Screwdriver
For some reason, I still think about the plumber.
How he asked me to stand in my bathroom and hold the loose faucet,
keep it from slipping and sliding on the fresh plaster he’d
slapped down.
(Later, your friends tell you a plumber should
never ask you to help them. Even in this, you
should have been on your guard. Prepared to
say no, the liability on you.)
As I stand, he lies under me, loosening and tightening
screws, making the pipes jingle and jangle.
Grunts and groans expelled from his mouth
like belches from a small volcano.
(Meant to illustrate how hard he is working,
not how close he is to eruption.)
And his fingers, stubby and stained as the handle of his screwdriver,
colliding with the insides of my thighs,
battering the fabric of my underwear.
(Not the first time a man’s hand has landed
there uninvited. Makes you wonder if a skirt’s
an invitation, in some language you don’t speak,
and don’t want to.)
The first time, maybe an accident. The second time, I’m
not so sure. By the fourth time, no question left. He
gasps “sorry” between grunts.
(You squirm, of course, but you don’t kick
him, you don’t abandon the wobbling faucet
and walk off, you just want him to fix it so
he’ll leave, so this will once again be
your home.)
At last, he gets up to retrieve another instrument from
his toolbox, another cold metal hand, and I retreat to the kitchen,
pulling my skirt down as far as it will go, dreaming of
hot water and soap scouring my thighs and thinking
I must have imagined it, it must have been an accident,
(…doubting your own thoughts from a moment
ago…)
this isn’t some strange man on the street, it’s
an employee, a professional, sent by
the manager.
(Your skin knows it wasn’t an accident. It tingles
the way skin does when it’s pinched and
released, the blood rushing back like
something remembered.)
Another grunt, a metal clatter, and I follow the
sound without thinking, back through my living room to
see his legs emerging from
the bathroom door, dirty boots splayed to each side
like big dead bugs, all that’s moving is his hand
inside his pants
inside my bathroom
where he lays with his head
on the tile floor.
(You knew you weren’t imagining it.)
And I don’t yell, I don’t demand to know what
he’s doing, I just back away
as he scrambles like one of those bugs
you think is dead till you get too close
and it runs.
(You don’t remember what happened
after that, if he apologized or
even
acknowledged it at all.)
That was it. A screwdriver-hand surveying
my underwear
and the insides of my thighs,
a man pleasuring himself
in the spot where I stand before the mirror
each night,
wash my face,
scrutinize my flaws. And then,
it was over.
(You’ve been through worse. The man who
followed you home and pushed you against
the wall; the one who told you shh with his
hand against your mouth; the boyfriend who pinched your cheek like a slap without sound.)
So why, for some reason, is it the plumber I
remember?
(“For some reason,” you say, you remember.
Still polite,
skirting
around the truth.)
I know exactly why.
It’s not because of what happened, inside my
apartment, my safe space.
(Safe as your body should be.)
It’s because I called the apartment manager,
told him (of course, a him) what had happened,
said I never wanted that man in my apartment again, and—
(You weren’t loud enough.)
—two years later, that man still comes, with his
screwdriver-handle fingers,
whistles his way around the apartment building
knocks on my door
pets my dog and tells me he has to fix a leak,
or a drain, or—
(You call back. They say he’s been talked to,
he won’t do it again. He’s the only handyman
for the building, there’s no one else.)
—and I let him in, because what else can I do,
I can’t afford to move or launch a lawsuit,
and each time I open the door to him,
the hinges whisper
(…your voice doesn’t matter…)
—and what else can I do, except shut out
that whisper, take my trembling fingers to a keyboard,
write words like darts
(…my voice…)
and aim them true.
SC Parent is a graduate of the Master of Professional Writing program at USC. She is also a former professional submissive and switch at a commercial dungeon. SC's poetry has been nominated for a Rhysling Award and Best of the Net.