Toxikleen, Inc

Toxikleen, Inc is a story about men with an usual job – cleaning up radioactive waste for a large faceless corporation. Some quirky characters and wacky adventures intertwine with technical expertise and a satirical look at the modern corporate world.

TOXIKLEEN, INC.

BY

JOHN LEAHY

1994

GLOSSARY

ACGIH     American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists

ALARA     As Low As Reasonably Achievable

Be            Beryllium, a metal used primarily in alloys, which is considered extremely toxic if in contact with skin or respiratory tract.

CERCLA    Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation & Liability Act (known as Superfund)

CFR           Code of Federal Regulations

CM7           A frisker, or a hand held radiation measuring instrument.  Detected radiation given in counts per minute.

CRZ           Contamination Reduction Zone: Entrance and exit point for the Exclusion Zone, or “Hot Zone”, on a HAZMAT clean up site.  Protective clothing is removed in this zone upon exiting.

DOT           Department Of Transportation

DU            Depleted Uranium

EPA           Environmental Protection Agency

Frisk     To inspect an object for radioactive contamination with a hand held detection instument.

H&S           Health and Safety

HAZMAT    Hazardous Materials

HP            Health Physics: Radiation technicians who oversee all operations involving radiation.

IATA          International Air Transport Association

LEL           Lower Explosive Limit

Level B   Level of personal protection using supplied air systems and completely encapsulting clothing, usually disposable tyvek suits and hoods.

Level C   Level of personal protection using filter respirators and disposable tyvek suits

Level D   Level of personal protection using hard hat, safety glasses, steel toed boots along with regular work clothing.

NIOSH     National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health

NRC           Nuclear Regulatory Commission

OSHA          Occupational Safety and Health Administration

PCM           PCM-1B- Personnel Contamination Monitor: radiation detecting instrument which is stepped into upon exiting a radiologically controlled area.

PEL           Permissible Exposure Level: OSHA mandated, maximum allowed exposure to a given substance based on a time weighted average.

PID           Photo Ionization Detector: Air monitoring instrument which measures content of organic vapors in ambient air and gives instant readings expressed in parts per million.

PM            Project Manager

PPE           Personal Protection Equipment: Any protective clothing or respiratory protection apparatus.

PPM           Parts Per Million: Unit measuring amount of a constituent as a part of a whole.  Eg: two parts per million of cadmium in soil.

PSI           Pounds per Square Inch

RCA           Radiologically Controlled Area

RCRA          Resource Conservation & Recovery Act

RSA           Fictional corporation named Radiation Safe America

SCBA          Self Contained Breathing Apparatus:  Air tanks worn on the back

TCLP          Toxic Chemical Leachate Process:  Lab analysis technique for determining constituents in a liquid or solid sample.

TLV       Threshhold Limit Value:  Maximum exposure limit as      recommended by ACGIH

CHAPTER 1

It was 6:30 AM on a raw October day.  I provided documents which identified me as an employee of the well known environmental clean up giant, Toxikleen, Inc., and the guard issued me a visitor’s pass, allowing me access to the U.S. Army weapons lab.  I got back into my beat up Ford stationwagon and drove down the neatly manicured streets past the brick buildings of the old base.  Turning an ivy covered corner I saw the small dome of the reactor hunched over a muddy yard filled with office trailers, piles of equipment and stacks of 55 gallon drums.

I parked the car in a crowded parking lot and got out wearing my hard hat, plastic safety glasses and steel toed boots. Hitching my travel bag over one shoulder I fished a wrinkled memo out of a pocket. The memo contained my instructions and had been given to me yesterday by the Operations Manager back in the Newark, New Jersey office.

A group of laborers, with “Local 619” patches on their hard hats, were smoking, drinking coffee out of 12 ounce styrofoam cups and arguing loudly about the Bruins’ goal-tending. I asked them where I could find Trailer 16 and the collection of crooked teeth, scars, tattoos and pot bellies grinned back at me.

“You must be the new Tox Queen!” the laborers all erupted in laughter.

“Yeah, I guess so.” I forced a grin. Last night had been one beer too many in yet another motel room.

“O.K. buddy, go down to the left here and you’ll see Johnny A. and the rest of the Tox Queens.”

“Thanks pal.” I slogged off through the mud and found Trailer 16 with a stack of cinder blocks in the middle of a puddle serving as the steps up to the trailer door.

I hauled myself in through the trailer door and was engulfed in an atmosphere of smoke and noise. A computer printer was loudly spitting up reams of spreadsheets and a fax machine was clicking off a transmission. I scanned the trailer and noted three desks, stacked SCBA air tank cases, boxes of glass sample jars, a couple of rows of reference books and federal regulations, tools, and piles of bulging file folders. On one wall hung several respirator facemasks along with some rain jackets and hard hats.  A short, pudgy young man with thick glasses was trying to bang the burnt sludge out of the bottom of a coffee pot. Solidly planted in front of him lounged a huge hulk of a man with a bristly mustache and big ears who was drinking coffee and smoking a cigarette as he leaned against the “NO SMOKING” sign. The big man was telling a story with a booming voice that shook the only window in the dreary trailer.

“I tell you what good buddy, she had a rack out to here. Whoowee! What a baby doll!”

I heard a splash in the puddle outside and a loud curse. The door opened and a young red-haired man lurched in. “Goddamn puddle! Hi. Are you the new guy? I’m Mark Roberts. I’m from the Baltimore office.”

The other two men turned around and noticed me. The big man stuck out a large paw with a friendly grin. “I’m Earl Smith. Real glad to meet you. This here’s John Anthony, our project manager, but everybody calls him Johnny A.”

“So you’re from New Jersey?” Mark asked me.

I shuddered quietly at the thought as I answered. “No, I live in New York City but I work out of the New Jersey office.”

“Is that right?” asked Earl “Right smack dab in the middle of New York?”

I nodded my head.

“Whoooeee!” Earl whooped. “I tell you what buddy, that place is too much for this ol’ southern country boy. I had to deliver supplies there once, a few years back. We were doing a job for the Transit Authority. With Billy Thomas. You remember him John? Remember he got caught in that KFB down at Dew Point Chemical and sprained his ankle running out of there.” Earl laughed and looked at me. “You know what KFB is?”

“No.” I nodded my head as Earl took a drag on his cigarette and eyed me intently.

“Ker-Fucking-Boom!” he yelled and slapped his knee as he exploded into laughter. “A big ass old explosion! Anyway, like I was saying, this ol’ country boy’ll be real happy if he never has to go back to New York again. I don’t know how anybody can live there.”

“Have you been through safety orientation yet?” asked Johnny A. He spit a stream of tobacco juice into an almost full styrofoam cup. “Why don’t you put your bag on top of those SCBA’s and follow me. The safety orientation’ll take about an hour. They show you a couple of videos. Then after that we’ll take a tour of the job sites. Oh yeah. Let’s stop off at the health and safety trailer and give them copies of your certifications. We never did get that fax. Earl, you and Mark are going to sample those drums of machine oil in the Be room this morning right?”

“Yeah, uh. We talked to Butchy and they’ll be ready for us after coffee. They need two airlines right now for the electricians to go in. One of the power panels is on the blink.”

“Damn. Not again. That’s so tired.” Johnny A. shook his head with disgust.

We hopped down out of the trailer and crossed the muddy yard to a trailer marked “Health and Safety.” Inside four men with hard hats were lounging and drinking coffee while another man worked on a computer. A walkie talkie radio was on full blast and an excited voice was yelling about a broken down generator until the volume was mercifully turned down.

“This is our new field chemist.” Johnny A. announced. “What’s your name again?”

“Otto Flanagan. Nice to meet you.” I shook hands all around. The man at the computer terminal looked up quickly and kept typing.

“Do you have all your certifications with you?” he asked me.

“Yes.”

“OSHA HAZMAT 40 HOURS training?”

“Yes.”

“Rad Worker training? HAZMAT Emergency Response Operations?”

“Yes.”

“Medical?”

“Yes.”

“O.K. We’ll schedule you for a respirator fit test tomorrow if we have time. Until then you can’t do any respirator work.”

We made copies of all eight pages of my certifications and went back out into the mud.

“Which company are they with?” I asked Johnny A.

“They’re C and C, Cushman and Crane. They’re the general contractor on this job. They’re also providing Health and Safety here. Toxikleen is a subcontractor on this job. We’re responsible for the chemical and mixed waste. Nukekleen is shipping out all the rad waste to the disposal facility and RSA, Rad Safe America, is overseeing rad safety controls for the entire operation. Here’s where they give the safety orientation. I’ve got a conference call with the people from Claremont Labs at 8:30 so I’ve got to hustle. Just come on back to the trailer when you’re done.”

CHAPTER 2

The safety orientation had consisted of the standard stuff that you see in all the petrochemical plants and oil refineries. There were a couple of videos illustrating proper use of ladders, proper handling of drums, safe usage of electricity and safe work practices around forklifts. The dramatic high point was the scene about the worker who goes down after becoming asphyxiated by an oxygen depleted atmosphere or toxic gas. Go immediately and get the Emergency Rescue Team! Do not attempt a rescue and become another victim yourself!

Back at the trailer Johnny A. was still on the phone. Mark had gone off with one of the foremen to the lab building to trace some drainage pipes that were suspected of being contaminated with mercury. I was passing the time reading the job contract and trying to familiarize myself with the scope of work.

I heard sloshing foot steps outside and Earl hoisted his big frame through the door. He stood there blinking as drops of rain water beaded on the brim of his hard hat.

“I’m going to have to get one of those union boys to fix us up some steps.” Earl’s voice rumbled from the back of his throat. He wiped some of the mud from his boots off on a piece of paper that was lying on the floor. I noticed that it was a memo from corporate about the office dress code. The big man cocked his head back and squinted at his watch.

“C’mon buddy, let’s go get a cup of coffee.”

I grabbed a rain jacket and my hard hat and followed him out into the drizzle.

“How long you been with the company?” Earl asked.

“Three years. I started out lab packing, but then I got into a couple of rad jobs. You know that Army weapons lab we did out in Cincinnati? I was out there for four months last year.”

“Oh yeah. I heard about that job. George what’s his name, uh, Simmons was the PM out there wasn’t he?”

“Yeah. He’s a real prick.”

“Yeah, you got that right! I grabbed him by the throat one time on a job in Richmond. He’s got himself an attitude problem. Or at least he did. We get along fine now.” Earl grinned and winked at me. “Anyway I’ve been working construction for twenty years and I’ve been doing this shit for the last five.”

The cafeteria was crowded. It was the union coffee break and there were at least a hundred laborers eating doughnuts, drinking coffee and smoking. One of the union workers with a Harley Davidson tee shirt, two missing front teeth and a long scar across his cheek greeted Earl.

“Earl, you guys going into the Be room after coffee? The electricians are finished so I’ve got two airlines free.”

“Yeah, we’ll be there.” Earl introduced me. “This here’s Butchy. He’s the foreman in the Be room over in Building 95.”

We got our coffee and Earl filled me in as he lit up a Marlboro. “In the machine shop in Building 95 they were grinding beryllium in one room. Beryllium is a lung hazard. Extremely carcinogenic. It’s Level B in there. And they’ve only got four airlines, so you’ve really got to schedule your jumps.”

Two men in clean blue jeans and white hard hats came up to our table. “How’s it going today Earl?”

Earl passed a big hand over his face and flicked cigarette ash on the floor. “Oh Jesus. It’s one of those days. It’s enough to make me feel like fucking a fat girl.” Earl exploded in a loud laugh. “Hey Henry, you know why fucking a fat girl is like riding a moped? Cause it sure is fun, but you don’t want any of your friends to see you.” Earl laughed loudly again. The men chuckled and went on. Earl turned to me again. “Those guys are with the Army Corps of Engineers. They’re overseeing this job.”

Earl smoked two more cigarettes while we drank our coffee and then we headed back through the drizzle to the trailer. Johnny A. was still on the phone. His face had a look of frustration as he spoke patiently, “OK, just fax me that analysis as soon as you can. OK, thanks. Bye.” He hung up and sighed. “That guy at Claremont Labs is such an idiot.” He looked up at me. “Are you all set?” Before I could answer him the phone rang again.

CHAPTER 3

Johnny A. finally escaped from the phone and took me on a tour of the job site. He was quiet and not really at ease with people, so we didn’t talk much. He was from North Carolina and had a degree in chemistry. He had been with the company for six years, most of that time on the road as a project manager going from one job to the next.

First we picked up my TLD, the thermoluminescent dosimetry, which measures radiation dosage and hangs around your neck on a cord. Then we walked out to the RCRA storage pad where the 55 gallon drums of waste were kept. About 500 drums were stacked on wooden pallets separated in several sections. One section was exclusively for nonradioactive hazardous materials. The liquids were separated from the solids and were stored in an area which had a floor lined with 60 mil poly and a berm surrounding it to contain any possible spills. The berm was made out of 2 by 4’s under the poly. The drums were further segregated into Hazard Classes: Flammable Liquids, Caustics, Acids, Poisons, Reactives, and ORM’s or Other Regulated Materials. Several sections were cordoned off with yellow and purple cord and posted with signs warning about radioactive materials and limiting entrance to authorized personnel only. These sections were for the Mixed Waste, or the materials that had both radioactive and chemically hazardous characteristics. They were also separated by solids and liquids and the liquids were again bermed and segregated by hazard class. The drums in the liquid sections were all covered by huge poly tarps to keep off the rain.

We entered a small wooden shed and met a big, burly laborer with a moustache and a green shamrock decal on his beat up hard hat. The laborer was scratching the back of his neck with a wrench and staring at a crumpled and rain soaked piece of paper. He looked up at us with a perplexed expression on his face.

“Hey, Johnny A.! I can’t find these two drum numbers that you wanted me to move out of here. I wanted to do it first thing this morning ’cause I knew the forklift operators were going to be busy most of the day when they started moving those B-25 boxes out of the reactor later.”

Johnny A. tried to smooth out the soggy paper and decipher the chicken scratchings scrawled on it.

“That’s C-198 and C-207. They’re acids.” Johnny A. said matter of factly and handed back the paper. The big laborer opened his mouth and a look of enlightenment came over his face.

“Oh yeah. I can’t even read my own writing. O.K. No problem Johnny, I’ll take care of this right away.”

“O.K. By the way Jack, this is our new crew member.” Johnny A. paused and looked like he was trying to remember my name so I jumped in to save him the embarrassment of having to ask me again.

“Hi. I’m Otto Flanagan. Nice to meet you.”

“Oh, hey. How ya doin’. I heard another one of you guys was coming up here. Where are you from?”

“New York.”

“Oh yeah. Are you an Islander fan?”

A wave of distaste propagated through me before I answered with a touch of pride. “Hell no! I’m a Ranger fan.”

Jack laughed, “Ooh, you’re in the wrong town, buddy. Hey that new kid they’ve got is pretty good. He scored two goals last night against Pittsburgh. The Rangers lost anyway though.”

“That figures.”

Johnny A. had been listening patiently, but now he broke in. “You’re going to be working with Jack a lot. He takes care of this drum storage pad. Let’s go over to Building 95.”

“Hey, nice to meet you.” said Jack. “If you need anything just call me on the radio.”

We walked through the drizzle to a large building with a roll-up garage door. Two laborers were outside smoking next to a 5-gallon plastic bucket marked “BUTTS”. The interior of the building was a huge cavern with an overhead crane on tracks hanging from the I-beams under the ceiling. At the far end was a table and a solidly constructed plywood shack. Three men with “RSA” written on their hard hats were sitting with their feet up on the table. The table was covered with styrofoam coffee cups, a box of doughnuts and several three-ring binders of sign-in sheets. The shack was a changing room and above the door was drawn a skull and crossbones and the words “BRIAN’S BEACH BUNGALOW”.

Johnny A. grabbed one of the binders and signed himself in.

“You’ve got to read and sign the briefing sheet and sign the sign-in sheet. These guys are the HP’s. They’re with RSA.” he explained to me tersely.

The Health Physics, the radiation protection technicians for Building 95 looked up at me. “Have a doughnut.” one of them offered.

Johnny A. unhooked the purple and yellow barrier cord and we entered the Radiologically Controlled Area, or RCA, which is a restricted area due to radiological hazards. Most of Building 95 was one RCA in which there were several individual contaminated work areas.

I followed Johnny A. and he explained the site history and hazards in a flat toneless voice and an expressionless face. The army had experimented with different materials to take advantage of their useful properties. Depleted uranium for example had been used to plate armor piercing artillery shells because its density is greater than the steel armor of tanks.  There were three containment areas on the first floor and another one comprising the whole third floor. The first floor containments were for the old machine shops and the electroplating shop.  We stopped by the observation windows for the DU Room and the Be Room containments, where the army weapons technicians had ground and machined depleted uranium and beryllium.

Through the windows we could see the union laborers dismantling machinery, dressed in level B: disposable tyvek suits and hoods, plastic booties with rubber overboots, neoprene gloves with layers of cotton and latex surgical gloves underneath, full faced respirators, and all seams sealed with duct tape to prevent any penetration by contaminants. They were breathing air supplied to their respirators by 100 foot long air hoses connected to bottles outside the containment at the safety station. Their respirators were equipped with emergency backup filters which could be breathed through if there was any breakdown with the air supply.

The hazards of concern were depleted uranium dust and beryllium dust. The depleted uranium was a low level radioactive material, but inhalation or ingestion of particles could be carcinogenic as the particles remained in the body and mutated cells by giving off radiation energy as they decayed. Beryllium dust was an inhalation and ingestion hazard and also a carcinogen considered to be extremely toxic with no known safe exposure limits. During the operation of these shops, the metallic dust had been contained within the machines and a ventilation system which filtered the air on the third floor before releasing it to the environment.

I met Billy, the bottle man in charge of the air supply, and Timmy the safety observer. Billy had a shaved head and a sleeveless denim jacket with the Hell’s Angels logo on the back. His hard hat had a skull and cross bones decal and the word “wasted” written on it. Timmy was missing a couple of front teeth and had a green shamrock decal on his hard hat. He was dressed out in a tyvek suit and booties and had an SCBA air tank ready in case he had to respond to an emergency.

When I introduced myself, Timmy shook my hand and laughed. “Jesus Christ! I’m ready for a drink! These fucking assholes don’t know what the fuck they’re doing. I fucking told ’em three fucking times, but they didn’t fucking listen. Now they’ve got to do the whole fucking thing over again. Fuck it! I don’t give a shit! Fuck them! I’m going to the bar after work today. What do you say Billy?”

“Why should today be any different?” Billy cracked a smile in his menacing face.

“Ah fuck you too!” Timmy laughed. “How are we doing on the bottles?”

