Light, Sweet, Crude

     [A short story for you today. This one is for all the men in overalls and hardhats. The ones with dirt under their fingernails. The guys who actually make things work. If they were ever to down tools and mean it, we prissy white-collar types wouldn’t survive a single winter. – FWP]

     I’m not a typical roughneck. I look the part—I’ve got the brawn, the bruises, and the broken fingernails—but the illusion dissolves the instant I open my mouth. I can’t help that. Working class origins and all, academia can do a number on you.
     Most of my colleagues on these rigs are high school graduates at best. Not that I think less of them for that. They’re competent, sturdy, and tough. If there’s one life lesson I’ve absorbed in its fullness, it’s Take what they have to give you, and ask for nothing more.
     These guys would give their lives for one another… and for me.
     Still, I get lonely, spending month after month here with no one to play chess with, or discuss physics or philosophy with. My breaks are precious to me; they allow me to go back east and immerse myself in what I’ve been missing. Yet I’m unsure that it’s a wise practice. The semiannual week I spend at McGill is time I could have spent bonding with the guys, learning from them, and figuring out how to be one of them. Not to mention that management gives me the stink-eye for demanding the travel vouchers I need, even though they’re part of my agreed-upon compensation.
     I was contemplating staying in Calgary for a change when Colin Atwood came by the dorm with a “request” that was really a command.
     “Mike?”
     I looked up from my Kindle. “What’s up, Colin?”
     “New hire. I need someone to walk her through the procedures, make sure she knows her stuff.”
     Her?
     “You committed to going back east next week?”
     I winced. “Actually, I hadn’t decided.”
     He grinned. “Two weeks at double time if you stay and keep her from getting herself killed.”
     “Well… okay.” I set my Kindle aside, stood, and stretched. “I can use the money. Where is she?”
     He looked back over his shoulder. “Janet!”
     And in she walked.
     I don’t think I could have been more surprised. She looked to be in her mid-twenties. She was a blue-eyed blonde, barely five feet tall. She couldn’t have weighed a hundred pounds. She was dressed to the nines: white linen skirt suit, high-heeled pumps, a couple of tasteful bits of gold, and perfect makeup. She looked ready for an interview with a white-collar firm, not for what we do. She was way too pretty and delicate to be a roughneck.
     She stood there smiling as if the total incongruity of her presence was a dismissible detail, a trifle.
     “Janet Kaczmarek,” Colin said, “this is Mike Pryor. Mike, Janet. Get to know each other.” He turned and made to leave. It took a lot of self control to keep my mouth shut until he’d closed the door behind him.
     She stuck out a hand. “Good to meet you.”
     We shook. “Likewise.”
     She must have sensed my puzzlement. “You really want to say ‘what the fuck are you doing here,’ right?”
     The profanity made me start. “Well, yes. Did you really apply for a gig as a roughneck?”
     “It seemed like a good opportunity. The money’s good, anyway.”
     I grimaced. “You might not think so after you’ve done some shopping in town.”
     She cocked an eyebrow. “They bleed you?”
     “They know how much we make, and besides, we’re a captive audience.”
     She sniffed. “Well, shit.”
     “Uh, yeah. I assume you’re new to oil rigs and such?”
     “New like a newborn… Mike, was it?”
     “Yeah. Well,” I said, “it’s hard, dangerous work. Pardon my saying so, but you look like you belong in a… more refined environment.”
     She shook her head. “Not with the mouth I got.”
     “Oh.”
     “That gonna be a problem around here?”
     That made me chuckle. “Janet,” I said, “that way at least, you’ll fit in better than I do. Would you like to get some dinner, meet some of the guys? The cafeteria’s actually decent.”
     She straightened, made an exaggerated turn, and stuck out an arm. “Lead the way.”
     So I did.

