It's Hard To Find A Good Plumber

He had saved up the down payment, even after buying that five thousand dollar ring for Sydnee's chubby little finger.

She had wanted to replace the hideous flower box in the front with this 'utterly adorable' wooden wheelbarrow flower box she'd seen at a garden supply store in Elgee, Louisiana. That flower box was now sitting in the tool shed at his parents' home.

"Unless of course Mom decided, even though she never ever fucking uses the tool shed, the wheelbarrow is just taking up too much room," Ken spat out loud.

Someone else had bought the house. The hideous little flower box was still there. The new owners had also painted the front door an ugly grayish brown color and painted the garage door an equally ugly dark green.

A bright yellow Smart car sat in the driveway and Ken smirked at it.

"Only faggots and Democrats would drive around in them golf carts," Jim had barked. "Damn, you cannot tell me them things are safe!"

"Must be a Democrat," Ken mused aloud. "No self respecting homo would ever paint the front door that ugly ass color."

At the end of Oak Park, he turned left onto Vermillion Lane and stopped at Red's Sports Bar.

"Hey, Stranger!" Harrison called out from his perch against the back wall. "Damn, man, how you doing, huh?"

Harrison gave Ken a manly hug, with a far too vigorous back slapping.

Ken was grateful for the very heavy winter coat he was wearing.

"Man, where the hell you been, huh?" Harrison asked.

"Man, let me tell you, North Dakota is co-oo-old!" Ken replied.

"No shit, huh?" Harrison said.

"Man, last time I seen you, you was running around on your little girlfriend then next thing you know, don't see you no more," Harrison said as Ken took a gulp of the ice cold beer.

"Dude, let me guess," Ken said, anger rising again. "Virgil told you that shit, huh?"

"Yeah, said you was getting busy with his old lady, told me tell you I seen your girl getting busy," Harrison agreed. "Kind of wanted you to see what it feels like, you know?"

"Yeah, well, only thing wrong with that? I wasn't getting busy with nobody," Ken said and took another gulp of the beer. "Virgil's old lady told him she just wasn't interested in being his old lady so he had to come shit in my swimming pool."

"Man, you shitting me, if you shitting me, I'm going be one mad ass mother fucker and you don't want this mother fucker mad at you," Harrison said, voice tight with anger.

"Why would I lie, huh?" Ken asked, slamming the beer mug down hard. "Huh? Why the fuck would I lie?"

Ken waved his arm around the bar, indicating the three other patrons in the bar.

"Hear all kinds of mother fuckers lie they getting busy you know ain't no fucking way they getting busy. Ever hear some mother fucker say they not getting busy?" Ken demanded.

"Your boy show his face in here again..." Harrison left the threat unsaid.

Ken suddenly realized, three days before Christmas, his mother would not be in school; she would most likely be at home.

"Probably sticking pins into her voodoo doll of me," Ken muttered, emptying his beer.

His father would still be at St. Elizabeth Parish utilities, probably gleefully disconnecting customers' electricity just before Christmas.

"Man, next time don't be so long, huh?" Harrison said, again giving Ken a far too vigorous back slap.

Ken popped a peppermint in his mouth; last thing he needed was his mother bitching about the smell of beer on his breath.

"God damn, dude, your twenty seven years old," Ken said to himself and spit the mint out of the truck window. "Who the fuck cares your momma bitches or not?"

Outside of his parent's home, Ken did not see his mother's car, or his father's car. There was a small Toyota in the driveway. As he walked past, after verifying that the mailbox still bore the name 'Thibodaux' on it, he saw a child's safety seat in the rear seat and smiled softly.

Christmas time was for children; the happiness and hope and joy and expectations of it all.

In the front window, the window that opened into his parents' living room, Ken smirked. There was his mother's Christmas tree. The artificial tree had been spray painted with stark white flock, to resemble a snow covered tree, but it really just looked like a cotton ball had exploded. From outside, Ken could see that pits and pieces of the tree had flaked away, leaving some of the metal exposed. He wondered, if he could see it, why couldn't his mother? She was usually so quick to see imperfections.

He knocked once, and then tried the knob. Finding it securely locked, he pulled out his key chain and found the old key. Surprisingly enough, it still worked and he let himself in.

"Mom?" he called out, not expecting to hear a response.

A quick search of the downstairs showed that the house was empty.

He went up the stairs, went to his old room.

He frowned; there was a baby bed in his room, and there was his old twin sized bed. He had asked for a larger bed one year for his birthday and had been told, "Why? It's just you. What you need a bigger bed for?"

On the wall, the wall he'd never been allowed to hang any posters on, there were several small photograph frames of different shapes and sizes, placed in an almost haphazard and random pattern.

