Big Dead Place

by Nicholas Johnson

  Dr. Karl Erb agreed that the new station construction should not eclipse scientific activity. “We have to convey the message that science is driving the construction effort and not vice versa.”

  On a trip to Cape Evans the next summer, one of our group’s nametags said “Peter West.” I knew from the press releases I collected from the garbage that he was the NSF Representative for Public Affairs, the primary media contact for NSF. When the press had asked questions about a rescue, he had answered them. In the year 2000 edition of Antarctic Press Clips published by NSF, he had written in the introduction that the South Pole doctor had been flown from Antarctica, “stirring the sympathies of millions around the world.” As we crossed the ice from an idling vehicle to Robert Scott’s hut, where the ship’s anchor from the Aurora expedition lies half-buried on the shore, I asked, “You must have been pretty busy during all that rescue hubbub, huh?”

  He grimaced and sharply swept the air with the back of his hand.

  “It was nothing,” he said.

  On Saturday, the day after the slushies at the Atmospheric Research Laboratory, Kath sent me to the Heavy Shop in the loader to pick up some triwalls of vermiculite. The Heavy Shop guys had staged the triwalls where I could reach them with the loader, and as I drove into the arch one of them came over to watch. Having never operated a tracked 953 before coming to Pole, I was still clumsy with the controls. One of the guys on the ground started giving me hand signals, as if I couldn’t see. After a few minor fuckups, I had the triwall on my forks and was backing out of the arch. He walked to the door of the machine and yelled something to me. I stopped and yelled “What?” over the noise of the machine. He looked at me in disgust, dismissed me with a wave of his hand, and turned away.

  Fuck that shit.

  I quickly set the machine in neutral, set the brake, and leaned out the door with my forearms resting on my thighs, relaxed. “Hey!” I yelled. He turned around. “Do you have something to say?” I yelled. He smiled and waved, shaking his head.

  Goddamn Polies.

  When I returned for the next triwall I got out to ask him a question, a gesture of mild deference. He answered my question with unnecessary detail then told me he had a present for me and picked up from the ice an oily sock that had been used as a rag and threw it at me with a smile. I caught it as it bounced off my chest, and thanked him and told him I would treasure it forever as I stuffed it in the pocket beneath his chin, then ran to the loader as the sock hit my back.

  Now we were good.

  Since it was Saturday night, Kath and I took off work a little early and went to join Quill and some of the other cargo crew in the DNF (Do Not Freeze) building. Part of Cargo’s responsibility is management of the DNF, a heated Quonset hut for cargo that would be damaged if stored outside. We drank beer and whisky in front of the Preway. An uncomplicated and reliable heat source, the Preway is pleasant to huddle around because it produces a flame and, with the door open, is more aesthetically enticing than a heat duct.

  Quill told us about the action at the end of the day when he came into DNF and found that the Preway had been removed from the building. FEMC had fulfilled an old work order to fix the DNF furnace and, upon fixing it, decided that the Preway was no longer necessary. FEMC moved the Preway outside without asking Cargo, who would ultimately be responsible if the DNF became too cold. Quill had been outraged when he found out they removed the Preway without asking, and promptly found a friendly UT to reinstall it. One of the FEMC foremen saw the UT reinstalling the Preway and walked away fuming, “It’s going to the next level.”

  We decided to make a movie dramatizing the Preway debacle, so I grabbed my video camera and, with an inflatable Dalmation as the star, we began shooting Preway vs. Evil, an utterly nonsensical and forgettable movie, except for the ending in which irrational forces snuff the flame.

  On Sunday morning I went to Kath’s room in the Hypertats by the runway and had coffee with her and Quill, then idled the day away in warm places watching movies and eating. Even though it was Sunday, Quill said the Preway incident was rumbling. FEMC hated Cargo for some long-forgotten discourtesy in years past, and it didn’t matter that no one knew why. Neither did it matter that the DNF was listed in the Emergency Plan as a muster location in case of catastrophe, precisely because the Preway was independent of the power plant. Quill explained to me that reinstalling the Preway had challenged FEMC’s authority, and FEMC presently ran Pole.

