The Legend of Kevin the Plumber

by Scot Gardner

  Gel lit a smoke and shook his head. ‘Hope her old man doesn’t find out. He’ll be out for your worm with his meat axe.’

  ‘Did you use protection?’ Emily asked.

  ‘I didn’t —’

  ‘You fucken idiot,’ Gel whispered. ‘If she’s pregnant, you’re fucked.’

  ‘I didn’t have sex . . . I didn’t root her.’

  ‘So she went the gob on you. Nice,’ Gel said, nodding. ‘Does she swallow?’

  I stood up. ‘Look, I didn’t touch her, all right? And she didn’t touch me.’

  ‘That’s not what Sarah said,’ Emily protested. ‘She said they sprung you in bed together and Vanessa was half-naked.’

  ‘She wasn’t half-naked. A couple of her buttons had come undone. I had nothing to do with that.’

  ‘In your bed,’ Emily said, with a grin.

  ‘Believe what you want.’

  Gel pushed his sunnies onto the top of his head. His eyes were sleep-starved and puffy. He grinned like an idiot. ‘I think this is cause for celebration!’

  ‘We’re going up to Plumber’s joint,’ Aggie said. ‘Coming?’

  ‘Might as well.’

  Ash answered the door with shower-wet hair. Her voice was huskier and blokier than usual. She coughed and spat out the doorway.

  ‘Have a big night, Ash? You’ve got that butch bong voice happening,’ Gel said as we piled into the bungalow.

  Ash nodded.

  The knickers had gone. The jeans had gone, too, and the room smelled of incense.

  ‘Gaz had a big night, didn’t you, Gaz?’ Emily said.

  And Gel told the story with a lot more made-up stuff (video camera, sex toys) while Ash prepared the bong. I noticed Ash’s hand shaking. She glanced at me and she looked like a puppy that had taken a beating. It was just a glance but I wondered what had happened last night.

  We sat on the floor in a bent circle and got bent. The bong did the rounds and I started going numb behind my forehead. Before I was totally consumed, while my words were still working, I leaned close to Ash and whispered, ‘I didn’t have sex with her. She came to my bed ’cause she was scared of the dark.’

  She looked at me and the beaten puppy had vanished. It was just Ash and she was smiling. ‘I didn’t think you would,’ she said, and I loved her for that. It was like I couldn’t give a shit about the stories Gel made up as long as Ash believed me. She believed me. I was stoned enough to want to kiss her, but I didn’t. I bumped her with my shoulder and she giggled.

  I floated home at 2 am. Someone had made my bed. My feet were sore and cold so I crawled under the covers. Something crinkled under my shoulder. A note.

  Hey Gaz,

  Thanks for being so kind. Sorry for being such a pain.

  Luv Vanessa Daly

  [Love heart, love heart, love heart]

  Her writing was much neater than mine. The i’s were dotted with little circles. I pushed the note under my pillow and went to sleep with a smile on my face.

  I had freaky dreams. Paranoid dreams of cops holding me down and injecting me with blue stuff.

  Some nights, after a big session, I’d be better off staying awake.

  Nine

  Mum and Sharon had left when I woke on Monday. Mario had already been to Chrissy Bay and bought a new wheel for my bike. He smiled at me and shook his head but didn’t mention anything about me being a paedophile. He did mention that it was Shaz’s actual birthday. I rode down to the poxy surf shop in Mullet Head while she was at school and bought her a pair of HSV boxers and three king-size Mars Bars. She told me that she loved me when I gave them to her but she always says shit like that.

  Grandad got Sharon an Xbox and five games. Grandad has no idea. Sharon hates games. Yes, she does spend a heap of time on the computer, but not playing games. Chatting. Tapping away at the keys until her room sounds like a hailstorm in a caravan. Grandad wasted six hundred bucks.

  ‘Would it be okay if I kept the Xbox in your room, Gaz? Hook it up to your TV?’

  ‘It’s your bloody present.’

  Sharon shrugged. She looked like she was going to cry. It hurts her more than it hurts me that Grandad treats her like a princess. He tries to treat her like a princess by buying her all this expensive shit and it’s all just shit to Shaz. Grandad has no idea.

