Nothing Better To Do - a novel in stories - Chapter 5

Chapter Five

Freddie Edwards needed a new gas-fired water heater. It was something he had let slip out when he sought Phil's recommendation on a make and model. Phil having been in the plumbing business, he was sure to have an educated opinion on the matter. Freddie wasn't trying to put the arm on Phil for a little free plumbing work. To the contrary, he was afraid Phil would insist on it and Freddie really wanted to avoid that. Phil was getting a little old to be doing the kind of heavy lifting involved in such a project. Besides, the old water heater was still operational. It was just getting old and threatening to spring a leak at any time. Freddie was thinking ahead to the time he couldn't avoid it any longer, when he'd call Phil's son to do the job.

"Not to worry, I'll get House to help me with the lifting." Phil had lit up at the prospect of making himself useful. "I'll come over to your place and look the job over. I'll tell you what I'll need to complete the work. You just run over to Lowe's and pick up the fittings and have them deliver the water heater. When it comes, I'll get House and we'll run over and pop it in. It won't take us more than an hour."

Freddie protested because he knew Phil wouldn't take a penny for his work.

"Just toss House a couple bucks and that'll do 'er," Phil insisted.

Freddie looked over at House. He had looked pretty glum from the moment he and Phil had come in, as if something had been bothering him. Now he was smiling, obviously pleased at being included in the project. There was no way Freddie could say no. He poured them a couple of beers, insisting they were on him.

Two weeks later, Freddie called Phil to tell him that the water heater had been delivered. Phil called House and made arrangements to pick him up. When he knocked on the door of the Payne residence, it was Mona who opened it.

"Well, hello, Philip Rowley. How can so many years pass in a town like this without two souls bumping into one another?"

Phil was dumb struck. Mona had always been a nice-sorta looking woman, nice figure, nice hair, almost-pretty face. But the years had added character in the form of care lines. Phil had always thought there was something missing, but had never been able to put his finger on it. Mona'd had one of those faces that was like a blank canvas waiting for something special to be painted on it. How that could have been with all that she had gone through, he couldn't begin to imagine. But here she was, a completed work of art. He reached deep inside for words. "I guess we've both been so busy with our own lives and belonging to different churches and such..."

"I was sorry to learn about Alice. How are you doing?"

Phil had lost his wife to cervical cancer, two years before. "Oh, I'm managing... Between being alone and being retired, sometimes I get up in the morning and don't know quite what to do."

"I want to thank you for asking House to help you. He has mentioned you often in recent times, always in connection with some kindness you have afforded him."

"Well, I've got to tell you, he's been good company. He seems to be improving a lot as of late."

"He certainly has, and I understand that I owe a lot to you and Hank Pitts for that."

Phil felt the heat creeping up the back of his neck. "Thank you, ma'am." He wondered if she had heard about that infamous day in the Blue Moon.

"I'd like to ask your opinion on something, while House is getting dressed."

"Sure ma'am." Phil sounded like a school boy.

"Please call me Mona."

"Sure, Mona."

"House has been talking about getting a job. Do you think he could actually handle something, you know, simple?"

"A couple months ago, I never would have thought of asking him to play plumber's helper for me, but he was the first one come to mind when Freddie mentioned this job, especially since he's so strong."

"He wants to work at the paper."

"Well, he could probably do something over there, if they had an opening. Let's see how he does today."

With that, House came out onto the porch. "Howdy, Phil. I'm ready for work." He was dressed in clean overalls and work boots. He wore a locomotive engineer's cap.

"Oh, boy," Phil whistled. "You sure are. Okay, then, let's go!"

"Behave now, you hear," Mona called to them as they stepped off the porch.

Phil wasn't sure who she was talking to, but suspected it was him. He thought she might have meant no stops on the way home, such as at the Blue Moon. "Uh huh..."

"Plan on having dinner with us tonight, Phil!"

"Okay, thanks, Mona." Phil looked over at House. The smile on his face was so broad, Phil was afraid his head might crack in half. "What you smilin' about?"

"Oh, nuthin'"

***

Freddie Edwards place was a tiny ranch-style slab house in a tract that had been built up about ten years before the big typhoon. The storm had torn through the neighborhood, picking houses at random and flattening them into piles of toothpicks and shingles. Freddie hadn't lived there at the time, but this house was one of the many that had been spared, thus it had it's original configuration, three small bedrooms, one bath and an attached garage.

All that had been salvageable of the houses that had been destroyed were the slab foundations. The folks who had lived in those houses, the ones that had survived, that is, had been anxious to sell and get the hell out of Serena. A local lawyer had bought them up, cheap, and hired a contractor to build two story houses on the original slabs with bigger rooms and an extra half-bath. They dotted the neighborhood like miniature castles in a suburban fifedom. Phil still harbored an undefined resentment for that lawyer and those perfect two story houses. He preferred the simple houses like Freddie's. He and Alice had lived in one of those houses when Philly was a baby.