Billy checked the gauge and answered, “A little under 600 lbs.”

Timmy grabbed the radio and growled into it with his gravelly voice. “Safety to Butch.”

“Go ahead.” Butch responded from inside the containment with the background noise of machinery almost drowning out his voice.

“Start wrapping it up and come on out.  You’ve got about 10 minutes of air left.”

Timmy turned back to me.  “You can only go in for one hour on each jump because of heat stress.  And then we have half an hour for cool down time.  And it takes about 15 minutes at the end of the jump to untangle your fucking airlines and decon.  So you really only get about 45 minutes to work on every jump.”

A laborer had pulled open the decon entrance flap and was ready to exit.  Timmy disconnected his airline and took his respirator.  The laborer stepped out dressed in the tee shirt, shorts and boots he had worn under his Tyvek suit.  He was drenched with sweat.

“Let’s get out of here,” said Johnny A.

CHAPTER 4

As we continued our tour we went up to the third floor, where the laborers were coming out of the last containment which comprised the whole floor.  The decon walls were made of plastic sheets with flaps hanging at the entrance way.  A plexiglass observation window in one of the walls allowed Vito, the enormous safety man, to monitor the activity inside the work area.  Above the decon entrance was written “Welcome to Freddie’s Foyer”.  Freddie, the third floor foreman, was quietly giving instructions to his work crew.  His work area had four airlines and four sweaty laborers had just come out and four more were all suited up and ready to go in.  The third floor had contained some machinery and also the massive filtration unit for the machine shop ventilation systems.  The health hazards were again beryllium and depleted uranium dust.

On our way out we passed through the second floor where some RSA HP’s were conducting a termination survey.  The rooms were empty and the HP’s were slowly passing radiation meters over every inch of surface space in a grid pattern.  The HP’s had to hold their meters for about a minute at each location and they looked bored out of their minds.  When an entire room was finished and deemed clean of any radioactive contamination, it was sealed off and posted to prevent any recontamination.

Back on the first floor at the RCA exit, we had to pass through the PCM, or Personnel Contamination Monitor, which counts any radiation emitted by contamination on your clothing or body. Johnny A. stepped in and set off the warning buzzer.  He cursed impatiently.  An HP on duty walked over, still in the middle of his conversation about the new running back for the Chicago Bears.  He looked at the machine indicators to see which body zone was contaminated.

“Head zone.  Give me your hard hat.”  He continued his conversation about football as he carried Johnny A.’s hard hat to his work bench.  He sprayed the hard hat with water from a plastic bottle and wiped it dry with a paper towel. Then he passed the CM7, a hand held radiation counter, slowly over the surface of the hard hat.  Half way through he became so engrossed in his conversation that he forgot what he was doing and Johnny A. just waited patiently until he resumed.  The CM7 clicked repeatedly but the green light flashed and the HP gave the hard hat back to Johnny A.

“Just a bit of radon gas.  You’re good to go.”  He looked over at me and realized there was a new face on site.  “Hey, are you the new Toxqueen?  Nice to meet you.  My name is Buck.”  We shook hands and Buck gave me a brief explanation. “There’s radon gas in the air sometimes.  It could come from trace radioactive elements in the building materials decaying.  On cold, dry days when there’s a lot of static electricity  your plastic hard hats attract the radon gas.  Then your hard hat sets off the warning on the PCM.  But radon has a really short half-life so it either decays to non-detectable levels within a few minutes or you can just wipe off your hard hat with a damp paper towel to get rid of the static electricity.  Sometimes on cold, dry days nobody can get out of here.  Hey are you a football fan?  The Bears’ game was on T.V. yesterday.  They destroyed Minnesota.”

CHAPTER 5

Johnny A. and I walked through the drizzle to Building 34 and Johnny A. continued his terse and toneless background briefing.  Building 34 was a large high-ceilinged shell which had contained presses and tanks of machine oil and diesel fuel.  Most of the building did not require respiratory protection, but the last section in the back was barricaded with caution tape and respirators with particle filters were required for access beyond that point.

We went into the HP’s trailer to sign ourselves into the RCA and found Earl slouched on the counter, smoking a cigarette.  He was telling a story to a union supervisor and a couple of HP’s who were lounging around the trailer drinking coffee.

“I tell you what, she could do more to your dick than a squad of monkeys on a nine-foot greased flag pole.”  The HP’s and the union supervisor laughed and Earl took a big drag on his Marlboro.  The radio crackled and the union supervisor bellowed into it.

“This is Flynn.”  The voice on the radio was trying to yell over the background noise of jackhammers.  Flynn yelled back into the radio. “That’s bullshit. Just make sure it’s done by the end of the day.”  He looked over at Earl and shook his head.

Earl exhaled a big cloud of smoke and grunted, “That guy’s fucking useless.  I ought to go in there and disconnect that valve myself.”  He took another big drag on his cigarette and then jerked around in Johnny A.’s direction.  “Oh yeah.  Uh . . . John, we couldn’t go into the Be room this morning.  Butchy had to move a B-25 box of rad waste out and he had to coordinate with the HP’s and the forklift operators.  He told me he’d try to get us in after lunch.  We have to be over there dressed out and ready to go in by a quarter to one because the union afternoon coffee break is at 2:15.”

Johnny A. nodded almost imperceptibly and stared out the trailer window at the grey drizzle.  Earl tossed his cigarette on the floor and stubbed it out with his big, muddy boots. The HP’s sipped on their coffees.  Earl turned to Johnny A. again.  “Yeah, also John, Flynn found six more unmarked drums this morning.  Three of them are rusted to shit and need to be overpacked.”

Flynn nodded authoritatively to corroborate.  Johnny A. sighed.  “How many unmarked drums do we have over here now?”

Earl looked at Flynn and raised his eyebrows.  “Twenty-seven?”  Flynn nodded again.

Johnny A. sighed again.  “And how many of them need overpacks?”

Earl scratched his neck.  “I’d say at least ten.”

“At least.” Flynn added.

Earl paused for a moment and looked down at the floor as if he were thinking of something.  Then he turned to Johnny A. again.  “I guess we’ll have to sample those drums on overtime.  We can’t go in there and open drums of unknowns on level B with all these guys in the building.”

Flynn stirred.  “Do you have to be on level B to sample unknowns?”

“Hell yeah!”  Earl straightened up his big frame and threw his arms out for emphasis.  “That’s standard corporate policy.  Any time you’re dealing with unknown materials you take worst-case scenario and go on supplied air.”

Johnny A. was still staring out the window.  “I’ll go get clearance for some overtime.”  He started towards the door and turned suddenly to me as if just remembering I was there.  “Why don’t you hang out over here with Earl and get acquainted with the area.”  Then he went out into the drizzle.

Earl looked over at Flynn and they both grinned at each other.  Earl looked at me and laughed loudly, with a jolly twinkle in his eye.  “What do you say, buddy!  Ka-ching!  Ka-ching!  Ka-ching!  I love that sound of money going into the register.”

Chapter 6

After work ended at 3:30 I drove out to the motel I’d found about 15 miles out in the suburbs.  Our living expenses allowance wasn’t enough to cover anything closer to town.  Earl had offered almost persistently to share a room and split the cost at his motel.  It was a 45 minute drive but he had negotiated a reasonable rate.  I had declined or evaded his offer as diplomatically as I could.

I had my own idea about a living situation and there was no room in it for motels on a suburban strip.  I began going through the apartment ads in the stack of local newspapers I had bought.  I had been told that the estimate for this job was four months, but my own personal estimate had put it at closer to eight.  One of the reasons I had volunteered for this job was that I had always wanted to try living in this city so I wanted to get an apartment in town.

I perused the ads and then unpacked my gear from the car.  I had just driven in from Indiana where I’d been working for the last two months at an old landfill that was being dug up.  The original magnetometer survey had indicated the presence of approximately 4,000 buried drums of unknown materials.  By the time I left we had already dug up over 5,000 and the last magnetometer survey was indicating between 16,000 and 20,000 buried drums.

I had been working as a field chemist on that project, fingerprinting samples in the lab trailer from 6:00 in the morning to 4:30 in the afternoon.  The field crew excavated the drums, which were mostly rusted to pieces, and took samples of each one.  The samples were brought to me and I repeated the same series of experiments on each one to determine the generic hazardous characteristics so that the samples could be safely shipped to a lab for complete analysis.  Most of the drums appeared to have contained paints, inks, solvents and oils, nothing very exotic, but stuff you wouldn’t want in your drinking water.  Some samples had also tested positive at the lab for PCB’s, so these drums had to be separated from all the rest.  The Midwest had been a dreary existence for me and I had begged for a project back in the East.

For the past two years I had been living on the road, bouncing from project to project, from town to town, and from state to state.  We got paid travel weekends every three weeks and I had spent exactly eleven weekends at my New York City apartment during this time.  It was an unsettling, shiftless life style and it often had damaging effects on relationships and marriages.  My own divorce had been the main reason I decided to go on the road.  The extra money had not been sufficient incentive to disrupt my domestic routines while I was still married.

I had been married for five years.  I met my wife Tania in Paris where I had been teaching English on a hiatus from my career in the environmental field.  Tania had been working in Berlin and had come to Paris for a visit.  Within three months we were living together in Berlin.  Tania was waiting tables and I got another job teaching English.  Tania was from Buenos Aires, Argentina, but her grandparents were from Italy so she could work in any European Common Market country.

The first moment my friend Gustav had introduced us, I had stared at her and felt an electric tingling.  Tania didn’t speak French, but I knew just enough German to show her the sights of Paris and flirt with her.  She had big, dark, expressive eyes, long, frizzy brown hair and a bubbly, exuberant personality.  The second night we had gone to a small club in Montparnasse to hear a blues band.  Tania had worn a brown leather miniskirt and black nylon stockings, and all night long the men had turned their heads to look at her when she walked past.  We had drunk cold draft beers and got sweaty dancing close to the rhythm of the blues.  That night I kissed her for the first time right out on the dance floor at the end of a song during which our bodies had rubbed together slowly as we danced.

That electric tingle had never disappeared, but after a year in Berlin, a year in Buenos Aires and another three in New York, Tania and I seemed to have lost the ability to continue living together.  We had different ideas about how to live.  She wanted a more elegant, more conventional and more career oriented life style, while I had always gravitated towards a more bohemian existence.  Tania had campaigned for me to go to law school and settle down in one place.  She wanted to move to a house in New Jersey and go back to school and get an M.B.A.  I had a restless mind, a restless body and a restless soul that wanted to see, to explore and to move, but definitely not to New Jersey.

During our second year in New York, Tania had become pregnant and we were both really happy at the expectation of having a child together.  There were many practical worries and Tania was particularly nervous, but it also brought us together to talk about ways to deal with difficulties that might arise.  I spent a couple of weekends building an elaborate tree house with catwalks at my parents’ country house in Vermont.  After Tania had her miscarriage she had said, “It’s just as well. We don’t make enough money to have kids.”

The end had come in a violent explosion. I moved out and scribbled “Adios mi amor!” on a law school brochure Tania had left out on the kitchen table for me to see. It was a bitter act during a moment when we were angry and frustrated with each other.  Afterwards we got together and calmly agreed that it was probably best that we separate. We weren’t angry any more, just sad.  I felt mournful for our lost love and obliterated expectations.  I missed laughing together and our plans for the future, of having children, and of getting old together after a lifetime of shared experiences.  The frame and structure of life that we had built had been dashed to pieces and I was left looking dazed at the debris and ruin of my life.  The only thing remaining was the knowledge that you have to keep going, so I just pushed everything down and refused to feel any sadness.  I went to work and concentrated on doing the things that I like, including things that I hadn’t had time for during my marriage.

CHAPTER 7

Over the next few days I tried to familiarize myself with the jobsite and find an apartment.  Most of the contractors on site were staying at expensive hotels or apartment complexes in the suburbs nearby.  Earl harangued me frequently to share a room with him, telling me it would be cheaper than anything else I could find.  He seemed quite puzzled and almost a little bit offended that I didn’t take him up on his offer.  He seemed even more confused by my incomprehensible desire to find an unfurnished apartment in town.

After three or four days of searching fruitlessly through the newspaper ads, I spent one evening strolling through the square near the old university in the city.  The narrow streets twisted in a maze of brightly lit shops, cozy bars and ethnic restaurants.  Even on a cold, damp evening there were enough people bustling about on the street to remind me of the restless activity on New York City streets.  Taped onto a lamp post, under a sign advertising a lesbian dance party, was a notice for a roommate wanted.  I took the phone number and a few minutes later found another notice that seemed promising.

CHAPTER 8

The scope of work for this project was divided into two phases.  The first phase was site characterization which included finding, sampling, analyzing, cataloguing and collecting all the hazardous waste on site.  The second phase would be the disposal of all the collected waste.  I had arrived after the commencement of the first phase, but the project was still in the early stages and there was a great deal of confusion.  For the first two weeks there was very little to do.  We inspected, calibrated and catalogued our equipment and frequently toured the work areas, inventorying drums that would need to be sampled and collected.  Some of the drums had been on site for decades and had no identifying markings, and others were being generated during the demolition.  We also hung up a dart board in the trailer and read a lot of newspapers.  Earl seemed to constantly have a styrofoam cup of coffee in one hand and a cigarette in the other.  He spent large portions of every day, as Mark put it, “smokin’ and jokin'”, wherever he happened to be.  Only Johnny A. seemed to be constantly busy, beetling about quietly from one meeting to another and spending the rest of his time on the phone.

I made appointments to go visit the apartments I had seen advertised on the street.  The first was in a slightly run down apartment building about a 15 minute walk from the university.  I was shown the apartment by a stiff, humorless 40 year old man named Kent, who had attended the university when he was young and stayed in the neighborhood ever since, working in bookstores for leftist and New Age literature.  He showed me some of his crystals in the cramped living room before taking me through the rest of the apartment.  The vacant room was small and dark, but I only needed a place where I could come and go so it would have been acceptable.  However when Kent was showing me the kitchen he began explaining the apartment’s communal living philosophy.  The inhabitants of this apartment and the one adjacent shared facilities, pooled grocery money and ate dinner together at eight o’clock, with everybody taking regular turns cooking.  Kent claimed that it was not obligatory to participate in the grocery money plan, but he was so persistent in trying to convince me of its practicality that I began to feel sure that he benefited disproportionately.  In any case with my expense account, I could easily afford to dine out and explore the local cuisine, and under no circumstances did I want to get trapped into a militaristic dining schedule.  I thanked Kent, who was still indexing the economic advantages of communal living as I was backing out the door, and then went back to my suburban motel and dinner at Burger King feeling somewhat demoralized.

The next day I went to see the second apartment.  It was the first floor apartment of a three story wooden house just past the fashionable neighborhood of the university.  I rang the bell but it didn’t work, so I knocked on the door.  A thin, thirty-five year old man with blond hair opened the door with a friendly, energetic hello and introduced himself as Randall.  I had barely said hello in return when he burst out in an emotional gush.

“I’ve just been listening on National Public Radio about the racial problems in New York.”  Randall began pacing back and forth in the hallway, nervously smoking a cigarette as I stood in the doorway.  “I’m from Mississippi and I’ve lived with black people all my life.  They’re good people and I’ve always had a lot of black friends.  Of course there are always some assholes just like in any group, but for the most part they’re good people and it makes me really mad to hear stories like these where rich white bankers red line a black neighborhood and refuse to give them loans to start up businesses or do home improvements that would help develop their communities.”  Randall leaned against the wall and stared down vehemently at the scuffed floor boards as he continued his passionate monologue.

“It’s typical of the way things are run in this fucked up country.  There’s no social consciousness.  It’s just a system for continually making more money for the rich and keeping the poor held down.  It’s just like health insurance for example.  Only the rich can afford to get sick in this country.  We have the resources and technology to take care of the entire population, but the average person can’t afford insurance or get access to decent health care.  It’s obvious that the medical establishment and the insurance companies are in collusion.  Those fuckers!  They’re all criminals!”  I stood in the doorway as Randall raced on with his monologue, sometimes pacing the floor and sometimes leaning against the wall.  I shifted my weight from foot to foot as his tirade continued.  Randall was starting to light a second cigarette, during a violent diatribe about Third World development policy and people that litter, when he seemed to suddenly remember the reason why I was standing in his doorway.

“Hey I bet you want to see the apartment.  Here I am spouting off a lot of political horseshit.”  He laughed merrily and the intensity vanished from his face.  “Come on in.  This first room is my room.”  I glanced in and saw a neat, spartanly decorated room.  Next to the curtained window there was a small hole in the wall and chunks of plaster and dust were lying on the floor.  Next he showed me two empty, sunny rooms across the hall from each other.  The hardwood floors were badly worn and the walls needed painting.  “The deal is you take both these rooms for $300 a month.  You can do whatever you want with them.  You can turn them into a bowling alley for all I care, but you have to take both of them for that rent.”

Randall showed me the rest of the apartment.  The kitchen was large and fairly clean.  There were also two more rooms which were occupied by a Polish biochemist who was a post-doctorate at the University.

“Jozef is home on vacation for three weeks,” Randall explained to me.  “He told me to just use my judgment in picking a roommate.  We’re both basically pretty laid back and believe in live and let live.  We’re not manic about cleaning either.  Sometimes I let it go if I’m not in the mood and then I’ll get a frenzied craze and attack the whole house.”

I told Randall about the apartment I’d visited yesterday and Kent’s communal eating system.  Randall’s face screwed up in disgust.  “Fuck that!”  He spat out.  “That guy sounds like a frustrated fascist.  I couldn’t live like that.  Besides I’m too antisocial.  I’m really kind of a loner and I need my space to brood.  I can’t take people getting in my face at all.  Hey!  Come on downstairs.  I’ll show you my wood shop.”

I followed Randall down to the basement and he unlocked the door to a small wood shop.  A band saw was in the middle of the floor and a radial arm saw was mounted on a work bench.  Above the work bench were tools and files hanging neatly in rows.  Next to a stack of drawings and designs was a partially constructed musical string instrument.  On the wall was a poster of a renaissance painting depicting a young woman playing the same type of string instrument.

“This is my shop for making lutes,” said Randall enthusiastically.  “Here, look at this.”  He grabbed a drawing off the stack and began explaining the dimensions and physics of construction.  To illuminate my understanding he wrote down a formula for calculating the distance in millimeters between the bridge and the first fret on the neck.  Then he showed me an incubator where he stored strips of maple, dogwood, linden and yew at a constant temperature and relative humidity.

Randall’s ambition was to eventually become a professional lute maker.  He told me that he’d been working for the last dozen years as an arbolist.  He had worked for every landscaping company in town and was an experienced, highly skilled tree climber.  He spent most of his working day 60 feet off the ground trimming branches with a chain saw.

