It wasn’t exactly a great devotion that formed between Thomas the plumber and Aquamarine, the exotic, the very late afternoon Thomas got the call to bring his tools and skills down to Ruby’s Show Bar outside Grand Forks. Once there, Thomas found himself using his chemicals and a lightweight snake to unplug one of the sinks where Thomas the barman dips and washes beer mugs and cocktail glasses.
Standing within the horseshoe-shaped runway and across from the zealous customers, working in the bar’s black light and pounding rap music, with both hands on the heaving snake as he moves his torso up and down and the snake whips through the bubbly water to bust the stubborn clog and free the choked-off drain, Thomas the plumber barely notices Aquamarine tiptoe up beside him and thrust her tongue in his ear. But then he feels her hands inside his shirt, rubbing on his belly, even as he keeps working that snake up and down, up and down. He thinks he hears her laughingly say how drop-dead easy it is to love a working man; he guesses she repeats something like that several times before she goes up on stage, and he certainly remembers this kind-of rose and gardenia fragrance hanging around after Aquamarine’s jiggling hiney has passed from being right beside him.
Soon the drain works okay again, and soon Thomas the barman gladly pays Thomas the plumber his one-hour minimum and roundtrip mileage, and Thomas then drives home in his van to his wife and kids and a steaming macaroni-and-cheese-and-tomato-and-frankfurter casserole. But the downtown beat and Aquamarine’s tongue, voice, hands, and smell keep entering his person throughout the now-starry night. In his sleep, Aquamarine’s voice sounds as if it’s the only female voice apart from his mother’s that Thomas has ever heard; it keeps asking him over and over when is he going to follow the North Dakota roads and motor back to Ruby’s—when? when? when? And as the sun of the following day first enters the bedroom, Thomas clearly hears Aquamarine moan a command that “you get your tight ass back here in no longer than a fortnight at the very most.”
Standing within the horseshoe-shaped runway and across from the zealous customers, working in the bar’s black light and pounding rap music, with both hands on the heaving snake as he moves his torso up and down and the snake whips through the bubbly water to bust the stubborn clog and free the choked-off drain, Thomas the plumber barely notices Aquamarine tiptoe up beside him and thrust her tongue in his ear. But then he feels her hands inside his shirt, rubbing on his belly, even as he keeps working that snake up and down, up and down. He thinks he hears her laughingly say how drop-dead easy it is to love a working man; he guesses she repeats something like that several times before she goes up on stage, and he certainly remembers this kind-of rose and gardenia fragrance hanging around after Aquamarine’s jiggling hiney has passed from being right beside him.
Soon the drain works okay again, and soon Thomas the barman gladly pays Thomas the plumber his one-hour minimum and roundtrip mileage, and Thomas then drives home in his van to his wife and kids and a steaming macaroni-and-cheese-and-tomato-and-frankfurter casserole. But the downtown beat and Aquamarine’s tongue, voice, hands, and smell keep entering his person throughout the now-starry night. In his sleep, Aquamarine’s voice sounds as if it’s the only female voice apart from his mother’s that Thomas has ever heard; it keeps asking him over and over when is he going to follow the North Dakota roads and motor back to Ruby’s—when? when? when? And as the sun of the following day first enters the bedroom, Thomas clearly hears Aquamarine moan a command that “you get your tight ass back here in no longer than a fortnight at the very most.”
