Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to people or places in real life is coincidental, even if those people share identical physical and/or personality features and the places have the exact same names. Don’t overthink it.

“Dave,” she said. “Are you with me?”

He was not.

Unchlorinated water occupied his mind, currently dripping from the ceiling in the cramped manager’s office. This was a semi-regular occurrence, as in: whenever the tenant who lived in the second-story apartment above the pool’s front office flushed his toilet, water dripped onto Dave’s desk.

There was an aquatic irony floating around there; but, bigger problems: a droplet had just landed on his sausage and egg bagel, or at least near it. Trash it his wife would say. Not worth getting food poisoning. Then again, he’d used a gift card to buy it; shame to scrap a good deal.

“I’m with you.” Dave rewrapped the breakfast sandwich; TBD. “The numbers.”

“They’re bad.”

“Yup.”

“Titanic bad, Dave.”

Kudos on the metaphor. “I’ve got a plan.”

More like concepts of a plan.

“Four health inspector visits this month?”

That was unfortunate. But. “I’m not the one pooping in the pool.”

“They fine us after three.”

“I’m aware.”

She sighed. “This plan: Is it playing violin on deck or lowering a lifeboat.”

Two for two; she must’ve just watched the movie. “Avoiding the iceberg.”

“Don’t bullshit me.” Nora enjoyed reminding you that she brooked no bullshit. “The shortfall—we’re talking a lot of money for that sewer repair.”

“I went with the lowest quote,” he reminded her.

“I’m not backseat driving.”

She was, though he didn’t blame her. People on local boards were on those boards for the explicit purpose of rubber stamping decisions and then critiquing any and all fallout of said decisions.

Above, other boards creaked as the tenant went about his early morning business. Or his other business.

Dave swiveled to face her. Nora: sharp, sixty one, member of many town boards—water, sewer, Memorial Day Parade prep, the annual Car Show—the most important of which was the subject of this meeting: the continuing financial woes of the Fanny Chapman Pool.

“The hundred-year anniversary,” Dave announced. He’d hoped to unveil it more grandly—say, not while sewage leaked onto his breakfast; lately, hopes and dreams were meeting with harsh reality. Lately, hopes and dreams were getting carjacked at 1am. “It’s this July.”

“This July? Really?”

Dave pointed to a mantle on the far side of the breezeway

“The local paper ran that on the 50th.” He walked to the picture frame and handed it to her: an article from July 31, 1977. Fannie Chapman Memorial Pool stamped the bottom of a Main Pool picture—the only pool in 1977. Back when they still spelled her name Fannie. Back when pooping in pools was more socially acceptable, or at least more understood. “Add another fifty, and here we are.”

Nora inspected it. “Never knew the diving boards were on that side.”

Dave was a toddler when those had come down; he’d been going to Fanny since it was Fannie. There were literal swim team trophies with his name on them collecting dust in the storage shed; ditto for his two kids. To say that Fanny was in their blood was not an understatement: he’d met his wife here in tenth grade, when, after an ill-advised show off dive that shattered his left eardrum, she’d leapt from her guard tower and drug his vertigo’d ass to the ladder.

“Dave,” Nora said. “Are you with me.”

He was. “Friday night is our most popular.”

“Work week ends.” She nodded sagely. “Dad’s finally appear.”

“Partly.” Dave pointed to the big screen TV that doubled as their scrolling announcement board. FLOAT NIGHT TONIGHT 5-9PM! “But it’s mostly float night. We double our normal capacity Friday nights.

“90% of those people are already members. How does that generate money?”

“We turn the drop off lane into a farmer’s market—local coffee, ice cream, tacos, etc. We take a flat booth fee, plus 15% of all sales.” Concepts were taking shape in Nora’s eyes; he could see her running numbers. Best to keep the momentum going. “Games, too. I’ve got a dunk tank guy.”

“You’ve got a dunk tank guy?”

He actually did. “A dollar per throw. Swim lesson kids will love trying to sink their instructors.”

“That’s true.”

She was on the floating door, now. Which makes me DiCaprio? There had always been room for two. “You’re wondering about permits.”

“And food on the pool deck. Can’t expect those people to hang around outside.”

You couldn’t. “I’m working on permits. And we’ll lift the moratorium on food.”

“Bees.” She might’ve growled. “But, if it can right the ship...”

Dave would’ve gone with keep it afloat until a bigger, permanent rescue freight liner appears. “There’s no other option. We need cash.”

“There is another solution,” Nora scolded. “You just don’t like it.”

He almost said I’d rather swallow chlorine tablets.

Summer divides the Southeastern PA calendar more or less in half. Distinct moments of importance further delineate the season: Memorial Day (the kick off), July 4th (midway euphoria), and Labor Day (the last hurrah). Those twelve weeks can be further spliced into a seven-day societal cycle known as The Work Week, which for the fortunate ends on a Friday at 5pm.

Which is when Fanny Float Night begins.

To be sure: floats are hauled from trunks, carried across the parking lot, and brought through the gates at other times; but they never touch water (aside from the tears of their young carrier, who were always, to no fault of their own, unaware that the general membership guidelines clearly state Flotation devices are not permitted in the pool, except during specified float nights).

