Lifeguard

Chapter 1: Chapter One: 1974

Overview

The chapter opens with a vivid memory from the summer of 1974, when fifteen-year-old Janet first witnessed a lifeguard get “horned” (gored by a fish) at Rockaway Beach. She’d been dragged there reluctantly by her father, a Con Ed worker who saved up to rent a bungalow for seven kids. Janet initially wanted to stay in Park Slope with friends, but her dad’s ultimatum—come or move out—sent her to a summer that would shape her future. Rockaway turned out to be a revelation: a tight-knit block community, block parties, and the intoxicating world of lifeguards, which she saw through her older sister Barbara.

The lifeguards were a breed apart. They partied relentlessly at “Caveman Conventions,” lighting bonfires, supplying kegs, inviting bands like Arlo Guthrie’s entourage. They ran the beach like their own fiefdom, bribing cops with burgers and beer. Janet tagged along with Barbara, getting drunk at fifteen, and fell in love with the reckless camaraderie. But there was an edge to it—some of the male guards were unpredictable and mean.

Labor Day: Tube Tops and Dr. Scholl’s

That Labor Day, the ugly side surfaced. At Fitzgerald’s bar, a group of male lifeguards confronted Barbara and Patty for leaving early that afternoon, “screwing” them on the chair. Patty fled. Tom pulled Janet’s tube top down. She whacked him with her Dr. Scholl’s sandal and threatened to “drop a dime” from the phone booth—calling her Brooklyn brothers. It was an empty threat, but Tom backed off. Janet learned that standing your ground worked with these guys. The borough coordinator, Freddie, was passed out at the bar.

From Wall Street to the Monkey House

Fast-forward four years: Janet is nineteen, working on Wall Street, partying with rich colleagues. She runs into Barbara at a street fair. Barbara is returning to weekend lifeguarding and recruits Janet. Janet hesitates—remembering the crazy party pressure and the fear of spotting a drowning after a night of drinking. But Barbara assures her: “You’ll never be alone, it’s all teamwork.” Janet agrees. Barbara gets Freddie to sign them up without the usual swim test and training. On their assignment slip: Rockaway Beach, the only surf beach in NYC, home to the wildest lifeguards.

Belle Harbor: Barbecues and Bathtub Cases

They process at the old monkey house in Central Park Zoo, then get assigned to Belle Harbor—a slower stretch where locals know how to swim. Janet’s first day is rainy, so the senior guards barbecue and drink. There’s almost no official training; Barbara teaches her everything: porpoising through waves, reading swimmers’ body language (if they turn their back to the ocean, they can’t swim), and knowing when to go in. “Bathtub cases” are easy rescues before things escalate. The chair rotation is two on, two off, with “bumping” to keep chairs covered during rescues.

Janet learns a hard lesson: always present the buoy first. A panicked mustache man lunged for her neck and dragged her down in chest-deep water. She shoved him back and handed him the buoy. “Drowning people want to grab something, and if you don’t give them something, it will be you.”

Garage Living, Office Commuting

She and Barbara rent a converted garage on 122nd Street. They party all weekend, then Monday morning put on blazers and skirts, take the A train to the Financial District. The male guards remain untamed—one climbed naked onto the lifeguard shack to swing his penis. Janet keeps them at arm’s length. But on the beach, she feels carefree in a way she doesn’t at her Wall Street gig. Lifeguarding serves the public directly; it’s both mundane and extraordinary. “We were the difference between life and death.”

Key Takeaways

• Lifeguard culture in 1970s Rockaway was anarchic and dangerous – heavy drinking, minimal supervision, and a pecking order that prized the surf beach as the elite (and wildest) assignment.
• Standing your ground was essential – Janet’s Dr. Scholl’s sandal incident taught her that aggression could be defused by refusing to back down.
• Real training often came from peers, not official programs – Barbara taught the practical skills: reading water, porpoising, knowing when to rescue.
• The job carried serious responsibility despite the partying – the buoy-first rule, the chair rotations, and the constant awareness of swimmers’ safety were non-negotiable.
• The beach offered a different kind of freedom – a stark contrast to corporate life, where saving lives felt more meaningful than trading stocks.

