Instead, Patrick just kept working. That made Jacob push harder. One afternoon in late June, Jacob walked straight through a freshly mopped section of the deck, leaving dusty footprints. Patrick was on his knees, scrubbing a rust stain near the lifeguard stand. Jacob stopped, looked down, and said, “Careful, old man. You look so tired. You might fall in.” His friends laughed.
Patrick dipped the brush into the bucket. He did not look up. Jacob kicked the bucket over. Soapy water spread across the concrete. “Oops,” Jacob said. “Guess you’ll have to clean that up. You just clean pools, right?” Patrick sat back on his heels. He looked at the overturned bucket, then at Jacob. His expression did not change. He simply stood, went to the maintenance closet, grabbed a mop, and began cleaning the spill.
Jacob and his friends whooped and moved toward the deep end. Dennis Halpern saw it happen from the manager’s office window. He did nothing. Later, he found Patrick and told him, “Look, I know he’s a handful, but his father pays for half the new furniture in the clubhouse. Just stay out of his way.” Patrick nodded once. “Understood,” he said. It was the most he had said to Dennis in four seasons.
That was Patrick’s first mistake. Not staying out of Jacob’s way. That was exactly what he did. The mistake was believing a young man with a fresh black belt and no real opponent would eventually get bored. Jacob did not get bored. He escalated. Each week, the jokes grew louder. Each week, he edged closer. He started doing slow motion kicks in Patrick’s direction, always pulling them short, always laughing as if it were a game.
Staff began to tense up. One of the older lifeguards, a girl named Maya, started carrying a radio with her whenever Jacob came to the deck. She had never seen Patrick raise his voice. But something about the way he watched Jacob made her nervous. She told a coworker, “It’s like watching a cat watch a dog. The dog thinks it’s in charge.” She had no idea how right she was.