In just two seasons of managing the complex, Dave had witnessed some truly epic floatation devices, including but limited to: a three-person viking ship, Barney (yes, the formerly televised purple dinosaur), a banana Trump (you rode him like a horse), and most controversial, a Nativity scene in which your backside sat firmly in the empty manger. Unicorns were rare, though much adored; $1 donut floats from Dollar General were common.

Only one floating object haunted Dave, despite it’s size; only this could keep him up Thursday nights, pacing the downstairs kitchen as the clock blinked midnight. Only this…matter could put a Barney-sized whole in his plan (or concepts of a plan) to rescue Fanny, ending the pool’s hundred-year reign as the town’s only enduring, affordable, and family-friendly (read: no booze) swimming hole.

And he was staring at it now, this…matter…as it bobbed along the edge of the Dolphin Pool, not far from an ironically located poop emoji float.

“Excuse me,” someone was saying to him. “It’s Dave, right?”

Dave watched the matter bump into the side of the pool, leaving, he thought with some relief, only a faint skid mark. “Yeah.”

"It’s…my daughter.”

“Uh huh.”

The guy inched closer. Talked in a whisper. “She’s on a new medicine—ADHD. Not that I think we should be medicating her. The wife and I don’t—”

“Does she need help?”

“Doesn’t listen to me, if that counts.”

Dave looked up at the man next to him: Tallish, fortyish, lean. Eyes squinting in the sun. “I’m sorry—what’s the problem?”

The guy glanced at the matter. “You see that, right?”

Dave followed his gaze and said, “I’m about to call it in.”

Not doing so would violate about ten health codes. Not even his county health inspector friend, currently charging him massive fees for every fecal phone call—not even Nora with all her borough connections*—* could save the pool if word got out that Fanny’s manager was slow on the clean up of such matter in the pool.

“That’s the thing,” the guy was saying. He was speaking this into Dave’s ear—a mafia boss imparting a hit. “I’m begging you not to.”

The log—and it was most definitely a log of impressive size, no doubt worked out with extreme dedication to the cause, resulting in a relaxed state of relief and admiration—floated past them toward the steps.

“You don’t—what are you asking?”

“It’s my daughter’s birthday,” the guy explained. "She brought five friends here. That big Egyptian float? That’s her.”

It was Cleopatra, to be precise, her arms encircled to welcome whoever plopped themselves into her plastic embrace; at this moment, that was an eight-year-old girl squealing with delight as her friends dove and shouted around her. Dave realized, for perhaps the first time, that all floats were designed as inflatable toilets.

“She’s got stomach issues. Doctor says it will pass.”

Looks like it did. “Sir—”

“Tim.” He put a hand on Dave’s shoulder “It’s Tim.”

“Tim: if that’s fecal matter, I need to remove it, get the kids out, and shock the water with chemicals. I don’t really have a choice.”

Tim removed his hand. They watched the log hover over the third step…second…now the first. Dave was riding a strange adrenaline wave: every second he did nothing, Fanny’s fate teetered further over the edge. All it would take was someone entering the pool from this corner, mushing the matter against their foot…then the real screaming would commence. No hiding it then. Iceberg ahead. Brace for impact.

“It’s not just the—” Tim stopped. Restarted. “Yes, it would ruin her birthday night. That she’d get over.”

A mom with a screaming toddler excited the pool, eyes on her husband in a recliner, doing nothing to calm their child in crisis. Six inches.

“I don’t know if it’s a condition—or a…symptom of a condition.” Tim sighed. “She’s done this before. In her friend’s pool.”

Dave asked, “That’s her…that’s hers?”

“Yeah.”

“Really?”

“I mean, a father knows, right?”

Dave wondered in what category of philosophy this might be addressed; whether a father’s knowledge of who their child really was came down to whether or not you could pick their feces out of a line up.

“Once, that was bad enough. But twice?” Tim shook his head. “A kid doesn’t recover from that. We’d have to move.”

“I wouldn’t announce it,” Dave clarified. “I’d just pick it up with the skimmer.”

“See that girl with the black hair? Unicorn float?”

Dave did.

“Zoe Clark. My daughter first did it in her pool. She’d know—and then tell half the neighborhood.”

Dave was looking at the log again, which had almost reached to the corner. Nearly hidden, it bobbed and bounced…harmlessly? No—dangerously. He’d done all the training—had to every year. Fecal matter in pools was no joke, Caddie Shack memes notwithstanding.

He realized he hadn’t moved his feet in five minutes; a step in any direction was action. Get the skimmer. Radio the front desk. Make the announcement. These he saw in his mind as another mom—a toddler in each arm—waded into the pool via the steps, the heel of her foot coming no less than two inches from Clara’s contribution to float night.

“What’s it gonna take?” Tim was asking. “Let me make this right.”

“It’s a health code issue.”

“Come on. I’m a businessman—what’s it gonna take?”

