Brimming with papers and bench warming (but occassionally needed!) supplies, like three-hole punches and blank C.D.s, the office at the rec center looked like it had been a victim of a vengeful tornado. There was a desk.  But there was no chair by the window where I was supposed to be greeting patrons. When asked if organizing is something useful that I could be doing during slow times, Mr. Rutger wondered out loud, "Why?"     
    Having ignored the statement I got from his raised and confused eyebrows, I was now spending most of my days at the rec center trying to clean up the office space.  I refused to sit on the tile in the pool area and hope that no families I couldn't see were coming through the front door.  It was mindless work, sorting papers.  But, somehow it felt perfectly appropriate and satisfying.  Tony and I didn't talk much while we were on the job.  Sometimes we ate lunch together.  For some reason it felt like he had clued in to the fact that I knew he was gay, and now everything was inexplicably awkward.  One day, I approached him while he was on his lifeguard ladder to ask if he wanted to come share some cookies with me, and he jerked forward, when he saw me, covering his bare chest with his knees.  "Let me put a shirt on," he said.  "I'll be right there."  He was a pretty small guy, and I noticed nothing that he should be embarrassed about.  I wasn't brash enough in the moment to acknowledge his odd reaction, and that day had now receded into the murky depths of history, a place where good friends can't go fishing for supporting evidence during accusations.  I told myself that, mostly, I just didn't care enough to call him out on his weird behavior.  Truthfully, my mind was elsewhere.  It felt good to have a job, even a menial one; I could feel my stress abating, while the hands-on labor picked up my thoughts and took them away for play time.