  It had not always been so, but ever since NSF had received approval for and was currently building a new station to replace the Dome, construction had dominated logistics, and the number of people in FEMC at Pole had grown, dwarfing every other department. Senior coordinators and foremen in FEMC began to flex muscle and regard anyone outside FEMC as a “bottom-feeder,” as one Polie put it. This political influence was visible in what is commonly known as the Power Table. The Power Table is next to the stairs that lead to the upper Galley, and is occupied by the senior ranks of Pole FEMC and their sex partners. One of the main players at the Power Table, a white-collar manager once seen in his Jamesway making blue-collar rips in his overalls with a utility knife, once had the plastic Christmas tree moved upstairs where no one could see it because it restricted movement to one of the seats at the Power Table. Several bottom-feeders have performed experiments by sitting at the Power Table to see what would happen. The bottom-feeder is not explicitly told to leave, but is actively ignored amidst general discomfort.

  Once in McMurdo, as a planeload of Polies bound for the runway boarded the big and loud Terra Bus and the smaller and quieter airport shuttle with tinted windows, five figures from the Power Table stood aside talking. Soon the more desirable airporter shuttle had filled, but there was still room for passengers on the Terra Bus. The Air Services Rep, who coordinates PAX movement, stepped onto the airporter and said that five people would have to move onto the Terra Bus. No one moved. The Air Services Rep pointed at five people and told them to move to the Terra Bus. After they got off, the five figures from the Power Table stepped on and took their seats. On the trip to town, some of the Polies hassled them for not standing in line like everyone else. “You’d better watch it if you want to keep your bonus,” one from the Power Table said.

  On Sunday Quill had decided to address the Preway matter in a preemptive late-night email to his department boss, in which he explained the various reasons for keeping the Preway installed and commented on the irrationality of the conflict over it: “That silly Preway has become a battle flag of goofy power-trip from a couple of different directions. Our use and reliance on the DNF Jamesway for day-to-day operations seems to dove-tail with another departmental fiefdom . . . Last I checked, our friends in Facilities had unhooked the outside connection and kinked the brass tubing from the fuel tank leading to the Preway, an obvious sabotage. Kindergarten games.”

  Monday morning Kath and I found the Preway dumped out in the snow, crushed to pieces by a loader.

  CHAPTER 4 NOTES

  1 “[Byrd] has one grand idea and ideal which puts more pep into me for the expedition, and… if my opinion of the commander had not yet reached the sky it surely got there today.”—from Paul Siple’s diary the evening he was inducted into the Loyal Legion

  2 Vostok is set to Moscow time, while American camps, including East Camp across the runway from Vostok, go by New Zealand time for logistical purposes.

  3 This expedition got little press. After spending 14 months at Norway’s Troll Base, they skied to Pole, arriving on December 20. Then, to the great consternation of local authorities, they continued on toward Ross Island. The Norwegian expeditioners had filled out all the right permits with their government, but some document had landed on the wrong desk, and all agencies concerned believed that the expeditioners would only ski to Pole. NSF sought answers from heads of the Norwegian Antarctic program, who replied, “They worked for us last season, and during the winter they did maintenance at Troll [Station], but once they left Troll they
were in no way part of our programme.” The Norwegian administrators washed their hands of the expeditioners, and NSF became agitated because a couple of punks were skiing the continent without authorization by any government. A Norwegian official told NSF that his organization didn’t know whether the expeditioners were “actually doing what they said they would do in their application. They already seemed to have made major deviations, including lack of communication!” NSF administrators cast a web of email involving Norwegian administration, the NSF Cruise Ship Coordinator, the Scott Base manager, and the publisher of an Antarctic tourism newsletter. Amidst the fog of speculation came the information that their path would take them over the Alex Heiberg Glacier and that they hoped to catch one of three tourist vessels. “Hope their insurance is good,” quipped a power player, considering that they would have to fly out if they didn’t catch one of the boats. They finally arrived at Scott Base, camped nearby, and washed some dishes in exchange for the facilities and food they used.

