Houston, 2030

by Mike McKay

  Mark mentioned Jasmine also wiggling her toes in the mud, with a question written on her face. She probably wondered what the entire conversation was about. A typical Garret Road Slum girl, more than likely, she had no shoes since her family moved to Houston from inhospitable New York eleven or twelve years ago. She simply did not remember how it felt to be shod, and for her having ‘so-o-o soft’ or ‘so-o-o warm’ mud between her toes was an every-day experience. Not unpleasant, and not enjoyable. Just normal.

  “I am telling you, Samantha. I don't mind if you go to school without shoes, but you can't work barefoot at the 'Fill.”

  “Why not, Dad?”

  “What if you step on something nasty and cut your foot?”

  “But why should I step on something nasty first place? I am not a sissy, like Mickey and Billy. I've been going with no sandals for ages and ages!”

  Frederick was listening to their fight with a smile. He himself had cheap tire sandals on, but not the heavy chemical rubber boots, as one might expect at a mad scientist lab. “Mark, give Sammy a break. If she is comfy without the boots, it's perfectly fine. We don't leave broken glass lying around. Look, everybody works like this, and the Moon doesn't fall to the Earth. What's the problem?” He pointed at the group of workers across the yard, which were sorting and shredding the plastic scrap in front of the first from the left reactor. No chemical boots were in sight. Or any other footwear, as the matter of fact. Only one young man, at the top of scaffolding, had flip-flops on. “Sammy, could you move the canisters to the storage, please? Then, go do your calculations. And you, Jasmine, may go look around. But categorically, don't touch anything, OK?”

  “But… Fred, this is a chemical plant!”

  “A chemical plant, so what?”

  “You must know better than me! Back before the Meltdown, there were these occupational safety regulations… What, is it all gone now?”

  “We have perfect occupational safety here, Mark. Take the ‘snorkels.’ They allow us to have clean air while draining and loading the bombs. And after the bomb is sealed, nothing leaks out, and the ‘snorkels’ are not needed. This is called ‘engineering control.’ Meaning that we understand the hazard very well and address it – technically. As the engineers supposed to do. As for the safety regulations, not safety, mind you, but the ‘regulations’ part, they are all crap!”

  “Why so?”

  “Because the regulations are what they are. The regulations. Procedural controls. It means you have to do it right, or else! Before, our plant had a lot of these ‘no second chance’ procedures, but now only one left. All the rest were ‘engineered out’ – we made them either fool-proof safe or semi-automatic, by the engineering controls. Arne kept scratching his head how to automate this last one, so no human would be required, but so far, no luck. It is tricky.”

  “But what about the personal protective equipment? I remember, before the Meltdown, there was such a strict thing. Everybody had to wear the right PPE at all times. Not only in the industry. The Police and the FBI had the same rules too.”

  “Oh, the bloody PPE at all times! I was fed with it in the 'Burton – up to here!” Frederick pointed to his neck. “I put it this way. The engineering controls – are for the people, who are both hard-working and smart. I mean: you got to use your brain to invent the safe way, and then apply your hands to build the machine. And then – you can relax a bit. And collect the cash. The procedural controls are for those, who are hard-working, but not smart enough. Do as you told, do it right, and keep your fingers crossed. And the PPE, the personal protective equipment, at all time – it is for those, who are either lazy or stupid. Or both! If you are not smart enough to figure out how to pass your dangerous work to a machine, and if you are not hard-working enough to do the dangerous work by the book – what's left? Well, you can wrap yourself in all kinds of Nomex coveralls, and goggles, and a hard-hat, and crash-proof gloves. They help. A little. Instead of the ninety percent fourth-degree burn, you are in for the eighty-five percent fourth-degree burn. Any better?”

  “You are basically telling me the PPE is not needed at your plant? Everything is so safe?”

  “I didn't tell you the PPE was not needed! It is just not needed most of the time. That only operation I mentioned earlier: pouring in the neutralizer! It does require the rubber boots, and by the way, also the rubber gloves, a full face shield, a leather apron, and a pair of manly balls in your pants. This is a nasty stuff, I can tell you that much. Concentrated sulfuric acid. Will eat you through, right to the bone – in seconds. But most importantly, you got to do it just right. Not too slow, and not too fast. And keep watching the indicators. Or the bomb might split and leak the guts out. Or it regurgitates with a molten plastic. If so happens, no rubber boots will save your feet! And no apron will save the rest, huh! I always do it personally. In nearly four years this little plant had been in operation, I have never trusted it to anyone, even Mike and Arne. Despite they kept asking if they could try. I told them: you guys, have the balls to do it, but not enough gray hair of the experience. Mind you, this neutralizer pouring is a two-minute deal, three times a day. But if I walk in the rubber boots, and the apron, and the gloves – all day long, I will look like an idiot! And soon become one!”

  “About the idiot part, Fred, you are surely exaggerating.”

