Elizabeth Howkins Bob The Plumber Takes The Final Plunge “You won’t believe this one,” Herb said, stuffing a cruller into his mouth like a sink stopper. “Helen called and told me to clean out the truck so she can use it to take Bob to the cemetery.” “It just doesn’t seem respectful to me,” I said, “hauling your husband to his final rest in a pick-up truck like he was a worn-out hot water heater. It seems a little too ‘red neck’ to me. Can’t she afford a hearse?” “Well,” Herb said between bites, “at least she’s burying him. Some guys were afraid she’d cremate him and flush him down the toilet, which given his forty illustrious years as a master plumber, was certainly a viable option.” “Kinda like a burial at sea,” I said. “Sorta,” he wheezed and reached for another cruller. As he bit down it oozed out a plug of jelly like an open wound. “What better end for a master plumber at the height of his powers,” I said sarcastically. “I’ve heard of men who go down to the sea in ships but this is the first time I’ve heard about one going down to the cemetery in a pick-up truck. Isn’t this a bit precipitous anyway? Bob isn’t dead yet.” “Well,” Herb said, “we all know that Bob is terminal and Helen just likes to get all her ducks in a row.” “I still think it’s in incredibly bad taste,” I said, “all this advance planning smacks a bit of pushing.” Bob lasted about two more weeks. I got regular bulletins from Herb who charted Bob’s decline as doggedly as an arborist monitoring the inexorable denuding of a virgin forest by a mutant, super-lethal species of gypsy moth. The death rattle had barely ceased to rumble when Helen had the truck lined up at the back door waiting. Herb had scrubbed it out as best he could but it still gave off a faint whiff of “eau de toilette publique” which was aggravated by the four gallons of undiluted pine oil Helen had insisted on pouring in when Herb removed the pipes. Bob was laid out at home and I mean laid out. He looked like one of Madam Tussaud’s seconds and his face gave a new meaning to the word wax. I told Herb that if I were Helen I would never sleep in that bed again, considering the circumstances. “That’s what funeral parlors are for,” I said, “to keep you from constantly having to replace the bedroom furniture after a viewing. Funeral parlors take death out of the home and into a public arena where it is more manageable.” Herb said that Helen had been sleeping with a corpse for years anyway since Bob hadn’t been able to get it up since 1979 so it wouldn’t make any difference. Anyway, Helen put Bob into some kind of formica coffin that looked a little bit like a giant Igloo cooler, as if he were 200 pounds of pike. It was beyond tacky, but I’m sure it was cheap. Then Helen put Bob’s truck keys into his hands which was a nice gesture, I guess, sort of like the keys to the kingdom of heaven, but a subtlety lost on someone of Helen’s limited mental capacity. When we got to the cemetery she told Herb to remove the keys as she hadn’t thought to get a second set and she told him to replace them with a few lug nuts and a plunger. “No way,” he said, “I never touched a dead guy before.” “Well, it’s obvious you aren’t Irish,” I said, “or you wouldn’t be so squeamish about a corpse.” “You know I’m Finnish,” he said, “and this is the first corpse I’ve ever seen. Finns don’t do death. They do art glass and furniture. I never even saw my mother in that condition. Gone is gone. Rigor mortis is simply not my bag.” We managed to get Herb past the lug nuts by having him call on a few nuts of his own and we proceeded with a nice graveside service, which was conducted by some sort of alternative clergyman who didn’t wear socks. Several long time customers spoke about how Bob had cleaned out their cesspools and unblocked their pipes just in the nick of time. One guy who spoke about how Bob had gotten a Barbie out of the bottom of his toilet was especially moving. Then Steve, Bob’s apprentice, offered a few words about how he hoped that heaven would be full of plugged up sewer pipes so Bob would feel right at home. We all went to the local tavern and had some kielbasa and a few beers to blunt the edges of our grief. Some people mentioned that they had a problem with Helen burying Bob with the lug nuts and the plunger instead of the more traditional lilies but Herb said he was just relieved that she hadn’t buried him with a claw foot tub, given her eccentric frame of mind. It was all pretty much over the top. Helen had tried to pretend that she was trying to honor Bob by individualizing the service with the pick-up truck and the plumbing supplies but she never fooled me. She makes Silas Marner look like a free spender in the style of Imelda Marcos. Helen is the kind of widow you see at the funeral with one hand wringing a hanky and the other one thumbing a calculator to tally up the estate. She’s the kind of widow who skimps on the funeral and then, two weeks later, dances her brains out on a cruise to Cozumel. I’ve got her number all right. She still has the original dime she got for the first molar she ever lost. Three weeks later, Herb got a call from Helen. “I’ve got a real problem,” he said, “Helen told me she’s sending over a little memento of Bob.” “My God,” I said, “I hope it isn’t those yellow molars he kept in the peanut butter jar! I hope to God you never told her you admired them when you were drunk.” “It’s not the molars,” he said, “it’s worse. She told me she’s sending me some lovely photos of Bob in his coffin--lug nuts, plunger and all.” “Hey, what culture does she come from?” I asked. “Mexicans take pictures of dead kids and call them ‘angelitos’ but I thought Helen was Polish.” “Look,” Herb said, “the viewing and services were bad enough, especially for a Finn. It was really pushing the cultural envelope, especially for a guy whose only previous view of a dead body was limited to an occasional bit of road kill and, believe me, it is a considerable leap from a dead woodchuck to Bob. I thought this was a one-time deal. I didn’t know there would be sequelae.” “That’s a big word, Herb,” I said. “I do the New York Times crossword in ink,” he said smugly, “blue collar is not a synonym for dumb. I coulda been a contender.” “Knock off the stale quotes from Rocky XIX,” I said. “Anyway, you’ve got to keep the pictures and display them tastefully somewhere or Helen will be insulted. You don’t want to be rude.” “I don’t mind being rude,” he said, “maybe we could hang them in the guest bathroom, but not right over the toilet.” “How sensitive of you,” I smirked. “Look, why would Helen think I’d want pictures of Bob laid out flat like a poached salmon? That’s not how I want to remember him. On the worst day of his life he looked better than he looks in those pictures.” “Just shut up and take them, Herb,” I said, “I’m sick of your whining. This all gives new meaning to ‘much ado about nothing.’ I’d hate to see how you’d cope if you had to deal with an earthquake above 1.2 on the Richter scale.” “You’re a real ball buster,” he said, “my mother told me never to marry a Croatian. I should have listened.” “At least Croatians don’t pass out when they go to a viewing,” I said. “I didn’t pass out,” he snarled, “the floor was a little crooked and I swayed.” Well, I was certainly right about Helen. You can tell a lot about the character of a person by the quality of the funeral she provides for someone who is no longer around to give any positive feedback. I always said that Helen was cheap and greedy but it turned out she was worse. Bob’s kids from his first marriage had his body exhumed and tested for traces of toilet bowl cleaner. Bingo! Helen had apparently been feeding it to him gradually in his morning haggis, so he never had a prayer of detecting anything. “I always said beware of Poles bearing plungers,” Herb said. “Sorry,” I said, “you never said that. That’s my line.” “You always have to have the last word,” Herb said. And I do. Helen was sent away to the Women’s Correctional Institute for a long time, thereby relieving us of the problem of what to do with the pictures. We won’t have to worry about her popping in unexpectedly to check on them, so I guess you could say this story has a happy ending of sorts.