Steamy Stories

Michigan Weather and Women: Part 1

Listen Later
Michigan Weather and Women: Part 1
Love, bastards, and what we leave behind.

Based on a post by CleverGenericName, in 4 parts. Listen to the

Podcast at Connected.



The Plumber, The Painter, and the Wind off the Lake
Prologue

I have never been much for

following instructions or doing what I'm told.

In eighth grade, we were assigned

to make a volcano in science class. I figured that if the eruption looked good
with a couple of tablespoons of baking soda, then it would look even better
with the whole container! And what better place for a natural disaster than the
teacher's desk at the front of the class. I was right; the whole container of
baking soda produced an impressive explosion. What I didn't count on, however,
was it producing a week-long suspension from school and a beating from my
mother.

In high school, we had to take an

art class to graduate. Our teacher loved still life drawing and would ramble
endlessly about how it revealed the beauty that is in the everyday objects that
surround us. I guess he wanted us to reveal the beauty in the bowl of fruit
that he had put in the middle of the classroom, but the most beautiful things
that I could see were Brittany Johnson's D-cups which filled out her sweater
gloriously. At the end of the class, there were 29 drawings of a bowl of fruit
and one drawing of a beautiful girl's smile (amongst other details). Although I
was suspended for two days, I got a date with Brittany who loved my drawing, so
I feel like I came out ahead on that one.

In my last year of school, the

final mathematics exam asked the following question:

Determine

the points of intersection between the following parabolas and lines.
Illustrate fully.

While the other students slaved

away to solve the listed problems in the allotted time, I fully illustrated a
drawing of our math teacher, Mr. Aaronson, dancing a slow waltz in a field of
sunflowers with Mrs. Stevens, the geography teacher. It was the worst-kept
secret in the school that our two shyest teachers had massive crushes on each
other, and after four years of watching them pine away, I thought they could
use a little push.

I failed the test, but Mr. Aaronson

showed my drawing to Mrs. Stevens during a particularly dull staff meeting, and
when it made her blush and smile, he finally got up the courage to ask her out.
They are now married and have a little girl who is as cute as a button. At the
end of the year, Mr. Aaronson asked me if I planned to pursue math in the
future, and when I assured him that I did not, he gave me a passing grade.

So, what was my problem, you might

ask? Was I just one of those kids who didn't give a shit and was destined for
mediocrity or failure in life? Like many things, the answer is more complicated
than it might first appear, but I am getting ahead of myself. Our story starts
on an unusually cold and blustery afternoon in late October, on the north-eastern
shore of Lake Michigan about a half hour's drive north of Petoskey, just
outside a village called Good Hart.

Chapter 1.

It had been a busy day. The perfect storm of an early season

snap freeze, strong winds, and lake-effect snow meant that there was a couple
of inches of snow on the still soggy ground, along with a number of leaky or
burst pipes, malfunctioning valves, and boiler issues as people cranked their
heating systems up to full for the first time that year. As a plumber, though,
I didn't mind. It just meant more work for me, which was always a good thing.

At only 25 years of age, and despite being a master plumber,

I was generally the last choice for folks to call, even in an emergency. Anyone
with money chose one of the larger and more established plumbing contractors,
leaving me with the jobs that they didn't feel were worth their time or effort.
That's how I found myself pulling into the laneway of an older house, just off
Lamkin Road down by the lake, late that Friday afternoon. It was my last job of
the day, but I would be working over the weekend to catch up on my backlog, so
I wanted to get it done.

The house looked like it hadn't been updated since it was

built, likely in the late fifties or early sixties, other than a couple of
coats of paint and a new roof when the original finally gave up the ghost. The
front gardens were neatly tended, however, and the property itself was
stunning, with panoramic views in three directions out over the lake. The sun
was just beginning to dip toward the western horizon as I drove up, so the
trees cast long shadows across the laneway.

The house was owned by Mrs. Wilma C. Anderson, who had

called me earlier in the day to say that some of her radiators weren't working
and that her boiler was making one hell of a racket when she turned it on. I
told her to shut the system down and that I would look at it by the end of the
day. She sounded quite elderly, and I didn't like the idea of her going without
heat for a night during a cold snap.