  “Nope. The Common Sense, man. The COMMON SENSE. All letters capital! Back in my oilfield days, they would demand everybody went around in Nomex coveralls, boots, gloves, hard-hats and goggles. Everywhere, and at all time! At all bloody time! They catch you in the lab without the goggles, and you are fired! OK, the true purpose was to prevent lawsuits. From the injured employees. The proven fact was the PPE did not decrease the number of accidents! You want to know why? If you wear the PPE at all time, and not only if needed for the job in-hand, the COMMON SENSE goes out of the window. The people start believing somebody else has to do all the thinking for them: a manager, a safety officer, a CEO, whoever, but not you personally. Then, the management comes around, and starts a new campaign, something like: ‘Safety is your responsibility.’ But the brains are already twisted and wasted. The employees politely nod: ‘As you say, sir.’ No mutual trust, whatsoever. The manager is a cheap buffoon. And the safety officer is a cheap buffoon. And the employees are all buffoons. And instead of a working business, they have a dysfunctional circus – in goggles, metal-nose boots and Nomex coveralls! From this angle, the Meltdown wasn't necessary a bad thing. At least, the people re-learned how to think for themselves, and not blame the management for their own stupidity…”

  “Hey, but what about all these accidents at the 'Fill, Fred? Today, there was one: three dead. Rodrigo, the Beat Sergeant, told me…”

  “Yeah, the ‘Mech Scav.’ The anchor tore few people apart. We told them right away: the design was not safe! You can't trust a human operator to throw the rope on the pulley exactly right, time after time, every time. Procedural controls! I pour the neutralizer three times a day. So I can mentally prepare. Concentrate. Forget everything else. And do it right. But the ‘Mech Scav’ operator throws the knot every six or seven minutes – all day long. Can he concentrate one hundred percent? You see, the problem is: on the 'Fill, there are many scavengers, I mean, the older generation, who are the former managers, and safety officers, and other such marketologists and merchandizes. The former cheap buffoons, with their permanently twisted brains. OK, they got a bit smarter since the Meltdown, but… Do you see that here, at my plant, I employ only the youngsters? The ones with the normal, not twisted brains! But in any case, this ‘Mech Scav’ accident has nothing to do with wearing or not wearing the personal protective equipment at all time. If a three hundred pound anchor is coming at you with two thousand pound pull, no coverall can save your guts. Make your coverall from carbon steel, and walk like a medieval knight! It will not help a bit.”

  While they were discussing the occupational safety, Samantha and Jasmine moved the last jerrycan into the storage
cage. Then, Samantha came to the cluttered workbench under the shed and picked the stained, dog-eared notebook she inherited from Mike along with his trike and the rubber boots. She flipped the notebook to the elastic band and started the computations. Jasmine was also at the bench, trying on the protection goggles and the nose clip, and once in a while looking from behind Samantha's shoulder into the notebook. Mark observed that the number-crunching was not easy. From time to time, Samantha stopped, bit the end of the pencil and banged her mud-stained toes lightly on the concrete floor. Finally, the math was completed, and the girl came over to show the page to Frederick.

  “One hundred and twenty-two pounds. Sounds about right. This batch is not as good as the previous one,” the chemical engineer nodded in confirmation, “but if I were you, Sammy, I would add four pounds, just to be sure. Remember: the engineers always wear both the belt and the suspenders! The safety factor, as I told you yesterday, OK? I see, Denny is nearly done with the scrap loading. Please go and ask him to give you a hand with the weighting. Should not take too long. After that, the workers can do the coffee-break. And please, please, if they want a smoke, they should do it on the other side of the gate. We do not want any open fire in here!”

  “OK, Mister Stolz,” Samantha answered, and busily turned to go. She obviously wanted to prevent Mark's attempt to stick her into the rubber boots. The dirt was so wonderfully soft today, it would be a shame to walk shod through the rest of the afternoon!

  “Samantha,” Mark called. Perhaps, the neighbor was right, and I should give her a break, he decided. This plant was not any more dangerous than some back yards in their neighborhood. Especially those back yards, which used the ‘perfectly harmless’ sewer fertilizer. If Frederick believed it was OK to work here without boots, it definitely was so. The engineer had never lost the capability to think for himself, even during the idiotic pre-Meltdown years.

  “What, Dad?”

  “Your rubber boots…”

  “But Dad!”

  “I am just saying, it's OK. You have my, strictly unofficial, permission to work without the boots at this plant only. But as far as telling to our Mom, this conversation had never happened. Understood?”

  Samantha shined a megawatt smile, and answered as Mark once taught her: “I don't recall, sir. What conversation are you talking about?”

  “Oh, I see the FBI influence,” Frederick laughed.

  “One more thing, Samantha,” Mark continued. “This permission is for the plant only! This yard, understand? If you have to go outside, especially to some other shop or to the landfill itself, please, please, have your boots on. Promise?”

  “Promise, Dad! Definitely! Absolutely!” She obviously had no intention doing so, but what would Mark do about it?

