Roughnecks

by James J. Patterson

  “Maybe he did,” Zak jumped in, “but maybe Jesse felt it was time for Lenny to learn a trade, maybe the only trade Jesse knows. Hell, most parents these days can’t even give their kids that much. They send their kids to school and expect them to learn one there.”

  “There, or the military,” Jon’s voice trailed off. For an instant Zak felt he had helped reconcile some of Jon’s contradictory emotions. But Jon gave his head a little shake as he mulled it over. Clearly, some of life’s contradictions are irreconcilable.

  There was only one other customer at the Pioneer Hotel bar, an older fellow sitting quietly by himself. The room was dark but for an eerie glow backlighting the bottles behind the bar and a faint glimmer from electric wall lamps, which were supposed to resemble candles but were bent, awkward, and tacky-looking. Jon got up from the booth to have a chat with the lady barkeep. Zak, meanwhile, was so exhausted that he had slipped into an airy limbo where body and soul seem to float. He was held together only by a powerful curiosity that suspended his discomfort and fear, clarified his thoughts, and routed the confusion that had overwhelmed him the night before. In this condition he was quite prepared to go on as long as was necessary.

  “So tell me, Zak, where’re you from?” Jon returned with two more drinks, eager to change the subject.

  “South Dakota. A little town called Wall, about fifty miles east of the Black Hills, on the border of the Badlands National Monument.”

  “You sound like a tour guide,” Jon said without a trace of inflection. For an instant Zak shriveled, not sure if Jon was joking or challenging his veracity, or both.

  “I was farmin’ mostly,” Zak said quietly between sips.

  Jon eyed Zak curiously for a painful second. “I’m from North Dakota,” he said coldly, circling for some point of intersection, “but I was through Rapid City a number of times when I was in the Air Force.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s not far from there. Y’know, I was pretty shocked to see that pipe actually get bigger when we got near the end there,” Zak steered back to the safety of the rig like a beginner swims for the side of the pool when his toes no longer touch bottom.

  Jon sat back in the booth and ran his hands through his thick blond hair, pushing it back away from his face. His hard hat had kept the mud from reaching just below the hairline, leaving a margin of white skin as though some cosmic thespians had come along and painted on this roughneck face, and Jon, one minute the quiet motorman, the next minute the rakish interlocutor, stepped outside the scene to help Zak with the crucial lowdown. “That bigger, heavier pipe is to give a little more weight and stability to the bit so when it comes up against a harder formation it’ll hopefully keep drillin’ downward instead of goin’ around it. But we’ve never really had any problems turnin’ to the right or trippin’ in or out. On the Widowmaker, the problem is with the juice.”

  “The what?”

  “The electricity.”

  “No, I mean what did you call the rig just now?”

  Jon shook his head, his blue eyes flashed as he raised his hands in mock terror. “The Widowmaker!” Now, wearing that painted-on mud-gray face, he looked like the roughneck host of a late-night TV horror show. Zak laughed, any tension he thought was there had disappeared. “I shouldn’t be callin’ it that, really,” Jon was suddenly contrite. “It makes Jesse mad as hell when he hears one of his crew callin’ it that. He says, ‘It ain’t no fuckin’ Widowmaker when I’m on that brake handle!’ and he’s right. Not that those other Bomac drillers are at fault, mind you, but Jesse’s never even had one man hurt in the patch. Not bad after thirty years, eh?”

  “Not bad,” Zak agreed. “Go on.”

  “Electricity can be the most hazardous part of the job. It’s generated right there on location, obviously, and, what with the rig bein’ solid iron and water everywhere—mud, scrubbin’, hosin’ it down all the time, the rain and snow and ice. Now, not on Jesse’s crew, mind you, but a couple of other crews have had problems with motormen who weren’t knowledgeable, and this particular electrical system is a little quirky. A couple of guys have gotten zapped.”

  “You mean killed?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Goddamn.”

