Roughnecks

by James J. Patterson

  “You did a hell of a job out there today, Fifer. We’re all proud of you.”

  Freddy darted a stupefied glance at his driller. He wanted to state his case to the contrary. Say he was sorry, but that he was twistin’. The words filled his mouth, but he was unable to speak. He was ashamed of how his quivering voice would sound ringing in the ears of these men he respected so much, wanted to be like.

  “That was one hell of a tower we just finished,” Jesse went on.

  “Sure was,” someone said.

  The craggy, time-worn timbre of Jesse’s voice showed the effects of a thousand similar towers. “We got ’er done. We can be damn proud of the work we put in. Each of us.” He waited a few seconds for silence to once again fill the room. “There’s no reason for you to think that you didn’t put out and contribute one hundred percent and carry your share today Freddy, because everyone in this doghouse knows that you did. We’re all men in this room, and each and every one of us did a man’s worth of work today.” Jesse Lancaster lifted his hand from Fifer’s knee, rose to his feet, and walked out of the bottom doghouse, shutting the door softly behind him.

  Freddy leaned forward and reached into his locker as the others resumed changing their clothes. Out of respect, everyone avoided his liquid eyes until they were out under the bright burning lights of Bomac 34.

  VI

  Main Street, Scobey, Montana, was quiet on this calm, cool September night, except for three roughnecks whose footfalls on the hard pavement echoed off the storefronts and up into the cool black sky. As they crossed the street from the Pioneer Hotel to Simone’s Bar, one roughneck, with a big blond beard, sauntered confidently; one wore octagonal-shaped glasses with bent wire rims, a yellow baseball cap, and moved swiftly, almost invisibly; and the third, who lagged just behind the others, was fat.

  Jesse, Marty, and Cynthia were already seated at the far end of the bar when the rest of Jesse’s crew walked in. The bar was crowded, smoky, and loud with the murmurs of men and women in conversation.

  Jesse and Marty were talking in low voices, drinking rye. Marty had combed his sandy hair back and it now hung evenly in a Buster Brown cut halfway down the back of his neck. Marty had a long, full Roman nose that at first glance made his flaming green eyes seem too close together, a look which made him appear very, very alert.

  Cynthia was sipping languidly on a 7Up while staring pleasantly at the rows of bottles on thick glass shelves in a big oak cabinet behind the bar. She was a harmless lump, without poise or posture, and wore a wisp of a smile on a face that was a bit too round, framed by greasy hair that clung dull and flat against her skull. Most people would call her simple. She greeted the newcomers with a nervous smile and watched with alarm as they took up seats in a crude semicircle all around her. When the one in the yellow baseball cap offered to buy the next round and boldly asked her what she wanted, she became totally flustered and her face turned bright red until Marty came to the rescue explaining, “She don’ drink nuttin’ ’cept sebbin-up.” When the men turned away from her and resumed their conversation about oil rigs and the like, she was, once again, able to relax, sip her drink, and return to thoughts that had occupied her before these others had arrived to disturb her. She sighed. In one corner of the mantelpiece behind the bar sat a big fat smiling Buddha, carved from rich red cherry wood, with a sign that hung around his neck which read, “Be Proud of Your Belly!” In its lap was a dusty old beer bottle.

  Jesse was glad the others had dropped in; he had news.

  “That company hand thinks we’ve gone down far enough,” Jesse announced with a concurring finality to his voice. “We’ll probably tear down next week.”

  Marty and Jon nodded, unfazed.

  Freddy, ciphering quickly that a week or two could conceivably pass without him having to throw chain again, shouted, “All right!”

  Zak, on the other hand, experienced a momentary flash of panic. What did it mean? Was it over this fast? Would he have to get another job?

  “So where’re we goin’ next?” Freddy wanted to know.

  Jesse looked thoughtful as he considered his chubby young chainhand. “I’m not exactly sure yet, but I think the next location will be south of town.”

  “Well, a lot’s got to happen before we worry about that,” Jon said. “Tearing down’s a bitch and a half, full of hazards and complications.”