  On the Tuesday, after Mario had shaken me awake and found me a pair of coveralls, he handed me the keys and said I should drive. The old Commodore started first try and I gunned it across the flats after the Kellep River Bridge.

  ‘One hundred speed limit along here, Gaz,’ Mario said.

  I backed off to one hundred and twenty and when I got to the Chrissy Bay turn-off, Mario pumped at an imaginary brake pedal on his side of the car.

  I laughed to myself and floored it out of the corner. The arse-end slid and I corrected like a pro.

  Mario told me to slow down again. I looked across and he was smiling.

  ‘Bloody rev head.’

  There were four cars in the car park at P & KL Wasser P/L. Two Commodores (a black SS ute and a pale blue VL with a coat hanger for an aerial), a Ford four-wheel-drive and a shitty old Toyota ute with a green plastic boat strapped to a rack over the tray.

  Mario and I got out of the car but Mario climbed straight back into the driver’s seat. ‘Here, better give us your ring.’

  Ash’s skull ring was still sitting comfortably on my little finger. ‘Why?’

  ‘If it gets hooked on something you could lose your finger or your hand.’

  I slipped it off and handed it to him.

  ‘It’s in the console, okay?’

  ‘Okay. You’re not coming in?’

  ‘No. You’ll be right, won’t you?’

  ‘Yes. Fine. No worries. Don’t worry about it. She’s cool.’

  He nodded. ‘Have you got anything to eat?’

  ‘I’ve got eight bucks.’

  ‘Hope you’re near a shop at lunchtime.’ He looked over his shoulder and started backing out. ‘I’ll be back at four.’

  I waved and felt my guts churning. I hoped I could get out of the coveralls fast enough if I had a toilet emergency.

  Muz’s mate Phil stood in the office with a clipboard in his hand. ‘Here he is!’ he said, and shook my hand. The girl at the desk smiled.

  ‘Now,’ Phil said. There was a long pause for thought. ‘David, isn’t it?’

  ‘Gary.’

  ‘Of course. Sorry. Gary. You’ll be working with Kevin today. Heading out to Murray Goulburn to have a look at the waste system there. Kevin’s a good bloke, he’ll look after you.’

  He put his arm over my shoulder and led me into the shed. ‘Old Kevin might look like he eats trade assistants for breakfast, but I can guarantee that he doesn’t eat up big in the morning.’

  There were racks of pipes in the shed and shelves full of ratty cardboard boxes. A pair of dirty fibreglass panels in the roof bathed the shed in greenified morning light. It made Phil Wasser look like a zombie.

  And Kevin. Kevin looked like the last thing you see before you die in a pub brawl. Green hair, green eyes, greeny-black beard. He wasn’t fat, just tall. Well, he wasn’t just tall, either: he was massive. His overalls were the elastic-shouldered type with no sleeves. They’d probably run out of material before it came time to make the sleeves. XXXXXXL.

  ‘Kevin, this is . . . Gary. He’ll be your TA for today.’

  I put my hand out before I noticed Kev had his arms full. He tried to free a hand and dropped a fitting. It chimed on the concrete and I headbutted Kevin in the ear as we both reached for it.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. I had a testy blow-out and my ‘sorry’ squeaked like a cartoon mouse.

  The big bloke just handed me the fittings. ‘Find a cardboard box for these.’

  I dropped a couple more as he handed them to me. Phil picked them up and found a box. Kev rubbed his ear as he walked off.

  ‘Right,’ Phil said. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’

  ‘Righ
t,’ I said, and wondered what he was leaving me to. I stood there like a dick with a box of fittings in my hands. I wondered if Kevin was going to come back. I wondered what the hell I was doing there. I wondered if I should have followed the big bloke and I wondered if they’d miss me if I dropped the box and ran out the door.

  ‘Gary!’ Kevin bellowed. His voice was friendly but it rattled around the shed and I couldn’t tell where it had come from.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Come over here.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said, and put the box on an old school chair.

  ‘Bring the box.’

  ‘Right.’

  I found him in a dark corner. I followed him around like a puppy and he filled the box. He ushered me to a white van parked behind the shed. It had the company logo on the door and it smelled new inside. There were dusty boot prints on the glove box. Kevin had to slide the seat back before he got in.