I rang the doorbell and waited until a tiny wisp of a woman

answered. She couldn't have been more than five feet tall and looked older than
the hills, but her face was full of life, and her eyes had a twinkle that spoke
of humor and mischief.

"Hi, Mrs. Anderson, I'm Davis Crawford. You called

earlier about some issues with your boiler and heating system. How can I
help?"

Mrs. Anderson gave me an appraising look.

"I wasn't expecting you to be such a handsome young

man. If I were fifty years younger, I would tell you exactly how you could help
me, and then I'd teach you a trick or two I learned over the years. But I am
too old for that kind of foolishness these days, so I will just have to make
use of your plumbing expertise instead. And please, call me Wilma."

I couldn't help but laugh and blush at Wilma's surprisingly

raunchy sense of humor. I liked her immediately.

"Let's try that again. What seems to be the

problem?"

"Well, the biggest problem is that I am 91 years old

and dying of cancer. The doctors give me less than a year to live. But aside
from that, I really can't complain. I have had a good run of it."

I cocked my head to one side and gave her a bemused look.

"Oh, you were wondering what the problem is with my

heating system. Well, I turned it on this morning when I got up, and the boiler
sounded like there was someone trapped inside of it trying to hammer their way
out. There was a worrisome hissing from some of the radiators, as well, and
they weren't heating up worth a damn.

"My husband, Phillip, used to take care of those things

for us, but he has been gone for almost five years now, so I hate to think what
you will find when you look around."

"I'm sure I can help you, Mrs. Anderson,;"

"Wilma, please."

"Sorry, Wilma. Why don't you show me to the basement,

and I will try to figure out what's wrong. Then I can get started on fixing
it."

On the way to the basement stairs, Wilma led me through her

crowded but orderly living room. I couldn't help but notice the paintings on
just about every surface of its walls.

"You have a real eye for art, Wilma. Those paintings

are beautiful."

Wilma smiled wistfully at me and got a faraway look in her

eyes as she replied.

"Phillip and I were artists. I guess I still am, but I

haven't felt much like painting since he passed on. Phillip painted portraits.
He made a surprisingly good living at it; you would be amazed at what rich
people will pay to see their lives immortalized in oil on canvas. I never had
the knack. Phillip could make even the most corpulent and corrupt industrialist
appear regal and wise. I could only ever capture what I actually saw in them,
and I quickly discovered that they did not enjoy, or pay for, that kind of
introspection.

"So, I painted landscapes, and there is always a market

for those. But I kept some of my favorite pieces, over the years, as you can
see."

As Wilma spoke, I took a closer look at the paintings. One,

in particular, was striking; a portrait of a beautiful young woman, in her late
teens or early twenties, with a stethoscope around her neck and her blonde hair
pulled back into a tight ponytail. She was wearing a loose hoodie and was
curled up in an Adirondack chair, reading a book. It was not what you would
expect from a formal portrait, but it seemed to capture her essence in a way
that no photograph could match. I must have stopped moving as I was drawn into
the image, so Wilma gave me a minute before she continued.

"That's the last painting that Phillip worked on before

he passed. He didn't get the chance to finish it, but I still think it's his
finest work."

I couldn't help but agree.

"Who's the model? She's beautiful."

"That's my granddaughter, Erin. You can't tell from the

portrait, but she's a real firecracker. As a grandparent, you're not supposed
to play favorites, but she was very special to Phillip, and it hit her hard
when he passed. There is more love in that one painting than in all the other
portraits that he painted over his lifetime. Except for his first, of course,
of me."

"Where are Phillips' other works? Surely, they weren't

all commissions that are now locked away in some dusty millionaire's
palace."

Wilma's expression turned bleak as she contemplated her

response.

"All of his other paintings were sold after he died.