I briefly described my job for him and he seemed very interested.  “Well we sure need people doing that kind of work,” he exclaimed emphatically as he nervously dug another cigarette out of his pack.  “Well you seem pretty cool so if you want the rooms they’re yours.”

I considered the matter briefly.  Randall certainly was eccentric, but basically he seemed to be a good person.  I told him I’d take the rooms and it was decided that I’d move in that weekend.

CHAPTER 9

I originally became interested in environmental management when I was dropping in and out of college.  It had interested me partially as an intellectual puzzle of how to clean up the mess and maintain the system, and also because of a primal attraction to the great, wild outdoors.  I had a romantic image of myself working in a pristine, idyllic forest.  It hadn’t ever occurred to me then that there were very few people who would be willing to pay me to hang out in the woods and go camping.  When I finally began job hunting in the field, it was both a revelation and a disillusionment to discover that most of the available jobs would take me to the industrial nightmares, petrochemical wastelands, and muddy construction sites across the country.

At 7:15 the next morning Earl and I were dressing-up in the changing room next to “Freddie’s Foyer” on the third floor of Building 95. Earl was grumbling about not being able to smoke in the RCA as he pulled off his big, steel-toed boots.  Vito, the safety man with the enormous pot belly, and another labourer were looking through some porno magazines.

“I tell you what.” rumbled Earl from deep inside his massive chest. “I ain’t in the mood for this shit today.  Me an’ old Flynn  went out to a tit bar last night and I didn’t get back to the hotel till 3 in the morning.”

Vito perked up with interest.  “Oh yeah.  Which one did you go to?” he asked, turning the magazine sideways and opening the centerfold.

“The Gentleman’s Club.” Earl drawled.

“Yeah, out on Route 11. That’s a good place.”

“I tell you what, there was this little blonde there.  I swear she wasn’t as big as a minute, but Lord she was a sexy little thing.  Her ass was like two little pigs in a gunny sack.  Man I would have been on that like stink on dogshit.”  Earl let out a big laugh and then groaned.  “Oh my head.  I need a cigarette.  Otto, we’re going to have to do this jump as fast as we can and get this shit over with.”

“Hell, sucking rubber and sweatin’ are good for you when you’ve got a hangover.” laughed Vito.  “I know.  I’m the safety man.  I’ll even let you stay in extra time so you can work up a really good sweat.  But you’ve got to be out by 9:00 at the latest, ’cause we can’t be late for coffee break.” The other labourer laughed along with Vito.

“Yeah, fuck you.” growled Earl.

I finished duct taping my gloves to my poly tyvek suit sleeve and waited for Earl to finish dressing.  I was wearing a swimsuit and a tee-shirt underneath my suit.  Earl was wearing his bluejeans.  We both had on two pairs of plastic booties taped around the ankles to the suit legs.  The suit itself was a waterproof set of disposable coveralls with a zipper down the front.  On our hands we had a thin pair of cotton liners, thin latex lab gloves, and green corrosive resistant outer gloves taped at the wrists.  Detachable tyvek hoods would be taped to our shoulders and facemasks at the entrance of the containment.  It was warm on the third floor and I could already feel the heat building up inside my suit.  I opened my zipper and a stream of hot air rushed up past my neck.

When Earl was ready we went to the containment entrance, put our respirators on and waited while Vito taped our hoods.  Vito had about 100 strips of duct tape on the wall ready for use, all with one end folded over as a tab.  The duct tape had to be tabbed because it stuck so strongly to itself that if there was no tab, you’d never be able to peel off the tape and someone would have to cut you out of your suit.

Vito finished taping my hood and plugged in my 100 foot airline.  I smelled the familiar stale air odour you always notice when you first plug into an airline, and my ears were filled with the rhythmic whoosh and hiss of air going through the pressure demand valve.  The respirators we were using had combination dust and organic vapor filters for emergency escape if our airlines malfunctioned.  Inside the containment were cabinets with bottles and jars containing various liquids and powders.  Our job was to remove all the chemicals from the work area so that the labourers could have a free hand to take apart and dismantle everything that was left.  We were working on supplied air partially because of the known hazard of beryllium dust throughout the area and also due to the presence of unknown materials in unmarked containers.

I pushed aside the hanging poly flap and stepped into the first chamber of the decon.  I was in a 4 by 6 foot space made entirely of clear poly sheeting supported by 2 by 4 studs.  This was the clean room.  I parted the next flap and passed into the dirty room.  I stepped past a plastic bag of discarded Personal Protective Equipment and went through the last flap into the work area.  There was a pile of steel toed rubber boots by the door and I slid into a pair.  The boots were about three sizes too big and my feet sloshed around inside them, but they would do.

While I waited for Earl, I remembered back to the first time I had worn a respirator.  My first job in the environmental field had been as an asbestos inspector and air monitor.  I had sent my resume and salary requirements to all the well known environmental activist groups like the Sierra Club, The Environmental Defense Fund, Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund, and so on.  I had also seen several ads in the classified section for asbestos inspectors.  I had no idea what asbestos was, but the ads were under the heading “Environmental”, so I had sent in my resume.  Of course the famous nonprofit environmental action groups had budget and staffing restrictions, but asbestos removal was a booming business in the late 1980’s and I was able to pick the entrance of my choice into the corporate world.

After a two week crash course in asbestos handling and the fundamentals of air monitoring, I was sent to Madison Square Garden to work on the renovation project.  All the spray-on asbestos fireproofing and asbestos pipe insulation was being removed as part of the renovation.  My first impression when I arrived on the construction site at the Felt Forum was that I’d gone on a journey to a different planet.  To get at the asbestos fireproofing sprayed onto the I-beams and the decking of the ceiling, an entire floor had been constructed underneath it and was supported by a massive jungle-jim of scaffolding, 30 feet high.  Groups of men dressed in white paper suits and hoods were lounging and wandering around.  Others who had obviously just emerged from the decon showers were walking to the changing room with white paper towels wrapped around their waists.  A number of workers were also wearing these same paper towels around their heads like kerchiefs.  There were constant banging sounds coming from up above the scaffolding and also occasional thuds as heavy objects fell to the floor somewhere above my head.  Added to this were several high pitched whines which I later discovered to be the high volume pumps for the asbestos air monitoring.

I met a Greek guy named Peter, who was the inspector for this containment.  Peter was as calm and easy going as I was nervous and anxious about entering a containment area with the infamous carcinogenic killer, asbestos.  During the heyday of the asbestos hysteria, somebody published a study on the chronic effects of exposure to asbestos fibers, in which it was stated that there was no known, safe, minimum level of exposure.  The recommendation had been therefore to minimize exposure as close to the zero level as was practically possible.  In the mind of the general public however, “no known, safe, minimum level” became distorted to “one fiber will kill you.”

Equipped then with my two week training course and not a few wild and ugly rumours, I had suited up with Peter to go into the containment and tour the area.  We were naked under our tyvek suits as it is always done in asbestos work, where you take off your suit and then proceed to the shower while deconning.  The respirators we were using were PAPR’s, or powered air purifying respirators, with small motors that sucked in ambient air through high efficiency particle filters.  As I donned my PAPR, in my state of apprehension, I pulled the straps so tightly around my head that it felt like someone was cutting my skull open with piano wire.

I followed Peter up the steps to the decon entrance with my respirator still strapped excruciatingly tight.  We passed through the first set of three overlapping poly flaps into the clean room.  Then we pushed through the next set of flaps into the shower, on through a set of flaps to the dirty room and finally, with my adrenaline pumping, into the containment area itself.

I felt like I was moving in a strange dream as I walked through this new world.  The scaffolding floor covered the area underneath the entire ceiling of the Felt Forum and we had to stoop slightly to walk under the beams.  The surfaces of the floors and walls were completely covered with double layers of clear poly and it looked like we were inside a shiny plastic bubble.  The combination of fear of the poorly understood hazard, the noise of men and machinery working, and the pain of the straps around my skull, had my heart pounding.  I trailed Peter through the work area, trying to understand what I was seeing.  Some workers were cutting up black-iron ceiling tile support grids and electrical conduit with powersaws, which sent orange sparks flying.  Other workers were forming a chain and relaying plastic bags full of cinder block debris to an exit chute at the far end of the area.  I was dimly conscious of Peter explaining to me, in a voice muffled by the respirator, that everything that could not be cleaned  of the fireproofing spray would have to be double bagged and disposed of as asbestos contaminated material.

The pain of the straps digging into my head grew worse and my anxiety was beginning to make me almost dizzy.  I was getting pangs of claustrophobic panic and wanted to get my face out of the mask.  I was embarrassed and ashamed to admit my fear and discomfort to Peter, but finally I could bear it no longer.  To my immense relief, Peter, instead of showing impatience and disgust at my greenness, was very understanding and relaxed.

“That’s O.K.  It takes a while to get used to wearing a respirator.”  he reassured me.  “Just sit down here for a minute and see if you feel any better.”

I sat down on a pile of cinder block rubble and tried to breath calmly.  Peter sat down also and waited patiently for a few minutes.  “You O.K.?”  he inquired.

My breathing had slowed down to almost normal and I replied as nonchalantly as I could.  Peter then earned my gratitude by telling me that I’d probably had enough for my first time out and I could head back to the decon and shower out.  It would soon become second nature to me to spend long hours in respirators of all kinds, and to not cut off circulation to the brain in the process, but that first time was an event I will always remember.

Having this experience makes it easy to be sympathetic to a new worker going through the same thing, but there is still one story that stands out in my mind as pure comedy.  At the height of the renovation of the Garden there were over 25 containment areas being worked on simultaneously and I was eventually assigned as the inspector for one of them.  The general contractor had an Italian guy named Tony who came around to each containment area every day and kept track of the work progress.  Each day he would ask me what per cent of the gross removal or fine cleaning had been completed, and each day I would add five per cent to my answer and he would smile and continue to the next containment.

One day somebody in management for the general contractor decided that Tony should dress up and go in the containment areas and see the work first hand.  Tony was visibly nervous his first time.  Upon exiting, after removing his tyvek suit in the dirty room, he entered the shower still wearing his respirator as was proper decon procedure.  However after rinsing off his mask, he was too afraid of the asbestos to take his mask off and it slowly began filling up with water.  As the water level rose above his nose inside his mask, Tony began banging on the metal shower walls until somebody went in and loosened the straps and pulled his respirator off.  Everybody could empathize with Tony’s panic, but that didn’t stop anybody from razzing him for almost drowning inside his own respirator.

A thrashing of the poly decon flaps and a deep grunt behind me announced Earl’s entrance into the work area.  Earl bent over to put on a pair of boots and split the seam in the crotch of his suit.  He grumbled a long stream of curses that were garbled by his respirator and grabbed a roll of duct tape to patch up his suit.  When he was ready we looked down at the tangled pile of spaghetti that was our airlines.  “What a cluster fuck!” was Earl’s assessment.  He started walking towards the other end of the work area and beckoned me to follow.  We extended our lines as far as they would go and began lifting over and stepping through to untangle them.

After a few minutes we got our lines straightened out and we began combing through the area to remove any hazardous materials, Earl on one side and myself on the other to avoid crossing lines again. I looked in all the cabinets, drawers, boxes, shelves and closets, and staged all the jars, bottles, vials and jerry cans near the decon.  There we would check the PH of unmarked liquids if they weren’t oils, and decon all the containers by wiping them down to keep any beryllium or depleted uranium dust from escaping the containment.  Then the containers would be passed out through the decon to the HP who would take a smear sample from the surface of each container and check it with his frisker, a hand held radiation meter, to determine if the container was free of removable surface contamination.  If the containers didn’t pass, they were handed back into the containment to be wiped down again.  When the containers were clean of surface contamination they were brought downstairs to a storage room where Mark was busy segregating them by hazard class and cataloguing everything in an inventory log.  One set of shelves was for radioactive items and several others were for unmarked and unknown containers which would have to be characterized before they could be segregated.  Our company, Toxikleen, wasn’t going to do the lab packing, the packing of these materials into drums of like hazard classes, because a competitor company had the contract for lab packing with the army base.  The other company therefore would have to deal with the characterizing of all these unknowns.

Accompanied by the regular sound of my breathing, I staged 50 or 60 containers by the decon before Vito called us on the radio and told us it was time to come out.  The materials were mostly a collection of machine and pump oils and metal powder samples.  The army had been testing various metals to discover useful material properties and they were considered hazardous because fine metal powders could ignite and were therefore classified as flammable solids.

Earl and I rolled up our airlines and removed our tyvek suits in the dirty room of the decon.  Textbook procedure dictates that you carefully roll off your suit, but every HAZMAT worker in the world rips the front zipper open and then continues tearing down the seams of the legs.  We shoved our suits into the plastic bag, along with gloves, booties, hoods and bits of duct tape, then emerged from the decon, where Vito unhooked our airlines and collected our respirators.  My tee shirt, swim suit and socks were thoroughly drenched with sweat.  Earl’s blue jeans, that he’d have to wear for the rest of the day, were soggy.

“I tell you what,” grumped Earl with an unhappy frown, “I sure could use a cup of coffee.”

CHAPTER 10

I had taken up quarters in Randall’s apartment.  That is, I brought a futon mattress and put it on the floor along with a bag of clothes and a cassette player.  This wasn’t really much less than I had in my New York apartment because I had put most of my possessions in storage when Tania and I had separated and they have been there ever since.

My New York apartment was in a funky, part grad student, part Hispanic neighborhood above Columbia University.  The plaster walls were crumbling, the paint was peeling, the floor boards were worn and splintered, and the elevator was usually out of order, but it was dirt cheap so I had moved in temporarily with my friend Massoud after my separation.  Massoud was an Iranian ex-philosophy doctorate student who had been studying in the U.S. since before the Islamic Revolution and now had nowhere to go home to, even though he had long since left the university. Like many of my foreign friends, I had met Massoud playing soccer, which I had fallen in love with during my years abroad.

Massoud was a real city rat.  He worked part time as a translator in the courts and lived parsimoniously to be able to do the things he liked that New York had to offer.  His transportation was an old bicycle that he repaired constantly, his furniture was scavenged from the street, and his clothes were old and worn.  However he was a great fan of opera and the theater and he went several times a week, always paying next to nothing for his tickets.  He was a bit moody, but I left him alone and he left me alone and we got along fine.  One time though when we were talking about the movies, Massoud had suddenly burst out vehemently, “I hate going to the movies with someone else. As soon as the movie is over they start nagging you, asking you what you thought about the movie!”  We did go to the movies together occasionally, but I carefully refrained from nagging him about his opinions until he’d safely had a beer tucked into him.

CHAPTER 11

After a week we had finished removing all the hazardous materials from the third floor of Building 95 and Johnny A. had us scheduled to work overtime to sample drums of unknowns in several other buildings after everybody else had gone home.  Air bottle systems were set up and HP’s and union labor support were also scheduled.  Earl and I were the sampling team on airlines, Mark and a laborer were the safety support men, Johnny A. was taking notes and an HP named Dickie Lee was in charge of radiation protection.

As Earl, Mark, the laborer and I suited up, Dickie Lee spit tobacco juice into a coke bottle and delivered a monologue in a slow southern drawl.  Dickie Lee was from Tennessee, and like most HP’s was formerly in the navy nuclear submarine division, but now lived on the road and didn’t even have a home since he had gotten divorced.  He was short, fat and bucktoothed and his hair had a sort of bird’s nest motif.  He sometimes came to our office for lunch where he microwaved some hot water for his 18 cent packet of Ramen noodles in his plastic dog dish bowl, upon which somebody had written “ROVER”.

“I worked 80 hours a week last year and made over 80 grand.” Dickie Lee was saying with a grin.  “In fact I calculated that I spent $12,000 in one titty bar alone, all on the same girl!”  His eyes glazed over as he paused in sweet reverie.  “Ah, Brenda!” he breathed softly with a cherubic smile.

Earl straightened up sharply from pulling on some plastic booties.  “Jesus H. Christ! I hope you got some pretty fancy pussy for $12,000!”

“Nope.” said Dickie Lee, still smiling beatifically.  “I never did.”

Earl stared in shock and disbelief.  Then he snorted and looked over at Johnny A.  The faintest curl of a smile was discernable on Johnny A.’s face as he looked off at the drums on the other side of the barrier caution tape.  The rest of us howled with laughter.

When Earl and I were dressed out and taped up we opened the plastic barrier tape and went in dragging our airlines.  There were about two dozen 55 gallon steel and poly drums that we had to sample.  We took off the bolts with a ratchet wrench and popped the rings.  One by one we opened the lids and took a one liter sample of the contents.  Some were various types of solids, with debris, dirt, paper, plastic, chunks of wood and bricks.

Earl shook his head. “How the hell are we supposed to get a representative sample of all this shit?” he muttered.

Other drums seemed to be mostly water with some sludge on the bottom.  The poly drums contained liquid that tested about one on the PH paper, making it a strong acid.  We sampled the liquid drums with hollow glass rods that reached to the bottom of the drums.  By holding your finger over the hole at the top of the rod, you created suction as you dipped in the rod, and kept the liquid in place until you removed your finger and allowed the liquid to stream into the sampling jar, thus producing a representative sample of the stratified layers in the drum.  Of course in reality the stuff goes all over the place, so you then wipe the sample jar clean and then wipe up any spill you may have made.

We opened one drum and found about ten inches of black sludge on the bottom.  Earl bent over and stuck practically his whole body into the drum and scooped the sludge into a sample jar.  He came over to the barrier tape where the HP was taking smear samples of the sample jar surfaces so we could remove the samples from the area.  Earl’s gloves were completely covered with the sludge and he set off the CM7 radiation meter from several steps away.

“Well that one’s screaming.” grinned Dickie Lee.

“Whoooeee!” yelped Earl ” I think it’s time for a new pair of gloves.”

Earl changed his gloves and we continued sampling the drums, bringing the samples to the HP, and giving pertinent notes to Johnny A.  As we were finishing the last drum, I looked over at Mark and the safety support team and nudged Earl to take a look. They were dressed out in saranax suits with SCBA tanks on their backs and their respirator air hoses ready to be hooked up if there was an emergency, and they were dancing in unison like an R&B singing act.  Dickie Lee was banging a rhythm on the table with a pair of ball point pens and even Johnny A. was standing there with his hands on his hips, but a big smile on his face.  I could see a grin on Earl’s face through his face mask and he patted my shoulder with a sludge smeared glove.  “Ka-ching!  Ka-ching, buddy!”

