by Peter Harmon
A flashy sports car passed, you know the kind, over five hundred horsepower with an automatic transmission. Charlie raised his brows at it. The vanity license plate read 1NNBR3D. The car parked and Florence Comfortinn stepped out. She was in her late teens and good-looking in an Instagram kind of way, smartly dressed in tennis casual. She walked into the compound through the guard gate.
Charlie was surprised that her camera crew wasn’t with her as she was one of the cast members of a local web-based reality show, Rich B Words of Yellow County. But anyway, he didn’t care too much so he threw the trench coat into his trunk, shut it, and made his way toward the guard gate, but a late ’90s ’Stang blaring some repetitive dubstep beat sped too close to him, almost hitting him.
“Watch it, Judas!” he yelled.
The Mustang screeched into a parking spot and Judas Traditore stepped out, a large fraternity brother in a Beta Gamma Theta T-shirt, size large but tight in the sleeves to show off his large guns. He barely registered Charlie’s complaint but gave an obligatory tug on his crotch and said simply, poetically, “Suck it.”
•••
A quick primer on the Rich B Words of Yellow County: The bi-monthly semi-scripted docu-drama web-series followed the social lives of five wealthy teens, most of whom went to East Yellow High. It was shot and edited by an EYHS junior, Jerd McKinley. Jerd originally started the show as a ruse to get close to the most popular girls he knew of, but soon he was swept up in the show’s success.
He went from editing the series extracurricularly in his bedroom to being able to use the school’s computer lab during a free period for an in-school internship credit. Jerd was savvy.
The show received some scrutiny, however, from the East Yellow High School newspaper, the East Yellow Journal, when one of the show’s stars claimed she was a victim of “Frankenbiting,” a term used in the reality television realm to describe chopping up a person’s sound bites and reordering them to make the person appear to say a sentence that they never said, much like Dr. Frankenstein’s monster was a creature created from a variety of human appendages that should have never been assembled.
Jerd deftly dodged the criticism, claiming it was typical East Yellow journalism. Nonetheless, the show was on hiatus for that particular summer.
•••
As Charlie made his way through the guard gate, maybe two dozen teenaged staff members were already sitting at the picnic tables by the snack bar waiting for the meeting to start. Jonathan and Bill conversed. Florence texted furiously. Judas power-thrusted at some young female lifeguards. So everything was pretty much business as usual.
Charlie spotted Roheed sitting alone and made his way over to him. Roheed’s eyes lit up when he saw Charlie, and they exchanged a conservative high-five, not really a low five, more of a mid-five, kind of a two and a half.
“Roheed, my man. What’s been up over at North Yellow High?”
“I have just completed another year of high school.”
“Hope you didn’t get into too much trouble,” Charlie joked.
Roheed didn’t follow. “There was this one time in AP Calculus when the teacher thought I was programming formulas into my calculator because I kept getting perfect scores. But I wasn’t, and it was all a big misunderstanding.”
“I meant like getting arrested at a party or something, but whatever. How have the ladies been treating you?”
“Oh, they’ve calmed down with the name calling substantially.”
That wasn’t what Charlie meant either, but he let it go; Jonathan was making an announcement anyway.
“We’re just waiting for a few more people,” he said. “We’ll start in a couple minutes.”
Charlie, a little disappointed at the quality of Jonathan’s announcement—I mean, why even stop everyone for something so trivial?—leaned back over to Roheed and asked, “Do you have a girlfriend? Have an occasional late night creep on the down-low?”
“Sadly, no. It seems intelligence and personality aren’t necessarily what’s trending currently.”
Just then Judas stood up on a picnic bench to display his extra-long whistle lanyard that he had modified to hang near his genital region.
He addressed his public, “Hey!”
Charlie nudged Roheed and said, “As if on cue…”
Judas continued, “Which one of you ladies wants to blow my ‘whistle’?” He used his pointer and middle fingers to make big floating quotation marks in the air, as if he needed to.
Scattered laughter and groaning, in near equal measure, rippled over the young staff.
