Project | 02 Life in Da Loc

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Jacksonville, Florida is a beautiful city, bridges roam the large town running across the enormous St. Johns river. Many people consider this a place as a retirement city, tourist attraction, and even a spot for vacation. Aside from all this however, there are certain areas in this big city that would make a person reconsider all plans to reside here. Jacksonville roughly consists of five different counties; Baker, Clay, Nassau, St. John and Duval county. I am from the most infamous part of Jacksonville, Florida which is Duval county.

 Here the summers are hot, and you cann’t get found out of bounce or your body might end up cold. I never had this boundary problem until I landed my first job as a lifeguard at a public pool located on a side of town that is known as the wild wild west, Lackawanna, or simply Da Loc. The large gated pool sits in the center of Mallison park which has a football field, softball field with not much sand and mostly overgrown grass, worn down basketball courts with ripped nets, a kid park full of trash and graffiti and a small building where kids often attend summer camp.

“Wassup I know where you from, you sure you want to work here? “. This was the security guard Tony acting like he knew me because as a kid in my neighborhood we used to ask for rides in his blue donk that sits up high on gold 24s.                                                                            

Ironically, he works at the park for security, but I ended up responding “man I know bout dis side I aint worried bout nun”. He cut the conversation short with “yea ight keep ya head on ya shoulders, let me show ya round tho”.

 He unlocked a large lock that seemed to be welded on to the gate handle for security from thieves, this gate led to the pool deck. When I first stepped on deck the smell of chlorine slapped my nose and gave me an unpleasant facial expression.

Tony giggled and responded to my ugly expression, “damn jit why you lookin like dat yeen never smelt chlorine”.

I was so disgusted I just was like “Man, what da fuck dat shit neva supposed to be dat strong people just swimming not bleach bathing”.

Tony laughed, “well this where all your working is going to get done at Mr. lifeguard”.  

We then headed into the community center, here kids were apart of a summer camp. When we entered the center the aroma from dirty infant baby pampers hit my nose. I ignored this smell because I was distracted by a child yelling “Uncleeee Uncleee Uncleeee” this was Ricky. Ricky is a toddler he was five years old and at the time his mother which is my sister worked long hours, so she enrolled him into this center basically for a baby sitter. His teacher quickly called him back to his group “Come on Ricky we don’t talk to strangers”. I felt so annoyed even though the lady was doing her job because she honestly didn’t know weather or not he was my nephew or not, but I exited the building and let it go anyways.

The pool sat center of the park on a small hill right across the street from a restaurant called Snack Shack, a place where I would often go in the morning to eat breakfast. I would grab food and go straight to work and walking across the street to work. The streets would have minor traffic, which gave you the opportunity to hear the splash of the clear blue water that always put me in a good mood.

            After the first couple of days of work I started to notice the people who attended the pool were often always the same type of individuals. They were loud, obnoxious, and always seeking for attention. The females who would come to the pool were rarely a diverse group, some Hispanic, some white, but mainly black because the neighborhood where the pool is located would be considered as the “Ghetto.” Females wore bathing suits in mainly a two-piece structure because girls in this neighborhood loved to show off their belly rings. The females never stayed longer then an hour unless they were with their boyfriends or had a crush on somebody who would come to the pool often. Honestly, girls came to the pool for attention, they did not want to get their hair wet and would only want their feet in. The only way the girls got in the pool is if they were chased down by someone who would purposely throw them in. The men who attended the pool daily would usually be majority of black males who were always loud with nappy style hair, whether it was long short or facial hair it was all in a nappy style. The boys would come to receive different girls number, but honestly the males would often get in the pool with their swimming trunks ready to play with the girls. They were even more anxious to throw the talkative girls in the pool. You could only imagine the danger this bring to those who can’t swim, but I would be lying if a said I wasn’t in the mix.

I thought this was something I could get used to every summer. Sitting up in the high chair seeing girls walk by in their two pieces, being able to oversee what went down, I felt like the man. I basically ran this pool and I knew for a fact that I would be my own boss one day. It was always a group of girls that came up to the pool looking nice. Their hair and nails were always done, it seemed like their outfit always matched their nails by the way. Jessica, jasmine and jessie were their names but Jessica had the smartest mouth and did the most talking. “Yall aint never doing no real work damn save somebody or something”.

Jessica often tells me this just to get a response and start conversation but today I wasn’t really in the talkative mood, but I did feel like playing. I blew the whistle and cleared the pool deck so that they were the only ones by the pool. The community center served free lunch, so the kids quickly ran to get the little saran wrapped ham and cheese sandwiches and milk. When the kids were all inside the center I creeped my way over to Jessica and her girls and quickly picked her up. Weighting about ninety-five pounds at a height of about five feet and five inches this was perfect size for me to take a couple steps and then a big leap into the pool.

Splashhhhhh, Jessicas friends started to speak up “ohhhh my gawdddddddddd nooooooooooooo, why would you do thattttt”.  

I responded with a giggle “Juss chill she not gone die I had to do it to her she was talking too crazy”.

Jessica was lost for words she just stormed off the pool deck dripping wet from head to toe, and her friends followed. I excitedly waved good bye with a grin “Goodbyeeee, see you laterrr! “.

The pool was always fun period, except Emergency action plan week or E.A.P days. This is basically a procedure to see if the lifeguard is really doing their job as expected. The manager usually sends someone to fake drown but on this day. I was placed in a situation to really show if my skills and awareness were up to par. The community center was at the pool, so we were very crowed on this scorching day. The temperature was eighty-seven degrees, but the humidity made it feel like one hundred and one. I was just trying to keep cool until I spotted a small boy which was my nephew dashing yelling “uncleeeeee, uncleeeee, uncleeeee”. Bumping into everyone the small boy he yells one last time before he jumps “uncleeee look I can swim toooo uncleeee”. I immediately blew my whistle and proceed with protocol diving in the water with eyes gazing at me after the loud signal you can only imagine how disrupting this could be, but I successfully pulled Ricky out of the water heroically everyone dazing in amaze. All I’m thinking in my head is damn I’m glad he didn’t lose consciousness ion think my CPR skills are up to par.

Within the next couple days, the pool was closed due to weather issues, it was summer time so I often partied with my bros. When I came back from the small break I was on the pool deck, we didn’t have many people here I guess because of the recent mucky weather conditions. It was just me and tony, we heard a squeaky voice mumble something we didn’t pay it much attention until the voice got a little closer.

“Nigga you thought shit was sweet hun? owe yeaaaaaaaaaa step out tha gate bitch.”

 My facial expression went from chill to grimace, as I notice who the person was, “Mann what you trinna do I already beat da shit outta you and ya homeboy’s ion see none of dat lil shit.”

This was a boy I got in an altercation with at one of the parties I went to while on the small break. But after the few words we did exchange he quickly began speed walking away toward the back of the summer camp building. I was talking trash but he seemed to be mad, after few minutes past shots began to ring out “pohh, pohh, pohhh, pohhhh, pohhhh, pohhh”. Tony and I were ducking and running at the same time trying to avoid the bullets I knew for a fact were aimed towards me. Tony quickly deescalated the situation by calling for back up.

After explain the situation and sneery to his compadres he asked me “damn you must know dat young nigga from somewhere hun? “

I responded quickly with anger “yea man me and my bro beat him an is homeboy’s ass at this lil party a couple nights ago”.

Tony explained “man you can’t be bringing dat shit wea you work at la bra I aint gone be here to save ya all the time”.

I had no words I was just thinking damn he right, if he wasn’t there I probably would’ve been dead.