Honesty can be the wrong policy sometimes
Honesty can get you killed if you're not careful
Doing the'right' thing can sometimes be the 'wrong' thing to do
Being the 'good little boy' doesn't always get you home safely
When we were in our teens we lived close to a large holiday camp
And we'd get summer jobs there
My brother had a job as a swimming pool attendant cleaning swimming pools,
He got me a job working alongside him,
There was another guy too, but he kept going missing and it wasn't long before he got the sack
So that just left the two of us.
There were two pools, an indoor and an outdoor
With the indoor, a vacuum with ropes attached would be lowered onto the bottom of the pool
One Pool attendant would stand on one side of the pool
While the other would stand on the other
And between them they'd pull it back and forth across the bottom of the pool
Going slowly up the pool in increments till the whole pool had been covered/ cleaned.
For the outdoor pool we had a machine, it was a heavy thing with wheels
You'd attach these big poles to it then lower it into the pool
And then push it out with the pole
And then bring it back in with the pole
You'd do this the whole way along.
My brother told me he once lost the machine in the pool
And he said it was a hell of a job retrieving it
And the boss had run him over the coals over it and warned him not to let it happen again.
Anyway I'd only been in the job 2 or 3 weeks when my brother, he decided to take a day off
He left me no instructions what to do
So I found myself all alone there this evening
(We did an evening shift)
When the pool closed I got out my bucket and mop and cleaned all the decks, all the tiled floors surrounding the pool
After that I said to myself, I'm the Pool Attendant, it's my job to clean the Pools
I'll get the machine out just like my brother
(I'd only seen my brother use it once)
So there I am wheeling this big machine out
And I'm proud of myself, it's like Look at me, I'm the Pool Attendant
And then suddenly there's this big flight of stairs going down to the ground floor where the outdoor pool is
And I'm thinking, 'I wonder how do you get this thing down the stairs'
There's no one around to help
I think 'I'll just put it out a bit over the stairs then I'll lift it up and lead it down on its wheels, just like leading a dog"
So I push the wheels out over the edge a bit then I raise the machine
The moment I do this though, the whole machine takes off down the stairs with me holding onto it
Bump, bump, bump the whole way down a very large flight of stairs
Lucky there was no one coming up the stairs or it would have been like a bowling alley.
So I end up at the bottom of the stairs in a heap all bruised and battered
Suddenly this girl runs in and she's all over me
"Are you alright, are you alright!!! You're after falling down the stairs. I seen it, it was awful. Do you need a doctor!"
Of course, I'm embarrassed more than anything else, I thank her for her concern
But assure her I'm alright
I stand up and brush myself off
Then I think, "Well at least I got it down the stairs"
The girl, she persists, Are you sure you're alright, are you sure you don't need a doctor
I thank the girl again for her concern
Then I straighten myself and think "I'm the Pool Attendant. Gotta clean the Pool, I gotta do my job".
So I wheel the machine out into where the outdoor pool is
I plug it in and it starts making this whirring noise
Then I attach one of the poles to it
And then I put it sitting up on the edge of the pool ready to lower it in
Across from me there's a lot of windows looking down upon the Pool
I think to myself there's probably some people watching me... the pressure is on
Suddenly I get nervous, I think the last time I put this machine over the edge of something
It took off and took me with it
I could get drowned here if I'm not careful
And I can't swim
Then I think about what my brother had told me
That he'd once lost the machine in the Pool
And how it caused a lot of trouble,
And y'know the sad thing was it was this that seemed to scare me more
The thought of losing their precious machine in the pool
Than the possibility of me drowning
Finally I decided I couldn't do it, or shouldn't do it
I took the machine down and unplugged it, and removed the pole
I wheeled it back, I got the guy who cleaned the toilets
To give me a hand carrying it up the stairs,
I put the machine to bed.
Looking back I was glad I had the courage to say "No! I wasn't sure I could do this"
In those days there was no such thing as... well, as self worth
People had no worth at all it seemed
The only important thing was to hold onto your job and probably not make a fool of yourself I suppose.
As I sat there, the indoor Pool was very ghostly looking in the dark... in the shadows
With the lights from the street below reflected in the waters (the Pool had see through glass windows). I found the scene very quietening...magical almost.
A piece about honesty/innocence and the trouble it can get you into sometimes. Just reliving an old memory.
