Amber

should be no surprise, I’ve worked my way up to the title of advanced swimmer; I even took all the lifeguard courses. Sadly, the State of Texas required a full-time lifeguard to be at least sixteen-years-old. I impatiently waited; biding my time so I could monitor the deep end of the pool—for cash.
Mom thought they were still charging me a whole quarter a day, pool fee. But, because they knew me so well, Mr. Buchanan, the pool manager, allowed me to stay all day if I spent four hours guarding the shallow end of the pool. Mom knew nothing about my working part-time for old man Buchanan. Thankfully, she didn’t bug me about the hours on end I hung out there. It had been my all-day hide-away every summer since I was eight-years-old. At least my time there got me out of her hair, and she somehow convinced herself the lifeguards were watching out for me.
She mistook them for babysitters who would give a crap regardless of whether or not I wandered off; however, since my fifteenth birthday, her attitude miraculously changed. She didn’t act like she cared where I went as long as all the family members were in their designated seats for supper; she didn’t send out a posse looking for us.
Supper, as Mom called it, always started round one of the night’s verbal pugilistic bouts. By the time dessert hit the table, my head felt like a punching bag. Most nights I longed to find the silence between her razor-sharp insults so I could ask to go to the skating rink.
In 1969, skating at a rink was a family event—at least for most families. Fortunately for me, The Carlyle Skating Center was only ten blocks down 34th Street, a distance I could easily bike. I could be found there nearly any night, and as a result, I became friends with the owners, an elderly couple by the name of Mavis and Ernie Gray. They bartered the entrance fee if I would take their silver whistle and skate the center of the rink, blowing shrill shrieks at rowdy little children who liked to skate against the traffic flow. I conveniently pocketed the rink fee, letting my mother know nothing about my arrangement with the Grays.
This was my life, the daily tragedy I ruefully looked forward to. But this morning the pool awaited, and it promised an entire day of happy, chattering people—away from hurtful words.
I threw off the sheet, stood, and stretched. Off came the underwear and on went my square-cut Lycra swimming trunks, my tattered cut-off jeans followed. Shoving my feet into a pair of flops and stuffing some clean underwear in my pocket for later; I headed to the bathroom.
Closing my eyes, I splashed water on my face. I stood there looking at myself in the mirror, shuddering. How desperately I hated that mirror. It was an unrelenting prophet of truth, and nothing I could do would correct the deformities so visible there. An abundant assortment of freckles adorned my cheeks; my nose, rounded like a button, imprinting a permanent youthfulness across my face. To top it off, there were my crazy eyes—they were amber—not brown, not hazel, but amber gold. Still, as odd as they were, I knew they were also my secret weapon. I could give anyone my sad eyes look and expect them to give in.
Other than my eyes, I had one redeeming quality on my entire skinny body, my tan. Spending so much time wearing nothing but swim trunks had turned my skin the color of shucked pecan shells. I ran a comb through my shoulder-length, chlorine-bleached hair and tightened the drawstring on my swim trunks hidden under the cut-offs. Making one more inspection in the mirror, I stood staring. The boy in the glass returning my gaze was short and thin, a sophomore in high school still chasing puberty.
Almost sixteen years old and not a sign of a beard—not yet. With troubled fingers, I rubbed my hand across the soft peach fuzz forming on my chin. I stopped. Something moved at the edge of my vision. A darkness darted into the shadow behind the door.
“Damn, every time that happens it startles me.” Hearing my own words gave a bit of normality to the freakish situation.
The first time I noticed this harmless oddity was a couple of months ago. It’s never allowed me to see it. All I got was the impression of a dark streak fleeing into a corner or under some nearby furniture, so I call it Mr. Dark. It was as good a name as any. I never mentioned it. How would it sound? Even trying to explain it freaks me out. People would think I’d gone off my rocker or I’m on some kind of drug—I’ve heard about drug addicts. The principal made everyone in school watch the film, Reefer Madness—scared me shitless.
Facing the mirror again, I took a deep breath and held it, counting slowly to ten—it was time to enter the war zone.
Before I made it to the kitchen, Dad breezed by. Distraught and smoldering, I could read his mood like a label on a tin can.
“Dad, wait up.”
Mother yelled at me as I ran to his pickup truck. “Arland, where is your shirt? What will the neighbors say, you running around town more than half-naked?”
As I scurried out to Dad’s 1962 Chevy C half-ton truck, I called back to her, “Going to the pool for my lesson. See you tonight.”
She met my words with silence and a wave of her dish towel. I could never tell if it was a casual sign for goodbye or just exasperated good riddance, but I suspected it was the latter.
I slammed the truck’s door as my Dad turned the key in the ignition.
“Dad, I need money. I owe for my diving lessons and I’d like to eat lunch.”
He put