CHAPTER 12

We spent the next week or so sampling drums and frequently worked long hours, sometimes as much as 15 hours a day.  I often got back to my apartment with only time to sleep and then go back to work again.  I chatted occasionally with Randall, who seemed too cynical and antisocial to ever go out of the house, but was always friendly and usually jolly with me.  Earl was quite pleased to be working all the extra hours, and it wasn’t just the extra money.  As he commented to Mark and me one day, “Hell, I’d just as soon be working.  What the hell else is there to do except go back to the motel and watch T.V?”

The paperwork started building up and Earl and I were logging in information from his notes.  Earl’s desk was buried under scattered piles of rumpled notepads and old paper coffee cups.  The trash can by his desk was overflowing and cigarette butts and ash were all over the floor.  When we were missing some vital data about a certain drum number R-316, Earl hunted through and shuffled all the miscellaneous scraps of paper on his desk until he grunted authoritatively, “Uh huh, here we go.  I knew it was in here somewhere.  Yeah, it’s got a PH of 12.5 so it’s an oxidizer.”

Earl was squinting as he logged in this information.  I looked at him quizzically.  “You mean it’s a corrosive.”

Earl knit his brow tighter and dug his pinkie into his ear. “Well it’s got a PH of 12.5.  It says so right here in my notes.”

“Right.  That makes it a basic corrosive.”

Earl looked convinced.  “Oh yeah.  Of course, it’s a basic corrosive.  That’s on account of the high PH.”  I furtively watched what he wrote as he made entries in the log with his big paw.

The radio buzzed with Flynn’s voice and Earl answered.  Flynn asked a question and Earl rumbled back.  “That’s a ten-four.”  Earl put on his beat up hard hat and pulled out a cigarette.  “I’m going to have to go over there to Building 34 and see what the hell those yahoos are doing.”  He furrowed his forehead seriously as he lit up.  “Christ, you got to watch those union boys every goddamn minute.  It’s like teaching monkeys to shit in a helmet.”  He scuffled his boots as he got to his feet and put on his black Toxikleen company baseball jacket.  “I guess you’ll have to finish this shit while I go bail out Flynn.  Hell sometimes that boy’s as ’bout as useless as a pimple on a hog’s ass.”  He stomped out and I tried to piece together all the data into cohesive and meaningful log entries.

CHAPTER 13

Later that afternoon Mark and I walked over to one of the buildings to help Earl transport drums over to the drum storage area.  Mark had worked for Toxikleen for three years and for an environmental laboratory for two more before that after graduating with a BS in biology.  He had been telling me about how he had been shipped from St. Louis to a project in Puerto Rico with 24 hours notice last year.  He had kissed his girlfriend in St. Louis good bye and had gone off to a petrochemical plant in Puerto Rico where he had worked 70 hours a week for five months straight.  He had never even seen a beach once in Puerto Rico and he never saw his girlfriend again either.  He definitely wasn’t in this job for the lifestyle.

As we entered the building, we saw a knot of men around the drums and suddenly a great commotion broke out amongst them.  We came up to them and saw most of them laughing and some of them arguing playfully with Earl who was grinning broadly and clutching a fistful of money.  Earl was directing the proceedings like a king holding court.

“Thirty bucks again.  You can’t beat that with a stick.  C’mon Grady you tired old man.  Put that drum on the pallet and let’s get another one.”

“Yeah, take it easy Earl.  I’ve been driving a forklift since before you were playing with a spoon and a pail in the sand box.”  Tom Grady was one of the forklift drivers and was in his sixties.  He placed the drum on the pallet and Brendan, a laborer with his hair braided half way down his back, took the drum sling off the forks.  Grady backed up and came forward with his forks lowered and slid one fork through the ring at the top of the drum scales.  He drove over to the next drum that Brendan had rolled into position and they hooked it up to weigh the drum.

“O.K. boys.”  Earl barked, “Who’s in?  If I keep up the way I’m going I’ll be able to retire early off you Yankees.  C’mon now Flynn.  Put your five bucks up there.  How about you Mark, Otto?  Everybody puts in five bucks and tries to guess the weight of the drum.  The closest one wins the pot.”  Mark and I looked at each other and laughed.

“Hell, when I was in Nam we used to bet on who’d be the first to get V.D. from the gook whores.”  Earl chortled as he collected five dollars each from Flynn, Grady, Sal the other forklift driver, Brendan, another laborer called Duck, and Mick the Prick, the ancient and wrinkled shop steward for Union Local 619.  They all took turns tilting the drum on it’s edge to try to gauge it’s weight.

“500 lbs.”

“450 lbs.”

“650”

“What are you crazy?  That’s liquid in that drum.  It can’t be that heavy.  I say 480.”

“505”

“510”

“Ah, Mick you bastard!”

Earl tilted the drum, felt it’s weight, and listened to the contents slosh around inside.  It had a corrosive sticker on it so it was either some kind of acid or a caustic solution.  “I say 440 lbs.”  Earl announced.

The drum was hooked up to the scales and lifted off the ground.  The scales read, “415 lbs.”  Earl exploded gleefully while everyone else moaned.  “Thank you boys.  That makes 120 dollars on the day.  I guess the first drink’s on me tonight at the Beer and Burger Barn.”

“Alright Earl.” said Grady.  “You’ve taken all our money.  Our wives are going to be furious.  How did you do it?”

“Hell.” laughed Earl.  “I’ve been rolling drums a long time.  Besides a 55 gallon drum of liquid’s going to weigh about 450 lbs. and I could tell that this one had a good deal of head space from the way it was sloshing around.  And you Flynn.  650 pounds?  I swear sometimes you’re about as useless as tits on a boarhog.”

Everybody was laughing, even Flynn, who was usually such a tough guy, but took Earl’s ribbing with obvious pleasure.  Suddenly Dickie Lee let out a tremendous trombone blast of a fart and everybody started cursing at him and laughing as they quickly moved away from him.  Dickie Lee had a big happy grin on his face like he’d just given birth to twins.  Earl wrinkled up his nose and pronounced judgement, “I tell you what, you sounded just like a mule walking with a loose valve.  We ought to baffle the lips on your ass.”

During the following hilarity somebody looked at their watch and realized that it was time for coffee break and everyone wandered off to the cafeteria.

CHAPTER 14

After coffee break of course, at first we couldn’t get HP support, and by the time we’d rounded one up, we lost the forklift driver who had gotten called away to another location.  When we got them all together again, an hour had gone by and we were soon going to be on overtime.  Then Brendan couldn’t find the banding tool that pinches the metal band together that we had to wind around the four drums on the pallet.  He called Jack on the radio out at the drum storage yard, but Jack wasn’t answering, so Brendan walked over there to find it.  All this meant that we sat around waiting for almost two hours before we could actually start moving the drums.  To move drums of radioactive and hazardous waste, it was site policy that they should be escorted at all times by both an HP and a representative of Toxikleen.  Therefore, every time a pallet was to be moved, you needed an HP, a Toxikleen employee, and a forklift driver, at minimum.  Nine times out of ten, one of the three was sure to be missing.

While we were waiting, the laborer called Duck struck up a conversation with Mark and asked him where he was staying.  Duck was a hard working, ex-drinker who always walked around with an energetic and purposeful swing to his muscular arms.  When he discovered that Mark had gotten an apartment in his neighborhood, he became very interested and began giving him a lot of tips.  In particular he warned him to stay away from one bar.  “Don’t go in there because the locals’ll think you’re a college kid and they’ll kick the shit out of you.”

Eventually we got everybody together and I started escorting drums along with Grady and an HP named Stanley, who was from the south and smoked cigarettes and drank coffee frequently with Earl.  Grady picked up a pallet with 3 drums bearing corrosive stickers and Stanley and I walked beside him in the brisk November air as he drove them the 300 yard distance to the storage yard.  Stanley complained the whole way about the cold and said he couldn’t wait to get back to the nuclear power plant in South Carolina where he had been working.  I couldn’t resist teasing him by asking him if he was going to try skiing this winter up in the north.  “Hell no!” he protested.  “You ain’t going to catch me doing something crazy like that.  I’ll go down to the bar in the hotel and have a beer or two, and that’s as far as I’m going.”

We got out to the storage yard and found Jack chatting with Mick the Prick.  “Hi Otto.” Jack greeted me.  “Did you see the Rangers beat the Islanders last night?”  We talked hockey for a minute and then Jack began explaining the task he was performing. “You see Otto, all that rain that we had last night collected in the bermed storage areas so I’ve got to pump it out into 55 gallon drums.”

“That’s right.” rasped Mick the Prick, pulling out a Lucky Strike, “And when you’re finished, you pump it right back in there again.  We need our job security.”  Mick and Jack guffawed and I grinned.  Mick pointed his crooked index finger and glowing cigarette at my chest.  “You think I’m jokin’.  The economy is fuckin’ slow.  There aren’t many jobs out there.  Some of these guys haven’t worked for two years until this job came along.”

“Yeah and Christmas is right around the corner, Otto.” added Jack ruefully.

“Hey Grady.  I bet you’ve got some mortgage payments coming up too.”

Grady sat on his forklift and smiled.  “My youngest daughter’s still in college.”

“There you go.” Mick jabbed his cigarette towards my chest again.  “His daughter’s still in college.  He needs all the overtime he can get.”  The three union laborers laughed heartily. Stanley had long since drifted away in search of warmth.

“Well.” I said, “We’ll have to keep him busy moving drums from one spot to another and then back again.”

The laborers roared.  “Hey Tox Queen.”  said Mick with a big smile splitting his corrugated features.  “You’re alright.”

“O.K. Otto.  Where do you want me to put these drums?” asked Jack.

“Just dump ’em in the fuckin’ river.”  exclaimed Mick in an impatient tone, as if Jack were being unbelievably dense.

“I can’t.” said Jack, bursting into a cackle. “The river’s already full.”

CHAPTER 15

I was settling comfortably into my new apartment.  Randall always had something to say and a new sick joke that he’d heard at work when I came home, but otherwise continued his solitary existence, either working frenetically in his wood shop or lurking restlessly in his room.  Jozef came back from Poland and he and I got along well from the start.  We had a couple of things in common that gave us a lot to talk about.  Jozef had been several times to Berlin, where I had lived with Tania for almost a year, and he was also a big soccer fan and told me he would take me to a pick up game at the university if I was still here in the spring.

Jozef was further amazed that I knew some words in Polish.  I explained to him that most of the asbestos workers in New York City were recent Polish immigrants.  The majority of the Polish workers spoke no English, but were always very polite and smiled in a friendly manner.  They always respectfully addressed me as “Inspector” and immediately did what I asked them to do, without the usual arguments that I was wasting the contractor’s time and money.  On many of the projects I worked on, entire work crews had been Polish, 30 or 40 men with names that I could barely pronounce or even write.  In fact, all the warning signs around the asbestos containment areas in New York had to be printed in Polish as well as English and Spanish.

The American inspectors frequently thought the Poles were stupid because they didn’t speak English and often spoke disparagingly to them.  Eventually I discovered that many of the Polish laborers had been highly educated professionals who had left Poland during the 1980’s during the government crack down on the Solidarity movement.  Many of them spoke several languages, usually Russian, German and French, but not English.  I could communicate with many of them in either German or French, but like most people in the asbestos industry in New York, I ended up acquiring a working vocabulary of several dozen Polish words, such as hot, cold, work, good, bad, quickly, water, bags, hello, good bye and how to count to one hundred.

CHAPTER 16

While on route to the men’s room I had grabbed the job contract as my toilet reading, and was now contentedly edifying myself in my favorite literary alcove.  I was gleaning bits and pieces of information that I’d overlooked before when I came to the itemized list of billable expenses and realized that we were actually budgeted for two computers.  One of my major frustrations was that our one computer was perpetually occupied and all our information and drum logs were laboriously hand written into half a dozen gigantic and unwieldy three ring binders.  Information on each drum was catalogued in five different binders and each status change required updating all five.  Inevitably someone would forget to make an entry in one or another, or pages would fall out with the result that our files were frequently in an exasperating state of chaos and required vigilant and time consuming corrections.

I had once spent the better part of two days tracking down a missing drum only to discover that someone had put a checkmark through a “one” in a log entry, changing “R-231″ to R-234, and the mistake had carried through all the paperwork.  Several toilsome drum inventories all showed R-231 to be missing and I had been pulling my hair out trying to unravel this calamitous mystery.  A lost drum of hazardous and radioactive waste is of course a severe breach of regulatory compliance and could possibly result in an investigation by not only the U.S. Army, but also federal and state regulatory agencies like the EPA or the NRC.  When my meticulous examination finally shed light on the checkmark mix-up, I didn’t know whether to rage in anger at this carelessness or cheer gratefully at the triumph of my detective work.

I found Johnny A. later and I asked him why we hadn’t acquired the second computer that we were budgeted for.  “Well.” said Johnny A. and he stared at the floor for such a long time that I thought he’d forgotten me.  Finally he spit some tobacco juice into his only half full styrofoam coffee cup and resumed his answer.  “I didn’t feel like putting it on my company credit card because I already had so many expenses on it that good old Toxikleen hadn’t reimbursed me for yet.”  He looked back at the floor again and we stood in a clumsy silence.  I was ready to burst out laughing at the irony of the reason why our records were in such disarray.  “If you want to organize getting another one, go ahead.” continued Johnny A. “The best way to do it is to lease one with option to buy.  That way when we’re finished here, you can buy it for yourself for the remainder of the cost.”

I was very excited by this idea and was looking forward to both greatly increasing the efficiency of our operation and acquiring a nice computer for myself at a bargain basement price. However later that day our senior project manager, Pete Vilbig, phoned from the office back in Newark, New Jersey, and in my enthusiasm I told him of my plan to computerize our log books. Pete perked up with perceptible interest and immediately scuttled my hopes for personal gain by substituting my plan with a better one of his own.  It just so happened that there was a computer out in the warehouse and he could ship it up to us tomorrow and bill our client, C&C, the maximum rate to boot.  Pete cackled with pleasure as he envisioned making money off both ends of the deal.  I was of course obliged to continue expressing enthusiasm in my little charade as a company man, even though inside I felt like booting Pete in the ass for one upping me.  When Johnny A. heard the development he told me matter of factly I was an idiot and that I should have just gone out and leased the computer without saying anything to Pete until afterwards.

The following day brought yet another twist in the story as C&C’s comptroller, upon being informed by Pete that Toxikleen was going to bill him for another computer, one-upped Pete by telling him that he would supply us with a computer at no charge as he had an extra one on site available.  I could just imagine Pete feigning gratitude and cordial enthusiasm, while quietly fuming that he had been beaten at his own game.

That very afternoon I was presented with an antiquated computer which I soon discovered to be obsolete and incompatible with all modern software, and to furthermore be in need of some major repairs.  The computer was sent to a repair shop where it spent the next three weeks, while we continued struggling with our three-ring-binders.  It finally came back in serviceable condition with a repair bill of over five hundred dollars which C&C had to pay.  I wasn’t sure who got the last laugh.

CHAPTER 17

On weekends I was commuting back to New York so with our long work days I was spending very little time at my local apartment.  Jozef spent at least twelve hours every day at his lab and Randall was working ten hours a day climbing and cutting trees.  When Randall came home at night, he sat in a chair in his small room drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes and listening to the news on National Public Radio, until a flash of frenetic energy would grab hold of him and he would disappear for several hours down in his wood shop.  He was an early riser and usually went to bed by 9 o’clock, which often was before either Jozef or I came home.  One evening I was chatting with him in his room and I noticed there was a new hole in the wall.

Jozef came home from the lab between 9 and 11 at night.  He would come rushing down the hall, put some rock music on his stereo and fill the kitchen with aromas of cabbage and kielbasa. After eating he would drink two or three shots of vodka and read professional journals until going to bed.  On nights when we didn’t work late, I either played basketball with Mark or explored the city by myself, trying out new restaurants or listening to blues in a club. The result of our various activities and schedules was that I would sometimes go all week without seeing either Randall or Jozef.  Since I always paid my bills, they considered me an ideal roommate, especially after I brought in a microwave oven.

CHAPTER 18

Our next major step on the job was to fingerprint the samples we had taken from the drums of unknowns.  The samples first had to be taken to the RSA radio chemistry lab trailer where their levels of radioactivity were measured and broken down by individual isotopes.  The following day we would pick them up again with their isotopic reports.  When all the samples had been “counted” by the radiochem lab, they were ready to be fingerprinted.

On most projects Toxikleen would bring a fingerprint lab trailer on site to handle the thousands of samples from the buried drums that were being excavated.  Here however we had less than 400 drums of unknowns so we just set up a temporary lab in the army laboratory building.

The first day of fingerprinting, Mark, the other field chemist, was busy comparing paperwork with Mike Randazzo, who was in charge of rad waste shipment for RSA.  To take Mark’s place, Johnny A. sent Earl to help me with the fingerprinting.  Earl sat down restlessly to record my results as I suited up in lab gloves, safety glasses, and a saranax impermeable suit which would protect me from splashes of corrosive liquids.

We had a slight delay as we waited for an HP to show up.  After ten minutes an HP named Tom arrived with a frisker and a magazine.  He said hello and then promptly sat down, tuned us out, and started reading.

We conducted the fingerprint tests under a fume hood which maintained a safe working atmosphere by sucking the air out of the top of the hood and through a filter system which would catch any radioactive particles being released during the flammability test.  The fume hood itself was roped off as Radiologically Controlled Area, so once I stuck my hands inside it, I wasn’t supposed to pull them out without removing my PPE and being frisked out by the HP.  I opened the first sample.

“How long’s this gonna take Otto?” Earl inquired moodily with his brow furrowed.

“I’d say several days to a week.” I replied looking at the clear, bright blue, watery liquid of the first sample.  “You know how slow it is to get anything done around here.”

“Yeah you can say that again.  Everybody around here’s got their head so far up their ass that a man can’t hardly get his job done.”

“Usually in the field lab we try to do a sample in under two minutes, but with delays, screw-ups, interruptions, and breaks you’re doing good if you can average 10 to 15 samples an hour.  Out in Indiana we were doing about 100 a day in 10 hours, but I don’t expect to do that here.”

Earl looked completely uninterested in my process analysis. He fidgeted with his pen and then leaned back and stuck his pinkie in his ear.  “Hell I need a cigarette.” he muttered.

I grabbed a silver dollar sized aluminum cup with a pair of tongs and squirted a few drops of the blue liquid into it with an eye dropper.  I held it to the flame of the Bunsen burner and the blue liquid sputtered, but didn’t burn.  I dumped the residue from the aluminum cup in a bottle of waste and threw the cup in a garbage bag inside the hood.

“Physical description:” I recited to Earl, “clear, blue, watery liquid.  Flammability: negative.”

