It was a hateful, loathsome thing.

It lurked in the dark like an abused dog turned viscous. It oozed its vile fluids and slept in its own filth. An awful, leprous entity made up of cast off pieces, waiting, wanting to die. The old man refused to let it, it huddled there. Damned to a dark eternal struggle of thankless slavery.

My father had not a shred of mechanical ability or knowledge. The farm we lived on was small, only 5 acres. There were no tractors or combines on his farm, there were no intricate pieces of machinery or labour-saving devices. It was just as well; they wouldn’t have survived a week. There was a couple of old trucks that staggered and retched through our yard on their last drive to the boneyard, but he very rarely lifted their hoods, if he did he saw nothing he recognized.

There was one piece of machinery that was indispensable on the farm; it was called “The Pump”. It was the old man’s constant nemesis. A rusted, leaking Moriarity.

Most farms have a well, and ours was no exception. Ours was a well in the middle of a cow field. The old man once sent a sample of our house water in for testing, it came back labeled “Unfit for consumption by livestock”.

When you live in a house with a well, you need a pump to bring the water. Pumps are usually good, reliable pieces of machinery that are designed to hum along contentedly for years on end, and most do, in this, our pump was the exception.

The pump was actually many pumps. Over the years the old man bought different pumps of the same design. All were worn out, all were cheap. All were piston pumps, a design that had been around since the Bronze Age in one form or another. If maintained well and repaired competently they are reliable. My father’s pump broke down weekly to be cobbled together yet again from pieces of other dead ones. Ours was a mongrel, a Frankenstein of pumps

As a child few things struck fear into my core like the phrase “Go help your father fix the pump”

Fixing the pump had a number of distinct phases.

First, was the discovery.
The discovery always happened at night, usually when raining and cold. He would turn on the tap to get a drink and the usual anemic brown dribble would be absent. Sometimes we would be comfortable in the living room and hear mother say “There’s no water”. My brother and sisters would dematerialize instantly when they heard this, they never shared the skill with me.

Second was the preparation.
Upon discovery, my father would sigh deeply through his nose and his lips would compress tightly together in a frown, his brow would wrinkle and he would walk purposefully to the door and slip into his dung-encrusted, leaking boots, his stinking Mackinaw and toque. He’d stand by the back door and browse a number of flashlights that didn’t work until he found one that gave off a wavering amber beam; he would disappear wordlessly into the night. I desperately pretended not to notice.

Third was resignation.
My mother would come to the door of the living room and speak those dreaded words. I knew they were coming, it was inevitable. They always pierced me like a screwdriver through the sternum…”Go help your father fix the pump”. I had no choice; I would go put on my gumboots and whatever coat came to hand. Like a condemned man I would trudge and stumble through the dripping darkness to the pumphouse.

I need to digress here to tell you about the pumphouse. The pumphouse, for some reason I never understood was about the size of a mailbox. Picture a mailbox full of spiders, centipedes and various other unpleasant crawling things. Spiderwebs were inevitable, dead cats unsurprising. Usually, the old man would contort himself inside and swear, other times he would sit in the doorway and swear. Of the two, contorted inside was best. From there his legendary backhand couldn’t quite reach me.

The fourth and final phase was cringing.
I would stand at the doorway with the wavering, flickering, disinterested beam of the flashlight and try to shine it at the area he was working on, inevitably it was the wrong area. Suggestions were unwelcome at best and suicidal at worst. Even as a young child I was a pretty mechanical guy. I grasped the inner workings of the pump quickly and could often see or reasonably guess the problem ahead of him. I learned very early that this was a bad thing. I was sent out to help him fix the pump, but god help me if I did. I would either dodge slaps or weather scathing verbal thrashings.
The cringing phase lasted the rest of the evening.

Not only did he have an insane pump; his tool kit was no better. The old man had a fetish for pipe wrenches, he bought them at garage sales for a quarter or half a buck, because of this he didn’t own a pipe wrench worth more than a Nickel. The rest of the tool kit consisted (but wasn’t limited to) A couple of rusted stiff crescent wrenches. Two Flathead screwdrivers (one too big, one too small, It didn’t matter because they were both worn round). Three or four open-end wrenches bought at the flea market or found at the side of the road. None were EVER the size he needed, and a clawhammer with black tape instead of a handle. I’m not sure why he had the clawhammer as he invariably pounded on things with one of the pipe wrenches. All of these tools were carried in a 5-gallon plastic bucket
 

The old man died in the summer of 1996. Six months after his death, on a cold, windy, rainy night my phone rang. My mother’s voice on the other end said, “There’s no water”
With my guts in a familiar knot I drove to her house and stumbled through the darkness to the pumphouse. I opened the door and there, in the jaundiced beam of yet another barely working flashlight huddled the pump. Dripping oil sullenly, a corroded pair of Vise grip pliers held the motor on, a concrete block under one corner, in a puddle of water and oil, like a wino passed out in a pool of his own vomit. With a sense of inevitability and dread I reached into the ever-present 5-gallon bucket and pulled out a Pipe wrench that flopped in my hand like a dead rabbit.

The work began and so did the swearing. Half an hour later I was sweating and cursing, frustrated beyond reason. Trying to work on this piece of ancient plumbing history with two rounded Flathead screwdrivers (both the wrong sizes), four open end wrenches, a couple of seized crescent wrenches and a clawhammer.

Sometimes it’s funny how we come to the great milestones of understanding in our lives. I came to one in a vermin-infested cubicle of misery that rain-soaked night. I placed the pipe wrench back where I had found it and smiled. There I was, contorted like a puppy humping a football; in the same place I had seen my father a thousand times trying to make this absurd conglomeration work. Using someone else’s cast-off relics. Feeling the same helpless frustration, anger and fear. Fear because now everything rested on MY shoulders. Like with him there was no avoiding it, no disappearing when the fateful words drifted from the kitchen. No reprieve when my mother would call out that it was my bedtime. No, now it was me doing battle with this manifestation of evil with these hopeless weapons. The fear was real, almost overpowering. I gave up.

I came back early the next morning, my mother had gone the night without water, but it hadn’t been a hardship, she’s of strong stock. I sat down there with my own tools, a set of good combination wrenches, a properly working and tight pipe wrench, a full set of screwdrivers and three well maintained crescent wrenches. My sons were with me and they sat in the pumphouse door while I fixed the pump, it took about 15 minutes and went without a hitch. I told them about dodging grampa’s backhand while sitting in that very spot, they thought I was kidding. After I was finished I picked up all my tools, it was an awkward armful.

I looked around for a 5-gallon bucket.
 
 
 

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