The Pool Pit
I’d gotten a call a few days before my birthday, this was back when I was just tall enough to punch my dad in the belly button. I was in my room chewing a whole packet of gum when the phone rang, ten times. On the eleventh time Mom yelled “Oh let me get it.” She called for my older brother Sam, but he wasn’t home. Then she called for me.
“Hey Rick, it’s Brice Cavanaugh,” the voice on the line said.
Brice and I were in Sunday school together. He asked what I was doing that afternoon. I said I had five packets of Big League chew I was working on to make enough mortar for a popsicle-stick fort.
“Wanna come to a pool party?”
Mom had gone into the laundry room, and we didn’t have one of those long stretchy cords so I told him I’d go ask because it was close to my birthday and also I couldn’t swim. Mom said it was fine, she liked Brice, and his parents didn’t give her molester vibes.
“Oh, bring some records with you,” Brice said before hanging up.
Records? I didn’t have any records. I had a Fisher Price tape deck I once played “Farmer in the Dell” ten hours straight, but no records. Searching Mom and Dad’s collection of worn out spines, the names were hardly legible. Andy Williams, Herb Alpert, Sing Along With Mitch; they all gave me visions of a hip Mom and Dad in the late 60’s, fondu-ing it with friends on their old matching avocado and baby shit yellow tweed couch and loveseat. I went into Sam’s room and turned on the light as roaches scattered. It smelled like salami and farts. A black sheet with white splotchy stains covered the hi-fi cabinet. I moved some of his Hustler and Playboy mags onto the floor. Inside were his Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, and KISS albums. All the dudes on the album jackets looked like party guys in their leather spandex and make-up, definitely ready for a pool party.
Brice’s house was only a few blocks over, Mom said she’d walk me halfway there, and if I didn’t come home by six, she’d assume I’d been kidnapped and call the police. Brice’s parents had money. Their half circle driveway was lined with Corvettes, one for each family member, even the baby. When Mr. Cavanaugh answered the door he looked disappointed.
“Where’s Sam?”
I didn’t tell him my brother was probably balls deep in some cheerleader so I said, “He’s at church camp.”
“In the middle of March?”
The Cavanaugh’s living room was full of sea foam green and pink furniture with glass top side and coffee tables. The wood paneled walls sucked up all the light beaming down from the popcorn ceiling that they had to open the curtains, exposing the big sliding glass door to their back yard. About fifty people were there, mostly teenagers and adults. Brice was the only kid my age. Mrs. Cavanaugh took the records from me, opened the back door and laid them on the patio. There were stacks upon stacks of records and cassettes going past the awning into the baking daylight. I saw some others titles I recognized: Led Zeppelin with the old man on the cover, Motley Crue, Guns N’ Roses, and Pink Floyd with the rainbow prism. Wow these people must love their music, I thought. I ate a hotdog and listened to a guest speaker named Job who had a travelling ministry. Like the biblical Job, he lost everything, though not at the hands of God, but from the Rolling Stones’ lawyers who sued the bejeezus out of him for selling unauthorized merch at their concerts to support his cocaine habit. He spoke softly and at other times raised his voice. He talked of how these new acid rockers in the music biz were stealing kids’ souls. Apparently 50,000 teenagers a year were blowing their brains out after listening to Ozzy Osbourne’s records. Who knew? He finished his speech by announcing that the key to stopping it was outside.
Brice’s mom opened the door and everyone funneled into the back yard. I’d been worrying about being the only one without a swimsuit and was relieved that no one else wore one. Their kidney shaped in-ground pool had been drained. As I approached, gray ribbons of smoke unraveled toward the afternoon’s orange juice sky. The bottom of the pool was completely lined with coals of black and white pulsating red. The speaker held up a Quiet Riot album.
“It’s time to send these devil worshippers back to the hell they came from.”
I watched as the straightjacketed man on the cover melted with his mask. One by one the slender bodies of record sleeves thudded onto the pyre. Embers created their flaming chain reaction. It felt like the sun was giving me a giant bear hug. I stood frozen, helpless, watching the museum of masterpieces engulfed by the inferno. Then Job held up Sam’s KISS Love Gun album.
“Who brought this?”
I raised my hand thinking maybe there was a mistake, and they didn’t need to burn all of the Love Gun’s in the world.
“Out of everyone who came today, it is you who should be praised, son,” he patted me on my sweaty head.
He opened and shook the sleeve, inserts of yellow and blue love guns fell into the abyss. Paper corners curled changing colors in the fire until a gust of wind blew their ashes into nothingness. Job put his hand on my shoulder, “See? Had we not buried these monsters, they would’ve taken you with them.”
I asked Brice’s mom if I could go inside for the ice cream awaiting everyone, she said she had some of her old Bay City Rollers eight-tracks we needed to throw in first. Everyone kept dumping their collections, musical diaries of first kisses, lost virginities, house parties, and school dances into the pool pit. It reminded me of those sci-fi movies where the aliens erase the memories of the abducted, leaving a blank slate.
I continued to watch from inside holding my bowl of ice cream while the blaze kept building, thinking at some point they’d have to stop as heat radiated through the glass. The clump of vanilla on my spoon began to shrink, dripping away until it disappeared before reaching my mouth.
- The Pool Pit - October 30, 2025
* This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are producs of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to real events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
