I was out gardening and pulling weeds when the van rumbled into my driveway at half-past twelve. It was a shoddy looking thing, clinking and clacketing long after the key was pulled. On one side, a large scuffed and peeling label: POOLJUNKIE.
A decrepit, pale looking man slinked out of the vehicle. He looked sixty-five, seventy, and downright sickly. Under his scraggly, wiry grey hair and above his gaunt, bony cheekbones lay two sunken eyes. Not the concave, needly-pupil eyes and sockets that came from very old age or a long-lost love for work. They came from trauma.
“Guessing you’re the pool guy?” I asked, popping an index finger to the label on his van.
He shuffled toward me in his overalls. “Yes… Yes. I’ll head on to your backyard.”
“Hold on, man.” I smiled. “You want coffee? Tea?”
“I appreciate it, but I should really get started.” His voice was as rustic as his vehicle.
I turned and gestured him an open hand and watched him go through my house to the back. I thought about the man for a while. A little strange, sure, but maybe it was the time we were living in. Nobody was about the chitchat anymore.
Inside, I cut vegetables and watched him work through the window. All I could see over the edge of the pool was his balding head that bobbed up and down, glistening and sweating in the midday sun.
I finished my meals quite quickly since the accident happened. No more wife to vent to about work with and no more daughter to ask about soccer practice does that to someone – I’m just more time efficient with cleaning my plate. Don’t get me wrong, though, I never ate alone; I had the photos of my wife and daughter Sophia with me at the table.
An amber medication bottle stared at me invitingly. TAKE WITH MEALS TWICE DAILY.
I contemplated taking my pills for a while, though, I didn’t want to be wonky in case the geezer tried to gyp me. I shelved the bottle. Not today - you make me feel funny, old friend.
Rinsing off my lunch plate, I realized it had taken me a couple hours to prepare and eat my food. Not so efficient after all, Mark.
I cracked open the window to let fresh air in and caught the man standing in the pool, piles of equipment were scattered around the grass.
“Everything okay out there? Filter broken?” I yelled out.
One frail but reassuring thumbs-up over the concrete boundary. I sighed in relief; God knows what these guys charge.
Though, he was standing… uncomfortably still. For a while, I glared at the old man in my pool – he didn’t move. I couldn’t see what he was staring at on the pool wall between us, all I saw was the droplets of sweat that ran freely down his face. He stared and stared at the wall unflinchingly. The hell was he doing?
Puzzled, I decided to sprint up the stairs to get a vantage on my pool. If I’m being completely honest, I hated going upstairs. My heart still wrenched when I saw Sophia’s room, the years since she had moved on from this world provide no bandaging.
From my late wife’s room, I think I assumed he was staring into the void of the filter cube. No tool in his hand, no pensive gaze or gesture in his body. I contorted a shiver. The guy creeped me out.
My cellphone vibrated in my jeans. It was Ryan and we talked for a short while.
“Yeah, right, right.” I vacantly watched the man as I spoke to Ryan on the phone. “I know, I know, boring old Mark. Won’t set foot in a club, la-dee-da-dee-da. You know how old I am, man? What do you want me to do out there? Bust out the macarena?”
I nodded to myself and paced around my wife’s room. Our room. “Right, right. Let’s settle for the bar then. I’ll see you at six.” The phone clicked off.
The night was uneventful and frankly rather sullen, Ryan and Jacob had a great time though. I talked to a few women, but they weren’t my wife. Maybe I should stop looking for my late wife in women. That’s what she’d tell me, anyway.
It was one o’clock when I crawled my drunk ass back home. Going upstairs earlier today was therapeutic, I wanted to sleep in my old bed again.
Up the stairs I went, almost on all fours like a dog – I chuckled at myself. The carpet spun and my stomach swung with it. I managed to hold its contents in, though. Too much vodka, man.
Through the hall and up onto the bed, I declared myself a champion - a momentary victory only drunkards know.
Sleep didn’t come cheap, though.
Somebody was whispering outside.
Prone, I shuffled towards the windowsill on my queasy stomach. If the puke wasn’t going to come up before I heard the whispering, it sure felt like it would after my ears pricked to the open window with my belly squashed against the mattress.
In the dead of night, the old maintenance man stood there unblinkingly speaking into the pool filter.
My palm was sweaty and shiny like his pale sickly head; I felt queasier and queasier, my heart was out of my chest.
He saw me - his dry, pursed lips shut tightly. I ducked.
I peeked and saw him – his feet clapping as he sprinted out of view, leaving all his tools behind on the grass and concrete.
Slamming the window shut, I buried myself in my sheets. I should have taken my meds. No, he was really standing there. I heard him speak. I saw him stare back at me with his ghastly, sunken eyes.
For a while, nothing.
Griiink.
He was at the front door turning the creaky doorhandle to no avail.
Oh, God. I miss you Sophia. I’ll be seeing you soon.
I let my pillow swallow my head, I could not listen to him walking around the house anymore trying to get in.
Thankfully, that was the last time I heard him that night.
