Running Toilets and Leaky Faucets

A Story by Palmerd3

A short story about an unlucky plumber

I never imagined doing anything special with my life. The other kids would talk about their dreams of becoming fire fighters, or astronauts, but I knew those were unrealistic goals. Someone’s got to be the garbage man or the janitor at the local high school. The teacher would go around the room asking all of the school children their dreams, and when she got to me I would always say, “I want to clean things!” The teacher would look at me and ask what sort of things I wanted to clean. Of course, I never had a response to that because I really didn’t care what I cleaned. And ever since then it has been my goal to find a job that suits me well, so I can work until I die. Most people would never be content, but I’m not a dreamer.

I was never a clever man. In high school I took the easiest classes offered. I still paid attention, I knew the value of education, but these simpler classes allowed me more time than my fellow school mates who were in advanced placement or an honors programs. I used this extra time to work. I worked as a mechanic for a year, but I never got into the obsession with cars. Guys would come in with their eighty-thousand dollar sports cars, give me this huge talk about being responsible with other people’s stuff, and then not thank me when the job was done. It’s not that it wasn’t a good work experience, because it was and I learned so much, I was just appalled by the lack of common courtesy. So I switched jobs.

For the next two years I actually worked for the school I attended. They had just lost one of the senior members of their janitorial staff, something to do with his bones. I looked up the word once; it had to do with the bones becoming less hard and breaking more. I never could remember the word though; anything with more than four syllables went in one ear and out the other. But, despite his misfortune, I took his job and got pretty good at it. Not to say that no one could be a janitor"I actually think that everyone should try if they ever get the chance"I just enjoyed the idea of it. There is nothing better than being almost solely responsible for the upkeep of a building. I must admit, there were several times when I did more than what my job required: electrical stuff in the second floor gymnasium, working with pipes in the bathrooms, but this was all in the pursuit of knowledge. And don’t schools encourage learning? They must have missed the memo, because I was fired after they found out that the gym’s lights had been replaced.

After high school I found myself in a kind of pickle. I was faced with the possibility of going to college and learning finer skills, or just going straight to the workforce. I ended up going to college at the University of Texas, despite much deliberation. My parents thought it would be a bad idea since they didn’t have the money to keep me there, but I assured them I would find a way to stay. They knew education was important to me, so they helped me pack and sent me on a plane to El Paso. I found a nice job there fixing other student’s electronics, or whatever else might need fixing, at a much lower cost than what a “professional” would charge. It was because of this job that I was able to keep attending university, but also the reason I got mixed up in something big.

It was a regular Friday night at U of T and I had plenty of clients who needed my services. The particular place I was headed for was in serious need of a bathroom cleaning, or so said the guy on the phone. I found that people were often vague about the problem in order to rope me into doing more work. I always obliged them, by never for free. I figured this guy would be no different, so I brought along my extended tool kit.

He lived in a house a short distance from campus. It was two stories with tree green paint and white trim. The front door was bright red, which I thought clashed horribly, and was the only red door in the neighborhood. I bet it made the place easy to find though.

I walked up to the door and pressed the doorbell. It was surprisingly loud and clear. There is no way the neighbors couldn’t hear it. Some shuffling happened behind the door and then it swung inward, revealing a man that looked to be twenty-two or twenty-three. He was very well-kept: he only had stubble, his hair was parted almost perfectly, and he was wearing a white polo with a man riding a horse.

“You must be the guy Lucas called,” he said. He had that slight Texan accent that was surprisingly uncommon for this campus. Most people weren’t from around here.

I nodded my head and held up my tool box. “I heard you guys have a problem with your bathroom.” I stepped inside the door and waited for him to show me the way. The main entrance was completely empty. There was plenty of space to put furniture, but it looked like no one had bothered.

The man shut the door. “Glad you could make it. We’ve been planning this for a while now and it was all hinged on your appearance.” He smiled and motioned to the glass double doors on the other side of the room. “Please, this way,” he said.

I picked up my tools and followed him through the doorway. The next room was slightly smaller but had no more furnishings than the first. This was the curse of being a college student. I had seen many places with marginally better furnished rooms, so this came as no surprise to me.

We turned a corner, cutting through the kitchen, and arrived at the bathroom. He motioned again.

“This is the bathroom that needs fixing. As you can hear, the toilet won’t stop running, and the sink is leaky, as well as the shower.” He had a slight frown on his face, almost comical in nature.

“Well,” I said. “I guess I should get started.” I stepped inside and slipped off the toilet tank’s lid. Much to my surprise, there was a cotton swab stuck underneath the flapper. I pulled it out and the toilet went silent.

“Oh, you fixed it!” The man was absolutely beside himself, or at least very close.

I focused my attention on the sink, dismayed that the toilet had not been broken but tampered with instead. I tightened the cold knob just to make sure it was completely closed. The dripping stopped.

Again, the man was overjoyed at my success. I turned away to take care of the shower, now wondering why these guys actually called me out here. I opened the door and peered in. There was a fair amount of water dripping from the showerhead but I doubted that there was actually a problem. I tightened the knob and, just like with the faucet, the water turned off.

“What’s the big idea here?” I said as I turned to face the man. He was no longer in the doorway. Instead, we were now face to face.

“Well done with the shower,” he said. “Won’t you join us for a little longer?” His breath heated my lips. I took a step back and turned to grab my toolkit.

“Now now, it’s rude to just leave!” He grabbed my hips and swung me around. I tripped over the rug and crashed through the shower door.

The room was dark when I awoke. My head was pounding, and so were my wrists. I tried to bring the two together, but something was preventing me. I tried to stand up, but my feet seemed to be tied to the chair I was sitting in.

“Hello?” I yelled as loud as I could, but it only made my head hurt more. I struggled with the rope a little more before giving up.

A door opened and light poured in from the top of a staircase. I heard descending footsteps and saw a silhouette approaching.

The man from before pulled a chain above my head and the room was illuminated. It looked to be some sort of basement. I would have looked around more but the light reflected off of something in his hand. It was a knife. The man filled his face with a grin and spoke.

“Wakey wakey. It’s time to play.”