The Legend of Kevin the Plumber (8 page)

‘Where the hell have you been?' Mum growled. She was cooking chips in the deep fryer and I had the munchies. Mario sat at the kitchen table scowling at me.

‘Just over at Ash's. Did you find your car?'

He shook his head. ‘How did you get home?'

‘I got a lift home with one of Mum's clients. Lady with black hair. I can't remember her name.'

‘Yeah, at bloody lunchtime,' Mario said. ‘Phil phoned here looking for you. He told me the bloke you were working with ended up in hospital.'

‘It wasn't my fault. He dropped a big steel grate on his ankle. I could see the bone.'

Mario nodded. ‘Phil said he'd call later and have a chat. Other than that, how did you go?'

‘Good,' I lied, and nodded. Why would Phil call? I wasn't cut out for the job, simple as that.

‘Well, what did you do?'

I stared at Mario for half a minute. He just stared back. Then the words settled in my brain and I told him about my day; the probe and the sewer rooter, about wet boots and wizzy dizzy holds. About headbutting Kevin in the ear.

Mario chuckled. ‘I remember that. I remember feeling like the ultimate dickhead on my first day of work. Tripping over things. I smacked the foreman in the head with a hammer. The bloody thing just leapt out of my hand and cracked into his cheek.'

He got up to answer the phone and slapped my shoulder. ‘Don't worry about it. You'll get the hang of it. Give it a couple of weeks and you'll be swinging off the rafters with the best of them.'

Mum started serving dinner. Sharon appeared in the hallway, her hair shower-wet and all over the place.

‘Gaz. Working man. How did you go?'

I stared at her.

‘Hey,' she said, and darted into her room. ‘I've got some fan mail for you.'

Another note from Vanessa. Sealed in an orange envelope that had been scrunched and flattened.

Hi Gary,
I'd completely understand if you never wanted to see
me again but I wanted to say thanks again for being so kind.

Luv Vanessa Daly

PS You don't have to but please write back.

I flicked the note into my room and it landed on the floor. I sat on my bed. I felt a bit out of it. Stoned
and
confused.

‘Gaz!' Mario shouted. ‘Phil's on the phone.'

‘Yep. Okay. Just a minute.'

I stared at the window and tried to get my head straight.

‘Come on,' Mario growled. He stood in my doorway. ‘Don't keep the man waiting. Show a bit of form.'

I grabbed the phone. ‘Hello?'

‘Hi, Gary. I was just ringing up to apologise about this morning. Sorry I couldn't hang around. I was a bit concerned for Kev. I didn't get a chance to ask if you were okay. Kev said you'd handled yourself well.'

I couldn't believe my earholes. Maybe he was abusing me and because I was stoned, it sounded like he was being nice. Maybe he was stoned?

‘I'm all right. Sorry I took off. I didn't know what to do.'

‘No problems. Probably would have been sitting around the depot looking for something to do. I'm ringing to make sure you'll be okay for tomorrow. Kevin's not in a good way and I really need someone to give Homer a hand. The job he's on has to be finished this week. So, give it another go in the morning?'

‘I might have trouble getting there tomorrow. Muz's car got stolen today. Did he tell you?'

‘You're joking? Poor bastard. Don't worry about that, though. I can pick you up or I'll get Homer to drive over in the van before he goes out to the job.'

Mario was standing in the hallway with a mouthful of chips.

‘Your mum can drop you over,' he garbled.

‘I think I'll pass,' I said into the receiver.

Mario swallowed in a hurry and grabbed the phone. ‘Phil? Yeah, it's Mario here. What time did you . . . ? That's right. From the driveway while I was in the house . . . Yeah. Kids, I think. What time did you want Gary? . . . Okay. No worries . . . Yep. Fine. See you.'

He slammed the phone into its cradle and stomped into the kitchen.

‘Come and eat.'

M
ario ripped my doona off at seven o'clock.

‘Come on, boofhead,' he sang.

I groaned and curled into a ball. He chuckled and lifted the side of the mattress until I was grabbing at the sheet and my feet fell to the floor.

‘Go. Get dressed. Got to leave in ten minutes. I'll meet you in Mum's car. Go!'