Sleep didn’t come cheap.
The hot sun stretched yellow arms through the window and reached my face, waking me with its embrace. Can’t say that I was keen to embrace it back with my pounding hangover, however.
I called Ryan; I called the police. No proof, no crime, no foul. I’m not sure why they didn’t follow up with me – I felt like a mental patient.
Cooking lunch took longer with shaking hands and a tight head. The amber pill bottle stared accusingly at me as usual, but I couldn’t be bothered taking my medication hungover.
It took me a while to notice what happened, hours even. In retrospect, I think it was because my eyes couldn’t stand the bright sunlight. Looking outside I saw it, a long stretch of reflection that wiggled and wavered upon my backyard furniture. The pool had been repaired then filled.
That guy is a creep, man - I’ll do the maintenance on my own next time. At least I didn’t have to see him anymore.
I was wrong.
The door rapped a few, unsure knocks.
Running to the door, my hand paused at the handle. Screw it, I thought, and opened the door. I wasn’t afraid of this geezer in the light of day – he had some explaining to do.
He was furious, shouting. I was the one who upset him, apparently.
“That fucking pool! That god forsaken, rotten pool!”
I frowned and flipped two palms up and as if to say, hey weirdo, what the hell are you talking about?
Veins stuck out his neck like thick cables, his face flush, burning with impatience. It was strange to see this quiet old man burst out in such a rage.
“You crazy prick.” He bent his head over my shoulder and peered around my home, one eye meeting my full amber pill bottle in the kitchen. “Lunatic.” He said with vile disdain.
“Listen man, I don’t know what has gotten into you. The hell were you doing around my place last night?”
He scrunched up his face and spat at me with short breaths: “Fixing. Your. Pool.”
“Really, were you?” I smirked and folded my arms.
He started pulling out paper from his shirt pocket. “Yes. Nightshift with overtime. Saw you were home, tried to ring you up the bill before I left.”
“I see, the pool looks like it’s running wel-“
“But you…” He said, tones of disgust. “You, you rotten…” He trailed off. “You and your rotten pool. No wonder the pipes were blocked up. You and your special pool.”
Those were the eyes I had seen last morning. Not the sunken, frail, and tired eyes of an old, blue-collared man who missed early retirement. The eyes of a traumatized soul. What the hell did he see? Special pool?
After the clinking van rumbled and huffed its way out the driveway, I stood and read the bill he had angrily scrunched into my shirt.
Days later, I stood in my yard and watched the water in the pool. He was right about one thing; it sure was special.
I turned to go back inside when I caught my reflection on the kitchen window. My pills mocked me through the glasspane.
My feet rustled the grass when I faced the yard again. I realized something strange: I didn’t really even use the damn pool. So, why not?
Miniature navy waves rose and broke within its walls, it invited me to take a dip. It looked so beautiful in the afternoon sun.
Sneakers thumped the earth as I kicked them off and away. The metal of the stair handles burned to touch, the cooling water and the rumbling filter beckoned me.
It was up to my legs - I sank and sank and sank into its belly. Gurgles filled my ears until I couldn’t hear the hissing of my sprinkler or the birds singing anymore.
I should have filled it long ago. It was like reminiscing with an old friend.
Staring down at the wavering tiled floors, my eye caught something coming out the wall of the pool.
Sophia? Is that you?
Her golden hair drifted out of the vent, blonde seaweed gleaming, flowing.
It’s me, honey.
My arms fit snug in the filter, I reeled forward into the void of its black mouth.
It’s dad.
I swam deeper, my bare feet slipped easily into the square in the wall.
Gooseflesh bloomed over my arms and legs in the icy water; it was so, so dark inside.
Everything was okay because I could feel her warmth emanating from somewhere in the filtering system. The warmth from her smile, such a big, big smile because dad was coming.
Chlorine stung my nose, it tickled away between my eyes like a common cold.
Away from the wavering azure sunlight shining through the pool, deeper and deeper I swam into blackness of the pipes. Powerful currents rumbled and gurgled past my ears.
In the abyss, I think I saw her.
I swam against the flow, closer, closer, closer.
Cerulean light dimly lit up the walls inside the space. Sage mossy growth crawled past the surface of the water in finger-like projections. Surfacing, the decaying stench of the claustrophobic room pierced me as easily as the chlorine had.
I couldn’t see much inside the walls of the pool, but I saw Sophia.
Daddy’s here.
Reaching out, I held her icy, bloated arm. She floated unblinkingly in the water, staring towards the tight ceiling with vacant eyes. Her slimy flesh shed away between my digits like moldy crème brûlée.
What’s the matter honey? You’re soaking.
She didn’t move, she was busy floating. Sophia loved swimming.
Maggots unearthed themselves from one of her protruding cheekbones.
You should clean yourself up, angel.
I held her and we floated.
Every week I come back and check on her, she likes swimming down there.
My medication stays bottled because I enjoy visiting my sweetheart.
I loved the pool and I loved Sophia and she loved me.
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Credits
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