C4 antho - Chamber Four

~28~ The Chamber Four Fiction Anthology
threaten her with a kitchen knife before she conceded to let
go of the blender) to keep the flow moving. She learned how
to tighten up a loose-lipped plunger, and the importance of a
flexible rod. Again and again she replaced the water-stained
poster behind the seat showing two hands clasped in prayer
and the words “Easy Does It” written underneath. Yet still
the rebellious commode had difficulties swallowing, and a
string of plumbers started coming up the aluminum steps of
the Chicken trailer, until one by one they started to
stay―later and later―until they showed up at breakfast taking
their coffee black and their toast dry, their rolls having
been slickly buttered all night.
For Malchicken, it was bad enough to hear the snide comments
making the rounds―from plumber to car mechanic to
casino dog―that the jobs at the Chicken trailer paid double
time because there was more than one hole to plunge. It was
crazy enough to notice how the shirt his mother wore in the
mornings had an embroidered name on it that was not similar
to the embroidered name affixed to the jumpsuit the
stranger in the house was wearing, not similar as in not like
Richard is to Dick or Jonathan to John. It was creepy enough
to see the same stranger clang knife to fork as his mother offered
to pack him a lunch, placing two fruit rolls, a soda, a decrusted
sandwich, and an oversized piece of dessert into a
used paper bag that was so soft and worn it made no noise as
she opened it up. She would pause, one hand holding the bag
while the other yanked open drawers, to find a little something,
a knife, a bottle opener, a wooden spoon, anything with
some kind of durable value, in the hopes that the plumber
would have the conscience to return it, along with himself,
later that evening. It was depressing enough to watch his
mother take the green keno pencil she’s saved all these years
from the Chickens’ honeymoon in Vegas, its point a massive
halberd in her hand, and cross off the listings for plumbers,