1979 in Background Noise

Written 5/17/2007 Background Noise is where I plant stories that strike me from the OD days.

Shakedown 1979, cool kids never have the time
On a live wire right up off the street
You and I should meet
Junebug skipping like a stone
With the headlights pointed at the dawn
We were sure we’d never see an end to it all
And I don’t even care to shake these zipper blues
-Smashing Pumpkins, “1979”

1979 was a cool year for me. I was a senior in high school.

I had spent the summer as a lifeguard. I’d made out with a girl in the movie theater. I was unfortunately still a virgin.

That was my own fault, especially in light of the lifeguard gig. But I had, and still have some weird leonine requisite that my love interest be younger than me. Being a lifeguard at 17 and worked on by twenty-something gals, even hot ones in bikinis always felt a little like being hit on by someone’s mom. Off. The late afternoon lifeguard was a Navy guy whose whole purpose for working for five bucks an hour at the little beach in Brunswick was to get laid. He was always giving me advice about how to work it, and that kinda creeped me out as well. If I had only listened. Or been receptive to those twenty-somethings. That might have changed everything.

We lived in Lisbon Falls, which I refer to as Salem’s Lot because I had once read that Stephen King had at least partially based that cursed town on Lisbon Falls. Up 196 was Lewiston, Franco-American town. I think Lisbon saw itself as the last line of Anglo resistance. If Lisbon falls, next it will be Bowdoin and Bowdoinham, then if they make it to Topsham it will only be the river that stops them from reaching Brunswick – and gasp if they reach Brunswick, well civilization is Lost!

There was a weird passive-aggressive animosity between the black-jacket wearing Lisbon guys and the “Frogs” up the road. Never stopped us from going up there, almost like we were looking for trouble. But I’m getting out of sequence.

Summer of 1979 I was lifeguarding at White’s Beach.

I didn’t know anyone from Lisbon yet, I just did my eight mile bike ride to the beach. Swam my laps. Got my gear out and settled into my day of boredom and hoping no one did anything too damned stupid. But everyday there was some stupidity to deal with.

Five times I went into the water. Usually young teens who decided to swim out to the “Raft” which wasn’t a raft at all but a big concrete block set in the middle of the lake – which if truth be told was just an over sized pond. They would get half way there then freak out and start screaming. It was early “gaging how serious this is” training for me, because often the same age group would do the same thing then start in with the “help help, I’m drowning” in between giggles.

You know. When someone is really in trouble you freaking know it. The tone of their voice has the “I really mean this” sound. It was in trying to decide when to adrenalize. Are they faking or not. NOPE, not faking – then a Baywatch water entry. One time I found myself out there with two preteen girls, both about ready to kill the other in their panic and I realized I had done it wrong again – no ring, no torpedo. Just me.

I was already doing the evaluation about which one I would break loose and do the lifeguard patented shoulder grab, -chin grab, -crosschest carry and drag to shore hoping the other was a strong enough swimmer to make it when some gown up guy from the beach jumped in and saved me from having to make a choice by arriving to grab the other girl. We get them to shore, parents and friends and much shrieking and screaming. Then I’m standing there alone. Wondering what I’m supposed to do. I go back to my tower, and start counting people in the water.

Five times, every time wrong. I only had to do CPR once, and luckily an EMT was at the beach and we got the old bastard running again.

I reset a dislocated shoulder once.

Freaker’s Ball at the beach. Multiple local bands and a stage. Stoned out of his gourd dude showed up asking for help. He had jumped off the shallow side of the “raft” and popped himself out. “Just grab and pull hard”. I’m glad I didn’t puke. That was gross.

The lake blue-green, the smell of suntan lotion wafting through the air and WBLM blasting out of the trunk of one of the cars at the end of the lake.

Through the summer a crew would randomly arrive.

Embedded there was a statuesque blonde and through the summer of ’79 she would be the “blonde in the white corvette” for me.

She was always with a dozen or so other guys and girls. She always wore a white maillot, one with a flower over her right breast. Sometimes, when the crew would show up and I wasn’t really expecting them she would take my breath away.

Not once in the dozens of times they showed up did she fail to make eye contact, a bright aquamarine blue eye contact and a smile.

One of the two sweetest smiles I have ever seen. I never saw a way to break in. At least no good way.

I only saw her once the following summer. She was alone with one guy. The white maillot traded for something a little less striking.

I don’t know what I could have done different. I guess sometimes that is just the way life is.

Turns out she was from Lewiston. I determined that from overhearing a conversation, and hearing that Lewiston accent coming out of my dream girl’s mouth.

I still smile at the vision of her passing in front of the lifeguard stand, holding her hair out of her face as one the guys from the crew bragged about kicking somebody’s ass.

Her looking up, shy smile.

Those eyes. My hormones raging, and my brain completely unable to come up with a way to meet her. She may be to blame with my continued fixation with long haired women.

They weren’t as rare in ‘79. Maybe I am trapped.

Reminiscent smiles are good. It reminds you that you were alive. Really alive.

That crew always walked through “the zone”. Unaccompanied girls always set up camp around the lifeguard stand. Like we were some kind of surrogate boyfriend on the days the boyfriend had some bigger fish to fry.

I would often see the same girls with boyfriend, and they would plop down anywhere. Sans boyfriend they were nestled within fifty feet of the ‘stand. I think the X tried to explain what that was, but I don’t remember. They weren’t doing it to be close to me. They were doing it to not be alone on the beach?

Well. Enough of this.

I applied for four more jobs, not one of which I am remotely qualified for, what all they can do is ignore me. Interview with Lowes tomorrow. That could be fun.

And we don’t know just where our bones will rest
To dust I guess
Forgotten and absorbed into the earth below
The street heats the urgency of sound
As you can see there’s no one around