Abraham Aarons, Zen Plumber

keith rutledge

Mrs. Holver's House

Abraham Aarons knelt on the white throw rug on a bathroom floor, his arms wrapped around the cold ceramic base of a toilet.  His face rested against the cool flat front of the tank.  Water ran slowly out through a hole in the base of the tank, over his hands, and into a bucket resting on the tile.  He screwed his eyes shut and concentrated on his fingers, which were screwing a lock nut tight against the bottom of the tank.  The trickle of water abruptly doubled, gushing out through the hole and into the bowl.  "Goddammit," said Abe.  ”Goddammit, goddammit, goddammit."

Abe took a deep breath.  "Stay calm," he said to himself.  With his left hand he pressed the lock nut up against the porcelain, and with his right he reached into the tank to steady the ballcock on the bottom of the tank.  As Abe increased the pressure, the water slowed to a trickle and then stopped.  Abe screwed the lock nut tight.  The flow of water stopped.  Abe reached down to the water supply valve and twisted it to the left, releasing the water from the pipes back to the toilet.

Water flowed into the tank.  Abe slowly released his grip and fell backwards, leaning against the wall of the bathroom.  He cocked his head and listened.  The tank slowly filled up, and then, at last, there was silence.  Abe took a deep breath, stood up, and peered into the tank.  The floater attached to the fill valve had risen to just the right place.

The toilet tank no longer ran water constantly.

Abe replaced the top of the tank and sat down on the toilet lid.  He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped the sweat from his forehead, back through his receding hairline to his prematurely gray hair.  He sat and listened to the noiseless tank.  Plip.  A drop of water fell into the bucket.  Abe reached back with his handkerchief and wiped the bottom of the tank clean, and waited.  A few minutes later, the sound repeated: plip.

"Son of a bitch," yelled Abe.  He took another deep breath and closed his eyes.  "The endless cycle / continues its ebb and flow / with a single leak," he said.  He packed his wrenches and screwdrivers back into his toolbox, walked out of the bathroom, through the hall, and into the living room.  Mrs. Holver was sitting in her recliner, one hand resting on a doily armrest, the other gently stroking the guinea pig in her lap.

"Oh!  Mr. Aarons!" she said, and reached up to pat her white hair.  "Were you able to fix it?"

"I was," he said, and took a slight bow.  "Your toilet will no longer run.  I expect that your water bill will be a lot less from here on out."

"Oh, Mr. Aarons," she said.  "Thank you!  You have been so nice, coming out here so late.  I called three other plumbers, but none of them would come out here at three in the morning.  I was just unable to sleep, you see, and I could hear that darn toilet running, running, running away in there, and I couldn't stand to hear it another minute.  What do I owe you?"

"I won't charge you a thing," said Abe.  Mrs. Holver's jaw dropped.  "However," said Abe, "the seal between the ballcock and the tank is imperfect.  It will leak a little bit.  One drop or so every five, ten minutes.  I've left a bucket under the tank to catch the water.  I think you won't need to empty the bucket more than once a week."

"Oh, dear," said Mrs. Holver.  "I'm sorry to hear that you can't fix it—"

"Oh, I could probably fix it," said Abe.  "Just replacing the cone washer would do it, I imagine.  But it's such a small thing, isn't it?  Emptying the bucket once a week, in exchange for the silence and lowered water bills?

"I should say so," said Mrs. Holver.  "Thank you so much, Mr. Aarons.  I'll recommend you to all of my friends."

"You're welcome, Mrs. Holver," said Abe.  "Drops in the bucket / reflect the eternal tick / of God's metronome."

"I see," said Mrs. Holver.

Later, back home, Abe went through his expenses.  New ballcock, floater, and refill tube; less than ten dollars, all told.  Plus the bucket.  The leak was a flaw, of course, but that was to be expected.  Besides, even an old lady like Mrs. Holver should be able to empty that bucket once a week.

Perfect, more or less.  Abe put himself to bed.
           
