Man Camp
Stories
by
George I. Anderson
© 2013 by George I. Anderson
CONTENTS
Man Camp1
The Watcher On The Hill6
Second Chances8
A Little Breathing Room12
Second Chances and The Watcher On The Hill were previously published in the magazines Surprising Stories and Pablo Lennis. Man Camp at Zeotrope.
Dedicated to John Thiel,
a small sci-fi fanzine publisher who made
this writer's dream of being published
a reality.
Many, many, many thanks.
1
Man Camp
There was this second-hand bookstore on Main Street in downtown Williston, North Dakota where I picked up this battered old copy of Treasure Island to read to my kids later that night. It was a half-off special that this store and all the other stores, restaurants, delis and pizza places offered to us oil workers from the man camps outside of town as a means of appreciation for the added revenue, though most of the other workers pretty much stayed at the camp. We could have put on the impression of the stereotypical roughneck—hard livin', hard drinkin' and hell raisin', with tattoos on bulging biceps aiming a pool stick at a cue ball on a pool table in a crowded bar on Friday nights. But many of the guys I worked with were like me: married with kids to support. And despite coming from states as far east as Pennsylvania, where I'm from, and as far west as California in search of work—any work that paid decent enough to support a family—we all preferred to keep our domestic statuses intact.
I'm a maintenance mechanic for one of the oil companies. I fix transmissions when they break down, which they do a lot while drilling, maintain supplies of new drill bits whenever one cracks or gets damaged while drilling, fix pumps and seal leaks in pipes if I find them when the crude oil flows through them. It's definitely a far cry from my old job, fixing production machines in a plastics factory that folded two-and-a-half years ago when the jobs went overseas. Smaller, faster, cheaper, better summed up the reason.
When the plant left, so did my pride in working with my hands. After that there weren't any jobs around where I lived. Construction, maintenance, nothing. I would've settled for a job shoveling shit into a ditch for minimum wage if it was hiring. My unemployment was running out, including the 99-week extension generously given by Uncle Sam. Aside from the odd-jobs I was doing under the table and Audrey's part-time cashiering job at the supermarket, we just weren't keeping our heads above water. And to make matters worse—a lot worse—the house we'd been living and raising our family in for ten years was being foreclosed. I felt totally helpless then, broken down to almost nothing. I cried in Audrey's arms that night as we laid in bed. I just didn't know what else to do.
Then I saw a news story on television on how Williston was booming—really booming—from all the oil drilling going on there. There were so many flocking there to get work that there was hardly any room for the oil companies or the town to house them all. Some were even sleeping in 2
their cars in parking lots in the dead of a minus-twenty degree North Dakota winter's night. Talk about crazy! So without a second thought I decided to go for it. I applied to an oil company online and within two weeks got hired right over the phone. Just like that. But the toughest part of it all was saying goodbye to Audrey and my kids. But it wasn't going to be a goodbye, I said to myself. I was going to make things better. I was a husband and a father and I was going to provide for this family.
Thank God Audrey believed in me.
I took a public transportation bus back to the camp that stopped across from the street from the bookstore. It was getting near eight p.m., and I wanted to get back to eat, read a little of this book to my kids over the internet video feed (thank God for the company computer room for keeping the family together, I often thought), say goodnight to them and Audrey and get some sleep before my six a.m. shift started tomorrow. It was late April. The temperatures were starting to get warmer after a long, cold winter. The snow had melted and I noticed how some of the flowers and a few of the trees were starting to bloom. Spring comes late to Williston, being this far north. But when it does things get quite beautiful to look at around here.
As I rode along Main Street past the post office and city hall, I saw a few of the stores were winding down their evening business. Flower and card shops were already closed. So was a barber shop. A pizza place had employees inside but no customers. The parking lot of the Shop Rite looked like it was thinning out.
There were only two other passengers on the bus besides me. A seventy-something old woman sat near the front keeping mostly to herself. And in the seat across the aisle from me was a very pretty young woman who I guessed to be in her late twenties. She looked up from her smart phone and smiled when I took my seat. I shyly smiled back. I was never comfortable meeting women alone since I met Audrey. Apparently she seemed to like oil workers. I was dressed in cleaner and more casual clothes than what I wore on the rig earlier that day: a blue denim shirt with the front unbuttoned over a Villanova t-shirt, faded black denim jeans and my work boots. I guess the work boots were a dead giveaway.
“Treasure Island,” she said, noticing the book I had.
“Yeah,” I replied. “It's for my kids. I read to them every night. I got three.”
I showed her a photo of thm I kept in my wallet. Corey, Maya and Stephen, all between the ages of three and seven. All smiling.
“Mmm. That's great.” she said, returning the picture. “Do you work on the rigs?”
“Yes, I do. Been there eight months now.”
“Are you from out of town?”
“Yep. Pennsylvania.”
3
“Pennsylvania.” she said. “That must explain the Villanova shirt.”
“I'm crazy about their basketball team.” I wasn't really. I'm more into pro sports. But I was just going with the flow of the conversation.
“Guess you're a long way from home.”
“I sure am.”
We rode the rest of the way in silence. I turned toward the window. It seemed like an innocent comment. She seemed like a really nice woman, someone who I wouldn't mind meeting again some night for a drink or dinner and some pleasant conversation in town if I wasn't committed. But I was suddenly overcome by a pang of homesickness and loneliness. For a brief moment I felt like I did the day I arrived in Williston. Like landing on an alien planet.
