Let Me Tell You About My Day – A Plumber’s Tale
Cole Maddox sat alone at the corner table nursing his second beer while waiting for the fellas to arrive. Unlike most days, he actually finished his last job at a decent time, so he was the first to arrive. The TVs were all tuned into the same channel and the pre-game announcer was running down the stats of the designated hitter’s streak of long balls. He had heard this same guy talking about the same player for most of the week and had lost interest a few days ago. As long as they keep winning, he thought, that’s all that mattered.
The clinking of glasses interrupted his train of thought. A young waitress was trying too hard to impress a tall, all-American looking boy, two tables over, awkwardly laughing as she cleaned the table off. The boy was being polite, not saying too much. He looked like he just wanted her to take his order and leave him alone. He knew that look all too well having been in his shoes many times, including today, ironically, his mind drifting back to earlier today. He got a call from midtown, apartment 3B.
It wasn’t the flirting that bothered him. Hell, he’d dealt with that many times. Lonely women, drunk women, bored women, lonely drunk bored women, and in a few rare cases, a lonely man. Twenty-two years of entering peoples’ homes had taught him something weird; something most people never realized. Once the front door was closed, people changed. They did things that they’d never even think of doing in public. Men walked around in stained tighty-whities, scratching their butts while discussing stock portfolios or some new electronic gadget they’d just purchased. Women cried openly in front of someone they’d met only thirty seconds earlier. Rich people hid mountains of trash in spare bedrooms. You could never tell what you were about to walk into when you rang the doorbell.
Still, there had been something about that woman in apartment 3B.
He could remember it like it was still happening, the smell of her perfume. It was thick and smoky. Something expensive trying to hide cigarette smoke, old age, and loneliness beneath it. The place itself had looked beautiful at first glance, but first glances are deceiving. When you looked closer; looked in the places most people don’t think about, the corners, above the curtains, you knew the beautiful was just a hat. A brightly colored distraction to cover a bald head beneath. He could see several empty wine bottles lined up neatly on the bookshelves, right next to first-edition hardcover books that showed no signs of ever being read. There were burn marks on the quartz countertops, the kind that comes from forgetting you can’t put a hot pan down on them. One chair at the dining table was covered with laundry, it looked clean, but he couldn’t be sure.
And there she was. Bare feet gliding across the hardwood floors almost in synch with the ringing sound of water dripping steadily into a metal pot beneath the kitchen sink. She didn’t seem embarrassed by the mess, probably because she didn’t expect anyone would notice. She didn’t. Instead, she moved past it as if putting it behind her made it somehow disappear.
“You married?” she’d said in a thick city accent, while he was bent over, head under the sink looking at the pipes.
The question itself didn’t matter, at least it shouldn’t have mattered. It was the way she asked it. Calm. Casual. Like she’d already spent several minutes studying him before asking it.
Cole noticed more than just the things that she tried to hide, He noticed her, even though after all these years he knew she shouldn’t. He tried not to, but in this case he just couldn’t. He saw the slight crease near her mouth suggesting that she smoked more than she would admit. The fact that she was wearing a robe, and how it wasn’t tied as tight as it should be, and how it slipped loosely off one shoulder without her correcting it. The long pause after that simple two-word question, he noticed that more than anything else. She was hanging on the edge waiting for him to reply.
Most men would have enjoyed it. Cole mostly found it exhausting. Not because she wasn’t attractive. She was. Not because she was in a silky robe, probably wearing nothing else. Thinking back, he was ninety-nine percent sure that was fact. Even now, sitting in the dim light of Danny’s Tavern, a slightly warm beer in his hand, he could picture her leaning seductively against the kitchen counter holding a thin cigarette between her long fingers watching his rear end while he worked beneath the sink.
But it was more than just that. More than just a prowling housewife looking for a thrill. She radiated sexiness, but not sexuality so much. It was much deeper than that, something more like desperation. A very complex kind of desperation, but unmistakable if you looked deep enough. It was that complexity that stayed with him.
Over the years Cole had developed a strange instinct about houses and people. Certain homes felt heavy the second you entered them. Not haunted but filled with the weight of negative energy; he called it baggage. It felt like the walls had absorbed years of tension, struggle, gaslighting, manipulation, you name it. Apartment 3B felt like that; it was heavy. The kitchen carried traces of arguments, unfinished conversations, and disappointments. The entranceway had the energy of rapid movement, people shouting, running, doors slamming. It was unmistakable.
And this beautiful woman who lived here seemed to ride the edge of a knife. She was suspended somewhere between wanting attention and resenting it the moment she received it.
