Deep End Dance
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I nearly agreed with him but then something showed up beneath the diving board, wafting down upon me like a flannel scratchy sheet, a second skin, as I stood in the brackish water. The unmistakable odor of vinegar - the emollient, cleanser, and most valuable liquid in any kitchen cabinet. For a second, I gagged, but I went on with my day like I wasn’t standing nude in a drained, malodorous pool at a mental hospital in a city that once was the insurance capital of the world, trying to stop a disturbed bully from cracking open his skull.“I don’t want you to die, Justin,” I said. “But why go and bother me an hour ago as I sat on the bench listening to Mud Slid Slim and the Blue Horizon?”“Sweet Baby James is like ninety-nine now,” he said. “I could tell your musical tastes were lame, so I saw you as an idiot who’d believe any bullshit sob story.”“Sophia killing your ma with her chef’s knife was nothing but a bullshit sob story?” “Yeah,” Justin said. “Afraid so, I mean, more or less, I guess…”I stared at him until he glanced away from me, shaking his head.“Ma died on a Catholic feast day,” Justin said. “Virgin Mary’s birth, I think it was. She was a true believer in every miracle in the Good Book. From the healed leper, blind man seeing, Lazarus, a crooked lady straightening herself out, loaves and fishes, Transfiguration, walking on water, burning bush, and the Resurrection, itself.”“Okay,” I said. “Plus, Ma loved multiple conspiracy tales,” Justin said. “She had a plan to win Lotto twice a week for the rest of her life, and oh-by-the-way-she-swears-it-was-The Soviets-who-killed-JFK-and-Bobby-and Martin-Luther-King-Jr.-Malcolm-X- Jimmy Hoffa-and-nearly-popped President Gerald Ford, too.”“I thought that was Squeaky Fromme in ‘75 in Sacramento?” I said.“Ma swore it was the Soviets who gave Sqeaky that weapon,” Justin said. “But then my ma got in a car crash when I was a boy. She steered her dented blue Volvo station wagon straight into the river, drunk off her ass, and she drowned.”“Sorry,” I said. He grimaced and sat cross-legged on the diving board: “City cops called it a suspicious driving incident. No thunder, lightning, hail, or rainstorm. No case of a heart attack, road rage, blown out tire, failed brakes, or deer strike. It was 3:01 p.m. and clear on a September day.” Justin began swinging his legs. “Ma was shitfaced - same old tune for her, I guess.”“Sad.”“Yes, it was. It is. What’s your name, man?”“Evan,” I said.“Thanks, Evan,” he said, crying now. “Ma’s long dead, but why’d you help me after I’d treated you like such crap?”“No clear reason,” I said. “Thought maybe I could reach you.”“Well, you did,” Justin said. “But no dancing in the deep end…how come?”“Not really a festive event,” I said, and he nodded. “Wouldn’t be right.”