  4 “This is a nice little reminder that rumors are not tolerated in Antarctica. For RPSC employees, you should have gotten a nice lecture on this at orientation.”

  5 There are several housing options during the summer: Jamesways in Summer Camp, Hypertats by the runway, rooms in the Dome, rooms in the El Dorm, or rooms in the New Station.

  6 In McMurdo, “warm” is any temperature where people spend a few extra minutes talking to someone outside with whom they’ve crossed paths. Anything above zero is “tropical.” “Cold,” whether ambient or windchill, is where mere discomfort edges into pain, in which case at lunch a simple “Cold today” is allowed, to be met with grunts or murmurs. When the machines start getting flat tires and the hydraulics slow, the occasional “It’s fuckin’ cold out” is fine, as long as it’s not overdone.

  7 At Little America, the men would play poker games in which the losers were charged with duty of the “crystal palaces,” breaking up the frozen spires of shit that threatened to poke up through the outhouse seats by the end of each week.

  8 In this same tunnel I found on the wall a cupcake hanging from a string.

  9 On the shelf of board games in the upper Galley is “Denver Monopoly.”

  10 In 1997, an aquatic ecologist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory estimated that there were about 12,500 weather balloons scattered throughout Antarctica and the surrounding ocean. [Knoxville News-Sentinel, Sept. 8 1997, “Early warning from Oak Ridge: Downed weather balloons may pose threat to whales in the Antarctic”]

  11 The cover of an undated CD called Antarctica: The Last Wilderness by Med Goodall features four Adelie penguins in a snowy landscape. The artist bio reads: “Med Goodall is a successful artist who daily experiences nature’s forces in Cornwall, England. His music is softly melodious, pleasant and slightly mysterious.” Released in the Netherlands by Oreade Music, the “effectively relaxing” sounds of soft synthesizers, orchestral strings, and panpipes include the songs, “Ice Skating Penguin” and “Snow Kingdom Forever.” Back cover: “The first two tracks reflect the sheer scale of Antarctica’s untouched splendour. 3 gives a subtle change and is more haunting; the elements of the harsh environment. 4 has a shift and hints at a sadness that this is the Last Wilderness. 5 reflects the sense of struggle and hope for survival. The final 6 calms down and reflects back, coming full circle to a mood of positive hope.”

  12 Speaking of loopholes: “[That all time zones converge on Pole] could have been a handy implement for our four Catholic Station crewmen, since they could have walked around the Pole and skipped Fridays in this fashion. However, the Vatican had ruled that since the Friday food rules could not be observed at the Pole, the men could forego them, thus removing temptation.”—Paul Siple from 90 South

  13 Before 1996 the risky “humanitarian” flights brought mail and freshies (fruits and vegetables), and much appreciated cocaine to a guy at McMurdo who liked to climb onto the roof shirtless wearing his cowboy hat, and acid to someone who said tripping on a snowmobile at Pole in the winter was about as good as things get anywhere.

  14 “Every effort shall be made to manage the program in a manner that maximizes cost effectiveness and return on investment.”—Ronald Reagan, President’s Memorandum Regarding Antarctica, 1982

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE MOST PEACEFUL SPOT IN THIS WORLD

  Age by age, through gulfs of time at which imagination reels, life has been growing from a mere stirring in the intertidal slime towards freedom, power, and consciousness.

  —H.G. Wells, A Short History of the World

  Even during off-duty hours, events may occur that require swift, intelligent action.

  —USAP Participant Guide, 1998-2000 Edition

  BACK FROM POLE, I noticed in the shower that there were fewer shampoo bottles than usual. Within hours, by then comfortable in Hawaiian shirt and New Zealand wool booties, I learned that my suitemate had been fired while I was away. He was the manager of the Galley and had been in The Program for many years. When I was a DA he had gracefully dissolved petty spats over whose turn it was to do pot-room duty, and he went out of his way to get boondoggles for us.