Abe's Apartment

The telephone rang the next morning at eleven, while Abe was still sleeping.  He rolled over to the side of the bed with the nightstand and pulled the phone off of it.  "Hello?"

A woman's voice on the other end said, "Yes, hello, is this Zen Plumber?"

"It is," said Aaron.  "What can I do for you?"

"This is Mrs. Holver," said the voice on the other end.  "I wanted to thank you again for all of your help last night.  Also, I wanted some more plumbing advice."

"Fire away," said Abe.

"My hot water heater," said Mrs. Holver.  "It makes an unholy racket.  It whistles and rumbles and sounds like it's going to blow up.  Can you help me?"

"Sure," said Abe.  "Let me ask you a question.  Is it a gas water heater or an electric water heater?"

"It's an electric," said Mrs. Holver.

"Okay," said Abe.  "Does it make a sizzling noise too, or just the rumbling and hissing?"

"I don't think I heard a sizzle," said Mrs. Holver.  "Let me go listen.  I'll be right back.  Wait just a minute."  Abraham heard a clunk as Mrs. Holver put down the phone, and he took the opportunity to get out of bed and walk into his office.  He sat down in his leather office chair and stretched out his legs.  Absentmindedly, he picked up the small brass Tibetan singing bowl sitting on his desktop.  He took the small wooden striker out of the bowl, tapped it against the side of the bowl, and ran it in a clockwise motion around the lip.  The bowl responded with a low rumbling note, the singing of the metal.  Abe pressed the phone between his ear and his shoulder.  He was still wearing his pajamas.

"Hello, are you still there?" said the voice on the other end of the phone.

"I'm here," said Abe, pressing his thumb against the side of the bowl to stop the singing.

"I didn't hear any sizzling sounds, but it's definitely rumbling and whistling.  It's straight out of a haunted house movie."

"If there's no sizzling sound, it's probably just sediment built up in the tank," said Abe.  "Often you can take care of that just by draining it and letting it fill back up."

"How do I do that?"

"Well, okay.  There's a pipe leading into the top of the water heater.  Two pipes, actually, but only one of them has a valve on it.  That's the cold water in pipe.  If you turn that off, then open the faucet on the bottom of the heater and turn on a hot water faucet somewhere in the house, then it's just as simple as attaching a hose to the faucet—"

"Stop," said Mrs. Holver.  "Just stop.  Could you come out here and do it for me?"

"I'd be delighted to," said Abe.  "Do you know how to turn it off?  It would be better to drain it while it isn't incredibly hot."

"I can do that," said Mrs. Holver.

Mrs. Holver's House

An hour later, Abe pulled up outside Mrs. Holver's small ranch-style house with its white picket fence.  He pulled his toolbox out of the back of his white Volkswagen bug, walked up to the front door, and knocked.

After a few moments, Mrs. Holver answered the door.  Her white hair was up in a bun.  "Hello, Zen Plumber," she said.

"Abraham Aarons, at your service," said Abe.

"The water heater is in the basement," said Mrs. Holver.  "Follow me."  As she walked through the house, the woman spoke.  “I didn’t mention it over the phone, but now that you’re here, I want to tell you.  When I use a lot of hot water, you know, if I’m doing dishes, washing clothes, showering in the morning – it takes a really long time for the water to get hot again.  Do you think you can do anything about it?”

“It might be as easy as descaling the element.  I’ll take a look at it.”

“Thank you.  Follow me,” said Mrs. Holver.  “By the way, what's the story with this 'Zen plumber' business?"

"Well, I retired ten years ago," said Abe.  "It was an early retirement.  I had been very, very successful.  After I retired, I came to the realization that retirement is as dull as dishwater, but by then it was too late for me to get back my old job.  One day, the pipes beneath my kitchen sink started leaking everywhere.  I rolled up my sleeves and got underneath the sink.  I fixed those pipes, and had a lot of fun doing it.  The next day, I sent off for a mail-order course on plumbing basics.  The rest is history."