  “That’s why motorman’s job has got to go to the man with the most experience ’cause it’s his responsibility to keep those motors runnin’ clean and he’s got to know how to handle the juice. The coincidence is that the two fellas who died were married and we don’t get many marrieds here in the Basin. Marty’s married. He and Cynthia live with Jesse on location when we’re workin’.” Jon stopped for a second. He looked embarrassed by what he was about to say. “Cynthia,” Jon laughed, apologetically, then, after searching for words that weren’t there, said nothing. Zak thought of Jesse, Marty, and his wife, Cynthia, all crammed into that small trailer and remembered Jesse’s offer to put him up. From then on he put the possibility out of his mind completely. Then another question he hadn’t had the nerve to ask anyone else came to him.

  “Jon?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Just how many ways are there for a man to get killed on an oil rig anyway?”

  “The obvious answer would be one, I guess, but the truth is they’re finding new ones all the time. But hey, at least you get to die young, and in perfect health,” he smiled. “No wasting away in some beat-down home, or VA hospital, where no one gives a shit about you after watching everyone you ever loved go down first, eh?”

  THE WIDE WOODEN STAIRCASE AT the Pioneer Hotel creaked loudly as the two men made their way up to the second floor. The Pioneer was an old hotel, built in the 1920s. Though the floorboards sagged with age, Zak could see where the banisters had been carefully repaired over the years. Upon closer inspection it seemed that everywhere he looked a carpenter’s careful handiwork was in evidence, each repair masterfully painted over and incorporated into the worn and easy character of the place. Drywall new and old, floorboards replaced, generations of electric, phone, gas, all running in logical and illogical patterns, as each era of existence left its mark, told its story, if one knew where to look, how to read. Zak felt woozy as he climbed the stair, light-headed and worried he might fall. In his exhaustion, his perceptions wandered in and out of the surreal. He grabbed the railing. He could feel the whole of the structure merely by touching the railing as he steadied himself, moving slowly up the stair, listening, breathing the musty air, filled with the corporeal elements of wood, mineral, and cloth. The smoky vapors of humans in their passing and the traces of themselves they left behind. He wondered if living outside had made him a stranger to human dwellings.

  Now he felt that, by touching the walls, he was actually shaking the hands of craftsmen long gone who had placed this humble structure in his path, that he had been placed in the lap of that thing for which we are forever searching, yet which is all around us, like the rolling hills, endless prairie, and bottomless sky, would that we had more than mere instinct to detect its presence, to give it a name, to communicate with it directly. He didn’t feel at home. He didn’t even know if he belonged. He was a stranger in this house. In his fatigue he imagined that old building rising above and below him, holding him, bending, creaking and yielding to him. It is all right to be old, Zak thought, if he could grow old like this old building. He then laughed and stumbled down the hallway after his crewmate.

  The corridors were long and narrow and Zak ricocheted off each wall in slow motion like a slow-moving pinball. They entered Jon and Fifer’s room through a slender doorway onto an uncarpeted floor. There was a sink, two modest beds, and on the left an open closet space.

  The water pressure in the shower at the end of the hall was weak. With his big toe Zak stirred the brown muddy pool that rolled off his body to keep it running down the drain. When Jon returned from his shower, he found Zak in his sleeping bag on the floor between the two beds fast asleep. For a moment Jon looked at Zachary Ha
rper, twitching in his sleep there on the floor, and at the extra empty bed, before turning off the light.

  SUNLIGHT. BRIGHT MORNING SUNLIGHT FLOODED the room through pale white curtains that did not stretch completely across the imperfect glass of the hotel room window. Zak snapped awake the instant Jon stirred. Usually a sound sleeper, Zak had acquired during the past months an extra sense for detecting small noises. As he lay there staring at the cracked plaster ceiling, he thought it might be nice to quietly shift his sleeping bag up onto the extra bed, seeing as how it was morning and Fifer was unlikely to return to use it now. And then it hit him.

  “Ah!”

  What he had done was attempt to lift his head. Every square centimeter of muscle in his body had twisted in the night like a rubber band, been dipped in gasoline, and burst into flame with the slightest movement.

