The Pros and Cons of Plumbing

This never happens to plumbers.

            The plumber’s world makes sense. It’s all about water and gravity and slanting pipes. You channel the water in, you channel it back out. You slant the pipes earthward a little. Gravity does most of the work.

            My world makes no sense. Marie is on the floor and my knuckles hurt.

            The plumber’s life is easy. Pipes bring water in, pipes bring water back out. And there’s never any question whether it works. When you flush, the bowl empties and the waste pipe devours. New water fills the bowl ready for the next guest. The container refills and the bulb rises to shut the flow. Or not. Clean and clear. It either works, or it doesn’t. When it does you can feel pride and a sense of accomplishment and you render a bill. If it doesn’t, you fix it until it does and then you can feel pride and a sense of accomplishment and you render a bill. Dad’s a plumber. He doesn’t render many bills these days though.

            It started plumbing enough. I loved her. Simple as that. Easy enough. No question. She was the most beautiful, wonderful, perfect girl in the world. If she had one shortcoming it was loving me, for who would, I mean. Unless, of course, that made me perfect too. Loved by perfection. I liked to think so.

            And I really did. Love her. So much I could not sleep. She did though. She worked the day shift at Seven Eleven and had to sleep, she said. She slept a perfect sleep. She slept deep chestfuls of air with not a hint of snoring which raised her chest over and over and over. Her one arm slung across her breasts, the other out and over the edge of the bed. So easily breakable.

            So simple. So plumbing. Loving her. I sat sometimes on the bed, sometimes beside it, and watched her so hard that sometimes her sleep punctured and she suddenly looked at me, eyes not quite open, and said, “Hey, what are you doing?”

            “Looking at you,” I said.

            “Go to sleep,” she said.

            She did. I did not.

            The alarm went off and she woke up. “You been up all night?”

            “Yes,” I said.

            “Doing what?”

            “Looking at you.”

            “You crazy.”

            “I know.”

            She held her toothbrush with authority and brushed her teeth with perfect strokes to a perfect sparkle, sparkle and she kissed me and tasted so good. I must not have, though, from up all night and coffee and cigarettes. Still, she didn’t grimace, not a bit, just smiled and see ‘ya and out the door.

            Soft shoes on stone stairs tap-tapping down then a squeak, a gasp of street noise, a soft thud, then nothing. Just me, loving her. Waiting.

            Plumbers follow blueprints. Sinks go here. Traps and overflows there. This is where the valves and cleanouts go. A drain here. A vent there. Dishwasher. Toilets here, here and there. Showers. All laid out. Regulations, plumbing codes. Inspections. Approvals. Signatures. All so aboveboard

            They have found plumbing that’s ten thousand years old. It’s true.

            Love starts out like plumbing. Kisses go here. Smiles there. Swirls around the living room just like Fred and Ginger and make love with your eyes open on the floor often and often. Breakfast in bed just so and such sweet thank you kisses and it is all clean and well laid out and love like gravity does most of the work and you fall in with the rhythm and all goes according to code.

            To start with.

            No wrinkles. No side-thoughts. No choices. Just the pull of love and everything fits. Her one shoe here the other there isn’t at all messy, it’s cute. She calls her long legs skinny, I call them slender. She adores this guy called Elvis Presley and has a bunch of his CDs, even some of his vinyls, which makes her loveable, and makes him loveable, too, though before meeting her I had no idea who he was and can’t really say that he’s up my alley. But that doesn’t matter for when you set out nothing grates. I’m pulled by love as gravity but can’t tell the pulling and all is perfect. Every pipe, every u-bend fits, every elbow joins just right, every tee serves its purpose and everything flows. All is gravity.

            Three days now. I haven’t slept. Three days and all is well. I guard the perfection. I’m afraid that sleep will break it. I remember breakings. The tiniest crack can do it, like the first scratch on a new bicycle or a new car which is now here and which was not here only moments ago when it was perfect and scratchless. And once the scratch is here it is here to stay. I cannot undo time and the scratch, huge now from constant inspection and re-inspection, is here and love is no longer whole. With Marie there are no scratches. She is all shine. And she works until four and I am awake and waiting, cigarettes and coffee, lots of it. I’m looking at the bed where she no longer sleeps, at the valley dug in the pillow by her head, a sock, another, a blouse. Panties on the floor by the chair. Bra on the seat. Remnants of Marie. I am sick with love.

            I am tired but not really, but really yes I am. Thoughts sprout like those beans you see sometimes on television in those speeded up movies, pale shoot out of the earth like a bald rising snake that splits into leaves and other thoughts while I watch. They are like things that breathe, my thoughts. I don’t have to think them, they think themselves into being. I must tell Marie about them. They float on air and sail over murky waters that seem more like coffee if you really look and over islands of fog like cigarette smoke.

            Into darkness. Did I sleep? Her bra on the chair. Her socks on the floor. Her key turns the lock. She’s here again.

            “What’s the matter? See a ghost?”

            “No, no.”

            “Gawd, you look awful. D’you get some sleep?”

            “Not sure. I bit, I guess.”

            And she drops her shoulder bag on the floor and goes into the kitchen. “Want some coffee?” over her shoulder from there.

            “Yeah. Thanks.”

            Gravity returns and opens the faucet as I fill with love. Not a scratch. I walk over to the kitchen where Marie moves a pile of plates brown with almost finished meals to make room for two mugs. The coffee is instant. She pours hot water. Adds milk for me, sugar for her.

            My coffee, light brown has small flecks of white swirling on the surface from her stirring. What’s with the milk?

            “How old is that milk?”

            “Dunnow.”

