the boisterous crowds by the boardwalk games. I’d see him moving through people like a shark fin above water when I stopped at the boardwalk for a game of Berserk! or Space Invaders before going to the hardware store.

But he also had to sweep up broken bottles, popsicle sticks, and other trash. That wasn’t too different from what I had to do. When he was young, he probably would have fit right in with the Bennys. Now, his sixfoot-six frame looked more bloated than brute. But there was no doubt that the man could do some damage, even in his overweight and graying state.

About a week before school was going to start, as the Bennys were having their last shot at destroying our town, a mini-brawl had broken out on Mr. Hendrickson’s turf. Three shirtless, drunk guys were grappling with each other, knocking over folding chairs by the lemonade slush and cheesefries stand. Mr. Hendrickson stepped in and grabbed a Benny with each hand, but that left the third guy free. Mr. Hendrickson woke up flat on his back with two other rent-a-cops standing over him and a gash on his face that required stitches.

I’d read about the incident in the paper. They’d put the story on the same page as the television listings. The name “Hendrickson” stood out because I knew he was going to be my teacher that fall. I saw the scar the first day of school. I thought a broken bottle would leave a circular mark, but instead there was a thin, crusty scab about two inches long that ran from the center of his forehead to the top of the bridge of his nose. The skin around it was puffy like a caterpillar.

Mr. Hendrickson had a big St. Bernard’s head, jiggling jowls, and eyes that dripped behind glasses smudged with greasy fingerprints. He reeked of alcohol and cigarette smoke, like one of our hotel rooms, only we tried to cover the smell up with air fresheners. For some reason, he thought that nobody could hear what he said when he took his glasses off.

“Now this is Greece and this is Italy,” Mr. Hendrickson said, circling all of Europe and the northern part of Africa with the skittering tip of his wooden pointer. “The Romans and the Greeks had philosophy and art. Sometimes they had to fight, too. They were some of the world’s most advanced civilizations ever. The United States has been around for only two centuries. We probably won’t last as long as the Romans and the Greeks. We’ll probably be conquered by Japan or maybe even Mexico someday.”

Then his glasses came off, and he rubbed each lens with his tie, muttering, “Goddamn, fucking bullshit. Tired of this shit.”

The glasses popped back onto his face, as simple as on a Mr. Potatohead, and the lecture continued.

“Mexico was the last country to invade the United States, not England, in the War of 1812. A lot of people don’t know that. It was Pancho Villa. And a lot of people talk about the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Hawaii wasn’t even a state yet! The next time the japs bomb the U.S., it’ll be San Francisco or Seattle. Definitely something on the West Coast.”

The first week, all the kids were terrified by Mr. Hendrickson’s Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde routine. But we soon realized he was harmless, and got used to it.

I ignored the lectures because I read the right stuff in the textbook. The only thing that changed through the year with Mr. Hendrickson was that his scar healed into what looked like the fake stitches on a Nerf football.

School was well underway, but summer wasn’t truly over until it was time to drain the pool. I sat in a battered pool chair next to Peter and Mrs. Fiorello, watching the noisy pump chug out water and flood the lawn.

“What are you studying in school?” asked Mrs. Fiorello.

“Greece.” It was only the second week, so I was really only fitting on book covers cut from shopping bags.

“Yeah, the Greeks were the first civilized people in this world,” said Peter. “The buildings they put up back then are still standing now.”

“How old are they?” asked Mrs. Fiorello.

“Millions of years, from when dinosaurs were still around.”

“The dinosaurs died out before there were people,” I corrected. Peter threw his hands up in the air. A small clump of ash from his cigar skittered across his bare chest.

“Who’s to say, no one really knows,” said Peter. “It was way before I was born and way before you were born. They’ll be here long after we’re dead.” Steady splish-splashes from the pump continued to sound in the background.

“You know what happens when you die?” asked Mrs. Fiorello, adding in a hushed voice: “I don’t want to scare you, but I’ve told your mother that you should go to church.”

I had thought about going to church. Probably a lot of girls there. Maybe the ones in church had tits. I was-n’t going to find out, though. I was too busy cleaning rooms Sundays.

My parents never read the Bible, although every room had a copy. Why go to church? Jesus wouldn’t bring in more johns.

The newly installed chain-link fence closed off the hotel’s back yard, which would have been a shortcut to the church. We had to put up the fence because our neighbors to the back complained of finding Bennys in their pools or beer bottles and cans on their lawn.

The pump chugged away, and the level of the pool sank a fraction of an inch. A thin film of green stretched across the surface like a slice of cheese on day-old pizza. The Fiorellos got up and left, Mrs. Fiorello yawning and Peter scratching his forehead with the end of the cigar that had been in his mouth. I took a look at the pool furniture around me, dreading the task that awaited me. I would have to drag them all one by one and stack them up in the once-again dead burger stand. When I was done with that, it would be time to pull out the splinters that bit through the leather work gloves.

I closed my eyes and listened to the chugging sound of the pump. It sounded like a worn-out heart.