Pool Shark

"Where do you live?" asked the beguiling nine-year-old girl from the shallow end of her vast swimming pool. I'd grown up with her father and the pool, and my young son and I had dropped in unannounced for a late afternoon dip. The babysitter asked if I could keep an eye on her while she ran inside for a sec and I agreed.

It was a simple enough question so I answered it, telling her the name of our town. We weren't from around here.
"Oh," she said, "That's not too bad."
"Not too bad?" I'm thinking, "I beg your pardon, Missy, I happen to like--" and before I could reply, she went on to say that our town, wherein I'd chosen to raise my son, was "full of bandits."

At first I found it endearing that a young girl would use the term "bandits" and wondered if she also pointed out "hobos" slouched on the sidewalks of Newark. I countered that she must be referring to another town with a similar sounding name that was a notorious hotbed of bandits and she bought it. My mind relaxed and leaned back on it's elbow. My son, age nearly five, is keenly aware of bandits and robbers, as he calls them, and I didn't want to add further angst to his already piqued awareness of such evil-doers in the world, much less draw his attention to their proximity to our back yard.

Then she perked up and said, "Ooh, there is one story about bandits that happened in that town. Do you want to hear it?" I looked at her squarely in the eyes and calmly but pointedly said, "No. Let's not tell that story," then glanced at Jimmy, who was doing his best impersonation of an inattentive child. I thought that that would do the trick, using what I would call my ace reverse tone shtick to let her know I meant business, well aware that hers is an existence of crashing crescendos and audible exclamations points. She said, "O.K., I understand," and smiled demurely, proud of herself for her maturity. Just as I was mentally wiping my hands of the whole matter and about to light my brain's corncob pipe, she continued, "This lady, in the supermarket in your town, had all her money stolen right out of her purse."

I looked at Jimmy who was underwater for half of it and then looked back at her.
"I asked you not to tell him," I said quietly and evenly.
"Oh, yeah. Sorry," she smiled, resting a wet chin on a tan, glistening forearm. She was beautiful now and would be spectacular in about ten years. Her long legs supported a lithe torso that already nipped in at the waist, hinting at the classic shape she would take in the coming years, like her mother, aunts and grandmothers before her.

"You know what else?" she said.
"Good Lord, now what?" I thought.
"Some bandits even come to your house," she crackled.
And I thought, "O.K., that's it, we're outta here." What's next? How easy it is to pick a lock? How anyone can break into your house if they really want to? Recent kidnapping trends in the tri-state area?

I had visions of hustling Jimmy out of the pool and back down the driveway the way one might escape a sudden torrential rain or a surprise onslaught of locusts. Except in my vision of the two of us running hunched under a damp towel, I have my fingers in his ears. "Two minute warning," is what I said, "Jimmy, we've got to get going in two minutes." And then I expertly re-directed the conversation away from the looming train wreck it could only become.

Yes, I was being overprotective, paranoid and controlling the way a mother of one child is convinced she can be, but jeeze, Jimmy is at That Age. He is consumed with bad guys, robbers and the safety and the sanctity of our home and his room. He counted the days until his Kung-Fu Panda headband arrived from the cereal manufacturer, finally giving him the superpowers he had gone six to eight long weeks without. And if there was one thing I knew I couldn't control in this scenario, it was that girl. She had an evil mind and she was going to use it for destruction, to remind everyone who's boss, and to maintain total pool-wide domination.

If only we'd brought the Kung-Fu panda headband to the pool. It's made with velcro and might fit me. Wearing it, I could keep him safe from bandits and nine-year-old girls until he was old enough to not need me or it. Then he could keep me safe from bandits and nine-year-old girls and from my evil-doer thoughts regarding what I might do to a bandit or a certain nine-year-old girl if I ever got my hands on her or him in a dark alley.

Next time, I'll call first before dropping by unannounced.