Hot Springs Eternal

by John M. Daniel

  “The doughnuts and coffee?” said Nqong.

  The man shook his head. “Put in an hour’s work first. Tell Bevis I said to give you a coffee break after you show him you can work. You ever work on an oil crew before? What’s your name, by the way?”

  “Nqong.”

  “Weird name. Okay, Kong. Give me your bag. I’ll keep it in my office.”

  Nqong handed the man his valise and said, “What’s your name?”

  “You just call me Yes Sir.”

  “Weird name,” Nqong said.

  “Nah. My name’s Mick.” Mick offered his hand, and Nqong shook it. Mick grinned and Nqong grinned back, mostly because he was hungry. “Go on, now. Go see Bevis and put in a day’s work. It’s ten o’clock, so I’ll have to dock you two hours.” Mick turned and walked back to his office.

  Nqong walked over to the foreman and said, “Are you Bevis?”

  “Who are you?” said the fat man in the red shirt.

  “Nqong. Mick said you’d put me to work. And I get a coffee break after I show you I can work.”

  “Jesus,” Bevis said. “Okay. Tell you what. To start off, I want you to climb up to the top of this derrick here and check the water table. Not all the way to the top. Just to the platform near the top. Check the water table and come down and tell me where it’s at. Got that?”

  Nqong shook his head.

  “What’s a matter? You scared of heights?”

  Nqong shook his head again. “The water table’s under the ground,” he said.

  Bevis laughed. “Okay, I’m glad you didn’t fall for that one. Means you’ve worked as a roughneck before. Right?”

  “No,” Nqong said. “But I’ve spent my life working with water engineering. Pumps. Valves. Wells, pipes, mud, temperature control, water chemistry. I don’t know the oil business.”

  “Okay, sounds like you know machinery. I’m going to make you Herbie’s new worm.”

  “Worm?”

  “Also known as floorhand. Shittiest job on an oilfield, or anywhere else, practically. Herbie’s the motorman on that derrick, and he’ll tell you what to do. Hope you have a strong back. And you be careful, you hear? One accident and you’re fired. Any questions so far?”

  “Can we talk about the coffee break?”

  Bevis nodded. “Less go.” They walked together to a shack behind Mick’s office. The shack had a counter, with a small kitchen in the back. A slab of concrete in front of the counter accommodated three picnic tables with benches. A leather-faced middle-aged woman turned around in the kitchen, leaned forward on the counter, and said, “You already had your doughnuts, Bevis.”

  “Relax, Tillie. This here’s King Kong, new guy. Give him three doughnuts and…” He turned to Nqong and said, “Coffee?”

  “Just water,” Nqong said.

  “Three doughnuts, one coffee, Tillie. And a glass of water.”

  Bevis and Nqong sat at one of the tables, and Tillie brought them their snack. Bevis snagged one of the doughnuts and the Styrofoam cup of coffee. The two men said nothing until Nqong had finished his second doughnut. Then he asked, “Do we get lunch, too?”

  Bevis said, “Hope you like tacos. That’s all Tillie knows how to cook. You’ll take your lunch break when Herbie tells you to. Between one and three, usually. Less go. I’ll introduce you to Herbie. One word of advice: do whatever Herbie tells you to do, but don’t let him give you any shit. And I should tell you: Herbie doesn’t like black people.”

  “I just look black,” Nqong said. “I’m not really a black man.”

  “Yeah, and Herbie just talks like an asshole. He’s not really a bad guy.”

  Nqong walked over to the derrick and told the man named Herbie, “I’m your new worm. My name’s Nqong.”

  “As in Congo, boy?” Herbie said.

  “If you prefer.”

  “I’d prefer you go to the tool shed and get yourself a tin hat. And bring me back a Stillson wrench. You better be ready to work, old man.”

  That afternoon felt like the hardest stretch Nqong had ever done. Herbie had him lifting spools of cable that sprang lose and whipped all over the derrick floor, then made him re-coil the cable and put it back where it came from. He had to take machinery apart to clean and oil it, then put it back together, lifting fifty-pound gears and wheels. He scrubbed the iron floor, which appeared to have had its last scrubbing before the invention of steel wool. He replaced missing bolts up and down the structure of the derrick.

