Roughneck (13 page)

       I flung open the door to the grates and began raking at them furiously. I slammed it shut again, and snatched frantically at the wood pile. I hurled in wood by the armloads—jammed it in until it was hanging out of the firebox. I turned the blower on full blast, opened the water-injector valve to its widest. And ran.

       I reached the safety of the bushes, and dropped down breathless on the ground.

       Shorty hit the steam.

       He jolted the pipe a few times, slackening then suddenly tautening the lines. Then he braced his feet against a post, pulled the long lever out as far as it would go, and held it there.

       The guy wires hummed. They began to howl with the strain. There was a vast creaking of timber, and the gears shrieked and groaned and screamed. Louder and louder grew the tumult; and then gradually it dimmed. We had lost our head of steam.

       And the pipe had not moved an inch.

       I fired up three times that day, lingering a little longer each time before running. It was no good. Maybe, by all the laws of physics, the pipe 'should' move, but apparently it was not law-abiding pipe.

       I told Shorty that we were throwing good time after bad. He implied, rather sourly, that I was at fault.

       "I just ain't gettin' the steam, Jim. You give me 'enough' steam and that pipe'll pull all right."

       "What the hell do you call enough?" I sputtered. "How can I give you any more?"

       "Well, I got a little idee about that. I'll think it over tonight—kind of work it out in my head—and we'll give it a try in the morning."

       He arose ahead of Jiggs and me in the morning, and when we yawned out into the chilly dawn his invention was ready. It was a stoker, rigged from odds and ends of pipe and a length of sheet iron. Amidst an uncomfortable silence, he demonstrated its operation. He looked at me, and abruptly let go the contraption.

       "All right, Jim, forget it. We'll just pack up an' get, and to hell with the damned pipe."

       "No, we'll try it," I said. "If we don't get that casing, it won't be my fault."

       "You're sure you want to? You know what you'll have to do?"

       "I'm dying to do it," I said, not too pleasantly. "And that's probably exactly what I will do."

       We had breakfast. Shorty and Jiggs retired to the derrick, and I fired up again.

       The steam rose. I cut in the blower, and began to fire more rapidly. The pressure gauge rose to a hundred and twenty-five pounds; the needle swung around to the zero pin. I flung open the grate doors, began to rake ashes with one hand and feed the firebox with the other.

       At last the ashes were all removed, while, at the same time, wood bulged from the firebox. I swung the stoker up to the door, and loaded it out to the end.

       It was a cold day—bitter with that gnawing, seeping-in cold peculiar to the southern low country. Yet despite this, and the fact that I was stripped to the waist, I was sopping with sweat. It ran down over my body in rivers, and my feet seemed to float in my shoes...out of fear, partly, I suppose. But equally, at least, because of the heat. If I had not been sweating so much, I think I should have literally caught fire.

       The boiler plates began to flow with an ugly, warning pink. The pink became a dull cherry-red, and then, slowly, a bright scarlet. Threads of steam curled up ominously from the rivets.

       God only knows how much pressure was straining beneath those plates. But the steam had to hold, and already the stoker was practically empty. The intense blaze was gulping down wood as though it were so much paper.

       I fed and raked ashes, blind with exhaustion and sweat, numb with fear. The boiler began to quiver and shimmy, but I kept on. And at last I had what Shorty wanted. The grates were clean, the firebox full, the stoker loaded. All at the same time. There was as much steam as could be got, and the steam would hold.

       I stumbled back from the glowing, shaking monster. I tottered up the hill and fell down among the bushes, fighting to get my breath.

       Down in the derrick, Shorty grasped the long lever to the casing reels.

       It was hot—even 'that' was hot. He yelled and did a little dance of pain. Then, he grabbed hold again with a piece of sacking, and pulled it all the way out. And Jiggs jammed it there with a crowbar. They stood back, then, Jiggs looking up into the tower—alert for any breakage—Shorty with his eyes on the pipe.

       The by-now familiar and threatening clamor began, but a dozen times louder than it had been on any of our previous attempts. The guys sang; there was an insane howling of tortured wood and metal. It grew to an unbearable pitch, until it seemed to pierce down through your flesh and bones and into your vitals. And, then, suddenly, it was almost quiet.

