Plumbing the Heights and Depths

The other day, after careful searching, I called a plumber about an intermittent problem we were experiencing that just wouldn't seem to quit, and seemed to have become continuous. We asked around and looked around and called this gentleman.  He's been in the area for a long time and several people recommended him highly.  Naturally, between the time of my call and his scheduled arrival, the problem went away, as it had before.  He stopped in and I described the problem.  He gave me a quick diagnosis, then confirmed it by simply running some water in the kitchen sink for a few minutes, never even bringing a tool into the house.  Talk about plumbing the heights, and there was more.

He spent the next twenty minutes or so telling me about himself and the life he's had on this island for nearly seventy-five years.  He was entertaining and I nodded, smiled, commented and so on to the effect that he kept right on talking.  We had some work done recently and asked who I had used.  I named the contractor but could not recall the last name of the plumber he used, only recalling his first name as"Barry."  He didn't recognize the name, but proceeded to tell me a story about a man he knew with that first name, with whom he had a serious falling out, but that he was on his "prayer list."  He acknowledged that many people have forgotten all about prayer, but that he had a list of people and he prayed for some or all of them each night.  I was suitably impressed and said so.

Next he told me about a brief skirmish he had recently had with a stranger.  For some reason, he and this fella had bumped into each other as he was leaving the store.   The collision had caused the stranger to drop what he was carrying, and he proceeded to try picking a fight with my plumber over it (you can tell he already has me on his side--"my plumber." indeed).  In any event my plumber apologized several times and advised the stranger the he (my plumber) was a good Christian man and had no intention of getting into a fight with him (in the American South, it is quite common for people of a certain age to bring the fact of their religion into almost any conversation.  I swear I once asked a man for directions and wound up knowing which church he attended every Wednesday and Sunday without fail).  The stranger walked away, and my plumber noticed he was getting into a pickup with a name and the words "General Contractor" on the side.  He decided to have one more word with the man.  He asked him if in his work he used blueprints, if he had them prepared by an architect, and if he had someone who could interpret them.  The stranger said, "of course I do" or words to that effect.   My plumber then told him the same was true in life--that the Bible was the blueprint, Jesus was the architect, and the stranger had better learn to interpret them or he was going straight to hell.

Plumbing the Heights and Depths

By now, I expected the next words out of his mouth would be to invite me to join his church.  Instead, he launched into another tale involving a confrontation between him and another stranger after a fender-bender that was clearly the other man's fault.  He recalls looking at the minor damage to his truck and saying something like "That's OK, Pops.  Just forget about it."  The other man came back at him, with "who are you calling' Pops?"  He insisted he wasn't going anywhere until my plumber paid for the damages to his car.  When my plumber pointed out the accident was clearly the other man's fault, he was met with more grief, and the man began getting physical, pushing him several times.  Both men's wives were present, and my plumber told his wife, "If he pushes me one more time, I'm gonna make him stop."  He told the other man the same thing.  The man pushed him again, twice, each time harder than before.  My plumber finally wound up and punched the man in the jaw.  The man fell back and was unconscious.  The man's wife asked if he would help her get him to the hospital.  My plumber agreed, and drove the man and his wife to the hospital.  The man stayed unconscious for two weeks and two hours, then died.

My plumber was charged with involuntary manslaughter, but the man's wife insisted on testifying on my plumber's behalf, pointing out her husband was at fault and out of control, that my plumber was merely defending himself.  The judge agreed and dismissed the charges with a warning to my plumber.  Now we were plumbing the depths.  He started telling me another tale, but when we heard my wife opening the front door, he dropped it, saying it wouldn't be the sort of thing he could say in front of a woman.  After talking for ten more minutes, he prepared to leave.  We tried to pay him for his time and effort in coming over, but he insisted he had done nothing, so he couldn't charge us.  (Ahh, back to plumbing the heights--I've had electricians charge me for flipping a circuit-breaker on and off).  It seemed that together we had plumbed a lot of territory, at least that's how I saw it.