by Mark Bouman
“What made Dad decide to find a pool for us?” I asked.
“Who cares!” Jerry answered.
We connected three different hoses together, and before long we had a steady stream of water trickling in. And then . . . we waited. And kept on waiting. It seemed to take forever for the hose to fill the pool, and we were determined to wait until the water was high enough that we could take a real swim—no cheating! We tried to do our usual things to stay busy, but more often than not we found ourselves back at the side of the pool, peering in, trying to determine how many inches the water had risen since the last time we checked. Not even hunting with Zeke could take my mind off the pool and all its possibilities.
Finally the pool was ready. While Sheri watched, Jerry and I dragged a few old boxes over to the edge so we could get in—Dad hadn’t bothered to bring home a ladder or steps—and then the three of us took our first laps around our new pool. It was glorious. Sure, the water had already started turning the blue liner a shade of orange, and it was ice cold, but the pool was ours. We could hardly believe it: as if running water and a sunken bathtub weren’t luxury enough!
We soon discovered two reliable pool toys: Zeke and a plastic baseball bat. The bat, which had a hole at one end, filled with water and could maintain neutral buoyancy, like a submarine, and since it was streamlined, it made a perfect torpedo. We played a game in which one of us—two, if Sheri wasn’t off at one of her friends’ houses or tired of playing what she disdainfully called our “boy games”—would try to swim underwater from one side of the pool to the other, while the gunner would aim the bat and then accelerate it underwater, trying to anticipate the swimmer’s movement and score a hit.
“Ping, ping, ping,” came Jerry’s uncanny imitation of a submarine’s sonar, and that called for my response. “Flood all chambers! Dive, dive, dive!”
Once, Jerry hit me with the water-filled bat above water, when I came up for air, and it shoved one of my front teeth back against the roof of my mouth. Dad decided the dentist would be a waste of money, and he turned out to be right: over the course of the summer, my tongue slowly pushed my tooth back into place.
Zeke, though, was an even better toy. The easiest way to get him into the pool was to stand outside on the sand, lift him up, and then heave him up and over the edge. Getting out was, for both him and us, a matter of scrambling up the side and dropping to the ground. He loved to swim, and we loved it when he was in the pool with us. He was a yipping, tail-bashing game all by himself, and though we never knew what we’d do with him (Try to ride him? Teach him underwater fetch? Play Marco Polo?), it was always fun. We got him to understand the torpedo game well enough, though he tended to bite any incoming munitions and swim away with them. It was a summer of unexpected fun at the Bouman house, and between the pool and hunting with Zeke, I had rarely been as happy.
Like all things on our property, however, the pool slowly decayed. The inside liner, which had been the blue of a summer morning, turned a deep rust color, and since we weren’t putting any chemicals into the water and had no filtration system, bugs began to multiply. When we were underwater, wearing our diving masks, we’d come face-to-face with bugs as big as our thumbs, spiraling their lazy way through what must have seemed an ocean. We didn’t stop swimming, but we did become more careful about keeping our mouths closed underwater.
The bugs weren’t the biggest problem, though. The water level had started to drop faster and faster, to the point where we had to leave the hose running in the pool for most of the day. After some sleuthing, we discovered that whenever Zeke scrambled his way out of the pool, his toenails punched small holes in the liner. Mom bought us a patch kit in town, and we walked around the inside rim of the pool, covering the worst of Zeke’s tracks. From then on we gave him a boost over the side when he wanted to get out, hoping not to create any more leaks, since Mom hadn’t given the impression that she’d keep supplying us with patch kits.
A few weeks later, however, as the water level continued to drop, it became clear that Zeke’s toenails weren’t the real culprit. Jerry, donning a diving mask and spending so much time underwater that his skin wrinkled up like Grandpa Russell’s, eventually discovered a leak at the bottom of the pool, right in the corner where it met the wall. While I supplied moral support in the water, Jerry took one of our last patches and swam back to the bottom, but he found himself floating up to the surface before he could apply enough force to do the job. After several failed attempts, he spotted something that looked like a blue string right near the leak. It seemed to be waving at him, and thinking he could hold on to the string and stay underwater while he finished the patch, Jerry grabbed it.
