The Legend of Kevin the Plumber (21 page)

I
t was good watching those turds of hair flopping to the floor as Mum buzzed my scalp with the clippers. She didn't make me say please and she didn't take any convincing. She only asked me once if I was sure.

‘You don't know how long I've wanted to do this,' she said.

She asked me if I wanted it finished with cream and a razor after she'd done as much as she could with the clippers. I liked the feel of the fuzz. My head went from being stray dog to kiwi fruit in two minutes.

I left my bag with Mum and ran up to the hospital. The air on my skull felt a bit freaky. I knew Kevin would get a kick out of my new hairstyle. He mightn't say it but I knew he would be stoked that we had the same hair.

He was asleep. The curtains were closed and the blanket had been pulled up to his stubbly chin. I thought about waking him but the thought was quickly squashed by the idea that sleep was pretty important for a sick man, and that I'd rather see him better. The fish were still alive. In
the gloom, I couldn't tell if the crab was still kicking.

‘Sleep well, mate. Get better quick,' I whispered, and left.

Ash phoned. I could hear the funky electronic music again and had jogged another three paces before the message got through to my brain that it was coming from my pocket.

‘Hello?'

‘Hey, Gaz.'

‘Maaate. How are you?'

‘Good. I was wondering how your last day at work went.'

‘Yeah, not bad. Guess what?'

‘What?'

‘I got a haircut.'

‘Bullshit.'

‘Serious.'

‘How do you cut dreads?'

‘You cut them
off
.'

‘Joking?'

‘Nup.'

‘Where are you now?' she asked.

‘In Chrissy Bay. I'll come over after tea.'

‘Shit-hot. Aggie's here. He'll freak when he sees you. Shit, I'll probably freak!'

‘I'd better bring some anti-freaking bourbon.'

‘Do that and I'll love you forever. We've finished the last bottle.'

‘Righto,' I said, and told her I'd be there soon.

She'd love me forever? Ash was sounding more like
Sharon every day. It was something that Sharon would say, but when Ash said it, it made me smile. Made me smile on the inside. Where the rest of my world was frowning.

I grabbed my pack from the salon and bought fifty dollars' worth of pre-mix cans. Twenty-four in all. Eight each should keep us happy, I thought, as I stashed my bag in the boot of the Hyundai.

Mum couldn't be stuffed cooking so we got pizza on the way home. Sharon kept patting my head.

‘You look so weird, Gaz. You don't look like you anymore.'

‘I think it suits him,' Mum said.

‘Yeah, it suits him, just doesn't look like the old Gaz, that's all.'

I ate the pizza and it tasted fine, but five minutes later I was sitting on the dunny spray-painting the bowl. The pizza could have gone through me that quick, I guess, but my guts had been bubbling since I'd taken a mouthful of someone else's crap. Probably standard procedure.

I'd hoped the bourbon would ease it but it seemed to make it worse. It didn't bother me for a while, what with Aggie and Ash rubbing my head and making a fuss. Candles lit the bungalow and Ash and Aggie were well on their way. After two more cans, Ash was shaking her head at me and feeling my hair with the inside of her arm. Then she felt it with her lips. Just brushed them over my ear and down my neck. My skin turned into one huge field of goose bumps and I knew our world was changing. You could tell me that I was drunk but I'd only had one can. I didn't have any rose-coloured bourbon goggles on when
I was looking at Ash, and she was beautiful. I couldn't believe how blind I'd been for so many years. I mean, someone like Gel could pull her apart with his eyes and say she was fat or had a plumber's crack or zits or scraggy hair or whatever, but I never saw that. I just saw Ash, my best mate since primary school. And that night, when she'd had a few and she had her hand resting on my knee, I wanted to grab her and kiss her. She was a woman. A beautiful woman who meant more to me than all the other beauties in the world put together.

Aggie staggered outside for a piss. My guts were churning and I excused myself to use the bungalow dunny. My crap exploded from my arse like a flock of sparrows and I hoped the music was loud enough to cover it.

‘I'm going home,' Aggie said. ‘I'm knackered.'

‘No,' Ash cried, and turned the music down. ‘Stay. We've only just got started.'

