A little bit of an unusual trip to the swimming pool today, in which I might ultimately have been a bit of a dick. I can't quite work it out.
I had arrived at the pool at about midday and it was one of those occasions where an aqua class was going on, so there was only one lane open for swimming. The aqua class as usual was attended mainly by women, but at the front was one older man who although the water only came up to his waist seemed a little out of his depth. Indeed as everyone else got on with following the instructions of the staff member charged with putting them through their paces he stood pretty much stock still, looking very confused. For most of the time he was facing the wrong way and the uncharitable part of my brain wondered if he had only come along to this class knowing that it would give him a chance to ogle a group of middle-aged ladies in their swim suits. It seemed odd he was at the class because he couldn't really take any active part and I suppose I realised it was more likely that he was incapacitated in some way and this was one of his small steps to recovery. But it gave the session a bit of an odd vibe.
I managed to swim for 25 minutes which I was happy with as I had been very tired that morning and had been fairly useless in an interview I had just done with the Hammersmith and Fulham local paper to publicise the upcoming
Lyric comedy nights and had a very grouchy phone call with a plumbing supplies company who having sent me the wrong item last week (I have a blocked toilet and thought I would attempt to sort it out myself) were refusing to send me the correct item until I had returned the thing they had sent me. Which seemed poor customer service. Given they had fucked up.
I headed to the showers, which were fairly quiet. In fact all the doors were open and so it seemed no one was showering. But as I turned to enter the first cubicle I found it was occupied, by a man who was choosing to shower with the door open for some reason and was displaying to the world what in the tiny glance I accidentally got of it seemed to be a large and at least semi-turgid penis. He may have just had a very big and thick flaccid cock, but if so he was very much a show-er and not a grower. And why hadn't he closed the door to his cubicle? And why was he showering with his back towards the showerhead? I might just have accidentally seen an absent-minded man with a massive penis cleaning his back. But even so it was not something I really wanted to look at and felt I had been the victim of a mild, but deliberate flashing.
I went into a different cubicle and shut the door (because that, my friends, is the way I roll) and had my own shower, with my own surprisingly adequate, but ultimately average sized penis in a state of no arousal whatsoever, even though I had just been in the pool with loads of middle-aged women in swim suits (that doesn't do it for me apparently) and had seen the large penis of another showerer (nor does that). And though I wasn't massively upset by the experience, I did feel a little bit vulnerable. Suddenly realising that with so few people around and with no lock on my cubicle if this large cocked exhibitionist wanted to come and get me I would probably have to fight him off alone. Luckily he left me alone. Perhaps he isn't in to chubby middle aged men. Or perhaps I was being ultra paranoid.
I dried my swimsuit in the machine and behind me heard a strange groaning and shuffling. What the Hell was going to happen? I turned to go back to the lockers, with just my towel around my waist to be greeted by the red-faced old man from the pool, who was shuffling awkwardly towards the showers. "Can you help me?" he asked another man, who ignored him. Then he asked me the same question in a strained voice. "What do you want me to do?" I asked. It turned out that he wanted me to help him take off his trunks, which after all that had been going on in my mind was a bit of a strange thing to happen. "I have motor neurone disease," he explained with difficulty, "I can't do it myself."
Now if I hadn't been swimming around wondering if he was some kind of weird peeping tom and then been possibly flashed in the showers maybe I would have been more accommodating, but I am not sure. It is quite a big ask for a stranger to request you undress him. Firstly you can't be 100% certain that he really is disabled, but mainly it's a very intimate act and I am not sure how appropriate it is to depend on the kindness of strangers in this instance. I actually think that without having been a little shaken up at this exact moment that I might have bitten the bullet and helped him - but then what? Would he need me to wash him too? And dress him? But on this occasion I made an embarrassed apology and left.
I didn't want to pull down an old man's swimming trunks. Does that make me a bad person? I think it probably does, even with the extenuating circumstances. I immediately felt bad about it and hypocritical, given my support for SCOPE, but couldn't quite work out if I was being as unreasonable as I feared or not.
The man might be very brave and noble going out to a swimming pool on his own when he can hardly move and is incapable of dressing and undressing himself or maybe it's just hoping for too much public spirit to think that you can request such help from strangers. Should he not have come out with someone to assist him? Or is that an awful thing to say? Why should his disability mean he isn't independent? But what if it turns out that he is just someone who likes to ogle middle aged women in swimsuits and then ask strangers to undress him? You could get yourselves into all kinds of trouble if you agreed to take down the swimming trunks of every man who asked you.
I am sure that he was sincere and someone else was more of a man and a better human being than me as he helped him undress and another man was kind enough to open the fellow's locker and possibly even to dress him. I was embarrassed by my lack of empathy and scuttled away as quickly as possible without looking up. I didn't want to be recognised as the man who had refused to help a man with motor neurone disease change out of his wet things.
Maybe you can rely on the kindness of strangers. Maybe there are enough people out there who will assist the needy. Maybe when I get to Heaven Jesus will be waiting for me saying "Remember the old man who wanted you to take down his swimming trunks? That was me. I was cold, I was nearly naked, were you there, were you there?"
And I would have to say, "Well, honestly, I found the request a bit too much on that occasion Jesus. If you had told me it was you I would probably have done it, because you are trustworthy, though it's a bit weird you going round disguised as old, unwell men in order to test people. Especially after I'd already seen one unwanted cock that morning. You can understand my reticence."
But all Jesus would have to do was give me a look and I would know that he knew that I had let humanity down this time.
Thank God there's no Heaven. Cos I wouldn't be going there if there was.
As it is I am not going there anyway.