He instantly discovered that the string was part of the stitching that held one of the pool’s main seams together. Jerry’s tug ripped the seam open a few inches, and that was all it took. The rip became a hole, the hole grew into a tear, and three seconds later the pool was split from top to bottom. Five thousand gallons of water exploded out of that side of the pool, leaving Jerry and me gaping like landed fish inside the suddenly empty pool. One instant we were swimming, and the next we were standing in a few inches of water on a heap of wet, blue plastic, watching our lives drain away.
Because it just so happened that the leak had been perfectly aligned with the doorway to Dad’s shed.
The sound of a mini tsunami caught Dad’s attention. He had been just behind the shed, and he raced around the corner in time to see Jerry and me standing atop the ruined pool in our swimsuits while a wall of water pushed hundreds of pounds of sand, dirt, and small rocks directly down the hillside toward him.
Without missing a beat, he charged for the front of the shed, yelling, “Don’t just stand there—close the door!”
Too late. By the time the flood hit the shed and redirected around it, the water had deposited more than a foot of sediment inside the shed. Luckily for Dad, he’d built the shed with a raised floor and separated floorboards, so all the water drained out. Unluckily for me and Jerry, though, the mud showed no inclination to follow the water. It took Jerry and me about thirty seconds to slosh our way out of the remains of the pool and scramble down the hillside to the shed, and that was how long it took Dad to grab two shovels and plunge them into the wet sand outside, blades first. There they stood, like drill sergeants, waiting to give us our marching orders. Dad didn’t even bother with words.
Jerry and I shoveled damp sand for three days, and on the first day Dad tore the pool down the rest of the way. He never moved it, and the ruined pile of plastic simply stayed there to rot.
Sometimes I’d picture that day in my mind: Dad appearing from behind the shed just as the waist-deep wall of water arrived, his face expressing something I’d never seen, and only for an instant. It was shock mostly, but mixed with a bit of fear and a dash of awe. It was the look of someone who is always in control realizing, if only for the briefest moment, that control is elusive. Those three days of shoveling blistered my hands, but it wasn’t an entirely unhappy memory.
Our house continued to decay as well. One of the floorboards in the living room eventually rotted all the way out. Dad yanked out the pieces of spongy wood with the claw of his hammer, but he never got around to replacing the board. That meant there was a hole in the floor about the size of a loaf of bread. We all knew where it was—just in front of where you’d stand if you were answering the phone—so it was easy to avoid—much easier than the water pipes and cooling fins we had to step over to get through the new doorway between the kitchen and the living room. Sheri found a small rug somewhere that she placed across the hole in the floor, and that became the new normal.
One day a saleswoman rapped on our door. Dad was gone, but Jerry and Sheri and I were in the house, so we all came into the living room and lurked behind Mom to see what would happen. The woman, dressed smartly in a white blouse and blue skirt, wanted to sell Mom beauty supplies, and she just knew she had something that would be perfect for Mom’s complexion a
nd hair color. Her white high-heeled shoes clicked as she walked into the house and sat down.
“Let me open this up,” she cooed. “Now let’s start with some foundation. We have various skin tones and shades.”
Mom might have liked to buy some, but we knew she wouldn’t. Not with Dad using all the spare cash for his toys. So Mom made a kind of politely noncommittal noise—“Mm?”—and kept listening.
“Next I’d like to show you blush . . .”
We three kids sat and watched her dig through her leather makeup case, fascinated by the exotic wares. Having salespeople come to the house was a rare event. One by one she placed little bottles on the table next to Mom.
“Oh, this is nice,” Mom said approvingly, unscrewing a cap on a vial of lotion and rubbing some of it on her skin. Sheri scooted closer so she could watch up close.