  ‘Bloody Homer,’ he growled. He pulled the ashtray out and tutted at the little pile of crushed butts. The van rocked as he got out and emptied the butts into the yellow industrial bin at the back of the yard. Kevin didn’t say a word as we drove past the turn-off to Mullet Head and towards Blinley.

  He drove like Grandad. Like he had to be gentle with the clutch and deliberate with every gear change. It was like he was in slow motion. Push-pull on the steering wheel like a driving instructor, all the way to the car park at the milk factory. He told me to stay in the van.

  That I could do. Easily. I clicked the radio on, put my knees on the glove box and slouched into the seat. Kevin was gone for three songs and I think I may have nodded off. Just for a second. The second when Kevin wrenched the door open and threw a plastic bag at me.

  ‘Put these on, Sleeping Beauty.’

  There were three white shower caps in the bag.

  ‘One on your head to cover your . . . hair . . . or whatever you call it. One on each boot, but not until we get inside. Right?’

  I jogged to the door of the milk factory with my shower caps tucked under my arm. Kevin was at the van collecting tools. I walked back to the van and thought that there may be an award for the dickiest assistant in the universe. I’d be a hot candidate already.

  Kevin loaded me up and talked into his beard. ‘There’s a blockage in the waste line somewhere. It’s not totally blocked but it only carries liquid waste, so why it would gum up at all is a bit of a puzzle. We’ll take the probe, that way we’ll at least look like we know what we’re doing.’

  He handed me something that looked like a garden hose reel, only the handle had a little TV screen beside it. We put our shower caps on in the foyer and pushed through the glass doors into the industrial hum of the factory. Towering tanks of stainless steel, networks of pipes and the warm stink of moo juice. No people to be seen. Maybe it was just the shower caps but I felt like a doctor. Well, a doctor’s assistant.

  A bloke with thick black-rimmed glasses and flaky red skin appeared from nowhere and spoke to Kevin.

  ‘We’ve isolated the waste line. You’ve got about twenty-five minutes until we need it again. Will that be long enough?’

  ‘We’ll soon find out. Gary, plug the probe in over there,’ Kevin said, pointing to a power outlet tucked under a low stainless steel trough.

  I could handle that. My first bit of actual work. Did a good job, too. I unwound the cord and made sure the plug was the right way up and she slipped into the socket like they were made for each other. I looked at the switch. I thought about turning it on but what if I stuffed it? What if the hose thingy had to be unwound before . . .

  ‘Did you turn it on?’ Kevin shouted.

  I flicked the switch and the screen glowed. ‘Yep.’

  So, Gaz, I imagined Mario asking. What did you do today?

  Mate, it was awesome. I plugged some things in, flicked a few switches . . .

  ‘Right, over here,’ Kevin said.

  I scuttled to where he was crouching beside a drain hole. He’d pulled the grate off.

  ‘The probe,’ Kevin said.

  ‘Yeah, what does it do?’

  ‘We’ll need the probe. Get the probe. Bring it over here.’

  ‘Right,’ I said. There’d be no competition at this year’s dickiest assistant awards. I’d get the award for the thickest assistant, slowest assistant and all-round most useless assistant.

  ‘The probe has a light and a camera in the end. We use it to have a look up the pipes to see if there’s any damage or to find out what’s blocking it.’

  ‘Cool,’ I said. And it was. The little screen was colour and as Kevin pushed the hose down the pipe it showed the slimy-looking walls. It was like one of those inside-the body documentaries. Maybe being a plumber was a bit like being a doctor, only for a doctor I hoped they could make the camera a bit smaller. I wouldn’t want one of those suckers up my drain.

  ‘There you go,’ Kevin said, and the camera pushed into a wall of black-green slime. ‘Just accumulated debris at . . . it looks like a junction. Probe won’t shift it. Have to go for the sewer rooter.’

  At that moment, I was glad he wasn’t my doctor.

  He looked at me thoughtfully.

  ‘Okay . . . listening?’ he said. He spoke slowly. ‘I want you to pack the probe up just like you found it. I’m going to the van to get another tool. I’ll be back in a minute.’

  ‘Right.’

  The probe was covered in slime. I pinched it in the tips of my fingers as I fed it back onto the reel but it didn’t slow me down. The switch was off and the cord wound up again when Kevin returned at a jog.

