JRT's STORY FOR BLOGGING WORKSHOP

Bob bobs bobberlike in the Bainesburg Community High School pool; his blood pressure cuff water wings clamped on flabby biceps, afloat; his fine filament hair on his bobblelike bobblehead reaching across goggled eyes like evil black fingers. Bob, for lack of a buoyant explanation, struggles slowly, shortening his distance to the pools inner trough. Is he quitting? Upon closer inspection one can only surmise that he is having difficulty doggy-paddling with conviction.

Bob has this reoccurring nightmare. He has mentioned this to Ruth Mondo, whom Bill contacted two months ago after Lucinda combed the personals of the Bainesburg Beacon (circulation 12,852 and climbing). He described in horrifying detail the ground-ivy spiraling around his neck and the silver telephone-pole-crucifix towering above him (an obvious sign, Ruth says, of miscommunication) and the dewlapped German woman shouting, You’re tangled again! and unraveling him and studying his chart during his interruptions (he says he mouthed something to her but you can never hear yourself talk in dreams) and her heavily accented response: Quit asking me! Only the doktor can release you!

In these nightmares Bob feels a certain affinity to his chart. He emphasizes over and over again that there must be some underlying meaning to all of this. Ruth points out that his chart, in such a dreamlike state, could represent an astrological sign—"Are you a Taurus?" Bob doesn’t understand the relevance of such questions. He reminds her that even though it is not his money, she is being paid by the hour. She bases her next comment on the many variations of the same dream. "Or maybe you’re falling into a big black hole." Bob agrees. He told her about the German woman dropping his chart, how he felt the gravitational pull of it swallowing him, the giant whale of a mouth mattress caving in on him, how he panics, how he hinges forward in his sleep in a cold cold sweat, afraid to be alone. Ruth reaches out, touches his wrist, "I know how you feel." She tells him about her husband, they’re separated, he coaches track-and-field, he survived a plane crash, suffered second and third degree burns. "You need to overcome your fears," Ruth says. She hasn’t quite figured out the correct approach. How do you tell someone that twelve years of cleaning tables and trays and mopping floors in a dining area is worth going back to? How do you tell someone that filling orders at a service counter is a fine way to meet other folks, good folks, honest folks? "You’re strategically located," she reminds him.

Thirteen years ago Bob bobbed for apples at the Bainesburg Fighting Burros Halloween Bash. Most kids came up empty, begging for treats. Bob didn’t. He pinned a Delicious Red against the zinc-bottomed tub and brought it to the surface where everyone could clearly see that a chunk had been missing from the other side.

"Disgusting," Bill said. Bill’s Bob’s bestfriend.

Bob cupped his hand around the contaminated fruit before letting it drop to the hay-splattered floor. They smoked marijuana on the north side of the silo with Lynyrd Skynyrd pulsating from the barn. They devoured Snickers, Almond Joys, and yes—Baby Ruths, before meeting LeAnn and Lucinda on the senior class hayride near Jay’s Cider Mill. Back then they filled out placemat applications honoring their dreams of escaping a small-town atmosphere; As luck would have it, New Allen Road became Highway 90 and Old Allen Road morphed into the business loop which, in turn, meant their getaway came to them. But Bill saw the sick Elm trees stretching on the horizon, may I take your order? he’d say, all the while thinking that those trees had to come down. So he bought five reconditioned chainsaws with his savings, attached a magnetic sign to his rusted F-150: "Bill’s Tree Removal Service," and hired a crew. Bob politely turned down Bill’s conditional offer of employment.

Bob bobs below the surface before breathing out, before bobbling-up and chopping at the heavily chlorinated water. He sputters and somehow gets turned around. On the opposite end of the pool, in the four-foot section, senior citizens perform water aerobics under the careful tutelage of Lana Applebaum. Lana’s more Bob’s age than Ruth. Ruth’s eighteen years his senior. It is Lana who notices Bob’s flailing about and yells, "Are you in trouble? Do you need help?" Ruth’s closer, at the downward slope, one foot firmly planted near the jagged, inky black racing line of lane numbers six and seven, her left hand generating a steady undercurrent to help keep her balance, the other hand waving Lana off. "Use the ladder Bob! Behind you!—To the right!—MY RIGHT!"

Bob last visited Bill and Lucinda unannounced. They knew he’d come. He needed advice. "Let me see if I understand," Bob said while Bill poured over his paperwork, "due to the rising cost of my company’s health insurance, I’m no longer eligible for physical therapy?"

"It’s not what you need, Bob." Bill turned away and yelled for Lucinda to come in. Bob saw her from the doorwall, a half-smoked cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth. She was pushing a gas-powered lawnmower around a little tikes shopping cart and readjusting her halter-top. She turned behind a woodpile, her coiffure barely visible. "The number’s on the fridge!" She yelled.