  He had hit on a man at the bar. The man went to the Human Resources office and charged Lenny with sexual harassment. HR began an investigation. They called in people who had been at the bar that night and questioned them about the incident. No one saw or heard anything that constituted “out-of-place” or “inappropriate” behavior. HR told the victim that there wasn’t enough evidence to warrant a sexual harassment charge. The harassed victim threatened litigation. Then Lenny was put on suspension without pay. The next day he was told to pack for the next flight.

  NSF obliges the support contractor to subcontract portions of its operation, which it does by token gestures. Two managers in the Galley worked for Marriott, though the rest of the kitchen staff were RPSC personnel. Because Human Resources is a department of RPSC and Lenny worked for Marriott, he was not summoned during the investigation for his side of the story. HR’s investigation consisted of passing the testimony of one of its own employees to Lenny’s boss at Marriott, who fired him. The following season at the Raytheon orientation, someone in HR with a singsong voice would show videos about non-discrimination, tolerance, and diversity in the workplace. Thick-skinned women would remain the conventional recipients of ceaseless botched overtures at the McMurdo bars.

  Residents generally accept without question that a dispersed committee of career administrators arbitrates town moral standards. Workers tacitly concede that there are no truly private spaces, and that one’s personal affairs outside of work are to be regulated just as are one’s work duties. A South Pole station manager once said at an All-Hands Meeting, “I am the area manager. I am the manager for 700 miles in every direction.” He later told them, “Anyone who says anything bad about Raytheon is out of here.” As easily as he assigns a crew to a special project or calls for a rush inventory, such an authority may make a vast array of decisions on personal matters, from the decency of door decorations, to sexual preferences and conduct, to the number of guests one may entertain in one’s room at a time, to the type of language appropriate in conversation with those guests. It is uncomfortable for professional managers to exempt from control some sphere of life that might be made more efficient with a little tweaking. But governing such conduct is a headache of ceaseless maintenance, because inattentive employees continually violate NSF and company policies in their off-hours. So the work of Human Resources is never done. In the U.S., the realm of a low-level HR administrator might not extend beyond the walls of the office, but at a polar base the clerk finds himself with influence over an entire town. Because he is made of eyes and ears, a lull frequently follows the HR Person into a drunken party. Everything inappropriate is there in action. Throughout the night there will be confrontations, lechery, and displayed flesh. Any single person removed from the context of the party could be spotlighted and found in violation of a hundred written standards. “Watch out! HR�
��s here!” someone says, and everyone laughs. “I quit working at 5:30!” says the HR Person, and everyone laughs. Inappropriate behavior resumes after the brief chill. The discomfort subsides as the HR Person joins in the sexual banter and the intoxication.

  Human Resources is the primary interface between the employer, who praises loyalty, and the employees, a ceaseless stream of troublemakers asking about benefits. For the HR rep to humor this selfish current, to freely provide details to an employee about various mundane entitlements, would be to acknowledge that a business transaction is occurring. That each worker is in business, selling his labor to an employer, just as a defense contractor sells weapons to a government, is a repulsive thought. It is preferable to maintain that each of us is on the best side of a great and charitable enterprise, in which the employer and the employee are locked in a pledge of selfless loyalty. In a business transaction, on the other hand, it is best to avoid getting screwed. If, for example, a shipment of cluster bombs is to be delivered on Tuesday, the manufacturer of the munitions is likely, at some point, to inquire as to the date of payment for the weapons. If a senator from some backwater province insists that it is no business of the manufacturer when or how the payment is delivered, the alert weapons-maker is unlikely to agree. Likewise, if the neighborhood weapons dealer tells the senator that someone named Larry will be by on Tuesday in a blue Honda to drop off the lethal spiderbombs and asks if he may leave them at the door, then the senator is likely to consult his notes regarding the terms of delivery.