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Chapter 2: Chapter Two: 1980

Overview

Spring 1980 brought a subway strike that forced the author to commute from Park Slope to Baruch College on her red Fuji bicycle—a surprisingly enjoyable commute as she zipped past frustrated drivers stuck in traffic. One driver even tried to stop her by opening his car door, which she kicked shut. She was studying accounting, swimming on the team to stay in shape for lifeguarding, and still playing women’s rugby with Barbara and her younger sister Helen on Columbia’s alumni team, Old Blue. Rugby was a place where they could be athletes first, ladies second—the author routinely blew her nose on her sleeve, and Barbara let out field-shaking burps.

That summer, the author decided to lifeguard full-time. Barbara couldn’t join her, so she recruited Helen, her shy, rule-following younger sister who was the angel to the author’s devil. Helen was a strong swimmer, and the author advised her to request Rockaway as her assignment, just as Barbara had taught her.

The Rockaway Beach World

Rockaway is a barrier island at the southern end of Queens, seven miles of open ocean beach accessible by subway, ferry, or bus—meaning millions of people flood in every summer. There are nine lifeguard shacks along the peninsula, each with its own character. The 17th Street shack sits along an inlet with tides that change four times a day, creating dangerous rips. The 21st Street shack guards the ocean beaches, while 32nd and 97th Streets have strong currents from sand dredging. Above the water, the social geography matters just as much: from public housing high-rises on the east to the gated community of Breezy Point on the west, with the “Irish Riviera” in the middle. Shacks downtown—below 116th Street—get more day-trippers and nonswimmers; uptown shacks, where the subway doesn’t reach, offer more downtime with wealthy local kids.

That year, both sisters were assigned to the 86th Street shack, which spanned ten busy blocks with one of the few rock jetties. Their brother Alex was already there and annoyed that his sisters were cramping his style—he ignored them all summer.

The Grind of Being a Horn

As first-year lifeguards, they were “horns”—the lowliest rank. Senior lifeguards took the morning chair; horns worked the hotter, more crowded afternoon shifts. They did all the grunt work: sweeping sand, policing wet bathing suits, and drilling constantly when not swimming or running. No umbrellas on the chairs meant burned red noses, dubbed “horn nose.” The author dealt with chronic yeast infections from sitting in a wet suit all day and learned to change suits multiple times. Beyond the physical toll, the sisters felt isolated—they were Brooklyn girls among Rockaway locals. Most other lifeguards were standoffish, except for one friendly woman named Kathy, a strong athlete who once rescued two people at once while her partner did nothing.

The worst of it came from their lieutenant, also from Brooklyn but anything but welcoming. He was a drunk, once seen lying on a curb in Park Slope, and he made life miserable for them on the beach. He’d force them to sit on the rock jetty for hours as punishment, telling people to stay off the rocks, and would leave Helen alone in the chair with no partner—dangerous for both watching the water and staying alert. The author would run up to the boardwalk and scream at him while a group of old men watched the show. It didn’t faze him.

Their chief, Arnold, was respectful to the author’s face, but her brother later revealed that Arnold had a reputation for sleeping with younger female lifeguards. The author walked into a car ride where Arnold and the guys were trashing a woman they’d all slept with, calling her a floozy after getting crabs from her. The author suggested maybe one of them gave her the crabs. They laughed. Later, they stuffed a bag of live crabs from the ocean into her locker. Another time, Arnold pulled down his bathing suit to show a young girl his pubic hair when she asked what crabs were.

The locker room was a danger zone—shared between men and women, with no privacy. The author walked in one day to find a guy dropping his pants just as she entered, trying to fluster her. “I wouldn’t be showing that off if I were you,” she said. “It’s no prized package.” It rattled her anyway. She and Helen mostly got ignored rather than targeted—they were strong rugby girls, and the guys were either put off or a little scared. They didn’t learn about the worst harassment until later.