Bill gave Bob the piece of paper. He said he wished he could do more, but they needed to move farther north and he wished Bob the best of luck in Bainesburg.

Nothing. No response. Just Bob’s drawbridge-neck lowering his unshapely head onto the arm of the couch in time for "Hogan’s Heroes." Bill offered to pay for the personal coach as long as Lucinda didn’t know. Bob quickly agreed as long as Bill set it up. "I’ll try real hard to become more active," he said. "Now if you could pass me the remote, I have a show to watch."

Bob somehow reaches the side and wedges his water-winged arm in the gutter and plants one knee in the inner trough and fans out his hands on the skid-proof tile. Up he goes, his torso meeting the stubbled floor like the forgotten touch of a woman’s unshaven leg. He deflates the water wings and peels them from his arms. Next are the goggles. He tosses them. Then he towels himself off and heads for the locker room where he sees powdered soap all over the mesh locker containing his clothes. He over spins a number on his combination padlock and starts over. He hears movement. He stands perfectly still—waiting. He hears it again—movement. Not wanting to give himself away, he carefully uncradles the lock from his hand and tiptoes toward the bathroom stalls. He sees two callused skeletal feet standing at attention. He swings the door inward revealing a man, his ribs jutting out, his burnt orange nylon running shorts draped over pencil thin thighs. He’s holding something behind his back.

"My name is Yekuno."

"Excuse me?" Bob asks.

"Yekuno. Ye—ku—no."

"Did you just put something all over my locker?"

"No sir."

"Where did you just come from?"

"ee tee OH pee uh."

"Huh?" Bob’s confused. "Ethiopia? I didn’t see you in the pool. Where’s your clothes? Why are you hiding in this stall? What do you have?"

Yekuno moves forward, waves a camera, motions how he ran through the woods and across the field.

Bob blocks Yekuno’s point of egress. "You’re not going anywhere until I get some answers."

Yekuno smiles and snaps a picture. Bob sees hunched shadows appear in the light, disrobing and twisting dripping swimwear. His eyes are shut, he topples over.

"Call 9-1-1," someone yells.

Yekuno seals Bob’s mouth and gives two slow breaths followed by fifteen chest compressions. He knows that the shadows have grown accustom to reviving the dead, but he wonders whether he’s too late, whether he has enough evidence. He knows Bob blacked out.

Bob regains consciousness the moment a big German nurse smacks his bedrail with a clipboard. Then he slips under again when she fiddles with his IV bag. Suddenly Ruth appears, suggests he start biking instead of swimming, so he clicks into a higher gear and starts pedaling. He pumps his legs toward the horizon until they burn. Then he gently applies the brakes, gliding, descending the hill, his huge aerodynamic helmet streamlining the wind. Warm fresh spring air bursts into his lungs. He’s sitting comfortably on a double gel seat. He feels truly free in the Bainesburg business district, glad to be alive, coasting, floating past the bargain shoppers browsing for books at the sidewalk sale off Old Allen Road. Then he chokes on a bug and pulls over to the curb where he coughs up an Emerald Ash Bore. He drops his bike to his ankles. Back when Bill offered Bob the opportunity to work for him these bugs were bad, they were everywhere, they were in abundance. Now though, they seem scarce, if not nonexistent—except for the one draped in spittle on the blacktop next to Bob’s rear tire.

Drew McAllister places his hardcover Kafka book back into a bin and walks over to the disoriented biker. "Are you okay, Bob?" he asks. He’s seen Bob from Lana’s water aerobics classes (his bad back subjects him to low-impact exercises) and he remembers the day Bob blacked out. He also remembers the dark man, that’s how they referred to him; All the senior men saw the dark man and feared an infestation much worst than the Emerald Ash Bore. In fact, even though they were accustomed to seeing someone revive the dead, they were not ready for a change in culture, they were not ready for the influx of folks unlike themselves. Progress be damned, they’d rather flee Bainesburg than live with folks like that. "Someone should say something to Coach Preston," Drew’s neighbor, Boris, says. "It’s okay to run’em on the track, but do they need to live here too. They’re up to no good. DANG, IT’S LIKE A NIGERIAN SCAM!"

Bob regains consciousness long enough to see Ruth’s husband standing over him with a Kodak envelope. He’s demanding answers. "Are you having an affair with my wife? Are you?" Then Bob withdraws once again into his dreamworld where Bill revs up his chainsaw and dismantles the IV stand. You are released, he says. Free to go. Bye-bye Bob, bye-bye. And Bob takes one last look at the Devil’s singed hand unhooking the heart monitor, emancipating him at the ripe old age of 31 to a dark, dark place of comfortable nonconformity.