“Anyway,” Charlie said, “maybe this will be your summer.”
“Indubitably,” Roheed replied.
Jonathan cleared his throat; the staff quieted. “Today is the opening day of the fiftieth season of the Yellow County Community Swim and Racquet Club. Bill here…”—Jonathan gestured to Bill, and Bill threw up a rock-on devil’s horns hand signal—“is on the board that oversees this whole operation. He’s my boss, and I’m your boss. My name is Jonathan.”
One joker called out, “Hey, Jonathan,” and some of his dumb middle-school buddies chortled.
Jonathan continued, “Now let me introduce your management staff. Judas Traditore is my lifeguard assistant manager.” Judas smiled proudly, then began tweaking his nipples through his shirt when Jonathan looked away and continued with his spiel. “Charlie Heralds is the snack bar manager.” Charlie waved humbly. “With his assistant manager Roheed Mahaad.” Roheed gave the live long and prosper sign and said nothing.
“That brings us to our first new management employee in quite some time. She will be our new tennis court maintenance manager. May our former tennis court maintenance manager Harris rest in peace.” He took a moment, breathed through his apparent sadness, and continued. “Let me introduce you to Florence.”
Florence took a short break from texting to stand up and do a slight curtsy. Roheed’s eyes widened, just noticing her for the first time. Charlie saw Roheed staring at Florence and took a small notebook—the kind you can get in a pack of five for a dollar—out of his back pocket.
And then Florence stood in a sundrenched field, tossing her hair in slow motion as it shone softly, out of focus. The air smelled of fresh lilac and she was wearing medieval dress and wielding a foam LARPing sword.
Roheed appeared, dressed to the hilt in plastic armor. They began fighting, foam on foam, foam on plastic, until Florence brought her sword up in a mighty slice, hitting Roheed in the chest and bringing them both to the ground, Florence on top of Roheed. She poised to stab him with the rounded tip of her weapon.
They broke down into laughter. Florence smiled, “Talk nerdy to me.”
She moved in for the kiss.
Charlie shook his head—Jonathan was droning on about safety in and around the pool, as he was apt to do.
“So like I said,” Jonathan re-said, “there is no running on the pool deck, especially if the pool deck is wet, but the sticky wicket is that if the pool deck is too hot, it could also pose a problem—some toesies might get burnt. Or at least the hot deck will make children want to run from the deck to the pool, but they will inevitably slip and scrape their knees, so we have to take the bucket from off of the hook on the side of the pump shed and dump pool water on the deck to cool the deck down. And to add a degree of difficulty, the wet pool deck is slippery, so there is no running on the pool deck…”
Roheed of course was still staring at Florence, so Charlie bumped him with his elbow.
“Come on, man, Jonathan’s talking about his hot deck again, but we open at eleven and all the dishes will be covered in dust from the off-season.”
Roheed stopped staring, begrudgingly.
Charlie closed his notebook and tucked it back into his pocket, the line “Talk nerdy to me” written in block letters on one of the lined pages.
CHAPTER 3
AS JONATHAN CHECKED the pool’s pH with a small kit, Judas, always putting his own flourish on th
e task at hand, sprayed off the pool deck with a hose threaded between his legs so it looked like he was urinating all over the place. If Judas had actually been making human lemonade, his acidic urine would have trickled into the pool and thrown off Jonathan’s readings substantially because he had been pounding brews until the wee hours of that very morning. But fortunately for all involved, he was not peeing, just spraying some tepid water out of an old hose.
Speaking of an old hose, Bill kicked back and listened to his ‘phones in the guard office.
On the clay tennis courts, Florence went along the boundary lines with a brush. She had already dragged the six-foot-wide court broom to and fro across the length of the six- court expanse. After the boundary lining she would turn on the sprinklers and give the clay a quick sip so they could dry before opening hour. If there was one thing she had learned at her parents’ country club from the—her words—“kindly African-American gentleman who ran the facilities,” it was how to maintain a clay tennis court. What she never learned, or cared to ask for, was his name, but if you were to ask her, she would immediately say “Bagger Vance.”
