Former
lead singer of the legendary 222s,
arguably Montreal's first punk rock band, Chris is now a
freelance writer based in Montreal. You can check out his
writing at looselips.ca
where he combines the sardonic humour of David Foster Wallace
and the deliciously contrived irreverence of Anthony
Bourdain.
Back
when I was an adolescent, my two older sisters, who early on
in the game had pegged me as mildly retarded, would occasionally
sit me down at the kitchen table and feign concern over what
I was going to do with my life. “You’re obviously
too stupid to get into university and learn a profession,”
they’d insist, “and far too lazy for manual labour.
We
think you need a trade. But an easy trade even someone like
you could learn, like plumbing. Plumbers make tons of money
and so long as you’re comfortable rooting around in shit
all day, its something you could probably do.”
Yet
funny enough, in spite of these inspiring pep talks, I knew
plumbing was never going to be for me. To begin with, I’ve
never been too fond of fecal matter – or, at least, that
of other people’s – and besides, to this day every
time I try working with my hands I end up bleeding.
I’m
telling all this to Murray Davis of NDG Plumbing, riding shotgun
in his pick-up as we head out to his next job of the day. He’s
just finished installing a new toilet at what can only be described
as a mansion high in the hills of Westmount and now we’re
off to a slum dwelling in Cote des Neiges to address a hot water
system that stopped functioning the night before. Possibly annoyed
-- I’m not quite sure how to read the man yet -- he turns
down the Little Feat CD he’s got playing on the stereo
to set me straight about his profession.
“Your
sisters were way off about plumbing.” the big man looks
at me and snorts. “For starters, in spite of what everybody
thinks, we don’t make that much money. Okay, it’s
true we charge $85 an hour but once you account for expenses
. . .look, I bring home 40k a year -- does that make me rich?”
I tell
him I agree that doesn’t really qualify him as a 1-percenter
and then, almost as an afterthought, he blurts, “And be
sure to tell your readers that so far as shit is concerned,
I never deal with it directly. There are tools for those jobs.
And yeah, another thing, even though plumbing isn’t that
hard if you’re mechanically inclined, I know an awful
lot of people who’ve tried but just can’t do it.”
I
get the feeling Murray’s a little exasperated by my childhood
anecdote, as though he’s dispelled these plumbing myths
far too many times over the course of his 57 years on the planet
and can’t get around how they continue to persist when
they’re so obviously off the mark. I figure it’s
probably a good time to change the subject and, while I’ve
got plenty of plumbing-related questions for him, I just can’t
seem to get over the fact that he’s listening to Little
Feat. Lowell George era Little Feat. Really? Okay, I know they’re
not that obscure but at the same time it’s not a band
I’d expect a guy like Murray to even know about, let alone
be into.
“Oh
yeah, I fuckin’ love them!” He assures me, clearly
impressed that I recognize one of his favourite bands. “Music’s
a really important part of my life. I used to play in a group
when I was a kid, you know? We were called Traces. You know
how when you drop acid and move your hand, how sometimes you
still see your hand moving when it really isn’t? Yeah,
that’s traces. I still get together with some buddies
and play every once in awhile.”
Being
a major music fan myself we get to talking rock and roll and
find out we actually have a fair amount in common -- although
I can’t say I really share his enthusiasm for the History
channel or ultimate fighting. “I know a lot of people
think it’s violent, and it is, but I just find it relaxing,”
he explains to me.
Since
we’re starting to hit it off so well I decide it’s
probably safe to change the subject back to plumbing again,
and as we gradually make our way into the slums, I ask what
attracted him to the trade in the first place.
Murray
tells me that largely as a result of his prowess as a high school
wrestler and with his coach’s assistance, he was able
to sneak his way into Halifax’s somewhat prestigious Dalhousie
University -- despite his mediocre grades. And while he managed
to secure a Bachelor of Science degree and was training to become
an engineer, “as soon as I realized I hated it, I dropped
out to do what I really wanted to do, which was become a plumber.”
Apparently
plumbing was a much easier thing to get into back in Murray’s
day. He tells me that in the late ‘70s, when he went out
to Alberta to learn the trade and was ready to apprentice, potential
employers were falling all over themselves to sign him up. “There
was a real shortage of plumbers out there then, but I always
knew that once I had my training I’d come back to Montreal
and start my own business. Being self-employed was a big attraction
about plumbing for me.”
He
says he can’t imagine how anyone in Montreal today could
ever score a plumbing apprenticeship unless they were going
into the family business. “It costs money to take on an
apprentice,” he explains, “I can’t send a
second year apprentice out to a client and charge $85 for him.
He’s not going to know enough. Nor can I bring a kid along
with me for a year and charge even $50 for him to stand around
talking to me, learning what to do. I’ll do that with
my son only, and it’s the same thing with all the other
plumbers I know. You just can’t take a chance with a guy
off the street who might, after three or four years of apprenticing
under you, decide he wants to work for someone else because
he doesn’t like you or something. There’s not many
apprenticeships out there anymore.”
We
finally arrive at the next job and everyone’s waiting
around outside, happy to see Murray; the slumlord, the tenant,
the buildings superintendent, you can tell they really like
the guy, although I’m sure they’re also anxious
to finally get the water going again. But their affection is
understandable, he’s a little rough around the edges,
sure, but you can tell Murray’s good people. I like him
too.
He
grabs his tools from the truck, we make our way up to the apartment
in question and Murray gets down on his back to crawl under
the sink and investigate the problem. It’s gross under
there, much like the rest of the filthy apartment, the bathroom
floor is covered in muck. There’s little room to move
and you know he has to be pretty uncomfortable down there, searching
for a good vantage point to address the issue at hand.
“You
know”, he says, “from what I understand it’s
a nation-wide problem. There’s going to be a shortage
of plumbers in the years to come. Young people are told over
and over, ‘get into computers, be a computer guy working
on games’ or what have you. What I have to do is tough
-- going into old buildings like this and wrestling with their
plumbing. It’s hard work. This is something you really
have to love cuz you sure as hell aren’t doing it for
the money.”
My
mind drifts as Murray stops talking to focus on his work. How
could anyone possibly love what this man is doing right now,
I wonder incredulously? All I have to say is praise sweet Jesus
for the Murrays of this world. Long may they plumb.
Also
by Chris Barry:
How
To Mend a Broken Wang
Digital
Pimp
Remembering
Alex Soria
Cultivating
Cannabis: The Way It Was
To
Boots with Love
From
Spring Fatness to Fitness
Coming Out:
Is It Any Easier?
Head
Trip Story: My Inner Idiot
Ballet
Boxer: Milford Kemp
Like
Young
Loving
Hard Times
Feed
Your Head
Talking
12-Tone with Patti Smith
Beauty
Pageants: The Golden Years
Swingers'
Clubs as Safe Zones
Bust
a Move
Trapeze
- Swinging Ad Extremis
Hells
in Paradise
The
Cannabis Cup
Colonic
Hydrotheraphy
