Mr Falchuk

Note: Grandma is now 87 and Mr Falchuk was a generation older than her, so he is almost certainly dead. RIP Mr Falchuk. The building is still standing and your wiring hasn't electrocuted anyone. Yet.

Our master bathroom tub has been leaking for years. At one time we developed a map of Florida on the dining room ceiling directly beneath it. I called our area's most high-visibility plumbing company, Berck's. They have shiny radio-dispatched trucks fully stocked with all kinds of fancy parts, and they are expensive. When you call, even on a weekend, a chipper receptionist answers the phone within a ring or two. Berck's is clearly the Sak's Fifth Avenue of plumbers. Berck's sent a plumber who performed exploratory surgery on our bathroom (diagnosing $6,000 to $7,500 worth of repairs.) I can't shop at Sak's on a Marshall's budget so I just stuck a bucket underneath the biggest hole.

The first day Scott took a shower and I was in the room with the bucket, I was immediately transported back to Westwood, to Grandma's ungraciously aging Mediterranean style building.

Plink. Plink. Plink.

We'd be out exploring, spending a long day riding buses and walking, eating, making raised planters and curbs into balance beams, turning bus benches into stages. We'd straggle home up the last long hill and sink into couches made up into beds, buried under layers of blankets, and it'd begin to rain.

We have had so many droughts or just ordinary dry years in Southern California that people forget it used to rain in LA. A lot.

We'd curl up with a simple dinner, maybe grilled Longhorn cheddar on sourdough or an omelet and green apple slices.

Plink. Plink plink plink. Plink.

What a lovely, cozy sound to fall asleep to.

When the leaky roof got to be too much, Grandma would call Mr Falchuk. Or maybe he just decided to come around every so often and see if anything needed to be done.

What can I say about Mr Falchuk? I don't remember a time when he wasn't very, very old. He'd balance precariously on a stepstool, swaying from side to side. Sometimes Grandma would help him, handing up light bulbs or strips of duct tape. Usually she'd just sit in her chair, kibbitzing. (But he liked it, seemed to encourage it even.)

So we'd had this problem for years, and the open gaping holes in our dining room ceiling for over two years. Berck's, with their fancy gleaming trucks, had already quoted me more than I'd ever pay, so I couldn't call them. When we'd needed other repairs done I'd faced a random parade of meth addicts cowboys and chain smokers. One guy (a chain smoker, not a meth addict) took a call on his cell phone while standing on a ladder staring into the gaping hole in the ceiling, declared that yes, the Hobie Cat was still for sale, and left, never to return.

Doing nothing seemed like my best option.

One day some work was being done on the house next door. The guy brought his dog. "Nice dog." (Who am I kidding? Amazing dog. She had me at "Sit. Shake.")

The handyman looked up and wiped some sweat from his forehead. He set down his hammer and considered for a long moment, which I soon learned was a characteristic gesture of his. "Well...." and I had my Mr Falchuk.

The first rule of hiring the Mr Falchuks of the world is: never pay them by the hour. Their elderly arthritic bones eventually get the job done but they move slowly. The long pauses to tell stories or offer opinions are really rest breaks. The second rule is: you have to listen to, and participate in, their stories. You just have to embrace the fact that you have a new friend. Your new friend is quite handy and willing to do whatever you need around the house, for a price. Talk to him about Rush Limbaugh, the flat tax, the death penalty, and Anderson Cooper.

My neighbors all use Mr Falchuk. He'll come, tear things down or break them up, tell stories, and his dog will sleep (A) in your driveway; (B) in the cab of his pickup truck on a horse blanket; and (C) on the floor of the bathroom right next to Mr Falchuk as he works (the dog was adopted as a stray from a winery and had in all likelihood been abused previously, so she has some separation issues.)

For instance, Mr Falchuk left my bathroom gutted to the stucco then drifted off for almost three weeks. I hadn't paid him a penny yet, including $1,000 in parts he'd bought for us from Home Depot (which he calls "Depot" and now my kids both call "Depot" too; in addition Bits started calling him "Papa" because one day he brought his god-grandchild who calls him that) so I figured we were safe.

In all honesty, I hired my Mr Falchuk for the same reason Grandma hired the original Mr Falchuk. Grandma was a young widow managing an apartment building on a shoestring budget all on her own. She survived on her wits and her instinct about people. She knew Mr Falchuk was not going to turn out to be a crazed serial rapist or cut her into pieces and bury her in the yard. He wasn't going to steal from her or even take advantage of her financially (if anything Grandma was the one who came out on the winning end of their arrangements, though I'd say they were pretty fairly matched.)

My Mr Falchuk may or may not do a good job. I really don't know enough about home repairs to tell. I figure he can't do worse than a meth addict who won't even show up. Even my neighbor "Esmerelda" who is picky about her housecleaning likes him, and his dog peed on her carpet (a story I am not sure is accurate, and plus, I have Pergo so don't need to worry; there's nothing anyone can do to our house that the cats and kids haven't already done - a little dog urine would be the least of my worries.)

Back in the day, we'd shriek: Grandma! I hope you didn't actually pay him for this work!

I knew when I was the one signing the checks, I'd certainly be more businesslike and efficient about it. Who wants to waste time sitting talking to a handyman about Mello Roos taxes, anyway? Fast forward thirty years and I'm running up the stairs to the bathroom where he's working on the bathroom with the latest editorial about the death penalty for Mexican drug kingpins.

Our water heater burst, and thank God Mr Falchuk just happened to be here working on a few other things (hiring a handyman is like that; as soon as you fix one thing you realize there are twenty other things that need to be done, and that's just in the living room.) As he ambled over to inspect the damage, he pointed up at a strange little metal thing that looked kind of like a cross between a fuse box and a lightswitch.

"What is that?" I asked.

"That's your doorbell," he said. Which doesn't work. (I am so anti-social that I love that our doorbell doesn't work. People who actually know us already know it doesn't work so they knock instead, and anyone who doesn't know to knock eventually gives up and goes away.)

"I can fix it for you," he offered.

He walks around finding things that don't work (like light switches to nowhere and doors that don't shut flush) and fixing them. The original work quote of $500 was so long ago and I have yet to pay him a single penny. I really hope he's writing this all down. He's worn me down so I say, "Get some paper. Write it down and I'll go to Depot. Can I take the dog?"