     Janet knew her stuff, all right.
     Yes, she was short. But she was tough and strong. Yes, she needed a little help wrestling with some of the big assemblies and high-torque fittings. I helped her out a few times. Okay, more than a few, but then, Colin did ask me to be her rig-rabbi. But she was game for anything and everything. Sweat and dirt didn’t faze her in the least. And the guys loved her, especially after she demonstrated that she could and would banter, josh, and swear with the best of them.
     She had qualifications for roughnecking that I lacked.
     After I was sure she had the know-how and the skills she would need, I hung back. She charged ahead in ways I hadn’t as a new hand. Before her first week was over, she was “one of the boys” in all but sex.
     More so than I was, honestly. They didn’t shun me, mind you. They just treated me a little differently than they treated one another. As if I were someone from the corporate office whose presence was unexplained. Someone who couldn’t be trusted all the way. Someone to be kept at arm’s length.
     I envied her, a little. But I didn’t let that interfere with her as she bonded with the guys. Once it was clear that she needed nothing from me, I resolved to keep my distance.
     There was one episode in the cafeteria that was noteworthy. I’d finished my lunch and was checking some commodities brokerage sites through my Kindle. Janet and the other guys were bantering back and forth, all of them more comfortable with her than they’d ever been with me. There was enough profanity in the mix to make any Navy man feel right at home. At one point she stopped, turned to me, and said “Whatcha readin’, Mike?”
     I looked up. “Futures trading website. Call contracts for the third quarter.”
     “Huh?”
     “You know, bets on whether the prices of stuff will go up or down. Stuff like what we produce.”
     “Oh.” She squinted at me. “Oil seems to have a pretty good future.”
     “It better,” Al Dumont interjected, “or we’ll be out of work.”
     “Be out of work anyway,” Chaz Engram said, “if the new field don’t turn out.”
     “Yeah.” I peered at the quote for light sweet crude. “But if it does, the bonuses are going to be very substantial.”
     Dumont snorted. “Get him. ‘Very substantial.’ Couldn’t get him to say ‘fucking huge’ if you put a gun to his head.”
     “Come on, Al,” I droned, “leave off with that crap.”
     “Oh, crap!” Dumont said. “You’re ridin’ the edge now, Mike. What’ll it take to get you to say shit?”
     I shrugged. “Maybe if I get my hand caught in a gear. Anyway, light sweet crude is at a fifty-two-week high. Whatever we pull out of this field will sell fast.”
     “Good to know,” Engram said. “I like having my bills paid.”
     “What’s light sweet crude?” Janet said.
     I looked up. She was looking directly at me.
     I started to explain the various grades of oil, but the sight of the other guys rolling their eyes at my exposition made me shut down in mid-sentence. “Anyway,” I said, “it’s what we get from this field.”
     “Gotcha,” Janet said. “Light sweet crude. I like it.”
     “Hm?”
     She stood up and pushed her chair against the table. “Give me a good look, Mike,” she said. “I’m light, right? And I know I’m crude. Sounds like this gig was made for me.”
     “Well…” I hesitated. “What about sweet?”
     She shrugged. “Like the man said in the song, two out of three ain’t bad.”

