The Regulars

This is a description of the 11am-12pm shift I work at the pool describing the lovable and predictable patrons I watch over.

10:45 am.  I walk into the locker room as I do every Monday, heading over to the yellow lock on locker 42.  Once the locker is open I exchange my shoes, socks, blue jeans, thermal shirt and black peacoat for bare feet, a pair of navy-blue swim trunks and a reversible red and white penny.  Taking my whistle off the hook, I close the locker with a familiar slam and take the key attached to a piece of wood labeled, "pool" in my hand.  Pushing through one metal door with a sign hanging on it that reads, "warning: do not enter, alarm will sound", and unlock the next metal door, opening it while simultaneously sliding the worn wooden door stop in place.

10:55 am.  I have already propped open the door leading to the women's locker rooms as I had the mens before it and remove the warning signs from both sets of doors, the metal signs clanging as I walk to hang them up on the coat tree in the office.  I grab one of the long red rescue tubes from its place on the towel rack next to the men's locker room opening and unwrap the black strap from it.  Sliding the loop over my neck and shoulder so that it lays diagonally across my chest from my left shoulder to my right hip.  I take my seat in the white plastic chair near the deep end of the pool and I wait for the day to begin.

11:00 am.  The sound of the door to the men's locker room door opening happens, as it does every Monday, nearly on the dot.  In shuffles an elderly Russian gentleman wearing a light teal blue swimsuit.  The corners of his mouth curl into a smile as I greet him in the usual way, "Dobrey dyne!" and he lifts his left hand in response to wave, revealing the stumps where his middle and ring fingers once were. 

He shuffles over to the towel rack as he puts his ear plugs in and then hangs up a yellow, plastic, grocery bag.  He slides off his black sandals directly underneath the bag and shuffles over to the ladder of the deep end of the pool, lowering himself slowly into the pool.  Taking a breath he ducks under the first, second, and third lane lines until he reaches lane three and begins his usual pattern.  When he approaches my side of the pool he front crawls with long slow strokes and his kicks are low and slow in the water.  When he retreats from me he takes loping back strokes until he reaches the far end of the pool where he seems as if he will hit his head, yet always pulls up at the right moment.  Dedicated to keeping his regiment of swimming daily, he will swim even when the water heater is broken and the college students dare not swim because of the cold.

11:05 am.  An elderly African-American gentleman enters the pool.  His hair is dark with strands of silver, giving it the appearance of steel wool, though with a kind and jovial face.  He places his red cloth bag on the towel wrack next to the yellow plastic bag, and slowly, though a tad more spry than the first gentleman, works his way around the edge of the pool to the shelf with the kick-boards and selects one as well as a pull-bouy.  He then retraces his steps to the shallow end of lane two were he sits on the edge and swings his legs in.  As he slides in the water, the gentle man in lane three has just come to the wall doing the back stroke.  The man in lane two gives him a playful splash that startles him somewhat, but he quickly greets his companion with a warm handshake.  The man in lane two pushes off from the wall and begins his laps back and forth, more smoothly than the man in lane three and with more control, though not with great speed or effort, but grace and patience.

11:08 am.  This time the sound of the women's locker room door is heard as an elderly Russian woman enters the room and gives me a wave.  In her black swimsuit she makes her way around the shallow end of the pool, waving to the gentleman in lane two as she passes, to the place where the kick-boards are and selects two foam dumbbells and sets them on the edge of the pool.  She slides off her faded, pink flip-flops next to the stairs and descends into the water step by step, going backwards down the stairs while using the handrails into lane six. She doesn't swim laps like the other two, and her head never goes under the water, but she slowly makes her way back and forth, partially swimming, partially treading water.  Sometimes she will be joined by two other ladies much like herself, other times she swims alone.

11:10 am.  Another gentleman enters with a round belly and black streamline swim shorts.  He has little hair on top and his features are not so striking as that of most of the other Russians, and though his accent is not so heavy it is obvious when he speaks that he is indeed Russian.  He glances at the man in lane two as he enters the water from the ladder at the deep end of the pool, seemingly aggravated, and crosses over to lane four.  His stroke is nondescript and has nothing completely unique about it, but when the gentlemen in lane two finishes swimming and exits this man will switch over and take his place. 

11:15 am.  An Asian woman in a green swimsuit, much younger than the rest of the swimmers, though the signs of age can be seen on her face and the way she moves and bends.  Placing her right foot in the water at the shallow end of lane five and slowly bending her left knee she sits down, nearly on her left heel, then slides the other leg into the water.  She slides her goggles over her blue swim cap and splashes herself several times before dropping in under the water, dunking three times and pushing off the wall and beginning to swim laps.

It is 11:20 am, and the regulars have arrived and the sound of splashing echoes through the warm humid air of the pool room tells me that the day has begun.

Author's Note

Just a note, there is no plot to this story because it is simply a detailed account of real life at my work during a time where there were people who where such regular attenders that I could predict their schedules, and their actions and routines in the water. I had the idea to write it down one day and see what people thought of it. Things have changed in the pool since then and I can see where I was wrong on some details but it was a truthful fiction of what I saw going on every monday morning, I hope you enjoy it.

Reviews

[Tkmilling]

I'm new here so I may be way off with my comment...but...

I liked this, regardless of the lack of plot, it read well and was detailed enough to give a pretty good idea of what was going on. More description would be good though, the smells, the sounds, the way things feel in your hands but I thoroughly enjoyed reading this.

You could develop your character more, give us more to go on so that we can picture him carrying out his daily life. Also the way the character describes things is quite clinical...I personal like this style, but for many readers it may lack warmth so give us more to get to know your main character.

Great style, loved reading it!

All the best
Tkm


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[VannahBanana]

I think at the beginning, "thermal thermal shirt" is a typo. But I'm not for sure.(: I think... you could add a lot more of a plot. The narrator almost is omniscient. I like the way you describe everything. Perhaps... make a story out of this. Give it a little time and allow your characters to develop into something wonderful