Aggie shrugged and lost balance for a few seconds.

‘Come on, mate,' I said. ‘What are you made of?'

He slumped into a beanbag. ‘Um, muscle and bones and bourbon and probably still some dope in there and . . . '

Ash threw a pillow at him. It smacked into his head and he let out a delayed yowl, then tucked it under his ear and snuggled deeper into the bag.

‘Looks like we're losing him,' I said.

Ash put her finger to her lips.

‘Just a powernap,' Aggie slurred. ‘I'll be charged again in a few minutes.'

Ash held my hand. She stroked my fingers and little electric flashes danced up my arm. I started telling her
about my day. About Homer springing Phil and Pip at it in the office. About the shit shower at the fish and chip shop. About Homer writing his initials on some poor punter's roof. She wasn't really listening. She was saying ‘yes' and ‘uh huh' and her head swayed gently. Her strokes grew longer until her fingers gently raked the whole length of my arm and I had a cramp in my undies.

‘Better stop that,' I said.

‘Why?'

‘It's giving me a fat.'

Ash snorted and looked over at Aggie. His mouth hung open and his forehead pressed against the bookcase. Between tracks on the CD I could hear him snoring gently.

Ash wobbled as she got to her feet and pulled me with her. She led me to her bed and shoved me so I had to sit down. A minute of fumbling at my feet and she'd managed to get my runners off. She grabbed my jeans and dragged my legs onto the bed and my world started to spin. It didn't stop as she ran her hands up my body, expertly dodging the hot spots, to my face. She stroked my brow and I closed my eyes. I felt her weight shift and she gently kissed my nose. My eyelids. My forehead. My mouth. Her lips so deliciously soft and the spinning didn't stop.

I was going to be sick.

I struggled to push Ash off. She felt my passion and grabbed on, drove her tongue between my lips.

I exploded.

Pizza and bourbon bubbled from my mouth into hers. A full second passed before it registered and Ash reeled off the bed and into the wall, spitting and heaving her own
dinner onto her top. I pointed my face at the floor and another wave erupted. The squeezing in my guts forced runny shit into my pants and I knew I was dying.

Ash flicked on the light. ‘Get out!' she screamed. ‘Oh my god. Get out!'

‘I'm sorry, Ash. I'm sorry. So sorry.'

‘Get out! God, get out!'

I left my runners in the puddle of spew. I left my pack of cans. I left Aggie — still snoring — and stumbled across the road and into the shower.

I
woke at five to eight on Saturday morning with my prickly head velcroed to my pillowcase. I sighed, thinking it all must have been a nightmare, but in the middle of the bathroom floor was one of my spew-crusted socks, and the smell from the laundry basket was more proof than I needed.

Mum's alarm went off. I dressed and snuck out the back door before she got out of bed. I grabbed my bike.

At first I was just riding. Pumping my legs and letting the still, overcast morning creep into my bones. That was another thing that had changed, mornings. When did getting up in the morning stop being such a torture and start being normal? I must have copped a blow to the head at some stage. I forded the steel bridge span and thought that it might have been my bike stack off the bridge that wrecked me. I was heading to Christmas Bay. To the hospital. The big bloke hadn't seen my hair. Probably wouldn't recognise me.

His bed in room 227 was empty. The sheets were
crumpled and folded back and I hoped he'd just gone for a bog and hadn't gone home. The two fish were making tiny popping sounds at the surface of the tank. When I looked closely at the crab, I could see the little filter things in its mouth vibrating. Amazing.

I sat on a chair and waited. Stared at the empty bed. After five minutes, I started getting creeped out. How high would I rate on the grand scale of dickhead if he had gone home? But he wouldn't leave the tank . . .

The nurse with the nice arse came into the room. She got a fright when she saw me.

‘Hello there,' she said. Her voice was sweet, but a bit fake.

‘Oh. G'day,' I said, and stood.

‘Are you waiting . . .?' she said, and her face screwed into a sympathetic frown.

I shrugged.

‘Mr Daly passed away this morning.'

I looked at her. I'd heard her all right. Kevin Daly was dead. She said it matter-of-fact, like ‘Mr Daly has gone to the toilet', and in my stupidness and shock, I played the game.