     You don’t exactly see the process by which a new hand melds with the bunch. But if you watch with attention, the peripherals are pretty obvious. The morning welcomes. The invitations to the card games. The ribbings, the ripostes, and the tone they take. I could go on.
     Janet fitted in with the guys like a perfect puzzle piece. Most ways, anyway.
     There isn’t much serious conversation. What would a bunch of roughnecks have to talk about, anyway? While we’re here, the rest of the world ceases to matter. On breaks, the rigs are the furthest things from our minds. When we come back from a break, the one and only question anyone asks is “d’ja get laid?” Ours is a social camaraderie expressed almost exclusively in expletives and grunts.
     But Janet liked to talk. And the person she picked to talk to was me.
     Not while we were at work, mind you. That wouldn’t have gone over at all. It’s way too dangerous to have your attention split when you’re wrestling with a rig. Either they get your full attention, or pretty soon you’re wearing a sheet and a toe tag. No, she looked me up during our off-times. Usually after dinner, when most of the crew is playing cards or watching TV. And damn if she didn’t pretty herself up to do it.
     After I got over the surprise, I strove to reciprocate. Conversationally, that is. I didn’t have any nice clothing in the dorm; my suits and ties were all far away. But her obvious interest in me was as flattering as it was puzzling.
     The subjects of her chatter were a good distance from anything that had ever mattered to me. Fashion. Soap operas. Pop music. Prominent entertainers. I listened and responded as best I could. Mostly I listened. If she could tell that those things were alien to me, she never let on.
     She needed to talk. That was obvious. And she charmed me, potty mouth and all, with her attentions.
     There came a time when, dolled up as usual for her visits and talking a blue streak about some TV show, she stopped in mid-sentence and said, “You’re not into any of this shit, are you?”
     It set me back. I decided on candor.
     “Well, no. Not really.”
     Her expression shifted to something like resignation.
     “Okay, I’ll stop. Nice talking to you.”
     She rose and started toward the door. I practically shouted “Wait!”
     “Hm?”
     I was off my bunk and had my arms around her before I knew what I was doing.
     “Janet, I…” I shook my head, then did it again. I strove to marshal a few words.
     “I don’t know anything about your—your interests, no,” I said, “but I’m flattered all the same. I love having you come to chat with me. It’s… it’s too complimentary for words. Please don’t go!”
     She looked up at me, unspeaking, for what seemed an hour. Then she nodded.
     “Okay. But one thing.”
     “What?”
     She freed herself from my embrace, went to my door, closed and locked it, and returned to me.
     “Enough with the bullshit preliminaries. Let’s get to the main event.
     And her fingers found my belt buckle and unlatched it.

     That evening I learned more about Janet than I’d expected. For one thing, she wasn’t on the Pill.
     “Makes me feel like a bloated sack of shit,” she said.
     “Ah, okay. Should I head into town, pick up some condoms?”
     She nodded. “Gonna have to, if you want to do anything more than what we just did.”
     “Tomorrow, then.”
     She grinned. “Good. I was starting to think you weren’t into this shit, either.”
     I cringed. “Ah, no, I am ‘into this shit.’ Most definitely.”
     That goosed a laugh out of her. “You’re starting to sound like me.”
     I hugged her. “Just quoting you, dear.”
     “You know,” she said out of the blue, “you could fuck me in the ass if you want. I wouldn’t mind.”
     I couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so I just hugged her again.
     After a few moments’ silence, she said “So what happens next?”
     I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
     “You mean tonight?”
     “Yeah. I wasn’t thinking about running into town and getting hitched.”
     “Well,” I said, “we get a night’s sleep. You can do that here or at your place. Might be better at your place.”
     “Hm? Why?”
     “Because,” I said, “there’s gonna be talk. Even from just these visits. And if we start spending our nights in the same bed, it’s gonna get worse.”
     She peered at me. “You’re worried about a little gossip?”
     “Janet,” I said, “you’re the only woman on the rigs. That’s already cause for talk. I’ve heard some of it, and it’s been pretty rough. It got rougher when you started coming to my bunk. Now you’ve picked a lover. The others will notice. They don’t miss much. And when they do, it’ll get a lot worse. I guarantee it.”
     “I don’t mind being talked about,” she said.
     I didn’t reply.
     “Anyway,” she said, “this is our private business, isn’t it? We have a God-damned right to do as we please in our off-time, don’t we?”
     What could I say to that? “Yeah.”
     She snorted. “Then let ‘em talk. You wanna know what else they talk about?”
     The intonation got my attention. “What else?”
     She grinned. “You.”
     “Well, yeah,” I said. “I’m the crew oddball. The guy who doesn’t drink, or play cards, or watch TV. The intellectual who thinks about something other than booze and sex. And oil, of course.”
     She shook her head. “Not even close, Mike.”
     “Well, what then?”
     “You’re their idol.”
     My mouth dropped open. “What?”
     “You’re the go-to guy. The God-damned number one rigger on this field. Yeah, they tease you about the way you talk, but if they had to choose an indispensable man, it would be you. Whenever one of them doesn’t know what to do, or doesn’t think he’s up to it, he comes to you. You’re bigger, smarter, stronger, and tougher than they are, but you don’t swagger. You don’t strut like you think you’re king shit. You help out, and you never say anything about it. They love you.”
     I was speechless. But it was her addendum that floored me completely.
     “And so do I.”
     She got up, dressed herself, and made her exit.

