Bittersweet Sands Read online

  She dialed the truck’s heater to FLOOR, got out, and, leaving the truck in a nearby parking lot, followed other black shapes to the kitchen.

  Gwen glanced at the big wall clock. At 6:15 AM, the camp kitchen was a thousand-person food factory, gushing noise, humidity, and cooking smells. She hung up her overcoat and picked up a damp tray. She joined one of the three lines of workers that inched along, like conveyors pushing their trays along stainless steel rails.

  The same creepy kitchen helper smiled at her. She gave him her usual morning grimace. Thankfully, she was kept moving by the twenty people behind her. If some idiot ever stopped the line to ponder the various benefits of bacon over sausages, sure enough, some worker behind would start barking.

  Gwen looked for another woman to sit with. No such luck this morning. She sat alone, trying to ignore the conversation of a labourer with a filthy mouth. He wasn’t facing her, but the sleaze was meant for her to hear. She burnt her mouth with the coffee in her haste to leave.

  Glancing at the large clock above the kitchen doors, she calculated that she had exactly twenty minutes to make the three-mile drive, so she had better make this next unscheduled visit count. She stopped to say a couple of words with an old friend at the security desk, a grizzled ex-RCMP Officer. To an onlooker, they would seem to be two friends exchanging morning pleasantries, unless they saw the old street cop give the filthy-mouthed labourer a hard look over the tiny woman’s shoulder.

  Gwen gathered her parka and left the steamy dining hall. By now, the idling truck would be warm enough so that her hands would not burn with the cold when she held the steering wheel.

  The truck followed a well-worn route. The refinery was constructed in squares or blocks, just like a city. The streets separating the blocks were wide enough for two vehicles to pass, but not much more. She bumped along the laneway so narrow that sometimes passing trucks clicked their side mirrors. Refineries are built to refine and move oil; moving workers from one block to another is a low priority. Trucks don’t drive the lanes; they creep.

  Gwen stopped behind several yellow schoolbuses unloading men. Masses of dark figures marched into the glow of her truck’s headlights and then back into the dark. They walked between the buses and her truck, hundreds of workers surrounding all the vehicles, their breath trailing. The reflective tape on the worker’s coveralls flashed like fireflies in a windstorm before they disappeared into the shiny caves of the refinery. She tried to creep forward through the mob. Someone shouted an insult. Gwen almost beeped the horn. Within a minute, the horde melted into the black. The now-empty buses, with Gwen trailing, moved out.

  Gwen sighed a small sigh of triumph as she pulled up outside a white trailer right at 6:45. She wrestled with the frozen electrical cord as she plugged the truck into the outlet. The keys to the truck were always left in the ignition in case the foremen needed the vehicle, or it had to be moved in an emergency.

  Once, Gwen’s company truck was “borrowed,” but the truck couldn’t go off-site without passing through closely guarded gates. All it took was one announcement on the radio about a stolen vehicle for the truck to be quickly located.

  Gwen’s boots crunched loudly on the snow’s crust. Out of habit, she glanced over the top of the trailers towards the dawn. There wasn’t even a hint of the morning sun in the east this early in the year and this far north.

  The buildings had been situated there for decades, but the offices still felt temporary. Gwen mused that it was no wonder critics mistrusted oil companies; every office building within the refinery’s fence looked like they were only there until something better came up.

  She walked into one of the utilitarian white trailers. Sixty-eight feet long, it was a wide-open box except for the Foreman’s tiny office. The space was dominated by a large sheet of plywood that served as a desk where the blueprints lay. Several large work schedules were tacked onto the walls. At one end of that white cavern was Gwen’s desk. A room divider separated her from the space where the foremen had their desks.

  Pouring her second coffee of the day from a pot a labourer had prepared, Gwen turned on her two-way radio, her computer, and a small AM/FM radio that played songs she didn’t recognize. Her chair creaked.

  Gwen straightened every paper on her desk, placed her two pens parallel, and double-checked the wastepaper basket to see if it was empty.