Life in a Bungalow

The author rented a tiny bungalow on 101st Street for six hundred dollars for the summer, down the block from the 101 Deli where lifeguards got heroes and cashed checks. The courtyard was full of families from the Bronx and Brooklyn—one block notorious for big parties, called the “Bronx Bungaloonies.” At the other end lived a retired alcoholic cop who stashed his liquor near her bungalow; she kept his secret. Nights were spent at lifeguard bars: Fitzgerald’s for volleyball and tournaments, Danny’s on 116th, the Raintower Tavern founded by lifeguards (named for the storms that knocked over chairs), and the main spot, Connolly’s—an Irish dive with a long wooden bar and frozen piña coladas. Connolly’s was famous for its annual bikini contest; the author only went a couple times, once walking down the bar to escape the crowd. They all drank all night, then showed up to work hungover or still drunk, waking up by swimming or taking hits from an oxygen tank.

Proving Herself in the Surf

In August, with hurricane surf pounding the beach, a swimmer got pulled outside the waves. Arnold asked for a volunteer to go out with him. The author raised her hand. She was getting good at porpoising—diving under waves and pushing off the sand like a dolphin. She kept track of her position but saw Arnold getting dangerously close to the rock jetty. The rip current pulled him in, and he hit his head on the rocks. The author changed course, swam over, and dragged him out, timing the waves to scramble onto the barnacle-covered jetty without getting smashed. Arnold was panicking and thought he was drowning. Another lifeguard, Kim Lonergan, helped pull him onto the rocks. As they walked back, their lieutenant stood at the foot of the jetty smoking a cigarette. The author noticed her bloody feet. Then the borough coordinator asked where the buoy was—Arnold had lost it. He blamed the author. “Timlin lost it,” he said. She kept her mouth shut to let him save face. That night at the bars, she told everyone what really happened.

Labor Day and the Lieutenant’s Comeuppance

Labor Day was the wildest day of the season. Horns worked while senior guards partied early. After their shift, the author and Helen started drinking on the beach. The more the author drank, the angrier she got about how the lieutenant had treated them. She threw a beer at him, then a street sign. “Thanks for the shitty summer,” she yelled. They left before the hazing ritual of “getting horned” began—one girl had been left tied to a stretcher with live crabs dumped on her. Later that night at Fitzgerald’s, the lieutenant followed them around, apologizing. They told him to go away, but he wouldn’t. Finally, Helen turned and punched him in the face. He fell to the ground, drunk and stoned. Everyone later remembered incorrectly that the author was the one who punched him—she was the more likely candidate, having once punched a guy after a rugby game who wouldn’t stop harassing her. But it was sweet, angelic Helen who did it. That’s how you knew he really deserved it.

After the Summer

The author was glad to be rid of the lieutenant but sad to leave her bungalow—the landlord planned to double the rent. She stayed on through September, and her brother Pat, in the police academy, came down to swim with her. That’s when she discovered how special September in Rockaway is: the vacationers leave, the water stays warm, and it becomes a quiet paradise for locals.

Key Takeaways

• Being a “horn” meant constant grunt work, drilling, and hazing, but it forged resilience and skill.
• The Rockaway beach community was divided by geography, class, and social cliques—outsiders like the Brooklyn sisters had to fight for respect.
• Harassment of female lifeguards was rampant, from locker room humiliation to blame-shifting by male colleagues.
• The author’s moment of heroism—saving her own chief—went unrecognized by him, but she reclaimed her story at the bar.
• Helen, the quiet rule-follower, delivered the summer’s most satisfying punch, proving that sometimes the angel has a breaking point.

