A woman raised her hand.
“Yes, Mrs. Krozer?” the lifeguard said.
“This is the only pool that will be open?”
“That’s right. This one will service all three buildings.”
“Won’t that make it awfully crowded? What about guests?”
“Sunday rules.” On Sunday the pool was closed to guests.
Preminger raised his hand. Would they be able to swim that afternoon?
“It’s going to take a few hours to fill it up,” the lifeguard said. “Anyway, I think they mean for the committee to get squared away first. They said there’s a special session of Activities going on right now.”
When Preminger left his deck chair a couple of hours later he saw that a stack of a special mimeographed edition of The House Organ had been placed on one of the marble tables in the lobby. Taking one from the pile, he looked it over as he rode up in the elevator and saw that his name had been put down as one of the volunteer lifeguards.
His phone was ringing when he opened the door to his apartment.
“Hey, Montana, hot enough for you?”
“Who is this?”
“Wa’al, pardner, some folks roun’ these parts call me Harris. It’s the management his own self, stranger.”
“I was going to call you.”
“Ain’t that sumfin? Ain’t that a how-de-do?”
“I’m listed in the paper as a volunteer lifeguard.”
“Thass right, deppity.”
“Nobody asked me anything about it.”
“Mister, this yere condominium needs a lifeguard.”
“It’ll have to get someone else.”
“Rein up a sec, son. If you read that notice proper, you’d a seed that your name’s only been put in nomination. You ain’t been elected yet.”
“Elected? You elect the lifeguards?”
“Shoot, boy, it’s a democracy, ain’t it? Ain’t President Salmi told you?”
“This is ridiculous. No one had the right to nominate me.”
“Looks to me like a clear draft choice. Will of the pee-pul.”
“Will of the people.”
“Well, not all the pee-pul. Salmi dragged his feet some when he saw your name on the list Activities come up with. He’s still a mite uneasy about you since you made that speech to the Committee of Committees assembled.”
Preminger recalled his queer emotion that evening and winced. “I was very vulnerable,” he said. Then, “How did you know about that?”
“I read the minutes.”
“The minutes? There were minutes?”
“It was a duly constituted meeting. Sure there were minutes, of course there were minutes. I take an interest. I always read them. I swan, it purely tickles me what these folks are capable of.” Harris chuckled. “That last is off the record, friend.”
“Sure.”
“What’s that you say? Cain’t rightly hear you.”
“It’s off the record. I swan.”
“Much obleeged.”
“Why’d you call me?” Preminger asked.
“I told you. I take an interest.”
“I purely tickle you, too.”
“As the driven snow, buddy,” Harris said.
Preminger got the name of the Activities chairman from the lists they had left with him and dialed the number. “Dr. Luskin?”
“The dentist is with a patient. This is Dr. Luskin’s nurse, Judy. Did you want an appointment.”
“No. This is Marshall Preminger.”
“Marshall, how are you? It’s Judy Luskin. Congratulations.”
“What for?”
“I heard about your nomination for lifeguard. My sincere good wishes to you.”
“Have we met?”
“Formally not, as it turns out. But I saw you at the pool. I knew you wasn’t drownding.” The fatso. “As a matter of fact it was me who told Howard what a good swimmer you are.”
“Would you give Dr. Luskin a message for me? Would you please tell him that I don’t want the nomination and that my name should be taken off the list?”
“Have you found a job, Marshall?”
“Just tell your husband, will you please, Nurse?”
Within the hour there was another call. It was Salmi and he was very angry. “You said, ‘All that’s at issue is which committee can make the most of me.’ ‘I want to do my share,’ you said. It’s in the minutes. Well, now we know which committee can make the most of you. Activities. And you balk. Is that how you do your share?”
“I wasn’t even asked.”
“You weren’t even asked. Did you ever? He’s standing on ceremonies, a born lifeguard and he stands on ceremonies. If you saw someone drowning would you wait to be asked before you jumped in?”
“That’s not the point.”
“Would you?”
“Of course not, but—”
“I told you. A born lifeguard. The instincts of a natural life-saver.”
“You’re crazy,” Preminger said. He was unable to restrain himself. “Do you know my condition? Do you know that I’ve been contemplating suicide? That I ride buses to strange neighborhoods and eat my heart out when I see the way other people live? How do you expect me to—?”
“The buses stopped.”
“What?”
“The buses stopped. Almost two weeks now and you ain’t been on a bus. You get what you need in this neighborhood and you come home.”
“Is that in the minutes?”
“It’s a community, Preminger, we told you that. It made your eyes water when I described it. You had a hard-on from it. What do you think, in a community you’re invisible?”
“Listen, I don’t—”
“Preminger, I ain’t got time for all this. It’s a heat wave, a record-buster. Scorchers and corkers. Every day an old record falls and a new one is made. Air conditioning ain’t to be trusted. There’s a drain on the power. Brown-outs are coming. The weather people have seen nothing like it in their experience. My people need that swimming pool. They’re getting up there. Swimming’s their exercise. Dr. Paul Dudley White wants old people to go swimming, the Surgeon General does. But there’s danger. It needs supervision. The regular lifeguards go back to college. They got to come out of the pool, their lips are blue. This is a job for a young man. You’re thirty-seven. Who else is thirty-seven here? Most of us won’t see fifty-seven again. ‘All that’s at issue is which committee can make the most of me,’ you said. You thanked us. You wanted to put cheesecake in our mouths for coming to you. We left you our literature.
“Listen,” Salmi went on softly, “you think this can last forever? It’s a natural phenomenon. Such heat is an act of God. God gave us jungles for the heat that lasts forever, He gave us deserts for it. He didn’t put it in Chicago. It’ll break — it has to. I give it three weeks, four at the outside.” He was speaking very softly now, almost conspiratorially. “On Halloween it’ll be so cold you won’t even be able to remember it, and you can go back to your — back to your thoughts. What you were talking about. But I’ll tell you something. You won’t. You’ll have different thoughts. Better thoughts.”
“Forget that stuff about my thoughts,” Preminger said. “Sure it’s hot and we need the pool, but you don’t understand something. I’m working on my thesis.”
“You passed your prelims?”
“Yes, I—”
“Your orals? You’ve taken your orals?”
“Yes.”
“Your thesis proposal has been approved and you’ve got someone to work with?”
“That’s right.”
“Are you writing? Have you done all your reading yet?”
“Most of it.”
“Have you blocked out your first chapter?”