07 June 2010
 
Speedo


The Severe Thunderstorm Alert had passed and it looked like we were not going to get the Tornado that they had set a watch for earlier in the day, but you could sense the potential for violence in the swirling gray clouds that advanced from the west with short gusts of wind.
 
I just got a dynamite recipe for gespacho- the developer claimed modestly it was the best in the entire world- but the chill and the rain cooled my ardor for a chilled treat. Then I thought about making a batch of seafood paella. There are as many varieties of the tasty rice dish as there are Spaniards, or lovers of Valencia. That would have meant a trip to the Maine Street fish market, though, and the weather was too unsettled for that.
 
I boiled up a half-dozen eggs to devil as Srirachas for the week instead. The roiling water helped beat back the chill in the kitchen.
 
The elements stabilized after four, though the temperature had plunged to the point where the Big Bed in the back room was at least as attractive as the waters down below. Joanna the Polish Lifeguard was huddled under a couple towels and a blanket against the chill.
 
The shifting barometric pressure made me irritable, along with the nagging obligation to get some exercise, so I found a fleece hoodie to put on over my t-shirt and trunks and trudged down to the pool deck. Joanna was glued to the old cord telephone, speaking in Polish to another exile on an empty pool deck across town.
 
She broke off her conversation as I signed in, the first customer since before lunch. It is an existential job when the weather is bad. I offered her the hoodie, since it would do me no good in the water, but she was adamant that the towels and blanket that cloaked her were plenty fine.
 
I shrugged and walked over to my usual table and tipped it so the larger blobs of water from the storms rolled off and then methodically piled up the keys and lighter and towel and hoodie and t-shirt and flip-flops and glasses on the top.
 
I did not bring the waterproof radio, hat or sunglasses. I could not imagine that I would get a complete 45-minute work-out in; fifteen, max, I told myself. Just enough to work the joints a little. I steeled myself, shivering a bit on the deck before leaping in.
 
I was surprised. There was a brief shock, to be sure, but the heat of the morning was retained in the upper layer of water, and it really wasn’t that bad. Others seemed to realize the same thing. A new resident appeared with his laptop and set up camp near Joanna’s station by the gate. Then the Creole appeared.
 
I sighed. He has been lording things around since he got the Board to proclaim us a non-smoking pool deck. That was one of my hot-buttons when the pool opened, but someone said that it was actually Arlington County that passed an ordnance, and while I can stage an insurrection against my building, it is too much to take on the whole Nanny state by myself.
 
As a symbol, the Creole will do just fine. He is an irritating little man, and it is not just me that feels it. At least he doesn’t hit on the guys, but the women cringe when he appears. He claims to work for the State Department, which is something I used to say in one job assignment, sometimes with a wink and sometimes with apprehension.
 
He is a little guy but with a strong swimmer’s build. He has a neatly-trimmed beard in the Continental manner and close-cropped white hair that make him resemble an elf, if one were to be charitable, or an imp if you were not.
 
That is not the first thing that you notice about him, though. It is his attitude to the beauty of the mature male body, which I would argue is purely subjective. There used to be two Speedos on the deck. Last year the Professor had recovered from his stroke and appeared in briefs, which caused the girls to take up a collection to help him purchase trunks.
 
We have not seen him this year, so I hope he is OK.
 
The Creole’s Speedo briefs don’t quite come up to the crack of his ass. Which isn’t the most objectionable feature of the suit, as you can well imagine.
 
I was treading water, working on my twentieth minute late in the gray afternoon when the latest spectacle began. If we were on the beach in Cannes or Nice I wouldn’t pay much attention. There are much nicer things to look at there.
 
There was no option here. Joanna was huddled in a ball under the umbrella at the lifeguard station. The new guy peered at his laptop. The Creole marched to the outdoor shower near the clock and the thermometer at the deep end perilously close to where I swam, pulled the chain to start the water and began to manipulate his suit.
 
Too much information.
 
I paddled around so I would not have to look. Mrs. Hitler told me in confidence that he has a similar ritual in front of his unit window that is visible in the seasons when the leaves are down, and I am pleased that the foliage is dense this year.
 
After his shower the Creole began to swim his laps, a slow methodical Australian crawl that is inefficient enough to cause waves, which in turn cause me to paddle harder to keep the wavelets from immersing my ears. That went on from minute 25 to 41 of my work-out by the clock, and I was pleased when he finally stopped.
 
The waves subsided, I got my 45 minutes, and climbed out of the tank to towel off. The air was fiercely chill, and did not glance at the Creole where he sat, legs splayed, on one of the new blue and white couchettes. I offered Joanna my hoodie again, which she politely declined, and clambered up the stairs to the unit.
 
It was freezing. I was about to shed the sodden clothing when the phone rang. It was the Federal Government calling late on a Sunday.
 
Specifically, it was a Census Enumerator. I suppose she was nice enough, but I was still dripping and beginning to shiver. She said she was following up on the cards that had been mailed to Big Pink and the farm.
 
She asked me for my name, first and last, and told me this conversation could be recorded for training purposes.
 
“I returned your cards. What more do you need?”
 
“There is some ambiguity on which location you live. There is missing or conflicting information on your mailed-in Census form.”
 
“OK, you got me on the same cell phone that rings both places. Just count me once.”
 
“Would you say you live in Brandy Station or Arlington?” asked the lady insistently.
 
“Suppose I am exactly in both places half the time?”
 
“Do you live in a group home?”
 
Water dripped on the kitchen floor.  “This is not a group home and there is exactly one of me.”
 
“Do you have anyone who stays with you?”
 
“Like a girlfriend? That is none of your business.”
 
“Any other persons who could claim your home as a residence on April 1st?”
 
“I said count me once,” increasingly irritated. “I answered your card and that is enough information for you.”
 
The Enunerator was not happy with me. She offered to provide an address that I could write to at my expense to complain.
 
“You already have recorded this conversation, if your greeting is to be believed, and I am not happy with that, either. Let me tell you again: there is one of me.”
 
“This follow-up contact by the US Census Bureau is being made to make sure that the 2010 Census count is accurate,” she said, " and no one is counted twice."
 
“Count me once,” I said. I have never had a census grilling like this and the water dripping on the floor was cold. Suppose I just told her I lived in the pool? “As to where I chose to be, that is none of your business.”
 
The enumerator wasn’t happy with me, but that really isn’t my concern. The way I look at it, the Federal Government is more than a little like the Creole. Way too much information.
 
Copyright 2010 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
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