Chapter 3: Chapter Three: 1981

Overview

In 1981, lifeguarding remained the perfect summer job, but the terrain shifted. After refusing to work under a difficult lieutenant at the 86th Street shack, Janet and Helen were reassigned to the 17th Street outpost near the channel mouth. The four-mile bike commute from their family bungalow was a small price for a place where they finally felt respected and welcomed. The shift wasn’t just geographic—it marked a deepening attachment to the lifeguard world, one built on daily partnership, collective responsibility, and an unspoken code that made the job feel like more than just a gig.

Partnership and Camaraderie

The real heart of the work was the shared chair. Janet learned what a good partner looked like from Artie, a simple man who later became a chief. He would offer to take his turn early, giving her breaks to swim or nap under the chair’s shade. Later, when management started policing appearances, lifeguards smuggled their own umbrellas to set up discrete napping spots. This wasn’t a ninety-minute rugby match; it was eight hours a day, three months straight, with the same people. They knew each other’s drama, loves, and dreams. They fought like siblings, but they would also circle around a shark to swim a colleague safely to shore. That kind of trust was forged in slow afternoons and sudden emergencies.

Competitions, Pride, and Invisibility

The lifeguard community had its own Olympics—a citywide event, but more importantly the Rockaway Shack Olympics, where shacks up and down the beach competed in rescue challenges, Iron Man events, and Beach Flags. Women weren’t always allowed in every event, sometimes relegated to playing the rescue dummy, but when they did compete, Janet ran. The rivalry between the busiest shacks was fierce, but it always ended at the bars. This pride also fueled a self-deprecating slogan: “New York’s Wettest.” The fire department was the Bravest, the police the Finest, but lifeguards—often dismissed as sunbathers—rarely got recognition. Records of saves were never kept properly, so they claimed the title themselves on T-shirts. Even today, lifeguards aren’t classified as first responders, yet they notice and respond before anyone else does. Janet once pulled two people from the water after Labor Day, only to watch firefighters who arrived late get medals.

Pranks and Training

Slow days at Belle Harbor bred a different kind of education. The “jetty wrench” prank sent new recruits on a wild goose chase up the beach. The fake drowning—a senior lifeguard donning an old lady’s bathing cap and flailing—forced a panicked rookie to learn the cardinal rule: never take your eyes off the water. When he came running to Janet for help, she told him she’d just blow-dried her hair and couldn’t go in. He didn’t know her well enough yet to catch the lie. The pranks were cruel but purposeful, conditioning response times in a controlled setting. A few seconds could mean life or death.

The Dark Side: Drowning and Death Parties

Beyond the jokes lay a much heavier reality. Barbara still carried the weight of a drowning where the search line drifted wrong with the current. She found the victim, brought him in, performed CPR until the ambulance came, but he was already gone. Her father’s words became a mantra: “You rescue people. You did your job. Only God or doctors can really save their lives.” Helen saw even more at the chaotic 117th Street shack—drugs, alcohol, a bloated body that wouldn’t take oxygen. Parks Department offered no support, so lifeguards created their own ritual: death parties. If someone drowned on your watch, you were called a murderer and had to buy a keg. They buried it in the sand like a grave, wore skeleton suits, and drank away the guilt. It was sinister, but it was the only way to process the trauma when nobody else would help. Janet began to see that the real failures weren’t always the lifeguards—lieutenants didn’t know protocols, dive lines were misdirected, chiefs were absent in Florida, and the city left them alone on the beach.

College and the Annual Swim Test

During the school year, Janet switched to SUNY Oswego for its rugby and swim teams, dragging Helen along. They trained relentlessly—six miles running, swimming, weights, and six meals a day. Helen’s freshman meal pass was a shared resource until a cafeteria worker caught the twins’ trick. The annual swim test at the 59th Street pool was a grim affair: 440 yards in six minutes and ten seconds, cross-chest carries, breaks and holds, a written exam. But supervisors never told anyone their actual times. You passed or failed based on their word alone. Janet didn’t realize until later how strange that was—or how much power those silent men in the high window held.

