The secretary’s signboard said MISS A. BERBERIAN.
She said, “Is it about the lifeguard job?”
I was annoyed that she guessed it and so I said, “That’s partly the reason. The rest is highly confidential, I’m afraid. You can tell him I’m here.”
There were two men in the office. Mr. Kaloostian was the purple-faced man in the suit. He introduced the man next to him in the sports shirt. “This is Mr. Mattanza, our pool superintendant.”
“Vic Mattanza,” the man said and squeezed my hand too hard.
Standing up added very little to his height. He was short and dark. His black hair was pushed straight back. He was one of those Italians who looked to me like an Indian brave — dark, brooding, and with tiny eyes very close to his big nose. He was short, yet I could see from the way his shirt was stretched that he was muscular. But he was too muscular for his size. He reminded me of a clenched fist.
“Sit down, Andrew.”
“Andre,” I said, and they frowned at me.
“It says here you live in Medford, you go to UMass, nineteen in April, you’re a medical student—” He was reading from my application in a way that embarrassed me. All these trivial facts made me feel small. I had the urge to tell him I was a communist.
“Pre-med,” I said.
“Hey, that’s great,” Mattanza said, “but we’re looking for someone who can swim.”
“I can swim. And I thought a knowledge of first aid might be an asset.” I smiled at Mattanza. His close-set eyes were fixed on me. He was thinking: Wise-ass.
“That’s a very good point,” Kaloostian said.
“Except we need a lifeguard.”
Mattanza’s teeth were very white and large and doglike.
“That’s why I’m here.” I could tell he hated my smile.
“It says here you worked at Wright’s Pond.”
“Right. I was a lockerboy. Then I got my Red Cross lifesaving certificate and became a lifeguard. After the intermediate I got the advanced.”
“You mind if we see your badge?” Mattanza said. “It’s not that we don’t believe you.”
“My mother sewed it on my bathing suit.”
Mattanza looked at Kaloostian. “His mother sewed it on his bathing suit.”
“That’s where it’s supposed to go,” I said.
He flashed his snake-eyes at me.
“Is that the only proof of your proficiency?” Kaloostian said.
“I’ve got the certificate,” I said, and pulled it out of my book and unfolded it.
“You’re a reader, I see,” Kaloostian said, and he leaned over to look at the title. He couldn’t see.
“The Flowers of Evil,” I said.
“Gatz,” Mattanza said under his breath.
“What did you do to earn this?”
“Swam a mile. Learned the rescues. Rowed. Surface dived. Picked up weights from the bottom. Jumped in with my clothes on and made a flotation device with my pants — you knot the cuffs and inflate the legs. And the first aid.” Kaloostian had asked the question but I was speaking to Mattanza. “That’s the advanced certificate.”
Mattanza said, “Great. But what kind of practical experience have you got?”
“Two years at Wright’s Pond.”
“We’re talking about a swimming pool.”
“It’s tougher at a pond,” I said.
He moved his mouth at me. His lips said: Prove it. His teeth said: I’m dangerous — I bite.
I spoke to Kaloostian. “In a pond you’ve got poor visibility, deeper water, noise, greater density of swimmers, and weeds. Last summer I pulled three people out. One of them went about two hundred pounds. I used a cross-chest carry on him.”
“So why aren’t you still there at Wright’s?” Mattanza said, in a challenging way.
I could just imagine this little twerp strutting in a tight pair of trunks.
“This seems a nicer place,” I said, and when Kaloostian smiled smugly at this I said, “More congenial, and a kind of English atmosphere.”
“We’re very proud of our club,” Kaloostian said. “It’s like a family here. The members, the employees. We’re all part of a winning team.”
What bullshit, I thought. But I needed the job.
“I guess I want to be part of the team.”
Mattanza winced and put his finger on my application. “It says here your hobby is shooting. You got a gun?”
“Not on me,” I said.
“I hate guns,” Kaloostian said, and shook his face so that his eyes rattled at me.
Everyone said I hate guns in the most virtuous way, as if all guns were murder weapons.
“I shoot beer cans,” I said. “I think some of your members might be interested in marksmanship.”
“Why do you want to work at Maldwyn Country Club?” Kaloostian said, putting his elbows on the table. I could not understand why his face was so purple — was it a tan or high blood pressure?
“Why did you advertise?” I said.
“We need a lifeguard.”
“I need a job,” I said.
“But we need more than a lifeguard,” Mattanza said.
“It takes a lot of humility to be a lifeguard,” Kaloostian said. “Humility and perception and strength of character. Do you know what I mean by those words?”
I don’t want this job, I thought. I’ll work in a bakery. I’ll sell papers. I’ll get a job with the state at an MDC pool. I’ll cut grass. I’ll steal cars.
“He means you keep your eyes open. No reading. No blabbing. No backtalk. No college stuff.” Mattanza was getting so angry I decided that I wanted the job, just to spite him. “We don’t want a candy-ass.”
“I’ve got references,” I said.
“A very good one from Mike Bagdikian.”
I almost said He’s an old friend of my father’s. He had told me to apply. Good hours, good money, a nice class of people. Had he met Mattanza?
“You’re nineteen?” Mattanza said.
“That’s right.”
“Sheesh,” he said, exasperated. “We’re looking for someone who can take responsibility.”
I said, “I pulled three people out of Wright’s, like I said. One I had to give artificial respiration. They would have died if I hadn’t fished them out. It was in the Medford Mercury. But I don’t know — maybe you don’t call a matter of life and death responsible.”
“We’ll be in touch,” Kaloostian said.
Instead of going straight home I took the bus to Cambridge to kill time. I walked to Mount Auburn Cemetery and looked for the grave of Mary Baker Eddy. I had heard that she had a telephone in her tomb, so that if she woke from the dead at some point she could call the Mother Church at Mass Ave. and say, “Listen, it’s Mrs. Eddy — I’m back from the dead. Dig me up.” But I couldn’t find the tomb.
I stretched out on a grassy knoll and read Baudelaire, a poem about a dead sheep with its legs upraised “like a lustful woman.” And I saw a couple kissing near a tree and the girl’s legs were like the sheep’s in the poem. I watched them, pretending to read, and felt like Baudelaire myself, wicked and watchful.
After that I walked to Harvard Square. There was a restaurant on the street corner beside the Coop. The menu was taped to the window, Special Today — Whale Steak $1.29. Never mind the coleslaw, french fries, dessert and coffee. I imagined a whale being harpooned, and a vast thrashing tail, and blood on the waves. In Moby Dick, one of the characters — Stubb or Daggoo — made a big deal out of eating whale steaks. And there was a whole chapter about eating whales. I made a mental note to look it up. But what I wanted at that moment was a whale steak. I hadn’t had any lunch and I didn’t have any money. So this hunger and inspiration just insulted me. I thought: This moment will never come again. Who should I blame for denying it to me?