The Legend of Kevin the Plumber by Scot Gardner Page B

from my mate Ash. They tried, but here I am.’
    â€˜You tosser,’ she said. She wasn’t smiling.
    I followed her into the bungalow and she darted into the toilet.
    â€˜Put some music on.’
    I picked through her CDs and listened to her piss and fart through the door. Plop, plop. I just grabbed any old thing and stuffed it on to drown out the toilet music. Turned out to be Studded Glory but it was only the CD single and it finished just as Ash flushed.
    â€˜What happened at work?’ she asked, pulling off her sweat-pitted shirt.
    â€˜Ha! The bloke I was working with dropped this heavy metal thing on his ankle. I could see the bone.’
    â€˜Gross. So they gave you the rest of the day off?’
    â€˜More or less.’
    She grabbed a towel from her unmade bed and wrappedit around her waist then pulled her pants down underneath so I didn’t see her undies.
    â€˜Shit. Sorry. I’ll wait outside.’
    â€˜Nah. It’s not that,’ she said, ‘I just didn’t want you to have to see my knickers, that’s all. I’d hate you to spew in my bungalow.’
    â€˜Take a bit more than that to make me spew,’ I said, and sat on her bed. ‘Oh, I nearly spewed today, at work. We went to that big milk factory . . . on the highway.’
    â€˜Southern Milk?’
    â€˜Yeah, I don’t know what it’s called. We went in the factory. Had to crawl into a pit filled with slime. It smelled . . . here, smell my hand.’ I held out my mit, and she took it and sniffed it.
    â€˜Cor. Smells like duckshit.’
    â€˜Yeah. I had to stand in that crap and fish around in the slime for this . . . tool. The rooter.’
    She chuckled. ‘Rooter?’
    â€˜Yeah. Yeah. True. Oh and Muz’s car —’
    â€˜What happened to Mario’s car?’
    â€˜Someone stole it. Right out of the driveway. Middle of the day.’
    â€˜Bullshit. Did he find it?’
    â€˜Nope. Don’t think so.’
    Then she was looking at me and smiling.
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜This working is good for you.’
    â€˜What do you mean?’
    â€˜Look at you. I haven’t seen you this talkative since primary school.’
    â€˜Yeah? Probably won’t last for long though, hey. Probably get sick of it and go and live with my dad.’
    â€˜In Queensland?’
    â€˜Yep.’
    â€˜How will you get there? It costs heaps to fly.’
    I poked my thumb out.
    â€˜Hitchhike? Some gay boy will pick you up and turn you into his sex slave.’
    Ash shoved at my knee and I moved so she could drag the kit from under the bed. She packed a cone and we got ripped. Ash put the Hands of Glory album on and the hard rock bounced nicely against the cotton wool in my brain. We didn’t have to talk. Not that there would have been much to say anyway.
    Ash’s mum and dad came home. Ash, in a mild panic, lit incense, put drops in her eyes and went in when they called her for dinner. I floated home with drops in my own eyes. Mum’s car was in the drive.
    â€˜Where the hell have you been?’ Mum growled. She was cooking chips in the deep fryer and I had the munchies. Mario sat at the kitchen table scowling at me.
    â€˜Just over at Ash’s. Did you find your car?’
    He shook his head. ‘How did you get home?’
    â€˜I got a lift home with one of Mum’s clients. Lady with black hair. I can’t remember her name.’
    â€˜Yeah, at bloody lunchtime,’ Mario said. ‘Phil phoned here looking for you. He told me the bloke you were working with ended up in hospital.’
    â€˜It wasn’t my fault. He dropped a big steel grate on his ankle. I could see the bone.’
    Mario nodded. ‘Phil said he’d call later and have a chat. Other than that, how did you go?’
    â€˜Good,’ I lied, and nodded. Why would Phil call? I wasn’t cut out for the job, simple as that.
    â€˜Well, what did you