Sydnee had done that at their apartment. On the wall that separated the living room from the kitchen, she had placed several small pictures of herself, of her father, of her and her father in various activities.

"And when we get married," she had said the morning after he had asked her to marry him; Sydnee had pointed above the random, haphazard mess. "We'll put all our wedding pictures."

Ken looked into the baby bed and almost fell over. There was a baby, a baby girl in a pink jumper, a blonde tuft of hair that stuck straight up from her adorable, chubby face. The baby was wide awake, staring at Ken.

"Hi Sweetie, hi, Ken cooed to the girl and she smiled, showing him two tiny lower teeth. "What's your name, huh? What's your name?"

"Her name's Kennedy Thibodaux," Sydnee said quietly.

Ken turned and saw Sydnee standing in the doorway of the room. He looked into her large brown eyes; saw the tears that were started to fill them.

"I call her 'Kenny,'" Sydnee said, slowly entering the room.

Even in her bulky bathrobe, Ken could see that Sydnee had lost a tremendous amount of weight.

"I uh, this is my parents' house," Ken said, suddenly feeling the need to defend himself for being in the house.

"I know," Sydnee said, looking up at him.

"I uh, I knocked," Ken defended.

"Sorry, I was in the tub; don't get a chance take a bubble bath all that much," Sydnee apologized, reaching up and pulling the pins out of her long blonde hair. "Remember how I love bubble baths."

She wiped at her face with the sleeve of her bathrobe, the same ugly, tattered terry cloth bathrobe she'd worn at their apartment.

"Why, Ken?" Sydnee sobbed out, clutching for him. "Why'd you run away?"

"No, Sydnee!" he yelled, backing away from her grasp. "Why? Huh? Why'd you run away? Why'd you listen to the fucking bull shit Virgil was flinging instead of asking me, huh?"

"I don't know!" Sydnee cried out. "I don't know! All I know is I'm not your type, and Ingrid's always been so beautiful so I just knew you had to be doing her!"

"Not my... Who told you you're not my type? Huh? I put a ring on your finger, didn't I?" Ken yelled.

"But I'm not skinny or tall or beautiful!" Sydnee cried.

"Right now? No you're not; begged you to burn that fucking robe, swear to God," Ken said.

"Shut up; it was my momma's robe," Sydnee giggled, clutching the robe tightly.

"Why Sydnee?" Ken asked, sitting down on the bed. "Why, when he came to you and told you that stupid shit, why didn't you just come and ask me?"

"He said you'd just deny it," Sydnee said weakly, sitting on the foot of the bed. "He was your best friend; hell, if it hadn't been for him, we would have never met and he shows me all these pictures of your old girlfriends and they're all tall and skinny and drop dead gorgeous and they all look like Ingrid and he tells me I'm not even your type. Well no shit, looking at them pictures I can see that!"

"So um, Kennedy, um, who's baby..." Ken stupidly asked.

Sydnee slapped him across his face.

"Who's baby you think she is?" she screamed at him. "You the only man I ever been in love with; who's baby you think she is?"

Then she realized what she had done and gasped, horrified.

"Oh, Ken! I'm so sorry!" she gasped.

She scrambled to hug him.

"Baby! I oh God, I didn't mean it!" she sobbed. "Oh God Baby!"

"No, no, I guess I deserved that," Ken said, holding his cheek.

He pushed her away and got to his feet.

"No, guess I had that coming," he mumbled.

"No, Ken! Please, Ken, don't go," Sydnee sobbed, clutching onto him as he slowly walked to the door.

He looked in the bed again and smiled at Kennedy, who was busily staring at the Walt Disney mobile dangling over the bed.

"Some guy, some fat guy came in, said my wife was looking for me," Ken said as he gently, but firmly extricated himself from Sydnee's clutches. "Guess that would be you, right?"

"Please, Ken, I'm sorry, please don't go," Sydnee begged.

"Only thing Is, I don't have a wife," Ken said.

"Please! Ken, please!" Sydnee screamed, trying to grab him.

"No, Sydnee!" he barked.

"Please!" she sobbed.

"You're not my type; well fuck! Who is?" Ken said as she stood in the middle of the room blubbering.

"But if you had just talked to me, instead of playing those dumb ass games..." Ken said.

"I know, Baby, I know," she sobbed, heart broken.

"And tell my mom her tree looks like shit," he said and left.

He drove east, stopped off at a store in Biloxi called 'Treasure Chest' and bought a bunch of presents and spent the night in a motel in Mobile, Alabama.

