The Thing I Didn't Know I Didn't Know (Russel Middlebrook: The Futon Years Book 1) (4 page)

"Or!" Gunnar said. "Maybe it's evidence that creatures like that really did exist! And maybe they still do."

"Gunnar," Min said.

"That's not the only evidence that Bigfoot exists," Gunnar said. "There's lots of other stuff."

"Like what?" I said. Let's face it: Gunnar's obsessions were weird, but they were usually pretty interesting. At the same time, I didn't have a dog in this hunt, and I still hadn't had dinner, so I stepped back toward the kitchen where my rapidly cooling pho was waiting.

"Gunnar," Min said. "Bigfoot doesn't exist."

"How do
you
know?"

"Well, because primates don't live outside the tropics, for one thing."

"Sure, they do."

"Are you talking about that species of monkey in Japan? That's not exactly the same thing."

"I'm talking about humans!" Gunnar said. "And not just contemporary humans—early humans too. And Neanderthals."

Min sighed. At first I didn't understand why she cared one way or the other what Gunnar thought of Bigfoot. Then I remembered how Gunnar had scared Min and me, how we'd thought that something was seriously wrong. Min was still annoyed. Plus—let's face it—she kind of likes to argue.

At this point, I'd like to point out that we didn't spend
all
our time on Gunnar's houseboat having stupid, irrelevant debates like this—over the Theory of Everything and Bigfoot.

I'd
like
to point that out, but I can't, because we pretty much
did
talk about stuff like this all the time. This was what happened when you put three twentysomething dorks together in the same ridiculously small houseboat. It was like some kind of reality TV show—the lowest rated reality TV show of all time, but still.

"It would be impossible for a creature the size of Bigfoot to have escaped discovery all these years," Min was saying.

"Scientists didn't discover the megamouth shark until 1991," Gunnar said, "and that grows up to eighteen feet long. The pygmy beaked whale wasn't discovered until 1987." Clearly, he'd been doing his research.

"Totally different," Min said. "Those are sea creatures."

"Okay, the mountain gorilla. Scientists didn't confirm its existence until the early twentieth century."

"Again, completely different. Bigfoot supposedly coexists in some of the most populated places on Earth."

"Yeah, which is why we have all these eyewitness accounts," Gunnar said. "How do you account for
them
?"

"A combination of misidentification and hoax. Even Bigfoot enthusiasts agree that
most
Bigfoot sightings aren't 'Bigfoot' at all, right? They're either fakes, or misidentification, or figments of people's imaginations. So why couldn't the remaining five percent of sightings be one of those things too?"

"They could! But we don't
know
they are. That's all I'm saying. And some of them are pretty compelling. Have you read the accounts? Seen the photos? The film?"

"I hope you don't mean the Patterson-Gimlin film," Min said. "Come on. We've now heard from the guy who says he made the monkey suit, and the guy who says he was
inside
the suit. But people still believe that film is real. Which, if you ask me, is the biggest reason of all to think that Bigfoot doesn't exist. People want it too badly. And that means we can't trust anything most people have to say."

I confess, Min had impressed me. "How in the world do you know stuff like this off the top of your head?" I asked her, even as I slurped on rice noodles.

"Oh, please," Min said. "Scratch a skeptic, and two millimeters down you find an idealist. I want Bigfoot to be true just as much as you do, Gunnar."

"
No!
" he said suddenly. "You
don't
want that! You don't care if Bigfoot exists
at all
!"

Gunnar was like a cat when you rub him the wrong way—perfectly fine one second, then seriously put out the next. Once again, he'd caught both Min and me by surprise. But unlike a cat, he didn't calm down again, immediately distracted by something else. On the contrary, Gunnar looked downright pissed. He jerked up out of his chair and stormed from the room. When he reached his bedroom on the lower half of the boat, he even sort of slammed the door.

And I was left to stare, bug-eyed, at Min and think: Someday someone really might capture a live Bigfoot and learn all about this mysterious new species, but never in a million years would I ever understand Gunnar.

CHAPTER FOUR

That weekend, I was back at work lifeguarding at Green Lake.

"Did you see the redhead in the two-piece?" Clint said when we were sharing the office again. Then the light bulb went off over his head for the zillionth time, and he looked back outside. "And hey, what about the DILF with the hairy chest? Pretty hot."

Later, I was taking my stint in one of the lifeguard chairs overlooking the swimming area. The lake was surprisingly crowded for such an overcast day—maybe fifty people in the water at any given time. Behind me, up by the bathhouse, someone was playing ragtime on the Green Lake piano, which is this upright piano a theater company rolls into the park on summer days, with a sign that says:
Play me
. Meanwhile, there was this guy walking around the swimming area in a tiny g-string carrying another sign that read:
Free kisses!
He might've had some takers if he'd looked like Channing Tatum, but alas, he was kind of flabby. The truth is, he looked like a pervert getting off on exposing himself to the crowd. On the other hand, he was staying, just barely, on the right side of "acceptable behavior" in a swimming area, so we couldn't tell him to leave, even if he was freaking out all the parents. Would it have made a difference if he'd had a boner in that g-string? Probably. For the record, it is just these kind of complicated, King Solomon-like judgment calls that the city is paying its lifeguard professionals nine-forty an hour to make.

