“Just hold that tent!” screamed Stakes as they grabbed each corner. Neither of them slept much that night.
Stakes’s favorite nights were when he and the Andresen family scraped together enough to buy a case of beer and cook a feast on the campsite grill.
Three days after I met him, Stakes was summoned to appear in court for a DUI charge. Earlier that month, he was speeding down Highway 2 in Williston at 1:30 a.m. after drinking at the bars, going 53 mph in a 40-mph zone. He was pulled over and had no license or proof of insurance with him. When the officer asked Stakes to count backward, he said “4, 2, 3, 1.” When he was asked to walk in a line, he stumbled twice. When the officer asked Stakes to stand on one leg, he complied, but swayed and almost lost his balance. A Breathalyzer test showed that his blood alcohol level was 0.179, more than twice the legal limit. The officer strapped handcuffs on Stakes and put him in the back of the patrol car.
At the Williston jail, Stakes was issued a faded, black-and-white striped uniform, which made him look like a caricature in an old Wild West film, and orange Crocs, and he spent the night there. He couldn’t afford the $500 bail, but the jail was at capacity, and officers needed beds for the growing number of criminals they arrested daily. In the county, DUI arrests had increased by over 1,000 percent since 2008. Police released Stakes after he agreed to certain conditions under a program called 24/7 Sobriety: He could not possess or use alcohol for two weeks and had to return to the jail twice a day for Breathalyzer testing—once between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. and again between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. On the second day, just after 7 a.m., Stakes failed the test. He’d been drinking the previous night and had a blood alcohol level of .065. He was arrested and spent the next two weeks in jail.
After his release, Stakes and the Andresen family were running out of time to find alternate housing. The park’s closure date was September 1, and other campgrounds were closing soon for the winter as well. By mid-August, no one had figured out where they would live. Stakes seemed the most worried about it, as he didn’t want to go back to sleeping in his truck and hiding from the police. “It’s limited what we can do,” he explained. “The cops give ya trouble. Maybe I’ll move to California where it’s warmer in the winter.” The camp’s supervisor, a plump, husky woman, knew most of her campers were homeless. Since she was retiring at the end of the summer, she threw a party for everyone on the last day.
I arrived at the party in late afternoon. Stakes approached me and gave me a long hug, squeezing me tight. I could smell the alcohol on his breath. About 30 people sat around on picnic tables under a large wooden pavilion. One table was full of food—potato salad, hamburgers, hot dogs, baked beans. Stakes pulled me over to the group and yelled, “Everybody! This is Blaire, my future wife.”
I laughed uncomfortably and shook my head, trying to indicate to the crowd he was joking. “Nope, not true,” I said. No one seemed to be paying attention. Stakes was drinking a can of Budweiser and handed me a Straw-Ber-Rita in a can—a new sugary alcohol product from Budweiser. As soon as I opened it, bees swarmed the can and one fell in, drowning in the sticky red liquid. We sat on top of a picnic table facing the group. I saw the Andresen family across the pavilion and I waved to Heidi. Billy and her kids were outside closer to the lake. I talked to a couple who had recently arrived to the campground from a small town outside of Chicago. The guy bragged that he stole his tent from Walmart. “They’re just a corporate face,” he said flippantly. “They won’t even notice it’s gone.” Then he asked if we knew where to get marijuana.
Stakes laughed. “No, but we can get you some crystal,” he said, changing his tone to a serious one. He paused, then laughed and told them he was joking. The couple looked disappointed.
Outside the pavilion, Heidi caught a frog and held it in her hand to show to her grandson, Damian, who had ketchup smeared on his cheek. A group of children who wanted to touch the frog surrounded her. Mike sat on top of a picnic table taking long draws from a cigarette and stared out at the lake. The sun was still high in the sky and there was a light breeze. The air was already crisper than just a few weeks ago. Summer was coming to an end.
The next morning, the campers folded up their tents, packed up their belongings, and left, leaving only small imprints of flat grass where they’d once lived.
