Get Out The Pool

“Get out of the pool, Piper!” This was Ramsey, poolside, fifty-something, cigarette fingers, hands cupped to his mouth, and not just for the megaphonics. The beard stubble grow slow around his mouth beset by deep crevice. His eyes were grey with over-chlorination. “Get out! Get out of the goddamn pool!”

Piper, moist & puckered, bobbing like an apple in her lemon-white one piece, powder blue skin cap squeezing her skull, goggle and nose plugs just in case of piranha, emerge to the surface with a mouthful of water “Ulllllggghh...”

“Get out of the goddamn pool, Piper! Get out of the motherfucking pool!” Ramsey, dissatisfied, in his short shorts, Hawaiian shirt unbuttoned to show the grey hair of his softened chest, “get your ass out of the pool. I'm telling you for the last time! Get out of the goddamn pool!”

Piper turn away and stroke, doggy paddle like a kitten drowning confident. “Nope,” and then, after careful aquatic reflection: “I don't wanna.”

“Get out the pool, Piper. Get out of the goddamn pool. Get out of there or I'll shoot you dead and watch you drown. It's not painless, you know.”

Piper submerge into the blue, kicking up her heels.

“Do you know how much time you spend in the pool, Piper? So much time you don't have any time to eat. Have some breakfast, Piper!”

Ramsey toss a bagel in the pool. It landed to Piper’s left and her eyes found it when she came up for air. Her mouth fell open in shock.

“Have the whole dozen of them!” Ramsey, tossing the bag of bagels in the pool one by one. Piper make dodge like it was Olympic event.

The onion and the sesame. Cinnamon-raisin & garlic. Then the Everything. Then the brown paper bag.

“What do you-?” Piper, brow furrowed, raw fury in the shallow end.

“Have a drink, too... you never get out to drink. Have a son of a bitching drink!” Ramsey tossing in bottles of liquor- wine, scotch, rum, and then the inevitable beer cans. Piper pop up and down in the water avoiding aluminum.

“Ramsey!”

“Get out the goddamn pool, Piper... get out the goddamn pool! You spend your life in the goddamn pool. When was the last time you read a book?”

Ramsey toss in the Daily News, New York Times, the Liberty to Menstruation volume of Encylopedia Atlantica, the novels of Stephen King, the sonnets of William Shakespeare… paperbacks for good measure.

“Get out the pool, Piper! Read a book! Get out the fucking pool!”

Piper, frightened, making urine in the water, because she could, because the liquid limbo was hers and hers alone. It felt good to make spree.

“Shit or get off the pot you fucking coward,” Ramsey, off the deep end, out of his mind, tossing in everything he could manually obtain: laptop computers, bouquets of roses, toaster ovens, birthday cakes, stereos, newborn babies...

“Make up your fucking mind, Piper...” Ramsey's face red now with rage, “pick a lane... put up or shut up... fish or cut bait! Get out the fucking pool!!!!”

Into the pool splashed waffle irons and cell phones, hi-def TV's and air conditioners, concrete blocks and miniature Dalmatians... Ramsey running back and forth poolside while screaming in unintelligent babbles... he stepped behind the fence... and was gone.

“Mmmmmm!!!” Piper's confused grunt echoed against the concrete, reverberating throughout the water as a testament to single-mindedness. Or the lack thereof.

That's when Ramsey's SUV exploded through the brown picket fence, going airborne before crashing down into the pool, sending a tsunami in four corresponding directions, forcing Piper to leap up onto the pavement, her eyes wide at the site of the vehicle sinking slow.

And before Ramsey inhaled the water that would saturate his lungs and seize his respiratory system, the neighbors could hear him cry out, joyously, “Thank you, Piper. Thank you for getting out of the pool.”