Chaos and Mayhem!
On the very left (of the picture above) is one of our tribe members who had been knighted with the nickname, "Pinky." He joined our family when he was about 12 - that's when I was only about 6. When he was in the 7th grade he followed one of my brothers home from school and just ended up staying - like forever. He had been around ever since I had a memory and so I figured he was part of our tribe, but I could tell there was something different about Pinky from the rest of us. Besides the obvious fact that Pinky had dark hair, he was also was about the size of three of us Dahlins put together. I don't want to say anything that would hurt anyone's feelings, but the guy was...ummmm...large! One of my brothers said that "Pinky was so big he could kick-start a 747-Jumbo jet."
All that to say, that Pinky and the usual amount of chaos prominently figure into the death story of McIlliot's Pool which started with something very much like the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 when Ulrich launched the nuclear warhead of loogie onto American territory down my throat.
The conflict escalted into a full on nuclear retaliation of my own with a puke counter-launch that sprayed everything in a 20 foot radius. I figure it was probably jsut like something between the United States and the Soviet Union.
This was all very much like a Dr. Strangelove - if you know what I mean.
I promise there wasn't much in the pool at all, but everyone made a "such a big deal" about it and climbed out of the water as if they would get Diphtheria or Diarrhea from the nuclear fallout of Fish-Stick particles that floated on the surface of the pool.
Little babies!
I could see Tommy and Kjersten and Annie fussing, but Ralph was a 12-year-old with a mustache. He acted like the biggest baby of them all.
I might also be over-reacting, because it hurt my feelings that Ulrich had launch a precision laser-guided warhead of mass destruction and everyone was mad at me for some reason. I felt that someone should have taken my side and been mad at Ulrich with me, BUT NO! Now, I'm the bad guy. All I heard for the next 12 minutes is, "Markie D this and Markie D that... Barf-O-Bits this and Barf-O-Bits that... Oil spill this and Oil spill that...ha ha ha ha!" "Ha ha yourself... I'm rubber and your glue"
How do you tell a little nine year old girl she just hurt your feelings without sounding like a girl yourself. So I just kept it all in while they watched me clean up the concrete pool deck all by myself.
We had about 50 cents between the 5 of us, so I told them to walk down to the corner liquor store and get some candy they could share, while I finished up the duty commensurate with Catholic guilt and penance. I scrubbed the vomit off the sidewalk next to the pool, saying a couple "Hail Marys" and several "Our Fathers."
When the victorious troops arrived back... Tommy had already eaten the entire Chick-O-Stick without saving me one bite - Ralph was flaunting his candy cigarettes.. and Kjersten and Annie licked the necklace and candy dots they were sharing - knowing that I wouldn't want any.
( I wonder who thought of that one? Candy Cigarettes for kids!)
Anyway, I figured that I would have the last laugh.
The filter had been running and the pool was clean, but no one in our rambunctious outfit was too interested in jumping into the cool water.
It became one of those games where... we challenged each other to dive in, but that didn't work. Then we tried the game where we could try to fake each other out... "Okay everyone, let's all go in on the count of three. Okay ready, One...Two...Three" we shouted in unison as Ralph and I get an Academy Award for pretending to jump while Kjersten and Annie leapt fool-hardheartedly into the deep end. Tommy didn't fall for it and the three of us boys laughed at the gullible girls.
It felt good for a change to be on the laughing end of something. Still demanding justice and a little hurt, I pushed in Tommy and then Ralph into the water.
I was King of the Universe... at least king of the McElliot pool universe standing all by myself as if I had just won another Olympic Gold Medal in the "king of the hill" competition. It felt good for about 8 seconds and then it felt like a pretty empty victory after that.
Hang on I'm getting to the "Rat Killer" and to Joan and to the phone call and to the chaos and to the "Pinky" part!
Ralph ended up furious... more than any 12-year-old kid should be - for being pushed into a pool. My goodness, I was going to join him in a second, but he freaked out! He can after me with fire in his eyes that the cold water couldn't put out.
Around and around and around and around we ran. He just wouldn't give up! He was the oldest boy in his family and had a bunch of older sisters. Maybe he felt like a neutered alpha-male at home and had something to do with his ridiculous rage. This thing was never going to end and I knew that he was never going to catch me! Didn't he know that I spend the greater part of my life running from brothers - EVERY SINGLE DAY? Doesn't he know that I have learned to fight like a junk yard dog? Doesn't he remember the infamous "Sour-Dough Toast Fight" of 1966 (blog post 6/29/13).
There was just no way he was going to win, but I guess wounded pride and ego is a psychological force to be reckoned with. Although he was never going to catch me, I could tell he had no intention of giving up. I needed to offer him a sense of victory to settle things in his mind- the poor fella. I shifted directions and dodged him for like the umpteenth billionth time, but this time I pretended to not to see him coming the other way and gave myself to him as a ransom.
He was so smug and so happy... but it wasn't real and now I felt guilty (either that or my own sense of evil pride kicked in)! Kids have weird wiring, right? I thought "You know what Markie D.. I'll let him push me in, but he'll have to earn it first." I pulled away easily the first time just to show that I may be small, but was a force myself to be reckoned with. Yawn.. I let him grab me again...and was too squirrely for him to push me into the pool - there was just no way. If I was going to go in just to make him happy then he would have to pull me into the pool. The way I looked at it, if I had to go in, then both of us were going!
He turned and with feet planted on the edge of the pool, he leaned out over the water with the 50 pounds of extra weight he had on me...but I was Markie D! I thought, "You know what...I'll show him one last time who is boss of this situation." I dug deep into the reservoir of my superhuman adrenaline strength (The kind a mother gets when she lifts up a car to save her baby), and made the decision to break his grip one more time!
My plan was to slip out of his grip,watch him fly backwards into the pool and then join him in the water by swan diving like one of those Acapulco Cliff divers. I wrote myself to be the hero of this plot.
The only thing I failed to consider - was the fact that as he pulled me into the pool... I was pulling in the opposite direction - directly towards the glass wall of the adjacent pool room.
Do you know that thing about Sir Issac Newton's Third Law of physics, about how every action has an equal and opposite reaction? Sister Edith said this was very important to space flight and I found out the hard way just how true this really was.
When Ralph took flight and shot backwards into the pool, it also sent me with the equal amount of force in the opposite direction.
Well, the second I left the launching pad with that much force and flying towards that stationary glass wall I knew I was in trouble
"Have you ever noticed sometimes that when you win - you lose"
Markie D
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