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.