ANGELA TOWNSEND

Service Call

The stern plumber does not look like his photograph. There was a time when he looked like his photograph, but that was back before they invented the internet or spray cheese. The higher-ups at Freedom Plumbing encouraged him to smile for a new photograph. People might trust an older plumber even more. The stern plumber told them that he had been photographed once, and that would be enough.

Freedom Plumbing texts you a photograph and biography of your plumber ten minutes before he arrives. You have a right to know something about a person who examines your pipes. Tom B volunteers for the fire department and makes finger-lickin’ wings. Clint J loves pickleball and the Yanks. Jake C plays Scrabble with the folks at the nursing home every Saturday.

The stern plumber is named Ryan H. Ryan H has been a plumber for 23 years. That is all the biography you are going to get.

You can track your plumber’s truck in real time, lurching inchwise like the spacecraft in an old Atari game. Some plumbers get waylaid in cul-de-sacs. Their rectangles go round and round, but they will get to you within the promised window. Ryan H does not miss his exit.

Ryan H does not don blue booties in deference to your carpet. Your condo will not come to harm from the places he has been. You are his last call of the day.

The stern plumber has seen this washing machine before. It is a good machine. Can the patient be saved? He would not use those words. He will assess the situation. Jake C would tell you he could fix this in a “jiffy,” but Freedom Plumbing sent you Ryan H.

Ryan H will not use many words. This may cause yours to multiply, puddling mid-air. You will scan him for any porthole where you might glimpse a life. His knapsack is the color of a yellow school bus. Does he have children? Yes. How many? One. Where did he get such a nice knapsack? You could use a knapsack like that. He doesn’t remember. It is old.

While the stern plumber deals with snakes, you will battle temptations to flood the silence. Your strategy will take the shape of your vessel.

If you are flush with sweetwater, you may pour out compliments. You are glad Freedom Plumbing sent such an experienced tradesman. It must be gloriously rewarding to help people. Twenty-three years is incredibly impressive. Plumbing is marvelously honorable. No matter how ungainly your adverbs become, Ryan H will not remove his head from the washing machine.

If your bloodline bubbles with hospitality, you will try to feed him. Your nonna or bubbe would prevail, but you hit clogs. Ryan H will not accept coffee or lemonade. He has not come for a cool glass of water. A blueberry muffin fresh from the oven is as appealing as a hernia. He will not use those words, but his eyes are unambiguous. His eyes have not changed since his photograph.

If you generally drain distress with humor, you may try to make Ryan H laugh. This is a particularly doomed endeavor. Do not propose an all-female affiliate of Freedom Plumbing called “Sugar Plumb Fairies.” Do not tell him you watched a YouTube documentary about the growing incidence of “fatbergs.” (Has Ryan H seen a fatberg in person? Yes.) Do not pull your cat out from under the bed and force Ryan H to choke up the word “cute.” Ryan H is here for the washing machine.

Ryan H shuts his ringer before starting a job, but this time he will forget. Since his entire northern hemisphere is in the washing machine, his ringtone will echo and bounce off the agitator. It is “Funkytown.”

The stern plumber answers before he stands up straight. Hello? Oh, hi honey. Yes, I will be there. Of course. It’s the spring concert. Yes, grandma and grandpa will be there. Pizza bagels? Yes, I will make the pizza bagels. OK. I am on a job. I love you. How much? All the much. Bye-bye.

You and the cat will flee to the kitchen, but the stern plumber knows you heard everything. If he were Tom B, he would tell you his daughter is first cello, and his parents are coming in from Pittsburgh. But Freedom Plumbing sent you Ryan H.

The machine is sound. The intake pipe was crimped. Now it is not. He has to charge you forty-nine dollars for coming out. You will offer him a crisp twenty, “just for you.” He will glare at it like a blueberry muffin. No, thank you. Please write a positive Yelp review. You will give him five stars and note that Ryan H does not look like his photograph.

Angela Townsend is a five-time Pushcart Prize nominee, seven-time Best of the Net nominee, and the 2024 winner of West Trade Review’s 704 Prize for Flash Fiction. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Arts & Letters, Blackbird, Chautauqua, Epiphany, Five Points, Indiana Review, The Offing, Peatsmoke Journal, Redivider, SmokeLong Quarterly, Terrain, World Literature Today, and Your Impossible Voice, among others. She graduated from Princeton Seminary and Vassar College and works for a cat sanctuary.