  ‘What I need you to do, Gary, is to bolt down to that pit down there. See that metal grille in the floor?’

  ‘Yep.’ It was as big as a dinner table and shiny like it had just been cleaned. How could I miss it?

  ‘Go down there and watch for the head of the rooter.’

  He showed me the head: a funnel-shaped metal coil with teeth. The rooter was the tool that convinced me that plumbers and doctors were only alike if you’d missed out on your daily cone of mull. The head of the sewer rooter looked like something an alien would use to bore into your skull.

  ‘Tell me when it comes out of the pipe and into the pit.’

  ‘Right,’ I said, and jogged to the metal grille. I could see four pipes that emptied into the pit. Kevin uncoiled a long thin spring that was the body of the rooter, attached the head and threaded it into the drain. He shoved and twisted and the spring vanished into the pipe. Shoved and twisted. The spring continued to disappear until the monster plumber had to attach another length. Shoved and twisted until that thin spring had disappeared too and the head popped into the pit.

  ‘Yep!’ I shouted. The head was covered in brown pipe gore and I was thankful I didn’t have to touch it.

  Kevin nodded and began to pull the spring back out of the drain.

  The rooter’s head dropped off.

  It clattered against the wall of the pit and hit the sludge in the bottom with a flup. Was that supposed to happen?

  I looked at the head. I looked at Kevin. There was a belching sound and suddenly the pit was alive with a waterfall from one of the pipes.

  ‘Damn,’ Kevin said. He held the empty end of the rooter spring in his massive paw.

  ‘It fell off,’ I said, and Kevin nodded.

  ‘Can you see it?’

  ‘It’s in the pit,’ I said. ‘All this water came out. I can’t see it anymore.’

  Kevin packed up the rest of the rooter and looked in the pit.

  ‘That’s a bit of a bother,’ he said. ‘Do you reckon we can lift the grate?’

  I moved to the end opposite the big bloke and thought a crane might have come in handy at this point. There was no way . . .

  Kevin had his fingers curled through the steel and he was looking at me. Waiting.

  ‘I’m not . .. I don’t know . . .’

  ‘It’s not as heavy as it looks. Grab on.’

  I hooked my fingers in the steel me
sh.

  ‘Keep your back straight. Just to the side. Ready? Go.’

  I heaved and my knees started shaking. Kevin’s end of the grate scraped clear of the concrete. It was a foot off the ground and you could have twanged a tune on the muscles in my thighs. My end started to move and before I could be blown away by my own strength, we were clear of the floor — just — and shuffling to the side.

  ‘Gently . . . down . . . that will do.’

  I uncurled my fingers and the grate clattered to the concrete.

  ‘Reckon you could fit through that gap?’ Kevin asked.

  He was asking me to crawl into the slime pit.

  ‘I’m not . . . I don’t think . . .’

  ‘I’ll lower you down.’

  Then he was holding my hands, my limp and totally unreliable hands, like he was going to give me a wizzy dizzy. He lifted me off the floor and hung my feet into the pit. My work boots scraped against the wall then farted and squelched into the sludge on the bottom. I guessed the shower caps that covered them were ‘single use only’. I kept going down. The sludge was above my ankles when I hit concrete and Kevin let go of my hands.

  ‘Now what?’ I asked. The pit was deep enough to echo like a cave when I talked.

  ‘Just grab the head. It’ll be there somewhere. Hurry though because at any minute —’

  He didn’t get to finish his sentence. A waterfall erupted from the pipe next to my thigh. It flooded my boot. And the smell. It stank like a fridge surprise. One of those cartons that had been tucked up the back for a month too long. The milk that doesn’t pour onto your Weeties, it vomits. I gagged.

  ‘Just grab the thing before you get totally drowned,’ Kevin said, and I stuck my hand into the brown-green goop. Nothing. I swapped hands and eventually found the rooter head two metres from where I saw it land. I chucked it out of the pit and nearly chucked up on myself.

  ‘Well done, Gary. Give me your hands. Wipe them first.’

  I shook my slimed fingers and wiped them on my coveralls. Kevin hoiked me out of the pit like I was a two-year-old and I stomped my boots near the edge.

  ‘I think you might need a new set of boot covers,’ Kevin said, and I thought I saw him smile. Underneath all that beard, I’d swear I saw his lips move.