I grabbed a three inch long piece of copper wire and held it in the flame until it glowed.  Then I quickly dipped it into the sample and stuck it back in the flame, where it burned bright orange.  “Predictably enough the halogen test is negative.”  The halogen test identified the presence of halogenated solvents like PCB’s, and gave a positive result when the flame from the copper wire burned bright green.  From its appearance and nonflammability I had been pretty certain that it was not a halogen and almost felt the test was a waste of time.  However I reminded myself that I was being paid by the hour and it wasn’t as if I was back to being a salaried chemist working as long as it took to fingerprint all the samples that the excavation crew had dug up the day before.  I had also taken a short cut by sticking the heated wire directly into the sample instead of into a few drops squirted into the aluminum cup.  If the sample had been flammable this would have risked igniting the entire sample.

Next I took a piece of PH paper and stuck it into the sample.  The bottom square turned pinkish purple.  “PH: one.” I announced, throwing the PH paper in the garbage bag.  Then I grabbed a white strip of potassium iodine paper and stuck it in the sample.  It turned a strong blue color. “Oxidizer: positive.” I threw the oxidizer paper in the garbage and squirted some water in a test tube from a plastic bottle.  Then I added a few drops of the sample with the eye dropper and observed the reaction.  The sample dissolved completely in the water without producing any bubbles or heat. “Water reactivity: soluble.  Comments: what we have here is a highly concentrated acid and an oxidizer.” I recited as I closed the sample and threw away the eye dropper and test tube.  Earl’s face was scrunched up with concentration as he wrote.

There were two tests for the presence of sulfides and cyanides that I hadn’t run on account of the low PH value of the sample.  Both sulfides and cyanides would react to the addition of acid and release gas as a by-product.  Sulfides would release hydrogen sulfide gas which was detected by turning a piece of lead acetate paper brown and cyanides would release hydrogen cyanide gas which turned a piece of cyantesmo paper blue.  Both hydrogen sulfide and hydrogen cyanide could be deadly at the low air concentration of 50 parts per million, but any that was produced would be sucked up the fume hood and dispersed in the atmosphere.  You did want to be sure however that you didn’t get careless and hold the test tube under your nose while you performed these two tests.

I continued fingerprinting aided by Earl’s somewhat less than enthusiastic assistance as a scribe.  Finally at ten minutes to nine, Earl insisted on a coffee break and took off to smoke a cigarette on the ten minute walk down to the cafeteria building. I unsuited and got my hands frisked by the HP who also then disappeared.  I looked with some amusement through the pages of data that Earl had compiled.  The spelling was erratic and he had even managed to spell “soluble” in four different ways, none of which were correct.  Then I settled down to read the HP’s magazine and wait for Earl to return.

At a quarter to ten Earl slogged back into the lab and I went off to locate our HP.  At ten past ten we were all reassembled and I was suited up and ready to recommence fingerprinting.  Now that Earl had several cups of coffee and probably a dozen cigarettes in him, he was in quite a jolly mood. As I performed the tests and intermittently announced the results, Earl loudly and joyously recounted the tale of his sojourn in a tit bar with Flynn the night before.

“I tell you what Otto, we had ourselves a time last night.  Flynn and I went to this tit bar out on 136, The Tender Loin.  There were some fine looking women, some fine looking women.” He turned his hard hat sideways on his head and hung his tongue out of one corner of his mouth.  “Otto, I mean fine looking women.”

“PH: 5.  Oxidizer: negative.” I laughed as I caught site of Earl’s clowning.  Even the HP looked up from his magazine.

“But, oh Lord.” Earl’s voice then dropped down to a low purr. “You know I’ve found myself sometimes with some pretty unappetizing females, but this one that Flynn was after.  Shit.” Earl rocked back in his chair and let out a loud laugh. “I tell you what, she looked like 50 miles of bad road and hung out wet to dry.  And talk about big, ol’ titties?  You should have seen how big her bra was.  It was like two bushel baskets with a wire hoop.  Hell, when she’s not wearing it she can pick fruit with it.”

“Acid reactivity: negative.”

“Wait a minute.  What was the flammability?”

“Flammability: negative.  Halogen: negative.”

“This is sample number R-1512, right?”

“Right.  Cyanide and sulfide both negative.”

Earl jotted down the information and resumed the main business at hand which I had distracted him from.  “Like I was saying, Flynn was all over her like flies on a cowpie.  I told him you can’t fuck a pig, because they’ll squeal on you every time.” Earl shook with laughter.

“Comments: clear watery liquid.  Next sample: R-239.”

“You know,” Earl leaned forward earnestly, “There’s a tit bar on Route 24 that gives breakfast on weekends.  Steak’n’eggs and coffee and tits galore!  If that don’t cure your hangover and wake you up, nothing will.  Me and Flynn and some of the union boys are going on Saturday.  Why don’t you come Otto.  In fact, you Otto come.  Ha!  Ha!  Get it?  Otto come.”

“Yeah, you’re a regular comedian Earl.”

“Yeah I know I’m a chameleon.”

“Actually I’m going down to New York for the weekend.”

“Yeah, well you’re probably too good to hang out with us anyway.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.”  I looked back at Earl and we both laughed.

“Fuck you, you New York city slicker.”

“Why don’t you come down to the Big Apple sometime Earl?  I’ll show you the bright lights of the big city.”

“Hell no!” answered Earl emphatically.  “But thanks for offering anyway.”

“That’s O.K., I wasn’t serious.”

As we continued I remembered back to other projects where I had spent weeks and months just fingerprinting countless numbers of samples all day.  Fingerprinting, even in short bursts, is fairly boring unless you come across something exotic, so conversation and telling tales greatly help pass the time.  Sexual encounters, whether erotic, passionate, humorous or just plain disgusting, were the most common grist for the mill.  Out in Indiana I had worked with a fraternity brother and rugby player named Skip, who had just graduated from college.  Skip chewed tobacco and kept a spit cup inside the fume hood itself, which was of course, a gross violation of all kinds of regulations.  Skip’s stories always began with the standard opening, “Well I was balls deep in this chick…”

When the old timers found a drum of unknown contents the common practice was to open it and simply take a little sniff.  Nobody carried around the equipment required for fingerprinting and they wouldn’t want to bother taking the time in any case.  The theory was that a quick sniff of just about anything wouldn’t be enough to do you any damage.  With some experience they could identify by smell the most commonly dealt with materials.  I had often seen my colleagues take a sniff of a drum  and say  “Yup.  It’s a solvent.  Flammable liquid.  Probably an adhesive.”

This technique is severely frowned upon of course.  The official Toxikleen, Inc. policy is that anyone caught sniffing a drum would be subject to disciplinary action and possibly even dismissal.  Employee health and safety is a matter taken very seriously by environmental companies these days.  This is not because the corporate world has become a kinder and softer place, but because of fear of liability in compensation lawsuits.  Also it is frequently mandated by OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) regulations.

Sometime after lunch we were plowing through the samples and Earl was bellyaching about not being allowed to smoke, when Mark came by with some supplies.  Earl saw a potential opportunity to escape and made probing inquiries.

“Hey Mark, I thought you were working with Mike Randazzo.”

“Yeah, I am.  Johnny A. sent me up here to deliver this stuff.”

“Can Mike live without you for a while?”

“Well I don’t know.  He wanted to get all the paperwork straightened out.  Somebody brought some drums over to the storage yard yesterday without telling us, so Mike’s pulling his hair out.”

“Hell I’m sure Mike can wait till tomorrow, ’cause you see, I’ve got to go down to Building 34.  Stanley told me this morning he needed to talk to me about a whole lot of things that are going on down there.  You know what those union boys are like.  You ever watch a monkey try to fuck a football?  If I’m not over there watchin’ ’em every minute they’ll fuck up something for sure.  Hell I feel like a damn kindergarten teacher sometimes.”

“Well geez, I don’t know Earl.”

“Well come on Mark.  You can sit here and write for Otto for a while.  Mike’s just gonna have to wait.  I’ve been up here all god damn day and I’ve got things to do.”  Earl was already pulling on his jacket.  “I can’t be held up from my job doing this bullshit.” he added irritably.  He had the pack of Marlboros already out of his pocket as he walked out the door.

Mark chuckled.  “I guess he really didn’t want to be here.” He settled into the chair and looked through the papers as the HP frisked some of the samples out of the hood for me.

CHAPTER 19

It was early December and the project was rolling into high gear.  Large crews of laborers were working in two shifts in the demolition of the reactor.  Since the hazard there was radiation only, it wasn’t part of Toxikleen’s scope of work and we never had to enter it.  The reactor’s fuel rods had been removed 15 years earlier so the remaining contamination was low level radioactivity.  The few occasions that I had to go over to the entrance hall to the reactor, the noise from the jackhammers inside had been deafening.  The objective now was to gut the building, removing all contaminated materials and demolition debris, and shipping it to the disposal facility as low level radioactive waste.  The remaining shell of the building would be demolished as a normal wrecking job in a future phase.

The radiation levels around the entire base and of all the materials surveyed so far were low enough to be classified as low level radioactivity.  From the practical point of view of safely handling and being in the presence of these materials, you had to take the necessary precautions of not ingesting or inhaling any radioactive particles or dust, and avoiding skin and body contact.  This was fairly easily and efficiently achieved by sealing off and isolating the work areas to control the spread of contaminated dust, and through the use of PPE (Personal Protective Equipment), such as the disposable suits, gloves and booties, and respiratory protection provided by the respirators with filters or supplied air systems.

The handling of materials that were hazardous because of their chemical properties was more complicated.  Radioactivity can be easily identified and measured, but there are thousands of different chemicals which first need to be identified and then handled in the way specified for that type.  Hazardous materials can be explosive, flammable, corrosive, poisonous, reactive with water, or reactive with oxygen.  The method of handling them and the type of PPE used can vary considerably depending on the hazardous properties being dealt with.

In the areas which were free of any chemical obstacles, the union laborers could dismantle all the machinery and proceed with the demolition, guarding just against radioactivity contamination which was overseen and regulated by the HP’s.  Any place where there also existed chemical hazards, we were called in to handle or dispose of them.  We had sampled the drums that we had found scattered all over the base and were now collecting them in the storage yard.  More drums would continue to be generated as contaminated rubble and waste materials were accumulated, or vats, tanks, and drain pipes were cleaned out.

It was a crisp, clear and windy morning and I had finished some paperwork and was walking over to Building 34 to help Earl move some drums to the storage yard.  I had a grimy down vest on underneath my denim jacket and a radio clipped onto the belt of my jeans.  The radio had a speaker and mouthpiece on the end of a chord and it was clipped onto the lapel of my jacket.  Everybody on the base had been issued flame retardant skull caps to wear under their hard hats and I had mine with the ear flaps down to ward off the cold.

Building 34 was pandemonium.  Along with the usual noise of jackhammers, diesel generators, fork lift motors, and sledge hammers banging, there was a lot of shouting and arguing going on.  Through the din I could hear Earl’s voice roaring angrily as he shouted orders and yelled at the union laborers.  If anyone else in management for any of the contractors ever yelled at the union laborers they would flare up and yell right back.  “Fuck you! You’re not my boss.  Only my shop steward or union foreman can tell me what to do!”  However they all accepted Earl as a glorified version of one of their own, even though he was from the south, and they took all kinds of abuse from him.

“What the hell are you doing Ricky?  How many times do I have to tell you guys!”  Earl was shouting at a group of five laborers who were scurrying around the pallets of drums and in turn yelling at each other.  “Don’t put any drums on the pallets till I tell you which ones go where.  You can’t just mix ’em all up any ol’ which way.  Now cut the band on this pallet and pull those two drums off.  They go on this pallet with the other drum of oil.”  Earl had smoked his cigarette right down to the filter and he grimaced and flipped the butt into a puddle.

I had some blank tracking forms to fill out for Mike Randazzo every time we brought drums to the storage yard, and I started trying to collect the information I needed before the pallets were whisked away by the fork lifts.  I wasn’t able to get all the information in time and I complained diplomatically to Earl who shrugged off this minor detail.

“There’s a big push to get these drums out of here this morning.  They’re in the way of the demolition and we were supposed to move them last week.”  Earl explained to me impatiently when I finally got his attention.  “Let’s just get them the hell out of here and we can sort them out later in the storage yard.”

I wasn’t content with the disorganization in the paperwork, but I resigned myself to ride the momentum.  It could be politically disastrous to be seen as holding up the job because you can’t provide the service you’re contracted to provide.  A company can get kicked off a job and you have to demobilize and go back to the home office and start explaining why you screwed up.  If your client was happy and the money was still coming in, your company was happy and that was the bottom line.  Anything else that got accomplished was more or less secondary.

I found a drum that had one drum number written on its side and a different drum number written on its lid.  I pointed it out to Earl who scratched his chin and stared at it.  “What a cluster fuck!  Just write down both numbers and we’ll figure it out later.”

One of the laborers found a 55 gallon drum which was leaking oily liquid out of a rusty hole in its side.  The HP came over and checked the radiation level with his frisker and told the laborers to clean up the spill.  Earl did some shouting and some laborers went out and came back with an 85 gallon overpack drum and a nylon drum sling. The sling was looped over one fork of the fork lift and the metal brackets of the sling were hooked onto the rim of the drum.  The fork lift slowly picked the drum off the ground and the empty overpack drum was pushed underneath it, the laborer being very careful not to place his body underneath the raised drum or his fingers on top of the rim of the drum.  The drum was gently lowered into the overpack drum until it touched bottom.  The sling was pulled off and the overpack was closed up with all the original drum’s identifying markings copied onto the overpack.

Any time a drum or any kind of heavy object is raised in the air, there exists the possibility of an accident and serious injury.  The perception of the potential danger of doing environmental remediation work, in the mind of the general public, usually focuses on the real enough dangers associated with hazardous materials themselves.  Working in the industry I tend to think of these materials as manageable hazardous materials, as long as they are handled properly.  Often it is even easier to protect against the hazardous nature of the material itself than it is against regular industrial accidents like falling off a scaffold or getting hit by falling debris.  If done right this work should be safe, but there’s not much margin of error for safety.

Last year an employee of Toxikleen had been killed when a sling broke and a 20,000 gallon steel tank fell on him.  The tank had long been unused and was assumed to be empty and its weight had been calculated on that basis.  The crew foreman had selected a sling that was appropriate for this weight and the sling was hooked onto the bucket of an excavator to lift the tank.  However the tank hadn’t been empty.  It had filled up with about a thousand gallons of rain water and this extra weight had snapped the heavy duty sling like an old, dried out rubber band.  The foreman had committed a second error by remaining in the pit out of which the tank was being lifted and had nowhere to run to.  These two errors cost him his life.

A particularly ghastly accident occurred at a competitor company two years ago.  A 55 gallon drum of sulfuric acid was lifted using a badly worn sling that should have been cut up and taken out of service.  The sling broke and the drum fell, breaking a worker’s leg and splashing him with acid, which caused him severe burns.  It doesn’t help anyone to exaggerate or get hysterical about the potential dangers, but you do need to be knowledgeable and to pay attention to what you’re doing.

The overpack was moved onto a pallet and the laborers poured clay absorbent onto the spill.  The absorbent was then shoveled up into an empty drum and the ground was wiped with oil absorbent rags until the HP was satisfied that all the contamination had been cleaned up.

We were still surrounded by scattered drums when C&C’s chief job superintendent, Hal Smith, came in bellowing.  “What the blue hell’s going on here?  Why haven’t these drums been moved yet?  You!”  he turned his pot belly and pugnacious face towards me.  “Who’s in charge here?  You work for Toxikleen don’t you?  Why are these drums still here?”

I got up from where I had been crouching to write a number on the side of a drum and looked around for Earl.  “Well, uh…” I started.

Hal through his cigarette on the ground in fury.  “Doesn’t anybody know anything around here?  These drums were supposed to be out of here by nine o’clock.”

I tried to offer an explanation.  “It’s a little more complicated than that…”

“Bullshit!”  Hal roared. “Things are only complicated because people make them complicated.”

I saw with relief that Earl was walking up to us with a look of bellicose consternation.  “What’s the problem Hal?” he demanded.

“I’ll tell you what the problem is, nobody knows their ass from their elbow about how to get some work done.  Don’t you people know how to do your job?  Why the hell aren’t you moving these drums?”

“Well goddamn it Hal!”  Earl exploded.  The two men stood practically nose to nose and yelled at each other.  “Don’t tell me I don’t know how to do my job!”  Earl raged and then started listing all the causes for delay.

This seemed like a good place not to be so I quietly slipped out to take sanctuary in the peaceful company of Jack, out in the storage yard.  Jack and Mark Roberts were looking with bewilderment at the collection of drum pallets around them.  “Hey Otto, what’s going on?”  Mark asked.  “These drums are all mixed up.  I’ve got flammable liquids here on the same pallet with some acid drums.”

CHAPTER 20

It had been another hectic day.  We had done a few jumps on airlines in the lab building to check some unmarked bottles of liquids and this had killed most of the day.  The drum storage yard was still a mess, but it would have to wait until tomorrow. The lists of the drums moved last week didn’t match the inventory list of what was now out there.  Mike Randazzo, the guy in charge of tracking all the rad and mixed waste for RSA, was having hysterics.  I was trying to avoid his trailer because every time he saw me he would yell, “Otto, you’re killing me!”

Mike was from Cleveland and the Cadillac outside the trailer was his.  He had dark hair, a dark moustache, designer jeans, gold chains around his neck, and a gold watch.  On the wall above his desk was a big sign which brazenly proclaimed his philosophic outlook: “YOU’RE KILLING ME!”

Mark and I would spend hours with Mike combing through the paperwork, tracking down the incongruities and working out their solutions.  We usually had a working list of half a dozen drums that were problems.  Mark and I would be in the middle of unravelling some paperwork maze in our trailer when Mike would urgently call us on the radio and ask us to come over to his office right away.  Before we could leave, a union foreman or an HP or a C&C job superintendent would come in with a different problem.  After half an hour Mike would call back and ask us when the hell we were coming over.  Entire days were often spent as a series of interruptions.  We were in constant demand by everyone and as a result it was difficult to finish anything.

Johnny A. would make projected schedules of objectives to accomplish and was constantly defeated by the mammoth confusion. He would get so frustrated that he would almost show some emotion.  His forehead would crease and he would stare down at the floor for a minute or two after I finished giving him the daily report about why our objectives had once again been foiled. Then he would turn away, spit tobacco juice into his styrofoam cup, pick up a file and start reading.

CHAPTER 21

About six o’clock I walked in the apartment door looking forward to the serenity of my room and a new tape I had just bought of Zydeco great, Clifton Chenier.  Randall came rushing out of his room to meet me.