Mrs. Holver clucked and walked down the basement steps.  "My husband was the same way," she said.  "After he retired, he spent hours and hours down here, working on his model trains."

Mrs. Holver flipped on the basement light, revealing a large room filled with an enormous model landscape.  Waist-high, Abe estimated that the landscape was probably ten feet by six feet.  The railroad track led over bridges, through papier-mâché mountain tunnels; by empty waterfalls and long-dry creek beds.  Abe followed the track with his eyes, discovering the train itself, held fast to the rusting track with strands of cobwebs.  A fat, lumbering Daddy Long-legs ambled across the plastic cow-catcher at the head of the train and disappeared beneath it.

"Harry did love his trains," said Mrs. Holver.

"You find what you love and you do it," said Abe.  "Speaking of which, this must be the water heater in question."  Abe crossed across the room with the trains into another room, this one with a bare concrete floor.  An old water heater stood in the corner, beige metal sides spotted with rust and dust.  Abe reached up to the top of the water heater and closed the cold water input valve.  "I'm closing this so no more water can get into the heater while I'm draining it," he said.

"Okay," said Mrs. Holver.

Abe pulled a length of hose out from his toolkit, attached one end to the drain faucet, and let the other end dangle near the drain in the floor.  He opened the drain faucet and dirty water started flowing through the hose, down the drain.  Abe looked up at Mrs. Holver.  "Is there a bathroom or a sink down here in the basement?"

"There is," said Mrs. Holver.  "Harry had a little waterfall hooked up to his train set.  He had to install a sink down here for the water."

"Does it have a hot water faucet, too?"  Abe asked.  Mrs. Holver nodded.  "Show me."

In the other room, Abe turned on the hot water faucet.  Nothing came out except for a hissing noise.  "I'm doing this so that air can get into the hot water heater," Abe said.  "Like putting two holes in the top of a can of juice.  Now we just have to wait for all of the water to drain out of the tank.  Do you have a chair I can sit in?"

Mrs. Holver motioned to a handful of wooden folding chairs, folded and leaning between the cement wall and Harry's tabletop landscape.  "May I sit with you?" she asked.  Abe nodded and picked up two of the chairs, brushed the cobwebs from their frames.  The two of them sat and watched the water gush down the drain.

Abe stared down at the water, black flakes stirred up from the bottom swirling in the stream.  "A blank white canvas / an empty vessel, devoid / a starting over."

Mrs. Holver cleared her throat.  "I see," she said, then paused.  "So what do you have to do to become a plumber?" she asked.

Abe rubbed his hands together.  "Well," he said.  "There’s apprenticeship, journeyman plumbing, licensing, classes.  It’s a lot of practice hours, years’ worth, before you can go into business for yourself."

"And the 'Zen' part?"

"There’s no license for that,” said Abe.  He laughed.  “It’s a little trickier.  I'm a Zen Buddhist, or I try to be.  I have been since the sixties.  I meditate; I study the koans; I try to practice as well as I can."  He paused and looked up at Mrs. Holver.  "Do you remember how, when I fixed your toilet, I left the bucket?  I left the drip?"

"Yes," she said.

"I was furious with your toilet.  I couldn't get that drip to stop with the equipment I had.  One of the main reasons that I practice Zen is because of my temper.  I get angry, but I hate feeling angry.  My inability to fix the drip was a matter of parts that I had and didn't have, but it lends itself well to Zen.  Do you know what wabi-sabi means?"  Mrs. Holver shook her head.  "Well, wabi-sabi is a way of looking at the world," said Abe, "of constantly remembering that there is nothing that lasts forever, that there is nothing that is complete, and that there is nothing that is perfect."

"Okay," said Mrs. Holver.

“Well, there are some aspects of Zen that put intentional flaws into art.  There’s a Japanese art of flower arranging called ikebana.  Some Zen practitioners include a bent stem, a crushed flower, some intentional flaw to remind the viewer of wabi-sabi.  Irezumi, full-body tattoos: the tattooists always leave one blank space, to remind them that nothing is complete.”

