“You look after this pool great, you know,” Ruggiero says. I’m de-ringing the sides with an acid wash. We cleaned up the green water weeks ago but we’ve got a regular maintenance contract with him now.
“I never realized, like, they was so complicated.”
I shoot him my rhyme.
“That’s good,” Ruggiero says, scratching his chin. “Say, you wanna work for me, full time?”
I tell him about my plans. Tranquillity Pools, the new sand filter, Noelle-Joy.
I come home early. An old lady called up from out in Pacific Palisades. She said her dog had fallen into her pool in the night. She said she was too upset to touch it. I had to fish it out with the long-handled pool sieve. It was one of those tiny hairy dogs. It had sunk to the bottom. I dragged it out and threw it in the garbage can.
“No poolside light, lady,” I said. “You don’t light the way, no wonder your dog fell in. If that’d got sucked into the skimmers you’d have scarfed up your entire filter system. Bust valves, who knows?”
Wow, did she take a giant shit on me. Called Yorty, the works. I had to get the mutt’s body out of the trash can, wash it, lay it out on a cushion.… No wonder I’m red-assed when I get home.
Noelle-Joy’s out by the pool working on her tan. Fruit punch, shades, orange bikini, pushed-up breasts. There’s a big puddle of water underneath the sun-lounger.
“Hi, honey,” she calls, stretching. “This is the life, yeah?”
I go mad. “You been in the water?” I yell.
“What? … Yeah. So I had a little swim. So big deal.”
“How many times I got to tell you. The pool’s wintering.”
“The pool’s been wintering for three fuckin’ months!” she screams.
But I’m not listening. I run into the pool house. Switch on the filters to full power. I grab three pellets of chlorine — no, four — and throw them in. Then I get the sack of soda ash, tip in a couple of spadefuls just to be sure.
I stand at the pool edge panting.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she accuses.
“Superchlorination,” I say. “You swam in stagnant water. Who knows what you could’ve brought in.”
Now she goes mad. She stomps up to me. “I just swam in your fuckin’ pool, turd-bird! I didn’t piss in it or nothing!”
I’ve got her there. “I know you didn’t,” I yell in triumph. “ ’Cause I can tell. I got me a secret chemical in that water. Secret. Anybody pisses in my pool it turns black!”
We made up, of course. “A lovers’ tiff” is the expression, I believe. I explain why I was so fired up. Noelle-Joy is all quiet and thoughtful for an hour or two. Then she asks me a favor. Can she have a housewarming party for all her friends? There’s no way I can refuse. I say yes. We are real close that night.
OTO
OTO. I don’t know how we ever got by without OTO, or orthotolodine, to give its full name. We use it in the Aquality Duo Test. That’s how we check the correct levels of chlorination and acidity (pH) in a pool. If you don’t get it right you’d be safer swimming in a cesspit.
I’m doing an OTO test for Ruggiero. He’s standing there crushing a tennis ball in each hand. His pool is looking beautiful. He’s got some guests around it — lean, tanned people. Red umbrellas above the tables. Rock music playing from the speakers. Light from the water winking at you. That chlorine smell. That fresh coolness you get around pools.
One thing I will say for Ruggiero, he doesn’t treat me like some sidewalk steamer. And the man seems to be interested in what’s going on.
I show him the two little test tubes lined up against the color scales.
“Like I said, Mr. Ruggiero, it’s perfect. OTO never lets you down. You always know how your pool’s feeling.”
“Hell,” Ruggiero says, “looks like you got to be a chemist to run a pool. Am I right or am I right?” He laughs at his joke.
I smile politely and step back from the pool edge, watch the water dance.
“A thing of beauty, Mr. Ruggiero, is a joy forever. Know who said that? An English poet. I don’t need to run no OTO test. I been around pools so long I got an instinct about them. I know how they feel. Little too much acid, bit of algae, wrong chlorine levels … I see them, Mr. Ruggiero, and they tell me.”
“Come on,” Ruggiero says, a big smile on his face. “Let me buy you a drink.”
Sol Yorty looks like an aging country-and-western star. He’s bald on top but he’s let his gray hair grow over his ears. He lives in dead-end East Hollywood. I walk down the path in his back garden with him. Yorty’s carrying a bag of charcoal briquettes. His fat gut stretches his lime-green sports shirt skintight. He and his wife, Dolores, are the fattest people I know. Between them they weigh as much as a small car. The funny thing about Yorty is that even though he owns a pool company he doesn’t own a pool.
He tips the briquettes into his barbecue as I explain that I’m going to have to hold back on the sand filter for a month or two. This party of Noelle-Joy’s is going to make it hard for me to meet the deposit.
“No problem,” Yorty says. “Glad to see you’re making a home at last. She’s a … She seems like a fine girl.” He lays out four huge steaks on the grill.
“Oh, sorry, Sol,” I say. “I didn’t know you had company. I wouldn’t have disturbed you.”
“Nah,” he says. “Just me and Dolores.” He looks up as Dolores waddles down the garden in a pair of flaming-orange Bermudas and the biggest bikini top I’ve ever seen.
“Hey, sweetie,” he shouts. “Look who’s here.”
Dolores carries a plastic bucket full of rice salad. “Well, hi, stranger. Wanna eat lunch with us? There’s plenty more in the fridge.”
I say I’ve got to get back.
It looks like Noelle-Joy’s invited just about the entire work force from the luggage factory. Mainly guys, too, a few blacks and Hispanics. The house is crammed with guests. You can’t move in the yard. This morning I vacuum-swept the pool, topped up the water level, got the filters going well and threw in an extra pellet of chlorine. You can’t be too sure. Some of Noelle-Joy’s friends don’t seem too concerned about personal hygiene. Everybody, though, is being real nice to me. Noelle-Joy and I stand at the door greeting the guests. Noelle-Joy makes the introductions. Everyone smiles broadly and we shake hands.
I feel on edge as the first guests dive into the pool. I watch the water slosh over the sides, darkening the No-Skid surrounds. I hear the skimmer valves clacking madly.
Noelle-Joy squeezes my hand. She’s been very affectionate these last few days. Now every few minutes she comes on over from talking to her friends and asks me if I’m feeling fine. She keeps smiling and looking at me. But it’s what I call her lemon smile — like she’s only smiling with her lips. Maybe she’s nervous, too, I think, wondering what her friends from the luggage factory will make of me.
I have to say I’m not too disappointed though, when I’m called away by the phone. It’s from Mr. Ruggiero’s house. Something’s gone wrong; there’s some sort of sediment in the water. I think fast. I say it could be a precipitation of calcium salts and I’ll be there right away.
I clap my hands for silence at the poolside. Everyone stops talking.
“I’m sorry, folks,” I say. “I have to leave you for a while. I got an emergency on. You all just keep right on having a good time. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Bye now.”
Traffic’s heavy at this time of the day. We’ve got a gridlock at Western Avenue and Sunset. I detour around on the Ventura Freeway, out down through Beverly Glen, back onto Sunset and on into Brentwood.