17. WILLISTON
The first day I pulled into Williston, I had no idea what to expect. I entered through the west end of town, driving past a man camp and through a little town called Trenton. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was the same man camp where Cindy Marchello and her crew lived. WILLISTON 7 MILES, the sign said. Nearby an abandoned bulldozer sat lonely on the prairie. As I reached the outskirts of town, an oil tanker truck flew past me, going about 70 miles per hour in a 55-mile-per-hour zone, rattling my little car like a glass of water during plane turbulence. Flat, boxy industrial buildings came into view as I drove over a hill, and I saw my first gas flare. Located on a dirt clearing surrounded by prairie grass, the flame roared out of a tall pipe, burning 20 feet into the blue sky.
As I neared the center of town, I passed a diner called Gramma Sharon’s and a small makeshift trailer park. I had called this particular trailer park the previous week and discovered there was a long waiting list to live there. There was a newly remodeled hospital on my right and billboards advertising Carhartt work clothing and the local hardware store. At the intersection was a welcome sign that said WILLISTON: LET’S WORK TOGETHER! The left-hand turn signal at the intersection had gone out, so drivers waved and gestured to people when it was their time to go or just gunned their engines and hoped for the best.
All over town were billboards of the 10 Commandments—one was even prominently displayed next door to the local strip clubs. On the local radio, ads played about beer, car dealerships, employment-search sites, or Mitchell’s Oil Field Service for “all your trucking, roustabout and crane needs.” One ad wanted to convince lonely newcomers to attend church. “It’s hard not knowing too many others here,” a woman’s voice said. “Perhaps you’re staying home with young kids. I found some folks who welcomed me and my family. It was at my local United Methodist Church.”
Businesses in town had tried to capitalize on the oil boom, building a man camp called Black Gold Williston Lodge, a restaurant called Wildcat Pizzeria, or a coffee stand called Boomtown Babes, with scantily clad women serving espresso. There were Williston tourism T-shirts with slogans like OIL FIELD TRASH; WHAT HAPPENS IN THE OIL FIELD … STAYS IN THE OIL FIELD; or PLEASE GOD, GIVE ME ONE MORE OIL BOOM. THIS TIME I PROMISE NOT TO PISS IT AWAY.
I camped at Lewis and Clark State Park 20 miles outside of Williston on my first night and waited until the next day to visit the trailer park, called Williston Village RV Resort, where I’d found an open space. It had recently opened and, as far as I could tell, it was the only place in town with availability.
The trailer park “resort” was 10 miles north of town and down an unpaved road. Approximately 200 campers lived on a swath of land the size of about two city blocks. The foundation had been laid for a laundry and shower building, but completion wasn’t expected for another year. At night, semi truck drivers lined up along the park’s perimeter to sleep, and the park was surrounded by oil wells. The flames from gas flares flickered along the horizon. There were no trees or landscaping of any kind, which kept the soil hard and cracked. It was just dust—more dust than I ever thought possible. Dry, gritty particles seeped into my eyes, my mouth, my hair. My laptop’s keyboard was always covered with a film of dust that transferred onto my fingers when I typed. I washed my hands as often as I could, but it was never enough. The dust was always there, except when it rained. Then everything turned to mud.
I lived on lot number 305, which sat on the edge of a dirt embankment with a line of trailers below. I paid $795 a month, plus a $300 security deposit, to park my camper there. I had a view of the Love’s gas station and a construction site. Next door, in lot 304, lived a family from Idaho. Their spar
kling new Sandpiper trailer was about three times the size of mine and went for about $46,000 brand new. The woman who lived there looked close to my age. She had manicured nails, wore leggings and colorful tank tops, and drove a white Jeep Cherokee. She looked like a regular suburban young mom. When I saw her, which wasn’t often, she was usually coming back from somewhere in the late afternoon. She’d carry her one-year-old daughter on her hip and walk quickly from her car into the trailer and close the blinds. I tried to talk to her a few times, but she always looked uncomfortable when I approached. Her husband was almost never home. Across from my trailer was a Hispanic family with two little kids, and on the other side of my lot was a middle-age couple. One night I watched them through their window, which was a few feet away from my trailer. They were sitting down at the table, facing each other, having an argument. The dim lighting and partly closed blinds blurred their facial expressions, but at one point the man threw up his hands and stormed out of the room. I watched the woman sit and stare at the papers on the table for what felt like a long time until she reached up and closed the blinds. Were they having financial troubles? I wondered. Or was this simply tension that builds between couples living in tiny quarters?