  “Tink dat new fella sout ah town’ll have an outhouse for ya, Zak?” Marty snickered and wheezed causing chuckles all around, indicating that Zak’s living preferences had become a bit of an in-joke with the crew. They all turned to him, grinning with anticipation to see how he handled a poke in the ribs.

  “I sure hope so, a bear can’t take a shit in the woods around here.”

  “Yeah!” Cynthia blurted out unexpectedly. “No woods!”

  After another round, the little group broke up. Jesse, Marty, and Cynthia were bound for Watford City where Marty and Cynthia had a cozy little house and Jesse lived with his wife June on the other side of town. Zak and the boys decided to remain at Sam’s and, as the others filed out, an image of Marty’s Cynthia imposed itself, hauntingly on Zak’s mind. He had been struck by how little notice had been paid her by her husband and his friends. They would offer her an eye as they talked, but there was never any attempt to bring her into the conversation, nor did she make any effort at all to carve out any sort of space or notice. The only consideration she received was an endless supply of 7Up to sip, and once, during a lull in the conversation, Marty turned on her alarmingly, making a whooshing sound with his mouth and cheeks yelling, “Wild geese in flight!” and proceeded to pummel her fat arm with a crisp and powerful series of blows that went on way too long, causing her to wince and squeal, her mouth a wild little circle. Zak expected her to be angry but instead, when it was over, she melted under his massive arm and looked adoringly up at him, willing to endure a little whimsical cruelty in return for a little genuine affection. Out of politeness, Zak had thought a couple of times to talk with her but there had been no way to do it naturally. To pay her any undue attention would clearly have been out of line.

  The three remaining roughnecks ordered drinks and moved over to a table along the opposite wall.

  The plan had been to hit each of the six bars Scobey had to offer but now, in the cozy bosom of Simone’s bar, drinks in hand, nothing seemed to matter but that they blow off a little steam on their way to getting completely drunk.

  Zak looked around the old saloon. The walls and ceiling were made of tin, just like the great cowboy bars of old, stamped in squares beautifully embossed with coats of arms and fleurs de lis. Among the locals, farmers, and ranchers, here and there were tables of local women, older, to whom the rough-hewn world of the men all around them was comprehensible, manageable, familiar. Hard work showed in the women’s knotted fingers, in the way they held their cigarettes, in the worry lines around their mouths and the smile lines around their eyes. Some had been to Sophie’s Beauty Shop that morning for this, their one night out a week. Some wore bright solid colors with matching plastic earrings and bracelets. They watched the goings-on, made note of who was present and who wasn’t, and laughed quietly at the spectacle before them.

  The walls were jammed with pictures. Charles Russell prints depicting scenes from the Old West. A cowboy turning to shoot his six-gun from the back of a swift black stallion. Cattlemen sitting around a campfire playing cards, eyeing one another suspiciously. Paintings by local artists of awkward landscapes, barns, and prairie life. Booze ads of yesteryear. The room was much longer than it was wide and light just seemed to get absorbed in its cavernlike depths. Zak noticed a painting in the back of the room on one of his many trips to the john depicting an Indian warrior triumphantly holding a freshly taken scalp up to the heavens with his mouth fixed open in a triumphant screaming rage. A wicked-looking knife in his other fist dripped blood. Another picture showed a high wate
rfall that spilled over a rocky cliff descending in a fine spray that morphed into stars in outer space. There was a picture of a beautiful young woman riding naked, sidesaddle, on a goat, holding a golden chalice up to the sky and smiling at a cloudy wind goddess who was attempting to sip from the cup. In one corner near the beaded curtain that led to the very back of the room was a tall sculpture made from elk antlers. A female mannequin, dressed in buckskin, was imprisoned within.

  Zak looked at his watch and he gulped at his drink.

  “There’s no rush,” Jon said.

  “Simone doesn’t exactly keep regular hours,” Freddy laughed.

  “Is that her behind the bar?”

  “No,” Jon answered, “that’s Lillian, Simone’s sister. And that fella there is Hal, Lillian’s husband. You’ll know Sam when you see her.”

  “Yeah,” Freddy jumped in like he was about to tell Zak the craziest thing he ever heard. “Simone is Sam. Sam is Simone. They’re one and the same person! But you can’t call her Sam until she asks you to.”