"Best thing about Waffle House," Ken told the one armed waitress. "Don't matter, North Carolina, California, Alabama, the menu's the same and it's going be the same thing."

"Yep, we do one thing and we do it right, Sugar," the woman tiredly agreed.

Then he drove east.

"Well, hey hey hey, stranger!" Red called out when Ken walked in.

"Aw, it's you," Ralph said, squinting at him.

"Christmas party here tonight," Red said. "Starts at six. Bad news is Dolly's cooking..."

"Gringo!" Dolly called out.

"Good news is my egg nog's so strong you won't even notice Dolly's cooking," Red continued as he and Dolly smiled at each other.

"So I'm invited?" Ken smiled.

"No," Red said sarcastically. "Just thought I'd mention it so you could sit out there and feel sorry for yourself."

"Oh, okay, just tell Ralph not to try and catch me under the mistletoe," Ken said. "Dolly, your momma still got a room for rent?"

"I'm not, you can just kiss my ass too, hear?" Ralph sputtered as a patron laughed.

"Yeah, she say she know you be back," Dolly agreed.

"Hey, my buddy's got him a houseboat he's looking sell," Ralph said.

"Oh bull shit, Ralph, you ain't got no buddies," Red said.

"How much?" Ken asked.

"Make Yates an offer," Ralph said.

"Five bucks, come on, how much Yates looking to get?" Ken asked.

"Well, been in dry dock," Ralph admitted. "Last hurricane? Got kind of banged up on the pier, you know?"

"Probably get it for three, maybe four thousand," Red said. "Needs about three, four thousand in work."

Thirty five hundred dollars, and the marina master, knowing Ken to be a good and honest plumber, offered Ken a slip with amenities and the boat shop agreed to do the repairs for straight parts, no labor.

"How come none of you offered me that kind of deal?" Yates screeched.

"You ain't a plumber," the boat shop owner shrugged.

"And you an ass hole," the marina master shrugged.

"Well Merry fucking Christmas to all of you," Yates muttered, stomping away.

"Now that I know I'm getting paid, be about two weeks; that all right?" the boat shop owner asked.

"That's fine, I'm staying with Mrs. Montoya," Ken said.

"Son, I know who you staying with," the man chuckled. "Damn, boy, I know what you had for breakfast this morning; ain't no secrets here in Bender."

The party was fun; there were about thirty people in the small bar and Ken realized, he knew all of them, knew where most of them lived, where they worked. As the boat shop owner had said, Ken knew what most of those attending the party had for breakfast.

"One time under the mistletoe, hear?" Red called out as Ken danced with Dolly. "See you go under there twice, I'm kicking somebody's ass."

"Uh huh," Dolly called back and tried to pull Ken under the mistletoe a second time.

Ken also danced with Maggie, who told him her wedding band meant nothing to her; he should have made a play for her.

"Means something to me, though," Ken smiled tightly and did kiss her twice under the mistletoe.

Mrs. Montoya giggled and simpered like a little girl as Ken danced her under the mistletoe. She covered her face with her hands when Dolly called out 'Oh Momma!' as Ken gave her a kiss.

"Merry Christmas," Ken said, gave Ralph, Red, and Dolly their gifts.

"Aw, damn, boy, would you look at that!" Ralph said, looking at the electric razor.

"You keep saying you going get you one; well, now you got you one," Ken said, shaking the old man's hand.

"Course, you'll still be ugly," Red said, playfully tugging Ralph's beard.

Paying tenant or not, Mrs. Montoya woke Ken up, demanding that he get ready for Church.

Upon their return, Ken gave Mrs. Montoya a wrapped gift, which she tried to refuse but finally opened it.

She thanked him profusely for the electric skillet and when he went to his room, she was happily reading the small recipe booklet that came with the appliance.

"Hello?" Ken's mother answered on the fourth ring.

"Merry Christmas, love you, bye," Ken said, then turned the telephone off.

The day after Christmas, Mrs. Montoya put three unnamed items on the table in front of him and pointed out that all three had been cooked in the electric skillet.

Then she gave him the handwritten list of the three neighbors that needed his services, what their complaints were and what their addresses were.

Two he was able to finish in less than ten minutes and one needed parts which the local Lowe's would order so he put a temporary fix so that the woman could at least wash her baby's diapers and left.

Then Ken drove to the local Verizon store to get his phone number changed.

"Uh sir, you got a bunch of messages," the young man said.

"Delete them," Ken said

"Uh, no sir," the young man said firmly. "You can delete them, but I won't. Never know, one of them might be real important."

"It's my mother telling me what a disappointment I am," Ken snarled. "Think that's real important?"

"Not my call," the man said, sliding the phone over to him.

