Many summers ago, I worked seventy-five hours a week for a pool cleaning company. It was a lot of work and it left me too tired to see any of my friends in the evening. I needed a job but I also needed a summer. It was a tough spot to be in.
My dad drove me out to a business park in the north-end early each weekday morning: ‘You’re going to have to find your own way out here next week, Ollie. That’s going to be your responsibility.’ I yawned and nodded and thanked him and waved goodbye. The canteen truck honked three times as it pulled in the back and workers streamed out from their roll-up doors to buy plastic-wrapped bacon and egg sandwiches and beige coffee in styrofoam cups. I stood near the loading dock in my steel-toed boots, the laces always coming undone and I shifted my weight on the uneven asphalt as I waited for Jon and Dave and the grey station wagon.
Jon and Dave were decent dudes who had done the job before and we got along well and enjoyed similar bands and all agreed on the radio station. Jon drove and Dave sat shotgun, I sat in the back. The clipboard with the job-list for the day sat between them in the front and I squinted at it to see how much work was ahead of us but I could never quite get a good enough look at it.
When we sat idling at an extra-long red light, I would daydream about popping my seatbelt off, sliding open the side door and just taking off without another word, hopping the nearest fence and running away to never go back to seventy-five hours a week but I never did. The light would always turn green and we’d hit the next job.
I felt guilty about wanting to run away. Men needed jobs to do, they needed to earn their keep in the world and I was a young man. It was time to take responsibility, my parents’ voice said in my head.
One job brought us to a rectangular public pool in the east-end between a parking lot and a sports-field full of yellow grass. The pool was full of stagnant black water. Dave checked the job clipboard in disbelief, it told him that the pool would be empty. Jon called the boss and told him that the pool was full but the boss said it should have been emptied the day before. Jon said he understood that, but the pool was still full. The boss put us on hold and Dave checked the clipboard again and shrugged. While they tried to figure it out, I walked over to talk to some of the kids hanging on the chain-link fence with their noses stuck through, their bikes lying behind them. They were happy when I told them the pool would be ready soon. It felt good to tell them.
The boss called back and told us to start pumping the pool out. It would take at least a few hours, but he would call back when he found another job for us to do. Jon relayed the news to Dave and me and I hid my joy and nodded gravely. We set the pump up and pointed the output tube to a sewer grate. Jon turned it on and it sputtered to life and started chugging and shuddering with a loud but strangely soothing sound. In a fence corner sat a strange tiny hill with an oak tree. I accepted its invitation, walked over and sat down. It felt good to take my steel-toed boots of and my socks and put my bare feet in the grass.
After pacing for a bit, Dave joined me. The grass was soft and green and the shade was perfect. Soon, Jon came over too to make sure we knew that he was still waiting for another job from the Boss. We told him we knew. Dave told him to join us and relax. He sat with us and put the cell phone in the grass next to him and reminded us to listen for the phone, and I couldn’t hear what he was saying over the noise of the pump but he repeated that it was very important we answer the phone. ‘Got it,’ I said.
The pump droned and chugged, and I lay back and it was a delicious feeling. The cicadas buzzed in my head and the pump droned on. It drowned out Dave’s voice and the voice in my head that I should be working harder, earning my keep like a real man and taking responsibility about something. I put my hat on my face and soon fell asleep, lulled by the pump and the summer heat.
Oliver Sullivan 