A hot breeze wafted off the deck; even at five-thirty in the afternoon, the humidity broiled everything at five hundred degrees. Dave cleared his fogged glasses. The log had reached it’s final resting place: perfectly wedged into the corner of the staircase, camouflaged by the overhang. It was remarkably symmetrical—a digestive masterpiece. Equally spaced pinch marks section the work of art into five…six inch-long sections. No question: the most unnaturally occurring piece of poop he’d ever seen. Clara should be proud.

“Pool maintenance,” Dave finally said. Finally moving, and quick; very unlike a man who’d been stock-still for this long in this heat. Stepping down into the water, he sat on the pool’s edge to protect Clara’s birthday deposit. The tiny hairs on his leg, though wet, registered slight vibrations as the log made contact. “It gets expensive.”

Tim grasped the situation. “I can imagine.”

“Donations are…always appreciated.”

“Of course.” Tim squatted beside him. “Any specific…areas of need a person could, uh, contribute to?”

Hard to say how Nora would feel about this. But if it was between accepting a semi-bribe or letting the neighboring country club buy and then demolish the entire pool complex to build a golf cart storage warehouse, essentially erasing a historical institution that had shaped the entire course of his life, Dave would easily manage the ethical gymnastics.

To be clear, your Honor: he would take Tim’s donation and sleep like a baby.

“We’re throwing a hundred-year anniversary celebration,” he said.

“Sounds fun.”

Clara fell off Cleopatra, sending a wave their way. The log bumped into Dave’s leg again, stayed nestled against him. “Sort of a farmer’s market, carnival feel. Lots of equipment rental, no doubt. Lots of opportunities for generosity. ”

Tim nodded. “I enjoy generosity.”

Dave stuck out his hand. They shook. “And we here at Fanny appreciate it.”

Tim’s eye’s didn’t dare stray to the waterline. “Is there a…short term plan? For the current…matter?”

Impeccable word choice. “I’ll handle it.”

Which he meant literally; was doing, in fact, before Tim rejoined his wife. Dave’s fingers had already grazed the machine-like contours of the log; were gripping it gently, squeezing to check—yes, solid. Enough that he could slip the entire item vertical into his palm, stand up, turn, walk to the nearest trashcan and, after pretending to inspect it for spare capacity (and bees, always the bees), drop the turd in without anyone, save Tim, fully comprehending the heist.

Tim had tipped his hand: he loved his daughter and wanted to protect her. She’d done this before, and so he had, like many fathers before, fallen into a logical fallacy: the poop must be hers because she had pooped in a pool before. Dave couldn’t blame him—but he was grateful for the error. I’d rather swallow chlorine tablets than let the country club snobs turn this into a barn for their toys. Now he wouldn’t have to.

Because the longer Dave had stood on the water’s edge, feeling the entire existence of Fanny and her five pools waver, the more it became clear that no human digestive track could produce such a perfectly shaped load; no father could, though maybe some would claim such powers, pick it out of a lineup.

The buoyancy is what gave it away—the sheer olympic impressiveness with which that poop had covered ground from Clara to the steps, eventually into Dave’s awaiting grasp. See, his sister lived in Chicago; he’d been to the factory. He actually could pick that log out of a lineup because he’d seen thousands of them on a conveyor belt: King-Size Tootsie rolls. He’d gambled, of course, but with house money. I’d rather ignore health codes, take a bribe, and scoop poop out of this pool by hand than lose it. In the eye of Businessman Tim, he was a hero. Funds would be donated.

At closing that night, the guards probably found it strange that Dave, the boss, volunteered to take out the trash. This was scut work—lowest high schooler on the totem pole. But Dave had waved Kate off before she could dish out orders of who wanted to empty the cans. I’ll do it. Sure, the Upper Pool container had leaked the warm leftover of an illegal Claw Seltzer down his leg; obviously, he’d slammed his fingers beneath the metal enclosure when inserting new bags. But when he’d hauled the Dolphin Pool bag down to the dumpster, he recalled a memory that could only have been loosened up by relief—pieces of a conversation he’d had with his wife on a night like this one, when he’d lingered till closing to walk her home in the weeks after she rescued him.

If I was drowning, would you’ve given me mouth to mouth?

No. That’s gross.

What if I was dying?

That would’ve been sad.

He’d laughed hard enough to re-rupture his eardrum, then. And he laughed now, flipping the dumpster lid up and hurling the bags inside. He’s lost it any guard watching might think; admittedly, tonight had been a masterclass in derangement-adjacent behavior. But that’s only because they’d never stood here, sweaty-palmed and sunburnt, recovering from an inner ear puncture, attempting to find the courage to kiss a girl that would become his wife; never held his sobbing daughter in the parking lot, crushed by a swim meet defeat; never told his son a hard truth by the fishing pond.

To bulldoze those memories wasn’t just a crime against him, but future beneficiaries of Fanny; the community’s best-and-only option for family summer fun was centered around water, but it was more than a pool. Those chlorinated ponds forged kid friendships; the often crumbling deck edges giving moms a place to connect; toddlers—and others—sometimes defecated in the baby pool; senior citizens warred over swim lanes and coveted pool chairs. Someone had to care about this—someone had to, as his students often said, give a shit.

Dave would.

Or pretend to conceal one.

~