I was going. I was up and going but not awake. I dreamed my clothes on and the trip in Mum's Hyundai to Christmas Bay. I woke up when Phil shook my hand and slapped my shoulder. There was a chunky bloke with a beer gut just standing there watching me.

‘Gary, this is Homer,' Phil said, and I shook the guy's hand. His knuckles were crusty with scabs and his smile was missing a few tiles, or maybe all his teeth were there but they'd decided they didn't like each other. His gappy mouth and moth-eaten moustache curling wet into his gob made him look like someone who'd just escaped from somewhere. A mental hospital, prison, a horror movie, maybe.

‘I hope you're feeling fit, Gary,' Homer said.

I shrugged and nodded.

Homer chuckled. ‘Yeah, I bet you are.'

Phil levelled a finger at Homer. ‘No bullshit, Homer. Look after him.'

‘Yeah, boss. Of course,' he said and touched his baseball cap in a salute. I helped Homer load Kevin's van, and then we were on the road.

Homer jabbed the cigarette lighter and offered me a Peter Jackson. We took turns to light up from the glowing coil and the cabin filled with smoke.

Homer opened his window a crack. ‘They tell me you dropped a grate on Kev's leg.'

‘Nah, I slipped. Kevin dropped the grate on his
own
leg. Ankle.'

He stuck his hand out again and I shook it.

‘Congratulations, mate,' he said. ‘You're the fastest worker I've ever seen. Normally takes me a couple of weeks to work up to trashing someone who's giving me the shits. Couldn't have happened to a nicer bloke. Kev's an arsehole. Did us a favour, mate. Now we get his nice new van as a reward. Good job.'

‘It was an accident . . . I didn't mean . . . '

‘Bullshit. Come on, take the credit.'

We pulled into the driveway of a spanking house in the new estate. The front yard was a pile of building rubble, pieces of plasterboard and busted roof tiles. White wires hung from the verandah above the front door.

Homer handed me a yellow-handled shovel.

‘Out the back.'

I followed the clomp clomp of his work boots on hard, dry earth to a small hole dug beside the wall of the house.

‘See that pipe down there?'

He pointed to the bottom of the hole.

‘Yeah?'

‘Run a trench from there all the way to the back fence there. See that white stake?'

I nodded. It was a big yard, enclosed by new fences on three sides and a house on the fourth. The hole with the pipe in it was fifteen metres from the stake.

‘Just . . . dig? All the way?' I asked.

Homer had his hands on his hips. His mess of a mouth was smiling.

‘How deep?'

He pulled a black texta from his pocket and grabbed the shovel. He stuck it in the hole so the metal scritched against the plastic pipe. He marked the yellow handle with the texta and gave it back to me. The mark was above my knee.

‘Yep. Fine. No worries. I'm onto it,' I said.

He slapped my back and it stung.

‘Good lad. Give us a yell when you've finished. Or if you die.'

When he laughed it reminded me of that vampire puppet from
Sesame Street
; Homer laughed like the Count. He left and I felt pumped. I felt the most revved-up I had in years. I'd show the prick. I smacked the dirt with the shovel and it bounced. It flicked up a puff of dust and barely made a mark. I stabbed the earth and smacked it with the blade. I poked it and jumped on the footholds
on the neck of the shovel and the soil started to give. I went at it like an animal, my dreads drumming on my ears and my forehead, and in five minutes I'd scratched out almost a full shovel of soil and piled it beside the trench. The morning shadow had been chased from the yard and I banged away. The sun warmed my neck and back and I took my shirt off. I used it to mop my brow but there was no sweat mark. There was a tapping of the window near my head. Homer was inside the house, staring at me with his hand full of tools.

‘Put your back into it,' he yelled at the glass, and then laughed. Another mad-bastard chuckle that made me grit my teeth. I dug. I dug and I dug and played backhoe. When the inside of my thumb started to hurt I checked that Homer was out of range and for a while I made digger noises, like a three-year-old, to take my mind off the pain. I worked out that they'd never be able to get a real digger into the yard, unless they pulled down part of the fence. The path beside the house was only big enough to push a wheelbarrow through. Slowly the trench started to form. I was going at a dicky angle and had to straighten up and scrape more out of the bit I'd already dug. I got into a rhythm. Dig, scratch, scrape, lift, dig, scratch . . . check the depth against the handle. A blister came up on my thumb and the air rattled in and out of my drug-fucked lungs. The dirt seemed to get softer, sandier, and easier to dig. My forearms ached. Maybe they could lower a trenching machine over the fence? Maybe they have a little one, smaller than a wheelbarrow that they could drive beside the house?