“Hey Otto.  I’ve got some real bad news.  I lost my job today!”  Randall was almost vibrating with tension.  He ran into his room and grabbed his cigarettes and coffee cup, breathlessly continuing his story the whole time.  “Man, I’ve done it again.  I really fucked up.  My boss had no choice.  I knew it immediately.  If I was him I would have done exactly the same thing.  You can’t pull the kind of shit I pulled today.  It’s dangerous to yourself and you endanger other people too.  Not to mention that it’s bad for business to have somebody freaking out like that.  We didn’t even talk about it.  There was nothing to discuss.  I just packed up my chainsaw and came home.”

I stood in the hallway with my jacket and down vest still on, listening to Randall, who smoked in jerky motions and fidgeted nervously in front of me.  Randall continued without pausing.

“Sometimes I think it would be better to dig a grave and just jump into it instead of waiting like a coward for someone to push you in.”  I started to get alarmed.  Randall went on.  “I swear there are some people out there that really deserve to be killed.”  I looked down apprehensively out of the corner of my eye at Randall’s chainsaw lying on the floor.  “There’s no doubt in my mind,” Randall was affirming, “that some people really ought to be killed.  It would be divine justice.”

Reassured by this calming bit of information I decided to try to find out exactly what had happened and assess the real potential for danger if any.  I followed him into his room and sat down on his bed.  As I listened I noticed that a broken picture frame and bits of glass had joined the plaster dust on the floor underneath the holes in the wall.  Randall interspersed his story of the events of the day with bitter remarks of despair involving either the justice of vengeance or the futility of continuing the struggle of life.  I hoped to gently steer him back to terra firma from his orbit in the stratosphere of paranoia.

“I freaked out 60 feet up in a tree.” he finally explained to me.  “I had a fucking temper tantrum and started thrashing around like a fish on a hook.  I just totally lost all self control.  You can’t do that.  It’s too dangerous!  When you work in a dangerous environment you’ve got to be in control at all times.  My boss is right to think I’m not psychologically suited to do tree work.  I agree with him 100%.  I fucked up again.  If I had the guts I should just dig my own grave and jump in.”

I listened and Randall talked.  After almost two hours he started to calm down and be a little less gloomy.  He had stopped making references to death and I was quietly trying to suggest that he go down to his wood shop and lose himself in his instrument making.  He was too depressed to even consider this, but I was glad to note that a glimmer of his sense of humour was returning.

Finally I decided to nudge him with a joke.  I put my hand on his shoulder and feigned profound sincerity.  “You know Randall, Jozef and I would really miss you if you killed yourself.  Where would we ever find another roommate like you?  Besides you still owe thirty dollars on the electric bill.”

Randall actually laughed and I was relieved.  “Yeah, I’m sure you guys would really miss me.”  Randall was still very depressed but the worst seemed to be over and he didn’t sound like he was going to hurt himself or anyone else.

CHAPTER 22

Two of our main tasks in the general plan right now were shipping the samples to the lab for analysis and describing and categorizing the drums of waste in a process called profiling.  Shipping samples of mixed radioactive and hazardous materials was a complicated procedure and nobody on the entire base had ever done it before.  At the time of this project, remediation and handling of hazardous only or radioactive only materials was quite common and routine procedures had been standardized for quite some time.  However we were moving into the less familiar field of mixed waste, (materials that were both radioactive and chemical), and every new activity necessitated combing through the regs and consulting with a myriad of people to derive an interpretation of required procedure.

Johnny A. handed me the job of shipping the samples.  I asked him how to do it and he pointed with a little smile to the row of federal regulations on the shelf.  A wave of annoyance went through me.  I hate being assigned a task that I don’t know how to perform and particularly when it meant spending hours or days wading through pages of unreadable government regulations.  I picked out 49 CFR, the Department of Transportation regulations, and began scanning the table of contents for a possible starting point.  For the benefit of those who have been graced by the gods and are unfamiliar with the CFR, or Code of Federal Regulations, I will describe them briefly by saying that they were written by either lawyers, bureaucrats, or some type of Paleozoic brachiopod.  The tiny print is compact, the wording is verbose, the language is obtuse, logic is ethereal, and irritation is immediate and complete.

There was nobody back at the home office to call for advice because this was Toxikleen’s first mixed waste job and nobody would know even as much as I did.  I impatiently grabbed my jacket, hard hat, safety glasses, and radio and left the trailer to find Mike Randazzo.  I pressed the button of the mouth piece clipped to my lapel and spoke into it tersely.

“Otto to Mike Randazzo.”

The answer came back promptly.  “Go ahead.”

“What’s your twenty Mike?”

“My trailer.”

“10-4″

I walked over to Mike’s trailer and tried to knock some of the mud off my boots before going in.  Mike was seated at his desk poring over a three ring binder of lists.  “What do you want?” he greeted me gruffly.

“Mike, do you know anything about shipping samples of mixed waste?”

Mike groaned without looking up.  “Otto, you’re killing me!”

I sat down on a chair next to his desk.  Both our radios suddenly blared and we both jumped to turn down the volume.  Mike continued staring at his lists.

“Come on Mike.  You told me you knew everything.”

“Oh all right.” said Mike feigning bad tempered impatience. “You Toxiqueens can’t do anything without me.  Come on.  Admit it.”

“We rely completely upon your expertise and professionalism, Mike.”

“Yeah I Know.  That’s the only thing you guys do right.”  Mike scooted his office chair over to his bookcase, peered at the row of CFR’s on the shelf, and pulled one out that I knew was not appropriate.  I told Mike that he had the wrong volume and he argued vehemently with me.  I realized my time was going to be wasted, but Mike was determined to find the relevant section in the CFR and help me out.  After twenty minutes he finally gave up and I got up to leave.

“Hey don’t go anywhere!” Mike commanded with his gold chain flashing.  “Now I’ve got a question for you.  Drum number, let me see…R-812.  You’ve got it listed here as an oxidizer, but over here in this log it’s categorized as Rad only.”

Fifteen minutes later I was walking back to our trailer when I met Johnny A. hurrying by with a bulging file folder under his arm.  “Did you get those samples shipped out yet?” he inquired.  I sheepishly replied that I was still checking the regs to figure out how to do it.  He knit his brow in a slight frown and kept going.

I stopped into the C&C administration trailer to check the mail delivery and found Earl flirting with the secretaries and accountants.  He had a styrofoam cup of coffee in his hand and he was bending his huge form over with one elbow on the desk of Therese, a blonde, 25 year old secretary.

“Hey Therese.  What do you put in your coffee that makes you so purty?”  Earl was almost purring in her ear.  Therese was trying to ignore him and keep typing, but she had a big glowing smile on her face.  The other women in the trailer were all laughing and teasing both Therese and Earl.  Earl got up and leaned over Maureen’s desk.

“How about you gorgeous?  What are you doing tonight?  What do you say we go out dancing?”

Maureen was about forty years old, plump, and had bad skin. She covered her mouth and giggled.  “Oh, I don’t know, Earl.  I don’t think my hubby would approve.”

“Well we won’t tell him.” Earl continued in a soft spoken and silky voice.  “It’ll be our little secret.  Just between you and me and all the other beautiful ladies here.”

I grinned as I watched Earl in action, applying the oil.  All the women were beaming radiantly and laughing, except, I suddenly noticed, Louise, the accountant in the corner.  Louise was an attractive 35-year-old red head with nice legs and what Earl had once described as “an especially fine rack”.  Louise was now industriously working with a no-nonsense look on her face.  Earl made the rounds and flirted with the other two women, Sarah and Wendy. He never spoke a word to Louise and Louise never looked up from her work.

CHAPTER 23

I stayed till 9 o’clock that night picking apart the regulations and summarizing them in a way I could understand and digest.  If the samples were not packaged and labelled properly they could be rejected by the carrier service, which would cost time and money, or we as the shipper could even be fined by any one of the various regulatory agencies who could claim jurisdiction.

The package itself, in our case either 5 or 16 gallon poly drums, had to be approved and stamped with the codes of the DOT (Department Of Transportation) and IATA (International Air Transport Association).  These, of course, proved to be on order and the only ones I could find that were appropriate were being used for cigarette butts.  I cleaned two of these out just to be able to start, and scrounged up some proper lids.

The labelling had to be done as per DOT, IATA and the carrier’s regulations.  The level of radioactivity was low enough to classify the shipment as “Limited Quantity Radioactive Material”, which greatly simplified the requirements.  The proper shipping name and number had to be determined and written on the package along with stickers denoting its hazard class.

I filled out and signed a Chain-of-Custody form which accompanies a hazardous material shipment and is signed by the receiver at every change of possession.  In the section for “type of analysis requested” I listed “Full TCLP, PH, cyanides (amendable + total)”.

TCLP is a lab analytical process called Toxic Chemical Leachate Process.  The basic idea is to duplicate in the lab the conditions that could be found in worst case scenario in a landfill after the drums have been buried a certain number of years.  This scenario would include rainwater permeating through the land fill’s clay cap and leaching materials from the corroded drums through the impermeable liner and into the ground water.  The intent is to see what level of toxic materials could be released to the environment in the ground water.  The conditions of rainwater penetrating and leaching out of the theoretically impermeable land fill are approximated by adding water to the sample and putting the container on a centrifuge for a period of time to provide mixing.  The water itself is then considered to be equivalent to water leaching into the groundwater and analyzed for the presence of a wide variety of hazardous materials.  These analytical results are referred to in our acronym fond industry as TCLP, and are used as standards to determine acceptability in disposal facilities, whether they be landfills, incinerators, deep injection wells or recycling and treatment plants.  The cost of this analysis is enormous, running well over a thousand dollars per sample for full TCLP.

CHAPTER 24

The next day, between interruptions, I finally got the first two packages of samples ready to ship, with all the necessary forms filled out and signatures of base personnel in place.  This freed me up to work on profiling with Mark.  We were ploughing through the stacks of fingerprint data, assigning each drum to a category, or profile, based on the general knowledge that we now had.  We already had over twenty profiles: Rad acid liquid, Rad oxidizer liquid, Rad oils, Rad water, dust from HVAC in lab building, Rad cyanide solids, Rad solids, and so on.  The drums would stay in their assigned profiles until we got the TCLP analysis back from the lab in three or four weeks time.  Then with this more precise information available, and of particular concern to us was the heavy metal content, we could accurately classify the drums in profiles and make adjustments if necessary.

A lot of the drums were filled with solids and debris.  If the lab analysis proved them to be free of any hazardous constituents other than radioactivity, they could be easily disposed of as Rad only solids, which was much cheaper than the treatment for disposal if they turned out to be mixed waste.

There were, at the time of this project in the early 1990’s, 3 disposal facilities for low level rad waste in the U.S.: one in South Carolina, one in Oregon, and one in Utah.  Rad waste is buried in a geologically stable region and it must be, by regulations, 100% solid and dry, to avoid any potential leak and contamination of ground water.  If the waste is liquid, as defined by the NRC as leaving a damp mark when a coffee filter is pressed against it, it must first be solidified.  In the U.S. solidification means mixing the waste with cement to make concrete blocks, while in France a process of vitrification, or turning the waste into hard, glass blocks, is common.  Mixed waste first requires treatment or neutralization of the hazardous components of the waste, and then solidification before it is ready for shipment to a disposal facility.

These extremely costly extra steps therefore made disposal of mixed waste vastly more expensive than rad only waste, and a contractor trying to hold down his costs would greatly prefer to have a waste profile classified as rad only than mixed waste.  If the analysis for one profile, for example, came back saying that it contained 0.9 parts per million (ppm) of the heavy metal cadmium, and the EPA landfill acceptability standard is 1.0 ppm, then the profile, with all its drums, would be classified as rad only and shipped to the facility as such.  However if the analysis came back showing a cadmium content of 1.1 ppm, the profile would have to be treated for cadmium, which meant solidification.

Mark and I had spent several hours on profiling, doing a lot of pondering on judgement calls where descriptions or classification delineations were hazy.  We were almost sure that one unmarked drum, containing purplish, pink granular solids, was in fact nothing more than detergent powder.  However it would have to undergo $1500 worth of laboratory analysis before we could establish that it was in fact nonhazardous waste and could be shipped off to a regular landfill.

We heard Earl’s voice booming outside the trailer.  He was entertaining a couple of union laborers.  “Hey, you boys know the difference between fuckin’ a fat girl and ridin’ a moped?”

“Oh Jesus.  What Earl?”

Earl delivered the punch line and shot out a raucous laugh.  I’d already heard Earl tell this joke several dozen times and he seemed to enjoy it immensely each time.  Mark and I looked up from our papers and laughed.

“Actually I don’t think riding a moped is all that much fun.” Mark said with a grin.

Earl stomped in accompanied by a blast of chill December air.  “Damn it’s cold up here.”  Earl had his teeth clenched on a cigarette as he held his hands over the heater.  “Just my luck I’ve got to spend the winter up here in this frozen Yankee wasteland.  You know what, we’ve got fleas down south that are seven years old.  The winter’s so warm it doesn’t kill ’em.”  He laughed loudly and came over and peered at the paperwork covering our desk.  “You guys working on profiles huh?”  He squinted as he read one page and then remembered something and squeezed my shoulder.  “Hey Otto, you remember drum number R-566?”

I stared back at him.  “Not off the top of my head Earl.  Can you give me a little more background information?”

Earl grimaced impatiently.  “You know the one.  From Building 34.  See if you’ve got it profiled yet.  I got something here in my notes.”  Earl started hunting through the styrofoam coffee cups and rumpled pages and legal pads which littered his desk.  “Here we go.” he grunted as he pulled out a weather beaten and rain smeared piece of paper covered with scrawled notes.

The door opened and Stanley quickly ducked in out of the cold.  “Howdy y’all.” he smiled.

Mark laughed, “Hey Stanley, I’ve never seen you move so fast.”

“Well damn it,” Stanley complained, “it’s cold up here.”

“Yeah Stanley.  I was just telling them that down south we’ve got fleas that’re seven years old.”

“Yes sir, we sure do.  The winter don’t kill ’em.”  Stanley finished the joke and he and Earl guffawed.

“And I tell you what, down in Louisiana the mosquitoes get so big they can stand flat footed and butt fuck a turkey.”  Earl added and everybody laughed.  Mark and I were very grateful for some comic relief.

Stanley pulled out his pack of Winstons and said to Earl,  “I thought I’d come by and see if you wanted to go get a cup of coffee.”

Earl put his arm behind his back and turned his wrist.  “Twist my arm.” he laughed and they stomped out.

Mark and I compiled a list of five items that needed to be checked so I went out to the drum storage yard while Mark went off with one of C&C’s job superintendents for a conference.  Out in the storage yard I met Lenny, Jack’s assistant, and asked him to go locate a couple of drums in the solid section.  Jack came over and stared after Lenny as he walked off.

“That kid’s a fuckin’ retard.” grumbled Jack.  “I tell him to do a simple thing and he fucks everything up.”

“Maybe he’ll learn.” I suggested.

“Naw, I’ve worked with him before.  He’s always like that.  There’s something wrong with his fuckin’ head.  He must’ve smoked too much crack.” Jack laughed.  “I believe in moderation myself of course.”

“Yeah, that’s why we put you in a position of authority.”

“Oh that was a big mistake.” Jack howled.  “Hey did you see the Rangers beat the Islanders again?”  We talked hockey for a few minutes.  Lenny came shuffling back over.  Jack started searching his pockets.  “Where the hell’s my pen?  Hey Lenny, I’ve got a job with a lot of responsibility for you.”  Lenny looked at him expectantly.  “Go get me a pen.” Jack guffawed and Lenny laughed sheepishly.

CHAPTER 25

I was driving back to my apartment after work about five o’clock.  I was tired and I was just letting my mind wander where it wanted to drift to exorcise the tension of the day.  The radio was on but I wasn’t paying much attention to it.  The sun was warm as it came in through the windshield and the ivy covered buildings of the university were soothing to look at as I drove lazily by.  Suddenly I shot up, gripped the steering wheel tightly and turned up the radio.  A man was holding two women hostage on Walker Street, just a couple of blocks from my apartment.

Randall had seemed a bit less morose the last couple of nights, but he was still mired in a massive depression and was spending all of his time in his room, either smoking in silence or sleeping.  The holes in the walls in Randall’s room, I had found out finally from Jozef, were from Randall throwing or banging things when he got frustrated and angry.  Furthermore the reason that we didn’t have a phone in the hallway anymore was because Randall had broken it when he came home from work in a bad mood one day.  I still hadn’t spent much time with Randall and didn’t know him very well, but between his black despair and apparent tendency towards violence, I thought we had all the ingredients for a classic hostage situation.

I listened for more details, but the radio was now giving the weather report.  I stepped on the accelerator and sped along the road.  The sun coming in through the window and the ivy covered walls had lost their calming effect.  I pressed my fist on the horn and cut through the main intersection with the light turning red.  Randall was a nice guy.  I liked him.  I hoped he hadn’t gone and done something rash which was going to destroy the rest of his life.

With my heart thumping I whipped into a parking spot in front of the house.  I ran up the stairs, fumbled impatiently with the keys, and threw open the door.  Randall came out of his room with a tired but jolly grin on his face.  “Hey dude, what’s happening?” he greeted me cheerfully.

I stood in the doorway feeling tremendously relieved.  Randall was home!  Everything was normal!  “I took your advice and got up off my lazy ass and spent the whole day down in the shop.”  Randall launched into an enthusiastic and animated monologue.  “Maybe I don’t have a job or any money, and maybe I won’t have any food, but I can still spend time doing the thing I find most satisfying.  Hey I’m going to build my own bandsaw!  I could really do a lot if I had a bandsaw.  Check out these designs.  I got them from an article in a journal.”

We went into Randall’s room and he showed me the drawings of the bandsaw he wanted to construct and described the dimensions to me in minute detail.  A lot of the technical aspects were way over my head, but Randall’s positive energy and sheer enthusiasm made it interesting.  I noticed that the plaster dust and broken glass had been cleaned up.  A few minutes later when I went out to the kitchen, I realized that Randall had vigorously cleaned the whole house.  All the floors had been mopped and even the toilet was spotless.

Randall went to bed with a cheerful disposition that night and I heard on the news that the hostage situation had been resolved peacefully.  When Jozef came home from the lab about eleven o’clock, I told him the whole story over a couple of shots of Polish vodka in his room.  Jozef found the affair highly amusing.  He told me that he’d been living with Randall for two years now and was sure that Randall would never hurt anyone, despite his intensity and frustration.  Randall seemed to limit his aggression to inanimate objects.

CHAPTER 26

Johnny A. pointed with a wry smile at our samples which the parcel delivery service had returned six days after picking them up.  To answer my questioning look he explained. “They called the 24 hour emergency phone number that the army gave us and nobody answered.  If they want us to get this work done they’re going to have to get their shit together at least enough to give us an emergency phone number that somebody will answer.”