  “Okay, Congo, it’s after three o’clock. If you expect to get your taco, you better shag ass over to the counter before Tillie runs out.”

  Nqong went to the food shack, and Tillie told him he was too late for tacos because she was out of meat, but she gave him a bowl of beans and a couple of greasy hard tortillas, served room temperature, the room being an outside terrace in the full heat of a dry summer day. Tillie joined him at the picnic table, gave him a Styrofoam cup of lemonade, and said, “You got a place to stay tonight, King Kong?”

  Nqong shook his head.

  “I got room in my apartment, if you’re interested. Just till you find a place of your own.”

  “Apartment?”

  “My place. Where I live, for the time being. In town, Maricopa. Hello?”

  “That’s kind of you. I have some money. I can pay you.”

  “That’s okay, hon. First night’s on the house. Now you better get back to work, or Herbie will have my ass. Yours too. Go on, scoot.”

  ———

  “Okay, Congo, quitting time,” Herbie said at the end of the work day. He dropped the Stillson wrench from his hand onto the iron deck with a loud clatter and said, “Pick up and put away all the tools, and straighten up the area before you leave. See you tomorrow.” He turned and walked toward the parking lot.

  The sun was still in the sky, and the day was blazing hot. Nqong’s shirt was drenched with sweat, his shoulders and back ached, his knuckles were bruised, and his hands were rubbed raw. He longed for the cool, muddy water of the creek that gurgled in the forest above the water house. He missed Hope Springs.

  He used a wheelbarrow to take all the scattered tools back to the shed, where he hung some of them on the walls and laid the rest on the work bench. He put his hard hat on top of the stack by the door. He parked the wheelbarrow behind the shed and walked slowly to the food counter, where he found Tillie wiping down the picnic tables.

  “There you are,” she said. “Shall we go?” She wiped her face with her arm.

  “I have to go see Mick. About some paperwork, he said.”

  “Mick? Mick left half an hour ago, hon. You’ll have to see him in the morning. Come on. My truck’s in the lot out front.”

  Nqong said, “Is Mick’s office locked? He has my bag. All my stuff. My money.”

  “Don’t worry, babe. Yes, the office is locked, and your bag and stuff will be there in the morning. Mick must’ve just spaced you out.”

  Tillie took her rag into the snack shack kitchen, then came out front and used a broomstick to unlatch a plywood shutter and let it down over the front of the shed, where she locked it with a padlock. She locked the door to the shack with another padlock, stuck out her elbow, smiled at Nqong, and said, “Shall we?”

  He took her arm tentatively. “I’m filthy,” he said.

  “Not to worry. I’m used to the way roughnecks smell. I kind of like it, actually.”

  “I have some clean clothes, but they’re locked in Mick’s office.”

  “You’ll have a nice cool shower when we get home,” Tillie told him. “While you’re washing up I’ll do a load of laundry in the basement, and we’ll throw your stinky clothes in with mine, so they can get acquainted. By the way, I keep a spare toothbrush. For company.”

  ———

  That evening Tillie fixed Nqong an Italian dinner, Maricopa style. Spaghetti, with sauce—ground beef, ketchup, Worcestershire Sauce, and garlic. She also served shredded iceberg lettuce swimming in Wishbone dressing, and some
sourdough bread she was saving in the freezer for some special occasion. Plus a bottle of red wine, which she had picked up at Payless on the way home. Nqong ate like a vacuum cleaner and accepted seconds, plus another tumbler of wine.

  “I don’t have anything for dessert,” she said. “You want some coffee? No trouble, it’s instant.”

  “No thank you,” Nqong said with a shy smile. “This was the best meal I’ve had in a long time.”

  Tillie grinned and shrugged. She was a handsome, stocky woman, with hair like straw, a sun-weathered face, and lines around her eyes that showed she had laughed a lot, and cried a lot, too. “I’m no fancy chef,” she said, “but I feel it’s important to eat good food. If I’d known you were coming, I’d of bought the fixings for something a little more elegant.”

  “Bevis told me the only thing you could cook was tacos.”