•••
Charlie and Roheed stood by the massive three-basin sink in the snack bar and did the dishes.
Charlie washed. “I feel like I’m just on summer vacation right now, in a bad way.”
Roheed dried. “What was graduation like?”
“Terrifying.” Charlie shuddered.
“I saw some of the short films you made. They were funny.”
“They didn’t get into any festivals. They didn’t get any hits on the Internet,” Charlie said as if those goals were of equal weight.
“You just graduated high school. Maybe your aspirations are too high.”
“Nobody knows who I am.”
“Do you have anything in the works?”
“I’m working on a screenplay, or trying to. I don’t have any good ideas.”
Roheed dried a ladle with decades-old nacho cheese permanently caked on it. Charlie lowered his head. “I haven’t finished my application to film school yet. I need a writing sample, and I’ve got nothing. I got a C in screenwriting…I’d rather not talk about it.”
“My parents would kill me if I got a C.”
Jill Bateman, a fourteen-year-old first-year snack bar employee, struggled with her hollow-boned bird arms to open an industrial-sized tub of ranch dressing. Her YCCSRC T-shirt was knotted on the side to expose a little bit of midriff, size XS for Xtra Sexiness. She hadn’t quite figured out what to do with her hair yet and was all limbs and no torso, but that wasn’t slowing her down.
Charlie watched Jill in his periphery to make sure she didn’t make a mess. “Yeah, mine don’t know yet. They think—” and sure enough, she got the ranch open and spilled it all over the floor.
Charlie grabbed some rags, handed one to Jill, and they began sopping up the creamy dressing.
Florence walked by the window. Roheed stared. Charlie got up from the floor, returned to the dishes and continued washing. When he glanced back to check Jill’s progress, she was bending over, rag in hand. She looked over her left shoulder at Charlie, enticingly. She put her finger in the spilled white liquid and licked it in a way that she thought was provocative.
Disgusted, Charlie turned back to the sink. He tried to hand Roheed a wet dish, but Roheed was still transfixed on the window. Charlie dropped the dish and it fell to the floor and shattered. He looked over to see what the heck Roheed was doing.
“Roheed.”
“Um, what? I was just…”
Charlie saw that Roheed was staring at Florence. “Don’t get your hopes up. That’s Florence Comfortinn, socialite heiress to the Comfort Inn fortune.”
“I didn’t realize Comfort Inn had a fortune to speak of.”
“It does, and she’s the heiress to it. She’s named after the first and most successful Comfort Inn Motel.”
“Florence, Italy. How romantic.”
“Actually Florence, Alabama.”
“At any rate, she’s exquisite.”
“I heard she was dating Alabaster Sixx, son of the CEO of Motel 6. Could have been a rumor though.”
“What is a diamond like her doing in this rough?”
“She’s doing community service for something.”
“Maybe it was for the theft of my heart.”
Charlie patted him on the back. “Okay, buddy.” They continued doing the dishes. Roheed was still awed. Charlie looked closely at a spatula. “This may sound strange, but does it look like someone has been cooking in here recently?”
CHAPTER 4
THE FRONT DOORS opened, and a flood of people walked into the Swim and Racquet Club with towels, sun hats and pool toys. Teens did increasingly daring flips off of the diving boards. Younger boys played an intense game of ping-pong. From his guard chair, Judas watched a couple ladies sunning themselves as a young girl sputtered in the three feet.
Bill patrolled the pool grounds, hugging women and kissing babies like a heavy metal politician. He air-guitared with the ping-pong playing pair and playfully guided the hips of an older woman playing shuffleboard. He left everyone he met with a rock-on devil’s horns.
On the tennis courts, Florence briefed her tennis court workers. They were as young as legally possible with their signed work permits. For many of them it was their first job, and they were all chubby middle-schoolers with bad teeth or braces. Florence wore ridiculous designer sunglasses that were too big for her face, and she spoke in a disinterested, but surprisingly knowledgeable, voice.
