amazing calm-I’d never known anything that good. Betty was tanned to a golden turn, Lisa somewhat less so, since she worked during the day as a cashier in a department store. From time to time I’d play with Bongo in the vacant lot, chasing the birds away. Betty would watch us from the balcony. We’d wave at each other, then she’d disappear. Soon all I heard was the tapping of the typewriter-the little bell that rings when you come to the end of a line.
Actually, this worried me a little. She’d gotten it into her head to type my whole manuscript and send it out to publishers. She’d run herself ragged finding a typewriter. I’d written the thing for my own pleasure, not to throw myself to the lions-at least that’s the way I’d always looked at it-but Betty was preparing my entrance into the arena. I tossed a stick for Bongo to fetch, fretting about it all, but I didn’t let it get to me. I had other things on my mind-the evening’s menu, for example. It was something I’d happily put myself in charge of. A clever guy who has all day to ponder dinner can make miracles out of nothing. I even whipped up something special for Bongo-we’d become fast friends.
After putting dinner in the oven, I’d take him for a walk to meet Lisa. Betty kept typing with three or four fingers till the last rays of sunset, and this gave us quite a bit of time. She made a lot of mistakes and the corrections doubled her work, but I didn’t worry too much about it. Bongo would run ahead of me and people would just get out of the way. It was fabulous-I always found a seat on the bench at the bus stop. We hadn’t had an autumn that mild in a long time. Afterward we’d walk back to the house slowly, Lisa and I, me carrying her things, Bongo sprinkling the cars. She’d tell me about herself; I didn’t have much to tell. I found out that she’d married very young and that the guy had dumped her after two years. Not much was left of the marriage-just Bongo and the house, and the apartment upstairs that she rented out to make ends meet. We’d come to a nice agreement about that. There were a lot of things in it that needed fixing plumbing and electrical work-so we’d estimated that the work would come out to about three months’ rent. Everybody was happy.
In the evenings, we’d catch a movie on TV. We’d take it in, all the way to the end-the last commercial-then haggle about who was going to get up and turn the set off. You had to be careful not to fall on all the beer cans. If it was really too boring, we’d turn it off in the middle and get out the deck of cards, or just hang out in the apartment, the girls talking to each other while I played with the dials on the radio, trying to get something decent. Sometimes I’d feel like taking a walk. I’d get my jacket without a word and we’d weave our way through street after street, Bongo running between all our legs. The girls loved that. I told them it made me feel like a rat in a maze and they laughed. It’s true-we would turn right, then another right, or left… the scenery never changed at all. When we got home we were dead on our feet. Still, it was good for the digestion and made us hungry. By the time the door was closed we’d have already emptied the whole refrigerator onto the table. When Lisa felt tired we’d go upstairs, but we never went to bed until three or four in the morning. It’s hard to go to bed early when you get up at noon.
When we weren’t doing all this and she felt up to it, Betty would go back to her typing. I’d settle down on the terrace with Bongo’s snout across my lap, watching her decipher what was in the notebooks with a furrowed brow. I wondered what I’d done right to wind up with a girl like that-still, I knew that even if I’d been holed up at the North Pole, I’d have come across her sooner or later, trudging across the ice floe with the chill wind blowing around her neck. I loved to watch her. It made me forget all the shit we’d left behind. When I thought about it, I imagined a posse of cops hot on our trail, the burning bungalow hanging like a sword over our heads. Luckily I didn’t leave my address. I imagined the tenants in the shadows of the flames, making faces and screaming at us as we took off running with our suitcases in our hands like some yellow-bellied bank robbers. Now when I heard a siren in the distance I’d just take a swig of beer and in five minutes all was forgotten-all except this woman sitting a few yards from me who was the most important thing in my life. It didn’t bother me that the most important thing in my life was a woman, in fact it felt great-the feeling in the air had turned into something simple and carefree. Once in a while I’d get up and go cop a quick feel-see how she was getting along with it.
“Doing okay? Still into it?” I’d ask.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Well, if it turns out that no one publishes it…”
“What, are you kidding?”
“Look, it’s quite possible.”
“Oh yeah? Explain to me how that could ever happen.”
“Betty, it’s a tough world out there…”
“No it isn’t. All you have to do is know how to handle it.”
It was food for thought. I went back to the terrace and she went back to the typing, Bongo went back to my lap, and over my head the stars came out, chattering.
I woke up one morning wanting to get on with the plumbing. I kissed Betty on the forehead, borrowed Lisa’s car, and went to town to get supplies. A few of the pipes stuck out of the car on the way back, and when I got home and started unloading it, this woman suddenly showed up next to me. She was wearing a little gold crucifix.
“Excuse me, sir… you wouldn’t be a plumber, would you?”
“That depends,” I said. “Why?”
“Well, it’s about my faucet, my faucet in the kitchen. I’ve been trying to get a plumber for a month now, but nobody wants to come out to fix my faucet. You don’t know how bothersome…”
“Yeah, I know. I’ve been there myself.”
She stroked her crucifix and looked at the ground.
“You wouldn’t consider… it’s perhaps just a matter of a few minutes’ work…”
I thought it over for a second, looking at my watch like I was already overloaded.
“Shit, it would be tight… You live far from here?”
“No, no. Just across the street.”
“Okay, but let’s get going.”
She was around sixty, with a dress that came down to the middle of her calves. I followed her across the street. It was the house of a retiree who lacked for nothing-the tile gleamed and all was silent. She led me into the kitchen and pointed to the faucet. A little stream of clear water trickled gently onto the enamel. I went up and turned it a few times in every possible direction, then stepped back and sighed.
“Just as I thought,” I said. “The rotary has gotten caught in the valve and is botching up the equilateral. It happens all the time.”
“Oh no. Is it serious?”
“Could be worse,” I said. “Got to replace everything.”
“Oh my God. And how much will this cost?”
I did a little vague calculating in my head, then multiplied by two.
“Oh sweet Jesus!” she said.
“And that doesn’t include the labor,” I added.
“And when do you think you can do this…?”
“Right now or never. I don’t take checks.”
I ran back to the house and got together all the tools I could find. I told Betty what was going on. She just shrugged and dove back into the notebooks. Two seconds later I was back in the car. I double-parked, bought the faucet, and went back to the old lady’s house.
“I can’t be disturbed,” I said. “I’m used to working in silence. I’ll call you if I need anything.”
I holed up in the kitchen and went to work. One hour later I put my tools away, mopped up the last drop of water, passed Go, and went up to the teller’s window. Sister Mary Magdalen and Baby Jesus were in heaven-the kitchen was in perfect working order.
“Now, young man,” she said. “Don’t leave without giving me your telephone number. Knock on wood, I hope I won’t need you again, but…”
She walked me out to the doorstep and waved at me until I disappeared into the house. Not a bad day’s work, I thought.
That same night I was keeping an eye on dinner when the phone rang. Betty was setting the table. Lisa answered. She listened for a second, said a few words back, then put her hand over the receiver, laughing:
“Hey, get this, it’s the guy from the market down the street. He says he wants to talk to the plumber!”
Betty gave me the evil eye.