Ken shrugged, tapped on his mother's phone number and deleted the messages from that number.

A text message from Sydnee's phone number read 'where is ox more?'

A second text read 'N. Dakota it's cold there.'

"You're right," Ken admitted. "One of them was important."

"Yes sir," the man shrugged.

Ken tapped out 'not in n.d. Too cold.'

"Now, please change my phone number?" Ken asked.

"Got another text," the young man said.

Sydnee had typed out 'where?'

Ken deleted it.

"Now?" Ken asked. "Now will you change my phone number?"

"Yes sir," the young man said and hooked the phone to his computer.

"Uh, you know, you can get emails on that thing, right?" the young man said, noticing that Ken had never even accessed the Internet on the phone.

"If I had email, I guess I could," Ken agreed.

"Oh, sir, I can set you up one real quick," the young man offered.

"So can I," Ken said. "But no thank you."

That evening, Ken came into Mrs. Montoya's home to hear Mrs. Montoya and Dolly chattering rapidly in Spanish.

"Momma say you get her magic frying pan," Dolly laughed when Ken peeked into the kitchen to see them huddled over the appliance.

"It's a frying pan; she makes it magic,"" Ken smiled and Mrs. Montoya again covered her face with her hands while Dolly teased her.

New Years Eve, Ralph got himself thrown out, banished from Red's when he set off some fireworks inside the small building just as they were counting down to 2014.

"He'll be back before Super Bowl game," Dolly whispered to Ken. "They do this every year."

"Not this time," Red thundered. "This time he's gone too far!"

"And he say that every year," Dolly again whispered to Ken.

The boat was ready in a week and the marina master asked Ken what he wanted to christen the boat.

"Um, shit, let's call it 'Kennedy's bathtub,' what you think?" Ken asked and the man shrugged.

Ken didn't know how much to send to Sydnee for the care of Kennedy, so he asked Brent, a disbarred lawyer that worked at the counter of the motel next to Red's.

"You the one suing? Try to get you six hundred," Brent shrugged. "She the one suing you? Try to get it down to four, you know?"

"Guess I'm the one suing," Ken said, slapped Brent on the shoulder and said. "Seattle's going to the Super Bowl, mark my words."

"And they'll lose too; they ain't shit without the twelfth man," Brent said.

"Twelfth man wasn't in San Francisco when they ran all over them Forty Niners," Ken answered, made out a check for six hundred dollars and slapped it into an envelope.

Even though he now lived on his boat, Ken still stopped by Mrs. Montoya's house for her large breakfasts and his phone messages. And he told her he would still pay her three hundred a month.

"Why?" the woman asked.

"Looks like you're my secretary," Ken answered, holding up the piece of paper with that day's appointments.

"Oh," she shrugged.

A week after sending Kennedy's child support, exhausted after two clogged toilets (A child's toy in one and a feminine product in the other) an a tree root that had busted a terra cotta pipe that had to be dug up and replaced with plastic pipe, Ken didn't even stop off at Red's. He just pulled up to the marina, just in time to see the sun send up its last rays across the water.

"That has got to be the most beautiful sunset I've ever seen," Sydnee said from her perch on the pylon next to Kennedy's Bathtub.

"Yeah, they really are something," Ken agreed.

"Dolly showed me where the boat is," Sydnee said as she gingerly got down from the pylon and approached him.

"Where's Kennedy?" Ken asked.

"Mrs. Montoya's watching her," Sydnee said.

Then she punched him in the stomach.

"I drove all the way to Galveston, you ass hole!" she yelled at him.

"Why?" he asked, only slightly winded by her weak punch.

"To find you!" she yelled.

"Why?" he asked again.

"Because I love you, because I need you, because your baby needs you," she sobbed out.

She swung at him again, but this time he caught her fist before it could land.

"Who in the hell has a bank in Texas when they live in Florida?" she screamed at him and tried to swing at him with the other hand.

"A guy too lazy open a new bank account," he admitted and backed up as she kicked out at him.

"I drove all the way out to Galveston; guy said you hadn't been there since last Christmas," Sydnee said.

"So how'd you find me?" Ken asked, amused as she continued to struggle against him.

"Looked at the postmark on the envelope," she said.

"Oh, didn't think of that," Ken admitted.

"I'm not even out the car and that Dolly comes up and says 'You Sydnee?' to me; you been talking about me?" Sydnee asked, ceasing her struggles.

"She asked me why that detective you sent was looking for me," Ken said.

"I hired him; you needed to know, you needed to know we have a baby, a beautiful little baby girl that needs her daddy come home," Sydnee said, wiping at her eyes as best she could with Ken holding onto her balled up hands.