Vic Socotra

27 August 2008

Bombshell

A bombshell arrives like a thunderclap, only with shrapnel and the smell of cordite.

I got one on the phone last night, and the smoke may as well have curled in wisps out of the handset. I didn’t know it was coming, which is in the nature of things. If you did you could huddle under the desk, or plug your ears. Or just not a nswer the call.

That is a problem, since people have taken to calling me at odd hours about things that properly should be confined to the hours between nine and five in the afternoon.

Mostly I don’t know who it is, so I give it my best professional shot, so they are not aware that I am standing in my underwear, or dripping by the side of the pool.

You want to convey that crisp air of confidence. This one was from=2 0someone I knew, in fact very well at one point, and with whom I have to be on my guard at all times.

I had to answer, since bad news does not get better with age, and was pleasantly surprised that the conversation seemed to be fairly civil. At least it was until the bombshell went off. There was not immediate flash, so there was nothing to signify the significance of the moment.

I had to make a note after it was all over, since it could be a complete game-changer.

I don’t know. I thought about that while I sipped a drink down by the pool before plunging into the coolness.

Some people have therapists, others bartenders. I have the Czech Lifeguard.

Jakob told me it had been a quiet day, only seven patrons through the gate before I arrived. The water had not been churned with the passing of the senior swimmers, or roiled with the plunging of the children.

Consequently, the thermal layers of the water were clearly distinct as my body plunged through them. Warm on the top, with a clear boundary layer between a cooler mass below. Over time, the kicking of my legs began to churn away the difference, but in the initial moments of the shock of acclimatization it was as though a chill knife had been drawn across my diaphragm.

Jakob seemed to be a still life under his umbrella as the shadows deepened. Nothing happening on Tony’s patio, where his Tiki Bar sign hung crookedly on the tree. Things had been so raucous there just a few weeks ago, and now the patio and the outdoor bar was as silent as the tomb.

The sign said the bar was open, but it was clear that it was closed for the season. The silence was oppressive.

No bluff Jiggs with his old Navy growl. No wiry old French guy in his Speedos, no Professor with his corny jokes. The women seem to have given him a pass on his disquieting swimsuit this season. Maybe it is because of the stroke. He is no threat anymore, just mildly addled.

No Montana camped out in the cool shadows. She has more time on the deck than anyone, and has not yet been in the water. A woman of principle; she is the queen of the concrete and she allows me to pretend to be Neptune of the blue water for the season.

Alone in the wet darkness, I thought about the phone call.

I was on the verge of insight when Ludmilla came down to break the silence. The irresolute suitor is still very much on her mind, and she welcomed the opportunity to paddle and talk. She explained that the last time things had been so painfully unclear she had lit out for the woods, a lovelier version of Huck Finn, and hiked the Appalachian trail for three weeks to clear her head.

Clarity, I thought. Maybe a long walk in the woods would bring it. Or Lyme’s disease.

Then the Doc arrived to jump in. The time went by fairly quickly after that. There is nothing slower than time when you are paddling in one place, seemingly not getting anywhere.

I reflected on that as the Doc finished her work-out, and Ludmilla said she had enough.

I did not want to be alone again, at least not there. I decided to go be alone in a smaller place where the shadows were not so deep. Maybe watch the politics in Denver and see if Hillary was going to roll a bombshell into the Obama coronation. Maybe the flickering insubstantial images from the flat-scree n could rouse some simulated passion.

Everything had turned around since I got in the water. Raising my arm out I noted that the air was colder than the water. How on earth had that happened?

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