“Huh,” said Mrs. Holver.  “My mother used to quilt, and she used to talk about how she’d always mess up on purpose, put in something wrong intentionally.”

“Was she Amish?”

“No,” said Mrs. Holver, “But her mother was.  How did you know that?”

“Lots of cultures mention the intentional flaw.  Navajo weavers put flaws into their blankets.  When Buddhists complete their sand mandalas, they destroy them.  Heck, when Arachne and Athena had a sewing battle, Arachne was too perfect, so Athena changed her into a spider.  The Greeks believed that to do anything too perfectly was to anger the gods.”

“Well, I’ll be,” said Mrs. Holver.

“If I were really good at plumbing, really Zen good, I wouldn’t even do it consciously.  I would just unconsciously bring out my wrench or whatever and fix whatever it is.  That’s the end goal of all Zen arts: archery, tea ceremony, bonsai tree trimming.  All unconscious, utterly without thought.  Maybe someday I’ll be a plumber of such quality that I’ll just unconsciously repair things perfectly.  Until then, I'll keep getting angry and keep making mistakes.  Imperfect plumbing is the name of the game.”  He grinned.  “My apartment is pretty much always drenched.  I turn a faucet on in my bathroom, get sprayed in the face.  Take a bath; have to refill the tub after ten minutes.  'Puddles on the floor / wet socks, constant reminders / Wabi-sabi world.'”  The hose had stopped gushing water into the drain.  Abe walked over to the water heater and turned on the faucet allowing cold water back into the tank.  "Is the water coming out clear?" he asked.

“No,” said Mrs. Holver.  Abe reached down and turned off the drain faucet.  The tank slowly filled up with cold water.  “Mr. Aarons,” Mrs. Holver said, “what’s the largest thing you’ve ever worked on?”

Abe leaned against the tank.  “Well, let’s see,” he said.  “When I was a journeyman plumber, I worked on a water tower a little south of L.A.  Built it for some big factory, started from the ground up.  Why do you ask?”

“Wait here,” said Mrs. Holver.  She stood up and walked out of the room.

Abe waited for the tank to fill up a little ways and then opened the drain faucet.  He knelt and looked at the water coming out of the hose; it was clear.  He closed the faucet up again and turned off the cold water faucet.  He could hear Mrs. Holver walking around on the floor above.  He unscrewed the electric doors, pulled out the insulation; took out the two electric elements.

Mrs. Holver walked back into the room holding a framed photograph.  “These are your elements,” said Abe.  “They’re a little scaled up, but they’re also really small.  I can descale them to increase the heat, but I don't think it'll make much difference.  I’ll bet that the reason your water takes so long to heat up is just of their size.  That’s the imperfection inherent to your water heater.”

“That’s okay,” said Mrs. Holver.  She grinned.  “Wabi-sabi.”

“You said it,” said Abe.  He put the elements back into the tank, screwed the electric doors back on, turned on the cold water faucet.  “That ought to do it,” he said.  “It’ll take a few hours for the water in the tank to heat up, but it shouldn’t rumble or grumble.”

“Thank you so much, Mr. Aarons.”

“It was my pleasure,” said Abe.  “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

Mrs. Holver held up the picture.  “Come upstairs and have a cup of tea with me.  I want to tell you about my hometown.”

Upstairs, on Mrs. Holver’s doilied couch, Abe sipped hot chamomile from a thin china teacup and looked down at the photograph.  The right side of the photo was taken up with a massive sphere, a water tower painted to look like the moon.  To its left, a two-story building was dwarfed by the massive tower.  There was a sign on top of the building that read Holver’s Pharmacy.  “That’s a big water tower,” Abe said.  “What is that, a million-gallon job?”

“Five million gallons,” said Mrs. Holver.  “For a town with a population of less than a thousand.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Abe said.  “There’s no way that town would need that much water.”