One evening after a long day of conducting interviews, I attempted to sit outside my trailer with a glass of wine to watch the sunset. There was no shade for miles, so I squeezed into a narrow sliver of shade the trailer made on the gravel. I heard a bird chirp and couldn’t remember the last time I’d heard a bird call. I looked over in the direction the sound came from and saw a bird standing on the trailer’s electricity meter, looking lost. The sun began to set. I watched tumbleweeds blow past my lot and down a ravine. Wisps of clouds blanketed the sky and turned bright red. A soft orange light settled over the Love’s gas station in the distance. It wasn’t quite like the prairie sunsets I imagined. As I sipped my wine, I wondered if the prairie life I’d read about would now be known for oil rigs and infrastructure and dust. A truck barreled by and blew a cloud of dirt into my plastic wine cup. Mosquitoes buzzed around my neck. I sighed, went back inside the trailer, and closed the window.
A few nights after I moved in, I experienced my first North Dakota storm. Thunder barreled through the prairie. Fierce winds, lightning, and rain were close behind. My trailer shook and the floor vibrated with each gust of wind. I huddled inside and imagined the trailer with myself and all of my belongings sliding down the hill and into the mud.
* * *
Williston’s growing pains were apparent. The original “downtown Williston,” where many retail buildings sat empty, seemed hidden. I often set up my office at a local diner downtown, and some days I saw only five other customers, many of whom were elderly. Surrounding the small downtown were two-lane highways, gas stations, and a few chain stores. They enveloped the mini downtown, almost swallowing it whole.
There was construction everywhere—a building frenzy had taken over the town. On average, nearly five new housing units went up every day in Williston. The city approved $353 million worth of building permits for new construction in 2013. And 9,000 man camp units speckled the city’s outskirts.
Most people hung out north of downtown, at restaurants and chains like Walmart, McDonald’s, Subway, and Taco John’s. Almost every business had HELP WANTED signs. Applebee’s was the most popular restaurant in town, with customers waiting hours for a table on Friday night. Walmart was more of a hub than Williston’s downtown. It was always busy, with long lines at every cash register. On Sunday, which was a common day off in the oil field, crowds of people stood outside waiting for the store to open at noon. When the glass doors slid open, people rushed in with their shopping carts, swarming the aisles and collecting groceries and supplies. There were women with too-tight polyester tops and children running around their legs and groups of men still dressed in work coveralls and mud-splattered caps, looking tired and perplexed as they roamed the aisles alone. Shelves were often emptied within hours, and the overwhelmed employees stood back, exhausted, as customers tore through the displays they’d finished moments ago.
To the west of downtown was the public library and, next to it, the oil company–funded playground with the oil-pump teeter-totter, its shiny black metal frame bobbing up and down. The slide was funded by Enbridge Pipelines and the bridge by Halliburton. The jungle gym was named “Williston Basin Refinery.”
Inside the library was a bulletin board with the sign LOCAL HIGH RISK SEX OFFENDERS and the mug shots of nine men staring back, plus a colorful explanatory poster of an oil rig and its components and a blown-up map of drilling activity in the Bakken. A few men slept in chairs behind rows of bookshelves or scrolled through websites on library computers.
Then there were the trucks. I’d never seen so many trucks in my life—Super Duty Ford 250s with turbo engines, Chevy Colorados with mud splattered on the tailgate, RAMs, GMCs, Chryslers, trucks with bumper sticker slogans like NORTH DAKOTA: GOIN’ DEEP AND PUMPIN’ HARD and clouds of diesel exhaust spewing out of rear pipes. Some vehicles were entirely caked with layers of dust and mud, with only a small patch of windshield cleared for the driver to see the road. Eighteen-wheeled monstrosities seemed to be around every corner and at every stoplight. My first week in town, I pulled up next to a semi truck at one of the town’s main intersections and saw two burly men sitting in the front seat. The man in the passenger seat sat with his arm out the window and his T-shirt sleeve rolled up, revealing heavily inked skin, faded blue-and-black shapes that I couldn’t make out. He noticed me and grinned, one side of his lip rising higher than the other. He poked his friend and pointed at me. “How’s it goin’ there?” he yelled out the window, grinning wider. The light changed, and I sped off as quickly as I could.