  “That’s right, and she ain’t asked you yet, now has she?” Jon scolded.

  “Nope,” Freddy smiled, embarrassed, then frowned. “Has she asked you?”

  Jon was silent as Zak rubbernecked around the room, trying to guess who and where she might be.

  The two roughnecks looked toward the bar, then said in unison, “Ain’t here.”

  Jon, pointed with his cigarette in the direction of the bar. “See those candles on either side of that mirror?” Zak zeroed in on two ornate brass candleholders with fat white candles on either corner of the mantle. “When those are lit she’s here, when they ain’t…”

  “Is she really so mysterious?”

  “Fuck no. She might make tinhorns like fat boy here a bit uneasy, but she’s got her own kind of class, her own style, that’s for sure. She’ll cash checks for a whole crew if they give her a little warning. Heck, even if they don’t most times. See that safe over yonder? That’s the real McCoy, I’ll tell ya.” At the front of the room under a window sat a huge black old-timey safe with a giant combination knob and a big brass handle. “You know, we could be at the head of another big oil boom. Sure, we’re the only rig around these parts right now, but you never know. Simone seems to be the only person around who’s aware of the possibilities. Some towns just love all the cash that oil patch traffic brings but resent having to lift a finger to accommodate us. I mean, we’re goin’ strong twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and when a town closes up at five p.m. and doesn’t open again till morning, or if the local hotel won’t check anybody in till three p.m., those evenin’ and nighttime crews just get left out. Now Sam here will stay open late even though she’s supposed to close. She’ll open again early, or her sister will, just for that mornin’ crew if she thinks she’s needed. As far as stayin’ open goes, the marshal doesn’t come through that often, and he doesn’t care. He knows she’s got it under control.”

  “Hell,” Freddy tossed in his two cents, “when a man’s on days off with a couple thousand bucks in his pocket, he can get real generous if he’s got somewhere t’go. So, y’know, it doesn’t make sense to piss us off. They do it right down in Watford, boy.”

  “Christ, nobody better go’n piss you off, eh fat boy?” Jon made a fist and pulled it back aimed at Freddy’s fat arm, Freddy flinched, the blow never came. Just then Freddy’s fat face went limp as he took notice of something over Zak’s shoulder. In Zak’s right ear he could hear the clattering of bracelets and the rustle of clothing. His senses filled with perfume that made him a little dizzy. A warm hand rested on his shoulder.

  “Well, gentlemen, I see you’ve found a replacement for poor Lenny at long last. Will Jesse be joining us later?” A deep sonorous accent, was it French? sounded behind Zak’s ear.

  “No ma’am, he’s come’n gone,” Jon answered.

  “Oh, that’s a shame. Tell him I am sorry I missed him.”

  Zak turned and rose to his feet. Simone was taller than he, fiftyish, wore a long robelike gown of purple and blue held together by a ropelike weave that hoisted her big, milky-white bust upward. Her hair was jet black and carelessly piled on top of her head, falling down here and there in lazy ringlets. Her makeup was heavy, dark around her eyes but shading off into a bluish gray around the eyelids. She had those painted-on movie-star lips that look nothing like her real ones. Big silver rings in the shapes of serpents, charms, and strange twisting designs adorned every finger. Zak thought she was beautiful. Over her shoulder Zak could see Hal, behind the bar, lighting candles with a long brass lighter, the same kind Zak used to light the candles with in church when he was serving mass as an altar boy, with a flint on one end, a snuffer on the other.

  “Simone, it’s a pleasure,” he said. Her hand landed gently in his for a long squeeze rather than a shake. Her skin was warm and soft. Slippery even. “Jon was just telling us what a friend you’ve been to the roughnecks here in town. My name’s Zak Harper.”

  “Well Zak, we’re hoping there’s a lot more where you came from.” She glanced over her shoulder to the bar where Hal caught the look and began pouring shots. “You’re from back East.”

  A bolt of electricity hit Zak in the spine. He looked quickly at the table; Jon and Freddy eyed one another. “Well,” Zak explained, “I’m from all over.”