  The clock read 6:55 AM. Gwen Medea, Secretary Scary, was at her desk.

  Day Five

  ( Toolbox Talk )

  Hundreds of pieces of reflective tape flickered yellow in the dark, like a line of distant aluminum cans on a conveyor. Slowly, dark figures attached themselves to each glimmering fluorescent badge. Blue-clad men joined in greater and greater numbers, marching purposely, as if on a conveyor belt, along the paths of the stainless steel alleyways. Assembling in groups of ten or twenty, roughly designated by trades or friendship, they all faced one man. Without a command or a shout, the leader began to direct them in morning stretches.

  For several minutes they pulled and stretched, bent and twisted. Apart from occasional grunts, they were silent.

  After fifteen minutes, with a thumping of dozens of gloves, the exercises were complete. The men broke into trades for the second ritual of the day, the Toolbox Talk.

  Several boilermakers gathered in a heated orange tent where men could work on small projects. The enclosure gave the crew a sense of place, safety, community. Hoardings were erected in the first snow of the fall, and remained there until the last melt of the spring. Some hoardings were semi-permanent, year-round shops incorporating shipping containers where tools and toolboxes could be left in relative safety.

  The crew shuffled in, waiting for the foreman.

  The apprentice spoke up. “Why do we have to do all those exercises?”

  “Because they work,” replied an old welder.

  Several of the other welders nodded.

  “Okay, guys,” Jason barked, raising his clipboard with today’s announcements. “Today’s reading is from the Gospel according to Barry Acastus, better known to you scumbag lowlifes as... The Safety Nazi.”

  “Let’s give a clap for the Safety Nazi!” Pops barked. Three or four men thudded their heavy leather gloves together, once.

  “Today’s Toolbox Talk is about...” Jason paused for effect. “Safety goggles.”

  The men groaned as Jason read from his clipboard.

  “As per standing oilfield policy, absolutely no coloured goggles or tinted safety glasses or lenses can be worn inside any building in the refinery or any other building on this site. At no time will this be allowed to take place.”

  “Asshole,” someone grunted.

  “For those of you who choose to not heed this requirement, disciplinary action will take place with the worker being immediately being...” Jason paused. “Shit. He’s got two ‘being’s in here.” He showed the closest worker his clipboard.

  “Asshole,” someone grunted.

  “...Being sent off-site and suspended for one shift without pay. Any subsequent violation of this policy will result in termination of employment.”

  “Asshole,” someone grunted.

  “Coloured goggles may be worn on the roof area or any outdoor lay-down or fabrication area only. Golden and Fliese’s employees and all subcontractors are to diligently follow this directive at all times for the remainder of this project. Field supervision to strictly enforce this policy at all times.”

  “Asshole,” several workers grunted in unison.

  “Other than ‘asshole,’ does anybody have anything to say?” Jason asked, looking up from the clipboard. There was silence in the hoarding. A diesel engine coughed to life close by.

  Dougdoug slowly raised his hand.

  “Yes?” Jason said.

  “I’m kinda new here, but at what point does safety stop and coercion start?”

  “Yeah!” several workers spoke up. “That asshole just co-worsted us!”

  “He painter-sizes us
, like we’re dummies!”

  Pops was quiet amidst the hubbub, which caught Jason’s attention. “Pops? You’re the steward.” Jason invited the old man to speak.

  “You know,” the old worker said, “back in the day, getting hurt was just part of the job. We really needed safety back then.”

  Several of the workers leaned in to hear Pops.

  “Now, safety’s gotten to be big business. The lawyers all got involved because there’s money in it. Be careful what you wish for. Used to be a guy that drank all night and showed up to work the next day was a man. You looked up to a guy that could do that.”

  “Didn’t you have accidents?” the apprentice asked.

  Jason held up his four-fingered hand.

  “But we were men then,” Pops said. “Not like this, writing and signing everything, sneaking around, watching our asses. Little girls firing grown men. You worked hard with men so tough they scared you. Made you proud to be accepted.”