       Every tiny cell and molecule of the equipment had been stretched and squeezed to its limits. There was no longer any give in them, no room for friction nor clashing, and hence it was silent. The only noise was the hissing of steam.

       Around me the earth began to tremble, the bushes to weave and sway. Fascinated, I waited and watched. I had heard about this all my life and now I was seeing it; the legendary meeting of the irresistible force and the immovable object.

       A shout from Shorty snapped me out of my reverie. I got up and trotted down the hill.

       "It's coming, Jim! The pipe's moving! You gotta give me some more steam!"

       "You're crazy!" I stammered. "I wouldn't go near that boiler now for all the—"

       "Get movin'! Just a little bit more, Jim, an'—'oof!"'

       Jiggs had dived into him like a football tackle, knocking him off the derrick floor. He had come off of it at a run, and now still running he propelled us ahead of him.

       "Run, damn you, run! The pipe—it's—"

       "Damn you, Jiggs!" Shorty tried to jerk away from him. "That pipe's just startin' to move an' if Jim would—"

       "Sure, it's moving! It's stretching!"

       "Stretch? Why, goddammit, it couldn't—'Yeeow!"' yelled Shorty. And he led the race for the bushes. For, fantastic as it seemed, the pipe 'was' stretching.

       And suddenly it snapped.

       It soared up out of the hole, some forty feet of "indestructible" twenty-four inch casing. Like a giant lance, it rose up through the tower of the derrick, smashing through the crown block, batting the heavy gear and pulleys high into the air. And then, snared by the attached lines, it whipped sideways and plunged earthward again.

       It came down on the rig, splintering braces and cross-braces, leaving the derrick a wobbling ruin. It landed thunderously amidst the machinery...and, for all practical purposes, that machinery ceased to be. Steam spouted from the maze of broken lines—rose mercifully over the ruin. When it cleared away, we trudged back down the hill.

       There was nothing to salvage. The rig was utterly and completely beyond repair. At any rate, we were ready to admit that the pipe could not be pulled.

       We could not trust ourselves to speak. Case-hardened wretches that we were, we were that near to weeping. Our farmer friend took the disappointment much more philosophically.

       "Didn't lose nothin'," he pointed out, as he fed us a farewell banquet of jackrabbit stew. "Didn't have nothin' to begin with."

I received several small manuscript checks in a row that summer, and Mom fell heir to a modest sum. She and Freddie came down to Oklahoma City, bringing my wife and baby with them, and we continued on together to Fort Worth, Texas. Pop had got a job of sorts there. I got one, shortly after my arrival, as a hotel doorman. It was easily the lousiest job I have ever had.

       I worked a seven-day, eighty-four-hour week. My salary was fourteen dollars per, less certain arbitrary deductions by my employer which usually totaled two or more dollars. Even with the low prices prevailing in those days, it was a starvation wage for a man with a wife and child.

       I was not allowed to sit down during the shift, nor did I have any relief period. I 'could' go to eat or to the toilet if I chose to. But if the motoring guest checked out during my absence, his garage charges were on me. After paying one gentlemen's nine-dollar bill out of my twelve-dollar wage, I chose to stick to my post.

       The omission of a lunch period didn't bother me; I couldn't afford to eat anyway. But the interminable and unrelieved standing on a hard sidewalk, and the compulsion to ignore the demands of nature, were something very nearly like torture. Let it go at that. This is one period of my life I don't like to talk about.

       A few pennies at a time, I saved enough money to rent a typewriter and buy some fancy letterheads. I circulated the quality business magazines, and got a number of assignments. Mom and Freddie did the necessary interviewing for me. I wrote their findings up in my "spare time." From business writing, I gradually moved into the relatively high-paying field of fact-detective stories. And after more than a year, I was able to quit the doorman job. I still have numerous mementoes of it, swollen joints and weakened kidneys being the least unpleasant of the lot.