  “He said that? Bevis is so full of shit.” Tillie shook her head. “The reason they get tacos every day is because it’s the cheapest meal I can cook, and Mick won’t pay me to make decent sandwiches or salads. I’ve cooked for a lot of work crews before. Cookhouse breakfast and suppers for loggers up in redwood country, lunch counters in Walgreen’s up and down the coast till they phased out lunch counters, plus short-order chef jobs in diners from Fresno to Barstow. I don’t know what I’m doing stuck in Maricopa dishing up tacos day after day. It’s steady work I guess, and I’m getting a little bit old to travel around hunting for work, but still.”

  She pushed her chair back from the table and stood up. Nqong started to rise, but she told him, “Sit. I just need to get a smoke.” She stepped to the counter next to the stove and picked up an ashtray, a pack of Camels, and a book of matches. She returned to her chair, sat down, and offered Nqong a cigarette. He shook his head. She lit up, waved out her match, sucked hard on the cigarette, and asked through a cloud of smoke, “Hey, is your name really King Kong? It’s not, really. What’s your real name?”

  “Nqong.”

  “Inngg Kong?”

  “Close enough.”

  “I gotta be honest with you, hon, that’s one weird name. Oh well, takes all kinds.” She inhaled another dose of smoke.

  “Tillie is your real name?”

  “Nope. Matilda. But I don’t use it, because talk about a weird name.”

  “Matilda is a beautiful name. I was born at Mathilda Springs.”

  “Where’s that? Where are you from, anyway? Are you African or something? What are you?” She took another deep drag from her Camel.

  “Wanqong. Australian. Matilda is the most beautiful name there is.”

  “Oh, right. I bet it reminds you of some girl?”

  “Some beetle.”

  Tillie tapped the ash off her cigarette and reached across the table to hold Nqong’s hand. “You’re a funny one, all right.” They sat together, smiling at each other across the table, while Tillie finished her cigarette. She stubbed it out in the ashtray, and said, “Okay, Inngg Kong, you have a seat in the living room while I do up these dishes. Then we better get to bed. Work starts early at Maricopa Wells.”

  “I will sleep on the living room floor,” Nqong offered.

  “Hah.” Tillie shook her head with a mock frown. “No-ho way, Mr. King Kong. Are you kidding?”

  15. Illegal Alien

  Tillie turned onto the Maricopa road, passed through the gate and over the cattle guard, and rattled on to the parking lot. As they climbed out of the truck, she told Nqong, “We’re early, but Mick’s already here. That’s his Beemer. Good. You can go in and deal with the paperwork and still be on Herbie’s platform at the start of the work day. You don’t want to be late for work when you’re working for Herbie. He tends to take it personal.”

  “Thank you,” Nqong said. “For everything.”

  “There’s more where that came from,” Tillie told him with a blush and a grin. She turned and headed around the back of Mick’s parked mobile home to the lunch counter.

  Nqong walked over to the mobile home and knocked on the door. He heard steps, and then the door opened. Mick nodded and said. “Oh yeah. Kong, right?”

  “Nqong.”

  “Right. Come on in.” The mobile home consisted of one large room, which served as a simple office, with a desk, a filing cabinet, a typing table, and four folding metal chairs. The office was furnished with track lighting and a telephone. The venetian blinds on the windows were shut, and one window contained an air conditioner, which was already humming. Mick set a metal chair in front of his desk, then walked behind the desk, sat down, and placed a yellow pad in front of him. He picked up a ball point pen.

  “Spell your name.”

  “N-Q-O-N-G.”

  Mick wrote the name at the top of the page. “Is that your first or last name?”

  “Only.”

  “Got a Social?”

  “A what?”

  Mick tapped the pen on the pad. “Social Security Number.”

  “I don’t have one,” Nqong said.

  “Then how am I supposed to put you on the payroll? Are you a United States citizen?”

  “No. But I’ve lived in this country for more than fifty years.”

  “Green card?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Do you have a passport?” Mick sighed and stared.

  “No.” Nqong stared back.

  “Driver’s license?”

  “No. But I can drive.”