  “Some of us haven’t changed,” a welder challenged.

  A faraway horn sounded. It was the only sound in the tent.

  “Goggles! Let’s get back to goggles,” Jason said, breaking the silence.

  “Goggles fog up,” Scotch said.

  “Yeah,” Pops grumbled, “and you’re constantly taking them off with your dirty gloves to clean the fog. On a cold day like today, they’re off being cleaned more times than you wear them.”

  “Do what I did,” Stash said, holding his glasses up.

  “Jesus Murphy, don’t let anybody get a close look at these,” Jason said as he handled Stash’s goggles.

  “What did he do?” Dougdoug asked.

  “He’s ripped the rubber bottom out,” Pops said. “It lets the air in.”

  “Taking away any safety that goggles are supposed to have,” Jason said.

  “Well, they don’t fog up anymore,” Stash grunted, retrieving his goggles. “So what’s worse, some air getting in, or stumbling around because you can’t see?”

  “Don’t let Safety catch you,” Jason said.

  “Don’t let Safety catch you doing what?”

  Behind the crowd of scruffy tradesmen in the half-open door, Barry Acastus stood. His white helmet glinted in the lights. It looked as if he had pressed his new blue coveralls. His pigskin gloves were so white the pig would have been proud to have donated the leather. His clean coveralls were surrounded by the ripped and oil-stained clothes of the crew.

  Noise from the surrounding work area grew in proportion to the silence within the tent.

  Barry Acastus, The Safety Nazi, let the orange canvas door swing closed. He was about to say something when the oldest man spoke.

  “Acastus,” Pops sais, biting off his words, “you can take this memo and shove it up your ass.”

  “Why?” Acastus looked around in vain for a friendly face.

  “Listen, man. We go outside, up on top of the coker off-loading equipment, and you’re looking at the crane, right into the sun. We need shades. Then you have to come inside the building to rig that piece of steel. So now, according to this memo, we have to change glasses while we’re holding onto that ten-ton load. We’re in and out, in and out, all the friggin’ time!”

  “Yeah,” Stash broke in. “You’re changing from shades to clear so often with dirty gloves, the goggles get filthy and scratched just changing ’em. Not to mention these things fog up so much they attract dirt.”

  Acastus looked at Jason for support. The foreman glared at him.

  “These things are a piece of shit,” Jason spat. “They’re okay if you’re an office worker out for a stroll. But the moment you start actually doing any work, they fog up.”

  The safety man stiffened at the words “office worker.” He looked around the tent to the scowling faces. “Look, I hear you,” he said. “But the policy is right from the head office, and it’s written in stone. I can show you in the policy book.” He almost whined. “It’s written down.”

  “Memos are written by men! Men can change.”

  Acastus appraised the new kid.

  “Well,” said Pops, “why don’t you type up one of your letters and tell them in the head office that these goggles are full of shit and they don’t work?” There was a pause in the room as the words sank in.

  “Well, I could try,” said Acastus. “But I know what they’re going to say.”

  “At least try, Barry,” Pops said. “You’re our voice to those guys. We depend on you.”

  “Okay. Okay, I’ll try.”

  The hoarding sighed. Everyone smiled at the safety man. Acastus nodded to the crowd, and then looked at his watch. The plywood tent door slammed.

  There was a pause as they waited for someone to pick up the thread of the Toolbox Talk.

  “Do you think he’ll write that letter?” Dougdoug asked.

  “Not a chance.”

  * * *

  “Thanks for backing me up in there.” Acastus sneered.

  The Safety Nazi had been waiting for Jason. Jason made a show of looking at his watch, mimicking the safety man’s escape from the meeting. Then he slowly crossed his arms.

  “What are you up to?” Acastus asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “When I walked in, you said, ‘Don’t let Safety catch you.’ Don’t let Safety catch you doing what?”

  Jason glared at the safety man.

  “If they’re breaking rules, I have to know.”

  “Do your own bird-dogging,” Jason said. He turned, and Acastus grabbed his arm.