After what felt like several minutes had passed, he replied nonchalantly, “nope, divorced a long time ago.”
She nodded as if his response mattered. She moved to the other side of the counter, reached under the lip and pulled out a bottle of red wine. Probably expensive, Cole thought, but kept his opinion to himself. She poured herself a generous glass before continuing, “my husband used to notice things,” she’d said quietly. “Now he mostly notices when something’s missing.”
At the time Cole hadn’t known what to say, so he stayed focused on the job at hand. He quickly tightened the new water line, while she watched him in silence.
That silence became the strangest part of the entire afternoon. It had a life of its own. Most customers either talked too much or not at all. Some hovered. Others complained. They explained things nobody asked them about, especially not their plumber. But not this one. She was something different, something that piqued his curiosity and also made him a bit nervous. She would go quiet for long stretches while looking directly at him, and during those moments’ apartment 3B seemed unnaturally still.
Cole remembered the discomfort, becoming increasingly aware of himself in stupid ways. The dampness of his shirt from sweating under the sink. The ache in his knees from crouching. The fact that he hadn’t shaved since yesterday morning. It was odd. He felt old around her. Not unattractive exactly, just disheveled, ordinary. Suddenly, heavily aware of the time.
And then came the moment he kept replaying. He had finished the sink repair, gathered up his tools, and was heading to his truck to prepare an invoice for the work, his mind calculating the time spent on the job. But that thought quickly evaporated. She stood blocking the doorway, now holding two glasses of wine, the robe a little looser than before.
“You sure you won’t stay for one?”
Simple question, but she’d asked it softly enough that the room itself seemed to pause around it. For one brief second, he actually considered it. Not because he felt aroused. The moment wasn’t quite sexual. It was something sadder than that. Maybe it was a momentary fantasy of stepping briefly outside his own exhausted life. Doing something completely out of character, something beyond imagination. Sitting in a warm apartment in the company of a beautiful woman, sharing drinks and who knows what else. Being looked at like a man instead of a utility.
That realization hit hard. Any idea of saying yes, quickly disappeared. He felt embarrassed at how he measured his own self-worth.
She must have seen it in his face. That tiny hesitation. The misread signal. Something else, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.
And then the surreal twist to the moment, her husband’s voice calling out from the bedroom. Everything afterward became awkward and ugly in ordinary ways. The heavy footsteps. The territorial stare. The instant coldness as he looked at me, to her, and to the two glasses of wine in her hand. This probably wasn’t the first time he’d walked in on her in a compromising position. Cole knew it was time to go. He slipped by her muttering, “I’ll email you an invoice for the repair.”
Still, despite the encounter, he couldn’t stop thinking about her expression the moment their eyes met in that last passing moment. It was disappointment. It was recognition. As if she’d already known exactly how the whole interaction would unfold before he ever knocked on the door that day.
Cole came back to reality, drained the last of his warm beer and signaled for another just as the tavern door opened behind him. A gust of city air and the loud familiar voices of his friends collectively pushed their way into the tavern.
Tom spotted him first. “There he is,” he shouted. “The plumber himself.” Bobby pulled up a chair and slammed his hand down on the table, “You look like crap,” pausing for just a second. “Rough day?”
Before he could respond, Phil arrived with four cold mugs of beer for the table. Cole laughed, taking a long pull from the fresh brew. For a moment he considered just giving the standard response of it was fine, maybe talking about the traffic or even the ball game about to start.
Instead, he rubbed a hand across the stubble on his chin, gave a slow shake of his head to the contrary.
“Fellas,” he said quietly, “let me tell you about my day.”
Additional Reading
R.J. (Ralph) Schwartz is an American poet, author, website owner, and online publisher. His writing spans several poetry collections—ranging from spiritual and romantic to fear-driven explorations—and even extends into science fiction. Notable works include:
- Normal Was the First Casualty – A Collection of Dystopian Poetry
- Hope – Inspirational and Spiritual Poetry
- Things That Go Bump in the Night – Poetry of Fear and Fright
- The Lover’s Thread – Poetry for Couples
- Poetry of the Human Condition – The Ups and Downs of Modern Living
- The Secrets of the Moon (a sci-fi novel co-authored with his son Sebastian J. Schwartz)
Schwartz’s work is described as purposefully wordy, richly descriptive, and thematically grounded in nature, romance, antiquity, and forgotten histories. He writes regularly on platforms he manages, including The Creative Exiles, a collaborative venue for writers, and The Gypsy Thread, which delves into offbeat histories, pagan lore, and poetry.
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