I nodded. ‘Yeah,' I said. ‘I just came up for . . . I just came up for the fish tank.'

‘Oh,' she said. ‘Do you want a hand with it?'

‘No. I'll be right.'

‘Do you want a plastic bag?'

Before I could answer she'd stepped outside to a trolley and grabbed me one. I lifted the tank and lowered it into the bag. I thanked her and left.

I felt stoned. I walked along the corridor in slow motion, put my foot on every stair on my way to the ground floor. My forehead was tight, my palm squeaked on the handrail. I could hear myself breathing and my heart a calm pukeow, pukeow, pukeow. I straddled my bike and nursed the tank in the bag down to the foreshore. Dropping my bike, I walked to where the sand was wet and glossy until my runner pressed the shine out of it. The bay barely rippled, the water grey and uninviting. I peeled the bag off the fish tank. The minnows were darting around and banging into the plastic. I couldn't see the crab in the stirred up sand but I knew he'd be in there. Little survivor. He'd outlived Kevin.

I walked into the bay, the cold biting through my runners and my jeans. My lungs would only half fill. I tipped the tank and let the sandy water pour from a height. Let the little ones go free. And the sadness in me felt bigger than the ocean. There was no tidal wave of tears. The ocean of sadness was cold, steely and calm. It lapped at my heart and the tide came in and out. In and out. In and out.

W
hen someone you know dies, it makes you look at yourself. Makes you think about shit that you don't normally spend a lot of time mulling over. Like me, wondering when I was going to die and when I did, would anyone miss me? And me, sitting with my sister at her computer, looking up TAFE courses and hunting for plumbing jobs online, getting all fired up and watching Sharon smile at that. And me, when Muz came home, walking straight up to him and hugging him and not letting go and telling him that I'd missed him. My eyes started sweating then. So did his. And me, that night, washing the dishes with Mum and telling her about all the stuff Kevin had taught me — and realising it wasn't just plumbing.

On Sunday, Muz and me were working on the VK in the shed and Muz dropped a plug. It slipped out of the socket and ended up under the car. I offered to climb under and get it but Muz reached down through the engine bay. Told me not to worry about it. He swore and moaned and
stretched for five minutes and still couldn't get it. I dropped onto my guts and fished it out first grab.

‘Thanks, Gaz.'

When someone you know dies it can make you look at the world in a whole different light.

‘Sorry, Muzza.'

‘What for, Gaz?'

‘I dunno. All the things I did when I was growing up.'

‘Bullshit. You were good. Compared to some of your mates. Bloody angel. I've always been proud to call you my young bloke.'

‘Even when I did . . . you know . . . dumb stuff?'

‘Even then. Pissed me off. Pissed me off something shocking. But blood is thicker than water, hey, Gaz?'

He stared at me for the longest time. I shrugged and looked away.

‘What?' he said.

‘You and me aren't blood, Muz, we're water.'

He thought for a second. ‘Yeah, I suppose,' he said. ‘But water tastes better, eh?'

T
he funeral for Kevin Arthur Daly was held in the chapel at the Christmas Bay crematorium the following Wednesday. I borrowed one of Muz's shirts to wear with my birthday jeans. Muz dropped Sharon and me off at the heavy chapel gates ten minutes into the service. We hurried up the drive to find the place was packed. We stood up the back and I felt my heart beating in my neck. Felt like a total dick. Homer was there but I couldn't see Phil. Maybe Homer came to spit on his coffin. Maybe Phil couldn't bear to be there. Sometimes, when someone you respect dies, you understand things in a new way. Phil would have had much more important things to do. Homer would have been there out of respect. I could see the back of Maureen's head in the front row. And Vanessa. I saw the side of her tear-reddened face and I almost shouted her name. Poor bastard. She was the only kid in a sea of grim-faced adults. I wanted to hug her and tell her . . . I don't know.

I didn't have to say anything. After they'd lowered the
coffin and sent Kevin on his way, the crowd spilled out of the chapel into the gardens. Sharon grabbed my hand and towed me straight to them. My sister and Vanessa hugged and sobbed. They didn't say anything. Maureen saw me rubbing my stinging eyes and held out a hand to me.