            I lift it up and read. Two days dead. I smell. It smells two days dead. I look up at Marie but see only her back moving into the room. She brushes the bra off the chair and sits down. Her dress rustles. She chews gum, lights a cigarette. Heaves a sigh. I float on love into the room and smell the smoke.

            Good plumbing. Copper pipes rush hot water to you the moment you open the faucet. The garbage disposer grinds everything into molecules. The shower is flawless, drains wide open. Not a drip, not a leak. It is a system without flaws. No scratches. All blueprint.

            “I could do with a back rub,” she says.

            She smiles and lifts her long legs onto the bed and leans back into the chair. Closes her eyes. When she does that with her legs her knee caps stick out like cute little rocks.

            She kicks off her shoes as I float behind her to deliver. Her toes look happy to be let out. Her neck is long and slender like a swan’s. Downey and ridged with fine vertebrae. Some of her toes look stunted. Like after thoughts. But I know it’s from wearing tight shoes. Girls do that. Some boys, too. Mine are not all that stunted, though my left little toe nail is half missing from an accident I will never forgive my father for not giving a shit about although he was there to see it happen. The damn thing came down on my little toe, and he was the one that dropped it. My toe was red at first, then bluish, then sickly yellow. Fuck him.

            She moans as I press and circle my thumbs into muscle. I love the feeling of her skin and I get an erection from touching it. She doesn’t seem to know what to do with her hands.

            “A little to the left,” she says.

            I comply and she moans again.

            And there is nothing in the world I would rather do than exactly this. Than rubbing her neck. Than doing good. Than making her feel good. Than applying love. I can feel her relax. I can almost hear her smile. She is a big cat.

            She is not quite blond. I brush aside strands of off-brown hair. I stoop to smell. It is not clean. When did she last shower? When did I last shower? I must smell too.

            “Hey, don’t stop.”

            Did I drift? My thoughts are sluggish now. Not so eager to take off. I find my thumbs again.

            “I’m starving. Have any money?”

            I work her left shoulder.

            “A few bucks.”

            “Enough for pizza?”

            “Think so.”

            “Don’t stop. I’ll order.”

            She picks up the phone and I work my way over to the right to make room for her left ear to hear. I work her neck again and down her back and around under her arms and forward to the tender weight of her breasts and here’s my erection again. She slaps my hands a little and then the pizza arrives.

            We sit on the bed and eat straight out of the box. I spill sauce on the sheet. She dribbles grease on her dress. She’s crossed her legs like a yogi and her knees are more like weapons now, very sharp.

            She looks at me with eating eyes.

            “So. You gonna get a job?”

            As soon as I can find planet Earth. “Sure.”

            “When?”

            She gets up and comes back with some toilet paper. Hands me a couple of feet of it. Wipes her mouth with the rest.

            “I haven’t . . .”

            “Rent’s due tomorrow. You said you would help.”

            She looks at the last piece of pizza. I don’t want it. She takes it without asking me. It drips a small spot of tomato sauce on her leg. She takes a huge bite from the wedge end. My hard-on’s all gone. She chews with her mouth partly open and makes small smacking sounds which my mother would have commented on had she been here.

            She must have a metabolism to melt nails.

            Her dress has slid all the way up and her thigh exposes a blue little river of vein.

            “How much is it?”

            “Four fifty.”

            “How much do you have?”
            “Three hundred.”

            “I’ll get the rest.”

            Not sure where. Mom won’t talk to me anymore. Dad perhaps. Only he wants to every little thing in writing, if he’s got the money, that is. Means I have to get out to the Valley and kiss up.

            “Right.”

            That little river of vein on the inside of her thigh, which my eyes cannot quite let go of, swells into a scratch.

            “You don’t believe me?”

            “Where would you get a hundred fifty bucks?”

            “I have sources.”

            “Right.”

            “No, seriously.”

            She talks around the crust. “Okay, I believe you.”

            She unfolds and brings the pizza box into the kitchen.

            “Thanks for taking out the trash,” she says, trying to fit the empty pizza box into the large black bag.

            “Sorry.” And I close my eyes to lose the blue river but I soon look again and there’s another one strung down her calf. Blue and angry. She mumbles something and ties the garbage bag and heads for the door.

            “I’ll do that.”

            “No, it’s okay.”

            She’s out the door. It doesn’t quite slam. I’m tired. I lie down. Close my eyes. Into darkness.

            It’s morning. She’s dressed and looking down at me.

            “Don’t forget the hundred fifty,” she says and is out the door.

            Right. Got to get out to the Valley, see Dad. I close my eyes and set out for his house and into darkness. She shakes my shoulder.

            “Hey. Wake up.”

            It’s late afternoon. She’s looking down at me again.

            “Hey, sleepy head.”

            “What?”

            “You didn’t get the money, did you?”

            “What?”

            “You slept all day?”

            “What time is it?”

            “Five.”

            Big eyes, looking down on me. Not entirely friendly.

            “Well, can you get it now?”

            “Doubt it.”

            “Well, what the fuck?”

            “He works nights. He won’t be home.” I lied. He’s impossible to deal with unless you catch him sober.

            “Who?”

            “Dad.”

            “Gonna borrow from your dad?”

            “Yeah.”

            “That’s lame.”

            “What’s wrong with that?”

            “You’re not a kid.”

            “So what?”

            She doesn’t answer, just shakes her head and dons a fuck superior smile like I was a useless ass fuck.

            “So what?” I sit up. Stand up. Too suddenly, I go all blank. I sit down. Stand up again.

            She doesn’t answer. Just smiles that stupid ass fuck smile, the pipes fit like shit, and I trigger.

            And now she’s on the floor and my knuckles hurt.

::

 Copyright © 2005 by Wolfstuff

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Ulf Wolf 

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