Key Takeaways

• Lifeguarding demanded intense, sustained partnership that felt like family, complete with dysfunction and fierce loyalty.
• Prank-based training, however harsh, was a deliberate method to sharpen vigilance and response time.
• The job carried a heavy psychological toll with no institutional support, leading to dark coping rituals like death parties.
• Structural failures—absent chiefs, inconsistent protocols, silent supervisors—undermined the lifeguards’ ability to do their best work.
• Even unrecognized, lifeguards saw themselves as essential public servants, a truth reinforced by their own community and traditions.

Chapter 4: Chapter Four: 1983

Overview

By 1983, the author had earned her stripes as a senior guard, and that status came with new opportunities and new challenges. When Freddie called to ask if she'd swap posts with a woman at the 106th Street shack (whose boyfriend had betrayed her by sharing nude photos around the station), she didn't hesitate. The new location was closer to her family's bungalow and far busier than quiet Belle Harbor. More action meant more rescues, which she craved, but also more trash. That dirtiness was handled by the "shitpickers"—Parks employees who swept the beach at dawn. One of them, Charlie, would stash a six-pack under her chair, then start drinking the moment his shift ended. It was a small ritual that spoke volumes about the camaraderie and unspoken rules of beach life.

That summer also brought a painful lesson in leadership. She'd been eating a hero from the 101 Deli when she told a rookie to take the chair. He spotted a woman in trouble, so the author dropped her sandwich and called another senior guard to help with the rescue. As they pulled the woman in, she noticed an elderly man farther out, having a heart attack. The rookie hadn't seen him—he'd been watching them. The other guard had to go back out alone. That moment taught her a hard rule: never leave a horn on the chair by themselves during a rescue. They don't yet have the instinct to scan the water while a save is underway. Better to have them assist directly and keep a senior guard scanning the horizon.

Meeting Bob

This was also the summer she met Bob. Her partner Brian, a friendly Rockaway local, introduced them. She'd dated before—a swim team boyfriend she broke up with at seventeen because he wanted a real girlfriend and she wanted her independence. That impulse ran deep. There was a rugby song she loved: If I were the marrying kind, which thank the Lord I'm not, sir. She believed it. She told Bob that too, right from the start.

Bob was a high school friend of Brian's, working as a firefighter and a bouncer at Fitzgerald's. She was sitting on the chair when he stopped by looking for Brian, heading to the hospital with flowers for his ailing mother. What a good guy, she thought. Blond, muscular, wearing short running shorts that showed off calves like a Viking's. She asked Brian who he was. Only later did she realize she'd seen him before—years ago, at a party, he and another guy had been hanging from rafters thirty feet up, doing pull-ups. She'd turned to her brother Alex and asked, "Who are those assholes?" That had been Bob.

He lived across the street from the 106th Street shack in a big Mitchell-Lama building with a balcony overlooking both the bay and the ocean. When their shack threw a party, he let her use his apartment to cook chicken skewers. They started hanging out more after a rugby teammate's dad, an FDNY chief, convinced her to sign up for the firefighter test. She didn't really want to be a firefighter, but they were recruiting women athletes, so she trained anyway. Brian said he'd train with her; Bob offered his building. They ran up and down twelve flights of stairs with weights in their backpacks, and Bob watched her huffing past with a big smile. He never thought it was strange that a girl could do what any guy could. She liked that.

When he kissed her, it was electrifying. He started coming to the shack in the morning, asking her to swim. She was a better runner; he was a better swimmer. So they'd trade: he'd run with her, she'd swim with him. Every time, he stayed right next to her, which felt romantic in its own way. She started visiting him at Fitzgerald's, where he told her stories about lifeguarding—including the "Brass Balls Club," for anyone brave enough to jump off the fifty-five-foot bridges connecting Rockaway to the mainland. Bob was always cracking jokes, and she matched him. One morning, Brian told her Bob was already out swimming. She got in the water to catch up but couldn't. So she got out, ran down the beach, porpoised out to intercept him, and grabbed him from below. He jumped out of the water in fright. She laughed. It gave him a taste of the fear she lived with. He never thought about fish in the ocean until he swam with her.

