Kevin is Not a Plumber

But today he wore a Home Depot apron and explained the toilets. Now’s he home, where we whirl and pong caps in the kitchen, chugging. Someone is passed out in the lawn chair, hugging a toy shark and a cell stuck on Address Book. Our fists and faces are exhausted. Kevin talks about how Lindsay wants him to drive her stuff down, and stay! But only in the car. Once, Kevin drew the green Power Ranger or graffiti around our freckles, as we dreamed up the sitcoms they would make of our friends. When I admit to a hatred of Keystone, Kevin doesn’t touch anything. “Good for you. Who cares, again? Remind me.” Later, we’ll see summer lightning for two minutes twelve seconds, and someone will scream: “time this shit time this shit!” Was that me? O MC Oroville, let your light tickle the electric sinew, let it comb the bangs of plotted trees. Kevin will ask me if I’m getting a haircut, and I will say no, and he will push his tongue against the inside of his upper lip. And nod. Until then, he talks about the one touchdown he ever scored, how it came off a fumble, how the slaps on his helmet rang, how the sweat tasted like cloves and steel and how some brand of fire c-walked down his neck. MC Oroville, what do you say of mister death? Do you eat it? Will it taste like microwaved eggs? Kevin is not a ceramic whale. Kevin is not a stack of TV Guides. Kevin is not an empty bottle of rubbing alcohol. He chops a plunger’s cup off and keeps the wood. We leave, drive all the way up the dam road to the O. White concrete, visible from Google. Then Kevin takes a running start and hurls the shaft through the O I think of when I say O, but we forget to time how long it’s up.