Fall in May

~21~ Dare I ask ...just what the hell were you thinking?

 "Better the devil you know than the devil you don't know."  ~ Irish Proverb   

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After the underwater scream fest to purge out the weakness in me, I start my shift guarding the lives of the night swimmers of San Fall. The thing I like the most about the night shift, zero dumb drunk mothers trying to kill their kids. The night crowd at the Annex pool is about thirty or so lappers, just doing theri thing. Who are mostly professional looking older swimmers, but not yet raisin level ancient. And unlike the athletic "pushing it hard"  gym crowd, most of these lappers are mostly middle-aged, my doctor says swimming is a good exercise for my heart  types. I think of them less as actual lappers, and much more as Pacers really.  

They are generally slow to get into the pool. Even more sluggish in the water, as they steadily tread through their time in the pool. Most of the Pacers tend to start off in a forward crawl style. Then after a lap or two they switch over to a lazy breaststroke, that keeps their goggled heads bobbing just above the surface. Which truth be told, makes my time lording over them from the throne all that much easier. Watching their heads bob up and down as they lazily crawl up and down the lap lanes.

Fact is that most of the Pacers are actually pretty polite and respectful towards each other, both in the water and out. The most telling sign to me is that none of these Pacers are high fiving each other for "pushin' it hard".  If they even bother to acknowledge each other at all, it's usually with a polite nod or the rare friendly wave of recognition.

My boss, Old Joe Blake takes off for dinner with his wife at precisely six o'clock every day, which is fine by me. I find I like Old Joe a lot more when we spend a lot less time together. The pool closes at 8 o'clock sharp, after seeing the last of the Pacers on their way out the door. I lock up and do my own water time, starting with the obligatory deck check. 

Upside, not a lot of gum chewers at the Annex, so I don't need to break out the ol' Plunger gum-glass scraping tools. Downside, I find more than my fair share of generic brown Band-Aids floating in the overflow drains. My Special Olympians love the colorful waterproof Band-Aids with comic book heroes or kiss lips on them, so I know it's not them. Personally, I hold the Raisins responsible for this floatsom, cause wearing little brown Band-Aids everywhere is like the Raisin thing to do.

At the end of my deck check, I do my own water time at the bottom of the deep end before showering off before heading home. After all my fun at Da Frost I am unusually careful leaving the Annex tonight, just in case Butcher and the boys are lying in wait to give me a proper welcome to San Fall beat down. I slip out the side office door into the darkness and circle around the side of the building to check out the parking lot, but the lot is empty save for all the old ghosts that live here.

The skate home is always easier than the skate there, seeing the Annex sits on a bit of a hill rise. So if I take the five minutes to push up the top of the slope and angle my ride right, where I can take the slow slide down the back streets almost all the way home. I slalom silently down the sloping streets with my night eyes skinned for any of the Butcher's Boys. But thanffully there none are to be had.  By the time I roll up to home, Aces Impala is long gone from its normal spot in the driveway and the house is completely dark. Which is not surprising seeing it is football night at the Hall of Heroes and my grandmother has probably is gone out to find more lost souls to sacrifice to her old world gods.  

Drifting in through the backdoor I say wazzup to all the Chinese kitchen demons, and check the fridge for dinner. A half a glass pan of something that looks like lasagna has been left for me find. And to my surprise a bold note attached to the front of the refrigerator that reads like an epitaph.