While some men wore their hearts on their sleeves, Elmer
wore his work on his sleeve. His
customers and particularly Mildred, his wife, found this distressing, for Elmer
was a plumber, and a careless one at that.
Our story begins right here, at Paradise Perks cafe, on an evening much like this
one, exactly one year ago. For you see, it is when Christmas lights
bring a bit of cheer to a cold and wet night that the Creative Muse visits this
very room. Her name is TIEN. She looks like one of us, human in form, but
even in a world of airbrushed glamour photos, yes, even in a world where curves
and muscles are contoured secretly in Photoshop, TIEN is the real thing: a pure spirit sent to bestow the kiss of
creative fame and glory upon one lucky writer, actor, painter, or
comedian.
TIEN has almond black eyes that shine like onyx, and her
long black hair has a luster that captures even the slightest light. She is tall and thin, and walks with such
grace that she seems not to touch the ground at all. She might be here tonight, but if she is,
you will know. The music itself here at
Paradise Perks changes around her. There
is a glow in the room, and the sweet fragrance of jasmine. Just being in the same room will elevate your
mood. Being in the same room with Elmer
would have a very different affect on your senses.
TIEN appears at Paradise Perks once a year, and only once,
and that only for one purpose: to
attract the one man or woman who cannot resist her, and who dares to declare
his or her love unashamedly, for such is her power of attraction. To such a one, she imparts a passion and
focus to create. She does this by
kissing his lips, lightly like a ray of warm sun breaking through a cloud. She places her kiss just to the left side of
his lips, for the energy then passes through the enchanted one’s neural network
to the creative right hemisphere side of the brain. The energy generated there by that single
kiss lasts a full year, but not longer.
It was at the end of just such a year, one year ago, on the
usual day after Christmas, that TIEN returned to bestow her annual gift of
creative passion. As usual, she ordered
a pot of hot jasmine tea and an almond flavored scone and settled into on of
the large cushioned chairs where she curled up with a book of Vietnamese love
poems.
Unknown to TIEN, a disgruntled barista had laced her scone
with LSD. TIEN began to see the words of
poetry in her book lift from the pages and float about the room. She followed them, reaching for them wherever
they might finally settle. The random
words now combined to form new poems of 3 or 4 words each, like koans or
haiku. One of these read: “Slung over a pipe, a smell of filth, a
winter’s wind.” TIEN, looked about for some clue. Then she saw Elmer, slung over a pipe,
smelling of filth, and making one yearn for a fresh winter’s wind. She knew she must kiss him.
“Look at me, darling.
Look deeply into my eyes,” she moaned seductively to him as he was about
to lift the commode from its seal.
“Lady, the women’s
toilette is closed. No offense ma’am,
but get a clue.”
“I hold your destiny,” TIEN persisted.
"Please, keep it to yourself,” Elmer said, or use the men’s room.”
"Please, keep it to yourself,” Elmer said, or use the men’s room.”
“You are the chosen one,” TIEN persisted.
“Yeah,” Elmer grunted, putting down the heavy ceramic toilet
stool to get a better view, “You got that right lady. They always choose me for these nasty jobs at
the last minute.”
But before he could turn around, TIEN took him firmly from
behind, spun him around like a martial artist, and planted a heavy open mouthed
kiss that covered both the left and right sides of his brain, popping at least
two buttons off his official “Peppy Plumbers” work shirt.
“Holy Shit!” Elmer exclaimed when he caught his breath, not
realizing that his words more or less described the sudden transformation.
Elmer for the first time took a fresh assessment of his
appearance. Standing there in the
women’s bathroom, he turned to the mirror to get a better view, and shook his
head. He rubbed his fingers against the
several days of beard. He tried to bring
some order to his disheveled, matted hair.
He examined his hands like a baby might first discover its fingers, and said, “I need a manicure.”
He examined his hands like a baby might first discover its fingers, and said, “I need a manicure.”
Washing his face and hands, Elmer then walked out of the
toilette, and asked one of the students studying at a corner table for a pen
and paper. The student was so eager to
get Elmer’s lingering scent away that she handed over a full note pad and pen
immediately.
“Just sit somewhere else, please,” she pleaded.
“I am so sorry,” Elmer said to the student.
“I have no idea how I let myself go like this." Then, responding to an inner compulsion, he said to himself, "There’s not a minute to spare.”
Elmer then went to a distant part of the café, where he
began writing furiously, hoping to capture at least pieces of the ideas that
were erupting like an unending collage of images from his brain.
Elmer became known in the months that followed as the
amazing “plumber-poet.” Women, when
their husbands were away, would clog their own drains just to have him stop by,
for he was known to find inspiration in the most common of situations and to
find beauty in the most plain of women, for with Elmer, nothing was plain, and
every customer became another source of enchantment. In the months that followed, Elmer rose like
a Phoenix from the sludge to win numerous prestigious awards and international
literary acclaim.
Then, on December 26, 2012, the pipeline to fame burst. Mildred was online, clipping and saving the most
recent poetry reviews to Evernote, when she heard Elmer’s scream. She leaped up and rushed to Elmer’s second
floor-writing studio overlooking Martha’s Vineyard. There he sat, with a look of bewildered
desperation.
“Mildred, it’s gone.
Totally gone. I can’t write,
think, or fart a single word of poetry.
It’s like someone just shut off the main water valve.”
“Elmer, please dear, don’t panic. Every artist has writer’s block
occasionally.”
“No Mildred, this is different. I feel like my fount of inspiration just
became a clogged septic tank.”
Mildred scratched her head.
She never much cared for poetry until Elmer went wacko over it a year
ago. She really didn’t need to
understand it. All she knew was that
Elmer had suddenly become very hot in bed, trying things she never imagined
possible in 20 years of marriage.
“You don’t think this will affect our sex life do you?” she asked him.
“Please Mildred, call my editor and the people at the Poetry
Foundation. Tell them I’ve suddenly
become ill. Tell them I can’t be at the
acceptance ceremony for the Pushcart Prize at the Southern Review.”
“Tell them . . . tell them I’m suffering from severe
dehydration of the soul.”
In the days that followed, Elmer would from time to time
fondly handle his old plumbing tools, and have a few beers while watching World
Wide Boxing Federation fights on Saturday nights. When his editor called, Elmer would tell
Mildred to make an excuse. He stopped
shaving. He took up munching on pork
rinds.
But Mildred also noticed that some things did not
change. Elmer kept the books of poetry
at his bedside. She would seem him
reading late at night, and when he read, he would often whisper lines of poetry
in her ear, which excited her, and that in turn would excite him. Elmer had always enjoyed sex, and now that he
was back to being a plumber, he saw how useful good poetry could be.
Elmer never relapsed to Old Spice, but continued to use
Givenchy colognes. He opened his own
plumbing business, and named it “The Poet-Plumber” and would, after every
servicing, leave a signed copy of one of his original 2011 poems. It was not only a very good year, it was the
only year, but it was enough to change a man’s life.
(c) FXP 2012
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