Russ

     

     The Colony Swim Club was a popular summer place in the 1950's with up and coming middle class families. My family rented a changing room there for three consecutive summers between from 1953-1956. A small changing room came with the membership. The population was a mix of a few Wasps, a gaggle of Italian Americans, who wanted to take the edge off their roots, and a bevy of multicolored askenazi Jews. I make these distinctions because they are concise. Some will understand my ethnic demographics and others no.  Post Second World War USA was a mix of new desperately mobile middleclass tribes, looking for some form of the good life after the years of deprivation during the War. Recreational sites like "The Colony" were not lavish. They flirted with austere given today's mandatory standards of brass and glass. These clubs sprung up to serve groups in transition. Ironically those distinct ethnic or religious groups who formed the population of "The Colony" didn't socialize outside the bounds of "The Club" but rubbed shoulders within its tight borders. It was a unique time and a unique situation,, a temporary down home melting pot that lasted until post war economic success created new more exclusive venues. Jews, Italian Americans, and a smattering of Wasps recreated in close quarters in a simple environment. 
    At the Colony the Wasps and Italian American women played a serious bridge and feasted on jello molds. The Jewish women, played a noisy mah jong under the same pavillion as they ate blintzes, cheesecake, and noodle pudding. The women also enjoyed shuffleboard and an occaisional dip in the pool. The men worked during the week but appeared on saturday and sunday. Under the shade of the pavillion, the Italian American men played gin for small pots of coins, leaving the table once and a while to play paddleball or go for a swim. Jewish men were scarce any day of the week and when seen they never gambled or drank liquor. Honestly, I don't remember what the handful of wasp men did. I seem to remember them hanging out near the bar.
     "The Colony" is where I learned to swim. I had stern but benevolent teachers. I remember our beginner group's first end of the summer test when each group member was required to swim across the deep end without the safety of water wings. The bottom of this part of the pool was painted an obscure menacing blue.  I swam a terrified doggie paddle thinking I would surely die, but I made it. By the next summer after a winter swimming at the YMCA, I was in competition with other youngsters of my age.  
     The swim competitions were always held near the end of summer. I remember the older catholic boys with medals of the virgin about their neck, like the iconic Vinnie DiCarlo, his hair always maintained in a perfect duck's ass with Odell's Hair Trainer. Before each race he cupped some water from the pool and made the sign of the cross yet always seemed to come in second. One other memorable summer day I saw the entire pool emptied by concerned parents when a teenage girl who had beaten polio entered the water. I am sure the bouyancy soothed her twisted body. There she was in the center of that vast turquoise sea floating alone like a twisted blond twig. 

     Russ was a crude mysterious man. He ran the pool filtration system at the Colony Swim Club. I do not know for sure that Russ was a drunk but he spent a lot of time inside the pump room out of the sun in his A shirt sitting on a chair amidst a maze of blue pipes and buzzing motors. He was a large man with skinny legs, a  perpetually stubbled face, and a barrel belly. He rarely came out into the light of day. One day a group of friends and I were playing, running about  between the pickett fence and the only strip of grass that existed in a field of concrete. We had made several passes in front of the pump room as a hoarde, then separated. When I alone passed in front of the pump room Russ made a gutteral raspy sound with his throat. I stopped and looked up because the sound was so unusual. I stared at him half hidden in the shadows when suddenly he took a healthy swig from a soda bottle filled with water, and purposely spit it all over me. The water was a shock and I was scared because he looked so aggressive. I am not sure but he might have been a little drunk. I suppose drunk is something I am using here to explain his behavior. I didn't know really. I just felt singled out and threatened by a man in a cave. It was saturday and my father happened to be at "the club" that day. When I returned to the pavillion he was in the middle of a game of gin. I stood there a minute and then when there was a break in the action I told him what had happened. My father was a calm man most of the time but when he heard this he took off running and the "ecounter" took place. He was screaming at Russ as Russ made gutteral replies. My father grabbed a hammer and held the claw to Russ's head. I stood terrified and sorry I had mentioned the incident thinking my father could have killed him at that moment. 
     
     I had another run in with Russ at the end of the last summer we spent at The Colony. I don't think he recognized me or associated me with the episode. Perhaps he was really just a drunk. Russ showed me and a couple of other boys how to construct huge kites out of newspaper and glue and a few lathes. We flew them high in the sky and off into the distance towards the horizon over the pool, a distance so far that it seemed like they might be in the next county. 
    After that incident I always felt more secure with my father. I had confidence he would protect me when push came to shove,,,,or less. I think my mother might have protected me, but I could never be as sure of her. I think an "earlier" version of my father would have thrown a hammer at the head of his best friend, or even a priest given the perception of threat to his increase. My mother would have told that same best friend or the priest that I was worthless and practicing to be a bum. I really admired my father for how angry he became  with Russ,,,,,justified or not. It made me feel more secure with him. It was physical proof. 
     As I am writing this I am remembering the last time that I saw my father when he was in the hospital with cancer,,, in New Jersey ironically on the same road where The Colony Swim Club had been. Two days before he passed away I went back to New England to take care of something. I cannot even remember what that something was at this moment. I left early in the morning but before departing I made a visit to the hospital. He was in his room accompanied by a nurse with a foul attitude. Her cold expressions and silent stares irritated me. My father was pretty drugged up, hazy, and swaying like a cobra sitting in the chair. He came out of the morphine fog for a just a brief moment, but a moment very important that I will always cherish. "Peter" he said to me softly but with real joy in his voice. It was said with a kind of relief at seeing me,,,,and a loving tone that I will never forget. He cradled my head with his hand and brought it forward and kissed me there on the top of my head so gently and sweetly,,,and then he let go and returned to the "Waiting",,,,,lost in the transluscent vapor, but with the knowledge I am sure that this was the end. Two days later, my phone rang early in the morning. My brother's voice was heard without any preface saying, "It's over". I knew from the moment the telephone rang what information would be delivered over the line. It was truly "over".