Pool_2

There is going and then there is getting there. Marcus was ready for the what. But the where? Where? This was the wrong place! There was nobody at the, apparently, designated site. Damn! Somebody could be drowning right now! Panic. Would the job be held up by his absence? Would they wait? Regulations and all? All that cost! "This is not my fault. Not my fault." But who would believe that? Everybody. No? Obviously. Right? He was told the wrong location! No? Not everybody would believe that. Not the ones who could make your life miserable. He looked at his instructions reinspected his location. Can't be it. There were men drowning on his watch! Good men were drowning and he was a no show! "Not my fault!" alternated with "My own damn fault. Shoulda checked better! Nobody here! Damn." In this frantic humiliation, Marcus ran the river bank upstream for miles. Way upstream. Up. Up. No. Must be the other way. Back again. Downstream. Down, down to where? They will leave you alone was an understatement. Pay phones, the few there were, were all gutted. There was nobody anywhere on this river, except one very old black man reclined under a tree, near the original place where he had erroneously thought he was supposed to be. "Sir?" he very quietly stirred the old fellow, "Sir?" "Me? Sir? Well that's a hoot," breaking from a nap," You all done in from your run, young man?" "My run?" "Up the river, down the river, up the river, down the river, up,.." he trailed off with a hand back and forth gesture directed along the river flow. "I'm lost." "We're all lost, son. But you are ahead of the game by knowing it." Marcus was too depleted of air to laugh, but there was an affirmative head nod.