Time for Some Plumbing

By Kirstin Kennedy

“HEY! Leave him alone!” shouted my fifteen year-old, ever-righteous cousin, Kevin. Looking back on the event, his only intention was to defend the aged crossing guard from the cruel, beer-bellied man in a plumber’s truck. Apparently, the crass plumber portrayed a rude disposition to the official, merely asking him to proceed into the traffic.

“Shut the fuck up, kid!” rendered the plumber, now infamous in the Kennedy family. And there, before the eyes of fifteen high school students stranded at the corner of Washington and Cochran Road, flew the plumbing truck on to the curb of the sidewalk. The harassed crossing guard begged Kevin to head home, but he refused. He approached the wide mobile in an attempt to instruct the ignoramus of his sins towards the white-haired, volunteer crossing guard.

“I can’t hear you! I can’t hear you!” Kevin chanted to the plumber as he as he shouted obscenities from inside of the vehicle. Kev has never really fit into his own age group, but when he and his friends face the brunt of ridicule, he becomes a knight on a shining white steed. Not realizing that the passenger window was closed, Kevin watched then man violently shout, completely inaudibly.

Giving the plumber a double middle finger dance and even flipping his backpack up to wave his fanny in the man’s face, Kevin did everything in his awkward power to give the plumber a piece of his mind. I picture my cousin standing there, blown hair frizzed upward and all around, not unlike the character Kramer from Seinfeld. Undoubtedly wearing a plaid, button down, short-sleeved shirt, Kevin probably allowed his baggy pants and loose jacket to flail in the wind throughout the episode. His un-brushed teeth were likely to be grinning into the closed window.

“I’ll kill you, kid!” the man in the truck threatened, finally rolling down the window.

“I’d like to see you try, fat – ass!” Kevin responded, beginning to shift from his righteous act into an out of hand spectacle. The plumber, taking this statement as a challenge, hopped out of his truck and rapidly approached Kevin. At this point, I picture Kevin having a cartoon-like reaction as he gasped and took off like a bat out of hell in the direction of his house, the plumber trailing closely behind.

Sprinting down Route 19, I see every layer of Kevin’s clothing flapping in the wind as he looked over his shoulder to gage this distance between his foe. For a five foot six freshman whose sole interest consists of recreating Japanese Anima cartoons, he must have run like hell.

As he reached another corner with another crossing guard, he announced in a frenzy of breath, “If you see a fat plumber come down this way, stop him!”

This proclamation was met only with a “Huh?” from the equally elderly guard, so Kevin continued his vigorous mile home.