  Mick laid his pen down and frowned. “I can’t hire you, buddy. You’re an illegal. Fact is, I’m supposed to report you. I’m supposed to call the sheriff and hold you here till they come and take you to Taft and book you, and they’ll keep you in jail till the INS gets there and picks you up and deports you to where you came from. Which is where, by the way? Where did you come from?”

  “Hope Springs,” Nqong said.

  “Hope Springs where?”

  “Tecolote Valley. Mathilda Springs before that.”

  “Where is that?”

  “Nowhere. It was blown up.”

  “Never mind.” Mick sighed. “I won’t bust you. Just go back out the way you came in, and don’t make any trouble. You got that?”

  “You’re not hiring me,” Nqong said.

  “That’s right. Get off the property, and I won’t turn you in.”

  “You have my bag,” Nqong reminded him. “My stuff.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Mick rose from the desk, went to a cupboard, and pulled out Nqong’s valise, which he handed over to Nqong.

  Nqong accepted the valise, but did not turn to leave.

  Mick said, “What?”

  Nqong said, “I worked yesterday. Do I get paid?”

  “Shit, man, will you just get out of here?”

  “Shit, man, will you just pay me what I earned?”

  Mick shook his head, puffed up his cheeks, sat back down at his desk, opened a drawer, and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill. He handed the money to Nqong and said, “Get out of here before I call the police. If I ever see you again, or if you ever give me any grief, you’re going to jail. Is that perfectly clear?”

  Nqong stepped out of the mobile home into a day that was fast becoming hot. He walked around back to the lunch counter and set his valise down on the concrete terrace. Tillie came out front, put her hands on her hips, and said, “Inngg Kong, you better get over there and report to work. Herbie’s already at his station. You don’t want to piss him off. You want me to hold onto that bag of yours?”

  Nqong shook his head. “I stopped here to say goodbye. I’m leaving.”

  “You’re what? Why? Where are you going? Inngg Kong, what happened?”

  “I’m an illegal.”

  “So? That means you work for cheap. Mick hires illegals all the time. What’s the big deal?”

  “I have to leave.”

  “Where to?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Tillie shook her head. “Oh boy. Go back to the parking lot and wait by my truck. I’ll be there in a minute. I just
have to lock up.”

  ———

  Tillie opened the door to her apartment and ushered Nqong inside. She turned on the air conditioner. “You stay inside here, okay? Stay inside till I get back at the end of the day. Lock the door and make yourself comfortable. Help yourself to anything in the fridge. Shit. Don’t leave this apartment, you hear me?”

  “What should I do?” Nqong asked.

  “I don’t know yet. We’ll think of something. Did Mick pay you for yesterday?”

  Nqong nodded and pulled the twenty-dollar bill out of his pocket.

  “Let me see that.”

  Nqong handed the twenty to her. She inspected it with widening eyes. “Holy shit, this money is dated 1927. It’s a gold certificate! An antique.” She turned it over. “Mick gave you this? It’s over fifty years old. It’s probably worth a lot of money. This could be your lucky day, my friend.” She handed the twenty back to Nqong, and he stuffed it back into his pocket.

  “Okay. So wait here. Door locked. You promise?”

  “I promise.”

  Tillie gripped his beard with both hands, stood on her tiptoes, and kissed his nose. “You’re going to be okay. I promise you.”

  She left, closing the door behind her.

  Nqong carried Professor Livingston’s valise back to Tillie’s bed and opened it up. He pulled out all of his clothing, and looked at the old man’s treasures: the hunting knife, the tweezers, the ring of useless keys, the gold-rimmed spectacles. And fourteen copies of Organism of My Delight.

  The old man’s United States currency was not in the valise.

  16. Where’s Nqong?

  “People, I’m alarmed.”

  The circle on the library carpet nodded. This was alarming, all right.

  “The water in the baths has been stone cold for three days,” Karen continued. “This has never happened before. Not on my watch anyway.”

  “I can see why you’re alarmed,” Casey said. “The future of this hotel is on shaky ground again. Here I thought we were all set to get started. Now we have more to worry about. And this time the yellow beetles won’t come to our rescue.”