“You’re right,” said Mrs. Holver.  “And truthfully, the water treatment plant in Luna Park doesn’t process nearly enough water to fill it on a regular basis.  It was a gimmick.  A five-million gallon tower was the biggest water tower in the state, for a few years in the fifties.  We did a pretty brisk tourist business for a while.  Even after bigger towers popped up, you could see our moon tower from the interstate.  You still can.  My brother-in-law runs that pharmacy, and he still does okay.”

“That’s fantastic.”

“Well, it would be, except that the tower stopped working.  No water is getting from the tower back into the town’s water supply.”

“Might be corrosion blocking an outlet valve.”

“I have no idea.  The town doesn’t have the money to hire in a company to fix it.  And you said that you had worked on water towers before.  I was wondering if you had any interest in taking a look at the water tower in Luna Park.”

“Well, I don’t know if I’d be able to do any good, but I’d be willing to go out and take a look.”

“Oh, wonderful,” said Mrs. Holver.  She clapped her hands together.  “I’ll call Emerson and set it up.”

Luna Park

Abe and Mrs. Holver pulled into the parking lot of Holver's Pharmacy in the middle of the morning on a Monday.  Abe's sedan was the only car in the lot.  Before Abe had even stepped out of the car, a short man had come out of the front door and started walking down the wooden steps.  "Myra!" he called.  Mrs. Holver shut her door and walked to meet him.  They hugged while Abe stood by the car and gazed up at the water tower.  It was huge, all right; and it was in rough shape.  Written across the Sea of Tranquility in shaky block spray-paint letters were the words LUNA PARK SUCKS.

"Emerson, this is Abraham Aarons," said Mrs. Holver.

"It's nice to meet you," said Abe.  He shook the man's hand.

"Likewise," said the man.  "So you're the Zen plumber, eh?"  He grinned.

"Well, yes," said Abe, "but you can call me Abe."

"Abe it is," said the man.  "Call me Emerson.  Come on inside, I'll show you the tower blueprints and get you a coke."

They trudged up the rickety steps, painted bright red many years ago but now faded to a burnt orange.  When Emerson opened the front door, a blast of cool air rushed out in sharp comparison to the hot, humid summer day outside.  Mrs. Holver pulled her shawl tighter around her.  "Sorry, Myra," said Emerson.  "I know you don't like the cold, but I can't stand the heat."  He motioned to a round wooden table surrounded by a handful of chairs in one of the front rooms.  "Have a seat," he said.  "I'll go get us some refreshments and those plans.  Myra, what would you like?"

"Tea, please," said Mrs. Holver.

"Abe?"

"I'll have tea as well," said Abe.

Emerson Holver walked through a door in the back of the room, and some clanging sounds echoed through the room.  "If you'll pardon my saying so," said Abe, "this doesn't really look like a pharmacy."

"Ah, yes," said Mrs. Holver.  "It's not, really.  I guess these days you'd call it a general store.  If we'd turned left instead of right, we would have gone into the store itself.  Emerson lives here, and now it's more or less his house.  Once in a while someone will come in for a new screwdriver or a sack of rice or something, but Luna Park's smaller than ever."

Emerson bustled through the door carrying a sheaf of scrolls.  "Here we are," he said.  "While I'm waiting for the kettle to boil, I thought I'd bring out the blueprints for the old ball of green cheese, there."  Emerson let his armful of papers fall onto the wooden table and sat heavily in one of the chairs.  He looked at Abe expectantly.

Abe picked up one of the scrolls and unrolled it on his lap.  "Emerson, could you tell me a little bit about the problems Luna Park is having?"

"Sure thing, Abe," said Emerson.  "Okay."  He looked up towards the ceiling.  "The well that the water tower draws from never really had what you'd call a real strong pressure," he said.  "Which is to say that before the tower, during peak hours, the water would come out of the faucet in a little piss-stream."  Abe laughed.

"Emerson," said Mrs. Holver.

"That's what it is, Myra!" howled Emerson, and winked at Abe.  "All the people in the town would be showering in the morning, and wouldn't no more than a shabby little dribble come out of the shower-head."