  “Uhnnn!” He heard himself groan as he tried to relax. His head fell two inches and hit the floor with a thud. His face stretched into a silent, painful grimace. His eyes darted back and forth as he frantically tried to assess the damage, figure out what was wrong. His bones were wrapped with barbed wire to which his shredded muscles clung angrily. Between his muscles and his skin was a layer of coarse sandpaper. He shouldn’t move. He was prepared to lie there for weeks if need be. He couldn’t lie there for weeks. His bladder was bursting, he needed to pee.

  Jon rolled over and continued sleeping. Zak winced again with pain. The tops of his feet, his arches, shins, calves, thighs and buttocks, his back, shoulders and arms, even his armpits, his neck, were all noisily complaining, shrieking, rioting, threatening his bastille with grappling hooks and torches. Every body part was connected to every other body part with dull rusted pins. A movement in one sent an angry chain reaction to all the others. A torturous, clamorous grapevine of bad news. The cacophony inside his brain was deafening. Outside his skull the room was quiet but for Jon’s heavy breathing.

  He started to laugh. His ears were ringing so loud he could barely hear himself think. How could he possibly put in another day of exertion when he couldn’t get off the floor? He planned each movement carefully ahead of time. First, he flung himself forward and sat up. His muscles screamed. He screamed. He climbed up to his knees and grabbed the post at the foot of the vacant bed. His fingers hurt so bad he could barely make a clutching fist around it. He drooled and this made him laugh some more. His injured self could hear his uninjured self laughing insanely. His okay half reminded his injured half of the hours he had spent exercising all those weeks out in the parks, “you dumb shit!” he belched as he spoke and laughed some more. This gave him the hiccups. They were now in genuine hysterics. Both of them! Laughing, drooling, and hiccupping. The more they laughed the more they hurt. Their tummy muscles burned, ached, and threatened to cramp up and the thought of going into a full body charley horse made them laugh harder still.

  “Uh,” he stood up, “mmm,” he took a step, “fuck!” he took another, his palm slapped the wall, “whoa,” his hip hit the table’s edge. He sputtered, spat, hiccupped, blustered, and laughed and groped his way toward the door. Tears streamed down his bright red whiskery cheeks. Jon awoke and sat up on his elbows, squinting, in time to see Zachary Harper giggling, snorting, and hee-hawing from the room in his underwear, stumbling from the room like some loopy, addle-brained, meandering lunatic.

  A SHORT WHILE LATER ZAK found Jon downstairs at the café and eased himself into the chair opposite. The waitress arrived with OJ and coffee for two. Jon’s way of saying he was buying. An old-timer with a serious limp entered the café carrying a stack of newspapers, the Billings Gazette. Suddenly, Zak was overcome by a burning sense of nostalgia and curiosity.

  “Interested in the paper?” he asked his partner.

  “Nope.”

  Zak tapped on the table impatiently. He lit a cigarette. He got up and tried to mask his stiff movements in a posture of nonchalance, digging into his pocket for loose change. At least he could spring for the paper. He went to the counter and picked one up. He scanned the headlines. Jon scanned the profile of Zachary Harper who, as far as Jon was concerned, was absorbed in a ludicrous review of a world that didn’t concern either of them. Zachary Harper read aloud.

  “A New Glitter Beckons From the Hills. While there isn’t exactly a ‘gold rush’ in Montana, and no new deposits have been discovered, there was a twenty to thirty percent jump in activity around existing sites when the price of gold started up five years ago…” Zak was about to make some remark as to whether or not Jon had ever done any prospecting, might even have suggested it would be a worthwhile way to spend their next days off but, upon seeing Jon’s look, decided to keep his newsy ruminations to himself. They continued on in silence.

  Spacecraft Spots New Moon, Ring: Mountainview, California (Associated Press). Trailblazing Pioneer II survived two perilous crossings through debris making up the rings around the giant planet Saturn on Saturday, then delighted scientists with evidence of a previously unsuspected ring and a possible new moon…

  Firewood Scarce, Costly. The price of firewood has jumped thirty-five dollars a cord and figure you’re going to run out anyway come February 1.

