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Larkspur

Tom Sheehan

    Larkspur knew Katherine loved him in a special way, but going out the door that morning, the sun barely peeking through her skirt so that he looked a second time and she smiled back at him (really saying, “Time enough for that.”) and said, later he thought to be so very casual, “Oh, I forgot to tell you. The water won’t go down in the tub. It’s probably plugged up. Maybe hair or something like that.” (What else is like hair? he said to himself.) “You should be able to clean it out in a jiffy, hon. I bet the boys will be bringing some of their pals back from golfing and they might want to use the shower.” (You know damn well they’ll be bringing a bunch of pals back and they’ll all be showering after the match, and this is sandbagging at its best!)
    Larkspur was not good at gadgeteering or fixing. Early he had found out that not only was he unaccustomed to gadget innards or their ways of working, but that he was terrified of them and their unholy threats at his balm and serenity. Electric irons terrified him, toasters, televisions, answering machines on the phone, VCRs, electric can openers, pipes and tubes and shut-off valves, solder and brazing, PVC and its special cement, anything that was electrical in nature or called for plumbing or its tools or, further, demanded some ancient knowledge of theory and how elements of things worked in unison with each other for their target use.
    Forget automobile engines and attached parts! He was impossible there. That was the sheerest terror of all, out on the byways and highways with the children in the back seat and the hood of the car up as if some ancient tomb was his for history’s decoding. Some men, he believed with sincerity, inherited intuitive celerity. It came with their genes. No doubt it was passed down from mechanic to plumber to electrician via little swimming germs with smiling faces and energetic little tails, nestling where they were meant to nestle, deep inside, hidden away, notched, locked, under key, in special cores or places of great reserve where such men “just knew such things.”
    “Larkspur,” Katherine would say, in temperament and support if it were to be balanced at all, “likes to read. He likes postage stamps from all the corners of the earth and now those few from out of space. Larkspur, after all, is a gentleman.” Sometimes she said it very formidably, now and then contentedly, occasionally it might drift off to another meaning. That’s when Larkspur did not listen, gifted with delicate ears as well as delicate hands.
    From the very beginning he had said, in a direct manner, that he was useless in that mechanical or electrical vein, especially to Katherine in their courting days. The up-front admission, he had discovered, kept him out of some impossibly embarrassing situations. Now, twenty-two years later, two sons in the house with a younger daughter, his balm and serenity for long spells of time undamaged, unapproached, unassailed, Katherine had left with the children for a benefit golf outing. Larkspur, not good with golf clubs either, was content to sit home and read, manage his stamp collection, now worth a considerable sum, or “coasting along,” as Katherine was apt to say if questioned on his whereabouts.
    “The plunger,” he announced in a surprised aside, walking up the stairs. His voice bounced off the walls like a court dictate or spoken from a podium. A striking revelation!
    “Of course, the plunger.” It made his blood tingle.
    Such a simple contraption could produce immediate results. A sense of glee came on him, an aura of knowledge and finessing and acute appreciation for the small things in life. Again he said it, in that podium voice, his blue eyes lit up, his round pleasant face cracked with a smile; “The plunger.” His head nodded in agreement. Katherine would wonder how he had managed to get rid of such a pesky problem. And in such short order. Aha, that was the secret; do it in short order. In the air as promise sat the aroma of his next cup of coffee, French Vanilla, a little exorbitant, but it was a day off. In his hands, as if at order, would soon be the copy of “Notes from A Small Island.” Today he’d finish that snappy little book and be on to “City of Lost Maps,” if that was its real title. He enjoyed the momentary doubt. It was not important, except that it was there waiting for him. Now would be the important stuff, clearing up a small problem in jig order. “Aha,” he announced again, the dais of the final step under his foot, “The plunger!”
    Lo, that plunger would not budge even a half-pint of water. Not a spoonful! Larkspur plunged and plunged and heard a throat of a bubbling sound and saw small bubbles rise, but the water stayed in the bottom of the tub. Once, plunging so hard, his glasses fell into the tub. Putting them aside, he took off his shirt, and plunged again, with steep exertion. Nothing moved except a few bubbles. Their throaty sounds he heard from the innards of the tub, some kind of mesmerizing code behind the wall where things lay hidden, pipes and tubes and other chance things, the things in life one must accept.