But that would be a call for the office lifeguard anyway. I was in the lifeguard chair, so I was trying hard to ignore all that, determined to stay in the "lifeguard zone," the mental state where a lifeguard somehow manages to keep track of a hundred different people all at the same time.

An Earth-mother-type played with her toddler at the edge of the lake.

A ten-year-old girl stood waist-deep in the water while eating an ice cream bar.

Four teenage boys played a loud game of King of the Floating Dock.

A woman in a pink bathing cap did the crawl stroke out beyond the dock.

The aforementioned DILF with the hairy chest struggled to put water-wings on his four-year-old son.

The lifeguard zone isn't a conscious thing exactly. Yes, you "see" all the people in the lake in front of you, but they don't really register (unless they're hot, like the DILF). It's more of a "big picture" thing. You somehow keep the mental image of everyone together in your head. Then if something goes wrong, you notice it—intuitively or whatever              .

(That said, I
was
totally aware that the little girl in pigtails was currently peeing in the lake. People who think they can pee and no one will know? The lifeguard knows. You can tell by the person's expression. We lifeguards just don't say anything, because, well, what exactly are we going to say? But for the record: ewwwww.)

I scanned the swimming area, back and forth, over and over again, trying to stay in the lifeguard zone. But after a while, my mind began to wander.

The label said that this sunblock wouldn't run and sting my eyes, but it totally does.

Man, that carp made a big splash. I'd like to kick the idiot who first released non-native species into Green Lake.

I wonder if I'll ever run into Kevin again.

I kept staring out at the lake even as ragtime kept playing on that piano.

Something is wrong
, I thought.

It didn't know exactly what it was, just that it was something. That was the thing about the lifeguard zone, or maybe about the human brain in general. Even when you're not looking at each individual person, even when your mind is wandering, you still notice when something's not right. And right then, my Spidey-sense was tingling something fierce.

I scanned the lake again, concentrating, trying to figure out exactly what was different.

The Earth-mother was still playing with her toddler.

The ten-year-old girl had finished her ice cream bar (and left the wooden stick floating in the water).

The boys were still playing King of the Dock.

The DILF was watching his son.

Even the little girl in pigtails, finally done peeing, looked a-okay.

The woman in the pink swimming cap. Where is she?

I looked to where she'd been before, and to where she'd be now if she'd kept on her swimming trajectory.

There were bubbles in the water.

Down below the bubbles was a dark form, not moving. There were no logs or rocks that big anywhere in the swimming area—I knew that for sure. And the dark form was way too big to be a giant carp or a turtle.

It's the woman
.

I stood up and blew my whistle as loud as I could. I didn't turn to the other lifeguards positioned around the swimming area, or the ones back in the office, but if they did their jobs right, they'd step forward, seeing if I needed help, but also making sure to watch
everyone else
in the swimming area. Believe it or not, it's times like these, when the entire swimming area is focused on one lifeguard helping someone who's gone under, that some other kid could slip or be pushed under the water, and no one would notice. Back in the office, the lifeguards should already have been calling 911. (We lifeguards all hate our job, but we also know how important it is, and we take it pretty seriously.)

I climbed down from the lifeguard chair, keeping my eyes locked on those bubbles out in the lake. I kicked off my flip-flops, and ran for the water.

The lake is shallow right offshore—perfect for little kids futzing around in a swimming area, but too shallow for a lifeguard like me to make a running dive.

So I kept running, the water splashing up from my ankles, until I could finally make the dive.

Then I swam, keeping my head up, face forward, my eyes locked on the spot where the bubbles had been—bubbles that were already disappearing. From this angle, with the sun on the water, I couldn't really see the dark form anymore. This is why it's so important to never look away from the spot where you think the person is, not even for a second.

I dove down into the lake. I kept my eyes open underwater, and even though the lake is murky, I could see the woman's pale white skin and the blue of her one-piece swim-suit (but not the pink of her bathing cap). She wasn't moving, just drifting under the water, which meant she was unconscious.

I knew she hadn't been diving off a dock or near the diving board, that she'd been swimming the crawl stroke only minutes before, so there was no real danger of a back injury. Right now the most important thing was to get her out of the water and breathing again, so I reached out and grabbed her in the lifesaving hold (one arm over her shoulder from behind, around her body, and then under the armpit). Once I had her tight, I furiously kicked my way up again.

She was heavier than I expected, difficult to drag. That could mean her lungs were already full of water—very bad news.

My head broke the surface.

Still gripping the woman with one arm, I stroked with my other arm, and furiously kicked my way toward shore.

Once I was in the shallow water, I dragged her up onto the small rocky beach where I could stretch her out and start doing mouth-to-mouth and CPR if necessary. She was older than I expected, in her sixties at least.