Freddie's wife let them in. Freddie had just left for work over at the Blue Moon. Phil found the new water heater in a large box in the garage. The old one was still hooked up in the laundry room. The only difficulty would be working around the other items in the closet-size room, the water softening equipment, the furnace and washer and drier, all of which made for a very tight fit. With House's help, Phil un-boxed the new heater and checked the location of the fittings, then he went into the laundry room, found the shut-off valve for the gas line to the old heater and turned the lever to the off position. All the while he worked, he was careful to explain to House what he was doing and why. House showed his comprehension by asking relevant questions. This pleased Phil. Maybe Philly can find something for him to do, he thought.

As he started to undo the gas-pipe connections, he asked House what he thought of this kind of work.

"This is nice work, Phil, but I'd like to be a newspaper reporter."

Phil stopped and looked up from where he was wedged in behind the water heater. "Where'd that come from?"

"I dunno... Maybe it was when you and Hank and Freddie got me to reading the Banner over to the Blue Moon. After that, I started reading the paper every day. Then I started thinking it would be neat to be the one who writes the articles."

Phil went back to work on the pipes. When they were all undone, he and House moved the heater into the backyard, so they would have room to get the new one into place.

"Now, this new one's gonna be heavier, because it's glass lined. It's a more efficient piece of equipment, holds the heat better. The pipes don't quite line up the way the other one did, but we're gonna have to get it in place, before I can figure out what changes I've got to make. We're just talkin' a couple of inches here and there. If we're lucky, we can fudge it. You get me?"

"Uh huh..."

By the time they got the new water heater almost into position, Phil was wedged into a small square pace between the heater, two walls and the furnace. "This son-of-a-bitch is bigger than the other one."

"It don't look bigger."

"Well it is, must be an inch all around. I can barely squat down in here to get at the fittings." Then he laughed. "Wouldn't it be a hell of a thing if, after we got this thing hooked up, I couldn't get out? Freddie'd have to bring me my meals back here!"

"And a cold beer every now-and-then..." House added.

"Damn, House. I do believe you're developing a sense of humor. Get me a smaller wrench! This one's too big."

House reached into Phil's tool box and picked one that looked to be the right size.

"You're a good man, Charlie Brown. Now, push the heater towards me about an inch."

House put his shoulder into it and it moved.

"Okay, now give me that big wrench again! Shit, I can hardly move."

The water pipes were all connected. Phil always saved the gas for last. When the gas fitting was finally tightened, he twisted his body to get at the gas valve. "Son-of-a-bitch, the bugger won't turn."

"Can I help you, Phil?"

"Naw, you couldn't even get one of your big paws back in here. You know how I was kidding about being stuck in here? Well, it might not be so funny after all. Hand me that hammer, I'm gonna have to tap this sucker a bit to get it to move."

House handed him a ball-peen hammer and waited while Phil tapped at the handle to the gas valve. Suddenly, there was a hissing sound.

"Oh, shit. I broke the pipe. If the pilot is still on in the furnace, this son-of-a-bitch might blow. House, you see another gas valve like this one I've been working on? There should be one for the furnace and then another one, a main, to shut both lines off. Hurry, boy, I can't move!"

House looked around. He spotted a valve on a pipe that ran into the furnace. It was out of his reach, but he figured that wasn't the right one, anyway.

"Hurry, Marvin, or we're gonners!"

With his eyes, he traced the gas line back to where it came into the house from outside. There it was, another shut-off valve with a handle like the one Phil had been working on. House scrambled up on top of the clothes drier and stretched as far as he could over the heater to get to it. This one was stuck, too.

"It won't move!"

"Put some muscle into it, you can do it!"

With as much strength as he could muster, stretched out as he was, he strained against it. Slowly, it started to give and he finally managed to move it into the off position. The hissing stopped. Then he climbed down and opened the small window in the laundry room to air out the place.

***

They were seated around a table that was filled with goodies. There was a baked ham, glazed yams and spinach pie. For desert, there was apple Betty with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
"Believe it or not, I've had plumbers' helpers who didn't know a main shut-off valve from a toilet plunger. Marvin, here, probably saved my life today. A few more seconds and the pilot from the furnace would have lit off the escaped gas and there would have been a fireball. I was helpless, wedged in there the way I was."

Mona smiled proudly. "So I take it you think he's ready to hold down a job."

House had wandered away from the table to an easy chair in the corner. He looked up from his newspaper and smiled as if he knew there was more to it than that.