4 - Mud and Muck

It’s a shitty job, but it pays well, and someone’s got to do it. Might as well be you, and not me. – Pipes

During summer when there were no classes, Leo went from being a part-time employee to a full-time grunt for Pipes and his plumbing company. He dug ditches. Hauled pipe. Cleaned out sewer overflow. As the low man on the work crew totem pole, Leo got all the shit jobs. Literally.

And he caught the wrath of Pipes for everything that he did wrong.

For the man to have been named after having a large marijuana pipe collection, the man needed to pack a bowl and chill the fuck out. Not that he would tell his boss to chill out. He was young. He was dumb. He was not thatyoung or dumb.

And to be honest, he had screwed up. He wanted to get out of the ditch yesterday and did not make sure that the rusted pipe was completely exposed. When they had turned the water back on yesterday, everything seemed fine.

When they arrived on the job site this morning, it did not take long for them to discover that there was at least one more hole in the pipe. At least one.

But now, he was standing in two inches of water. And that water was sitting on top of six inches of mud that was so saturated that it was no longer absorbing any water. And he knew it was six inches because after he pulled his boot out of the mud, the guys had measured how high the mud went.

In the meantime, he stood in the ditch, mud seeping into his socks and squishing between his toes. It was a safe bet that these socks would go straight to the trash. That was, if they made it out of the ditch.

“You know,” Raven smiled down at Leo, “my wife tells me that people pay a lot of money to take a mud bath. Here you are, getting paid to take a mud foot bath.”

“Why don’t you come on down here and join me?” Leo looked up at the man who was squatted down a few inches away from the ledge.

The top of the pipe sat just below the frost line of 48 inches. He’d had to dig out a few inches out underneath the three-inch pipe. And he was now barefoot in at least six inches of squishy, clumpy, stinky mud. Leo was eye level with Raven’s knees and had to tip his head back to meet the dark eyes that were filled with amusement.

The dark-haired man laughed. “Nope, I’ve already done my grunt work. Don’t worry about Pipes, he’s loud but mostly harmless.”

“Mostly?”

Shrugging, he stood up. “Yeah, mostly.”

With a smirk, Leo went back to digging through the mud and muck and things that he really did not want to think about. Working in the ditch under the sun with no breeze or wind, Leo stripped off his work shirt and then his tank top.

“Damn, boy!” Pipes said as he stood at the edge of the ditch.

“The mud is getting thinner, I think the break is completely exposed now,” Leo told his boss as he turned around to look up at the older man.

“Yeah, I think so,” Pipes grinned. “I was looking at your back. I know that Molly’s little girl didn’t scratch you up like that.”

“Damn,” he muttered as his head fell. He had forgotten about Mitzi clawing the hell out of his back last night. Grinning, he looked back up at the other man. “No, hooked up with a chick last night.”

There was no way that he was going to tell anyone that he was banging Zero’s wife every chance that she got. She was true to her word and was keeping it on the down low. He could do no less, especially knowing the price of her silence. Now that he was busted, she was a nameless ‘chick’ that was at the clubhouse.

He endured some good-natured ribbing, and he took it. He tossed out a few jokes about himself.

“Climb out of there and have some lunch,” Pipes told him. “Boys, help the stud up out of there.”

Raven and LJ pulled Leo out, and he rinsed off using the potable water that they brought with them. Cookie had dropped off the ordered lunches from Nessie’s Kitchen that morning when he checked in on the job site.

Pipes might be the owner of the plumbing company, but the job belonged to Cookie’s company. Ultimately, Cookie has the final say over anything that happens at the site. But both men were fair. Cookie was more laid back and joked around. Pipes was hard-nosed and intense.

The man seriously needed to use one of his pipes and chill the fuck out.

After lunch, Leo cleaned up his boots as much as possible and then took the van to the hardware store, the company’s warehouse and the local grocery store for more bottled water and sports drinks. The glorious life of a plumbing grunt and Saint’s prospect.

He was headed back to the job site when his phone rang. He looked at it on the holder on the dash and grinned at the picture of him and Priscilla. It was a selfie that she had taken at one of the family dinners out at her house.

Reaching over, he clicked the green button and then activated the speakerphone function. “Hey, sweetheart.”

“Hey, Amanda has softball practice tonight, and her coach called and asked if I could help their pitchers.”

“Well yeah, you’ve got a hell of an underhand,” he laughed. His girl was a bitchin’ player, and he wouldn’t be surprised if she got a scholarship for softball.

“Anyway, I wanted to see if you wanted to come hang out at practice?”

He could hear the embarrassment in her voice. She would rather give praise and attention to others. It was one of the things that he liked about her.

“I would love to,” he grinned. “Want me to grab something to eat? I can grab some of those cheap, always ready pizzas.”

“There’s like twenty teenage girls, athletes at that,” she pointed out.

“Yeah, and probably a bunch of parents and siblings,” he agreed. “So, about thirty pizzas. Half cheese and half pepperoni. Whatever is left can either go to your house or the clubhouse. Nothing will go to waste.”

“That sounds great, I’ll let the coach know.”

He sat at the red light, the one that took three years to turn green and only stayed green for two and a half cars. Leo hated this intersection, just as everyone else in Monroe did. But even with the long lights, it was the quickest and easiest way to the job site.

“Great, when I get back to the job site, I’ll order the pizzas for pickup. What time is practice?”

“I’m meeting the coach at five, practice starts at a quarter to six. They usually break somewhere between seven and seven thirty.”

“Cool, you want anything to drink?”

“The red Gatorade.”

The light finally changed, and five cars went through before it changed. Three cars went through on yellow and two more on red. He considered running the red light himself, but he was in the company vehicle.

Pipes would probably pack a bowl with what was left of his ass when he was done tearing it apart.

“You got it. I’m almost back at the site. I’ll see you in a few hours.”

“Okay,” she told him, and he could picture her smiling. “Bye.”

“Bye, sweetheart.” The phone went black as the call ended, and then it lit up again with ‘MOM’ on the screen and no picture. Clicking the green button, he activated the speaker phone again. “Hey Mitzi.”

“Zero is out tonight. What are you doing?”

“I can’t tonight.”

She chuckled, “I can replace your ass. You’re not the only young cock at the clubhouse for me to ride.”

“Then replace me.” He said, wishing that the light would change to green again.

“Maybe I should tell my husband that you’ve been dicking me. You want that patch?”

“You know I do.”

“Then you’ll find some free time tonight.”

“Would nine work?”

“That’s much better,” she laughed. “Nine will be perfect. I’ll meet you at your apartment.”

“Sounds good.”

He now had an apartment because she wanted him to have one. And he wanted a patch. He should have kept his dick in his pants the first time, and he wouldn’t be in this position.

The light finally turned green, and he turned onto the road leading into the historic subdivision. A few more turns, and he was back over at the old Victorian house, and he pulled up into the large driveway.

Mrs. Henderson-Brown was giving Pipes an earful. For the first time, he felt sorry for the man.