‘Brew,' Homer said, and it startled me. How could a goon like Homer sneak up like that?

‘Pardon?' I said.

‘Cup of tea time.'

‘I don't drink tea.'

‘Fine. Morning playtime then.'

I laid the shovel beside the trench and dusted my hands. We sat in the van.

‘Going to have to pick up the pace a bit,' Homer said, and offered me a smoke. ‘Need that trench today.'

I said no to the smoke and wished I'd packed some lunch. And a bong. And a drink. And a hat. The blister in the crook of my thumb had popped and turned the dust around the little pink dot to mud. It stung but I hid it from Homer.

‘Reckon they've got a digger or something small enough to fit beside the house there?'

Homer coughed. ‘All a bit much for you, precious?' he sang.

‘No. Just if you want it finished quickly and all that . . .'

‘We'll be right. As long as you pull your finger out.'

He turned the radio on. Some knob-jockey was counting down the day's greatest hits. Gutless pop music. Homer smoked and looked like he was enjoying himself. He pulled his baseball cap over his eyes and slumped in the seat until his gut pressed into the steering wheel. Fat prick. I wondered how he'd cope with a shovel in his hand. I sat there and stared at the windscreen. Homer flicked his ciggy butt out the door, crossed his arms and, in about three seconds, started snoring. It was a disgusting bubbly
wheeze that grew louder with each breath. I gently lowered myself out of the cabin and went back to work. I'd scratched a guideline on the dirt and unearthed another foot of trench by the time Homer reappeared.

He stood there with his hands on his hips for half a minute then shook his head and walked off.

I'd almost finished the trench by lunchtime. Homer came out again with a dirty black mark on his cheek and sweat patches under his man-boobs. Whatever he'd been doing inside had been a bit of an exertion. Probably reading the paper, I thought. The skin had peeled off my blister and it was completely caked with dirt. I thought about asking for a bandaid. I thought about washing it at the tap near the back door. I cracked the tap open but no water came out. I thought it would just cake up after lunch, anyway. The back of my neck prickled hot like I'd been wearing the jumper that Nanna knitted me before she left.

Homer had a little esky filled to the brim with food. Four sandwiches, a piece of cold pizza wrapped in aluminium foil and a scabby-looking chunk of dry fruitcake that crumbled as he ate it. His lap, moustache and the footwell of Kevin's van were dusted with crumbs by the time he'd finished and I prayed a flock of seagulls would spot him while he snored his lunch off.

I walked. I eventually wound my way to the end of the new estate and into a service station to grab a pie. Two pies. With sauce. And a 1.25-litre bottle of Coke. I drank and ate on my way back to the van. I burned my gum on the first bite of the microwave-soggy pie. I was hurrying, dropping bits of crust, blood spots of sauce and the occasional thunder
burp. I didn't know why I was hurrying; Homer would still be asleep. I'd almost finished the job . . .

I was hurrying to finish the job. Make him think of something new for me to do. Show the prick what I was made of.

He was snoring in time with some boy-band shit on the radio as I crept past.

I finished the trench. Well, I got within a foot of the white stake and I hit pipe. I scraped the shovel against the white plastic and the sound crawled up my spine and stopped behind my teeth. I leaned the shovel against the fence and went to wake up the fat bastard in the van.

‘Oi!' I shouted in his ear. He jumped but recovered quickly. ‘I've hit a plastic pipe.'

‘Good. That's what's supposed to happen,' he said. He pulled his baseball cap off, revealing a sweaty-oily ring of balding head, and surveyed my trench.

‘That'll probably do,' he said. ‘You've gone a bit deep but we can easily backfill. Dig a hole around the pipe. Expose it completely for . . . say . . . a metre or so. Dig underneath as well. Don't crack the friggin pipe.'

