Trash Panda Literary Magazine

My boss would make us play a game every Friday at our department meeting. It was the worst job I ever had, but that was always the best part of my week. He asked us to tell a story about anything that happened to us on the job. The contest winner would receive a Tim Hortons gift card, which our boss Mitch had to pay for out of pocket. It was a little lifeline to motivate us through a long, wet slog. I had a story that week but didn’t want to share it. It wasn’t the kind of story that made anyone proud of working at Frontier Family Pools. 

That week had started with a work order to finish the installation of a brand-new pool in another god-forsaken housing development. New homeowners were the worst customers to deal with. Usually, they’re young families too, and new parents. The combination of oversold expectations, sleepless nights, financial worries (exacerbated by the pool) and simple suburban entitlement contribute to an irritable class of Canadians. A freshly poured concrete pool is rough around the edges too. You must rub every inch of it with a textured rock to make it smooth.

A little bit of grit doesn’t affect the integrity of the vinyl liner, our customers simply have highly sensitive feet – and they sure like keeping you under their thumb sometimes too. While Jayden or Brayden or Cayden or whatever he was named ran around the deck, nearly stepping on my tools, the wife of the house decided to chat me up about my job. “Yeah, being a pool boy is wonderful,” I told her. “I get to stick my hands in all kinds of disgusting places, and sometimes I pull out a whole gopher. Or whichever half I pulled on.” “Oh, come on,” she insisted. “You have to get the whole winter off, right? Probably coasting on unemployment insurance. That’s, like, a free ride for half the year.” There were few carrots when it came to the pool business. And a lot of sticks. I had the feeling I was sinking into a underclass of society unseen by the pool-owning types. I was mumbling creative obscenities into a stubborn patch of concrete when Jude pulled me aside and reminded me it was time to take a break. The housing development backed onto what’s left of a forest, so we hid out to have a smoke. I liked the guys I worked with, but it felt like Jude had more to talk about besides beer, sex, and Family Guy quotes. He also smoked a ton of pot and brought some to share. As I re-balanced myself in what’s left of the Middlesex woodlands, Jude and I talked about movies, conspiracies, and books we like. “You know who I like?” he says, stoned. “I like Kerouac. He did all kinds of wacky jobs, and it made him better for it. You write, right? You should write a book about this shitty job.” “Thanks, Jude,” I replied. “I’m looking at trying to be a teacher right now though.” “Teachers are good too,” Jude nodded. “A little authority in life is good. Did I tell you I’m thinking of going into the police program at Fanshawe? You don’t need a lot of education to start. I just want to have a gig where I’m the one telling people what to do for a change.”

“I think you’d make a great cop, dude,” I tell Jude, also stoned. “But I don’t believe for a minute it would shield you from being turned into someone’s bootlicking bitch. That’s life.” The next day, Jude and I were given a job exactly like that. Bitch work. Mitch explained the situation in the morning. Apparently, someone’s pool had accidentally, totally, hilariously drained over the weekend while the owners were away. I asked Mitch how an entire swimming pool managed to drain itself over the course of two days. He told me that “maybe” one of our guys “might have” unscrewed the wrong valve when they were trying to leave early for the weekend. I heard this tale unfold, and already I couldn’t wait for Friday storytime. Mitch was a good supervisor and treated us respectfully, so I tried to do the same. He thought he was sneaky, but in reality, he was an honest guy. Mitch lied about how much I’d be getting paid, but I know the decision wasn’t his. He’d underestimate a work order or oversell a solution, but he also protected us from our mistakes. The service manager got a lot of angry phone calls from all sides. Mitch probably took the most shit of anyone there. But my supervisor was still a lousy liar. Mitch really shouldn’t have given me those details if he didn’t want me repeating any of it to the customer. 

This time, it’s the husband of the house who’s out to ask me questions. We stared at the saggy, wrinkly liner of the empty, old, inground pool. The cost could be thousands of dollars, and Jude was assessing the damage. The customer was surprisingly calm at first. He brought us coffee and even offered to order a pizza if we would be there working long enough. I took the first offer, and as soon as I took an initial sip, the inevitable prodding began. 

“So? What do you think happened there?” the man asked. “I mean, have you seen it happen before? A pool doesn’t just empty itself over the course of a weekend, does it?”

“It sure doesn’t,” I reply. “I mean, I wasn’t here, but I heard perhaps someone may have accidentally left off a valve they shouldn’t have. Or something. You know us pool boys. We’re dumber than a bag of rocks and that’s why we don’t float.” 

“I didn’t hear about that,” he strokes his chin. “You sure you don’t want pizza?” For my audacity, we were rewarded with a trip back to that place later in the day. Mitch asked me if I spilled the beans to the customer, and I acted as if it was a mistake. It isn’t until the company’s owner arrives that we’re properly reprimanded. In fact this situation is so bad that it has warranted a visit from the owner, Junior. Junior, who is called Junior because he inherited everything he owns, including Frontier Family Pools. 

Junior doesn’t come at me. He waddled right over to Jude and pulled him aside. Either Junior doesn’t know or doesn’t care to blame me first. I don’t hear their whole conversation, but I do catch the last words as Junior prodded the greasy nub of his finger into Jude’s chest. 

“Don’t forget whose fucking team you play for,” he impressed upon my partner. We return to the rickety blue and white Frontier Family Pools van with its ugly faded photograph of some old backyard on the side. Jude is fuming. I started to apologize for letting him take the blame, but instead, he went off about something completely different. He starts to get into what brought him here. I didn’t know that Jude was actually Junior’s nephew. Jude thinks that he only got this job because he’s related to the owners. He needs this job a lot more than I do, and I probably won’t ever find out all the reasons why. What I do know is that any worthless idiot can do this job. And Jude’s not worthless, in my opinion. It hurts to watch your friends believe what bad people have told them about themselves. “Dude. They regularly hire meth heads to do our job,” I reminded him. “Get out of here with Junior’s bullshit. Did Mitch tell you the story of the guys who stole a pool van and drove it

to Montreal? How about the idiot who tried to sell his tools on Craigslist? You were telling me about becoming a cop the other day. Have you got around to applying yet?” Jude lit his one-hitter and blew marijuana smoke out the driver’s side window. I sometimes didn’t like this habit of ours. I think it absolutely confirmed some of the less stellar suspicions people had about us as people for doing this job. However, there were times when you needed it to get through another day of scrubbing concrete and mopping up dead gophers. And neither of us is the type to tell another person how to live their life. Or, so I thought. My partner calmed down, perked up, and switched the topic to a book he liked. “Yeah, I’m still saving up for police school,” he said. “I’ve been thinking a lot about police school. And something else, too. It’s like that line from 1984, Connor. You know the one I like, about how the future is just gonna be a boot stomping on a human face forever and ever? Well, like I say, I’ve given it some thought – and I think I’d rather be the boot!”