24 September 2010
 
The Polish National Team

(The Polish National Team, L-R: Blues Brother, Socotra, Mikhail, Butterfly Man. photo by Jeremy)

I knew the problem had begun in the Balkans; all the problems of modern times do. I did not realize how significant the long shadow of the Battle of Vienna was going to be on this placid but stifling season.
 
The heat index has been in the hundreds all week. There is a fever on the city that renders us all a bit languid, like great monitor lizards.
 
The summer at Big Pink had arrived at that place of the eternal now. The great conflicts have been resolved with civility. The great smoke-out has been resolved; Joanna’s feminine touch had kept the lid on the Revolt of the Grandmas. Jeremy and Chad have worked out their issues, but are not leading the charge to grill food and bring it onto the pool deck for drunken buffet dinners, the noise of which brought Speedo-man to sputtering rage.
 
Mrs. Hitler has lost so much weight that she is positively sylph-like, and not nearly so concerned with enforcing the code of conduct.
 
The matter of what clear liquid is in what plastic container has passed without incident. I am swimming more earnestly, and am concentrating more on working out than hanging out. not as interested in serious hanging out as in times past.
 
We are accustomed to the rhythm of the pool, of Joanna unlocking the gate at 1100 on weekdays, and an hour earlier on the weekends. That adjusts closing time to the left, of course, but we are used to it now.
 
That makes Fridays so special. Fridays are a special hybrid of working day and weekend. There is work to be done, of course, but the pool is open late, until nine. It being the dog-end of a hard week, I was home a little early. I can do office e-mail as well from my home computer as the one at the office, and I was in a celebratory mood. My older boy had graduated from his Master’s program that morning, and there was a quiet glow of accomplishment that carried on through the musky heat of the afternoon.
 
I shed the work clothes and got into my trunks and opened the back door to let the humid air flood in, bathing me in its glow. I attacked the e-mail that had piled up since I left the office, and cocktail hour arrived at precisely the moment that the queue was complete.
 
As I worked the last key-strokes, I heard a tumult rising from the pool deck. It was not the usual Marco-Polo echo game the kids play that contains the summer madness with such fevered clarity. Of course there was some of that; I could hear the splashings and the high-pitched sounds of the Marcos calling out to the Polos.
 
But there was something more: the deep basso-profundo of mitteleurope calling out and up from the lifeguard station. I went out on the balcony and blinked in the sunshine so fierce that it had actually weight against my skin. I peering down through the branches of the trees to the lifeguard station by the front gate, and saw some tall men lounging with authority on the deckchairs like an invading force.
 
This warranted investigation, and I shut down the computer for the weekend with relish. I found a shirt to wear (Pool Rule #4: cover-ups required in common areas), tucked a pack of smokes in my pocket with Bic lighter (Pool Rule #28 Smoking in Designated Areas Only) and slipped on my flip-flops (Pool Rule #12 Footwear required).
 
When I descended the four flights of stairs and emerged from the building I swam through the heat toward the gate. Joanna was face down on one of the recliners. Lean and angular Mikhail was in command of the pool; Oakely sunglasses and tan, his goatee framing his tanned face and impossibly long torso. Next to him was an impassive young man in Blues Brothers Ray-Bans, thick through the shoulders. Seated next to Joanna was another young man with the enormous pectorals of a butterfly specialist.
 
“Joanna,” I said, “Are you hung over?” She turned her head at me in misery.
 
“No. Is my time of month. Feel awful.”
 
There is a certain intimacy in sharing that level of personal information, and I was solicitous. Mikhail had taken a couple days to travel to Manhattan on the Magic Bus, and when the Blues Brother had completed a Skype call to his girlfriend in Wroclaw, he showed me a remarkable photo of himself alone on the bike lane of the Brooklyn Bridge.
 
“I go to 125th Street, too. Harlem is very important place.”
 
“Did you see the Apollo Theater?” I asked. He slipped off his glasses and looked at me with question marks in his pale blue eyes.
 
“You know, the place James Brown and all the great R&B singers performed.”
 
We all share the music, you know, and he smiled as he processed the information. “Oh, yes. I did not know, but walked in front of it. I saw Walk of Fame, Michael Jackson, and went from river to river on that street.”
 
I was impressed. Mikhail had done something I would like to have done, and resolved to do it. When I was his age, 125th Street would not have been a place I would have gone alone.
 
“How come you guys are hanging out here?” At that moment, lifeguards outnumbered residents by an attacking ratio of two-to-one.
 
“Serbians,” said Mikhail. He gestured at his two compatriots. “My friends must live with Serbians in group-house. Serbs are stupid. So they hang here.”
 
I nodded in agreement, and dropped my stuff at the usual table in the corner by the temperature gauge and the clock that times my work-out. I started my book-tape on the water-proof case for the iPod shuffle that hangs on the back of my ballcap and placed it on the edge of the pool. I plunged into the water, putting on my sunglasses as I hit the bottom of the deep end, the water shocking my system pleasantly.
 
I got myself all plugged in and began to swim, and chapters 47 to 52 rolled by. The Congressman was not really the father of the murdered girl’s daughter, I discovered, and what was more, the police action in the mystery had moved uptown from Hellgate on the Hudson to Harlem. Odd how life imitates fiction, sometimes.
 
As I paddled, I saw the Poles decamp on their bikes and return with bags of McDonald’s food. They bike everywhere here and are painfully fit. Lifeguards have special dispensation from Pool Rule #4 (No food on pool deck) and they feasted on burgers and fries and fish sandwiches with gusto. I looked on wistfully. I wish I could eat that crap, but at my age it goes immediately to my waist. These young people were still immortal.
 
I finished my work-out and went up to have a salad. As I left, Mikhail gestured at his friend with the Michael Phelps physique. “He was third in European Championship 200-meter Butterfly,” he said. “Polish National Team.” I was impressed. As I walked out the gate he added that he had brought me something from New York. I assured him I would be back after dinner. The pool was open until nine, after all, and the evening stretched out before us like the open road.
 
I basked in the sunlight that remained as it climbed up the massive pink flank of the building. I finished off “Mr. Peanut,” by Adam Ross. It is part of the book-club list, and took a remarkable twist at the end. When the fourth floor was in shadow and I grabbed my towel and went back down to the pool. The Poles were restive. Manda and Jeremy were sitting with BoP, all gazing at the muscular young men.
 
Mikhail greeted me with a smile and produced a Mickey D’s bag that was suspiciously heavy. “For you. Three beers from Poland. Okocim, Królewskie, and ?ywiec,” he said. I look hard for them in New York. These are real deal, import.”
 
They were cold, and I don’t know how he did it. I popped the top on the Okocim, and took two hard pulls on it. Damn, I thought. It was exactly like Stroh’s fire-brewed from back in Detroit.
 
I passed the can to Jeremy, who was looking with undisguised lust at Butterfly Man churning the waters with massive strokes. Chad is out of town, and he doesn’t have to be shy. “This is good beer,” I said, wiping my lips.
 
Jeremy drank, and passed the can to BoP, who drank and passed the can back to Mikhail, who almost raised it to his lips, a clear violation of Rule #2 (No alcohol on the Pool Deck, particularly in the hands of the Life Guard). He gave it back to me, and smiled.
 
The Poles frolicked until closing, and it was the first time in living memory that we had to remind the staff that it was closing time.
 
Copyright 2010 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
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