By now, two of the other lifeguards from the office had joined me. We turned the woman onto her side, to see if we could drain the water out of her mouth. Then we rolled her back again, and I tilted her head back to open the airway.

As soon as I did that, she started coughing, then gasping for air. This is exactly what they'd said might happen when I'd learned mouth-to-mouth. If it
hadn't
happened, her situation would have immediately been a hell of a lot more serious.

Another lifeguard appeared with a red wool blanket, pulling her upright, wrapping it around her, comforting her, telling her that help was coming. That's when I realized that at some point whoever had been playing the Green Lake piano had stopped. Everything was eerily quiet—so much so I could hear people breathing.

That's also when I realized what had just happened, everything I'd just done.

Talk about being in the lifeguard zone! I'd barely had a conscious thought the whole time I'd been saving her. I definitely didn't remember making any actual decisions. I'd just seen what needed to be done and did it. But now it was hitting me what a big deal my job was, and how easily I could have screwed it all up. The world started to spin. I even started shaking. Maybe it was some kind of adrenalin withdrawal.

But then sirens rose in the distance, focusing me again.

*   *   *

Lifeguards don't actually save that many people from drowning. I'd never done it before—except in the reach-for-a-small-kid-having-trouble kind of way. It had only happened to anyone three other times in the entire two years I'd been a lifeguard at Green Lake. So it was kind of a big deal that I'd done it, and so flawlessly.

I guess you could say I was kind of a celebrity, at least for that day. Of course I wasn't so much of a celebrity that anyone offered to give me the rest of the day off, or the next day either. But the other lifeguards were totally cool, high-fiving me and generally carrying on like I was a rock star. And as I worked my shifts in the office and out in the lifeguarding rotation, just about every single person who had been swimming in Green Lake that day came up to me to thank me or congratulate me for a job well done (including the DILF—yeow!— and the "free kisses" guy, though I politely declined the kiss. Isn't that life for you? It's always the guy in the creepy g-string offering the free kiss, not the hairy-chested DILF in the board shorts. Why is that?).

Toward the end of the day, when I was back up in one of the lifeguard chairs again, a woman with white hair, sort of a bowl cut, came up and stood next to me. I was totally expecting her to fawn and dote, like all the other women had so far.

But she just looked up at me and smiled.

"You!" I said.

It was the lady from the lake, the woman I'd saved. She was shorter than I am, but lean and fit, maybe a little wide in the rear. Her face was tan with freckles, and wrinkled, but not leathery. She was wearing clothes now—blue jeans and a purple pull-over. She actually looked great.

"Are you okay?" I said. "Did you go to the hospital?"

She kept smiling. "I did, and I'm just fine, thanks to you. I had something called a shallow water blackout—apparently quite common in,
ahem
, older folks. Anyway, everything was fine, so they called a taxi to take me home. But I wanted to come back here and thank you."

Ordinarily, when someone tries to talk to you when you're sitting in one of the lifeguard's chairs, you're supposed to tell them to go talk to the office. But I wasn't about to say that to her.

"You don't have to thank me," I said, embarrassed (but secretly proud).

"Of course I do," she said. "You saved my life."

"No," I said.

"How exactly do you figure?"

"Well, yeah, okay, I did, but it's just part of my job."

"That doesn't matter. You still saved my life. And I wanted to thank you by having you over for dinner."

"Dinner?"

"Tomorrow night? You can bring whoever you want—another lifeguard? Or a friend. Or two? Or maybe a girlfriend? Or a boyfriend?"

She was telling me I could bring a boyfriend to dinner at her place? Part of me was a little offended, thinking,
Why would she assume I was gay?
But even as I thought this, I knew that's not what it was. She was just a cool Seattleite who didn't want to make any assumptions. You could tell that from her whole demeanor.

"I'd be happy to come to dinner," I said. "But I think it'll just be me."

*   *   *

Her name was Vernie Rose, and she lived on Queen Anne Hill, which is one of the older (and more expensive) parts of town.

I had absolutely no idea what to expect, but I wasn't nervous exactly. At one point, I wondered if maybe she was an older woman who got her kicks by seducing young guys, like Stifler's Mom in
American Pie
, or maybe Mrs. Robinson in that old movie
The Graduate
. Or maybe she'd be a crazy eccentric, like Kathy Griffin, or the two wacky aunts on
Sabrina the Teen-Aged Witch
, and she'd end up giving my life meaning by introducing me to fine wine and the art of rumba dancing.

Her house was small, a green Victorian with beige trim and a red door. But unlike most of the others on the block, its paint was chipped and faded. There was a widow's watch on the second floor, and for the first time I wondered if Vernie was married. I suspected she wasn't, but I wasn't sure why.

"Russel!" she said when she answered the door, excited, but not creepily so. "Come in, come in." She was wearing an oversized dark green shirt—a cross between a button-down and a smock—and she had her short hair pulled back. At least she wasn't in a push-up bra. And it's not like she was wearing a kimono or a turban.