  “So am I,” Simone smiled. “Gentlemen, I want you to enjoy yourselves tonight,” she said as Lillian arrived with three shots of whiskey. “We’ll stay open late. Zak, you must come by some afternoon when it’s not so crowded and tell me about being from all over. I want to hear everything. We’ll get out the map if we have to. Sound like fun?”

  “Simone, you can consider me a regular.”

  “Then you’ll have to call me Sam,” she smiled and glided away, touching customers on the shoulder as she went, leaning over here and there for a kiss on the cheek. Across the room the wild-looking derrickhand from the daylights crew followed her menacingly with his eyes as she passed through the beaded curtain at the back of the room, and Zak didn’t see her again that night.

  “Whoa!” Zak said as he drifted down into his chair. Jon laughed loudly. Freddy looked relieved. The Irish whiskey went down smooth and the pace of their drinking picked up in earnest.

  Long after the rest of the town had gone completely dark, the three roughnecks left Simone’s, each turned silent by the sheer emptiness of the world into which they stepped, made all the emptier by the unfathomable distance of the universe that looked down upon them from above. Back at the Pioneer, they took turns in the shower and later, when Zak stretched out on the cold tile floor in Jon and Fifer’s room, he wished he was back in the warmth, privacy, and comfort of his tent by the creek. In fact, he was seriously considering getting up and driving back out there the very instant that he fell into a spinning lonesome sleep.

  VII

  The next morning Zak was awake early and crept silently from the room, leaving his friends to sleep off the previous night’s dipsomania undisturbed.

  He had a light breakfast downstairs at the café and watched the gray early morning brighten through the large picture window that looked out upon a side street. He missed his People’s Almanac but settled for the Billings Gazette. The lead story on the front page was about opening day of public school. A story in the Gazette the day before regarding the availability of school lunches for all students had omitted the fact that some grade-schoolers were required to bring their own. The editor extended his apologies to any pupil who went hungry because of the error. Another story reported that an illness that infected two dozen residents of Powell, Wyoming, that July and August was not hepatitis after all. The true nature of the illness was still unknown. Wyoming Department of Health and Social Services officials said they would make no further attempt to answer questions about the disease. A fifty-one-year-old father of fourteen was sentenced to ten-month work release for
killing a thirty-one-year-old man in a bar. Yugoslavian president Tito was warning against foreign interference in his country and criticized what he called “imperialist forces” for their lip service to human rights in seeming contradiction with their support for white minority regimes in South Africa. National Rifle Association members who had enjoyed the exclusive rights to buy surplus guns from the U.S. Department of Defense at cost since 1905 were now losing that privilege. It was said that to sell guns only to the NRA was discriminatory and amounted to a federal subsidy for the NRA. Japan was mourning the death of Lan Lan, a pregnant giant panda who died of kidney failure taking her infant with her. It would have been the first born outside of mainland China.

  Also on that front page it was reported that fifty different companies were seeking exploring rights for steam and hot water over three hundred thousand acres bordering on the Yellowstone National Park, calling it the Island Park Geothermal Area, for the purposes of generating electricity.

  Zak munched on a piece of white toast lathered with butter and grape jelly and sipped his coffee.

  Not exactly the Washington Post. Zak smiled and looked out the window. He would have loved a good internal policy debate, perhaps an update on the alternative energy movement. His brow wrinkled. The current price of a barrel of oil would surely be more important to the good people of North Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming than some fucking bear dropping dead in Japan. After all, nobody’s coming all the way out here to drill for oil at three dollars a barrel, but twenty? Twenty-five? Thirty? It’s a fucking gold rush! Is anyone paying attention here? Would Paul Volcker, President Carter’s Federal Reserve appointment, keep raising interest rates until money became so expensive there wasn’t a cent to be borrowed by anyone? Would raising those rates really put a dent in the runaway inflation that Zak felt was the real legacy of Vietnam? Once financial institutions became accustomed to charging high rates of interest, would they ever be satisfied with less? But how high could interest rates go before the entire economy choked to death? Twelve percent? Eighteen percent? Twenty? Everyone at the bank where he once worked had condescendingly said, “Never happen.”