  Attack Suspect Surrenders After Victim Swims for Life…

  Post Office May Make a Profit…

  New Nightmare Haunts Uganda…

  Lawyers Pan Judicial Picks…

  The food arrived. The Great American Heart Attack Breakfast. Two cheese omelets, home fries with each (genuine red-skinned potatoes chopped with onions and peppers piled high in the corner of the grill), sides of sausages, toast, and griddle cakes. The two men attacked their plates like a couple of hungry coyotes. Eventually they settled down to a more humane pace and it was then that Zak was able to devote at least a part of his attention to the problems of the day. “I’ve got to find a place to stay,” he thought out loud as he speared a sausage with a fork already spilling over with omelet and potatoes, then plunged the whole ensemble into a pool of ketchup.

  “What’re you thinking of doin’?” Jon asked as he momentarily came up for air to tear open a tub of orange marmalade.

  “I’d like to pitch a tent somewhere. See if I can’t stake out a plot of land,” Zak conjectured as he moved triumphantly on to the flapjacks. Jon’s blue eyes grew wide.

  “Oh yeah? Where?”

  “I don’t know,” Zak’s fork marched through the triple stack. He doused the spongy cakes in more syrup. The food was restoring Zak’s faculties. It was the first hot meal he had had in weeks. Spying a bottle of steak sauce on the next table he leaned way over to fetch it, without thinking, and his ribs, arm, and back screamed as he attempted to stretch them, so bad he just kind of stayed in that position, with one arm resting across the next table, with a knee jutting out into the aisle between them. Jon got up calmly, took the bottle of steak sauce, and displayed it elegantly over his right forearm.

  “Excuse me sir, is this what you’re looking for?”

  Zak painfully regained his chair, amused by Jon’s Bistro de Pioneer haughtiness, but not enough to laugh, and took the bottle and poured its contents over his toast and the remainder of his omelette. He took a deep breath and resumed his meal. His eyes scanned the sunny street but his vision roamed the rolling plains surrounding Bomac 34. “Maybe that farmer or rancher or whatever he is who leases out the land Bomac’s on would let me stake out a spot.” He looked at Jon for some sign as to the plausibility of this notion and interpreted Jon’s lack of response to be affirmative. “I can see it all now,” he rested his forearms on the edge of the table, a fork in one hand, his knife in the other. His jaw muscles worked. “Yeah.” He nodded his head as though he and his guardian angel were deep in discussion. “Not a bad idea.” He loaded up another forkful. They held up their coffee cups for the waitress who had dutifully returned with a fresh pot. “It would be close to location. I can’t afford another tank of gas.”

  Jon list
ened intently.

  “Once I get down to where I think I have just enough gas left for one more ride into town I’ll leave the Jeep at the tent and then just walk to and from work. Yeah, I think I’ll cruise out there after breakfast and see if I can get his permission.”

  “I’ll ride out there with ya,” Jon said and went back to concentrating on his food. If it were him he would simply bum the money, stay in the hotel, and pay everyone back on payday. A roughneck asking permission. This was something he’d have to see with his own eyes.

  Zak’s cheeks bulged with food. He smiled anyway.

  IN THE JEEP, ZAK PUSHED in a tape, The Rosslyn Mountain Boys, and they smoked a reefer on their way out of town. When they reached the four buttes, they turned down the gravel road toward location until three miles from the drilling site, they swerved into the rancher’s private drive. Dogs came barking from all directions. The ranch house was lifeless, so they pressed on to the barn which turned out to be the epicenter of canine activity. Two golden labs galloped out to meet them, sniffing the air and barking. From somewhere out of sight other dogs barked back. Zak climbed down from the Jeep and held a fist to each dogs’s nose for a sniff. From under a tractor nearby came a tall skinny ranch hand, and from inside the barn came the old dog himself. He was tall, heavyset, and severe.

  Zak stuck out his hand and said, “Howdy,” casual and friendly­like. The old rancher looked from Zak’s face down to his outstretched hand, as though he wondered what in the world Zak expected him to do. At last he got the idea and placed his hand in Zak’s. When Zak gripped the old man’s hand the old-timer did not return the hand clasp and the dry, limp, leathery palm felt cold and unfriendly, sending a chill up Zak’s spine.