    Again he plunged and breathed hard and thought of jig time and quick time and rapid solutions flying out the window. For a long period he sat on the hopper, John Crapper’s masterpiece for casual reading, and thought about it all. Katherine was sure to bring boys home with her own. It was her way. She loved people, loved them underfoot, loved to feed them and sew for them and minister to little needs. God, she loved him under foot. It was her way in the world. But they would need to use the shower. She wouldn’t let them or want them walking about smelling like a locker room. Katherine could not abide that.
    He plunged again! Nothing but a solitary throaty bubble. It sounded as if it had come up out of his own throat. Again he sat, and suddenly, with a flare, remembered an old-time actress on TV doing a commercial for some kind of magical liquid that took care of drains and such. Hair be damned! He’d get some of that. He was connecting!
    Back in his shirt, his glasses on, going down the stairs, he saw himself pour a red solution down into the drain. He could hear the sounds as it sucked the tub dry of all its water. It was now two hours since Katherine had left. No longer did he have all day. Memories, in bold leaps, rode on top of his predicament, sweeping him up with connection, the plunger and the blockage serving as connectors. One dear friend, in clear affinity had said, “My favorite tools are the plunger, super glue, and duct tape.”
    Oh, how well he knew that stance. They were kindred souls in that dark order of ineptness. As he got into his car he remembered another dear friend’s relating a one-way telephone conversation he’d overheard in a doctor’s office. “No, Ma’am, I’m sorry. If he had a stone up his nose, penicillin wouldn’t remove it. By all means, if he wants to hold his breath until he’s twenty-one, that’s okay by me. No, Ma’am, I don’t mind if you get a second opinion. I’m only one of the three best eye-ear-nose doctors in the world. I had my own hospital in Hungary until the Russians drove me out.” Pause-pause-pause. “Who? Who? The guy in the gas station! Well take him to the goddamn guy in the gas station!” There was chuckle and relief always at hand. Panic always left openings for being overcome.
    He drove to the small local hardware store that seemed to swear by kindness and inventive solutions to everyday problems. He explained to the woman at the store about the shower and Katherine’s supposition of hair plugging the drains. “I have three daughters,” the woman said, “and hair can do that. Try this stuff and it will cut right through all that hairball stuff.” Her smile was wide and warm and well informed. And the liquid was red, just as he dreamed from some other life, and did nothing for his problem. For what seemed hours he sat there waiting for the chemical battering ram, waiting for the gurgle, the escape of tub water. Knowing he shouldn’t do it, he plunged again. Nothing.
    Panic was coming. He couldn’t call a plumber and expect him to be here before Katherine and company. He tried a bent coat hanger, a thin wire coat hanger. It wouldn’t go pass the first bend or the obstacle that was more than a hairball. Looking the situation over once more, he discovered the small door behind the shower panel. To his mind it had never been opened. It was as about as mysterious as it could be, like electricity.
    Larkspur opened the small door gently and saw the pipes, the mass of pipes. Copper pipes. PVC pipes because they were white. Pipes coming and going, he presumed. One pipe was higher than the others. The drain from the bottom of the tub was connected to it. It rose well above the drain and was connected to the overflow outlet near the top of the tub. If he took that off, the coat hanger would certainly pass down through, past the connection from the tub drain. A new surge of excitement hit him. Using a screwdriver he set about taking two screws holding the cap on the overflow connection. This was easy. He’d already got the cap off the drain in the bottom of the tub and not lost the screw. Now he placed two more two-inch screws on the floor and gently lifted the overflow cap from its place, taking it and what ever was connected to it from inside the overflow.
    Whoosh! The tub emptied in mere seconds, the water and the red chemical liquid all gone in one Whoosh! The red stuff gone. It was as if his blood had emptied out! His energy! His dreams! Oh, the grand art of maintenance! Oh, salvation! The tub emptied. The drain, the damn drain, clean as it ever would be. Looking at his watch he quickly with newly adept fingers put all the screws and caps in place, including the plug, now in the open position, which had kept all the damn water, and indeed the splash of redness, inside the tub.
    Then he heard a horn blow a series of blasts, then blast again. Somebody, he interpreted, had made a hole-in-one. Larkspur smiled. So, had he. He wasn’t the one who had shut off the drain outlet. Katherine’s problem was solved. The electric and gleeful surge hit him again, Larkspur at ease with the world anew.

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