The European Detour

They kept in touch after she returned to Oswego for her last year of school. She wrote letters complaining about bartending at Spanky's, a local dive, and saving money for a bigger plan: backpacking through Europe after graduation. She wasn't looking for a serious boyfriend, and Bob didn't mind. He'd been married once before—to a woman he met on a cruise ship—and wasn't rushing into anything either. Before she left, he took her to the Old Carriage Inn in Park Slope. She didn't know he wore contacts until he pulled out his glasses to look at the menu. She called them his Coke-bottle glasses. He laughed and called her superficial. She told him, "If I see you when I come back, maybe we'll go on another date."

Barbara was supposed to come along, but couldn't get out of her trading job at the last minute. Her mother cried. But for the author, traveling alone felt like a rite of passage. She started in England, crashed with a friend, then took a boat to Belgium where a youth hostel served cherry beers downstairs. There, she met army guys who took her to a swimming pool on their motorcycles. In Germany, she met three Australian girls—two liked shopping, one wanted museums and historical sites. She joined the museum-goer and felt relieved to be on her own, without all the bickering. In Switzerland she ran into them again, and they rented a car to follow the Camino de Santiago through Portugal and Spain. In the Basque Country, their car got towed because of some regional infighting over car bombs. When they went to the impound lot, the workers called them "frogs." "I'm not a frog!" she said. "I'm not even French."

She left the Australians in Spain and finally made it to Ireland to visit relatives. She'd told them she was coming in February; she showed up in April. Her seven-year-old cousin Walter saw her coming from a hilltop and kept yelling, "She really is here! She really is here!" After a few days she headed to Scotland, to her grandmother's house. She was considering staying even longer—her dad's cousin in southwest France had offered her a summer job squishing grapes at a vineyard. But when she arrived at her grandmother's, a letter from her mother was waiting. "Enough is enough," it said. "Come home and start your lifeguarding job." It had only taken traipsing across the Atlantic alone for her mother to consider lifeguarding the responsible choice. She decided, for once, to listen. Her money was running out and a job was waiting.

The Office and the Return

When she got home, she decided this would be her last season. She told her shack, but everyone waved her off. Lifeguards always say they're done, then come back. It happens so often there's a rule: you're not allowed to say goodbye. She wanted to do something in media, but becoming a journalist meant moving to some small town and reporting on cows. She didn't want that. Instead, she found a job as an assistant media buyer in Manhattan, making ten thousand dollars a year. She liked the work—figuring out media buys for radio and television clients—and loved the parties with free buffets and drinks. She took over Barbara's studio apartment in Park Slope, a converted redbrick mansion where she slept on a pullout bed and made tea while pigeons made a mess on the windowsill. The building was supposedly haunted by Irish maids who'd gotten stuck in an elevator and died, but the only ghost she ever heard was the retired cop downstairs who banged his cane on the ceiling during a New Year's Eve party.

Bob kept driving from Rockaway to see her, first in his Thunderbird, then in his little Volkswagen truck. His car radio kept getting stolen. He started coming to her parents' house for dinners, and her mother loved that he was partial to her turnips. She'd offer him seconds, and the author would kick him under the table because her brothers weren't home yet. Bob fit right in. She told him not to mention that he came from a Protestant family, because her mother still had preconceived notions from growing up in Ireland. Bob said he wouldn't lie. They just didn't bring it up until he'd eaten enough of her turnips. By then, her mother had grown to love him. Maybe she had too.

Life fell into a rhythm: commuting, visiting Bob on weekends, plotting how to ask for a raise. One night she was working late when her boss asked her to walk him to the door. As they walked down the hall, he asked her to hold his hand. She recoiled. This guy had everything—a gorgeous wife, his own company, a Mercedes—but he still tried to hit on her. It was repulsive. She dodged his hand, opened the door for him, and that was the end. She quit in April. With no plan, she got a letter from the Parks Department: the annual