  “If I catch them, and you know about it....”

  Jason shoved his face so close to the Acastus that their hardhats clacked. “You’re a little man with a little power. Fuck you.”

  The crew was at coffee when Jason stormed in. Without waiting for the conversation to subside, he shouted, “The Safety Man heard part of what I said to you about not letting Safety catch you. When I wouldn’t give him names, he threatened me. Stash!”

  Stash slowly looked up from his coffee.

  “Get rid of those glasses. And anybody else. Make sure everything you wear is regulation. Don’t give him any excuses.”

  Jason exited, slamming the door behind him. The room shook with silent vehemence.

  “I guess he won’t be writing any glasses letter,” Pops spoke into the silence.

  When the crew climbed into the coker, animated discussions took place on every level of the scaffold. The air in the coker, usually filled with smoke from a dozen cutting torches and welding rods, stayed clean.

  “He don’t give two shits about safety. He just wants to bully us.”

  “Those rules don’t make any sense. If a safety man has to enforce stupid rules, he should tell his bosses they’re stupid rules, and if the bosses won’t change the policy, he should quit.”

  After a time, the men dribbled back to their work stations in groups of two and three. Slowly, level upon level of the scaffolding filled with the comforting smoke and noise of a construction site.

  “Watch out!”

  “Comin’ down! Watch... HEADACHE!”

  The universal cry of something falling was taken up. Over and over, HEADACHE! HEADACHE! The sound and feel of something heavy thundering through level after level of crowded scaffolding was warning enough. The thunder rumbled down a hundred-foot drop past layers of scrambling men, men who had nowhere to run.

  Bang! Flashing silver in the half-light, the object spun as it hit a hand railing.

  Metal hit steel, then ricocheted across the space. Men shrank away, their arms shielding their faces.

  A string of safety lights snapped in two. A cascade of sparks, hot glass, and sparkling electrical wires followed.

  Men ran. Men shouted. Wide-eyed men hugged steel walls.

  Crack! It struck. It was driven almost all the way through the plywood of the bottom scaffold.

  The only movement for several seconds was the clatter of dust, falling debris kicked up by the projectile and running bo
ots. Two lightbulbs that were left intact swung in a disjointed circle, making jerky shadows on the walls.

  Twenty men looked down from the railings at the silver pipe speared halfway through the plywood scaffolding.

  “Everybody okay?” Pops shouted up at the silhouettes.

  The shadows shifted as the men solemnly looked at each other. A couple of arms far above waved the all-clear.

  “Wow. It missed everybody,” Dougdoug said.

  Pops shouted up to the heads. “Nobody tells! Nobody tells Safety fuck all!”

  And they didn’t.

  Day Six

  ( Big Mistake )

  Gwen Medea got the name Secretary Scary on her first job from a crew of sheet metal workers after she destroyed the career of a tin basher.

  For weeks after that job began, Gwen had been the recipient of every form of lurid observation by a fat, forty-year-old chicken farmer turned tinsmith.

  Silent and cringing-timid when alone, in front of an audience he became a clown performing for the dubious enjoyment of his fellow construction workers. The man was the embodiment of the reason all oil companies had adopted zero-tolerance harassment policies. Gwen and the other secretaries were amazed that someone had married the idiot and actually had to kiss that mouth.

  As the days went by, the comments progressed from off-colour to lurid to downright graphic. Gwen dreaded that it would only be a matter of time before he would no longer be satisfied with simply verbalizing his smut. She had to fight back.

  Her chance came on payday. At last coffee, the entire crew crowded around her at the lunch trailer, waiting for their weekly paycheques. With shaking hands, she began handing out the pay envelopes. Gwen had made sure Potty Mouth’s envelope was the first one she would hand out. She wanted the entire crew to be close.

  As Gwen handed her torturer his paycheque, she held the envelope long enough so that the man looked directly into her eyes.

  “Do you know the difference between this cheque and you?”

  The sheet metal worker blinked.

  “I’d blow this cheque.”

  Then she released the envelope.