The kids said they would fetch a better price while there was an upswing of
interest in his work after his death, so they insisted that they all go to
auction as quickly as possible. They were probably right, I guess, although I
loved his art more than I needed the money. But how do you argue with your kids
when they have just lost their father?"

"Do any of your children live nearby?"

"They all moved far away. Phillip and I chose a

wonderful spot to live and make our art, but a challenging place to raise a
family. It's not so bad now, what with the internet, highways, and the like,
but when we first moved here sixty-some years ago, it was very isolated. We
were young and selfish, and our selfishness cost us dearly.

"We thought that our children would grow to love this

area over time, like we did. But they never did, and they left as soon as they
could get away. My daughter, Samantha, is a retired lawyer and she and her
third husband split their time between their loft in Manhattan and their beach
house in the Bahamas. My son, Robert, is an oil executive down in Texas.
Neither of them has been here in more than a decade, except for Phillip's
funeral.

"My baby, Max, passed away more than twenty years ago

now of cancer. Erin is his granddaughter. She is a pediatrician, and she splits
her time between the hospital in Petoskey and the children's hospital down in
Grand Rapids. She comes to see me when she can, but she is very busy. My other
relatives all live busy lives far away from here. We chose to live here,
though, so I can't be too upset that the rest of the family chose to live far
away.

"But enough about me. What about you, Mr. Crawford? Do

you have any children?"

"It's just me and my siblings, I'm afraid, and it's

been that way for quite some time. My oldest sister, Alison, is 20, and she
goes to college at North Central Michigan, in Petoskey. She is planning to
become a nurse practitioner. The rest of the gang still lives at home with me.
Sharon is 17 now, so she kind of runs the show while I am working; Mary is 15
but going on 30, if you know what I mean; and Lane is the baby of the family at
12."

"Where are your parents?"

"I don't honestly know. We each have a different

father, or at least we think we do. Sharon, Lane, and I have no idea who our
fathers are, so there's a chance that we might be full siblings, but I doubt
it. My mother never kept the same man around for long. Alison's father has been
in and out of jail since before she was born and is currently serving a stint
in federal prison. But Mary has it the worst of all of us.

"My mother met Mary's dad on a weekend bender in Vegas,

and he is a pretty big deal. Rich, famous, the kind of guy you see on TV and
the cover of magazines. A real family man, except when it comes to Mary, whom
he refuses to even acknowledge. He bought my mom's silence with a lump sum
payment and a non-disclosure agreement. That money was supposed to be put in a
trust for Mary, but my mom snorted and injected it all in less than a year.
Mary has written to her father dozens of times and reached out to him on social
media countless more, but he wants nothing to do with his bastard daughter.

"As for my mom, she went away for the weekend almost

seven years ago now and left me in charge. And I am still in charge, I guess.
So, no time for dating or romance for me, and I think that I will be just about
done with raising kids by the time that Lane goes off to college."

Wilma gave me a look filled with more empathy than I had

felt in a long time, maybe ever.

"Anyway, I should take a look at your boiler and see

what I can do about getting you some heat."

I would have called the boiler in Wilma's basement old, but

that wouldn't have done it justice. Frankly, it wouldn't have seemed out of
place in a museum of heating and plumbing, and it was hanging on to life by the
barest of threads. With only a year to live, however, I wasn't going to
recommend to Wilma that she replace the whole system with something more modern
and efficient.

"I think I can fix your boiler so that it will hold on

for another year or two, and I can patch a couple of leaks in the lines to the
main radiators as well. One line to a radiator at the back of the house is
completely shot, so I will shut that one off and be back to replace it later
this week."

"What's all that going to cost?"

"It's free of charge, Ma'am. You've got enough to look

after with your health and all, without having to worry about your heating
system. I never had a grandma to spoil, at least not one that I know of, so it
would be my pleasure to do this for you."

"Please, it's Wilma. And it's a grandmother's

prerogative to spoil her grandchildren, and not the other way around. But your
kindness is mighty appreciated, Davis."

It took me a couple of hours to shore up the boiler and

repair the lines that were still in reasonable condition before I was finished
for the day. As I got ready to leave, I found Wilma sitting alone in the living
room reading an old paperback.