"Well, I guess that's true," said Mrs. Holver.  "I remember I hated to take showers when I was a girl for that very reason."

"Well, the town fathers ordered the water tower built, and all those problems fell by the wayside.  The water from the well, meager and piddling as it was, it would fill up the tower during non-peak hours.  Then when everyone showered in the morning or ran baths at night, the water from the tower would come back down and presto, water enough for everybody."  Abe nodded.  "Okay," Emerson continued, "a few months ago I started to notice that my showerhead was just dribbling again.  I pulled a replacement from the stockroom and installed it, and it seemed better afterwards, so I thought I'd fixed it.  But the next morning, zip-pow, little dribbles.  You can see where I'm going with this."

Abe nodded.

In the other room, the kettle whistled.  "I'll be right back," said Emerson, who stood and walked through the door.  Abe stared down at the blueprint in his hands, followed the line from the water treatment plan to the base of the water tower itself.

Emerson slammed through the door carrying a little brown plastic tray.  He set the tray down on the table and poured tea into two porcelain cups from a china teapot.  Then he cracked the top of a can of soda and took several long swallows.  "I checked with the water treatment plant, and they said that the water itself was coming from the well just the same as ever.  That leaves just the one option."

"The water isn't coming out of the tower," said Abe.

"Bingo," said Emerson.

"I can see how that would cause a problem," said Abe.  "And I bet I know where it is.  Here, where the pipe from the plant meets the pipe up the tower.  You've got a little intake / outlet valve.  I bet it's just stuck.  How long has it been since anyone worked on the tower?"

Emerson took another slug of his soda and let out a low whistle.  "I've been the mayor for ten years, and I know no one's done anything to it in all that time.  It's probably been twice that."

"You mean to tell me that it's been twenty years since anyone's done any work on that water tower?"

Emerson nodded sheepishly.  "Luna Park doesn't exactly have a big budget," he said.  "Scraps the state throws us is all, and most of that goes towards roadwork.  That's one of the reasons I was so happy to have Myra call and tell me about you," said Emerson, "and your generous Zen-like nature."

Abe sipped at his tea.  "Zen or no Zen, generous or not, fixing that thing up is going to cost a lot of money," he said.  "I can't begin to imagine.  Normal procedure calls for periodic draining, parts replacement, anti-corrosivity treatments…"

"I know, I know," said Emerson.  "But would you mind taking a look?  Just taking a look at it, to tell me what I need to do next?"

Abe grinned.  "Emerson, I'd love to," he said.  "Once we've finished our tea, I think we ought to go drain your tower and then I'll head inside and take a look."           

Emerson harrumphed and looked sheepish.  "Yeah, about that," he said.  "I tried.  The drainage valve is rusted shut, for one; and for two, so is the door.  I climbed the ladder to the top of the thing and opened the hatch up there, and it's full to the brim with water.  I just don't know how to get it out.  I was kind of hoping you might have an idea or two on that score."

Inside the Moon

Abraham zipped up his SCUBA suit at the bottom of the water tower.  The sun was setting at his back, and as he looked up at the tower tank a series of photoelectric switches around the base clicked on, bathing the lunar surface with bright halogen light from a series of bulbs.  "That looks like an invitation to me," said Abe.

Mrs. Holver looked up at the tower and made a clucking noise.  "Are you sure that you want to do this now?"

"Seriously, Abe," said Emerson.  "If you'd rather wait until the morning, that is a-ok by me.  I've got more than one guest room in the pharmacy."

I'm already all suited up," said Abe.  "Plus, I do my best work at night.  Plus, this won't even take long.  I'm just going to hop in, take a look at the valve at the bottom, and come out.  Once I know what I'm looking at, I'll have a much better idea of what to do next."

"Well, you're the plumber," said Mrs. Holver.

"The Zen plumber," said Emerson.

