Vic Socotra

28 July 2009

In the Soup

(Down East Feast)

The crisis de jour was the stupid pool. It is the center of social life here in the summer, our solace and exercise venue. It is a harbor of rumors, anchorage of the the grapevine. Happy Hour watering hole for some, anchorage of aberrant behavior for others. Blue magnet. It is what makes Big Pink like a resort, the gem of cool water in the green of the campus.

I don’t know who did it, but someone had the gall to complain about the refreshing coolness over the weekend- it was really the best two days of perfect temperature, crisp against the rising humidity. Delightful on the skin after a doze in the sun.

It is a venerable pool with a history. It dates to the dawn of Big Pink, in 1964, and hence is run by great pumps and plumbing the like of which no longer exist in this world outside of museums. In a more expansive America, the pool was designed to run just about as long into the Fall and Winter as anyone wanted to use it. The boiler-room could be called upon to raise the ambient temperature so that happy residents could literally swim in a blizzard.

That idea went on the rocks with the first oil shock of the 1970s, and prudent management turned the temperature way down, and restricted the season to the days between Memorial and Labor Days. There is always a fight between the board and the swimmers for the last two weekends after that. The American kids who used to be the lifeguards would all be gone, and there were just a few people left to sit by the gate and doze on the first two weekends of September.

The Board members don’t swim, so we have to watch them like hawks ever year to ensure that the money is in the budget to pay for those last precious fur days.

The lifeguards from the former Soviet Block lifeguards are gone by then, and sometimes even Peter the Pool Czar himself has to man the pool deck. He looks exactly like Fabio, the face, hair and torso that decorate the bodice-rippers that you used to see at the beach when we were all a little younger.

Only Peter is empowered to touch the thermostat- think nuclear fuel rods and heavy chain-falls- and he should have known better than to touch it. At least, that is the public opinion of Cuba, the Polish Lifeguard, and the phone at the Lifeguard desk was unusually active.

I should have know something was up, but I was a little distracted.

I made mac-and-cheese for the Intern, since we are getting down to the last few days of her penance at the State Department. She had forgotten a key at a friend’s house and had to go downtown to get it; I got dinner put together and slid it in the oven to stay warm and went down to the pool.

It has been a little humid, of late, not bad, but I was looking forward to the coolness. The Doc was just getting out of the pool with her water-weights and Jiggs was standing ready to get in. He is facing a medical procedure next month, and is trying to get as fit as possible before it happens.

The aging Creole was so giddy about something he was positively fluttering. The black Speedo he weas is certainly continental, or would have been on a younger Fabio, but it creeps out all the women, who have discussed a petition to get him to stop. He was so excited this evening that at least two inches more of the crack of his butt were out for public inspection.

They all looked at me with apprehension.

"It is a little warm," said the Doc.

"Oh, no. Not like two years ago?"

Jesus. That was the awful season where we sweltered under one of the District's periodic imitations of the Amazon Rain Forest. Humidity and temperature were around a hundred, and then the transformer blew out, just as the crazy thermostat maxed out the pool temperature- it was a hundred in air, a hundred percent humidity, and a hundred in the water, and dark and still in the little concrete boxes where we live.

Some of the residents took to driving around the block in their cars with the air conditioning on full until they ran out of fuel, and others drooped on their balconies like Dali wristwatches, hoping for a wheeze of moist air.

Someone- I'm not mentioning any names, mind you- responded to the swelter by drinking heavily, and wound up half nude, listening to their iPod on the balcony. For the rest of the residents in the steamy soup, it was like the Karaoke night from hell.

There were Red Book entries at the front desk, and sweat made the ink run in the ledger.

"Maybe worse Of course it isn't so hot as it was then. But it is not very refreshing."

I looked at Cuba, who kept his eyes down. The white board that he updates with the Ph and Chlorine levels behind him has a little box for the temperature. It read "88 degrees."

"Shoot. I was counting on a good plunge."

"You can plunge away," said Jiggs, "but you are going to do it like a lobster goes in the pot."

Memories of how awful it was in the hot water under the dark, silent and powerless bulk of the building flooded back. The sharp smell of warm chlorine wafted up from the oily-looking surface of the water.

"This is an outrage! It is the middle of the effing summer in Washington, DC! Who complained?" I glowered at Cuba, who looked down at a crack in the concrete.

I knew he knew who it was. He could imagine a knot of angry villagers surrounding him, and they probably would have had torches except that it would have been too hot.

"All right, Cuba, calm down. No one cares who the wuss is that couldn't handle a little refreshment, and it is not your fault that Peter messed with the nuclear reactor.”

Cuba still looked hyper alert for signs of mutiny.

We did plunge, of course, and when I hit the water my eyes opened like those of the lobster who is about to make a real personal commitment to the bisque. Spluttering, I rose to the suface.

“This is appalling! Someone is going to pay for this!” I pitched over and headed for the bottom, the thermocline of really hot water almost visible. I reached the in-flow, and placed my hand over it. My God, it was actually hot to the touch!

I pushed off the bottom and swam upward through liquid with the consistency of chicken soup. I broke the surface as Uncle Bill made a racing dive to start his laps. He made it as far as the ladder, stopped and climbed out.

“Nope,” he said laconically, dripping warm water on the concrete. “Not tonight.”

I paddled in the deep end, feeling the effect of his strokes as a tempering of the relentless heat.

“I don’t think we are going to make 45 minutes in there tonight,” I said to Jiggs.

He grimaced. “If we do 45 minutes, we may as well just stay overnight. We will be fully cooked by morning.”

“It is an idea,” I said. "But they will have to bring an awful lot of butter.”

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