‘I didn't recognise you, Gary. I like your new hairstyle. Thanks for coming,' she said.

We had a clunky hug then someone else held her before I could feel like a total dick again. Vanessa and Sharon had stopped rocking with their hug and Ness let go of her to hold me. With one arm over her shoulder and the other around her waist, I could only feel sadness.

‘So sorry, Ness,' I whispered, our tears mixing on our cheeks.

‘Thanks, Gary.'

Maureen asked Sharon and me to travel with them back to Mullet Head. Sharon said yes and we helped pass around plates of food and drinks for the people who'd been invited back. I didn't feel like such an idiot with a tray of little pastry thingys in my hand.

‘Put that down,' Maureen said. ‘We have to talk.'

I followed her out the back door, the back door where the ambulance officers had wheeled Kevin only a couple of Fridays before.

Maureen stood in the yard. The shadow of a cloud raced along the street, chucking us into half-dark then letting the sunshine in, brighter than it had before.

‘They told us that Kevin was dying on the Friday night. We got to say goodbye.'

‘That's good,' I said. ‘I mean, it's good that you got the chance . . . '

‘Yes,' she said. ‘We got most of Kevin's affairs in order. He wanted to give you this.'

She handed me a key. ‘He said if you don't look after it, he'll come back to haunt you.'

I looked at the key. I looked at Maureen.

‘The ute. Kevin wanted you to have his ute.'

I swallowed, and frowned. ‘You're joking.'

She shook her head. ‘Jesus, Gary. You've seen it. It's not exactly a Rolls-Royce. Probably cost more to get it road-worthy than it will to take it to the tip, but he wanted you to have it. And the kayak that lives on top.'

‘Why? Vanessa . . . '

‘
If
Vanessa ever drives — and that's a big if — it won't be for a few years yet. The ute would probably be past it by then. Kevin thought you might get some use out of it.'

I stared at the key.

‘The rego and transfer papers have been signed. They're in the glove box.'

‘I . . . I don't . . .'

‘He said if things had been different he would have given you a job.'

That was when I started crying. That's when the fucken tears came pouring out of my eyes and I couldn't stop the bastards. I couldn't see. I couldn't say anything. My nose bubbled and these pathetic sobs made me shake.

Maureen put her arm over my shoulder. Just for a second or two.

‘Thanks, Gary. Thanks for everything,' she said, and left me blubbering.

Vanessa found me ten minutes later. My eyes felt crusty and I sniffed and sighed, staring at the key.

‘Hey,' she said, and we hugged again. She sat beside me on a low brick garden wall.

‘I believe this is yours,' she said, and handed me the skull ring.

‘Yes. Where did you —'

‘Gel said he bought it for me.' She crossed her arms. ‘Mum gave you the key?'

I nodded. ‘Are you sure you can't . . .?'

She shook her head. ‘I swear I'm never going to drive a car. Ever.'

‘What happened to Gel?'

‘Don't know yet. He might have to go to jail. He could get twenty years.'

‘Whaaat?'

‘That's the maximum. He wasn't driving like an idiot. He told me it was his uncle's car. He was driving sensible. The bloke who we crashed into didn't give way. Just pulled straight onto the highway without looking.'

‘Did you get into much trouble?'

‘What do
you
reckon? Yes. If I had known it was stolen I would never have got in. The cop said if I had known it was stolen I would have had to go to jail, same as Gel. I might have had to go to a correctional centre or something. But because I didn't know, I was just a sad, sad passenger. According to the law, anyway. According to
Mum, it was the stupidest thing I've ever done. According to me, it was the stupidest thing anyone has ever done. Ever. I'm grounded for the rest of my life.'

I looked at her. There was not even a hint of smile on her dial.

‘Life?'

‘Or more.'

‘I'm sorry it came to that,' I said.

‘Don't apologise. Not your fault.'

‘Maybe not, but in some ways I feel responsible. I feel like I led you astray.'

‘Ha! Likely. I was off the rails before I fell in love with you, Gary. I was young and inexperienced.'

And now? I thought. Sometimes, when someone you love dies, it makes you grow up, fast.