Abe hoisted his backpack up over his arms, tightened the straps, and began to climb up the ladder.  He peered back down over his shoulder periodically.  When he got up to the walkway around the base of the tank, he paused and looked down.  On the ground, Emerson and Mrs. Holver were about the size of dimes.  He waved jauntily and set down his pack.  Up here, he could see that the lunar surface was littered with graffiti invisible from the ground.  A small heart drawn in marker, with the cryptic words "H&M 4EVA" written within; countless three-initial signatures with dates; "kilroy was here," accompanied by a doodle of a man peering over a fence.

Abe pulled his air tank and breathing apparatus, a battery-charged halogen lamp, a pair of flippers, a long coil of rope, and a large wrench.  He strapped the tank to his back, draped the light around his neck, attached the wrench and rope to his waist, and shucked off his loafers.  Holding the flippers tight underneath one arm, he scaled the last bit of ladder leading to the top of the tank.  There it was, just as Emerson had promised: the hatch leading down.  Abe tied the other end of the rope to the hatch.  Then he unzipped the suit's breast pocket and pulled out the key to the padlock, unlocked it, and threw the hatch wide open.  A little bit of water spilled over the lip of the hatch and coursed down the side.

Abe gazed down into the water.  He perched on the edge of the portal and strapped on one flipper and then the other.  He attached his breathing apparatus, sat on the ledge and dangled his legs over the side, and turned on the light.

"Be careful!" called Mrs. Holver from the ground, her voice like a tinny echo through a long drainage pipe.

"Diving down deep / The Sea of Tranquility / calls through black water," whispered Abe, and slipped into the water.

Abe kept a tight grip on the rope to keep from plummeting like a stone.  He wanted to get a good look before he sank, so he kicked with both feet and held on for dear life, the combination of rope and flippers keeping him relatively static.  He shone the light around the upper part of the tank.  "Great Caesar's ghost," he whispered.

The inside of the tank was a uniform black-brown that meant years and years of unchecked corrosion.  Around the inside of the tank was another small walkway.  Abe flippered over to it and crawled over the side, not noticing the way the rusted iron crumpled in his gloved hands.  Once he was standing on the walkway, he reached up with one hand and ran it over the inside of the wall.  Sheets of red-brown rust came away at his touch like wet papyrus.

The more Abe rubbed, the more the rust flaked away, floating through the water and leisurely sinking to the bottom like leaves from an October tree.  Finally, the flakes stopped coming and Abe found his hand resting on relatively solid metal.  He slowly rubbed his hand on the metal in a long clockwise circle.

The metal sang.

Abe cocked his head and listened closely.  As he rubbed the wall on the inside of the tower, the sounds that floated through the water to his ears sounded exactly like a Tibetan singing bowl.  He let the light rest against his chest and closed his eyes, concentrating on the rising tone.  Almost unconsciously, he reached up with his fist and brought it down on the side of the wall.

A deep, gong-like sound resonated through the tower.  Outside, Emerson looked at Mrs. Holver.  "What do you suppose is going on in there?"

The gong sounded again.

Inside the tank, with eyes closed, Abe pulled back his arm and pounded the wall with his fist.  Quickly, Abe used his gloved fingertips to carry the sound around the wall; whirling his arm faster and making the tone rise and rise.  If Abe had bothered to open his eyes, he would have seen the outline he had been rubbing crack under the resonance; with a great spang, the circular section of the wall came loose and fell.  Five million gallons of water poured through the hole, pulling Abe out.  Abe held on to the rope for dear life as the water coursed around him in a mass of white noise.  Below, the water had picked up Emerson and Mrs. Holver and was carrying them through the parking lot.  Mrs. Holver was shrieking and Emerson laughed until he cried.

Abe's fingers went weak and he gradually released the rope, yard-by-yard, carried along on a sluice of rapids pouring out of a hole in the moon taking up the entirety of the Sea of Tranquility.  When he reached the end of the rope, he untied the length from around his waist.  As he sailed through the parking lot on the waves, he peeled off the breathing apparatus, threw back his head, and laughed and laughed.

"Cracked like an eggshell / moon's tides irresistible / my head fills with light."