"I'll call you later this week, once the replacement

line for your radiator comes in."

Wilma got a mischievous smile on her face.

"Why, Davis, are you getting fresh with me?"

"If I were older and more experienced, I would in an

instant. But I hardly think I can compete with the memory of your
Phillip."

"Too true, too true. Alright young man, well thank you

for taking the time to look after a foolish old woman on a cold October
night."

"I hardly think you're foolish, Wilma, but it's been my

pleasure."

I didn't get home from Wilma's until well after nine that

night, and by the time I pulled into our gravel driveway, I was beat. The
dilapidated old yard light mounted on the roof of the garage shone weakly down
on the sloppy mix of gravel and mud that was our yard, and I could hear the
excited barks of Munchkin, our rescue puppy. He was a mix of German Shepherd
and Cane Corso, with some variety of northern dog thrown in, and he was mighty
pleased to see me.

I'm glad that someone was.

I came into our small three-bedroom rental to find Sharon

and Lane sitting at the dining room table working on his math homework. I wish
that they reacted like Munchkin when they saw me, but Lane just grunted a
hello, while Sharon looked up at me with a mixture of sadness and worry.

"Mary is out with the McDougal brothers again. They

showed up here a half hour ago, I told her not to go with them, but she
wouldn't listen."

"The McDougal brothers are assholes," was Lane's

addition to the conversation, without even looking up from the table. He wasn't
wrong. The oldest McDougall brother, Calum, was a couple of years ahead of me
at school and was a bully and a braggart. Two of his three brothers had
followed in his esteemed footsteps, while the jury was still out on the
youngest, James.

"I'm going to go get her. Next time that those boys

turn up in our yard, let Munchkin lose on them."

"Alright, dinner will be in the oven when you get back.

Given 'em hell, Bro."

The McDougal brothers lived just outside Pellston in the

closest thing to a mansion that you could find in our neck of the woods. Their
family owned the largest construction and maintenance company in the area and
had most of the Public Works contracts sown up, along with a not inconsiderable
portion of the private construction in our region as well. Their parents spent
most of their time in Sarasota, Florida, though, and the brothers had free rein
while they were gone.

As I drove up their long, paved driveway, automatic

floodlights came on, illuminating the ostentatious columns that flanked the
entrance to their house. I parked in front of the nearest bay of their four-car
attached garage while noting that there was another three-car garage further
off to the right. I idly wondered who got to park in which garage. Rich people
problems, I guess.

I walked to the front door and let myself in. From the

foyer, I could hear the loud thump of music coming from the back of the house,
so I headed that way. As I passed through the kitchen, I nearly bumped into
James, who was holding a couple of empty serving bowls. He stopped dead when he
saw me, looking nervous, clearly not expecting anyone else to be in their house.
Certainly not me, anyway.

"Hey James, I am here to get my sister. Where is

she?"

He hesitated a moment before pointing toward the back of the

house.

"She's in the game room playing pool with the guys. We

didn't force her to come here or anything, if that's what you're worried
about."

"Maybe that's true, James. But you know she is still a

minor, and I am her guardian, so I'm going to fetch her and bring her
home."

James didn't like the sound of that, but I turned my back on

him and followed the music to a large, sunken room at the back of the house,
which had an expensive-looking pool table in the middle. The remaining McDougal
brothers were either playing pool or smoking up on one of the couches that were
scattered around the outside of the room. Calum was presiding over the
festivities, while the Pistons game was playing on a wall-mounted TV that was
bigger than some movie screens. Despite his family's blue-collar roots, Calum
looked like an overgrown frat boy, with his preppy clothes and fifty-dollar haircut.

Mary was sitting in the middle of one of the couches, with a

McDougal brother on one side and one of their hangers-on on the other. She
looked

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store
Steamy StoriesBy [email protected]
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4

4

8 ratings

More shows like Steamy Stories

View all
Strictly Anonymous Confessions by Kathy Kay

Strictly Anonymous Confessions

1,539 Listeners