Too deep? I'd dug to where he'd said. Backfill? My hands ached as they folded into fists at my side.

‘Reckon you can handle that?'

I started digging. Think of the money.

Mum picked me up at four thirty. She looked at my hands and smiled.

‘How'd you go?'

‘All right.'

‘What did you do?'

I shrugged.

‘You look knackered.'

She drove back to the salon. I slumped in the waiting room chair and looked at myself in the mirror while she did something smelly to an old lady's hair. My nose was red. My cheeks were red. My neck was red and burning. My ears were red.

I groaned as I got up to wash my hands. I didn't mean to. It just jumped out. My back creaked.

‘You all right, love?' Mum asked, smiling.

I washed my hands and went to wait in the car.

I almost fell asleep into my roast lamb.

‘Your eyes are all bloodshot. You look like you're stoned,' Sharon said.

‘Better wear a hat and some sunscreen tomorrow, Gaz. You'll turn into a skin cancer,' Mario said, through a mouthful.

‘Turn into Gaz Melanoma,' Sharon said.

The sunburn didn't stop me sleeping from nine thirty until Mario shook me awake at six thirty. Nine hours.

‘Come on, Gaz. Got time for a quick shower.'

I rolled over, with every muscle in my body moaning and bitching. They signed a petition in my head. We, the undersigned muscles of this body, hereby declare that today is a day for sleeping. We shall not be moved.

Mario rolled me onto the floor ten minutes later. ‘Go! Get your overalls on. We're leaving.'

He'd made me two sandwiches and wrapped them in plastic. They sat in a paper bag on the kitchen table next
to a big pump bottle of 30+ sunscreen and wide-brimmed green cricket hat with ‘Australia' written on the front in gold stitching.

I picked up the sandwiches and sunscreen and thanked Muz.

‘Take the hat. Save you getting cooked like a bum cheek at a nudist colony.'

I took the hat. He couldn't make me wear it.

I pulled the hat over my dreadlocks after lunch. I could feel my sunburnt neck getting double-sunburnt through the sunscreen. Homer was snoring and I was finishing a new trench at a new house. It amazed me that the fat prick still had a job. Palms off all the real work and snores through lunch.

I lost it with him on Friday morning when we rocked up to a new house and he instructed me to dig a new trench across a new yard.

‘No,' I said.

‘What?'

‘You dig the fucken trench. I'll pissfart around with the pipes inside.'

His shoulders shook in a silent laugh. He licked his saliva-wet moustache.

‘You poor little pussy flap. Here's a lesson for you . . .' He stepped closer and his lips puckered until his mouth looked like Trixie's coit, only hairier. He stabbed a finger at his chest. ‘I'm the fucken tradie.' He jabbed his finger into my chest. ‘You're the fucken assistant. Do what you're told or fuck off home.'

And I nearly did fuck off home. I picked up the shovel and thought about throwing it at his hairy arse crack. I looked at my hands. They'd started to shape themselves to the shovel. My blister had rubbed into a red callus and it didn't hurt anymore. My muscles and bones complained in the morning but after lunch they kind of glowed and I watched the veins in my forearms. If nothing else, the digging would turn me into a he-man. And think of the money!

Mum took after-hours appointments on Friday. And Mario turned up after work with Grandad in Grandad's Fairmont.

‘So, Gary,' Grandad said. ‘What is it you do here exactly?'

‘Work.'

Grandad laughed. ‘Bullshit. You wouldn't work in an iron lung. Useless little prick. If I was a betting man I would put a hundred bucks on you being unemployed next week.'

Mario told Grandad to shut up then shouted instructions at the deaf bastard. He screwed his neck around to face me. ‘The cops found my car in the pines.'

We drove past the Mullet Head turn-off and into the pine plantation at the back of Blinley. We couldn't find the car. Mario's directions to Grandad got louder. He'd started to snarl at the old bastard, and then I spotted it.

It had been bogged in a drain. Every panel was spotted with mud like she'd been on a bit of a rally. The driver's door and window were covered in white powder and I realised the cops had dusted it for fingerprints. I felt sorry
for the car. I felt sorry for Muz. It was his baby. He picked his way around and swore to himself. Grandad leaned against the door of his shitbox, arms crossed. He was smiling.