In the Swirl

At a Glance

Metadata	Details
Publication Date	2022-01-01
Journal	New England review
Authors	Carrie R. Moore

Abstract

In the Swirl Carrie R. Moore (bio) That summer, vermin fled the Alabama heat, scrambled into the pool, and drowned. They must’ve been compelled by the pumps churning the water, the waves cresting teal-blue from the pool’s sides before flattening in the middle. The pool carried so much from the shallow end to the deep and back. Dry leaves curling like upturned palms. Black hair ties eventually looping toward the bottom. And mice, roaches, and miniature snakes. You discovered them your fifth day working as a lifeguard. The county pool lay hidden at the base of a concrete hill, and you eased your father’s old green Camry downwards, past the oaks and maples that kept the place out of sight of the main road. The job was your father’s idea, a way to maintain the swim techniques he’d taught you in case of emergency, what better way to spend your first summer home from college. “Call me when you get to work,” he’d said when you’d left the house that morning. He’d heard on the radio about a string of assaults in the area. “You lock yourself in and keep quiet until the other guards arrive. They need to start being on time anyway.” His elephant UA bobblehead nodded on the dash as you parked, silly in a way his warning wasn’t. Not that you were worried. Sure, someone might have seen you slip out of the car in your red swimsuit and guard shorts. Sure, you’d dyed the ends of your afro light pink, what your father called “loud as your mother.” But you locked the gate behind you and doubted anyone could scale the twelve-foot fence surrounding the entire complex: the lifeguard office’s wooden hut, the adjoining cinderblock bathrooms, the pool stretching twenty-five yards behind both. And anyway, what you cared about was endearing yourself to the other guards. Jacob, Simon, and Renee—who’d worked summers here for years—told you to check the skimmers each morning, those white boxes stamped into the pool’s concrete deck, recently renovated and repaved. The skimmers collected whatever had fallen into the water during the night, whatever the pumps had pushed out. Critters, they warned you. Millipedes. Rats. All trapped in a mini cyclone in the skimmer’s basket. You were the newbie, your job was to clean it out. You’d been lucky your first few days. No one had come swimming, and when you lifted the skimmers’ lids, you’d found them empty. But that day, before the others had arrived, you found a mouse. Terrifying, that white-furred body, bulbous with drowning. You hollered. Jacob heard you. He shouted your name from outside the entrance. You ran, [End Page 84] stumbling over the half-door separating the guard office from the pool deck, nearly colliding with the front gate. “What’s up?” he said as you removed the padlock and let him in. “Why’d you scream?” You couldn’t speak, so you led him onto the deck, your legs wobbling. Sunlight fell over his shoulders, the stretch marks above his biceps. Like something had clawed him and he’d survived. He was a third-year at Jefferson State Community, and, in a brief moment of trust your third day, he’d stroked your wrist and told you that his biggest stress was trying to figure out what he wanted to do with his life. “I got you,” he said, crouching down, chuckling. He snapped on white plastic gloves. Past the pulsing in your chest, you saw sunlight tumbling around and around in the curls of his dark hair. Was it a pretense, a kind of show, this response to how overwhelmed you felt? You backed against the fence, pushing yourself against the wire until it pressed diamonds into your shoulders. You could see the mouse so clearly, its thin hairs lifting as Jacob scooped it from the water, its bones slipping under patches of bare flesh. Its skin was pink, as if the creature were embarrassed. Jacob laughed at the sight of you. “Book smarts aren’t everything,” he said. Then he…

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Original Source

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/ner.2022.0103