It was noticeable how outnumbered I was. Men roamed the aisles of the grocery store by themselves, filling their carts with chips, Coors Light, and frozen burger patties. They clustered in groups at the local diner, their baritone laughter rising above the clanking dishes and restaurant chatter.
I was relieved to see a few other women around. Although everyone in line with me was male, the checker at the grocery store was a middle-aged woman who smiled as she bagged my zucchini. A waitress at the local diner took my order and hurried off to the kitchen. The cheerful gas station clerk, with adorable dimples and perfectly straight teeth, looked about 19 years old. I felt relieved. These women are surviving here, I thought. Maybe I can too.
18. ROUGH RIDER MAN CAMP
For the poker game, we were told to arrive at 7 p.m. and bring beer to trailer number 33. My photographer, Brad, and I picked up a six-pack of Shiner Bock. I figured it was a safe choice. Not too fancy but not too cheap.
We walked into the trailer and saw five guys and Cindy Marchello sitting around a round laminate table. Two guys sat on camping chairs, and another one had pulled up a leather recliner to the table. Mana Kula sat next to Marchello, his size making his chair look like it was meant for children. Curtis Kenney, whom I met the other day at Marchello’s trailer, sat across from them, wearing a shirt that said AS AMERICAN AS IT GETS.
Tui, whom I also met the other day, sat next to another Tongan guy named Sam. Sam was from Utah and was married to Kula’s cousin. Kula’s iPhone rested on the table playing pop music. We presented our six-pack and they laughed. “You got the fancy kind,” said Kula. Everyone else was drinking Bud Light or Corona. Kula pulled out a Corona bottle, ripped off the cap with this teeth, and passed it to me. I stared at it dumbfounded and mumbled a thank you.
We were playing Texas Hold’em, tournament style. Each player bought in with $5, a surprisingly low amount given how much money most of them made. I handed Kula my money and Kenney pulled up a camping chair for me. Kula chewed tobacco, spitting the remnants into an empty water bottle, and divvied out red, white, and blue plastic poker chips to everyone. Texas Hold’em follows the regular rules of poker, but unlike traditional five-card or seven-card draw, each player starts with two cards facedown, five cards are disp
layed faceup on the table, and you make the best five-card hand you can out of the seven.
Kula dealt the first two cards. I had two low cards, but since no one was betting high and I was curious, I stayed in. The first three cards, or “the flop,” came down, and there was a king of diamonds, a four of diamonds, and a five of clubs. The hand could go many ways from there as there’s a possibility for a flush, a chance for a straight, and no pairs showing. But I didn’t have diamonds or high cards, so I folded. Marchello pouted and folded as well. Kula threw in a couple of chips and Kenney and the guys stayed in. After another round of betting, the fifth card came down, and it was a jack of diamonds, giving everyone a higher chance for a flush. Kula went all in, and the others folded. Players don’t have to show their cards in this situation, but Kula did. He had a pair of jacks and therefore had almost nothing until the last card was dealt. From what I could tell, he was the one to beat.
I found out more about the guys as we played. Mana Kula was an ex–college football player and a former coach for Southern Utah University. He only made $22,000 a year as a coach, and left after he and his wife needed to relocate to care for her sick father. He briefly worked as a telemarketer for a get-rich-quick scheme called John Beck Free & Clear Real Estate System but quit when he discovered just how much the company was scamming customers. (The Federal Trade Commission eventually sued the company for $450 million.) Then Kula started working in the natural gas fields in Utah and Wyoming as a field hand, retrieving tools or doing grunt work for higher-up guys. He worked his way up and now made over $200,000 a year as a supervisor. He was divorced but supported his seven children back in Salt Lake City.
The New Wild West Page 10