Jenkins's Hairy Secret

Jenkins's Hairy Secret
a steampunk mystery

Pennyworth ventured up the stairs, an unusual notion, given his days were usually spent in the estate’s boiler room, stoking the fire. Events that warranted a trip into the upper floors of the estate were limited to holiday lunches, pest control (heavens forbid they have another muskrat infestation), and the current situation of a clogged steamway in none other than Jenkins’s washroom.

To clear a clogged steamway, one needed a Steamway Flusher 3000 – as the late 2000 model had incited one too many problems, including the unfortunate and untimely death of the missus’s cat – Peg. Pennyworth had acquired a Steamway Flusher 3000 just the other day, using a little of his own money and a lot of his own charm. He lugged the cumbersome contraption up the stairs on his back, made all the more difficult by the bum hip on his left side.

“Well ‘allo Jenkins!” Pennyworth called as he flung the door to the fanciful washroom open. “I ‘ear you’ve got a bitty steamway prob – Oh!” Pennyworth exclaimed, cutting himself off mid-sentence as Jenkins not only proved to be present, but completely and starkly remiss of any form of clothing whatsoever.

“Pennyworth!” Jenkins scolded in surprise, his husky voice startled.

Jenkins turned immediately, holding his sooty hands to his scruffy, weathered face. “Gracious…” he muttered, having not expected to see such a bare display of gluttony and wealth.

The rustling of towels and the shuffling of feet told of Jenkins’s rush to cover himself as quickly and efficiently as possible – though with a potbelly the size of his, it would more likely take two towels, or three, rather than one.

“Have you no decency, man,” Jenkins blurted.

A curious thought came across Pennyworth’s mind then. As the image of Jenkins’s portly figure flashed before his eyes, entirely against his will, he realized there had been something strangely off about the man. Peculiarly twisted, the image was - and at first, Pennyworth thought it must have been the heat or the bad batch of liver he’d had for brunch. Surely his mind had been playing tricks.

Carefully, with utmost caution, Pennyworth turned to look over his shoulder. Jenkins had managed to get a towel wrapped around his midsection, leaving his chest bare and blubbery. He sank into a chair, leaning back as he looked across the eloquent washroom towards him.

“Well, get on with it then,” Jenkins said. “Put your contraption to work.”

Turning around, Pennyworth pulled the nozzle in front of him, heading towards the steamway in the corner of the room, hiding partly behind a whale sized tub, coated in a filmy copper. He paused in front of the tub to turn back to Jenkins. “Was that…?” he trailed off at the questioning look Jenkins gave him. “Nevermind,” he said and again turned to the steamway.

The pipe had a hatch where the nozzle of his Steamway Flusher 3000 could attach to. Before using it, Pennyworth had to ensure the boiler room was clear of workers, as the flusher did exactly what common folk with common sense would think a flusher could do. Whatever was clogged up there in the steamway, whether it be coal build up, a hair ball, or a pair of Jenkins’s enormous skivvies, it would come jettisoning out down in the boiler room.

Flipping the switch of the contraption strapped to his back, Pennyworth stuffed the nozzle into the hatch and waited. The estate groaned and moaned around him as the steamways linked to every room expanded and expelled any foreign objects that had been clogged in the pipes. The pressure valve on the Steamway Flusher 3000 kept leaning towards high and Pennyworth just kept it pumping until suddenly the pressure was gone. He grinned and shut off the flusher.

Jenkins was still in his chair, but had pulled on his top hat and had a cigar hanging from the corner of his mouth. Smoke filtered up towards the ceiling and his brow was lifted in curiosity as he watched Pennyworth work.

“Well, mate…” Pennyworth started, standing there awkwardly. He scratched at his thinning hairline and then shrugged. “You just ‘oller if you need anything!” He almost made it to the door before he stopped again and turned around to look at Jenkins squarely, as men often do when they challenge each other’s integrity. “Was that…?” he started again.

“Never you mind what it was or wasn’t,” Jenkins said, the cigar making his words callous and broken. “Just git. And don’t you tell a soul or I’ll show you what else I have that you don’t know about.”

Pennyworth gave the man a two fingered, half hearted salute before leaving the washroom, and Jenkins’ naked figure, behind him. On his trek back to the boiler room, he thought over the threat and began to ponder all the oddities Jenkins could possess that he never knew about. What was the man? Was he born that way or was he the subject of an awful experiment in genetics?

Making his way into the boiler room, Pennyworth swatted his hand in front of his face, sweat breaking out on his skin at the steam that filled the room. He set down the Steamway Flusher 3000 and hurried over to the valve that had dispelled the steam and clog. Trying to find the menace on the floor, he bent down on his hands and knees.

Instantly, he found the clog and turned up his nose. Reaching a hand out, he tentatively picked up the disgusting mass of fur and hair and it had to be the biggest hair ball he’d seen since the invasion of the shrews twenty three years ago. He let the moist mass fall to the ground and put his hands on his knees, nodding his head.

“That right there confirms it,” he said to himself and the boiler, his only companion. “Jenkins ain’t ‘uman.” He pointed his finger at the boiler.

“That man ‘ad a tail!”


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Word Count: 992
written for "StAG Firebox - Closed for judging!"   by Beck Firing back up!