Charlie's Lifeguard

I met Charlie the summer I became a lifeguard

I was looking for jobs
That wouldn't involve me having to lift
Or mow anything

Ideally I wanted to work
At a club
Standing behind a velvet rope
Telling people they weren't cool enough
To come inside

But when you're seventeen
And only a hundred and thirty five pounds
Those jobs are kind of hard to find

I wound up at the pool
Where I saw a sign saying
They needed a lifeguard
So I went in
Applied
And got hired on the spot

It didn't really occur to me
That knowing how to swim
Would be a requirement

I mean, they didn't put that on the sign

After I got the job
I stopped at the pay phone
Outside the 7-11
To let my mom know
That I was newly employed

When I got to the part about how I was going to have to quit
Because I don't really know how to swim
My mom got really upset
And told me that the odds of me actually having to save someone
Were probably really small
And besides, that's what life-savers are for
And what kind of an idiot quits a job
Without having another job lined up
And if I couldn't be a lifeguard
Then she was going to get me a job
Working at the clam shack
Cleaning the puke buckets
On all-you-can-eat-oyster-bar night

That didn't sound too appealing
So I said I'd figure something out

When I got off the phone
I saw Charlie standing nearby
Looking like he'd been listening

We went to school together
But we never really hung out or anything
Because he was a year ahead of me
And also
Made up entirely of a concoction I like to call
Lame sauce

'I could teach you to swim,' he said

Super creepy offer, right?

But I didn't have a choice
Because I really wanted to keep my job
And I really don't like the clam shack

It smells like the tide
After a fish kill

So I agreed
To let Charlie teach me
How to swim

We practiced at the pool
Every morning before it opened

Charlie would make me go into the deep end
I would sink
He'd pull me out
And then people would start showing up
And I'd get on my lifeguard chair
And pray that everybody there
Was a better swimmer than I was

After a few weeks, I mastered floating
But I never did fully get the hang
Of actually swimming

Then one day, I got to the pool a little late for my lesson
And I noticed Charlie kneeling next to the pool
Over some little kid
Doing CPR on him

When he saw me he said--

'The kid must have jumped the fence!  Call 9-1-1!'

I ran to the pay phone
And when I came back
The kid was on his side
Throwing up
So I assumed everything was fine
And I could go home

'Look,' Charlie said, 'Stay here and if anybody asks, you pulled him out of the pool, okay?'

I was so confused

'But why don't you say you did it?'

Charlie ran his hand through his hair

He looked like he was going to be sick

Either because he'd just come so close
To seeing someone die
Or because heroism didn't exactly
Wear well on him

'I don't like having a lot of people talk about me,' he said

When the news came out
About me saving the kid

--Who, luckily, didn't remember a thing--

Everybody talked me up
And I got promoted to Head Lifeguard
At which point I let my underlings
Do all the dirty work

Charlie and I never talked about
Him saving that kid
And until now
I've never told anybody about it

I ended up becoming a bouncer in L.A.
At this club called 'Water'

Ironic, huh?

I wonder if Charlie would like
Having all of us talk about him like this

Personally, I think if he were here
He'd probably try
To change the subject