“… and that is the line brush. It keeps the lines clean so our players can tell if a ball is out or whatever. Over there is the hose. You can use it to spray, like, water and stuff. Since these are clay courts, they need to be kept moist at all times.”
She bent over and picked up some clay and sifted it through her hands.
Judas stood with Matt Hedge, a goofy lifeguard with patchy facial hair, big teeth and a generic tattoo of a tribal sun. They watched Florence from behind a fence.
Judas leered. “I’d like to keep her moist at all times.”
“That’s what she said.” Matt went for a high-five; Judas denied him.
“No, I just said that. But I tell you, she’ll be mine by the end of the summer. I’m definitely at least going to can those hams.”
“Totally dude-a-saurus.”
“Seriously though, Florence is hot. I need a piece.”
“Totally my bromosapien.”
The inevitable high-five was then finally fived.
As Judas and Matt continued to ogle Florence, Jonathan threw out the first pitch of the first game of tennis baseball of the season. If you still don’t know what tennis baseball is and can’t glean what it could possibly be from the name, then first, I’m sorry that you have been deprived in your youth of a very terrific game, and second, you should take a look at your context clue sleuthery; then, I will tell you that tennis baseball is very much like America’s favorite pastime, but with a racquet and tennis ball in place of the bat and baseball usually used.
Board-short-clad boys ran shirtless around the backfield of the club, blades of freshly cut grass clinging to their bare feet. That one kid was sitting in a deck chair, leg propped up, shirt on, complaining of a tweaked ankle when in actuality he didn’t want to take his shirt off in front of the gaggle of girls that was forming to watch the young lads play. He would rather look like a wuss than risk being called ape-tits, or slopgut, or tons of fun, or flapjack titties, in front of his peers.
Jonathan’s heart went out to the youngster—he too had had those awkward middle adolescent years that some do. So when Devon Wilkenshire, who had an eight-pack since birth and didn’t understand body image issues, called to the chubby friend on the sideline, “Hey, fat ass, we need another player. Jiggle your double Ds on out here,” Jonathan’s pulse quickened, then slowed again with a zenlike calm.
He looked straight into Wilkenshire’s soul and said, “Devo
n, your mom told me to let you know when it was eleven thirty so you could go use one of your medicated wipes. She said she knows your anus is all raw from diarrhea but that the wipes will help,” and then he walked away, leaving the chips to fall where they may.
Wilkenshire sputtered that it wasn’t true to the fellas, who were laughing their heads off, and his little fan club quickly dispersed, laughing and texting to each other about Devon’s burning butthole. And for that young man who had been sidelined by shame, for that moment, his deck chair became a throne.
CHAPTER 5
THE SUN BEGAN to set on the Yellow County Community Swim and Racquet Club. Children were sunburned, mothers carried sleeping babies, and the lifeguards began to clean up. Bill waved to the regulars as they left. Judas picked up a pink swim noodle and pretended it was his giant foam weenie. He mock humped the air, then bumped Matt Hedge in the face a bunch of times, laughing. Florence apathetically hosed down the tennis courts without paying attention to where the water was spraying.
The first day had been a successful one. The opening day barbecue had gone off without a hitch—Mr. Jones had been a more than adequate grillsman. There were only two scraped knees the whole day, and they were on the same pair of legs. And the highlight of opening day, to some, was when The Hot Mom arrived. The middle school set didn’t know how old she was (44), or what her name was (Jennifer Tribolini), or even whose mother she was (Timmy Tribolini, who spent most of the summer with his dad over in Brown County), but she was a legend. She walked the pool deck in her outdated bikini, tossing her too curly hair, unknowingly the fantasy of a flock of fourteen-year-olds. To them she was woman personified: curvaceous, exotic (well, tan at least), and experienced, and the pasty, flat-chested tween girls that were the boys’ peers literally paled in comparison to The Hot Mom. Many a tall tale was told about her in the gazebo up by the satellite Har-Tru tennis courts in the southeast corner of the club compound. So yeah, when she sashayed into the YCCSRC that day, those young dudes were pumped, and to their delight she reclined in a chair all day, sunning.