“But I thought that guy Jim Kulke from the army gave us this phone number just before the shipment.” I said.

Johnny A. shook his head.  “He’s as stupid as a stone.  See if you can straighten this out.  Old Man Carson’s going to be furious.” he sighed.

A moment later the trailer door opened and in came Old Man Carson, C&C’s project manager, himself.  “What’s all this I hear about the samples being returned?” he asked crisply.  There was no time wasted on social niceties.  He was demanding to be informed in as efficient a manner as possible.  His temples were creased by fine lines of tension and his ice cold blue eyes penetrated you as he waited impatiently for your answer.  Johnny A. explained what had happened and the line of Carson’s mouth became tighter.  “You will get this taken care of and reship those samples today.  And if you have any problems with Jim Kulke you will let me know.”  This was not a question, it was a statement.  Johnny A. said we’d do our best.  Old Man Carson nodded slightly and left the trailer.

I went over to the administration trailer and found Earl flirting with the secretaries.  While I was making some xerox copies I heard Earl begin.  “What’s the difference between riding a moped” I froze. No, he wouldn’t!  Not even Earl.  He couldn’t possibly…  “and dating a heavy girl?”  I almost burst out laughing.  For the sake of his sensitive female audience he had cleaned up his joke to what he considered sufficiently appropriate.

A few minutes later Earl stomped back into our trailer where I was working and I started teasing him about his sanitized and politically correct version of the moped joke.  He looked at me a bit puzzled.  “Well I don’t know about you Otto, but I don’t believe it’s proper to cuss in front of a lady.”  Then his face brightened.  “I tell you what, that new girl in there’s a baby doll.  She’s kind of snooty though, you notice?  Not too friendly like.”

There had been a new temp in the administration trailer.  Earl had made some friendly overtures to her and she had responded courteously, but appeared confused.  I had talked to her earlier and found out that she was an opera singer who did office temping to make money.  I passed this information along to Earl who looked pensive.  “So she’s into spaghetti jazz, huh.”  He said slowly as he pulled out his Marlboros.

CHAPTER 27

It was Saturday night and we had worked an eight hour shift. Sunday was a day off and Mark had proposed that we all go downtown for a drink.  Johnny A. wanted to have a drink in the bar of his motel in the suburbs, but everyone else, even Earl, was in the mood for something a little more special than that.  So Johnny A. had stayed in his room doing paperwork and watching T.V. while Mark and Earl and I went downtown.

Mark had suggested eating dinner at a Thai restaurant he had heard of, but Earl had vetoed this with “Naw.  That gook food gives me bad gas.  Besides I ate enough of that stuff when I was in Nam.”  So dinner had become an individually improvised affair. Earl talked Mark into going to the diner across the street from the army base while I went home and cooked spaghetti.

At 8:30 we met at The Yankee Doodle, a popular pub with young people where mugs of crayons were placed on the tables and the patrons could draw on the paper table coverings.  The place was lively and a Tom Waits song was growling on the stereo system as I ordered some beers.  I had on my “going out” jeans, hiking boots, and my clean down vest under my denim jacket.  Mark was wearing his black Toxikleen baseball cap, black Toxikleen baseball warmup jacket, a gray sweatshirt with “Maryland” written across the front, jeans and high top black sneakers.  Earl was wearing an expensive brown, leather jacket, a striped dress shirt with the top three buttons open, jeans with a large, shiny brass belt buckle, a gold watch, and western boots.

We stood against the wall sipping our beers and surveying the crowd.  Most of the people were in their 20’s and 30’s, and seemed to be either cosmopolitan and urbane or casual and artsy.  Earl wrinkled his nose and pronounced judgement.  “Why don’t we finish these up and go someplace else.  These people are kind of snooty.”

The night was young and there were plenty of other bars to choose from.  We drank our beers and went out to the street which was the main thoroughfare for the city’s nightlife.  We walked along with the crowd past bars, pubs, cafes, and restaurants and discussed entering several places.  Earl appeared a bit glum and moody and shot down each suggestion saying “Hell, there are too many college kids in there.”

Finally we had gotten down to the end of the street when a neon sign around the corner caught Earl’s eye.  His face lit up as brightly as the pink, neon glow.  “Here we go.” he bubbled merrily as he herded us towards a door that led upstairs.  The windows on the second floor were black and opaque.  The neon sign spelled out “The Pink Pussy Lounge.”  “One of the union boys told me about this place.” said Earl enthusiastically as we climbed the dirty and stale smelling stairs.

The bar was dark and dingy and about half a dozen patrons were quietly watching the show.  We ordered beer and shelled out twice as much as we had at The Yankee Doodle.  A tall girl with platinum streaked hair and big, floppy breasts was mechanically going through her routine on the stage.  She rolled on a blanket and opened and closed her legs with a blank look on her face as her audience stared back unexpressively.

Earl whooped, “Whooeee! What a doll baby!”  He leaned over the rickety table to tell us in a low voice without taking his appreciative eyes off of the dancer.  “Boy has she got a nice rack.”  Earl got up and strutted over to the stage with his western boots thudding across the floor.  He put a couple of dollar bills on the stage and beamed down at the dancer with an open and friendly smile.  “Here you go darlin’.  That’s for bein’ so beautiful.”  He came back to the table and sat down and watched her with his jaw on his fist and his elbow resting on the table next to a pool of beer.

I am not averse to looking at naked females, but this place had a sordid, desperate feeling to it and I didn’t want to spend too much time here.  Besides I was already sufficiently familiar with sexual frustration for my taste and I couldn’t see any point in paying exorbitant amounts of money to augment the sensation.  Mark looked as if he more or less shared my feelings.  He was looking at the dancer with obvious disinterest.  “What a dump.” he murmured.

Earl was thoroughly enjoying himself.  When the girl finished her dance, she put on a short robe which she tied loosely at the waist, and came over to our table.  “Hi guys.” she said with affected friendliness.  “Mind if I join you?”

Earl got up and pulled a chair out for her.  “You sit yourself right down there, little lady.” he said jovially.

The girl sat down and her robe opened up and hung low, revealing her big, bare breasts.  “Buy me a drink?” she asked tonelessly.

“Yes ma’am.  You bet.” Earl complied with enthusiasm.  The waitress came over to take the order.

“I’ll have champagne.” said the girl.  The waitress went off to the bar and Earl offered the girl a cigarette.

“What’s your name gorgeous?” Earl asked her.

“Darlene.” she answered flatly.  “What’s yours?”

We all introduced ourselves and the waitress came back with a small glass for Darlene.  “That’ll be thirty dollars for the champagne.” she said, looking expectantly at Earl.

Earl looked over at Mark. “Hey Mark.  You’re gonna have to help me out here with this one.  There’s something wrong with my bankcard and I couldn’t withdraw any money on it this afternoon. I’ll get with you on Monday after I get it all straightened out.” Then he turned back to Darlene and chinked glasses with her.  Mark sighed and pulled out his wallet and paid the bill.

The waitress asked “You guys want another round?”

Mark shook his head. “Nope.  I guess not.”

A thin girl with small pointy breasts and a long nose was dancing on the stage.  Earl had his big arm around the back of Darlene’s chair and was gleefully making small talk with her.  Finally he pulled out a couple of dollars and looked down at her large exposed breasts.  “Here sweetheart.  Let me just take a little peek.” he said with excitement in his voice.  He opened her robe wide and tucked the money down into her panties.

Darlene looked down, thrusting her breasts out.  “Sure, but you can’t touch.  They don’t allow that here.”

“But I can touch your robe can’t I?” asked Earl with feigned innocence.

Darlene thought for a second and tilted her head. “Yeah, I guess so.”

Earl took the lapel of her robe and started pulling on it, dragging the soft material across Darlene’s nipples with a sly and mischievous grin.  Darlene looked down at what he was doing to her thrust out breasts, then glanced quickly up at Earl’s grinning face.  Her vacant expression changed to a laugh and she slapped his hands off her robe.  Earl roared with a big laugh.  “That got your attention didn’t it.”

Darlene was looking at him with a smile and shaking her head.  “I’m going to have to watch you.  You’re dangerous.”

Earl flirted with Darlene for another ten minutes till the waitress came back and asked again if we wanted any more drinks. Earl squinted at his watch and stated sincerely that it was about time for us to go.  We got up and said goodnight to Darlene.  Earl bent over and kissed her hand and looked up with his eyes at the level of her exposed nipples.  “Good bye babies.” he cooed at her breasts.  Darlene shook her shoulders and her breasts jiggled up and down three inches away from his face.  “Lord have mercy!” gulped Earl.  We went downstairs out into the crisp December air and Earl hollered. “Whooeee!  I tell you what.  She had one hell of a nice rack!”

CHAPTER 28

The samples that had been returned by the parcel service were still sitting on the floor of our office.  The army seemed incapable of producing a 24 hour emergency phone number.  Old Man Carson was mighty upset, but there were several other even more important delays on the project that were demanding his attention.  Johnny A. had his own scornful comments about the intelligence and competence of the army personnel.  “These army guys: a lot of biological activity without brainwaves.” he pronounced somberly and then spit some tobacco juice into an almost full styrofoam cup.

Mark was updating the drum inventory and Earl and I were going to make our preliminary entrance into the plate shop in Building 95.  Decommissioning the electroplating shop was one of the main items on Toxikleen’s contract with C&C.  This was my first plate shop, but I knew they were pretty nasty places.  Earl and Mark had cleaned out a couple and had given me a lot of information.  Also I had read about their operations and materials in the job contract and other background literature which Johnny A. had collected.

Electroplating processes basically bond or plate one type of metal onto another one, using various types of solutions to dissolve a metal and transfer it evenly and consistently over the surface of the second metal.  The army, in its efforts to discover useful properties of materials, had experimented with a wide variety of electroplating combinations.  Several of the solutions and materials used were hazardous.  There were drums and vats of nitric acid and chromic acid, caustic sodium hydroxide solution containing high concentrations of cyanide, and dry cyanide salts.  The acids and sodium hydroxide are highly corrosive and cyanide is a deadly poison.  Compounding these hazards were the heavy metals which had been used in the electroplating process and which now remained as contaminants in the solutions.  These were suspected to include some RCRA (Resources Conservation and Recovery Act) regulated metals:  arsenic, barium, cadmium, chromium, lead and silver.  In addition, the army had done a lot of testing with beryllium and sampling surveys had found detectable levels of beryllium dust on all surfaces throughout the plate shop.  Beryllium was not a RCRA listed heavy metal, but it was listed by the EPA as a poison and was described as a lung hazard and a carcinogen many times more toxic than lead.  Finally, due to electroplating processes involving depleted uranium, most of the surfaces and materials contained radioactive contamination in the form of depleted uranium dust or particles sunk to the bottom of solutions.

Our job in decommissioning the plate shop specifically called for sampling, identifying and removing all the hazardous materials currently in the drums and vats.  Once we had accomplished this and there remained only surface contamination of depleted uranium and beryllium dust, the union laborers could come in and complete the remaining general demolition.  Our part of the job alone had been estimated to take 3 or 4 weeks.

I walked into Building 95 and signed in on the RCA sign in sheet at the HP’s desk.  Two HP’s were eating doughnuts and Buck was diligently absorbing the sports section.  I unclipped the yellow and purple cord of the RCA entrance, went through, and clipped the cord behind me.

As usual there was a lot of activity and noise in the RCA.  I had to wait a minute as a forklift was carrying a wrapped piece of machinery to a roll up garage door at the side of the building.  All personnel were prohibited to enter or exit the RCA at the roll up door, but it was used to remove waste and to bring heavy equipment and forklifts in and out of the building.  The piece of machinery was about five feet square, four feet high and must have weighed over a ton.  The union laborers had dismantled and wrapped it in heavy reinforced plastic inside the Be room.  The wrapped bundle had been moved with an electric pallet jack to the waste exit of the Be room containment, where it was wiped down and then frisked by an HP.  From there it would be picked up by the forklift and transported to the roll up door where it would be frisked again before being taken away by another forklift outside the building.

Crashing and banging sounds were coming from the Be and DU rooms and the laborers in the corridor were shouting directions at each other.  One of the laborers came over to the RCA entrance next to me and yelled to a laborer on the outside to bring him a drill bit.  The laborer on the outside rummaged through a four foot long tool box, then walked over to the RCA entrance with the drill bit and handed it over to the laborer on the inside.  The laborer on the inside could have exited and gotten the drill bit himself, but he would have had to go through the PCM and sign out and then sign back in, so it was more efficient to keep a laborer on the outside.

When the fork lift had gone by I walked down to the end of the building where the plate shop was located.  Outside the door to the plate shop were half a dozen tanks of air chained to the wall and four airlines running from them to inside the plate shop.  Next to the door a pump was humming where the HP’s were taking an air sample for radioactive nuclides.  Across the hall was a room which had been converted to the changing room.  Above the door was written “Welcome To the Lunar Surface”.  On the door of the plate shop was written “Take one big step for Mankind!”.  A big muscular black man in his mid-forties came out of the changing room and I met the plate shop union foreman, Reggie Moon.

Reggie was powerfully built and had a firmly set jaw and sharp piercing eyes.  His hard hat had a shamrock decal, a “Union Local 619″ patch, and the words “Moon Man” written on it.  He went off down the hall talking into his radio and I went into the changing room. Inside, several laborers were sitting on benches at a home-made table reading The Messenger, the local tabloid.  One of the laborers looked me up and down and said without a smile, “Look out boys.  Here’s the Toxqueen.”

Another laborer looked up from the horse racing charts in The Messenger and added dourly.  “The big scientists who are going to save us from the chemicals.”

I took off my hard hat and safety glasses and grinned at my new comrades.  “That’s right.  Toxikleen to the rescue.”

“May the Lord have mercy on us,” said one laborer, making the sign of the cross.

“I bet you don’t know your ass from your elbow,” said another.  “What are you going to do with all those chemicals in there?”

“Well,” I frowned in mock seriousness.  “First, I might jump in one of the vats of acid and have a little swim.  Then we’ll take some straws and suck the acid out of the vats.”  The laborers all laughed.

“No, seriously,” said one of the laborers, and his expression now showed real concern.  “There’s some pretty nasty shit in there, huh?”

All the laborers were now serious and waiting expectantly for my response.  I tried to explain the materials and hazards we would encounter to the best of my knowledge.  The laborers all listened intently and asked questions sincerely.  Beneath the jocular bravado which would send them in to work in all kinds of potentially dangerous conditions, I could sense the concern and apprehension of unknown dangers.  These were not university educated men with degrees in chemical engineering.  They were working men who were ready, for a day’s pay, to enter into situations and deal with hazards that they did not fully understand.  The word “chemical” in their minds was associated with an image of a skull and crossbones.  C&C’s site safety officer had held a large briefing to explain all the potential hazards of the electroplating shop and the health and safety measures that were going to be taken to insure safe work procedures.  Nevertheless, there still remained only a vague general understanding and plenty of concerns.

This was an anxious feeling I could easily identify with.  The best protection against the potential dangers of handling hazardous materials is knowledge, and it is also the best confidence-builder.  I remembered a couple of the jobs during my first summer with Toxikleen which had initiated me to working with certain materials and the adrenaline flows and sense of heightened awareness that had accompanied my nervousness.

The first had been at an environmental laboratory in Delaware.  The lab had thousands of liter bottle samples which had been analyzed and now needed to be disposed of.  The lab had computer printouts which listed all the samples and the EPA codes of their hazards.  We first had to segregate all the bottles into categories by compatible hazard classes and then “bulk them up”, or pour them all into 55-gallon drums which were more suitable for shipment and disposal.  The liquid samples were being separated into three categories: halogenated flammable liquids, non-halogenated flammable liquids and acids.  The flammable liquids were identified by the EPA code D001 and the acids by EPA code D002.

My two colleagues during the operation of bulking up were both from India.  Ram, the crew leader, was a Tamil and Sunil, who was from Bombay, used to tease him for being “a dark-skinned southerner”.  Ram and Sunil and I spent a week during the stifling heat of July dressed in Level C, with impermeable poly tyvek suits and full-faced respirators with organic vapor filters, while we bulked up the liquid samples outside in the sun in the RCRA hazardous waste storage pad.

The temperature and the humidity were both up in the nineties and our Toxikleen uniforms under our tyveks were like saturated sponges with the sweat flowing down our bodies to soak our boots and streaming down our faces under our face masks.  We had dozens of trays full of flammable liquid samples, which were supposed to be chemically compatible, and we were pouring all the bottles into one 55-gallon drum.  The drum was grounded by a cable connecting the metal drum to a metal post, to prevent a static charge build-up from sparking and igniting the drum.  The funnel through which we were pouring the liquids into the bung hole was also equipped with a lid which could be snapped shut to cut off the source of oxygen in case the vapors in the drum caught fire.  We were also continually feeling the side of the drum to monitor for any observable temperature increase of the drum which, under the broiling sun was already quite warm.

I was still a rookie in the field but I felt very comfortable and assured working with Ram, who was very calm, knowledgeable, intelligent and also a much better chemist that I was.  It was our third or fourth day of bulking up and we had become quite familiar with the routine of dumping the sample, rinsing the bottle, depositing the bottle in a drum of non-RCRA regulated glass waste, and smashing up the glass bottles in the drum with a heavy tamper.  Working in the midst of the drums of flammable liquids and acids, I had been feeling relaxed and was even enjoying as many bits of conversation and jokes as our masks and work pace would allow.

Ram had just started pouring a sample into the drum when suddenly a vaporous cloud rose out of the funnel and a hissing, bubbling sound was emitted from inside the drum.  Ram quickly set down the sample and he and I ran out the storage pad’s gate and around the corner of the cinder block wall.  Sunil had simply vaulted over the four-foot high wall and was crouched down on the other side.

With my heart pounding and my blood pulsing in my temples I looked back at the storage pad, waiting for something to happen. I looked at Ram.  Ram looked at me.  I suddenly realized that our fire extinguisher was sitting on top of a drum right around the corner of the wall.  Ram said calmly that we would wait a minute to allow whatever reaction was occurring in the drum to complete itself.  I carefully edged up to the corner of the wall and reached my arm around and grabbed the fire extinguisher.  Then I held the fire extinguisher ready as Ram and I stood there waiting.

After another minute had passed and no explosions had occurred and no further fumes or bubbling noises could be detected, we reentered the storage pad and approached the drum.  The drum was sitting quietly and innocently in the hot sun.  We felt its side and could detect no abnormal increase in temperature.  Sunil climbed back over the wall and joined us.  Ram thought for a moment and calmly announced, “It should be O.K. now.  Let’s continue where we left off.”