While Mom tried something else and Sheri tried the lotion, the woman asked if she could use our phone. “I just need to make a quick little call to my daughter.”
“Of course,” agreed Mom, still looking at the samples. “It’s right over there.”
As the woman rose from her seat and made for the phone, we kids became aware of a potential problem: she was headed directly for Sheri’s rug.
None of us said a thing, most likely because we were too shocked to speak. What happened next unfolded in slow motion.
With a grunt that became a screech, she tipped forward. Down went her front leg into the hidden hole, the rug wrapping itself around her ankle and disappearing, while her other leg splayed backward across the floor, straining her skirt’s stitching to its limits.
“Oh no!” Mom shrieked, and leaped to her feet. “I’m so sorry. There’s a hole there we haven’t fixed, and . . .”
Jerry ran to the woman’s side and tried to help Mom lift her out of the hole. After a bit of struggling, the woman slowly wobbled to her feet, still unsure of what exactly had happened to her. Her leg slipped out of the hole, but her shoe stayed folded up in the rug below, forcing Jerry to lie on his stomach and reach into the crawl space.
“I’m so sorry,” Mom repeated. “We all know the hole is there, so we just naturally avoid it. I’m so, so sorry.”
“Wow, I wondered what had happened. The floor just disappeared from under me!”
She straightened her blouse and skirt, then reached for the phone again.
We moved back to the couch. “Why didn’t you say something?” hissed Mom.
“I tried, but . . . ,” Jerry said, shrugging.
“And we all know it’s there, so . . . ,” Sheri added.
Mom sighed, then we all waited for the woman to finish her call. She hung up and made her way back to the couch. “So, is there anything else you’d like to see?”
Mom could see the woman wanted to escape. “No, not now. But maybe . . . ?”
“Yes, here’s my card. Call me when you’re ready to place an order.”
She hastily gathered her samples and haphazardly placed them in the leather case.
“It was nice to meet you,” she said, standing. “Thank you for your time, Mrs. . . .”
“Bouman.”
“Good-bye now, Mrs. Bouman.”
“I’m so sorry,” Mom said, opening the front door. Mom followed her outside, apologizing the whole way. We stayed behind, staring down into the hole.
“Did you see how fast she dropped?” Jerry whispered, motioning with his hand. “Zooooom, down she went!”
We laughed until our stomachs hurt. I wished Dad had been there to see the whole thing. He would have loved it.
30
EVER SINCE THE YEAR we had spent an entire summer on the Patrol, the ship had become more Dad’s toy and less a family activity. He and his buddies still used it for diving, and the five of us made only occasional trips to the Grand River—a weekend here and a weekend there. While driving back to Belmont after one such trip, I spotted a turtle on the highway up ahead. It was large enough for me to see from the backseat of our Ford, even driving sixty, and Dad saw it too. Dark and disc-shaped, the mud turtle was hauling its bulk across the two-lane highway. It was a kind I usually avoided in the waters of the Grand River. While my favorite paint turtles were gentle and safe, bigger species like the muds and snappers seemed to have an unpredictable dark side.
“Hey, Mark, want me to stop so you can grab that turtle?”
It took me too long to process what Dad had said, so unexpected was his consideration. We passed turtles on the road all the time, and Dad had never even commented on one, let alone offered to stop so I could pick one up. He decided for me, slamming on the brakes and skidding the car to a stop on the shoulder in a cloud of dust and flying gravel. Recovered from my initial shock, and still in disbelief about my luck, I leaped out of the backseat and then raced along the edge of the road before swerving toward the yellow centerline. I scooped up the turtle with two hands and sprinted back to the waiting car. There was no way Dad could change his mind now.
My door was still open, and as I slid into my seat, I held the turtle in one hand and yanked the door closed with the other. Right away Dad pulled back onto the highway, having left the engine idling while I claimed my prize. Sheri was sitting beside me, and Jerry was on the other side of her, and both leaned over to inspect my find. It was a beauty. At least a foot across, its shell was a mix of flat, dark green—like an underwater plant—and lustrous brown. It opened and closed its mouth as we peered at it, giving the impression of asking what in the world had just happened to it.