  Frederick started explaining something about the technological process: how the scraps were shredded, loaded into a bomb, and cooked with alkaline, with the steam pumped through at such and such pressure, then the pH would be reversed with the neutralizer, and so on. He even attempted to draw some formulas for Mark, but Mark was not listening. Instead, he was watching how Samantha walked through the yard. She told something to the workers at the base of the first reactor, then confidently put her bare foot over the rusted scaffolding pipe and started a conversation with the young man in flip-flops who was standing on the top of the scaffolding above the bomb's open loading hatch, with a ‘snorkel’ in his mouth.

  Righty-right, Mark thought. Another domestic Civil War battle was brewing.

  Chapter 18

  How this battle would be called, Mark contemplated. Perhaps, the right name would be: ‘Oh Mom, I Want To Work At The 'Fill.’ The today's story with the rubber boots was a mere scouts' skirmish in the woods. An initial morning bayonet assault of the ‘Union’ was repelled by the ‘Confederates’ by the early afternoon. The ‘Confederates’ commander, with her anti-sissy bare feet, would be triumphantly stomping ‘oh, so-o-o soft’ mud till the very evening. The ‘Union’ scouts under Mark's command declared defeat and decided to pull back, regroup, and write to their HQ that nothing had happened. The main battle was still ahead.

  Before the Meltdown, like the Santa with his two lists of ‘nice’ and ‘naughty,’ Mary had the lists of ‘appropriate’ and ‘not appropriate.’ If you wanted to go out, the clothes must be ‘appropriate’: nearly-new and perfectly clean. A freshly washed and pressed T-shirt, but with a little irremovable stain, or with a tiny tear, was ‘nice’ for home, but ‘naughty’ otherwise, even for a gym. And if the stain was slightly larger than the ‘appropriate’ size for the home use, the T-shirt had to go. Around the shopping malls, there were these donation drop-off containers. Clothes for the ‘underprivileged.’ Or one dropped the unwanted items in front of a Salvation Army Thrift Store. The middle-class repaired only the expensive items: fur coats and such. Even the black FBI suites were considered expendables, not worth mending. After six or seven dry cleaning cycles, the poor thing became ‘not appropriate’ and would end up its glorious career in the donation box. And so on. Strolling barefoot on the beach was ‘nice.’ Doing the same at the shopping mall would not quite put you on the ‘naughty’ list, but would not win you the ‘nice’ either. Colorful rubber flip-flops were perfect for a shopping mall, but ‘not appropriate’ for a restaurant dinner. A walk on the grass in the park, or a playground time, – ultimately called for a pair of Nikes. Even for visiting the water parks two times per year, they had the special ‘wet shoes.’ As anything else before the Meltdown, it was a bit overboard. Excessive and wasteful.

  With the ‘appropriate’ and ‘not appropriate’ lists, there was the insurmountable problem of choice. Before the Meltdown, Mark had nearly fifty shirts, forty or so neckties and ten belts. Plus the suspenders and ten pairs of shoes! Never could match them all together! Each time he selected a shirt and a necktie, Mary would say: “Mark, darling, don't you see they don't match?” Mark would quietly agree and pull another tie, just to discover that this particular tie did not match Mary's tonight's dress. Mary herself had fifty pairs of evening shoes; some of them had designation for a particular dress, and thus she pulled them out of the box once every two years.

  After the Meltdown, the border between the ‘appropriate’ and ‘not appropriate’ had been shattered. Some neighbors suddenly remembered they had sewing machines. The evening dresses were converted into the every-day ones. Then, the other bits and pieces of fabric: the curtains, the table-cloths, and so on, had been converted to clothing. Admittedly, the ladies were getting progressively better with the sewing machines, and after just ten years after the crisis, the garage production was not any worse than the Chinese and Bangladeshi imports of the pre-Meltdown era. During the toughest years right after the Meltdown, Mary's fancy evening shoes, one pair after another, went to the flea market. Back then, a pair of the designer pre-Meltdown shoes were bartered for a used military T-shirt, or few pounds of pork. Better than nothing. But the ‘appropriate’ and ‘not appropriate’ lists were still there! To go out, their kids had to change this ‘not appropriate’ second-hand ex-military T-shirt with the larger holes, to that ‘appropriate’ second-hand ex-military T-shirt, the one with the smaller holes and a couple of patches. Mark was still struggling to grasp the logic Mary applied those T-shirt holes! Apparently, the hole size had some significance, but one also should consider the hole position relative to the belly button, and if the hole was round or elongated.

  Mary accepted perfectly well that the slum kids had to go in progressively worse clothes and more often than not – without shoes. Perhaps, their poor parents could not afford even the military second-hand. Even if they could, a set of clothes was intended to pass from one child to another, and serve for five or six full years. However, once a year she went to the school Parents' Association meeting and voted for the ‘appropriate’ uniform: exclusive of unapproved holes and inclusive of mandatory tire sandals. Last year, her ‘appropriate uniform’ party was outvoted seven to eighty-nine.

 
While their kids were young, the situation was simple. They were doing something because they were told so by Mom and Dad. Then, about four years ago, the open rebellion came suddenly. Mark often called it ‘our domestic version of the Civil War.’