       I had for a long time inclined to a youthful bemusement with the 'genus Texan,' and as a result I failed to achieve the high Texas standards of character and intelligence. Now, years later, as I moved about the state in search of detective stories, there seemed to be signs that I had improved, or that the professional Texan had. I got along very well with the type, and they were at least tolerant of me. I was beginning to have high hopes of a solid permanent rapprochement when, one day in Dallas, the futility of such fond imaginings was ignominiously borne home to me.

       Fact-detective stories cannot be sold without pictures, and I had found it convenient to become acquainted with many newspaper photographers. They were invariably first-class workmen. They could get stuff from their morgues that was ordinarily unobtainable, and they didn't charge me anything. We were always ol' friends—ol' Texas friends—after a few drinks, and were thus above paying each other for favors. The loans to them and the liquor that went into them got to be a rather frightening item of expense. But in view of my ol' friends, magnanimity, I shut my eyes to it.

       Well, after an afternoon's "shooting" expedition with one of these ol' friends, during which we had imbibed a quart of whiskey and started on a second, he suggested a call upon some practitioners of the oldest profession. I demurred. He asked for a loan.

       "Jus' lend me a couple dollahs, Jim, ol' boy. That's all it takes. You can come up an' wait in the hall, and have some nice drinks for yourself."

       "But I haven't got two dollars—dollahs—Hank, ol' boy," I said. "I spent—I done went an' spent all the money I had on that last jug of whiskey."

       "You ain't got no money, 'a'-tall?"

       "Well, I got this—this here—four-bit piece," I said.

       "Well, gimme it, then. I'll match this gal, double or nothin'. I feel pretty lucky."

       "But what if you lose?"

       "Why, I'll just do without. Naturally."

       I murmured that this hardly seemed ethical. "Do you really think you ought to, Hank? I mean, if you lose you'll have to back out. You'll be cheating her."

       "Faugh! Fie!" he said, disgusted at this insult. "I'll be teachin' her a very valuable lesson. No tellin' how much it'll be worth to her in future years!"

       I went along with him, and he matched the girl and won.

       She was a large, bloated woman, somewhat past the first flush of youth. I would hesitate to say exactly how much somewhat. But I think it safe to state that however old the oldest profession is, she must have been a charter member.

       Cursing her luck, she led my friend into a room and slammed the door. I sat down on a bench, took a big drink and began fooling with the camera. I lit a cigarette and had another drink. I took a couple more. I examined the camera again.

       What seemed like a very brilliant idea popped into my mind.

       Creeping across the hall, I turned the doorknob silently and eased the door open an inch or two.

       Slowly, I raised and posed the camera.

       I don't know whether the "girl" was merely unconventional, or whether she was trying to acquire a suntan. Or whether, perhaps, having worn out her original equipment, she was now employing ersatz. It was impossible to tell whether her pose was a whim or dictated by necessity. At any rate, she was kneeling crosswise on the bed, her stern to my ol' friend, and gazing languidly downward into a crockery chamber pot.

       It occurred to me that I would need a flash bulb, and I turned to go back to the bench.

       Of course, I bumped and rattled the door.

       The woman turned, startled. She stared at me stupidly for a moment. Then, choking with anger, she opened her mouth and let out a bellow of rage. The bellow ended in a sibilant splash as her teeth fell out and dropped into the pot.

       Crawling from the bed and holding her hand over her mouth so that we might not see her indecently exposed, she made motions for my colleague to get his clothes on and get to hell out. I beat him down the stairs by a few paces.

       "Jim," he said stonily as he buttoned his shirt, panting, "Jim—me an' you, we ain't friends no more."

       "Aw," I said, "don't take it that way, Hank. Come back to my hotel with me and I'll get another five for you. You can go to a good place."

       "Naw, sir," he declined firmly. "I wouldn't borry another nickel from you, Jim, if you was the last man alive. I thought you was a friend of mine..."

       "Well, I am."

       "From Texas."

       "Well, I've lived here for a long time," I said.

       "But you ain't a 'Texas' man." He shook his head in gloomy triumph. "You couldn't give a Texas man enough liquor to make him look in on a fella while he was with a gal. Why, Jim, you ain't—you're im—im—" He faltered, then came out with the hideous epithet.