Soon we were back at highway speed, and as our car hummed along, I stared at my new friend. Dad rarely allowed talking or singing or game playing in the car. Usually we all sat in silence, but if he was in a particularly bad mood, and one of us made a noise, Dad would nearly drive off the road while wildly trying to smack us from the front seat. Having a large turtle in the backseat, however, presented a whole new set of entertainment possibilities.
My first thought was to scare my sister. Holding my new pet in both hands, I eased it upward, inching it closer and closer to my sister’s face. At first she didn’t notice but kept on staring straight ahead, moving her lips slightly to some internal dialogue or song. When the turtle was less than a foot from her face, staring right at her and still opening and closing its mouth, Sheri reentered reality with an audible scream and a full-body spasm. Her legs leaped off the floor, her elbows dug into Jerry and me, and her head jerked back, away from the turtle.
The sound of breaking glass was unmistakable, even over the noise of driving with all the windows down. There was only one thing it could be: the antique lamp Mom had found at an estate sale on our way to the Patrol several days earlier. Dad had balanced it on the shelf beneath the rear window and told us not to touch it. Sheri’s head had done far more than touch it: she’d knocked the lamp backward so hard that its leaded-glass shade had shattered against the rear window.
Without taking his left hand from the steering wheel, Dad spun around and slapped Sheri hard, right across her face. “I told you to be careful!” he screamed.
Gasping, she yelled back, “But Mark scared me with the turtle!”
Dad put his right hand back on the wheel. I could see the muscles in his shoulders knotting, flexing.
“Mark,” he commanded, “you throw that thing out the window!”
“But Dad, it’s—”
“Do it now!”
The entire car was frozen. In the front seat, Dad white-knuckled the wheel and Mom stared straight ahead. In the backseat, Jerry gaped at me, bug-eyed, while Sheri’s face was a red-welted mask of confusion and pain. I was frozen too, still holding the turtle suspended, its small mouth open. The rush of hot highway wind was the only noise.
Then the turtle peed, its warm urine running down my arm and staining my shirt and pants.
Dad broke the silence. “What are you waiting for?” he screamed. “Throw that f—ing turtle out the window!”
So I did.
With one reflexive
motion, I tossed the turtle to my left like water from a bucket. When it hit the slipstream it disappeared, instantly, spinning away into oblivion.
Dad pushed the car up to fifty-five. Sixty. Sixty-five. The rest of us sat in stunned silence, pinned to our seats. I pictured the pavement behind us, unwinding like the wake of a ship. I thought of the turtle in midair, windmilling his legs in slow motion, and of how it had no idea, as it spun toward the road, what was waiting for it.
31
ONE NIGHT I WAS heating some water on our gas stove. After holding the lit match to the burner, I blew it out and flicked it into the garbage pail. Dad had been sitting at the kitchen table, reading a book, but he was in my face in an instant.
“What the f— was that? Do you have any idea what you just did?”
My shocked stare was answer enough.
“You just tried to burn down the house, you imbecile!” He reached into the garbage and pulled out the spent match. Holding it between two fingers, he waved it in front of my face. “This match was hot when you threw it in there, and a hot match still burns!”
Before I could process what he told me, he flicked the first match back into the garbage and grabbed a new match. Holding it in his right hand, he lit it and then grabbed my wrist with his left hand. Then he blew out the lit match and shoved its smoldering tip into the palm of my hand.
“How does that feel?”
“Ow! Ow!” I tried to jerk away, but Dad held on tightly.
“Did that burn you?” he asked, almost amused.
“Yes, yes,” I whimpered.
“Then why the f— did you drop it in the trash? So you could burn down the house? What an idiot. When are you going to be more careful? At least you learned never to do that again.”
