Just as I was preparing to leave my apartment yesterday afternoon to catch the Mets game at the sports bar, the call-box starting buzzing. That’s when I remembered my roommate had called the plumber earlier in the day. Although I had no idea what he should be looking for, I buzzed him in anyway and met him at the top of the stairs. A young Hispanic man carrying a flashlight was followed closely by a middle-aged Caucasian man, who perhaps played Luigi to the Hispanic guy’s Mario. Either way, it wasn’t until I led them into the apartment that I realized I had no idea what they were doing here. I called Fawn and she asked to have them run the hot water in the sink so that they could hear the dripping sound that occurred in the wall separating the kitchen from the living room. Although the plumbers both admitted to hearing the clicking sound, they found no water damage anywhere on the wall, in the floor, or in our downstairs neighbors apartment. When they returned from checking the neighbor’s ceiling for damage, the Hispanic man went back in the kitchen to test the sink and listen to the pipes, the white guy plopped down on my couch and started to engage me in conversation.
He was easily the most redneck fellow I’ve ever met. He reminded me of this kid named Kevin I once knew. Kevin used to drive a Ford pick-up truck with a Tasmanian Devil emblazoned on his license plate, chain smoked menthols and chewed tobacco whenever he wasn’t smoking. He always had a Styrofoam cup he would the juice into, and he’d just lazily leave the stinking, festering cups wherever he pleased. He spoke like a true southerner, like a character in Deliverance. Kevin was the most hillbilly person I’d ever met until this plumber. He was about 5’5″, barrel-chested, and was losing his blond hair. His face was deeply creased, he had a light goatee, and there was a large gap between his teeth. He wore a yellow-stained plain-white t-shirt with unevenly cut jean shorts. His eyes were never quite open when he spoke.
“What’s yer name?” he asked, before producing a wadded up napkin from the pocket of his homemade cut-offs and hacking violently into it.
“My name is Evan,” I responded.
“Devin,” he said, “Are you by any chance into meth?”
“Meth? No, sorry.” I responded.
“You ain’t got no methamphetamine here? Well, what do you got? Uppers? Downers? Sidewinders?”
“No, sorry, none of that here.” I said. “My roommate made me swear I wasn’t into that before I moved in,” I added, for who-the-fuck knows what reason.
“Well shit,” the guy said, coughing again into his napkin. “We’re booked her for an hour and there’s fuck-all to do.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry about that. I guess if she was here she might be able to better help you locate the problem.”
“Do you want to watch some TV or something?” The hillbilly suddenly asked.
“Oh, we don’t have TV,” I told him as he reached across the couch for the remote control. He flipped the television set on and found only a blank screen.
“You mean this is it? This is all I’ve got?”
“Yeah, I’m sorry.”
“Well, what are we going to do,” he wondered. He hacked something up into the napkin and shoved it back into his pocket. Then he stood up from the couch and moved over to the box of DVDs I’d brought from home. “We should watch a movie. What do you want to watch, Indiana Jones or Seinfeld?”
At this point, the Hispanic man finally returned from the kitchen. He told me he didn’t think there was anything he could do. Without any visible water damage there would be no use in kicking in the wall and examining the pipes.
“We’re gonna watch us some Seinfeld,” the white guy told him. Then he mumbled something about bad dope or no dope, I couldn’t quite make it out. Whatever it was, it made the Hispanic man laugh. Turning his attention to me, the redneck asked, “We gonna watch this or not?”
“No, I’m sorry. I really have to go out. I have to be somewhere in fifteen minutes.” Sure, my presence at the bar wasn’t mandatory, but what kind of idiot chooses Seinfeld with the creepy plumber over dinner and a Mets game?
The white guy rose from the couch and shrugged his shoulders. “Oh well. You stay off that meth, you hear?”
“Believe me, I will,” I told him.
With that, the two of them made their way out the front door. I made sure to double-lock it behind them. I went back inside and tried to calculate how long it would take them to walk down to their car and drive away, then I left the house and headed to the bar. The food was great, I got free beer, and the Mets won. I couldn’t have asked for a better night. Unless of course, I asked for a blowjob from a beautiful girl, but that might be asking too much.
