Paul Theroux - My Secret History

That was the pattern. It should have been an easy job but the people made it hard. I paced the edge of the pool and kept my mouth shut. I was not allowed to eat or drink near the pool, I was forbidden to read, and I could talk to members only if they spoke to me first. They seldom did. They were not unfriendly, just uninterested.

“You’re not here to make friends,” Mattanza said. “You’ve got a job to do.”

Mattanza had problems. He said he had two kids. “I get married. I sleep with my wife. She gets pregnant. She shuts me off — no more sex. She has a baby — Julie, lovely little kid. We start again — hey, it’s natural! She gets pregnant again. She shuts me off again. I says, ‘What is this?’ So if I want kids I can get laid, and if I don’t want kids I gotta play with myself.”

He was silent, watching beautiful Nina Balakian preparing to dive and snapping her bathing suit over her buttocks as it rode up.

“I used to have all kinds of broads,” Mattanza said. “I went into the North End. I told them my name was Joe Falco. I had all the broads I wanted. Want my advice? Never get married. The sex isn’t worth it, and all they do is talk — yah-yah-yah,” and he opened and closed his hand to indicate gabbing.

Afterwards I think he was sorry that he had told me all that because he snapped at me when he saw me talking to a woman.

“Eyes front,” he said. “How many times do I have to tell you? Jesus, I hope they get you in the army.”

The woman was about fifty and very friendly. She was reading a book by Norman Mailer. It was unusual to see anyone reading here — and Norman Mailer! The book was Advertisements for Myself.

“It’s a ragbag,” she said. “Some of it is kind of cute, but he’s too tough for his own good. Did you ever hear about how he stabbed his wife? It was after a party. She said, ‘He had a strange look in his eye.’ Then he knifed her. She didn’t press charges. What a ding-a-ling!”

At that point Mattanza had interrupted.

“I have to go back to work,” I said.

At the end of the first week, Mattanza said, “I don’t like your attitude.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“See? Just the way you said that! Listen to yourself. You’ve got a bad attitude.” He brooded for a while, then said, “If you don’t shape up I’m going to have to let you go.”

I had never worked in a place where I couldn’t read. Only reading made work bearable. I brought Baudelaire to the Maldwyn Country Club and sneaked looks at it, but when Mattanza saw me he told me to put it away.

“What is it with these books?” he said. “Hey, know what I think? All this reading makes you crazy. Not only ruins your eyes. I mean, it’s no good for you.” He wagged his scaley fingers at his head, an Italian gesture meaning cracked.

“So when your kids go to school you won’t let them read books, is that right?”

“School books. That’s different.”

“How do you know this isn’t a school book?”

“The way you got your nose in it. You like it.” He winced at me. “You’re going to make yourself pazzo.”

“I see. So school books don’t drive you crazy, because they’re no fun to read. It’s only enjoyable books that turn you into a mental case. Is that right?”

We were doing the filters — Mattanza pouring the chlorine in while I screwed them into their holes. Mattanza put the bag of chemicals down. His tiny eyes were black with anger.

“You think I’m stupid, don’t you?”

“I don’t know,” I said, and I became very vague, as if it was impossible for me to determine whether or not he was stupid. I faced him and tried to look baffled.

“Hey, if you don’t like this job I could find lots of guys to take your place.”

I decided not to reply. I didn’t want to tell him what I thought of the job.

“I’ve got them pleading with me,” Mattanza said. “I could show you the applications. Know why there’s so many?”

I smiled at him.

He gathered his fingers and shook them at me in another Italian gesture.

“Because this place has class.”

I said, “You mean money. That’s all you mean. Money.”

“Fucken right that’s all I mean.”

I didn’t mention taste or intelligence or generosity, I didn’t say anything more. I was fairly sure he was crazy. He was certainly unpredictable. We went on doing the filters — Mattanza shaking the chlorine while I did the fitting — and then he spoke again.

“I used to go in disguise,” he said. “I was Joe Falco. I had this special suit that I just wore in the North End, nowhere else. I used to comb my hair different. Know something? A lot of broads like to be slapped around. You wouldn’t know that because you don’t know shit. But I can tell when they want me to hit them. I just fucken slam them and they love it. They get this”—he weighed his little fist—“right on the mouth. Only it wasn’t me. It was Joe Falco.” Mattanza looked at me and made his mouth into a smile. “Falco was a crazy bastard.”

* * *

No reading, no talking, and Mattanza didn’t like me looking away from the pool. A job that seemed to me to have pleasant possibilities quickly turned into a grind. How could a lifeguard job be hard? But at the Maldwyn Country Club it was hard. And if I was only a few minutes late, Mattanza ranted.

“I’m docking your pay! You’re losing an hour! You’re late!” he said. “I should give you your walking papers. Know my problem?”

“I can’t guess.”

“I’m too nice. Suit up and get your ass out here.”

“The bus was late.”

“Don’t blame the bus. Don’t give me no excuses.”

I hated the bus — hated the hard seats, and the way they smelled; hated the condescending bus advertisements that were designed for the down-at-heel bus passenger. Ever thought of completing your education? or There is a future for you in TV and Radio Repair! I wanted a motorcyle, but how could I buy one on forty-four dollars a week — they withheld seven-fifty in tax. I gave my mother fifteen, kept fifteen and banked the rest. I needed nine hundred by September: I would never make it. Working to make money made me distrust work and despise money.

What demoralized me was that all the members had money: they drove Cadillacs, they played golf, they had huge lunches, and if they wanted a drink they ordered it. They lay spread-eagled by the pool, tanning themselves; they drank. And I stood watching them, which was my job, and I resisted the urge to read.

They had sporty clothes and I had army-surplus. The only advantage I had was that all I was required to wear was a bathing suit. I was healthy and a good swimmer, but so what? I deeply resented the fact that I was a servant and regarded as inferior. And it was a trap: because they were stupid I would never be able to prove to them that I was intelligent.

One hot day in the second week at the club I stood in the sunshine feeling dizzy, and, fearing that I was going lightheaded, I decided to plunge in and cool off. Mattanza was waiting for me at the top of the ladder when I came out.

“No swimming,” he said. “Hey, don’t you like this job? Because if you keep goofing off like this I’m going to have to let you go.”

But less than an hour later he had put on his tiny bathing suit and begun diving into the pool. He swam poorly but he was a good diver. I was glad to see that he was the sort of show-off who sometimes goes too far. I hoped that he would overdo it and bash his brains out on the edge of the pool.

There were girls my age who spent the whole day there. I watched them but I did not speak to them. They had wide Armenian faces and were heavy, and had big brown thighs and broad feet and square shoulders. In spite of all their money they would always look the way they looked, which was a kind of warning. They lay sleepily in the sun and got even browner.