     Yes, it was noticed. Yes, there was more talk. But that’s all there was, and it was a lot more respectful than I could have expected.
     The guys treated it as what they expected. A pretty-much anticipated development. And while we got a little more ribbing, I couldn’t detect any envy or resentment in it. Janet, God bless her, let it roll off her back.
     Management was a different story. After we’d been together for a couple of weeks, we got a company-wide bulletin. There was an all-hands meeting coming up. A mandatory training meeting. On Saturday, our off-time, when the field gets a skeleton crew whose only duty is to sound an alarm if one of the rigs ruptures or runs wild.
     About sexual harassment.
     I wasn’t the only one taken aback. The guys were uniformly gobsmacked. The prevailing comment on the announcement was “Can you believe this shit?” Unfortunately, I could. It was all too clear that Janet and I were the reason.
     Yeah, the guys knew it, too. But they didn’t say a word about it.
     I blew a lunch period to look up Colin and ask about it. He had nothing to say except “It’ll be in the cafeteria. You’ve got to be there. I do too.”
     So I was. We all were. Janet and I walked in hand in hand. I seated myself, and she sat in my lap. With her arms around me and her head on my shoulder. We figured we might as well be open about it, seeing as to how we were the reason for it.
     The “trainer” was, of course, a woman in a pantsuit. A podium and lectern had been erected for her. She strode onto it and stood before the podium, drawing herself up as if she were the prime minister. Her eyes went directly to Janet and me. She glared at us in a fashion designed to intimidate, to assert dominance.
     Janet wasn’t having it. She hopped off my lap, stood next to me, and returned glare for glare.
     It visibly shook the trainer. I saw her flinch, as plain as daylight. She resettled herself, and started her pitch.
     Janet wasn’t having any of that, either.
     “Stop right there,” she said. “This is bullshit. You know it, and so do we.”
     Outrage blossomed on the trainer’s features. She said “Do you have something relevant to say, Miss?”
     “You’re God-damned right I do,” Janet said. “This is because Mike and I are lovers, isn’t it? After all, I’m the only girl on the rigs! And before you rev up again, nobody’s said one fucking word about it. These guys are fucking princes. They’re all gonna be at the wedding.” She swept the cafeteria with a grin. “Open bar, boys.”
     Yes, that was the first I heard about her long-term plans. No, I wasn’t unhappy about it, not at all. Still, it did come as a surprise.
     That silenced the trainer. But the guys were something else. To a man, they stood and applauded. And applauded. And applauded some more. Every face in that crowd of two hundred plus roughnecks was split by a huge smile.
     It went on for a long time. Janet and I just stood there, stunned.
     The trainer fled.

     Colin was slightly miffed. Not because he disapproved of what Janet had done. Not at all. It was because, alone of all the men who worked on that field, he’d had no idea about Janet and me. But he did agree to come to the wedding. Open bar, remember?
     And today, on our silver anniversary, we’re surrounded by the men we’ve worked with since then. Princes, all. They threw us a huge surprise party. A lot of them go all the way back to the days when Janet was new to the rigs. She doesn’t roughneck anymore. I stayed at it, though. Why not, after all? I already had the brawn, the bruises, and the broken fingernails. So what if I can’t play chess or talk physics or philosophy with the guys? We talk about other stuff. Politics, football, hockey. Booze, sex, the rigs. The price of light sweet crude. You know, the sort of thing that interests roughnecks. So what if we swear a lot?
     Besides, the money’s really good.

Copyright © 2024 Francis W. Porretto. All rights reserved worldwide.