The bus approached the road leading to the entrance to the camp. From there I had to walk the rest of the way. I could see the lights of the drilling rigs in the distance, lighting up the prarie sky like Philadelphia at night.
As I got up I turned and smiled again to the woman.
“Really nice meeting you.” I said.
“You too.” she replied. “Take care.”
I got to the entrance to Camp Three, a two-story building of about fifty or so rooms that looked more or less like one of the motels in town. Outside on one of the benches I found my friend Russ, looking very soused. He had a scotch bottle in his hand. Having it in the camp was against company regulations. But Russ had a friend in security who paid him no mind as long as he didn't do anything really stupid. And I wasn't about to turn him in, either.
“Hey, Russ, my man.” I said. “What's up?”
“Hey, Dave. Care for a spell?”
He held up the bottle but I waved it off. Even though it was getting late, I liked Russ enough to spare him at least a few minutes. He helped me get used to this place when I first came here. He was from Oklahoma, working on rigs there and in the Texas p
anhandle before coming up here a year ago. The company made him a crew leader because of his experience. But he was more than that to me.
“What'cha got there?” he motioned toward the book under my arm. I handed it to him. He strained a little trying to read the cover in the fading light. “Treasure Island ?”
“I'm gonna read some of it to my kids tonight.” I said, taking the book back.
“You're a helluva dad.” he said, patting me on the shoulder. “I really mean that.”
Russ never had much of a dad growing up. From the countless stories he told me, his dad was a lowlife who wasn't around much to begin with. Like most fathers, I know because mine
4
was one, too. Which was why I vowed never to travel down his path.
I could tell something was wrong with Russ. He took another swig of his scotch and sighed. He looked out toward the lights of the interstate toward the west. I sat next to him, watching the headlights of the cars and trucks moving on it. It was hypnotizing.
“Doris is leavin' me.” he said.
My heart sank like a stone. I never met Doris, his longtime girlfriend. Russ used to talk so much about her and his eight-year-old daughter Phoebe back home. He told me how Phoebe was such a smart girl. She could play the piano almost like a concert pianist. He was saving to marry Doris and to send Phoebe to a performing arts school.
“She said she needed somebody near her.”
I knew exactly what Russ was going through. It was the sort of thing that often woke me up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. That empty feeling of failure that you get when you haven't really failed. When you feel like it's your fault but it really isn't.
“I tried so hard, man.” his voice quivered. He was in tears. “All I'm tryin' to do is be good to my girls.”
“Russ,” I began. I put my hand on his shoulder and rubbed it. “Someday things are gonna get better for all of us.”
Russ continued sobbing. His head was on my shoulder, and for a brief moment I worried a little about other guys seeing us.
“I know it.”
I gazed out again at the freeway on the prarie. Darkness was setting in.
I left Russ outside to sober up. Before I opened the front door to the building I turned and saw him behind one of the bushes, vomiting.
“Things are gonna get better,' I thought.
When I got to the cafeteria I got a ham and cheese sandwich, a beef noodle ramen soup and a black coffee and sat down at one of the tables, flipping through the pages of the book I bought. There was a flat screen TV on the back wall, perfect for ball games when the room gets crowded. On it was some cable news show talking about how people in Greece were taking to the streets protesting over money problems.
'Nice to know we're not alone.' I thought.
Over at a far table were three workers involved in a card game. Everyone plays cards here a lot in their time off. Gin, blackjack and Texas hold-em poker mostly. It passes the time. I've played sometimes but I''m always the first to admit that I suck. Even my kids kick my ass in gin rummy. I just don't have the luck. So I try not to get involved in any game involving money.
5
After I finished eating I took a shower and changed into my sweats. It was nearing ten p.m. and I was bone tired. I entered the computer room where small cubicles of desktop computers were set up for our use. They were the best. High speed internet on all of them.
It was usually crowded in there with guys checking their e-mails, surfing the net, chatting in chat rooms and on Facebook and Twitter, and talking through webcams to their wives and families. I logged into Audrey's e-mail address, clocked on the video cam, and in a moment or two I was looking at her on the screen. She was sitting at the desk in the study, looking as beautiful as always in spite of her blone hair pinned up loosely and tired wrinkles under her brown eyes from the events of the day.
She filled me in on the day's news. She took the car to Pep Boys and had new brakes put on, like I suggested two weeks ago when she said she'd heard squeaking whenever the car came to a stop. Stephen, our youngest, mentioned to Mommy “Squeaky car.” I gave him credit for reminding her because Audrey often forgets. Maya had lost a second tooth and promptly put it in an envelope under her pillow for the tooth fairy. And Corey, our oldest, scraped his knee trying to do a Superman impression by flying off the swing at mid-flight. 'Atta boy,' I thought.
I told her how my day was, picking up the book at the bookstore in town and the other usual stuff. It all felt almost as if I were back home again. Key word being almost.
I kissed my fingertips and touched the screen. “I love you.” I said.
Audrey did the same. “Love you, too.”
She brought the kids to the screen. They all were in their pajamas and smiling. Maya showed her almost toothless grin. Audrey held Stephen in her lap. I asked if they'd all been good and they all replied in unison “Yeah.”
I took out my book and showed them it was Treasure Island. I opened to the first chapter and began to read.
“Chapter One. The Old Sea Dog at the Admiral Denbow. . .”
6
The Watcher On The Hill
Man Camp Page 1