I stood as fire watch with the extinguisher in my hands as Ram picked up the sample and started pouring it into the drum again.  Immediately a cloud of vapor puffed out of the funnel and a vigorous gurgling noise began in the bowels of the drum.  Ram snapped the funnel shut, set down the sample and we all hastily retreated to a safe distance.

“O.K., that’s it.  We’ll watch the drum for five minutes to make sure nothing happens and then break for lunch.  We have to find out what’s in that sample.”  Ram’s decision was delivered quietly.

While we took our lunch break, the sample number was looked up and discovered to have been incorrectly grouped into the flammable liquids category.  This sample was a special case.  It was indeed a flammable liquid but it was also some sort of corrosive.  The person doing the segregating had gone through the list and seen the EPA code, D001, and had classed it as a flammable liquid without checking the other codes listed for it, assuming that nothing would prevent it from being compatible.  Buried in the list of codes was the EPA code D002 for the characteristic of corrosivity and something in the combination was causing a reaction.

My flashback and explanation to the laborers were interrupted by Earl stomping in with Reggie Moon.  The two big men were in the middle of a serious discussion about the operational setup.  Earl set a pair of five-minute emergency escape air bottles down on the table and said to Reggie, slowly for emphasis,

“Now Reggie, I got to have it in place.”

Reggie nodded has head and looked Earl firmly in the eye and answered confidently and authoritatively, “Earl, whatever you need, we’ll take care of for you.”

The laborers were eyeing the five-minute escape bottles.  “What are those things for?” one of them demanded.

Earl looked down and hitched his jeans.  “Those are our emergency escape bottles.”

The laborers erupted in a clamor of suspicious protest.  “Hey, how come we only got filters for our emergency escape and you guys got air bottles?”

Earl knit his brow.  “What do you mean you just got filters? Let me see your respirators.”  A couple of the laborers jumped up and showed their respirators.  Reggie took one and handed it to Earl.  It was a respirator made for an airline hook-up with two filters which could be breathed through if there was an interruption in the air supply.  The filters were high-efficiency dust filters.  Our system used a respirator with just an airline hook-up and our emergency escape system was a small five-minute air bottle which clipped on to a belt at your hip and was easily turned on by turning a valve when it was needed.

Earl tossed the mask down on the table.  “Shit.  I wouldn’t go in there with one of those things!” he declared.  “You’re not getting proper protection.”

The reaction was instantaneous riot.  The union laborers were always slightly suspicious of the level of health and safety protection that was provided for them by the general contractor and this pronouncement of Earl’s confirmed their deepest fears of corporate negligence.  The laborers, with their limited technical knowledge, had to put complete trust and even their lives in the hands of the contractor’s site safety officers and the personal protection provisions of the Site Health and Safety Plan.

A great clamor was raised with all the laborers on their feet and shouting.  “Get the shop steward over here!”

“Yeah.  Get Mick the Prick.”

“I’m not working for these mother fuckers!”

“Yeah.  Fuck them!  They’re not looking out for us!”

“They want us to work and they don’t take fucking care of us!  Fuck that!  I’m not doing shit till I talk to my business agent!”

“I knew there was something wrong with these respirators!”

“Yeah.  I noticed a metallic taste in my mouth the other day after we went in there!”

“And I heard that all the guys that used to work in the plate shop for the army are dead now!”

Earl was right in the middle of the hubbub with his voice booming loud and clear in the tumult.  “There’s cyanides and acids in there.  What do you think will happen if there’s a big spill?  It’ll make hydrogen cyanide gas!  That shit’ll kill you quicker than hell!  And if you’ve got a problem with your airline–don’t think those filters are gonna do you any damn bit of good!”

After a couple of minutes of uproar Reggie Moon managed to restore some order with his strong commanding voice.  “O.K.  Keep it down.  I’ve got to call the shop steward.”  He pressed the button on the radio mouthpiece clipped to his jacket lapel and spoke into it.  “Reggie Moon to Mick O’Doule.”

There was a crackle of static followed by a rasping growl.  “Go ahead.”

“We need you to come over here ASAP.”

“What’s your 20?”

“Plate shop.”

“I’m on my way.”

Reggie turned back to the laborers.  “We’re going to talk to Mick and then he can come with us and we’ll all talk to C&C’s health and safety people.  Until then nobody’s going into the plate shop.  Earl, I can’t give you safety support if I can’t be 100% sure that my men are being taken care of.”

Mick the Prick arrived five minutes later and was outraged when he found out that Toxikleen was providing a higher level of emergency escape respiratory protection than C&C was for the union labour.  The C&C safety officer was called on the radio and he, too, joined the crowd in the changing room.  Mick the Prick pugnaciously stuck his wrinkled and bony finger into the pudgy chest of the safety officer and demanded an explanation about why the laborers were not being given adequate respiratory protection.  The safety officer at first tried to patiently explain that the respiratory protection was adequate for the needs, but he quickly lost his temper when Mick the Prick continued to demand to know why his men were not being given as good protection as Toxikleen.  From there it degenerated into a shouting match.

“Goddammit!” the safety officer bellowed.  “I’ve been in this business 25 years and I know what I’m talking about!”

“Well, we’ve already had three guys sent to the hospital!  One who fell off the scaffolding and two more overcome by carbon monoxide from the generator inside the reactor,” Mick the Prick retorted.

They argued face-to-face for 15 minutes and finally it was decided to have a general safety meeting after lunch.  No entrance would be allowed into the plate shop for the rest of the morning.  During lunch, rumours were flying in the cafeteria that the laborers in the plate shop were being exposed to deadly chemicals.  There was a violent feeling of mutiny in the air.

After lunch, C&C held a safety meeting in the auditorium and all the 400 or 500 laborers on site, as well as all the subcontractors, were in attendance.  The laborers had refused in a block to go back to work and C&C wanted to clarify all misunderstandings and get everyone back to work as quickly as possible.  Old Man Carson was standing rigidly next to the safety officer.  From 50 feet away I could feel the cold, seething anger radiating out of him about this ridiculous loss of production time.  Dan Thompson, C&C’s site safety officer, was waiting for everyone to get seated.  Finally Old Man Carson snapped at him impatiently, “Right Dan, let’s get things going.”

Dan nodded his head, stepped forward, and cleared his throat loudly.  “All right everybody.  Could I have your attention please.”  The scuffling and commentary came to an end.  Dan wiped the sweat off his brow with a plump hand and continued.  “As most of you are aware, we’ve had some major questions arise about the level of respiratory protection necessary in the plate shop.  We thought we had dealt with the issue thoroughly enough in the initial site safety briefing, but apparently we didn’t because some confusion still remains.  So for the benefit of everybody, and to make sure everybody understands the real nature of the hazards in the plate shop and the means by which personnel will be protected from them, we’ll start at the beginning.

“In the plate shop you have depleted uranium and beryllium dust just like in the DU and Be rooms.  This requires supplied air with high efficiency dust filters for emergency escape.  The filters can protect you against DU and Be dust sufficiently for a couple of minutes during emergency escape.  So far, so good.  In addition there are vats and drums of acids.  The acids are corrosive so that’s why everybody has to wear an impermeable saranax suit instead of just regular tyvek.  There’s also caustic solution which is corrosive, so again, saranax suits.

“Finally, there are cyanides.  Cyanide is a poison so you don’t want to breath it or get it in your mouth, or on your skin. Now the cyanide in the plate shop is either in granular solid form or dissolved in the caustic solution.  As a granular solid you really only need high efficiency particle filters to protect you from breathing in cyanide dust.  When it’s in the solution, it’s not a respiratory threat as long as it stays in the solution, and there’s no reason why it shouldn’t.  We’re not conducting any chemistry experiments in there.  We’re just pumping out vats and moving drums.  And remember, union labour is not even going to be handling any of the acids and cyanides.  That’s Toxikleen’s job.  That’s their contract.  That’s what they’re here for.  Let’s let them do their job.

“Now their health and safety department wanted to be extra conservative on the side of safety.  They wanted to completely protect against the worst case scenario, which would be if you had a problem with your air supply at the same moment that you spilled a drum of acid into a vat of cyanide salts.  Cyanides will react with acid and form hydrogen cyanide gas, which is a poison, but supplied air gives you safe protection and there’s also no reason why any reaction should ever take place.  Furthermore, in case there are some errant splashes and small amounts of hydrogen cyanide are evolved, the ventilation from the fume hood system will suck out the gas and disperse it harmlessly in the atmosphere.  Now Toxikleen has insisted on the five minute escape air bottles for it’s personnel, and since they’re doing the work, that’s reasonable enough and they’ve been provided with four bottle setups by C&C.  I personally think it’s not even necessary, but that’s what the agreement is.  However these bottle setups are expensive and I see no justifiable reason for C&C to spend a lot of extra money buying bottle setups for people who don’t really need them.”  Dan took off his glasses and wiped them and put them back on again.  “Does that clear things up any?”

The laborers and even some of the HP’s asked some questions.  At one point Dan started a rambling, detailed technical answer, but Old Man Carson cut that short with a curt “Just give them the information they need to do their jobs.”  The shop stewards asked how they were supposed to provide safety support if there was a hydrogen cyanide gas generation and how the laborers would be able to work in the plate shop at the same time as Toxikleen, if their emergency escape system wouldn’t protect them from poison gas that Toxikleen might be generating in their work process.  Finally it was decided that union laborers were not to enter the plate shop when Toxikleen was handling the chemicals or in the case of any gas production.  When it seemed that the basic understanding had been reached and the questions were becoming less essential, Old Man Carson broke in sharply with “Dan can we wrap this up?”  Dan nodded and stepped back.  Old Man Carson raised his voice and stated with measured syllables “We’ve lost practically a whole day of production which has cost C&C a lot of money, but we’ll consider this part of the cost of doing business if we have succeeded in clarifying the issue, so that we can go back to work without any more interruptions.”

By the time we got out it was almost time for the afternoon union coffee break, so Earl scheduled us to go in the plate shop the next day.

CHAPTER 29

The following morning there were some further delays as Dan Thompson, Reggie Moon, and two of the electricians had to do a jump in the plate shop to check out a problem with the electric power panels.  We were told we probably wouldn’t be able to go in all day so I went back to the endless piles of paperwork.  After coffee break I passed through the administration trailer and Earl was there flirting in high gear.  All the women except for Louise were laughing.  Earl had been trying to convince Wendy, a thin, thirty year old with long stringy hair and one wandering eye, to marry him.  He finally admitted defeat and shuffled over to the desk where Pamela, the new opera singing temp, was working on the computer.

“How are you this morning beautiful?” said Earl with the charm turned up to maximum.

Pamela smiled, but kept on typing.  “Good morning Earl.”  Pamela was definitely attractive by any standards.  She was 24 years old and had short, pixieish blonde hair, a pretty face with a small nose and blue eyes, and a devastating hour glass figure. I’d never seen her act in a way that could be described as provocative, but I couldn’t help but imagine her performing a wide variety of erotic acts.

“So I hear you’re into good ol’ spaghetti jazz.” Earl beamed down at her.

“What?” Pamela looked up at him with a bewildered expression on her fair skinned features.

“You know.” said Earl with a huge grin.  “Spaghetti jazz.  Opera.”  He burst out with a loud laugh.  Pamela’s fine eyebrows twitched in confusion, but she gave Earl a friendly smile.  “I guess you never heard that one before, huh?” he continued.

“No, I’ve never heard that one before.” she admitted.  Earl plied her with a couple of questions and Pamela responded enthusiastically, telling him she was studying for her master’s degree in music and singing in a small opera company.  Earl made a monumental effort to look interested as he asked her more questions and she went on to describe with ardor some of the greatest performances she had ever seen.  Topping this list was the Bolshoi Opera Company whom she had seen when they toured the U.S. a few years ago.  Earl sipped his coffee and tilted his head back in recognition.  Pamela warmly continued with her stories of Pavarotti, Finney, and other famous singers.

Pamela paused and Earl assumed a sincere and suave expression.  “Well I tell you what Pam, when it comes to good old fashioned spaghetti jazz, you just can’t beat those Russians and the Bolshevik Opera Company.  They’re just magnificent!”

Pamela looked almost alarmed as she tried desperately to suppress a smile.  I had to turn away and pretend I was busy with the xerox machine to hide my laughter.  There was a tense quiet in the trailer as all the women were trying to keep from breaking out laughing.  All of a sudden the momentary stillness was shattered by the crack of Louise’s sharp voice from the accountant’s corner.  “Earl you big galoot. You don’t know a rat’s ass about opera.  Why don’t you just shut up and leave the woman alone.  Honestly!  I think I like you better when you’re telling fat girl jokes.  At least you’re being yourself.”

Earl’s face got red.  “Well who asked you anyway?” he retorted testily.  “Why are you pickin’ on me?  You don’t like me, do you?”  I picked this moment as the time when I’d heard enough and quietly slipped out.

Five minutes later I was back in our trailer waiting for Johnny A. to get off the phone so I could ask him to explain my next task, when Earl huffed in.  He stubbed his cigarette out on the floor with his muddy boots and complained in loud voice.  “I tell you what Otto, that woman’s got a attitude!  She’s a stuck up, up tight bitch if I ever saw one!  Where does she come off treating me like that?  I know what she needs.  Oh yeah.  I know exactly what that woman needs.  An’ I bet you anything she ain’t gettin’ any.  That’s why she’s got such a attitude.  Hell, what guy in his right mind would go near a bitch like that?  I know I wouldn’t!  I wouldn’t touch that trouble with a ten foot pole!”  Earl paused in his diatribe and looked pensive for a moment.

Johnny A. behind him was holding a finger in one ear so he could hear what the guy from the disposal facility was telling him on the phone.  He had been waving his hand at Earl to tell him to keep it down, but Earl hadn’t noticed.  Earl shook his head thoughtfully.  “It’s too bad she’s such a bitch, ’cause she’s got an especially fine rack!”

CHAPTER 30

Jozef came home at 9:30 that night with a Scottish friend of his named George who was toting an expensive bottle of single malt whiskey.  I joined them in Jozef’s room and we poured the whiskey into an odd collection of coffee mugs.  George sniffed the bottle, took a sip from his mug and shook his head.  “This stuff isn’t that good,” he pronounced disdainfully.  Jozef and I looked at each other with puzzled amusement.  I am not by any means a connoisseur, but to me the whiskey seemed to be especially fine.  Jozef was rolling the whiskey around in his mouth in evident enjoyment.  George wrinkled his nose in disapproval and his freckles stood out more fiercely against his pale skin and red hair.  “Damned East Coast whiskeys,” he muttered.  Jozef and I laughed.  “I like the Highland whiskeys,” George stated firmly.  “The East Coast whiskeys just aren’t the same quality.”

George was another biochemist in the lab with Jozef and also worked the same long hours, sometimes running his experiments all through the night.  After three glasses of whiskey, Jozef passionately declared himself to be fed up with living like a work-aholic and a hermit and the decision was universally made to unleash ourselves on the female population of the local bars.

There was a rock-a-billy band at the Zen Computer Pub and the place was packed with students, professionals and a collection of off-beat characters who make the university district their home.  Tie-dye shirts, Alpaca wool hats, berets, black leather jackets, miniskirts, tattoos and beards rubbed shoulders with grey suits, rugby shirts, penny loafers, preppie hair cuts and tweed jackets.  A girl with spiky hair, purple fingernails and a black miniskirt was drinking a pint of Guinness on our left while to our right, a girl with long blonde hair, a turtleneck and windbreaker was dancing with her eyes closed.  The walls of the bar had old and worn oak panelling with benches, booths and alcoves creating a warm, cozy atmosphere, even with the crowd.

George and Jozef got into a raucous argument about a soccer game between George’s favorite team in Scotland and Jozef’s favorite team in Poland.  The game had been played in a European championship tournament five years ago, but George and Jozef argued vehemently about one particular controversial play for 15 minutes, drawing diagrams on napkins, using salt shakers and ashtrays to represent the players, and finally clearing a space and involving half a dozen of our amused fellow revellers.  Jozef had become a man possessed, gesticulating violently and loudly describing the play as he moved first the girl in the black miniskirt playing the part of the Scottish defender, and then a guy with long hair and a ski jacket who played the Polish striker.  When Jozef began to move a girl with wire-rimmed glasses and hiking boots as a second Scottish defender, George objected angrily.  He tugged the girl with the wire-rimmed glasses back past the penalty area line marked by the Bass Ale tap and Jozef pulled her in the opposite direction.  Jozef and George glared at each other.  The girl protested that she was being torn in half, but they took no notice.  The guy with the long hair began to walk away to grab his beer off the table and Jozef ordered him to stay in his position.  Everybody burst out laughing and Jozef ordered a round of drinks for everybody who had participated.

About four Newcastle Brown Ales later I found myself in a semi-coherent conversation with a moderately attractive girl in her late twenties with long dark hair, a flowery blouse, blue jeans and boots.  I was acutely aware of my fatigue, the amount of alcohol I had drunk and the early hour of the morning when I would have to wake up.  However, there was that faint spark of the remote possibility of sex which kept me glued to the spot and prohibited me from going home to sleep.  The girl was telling me with great animation about her passion for reading tarot cards and I was steeling myself to make the required effort to look at least mildly interested.  Inwardly I was thinking that reading tarot cards was about as meaningless as anything could be to my day-to-day existence of sampling drums of chemicals. However I was drunk and urgently feeling the need to touch a woman’s body, so I was determined to keep the conversation going, no matter how painful.

George was drunkenly telling a bleary-eyed undergraduate student how the Rangers, the main Protestant soccer team in Glasgow, had beaten “The Tims”, as he was calling the Celtic, the main Catholic team, 3 to 1 recently.  Jozef was holding a pint of beer in each hand and waving unsteadily back and forth as he declared fervently to two giggling women that they were so beautiful that he wished he were an artist so he could just paint them.  Finally, it was closing time and we were all escorted amiably to the door.  Jozef, in a fit of compassion for his fellow workingman, insisted on trying to help the bartender mop the floor.  However, his efforts were kindly refused, so we tumbled into the street, where we bid the ladies good night, and staggered home.

CHAPTER 31

I showed up at the plate shop changing room at 7:15 in the morning.  My eyes were red and scratchy from lack of sleep and I had the slightly confused feeling of a hangover.  The union laborers were ready and waiting.  Upon seeing me, one of them, Nick the Greek, shouted out, “Hey, what’s the matter with you Toxqueen?  You don’t look so good.”

“Yeah, I bet you were out drinking last night,” joined in Tommy, the air bottle man.

“You know what my old man used to say, Otto,” said Duck, who had joined the plate shop crew.  “You drink like a man, you go to work the next day like a man.”

“Yeah, Toxqueen.  We’re watching you,” Reggie Moon added with mock severity.

“Especially me,” Nick the Greek asserted with a gravelly voice.  “I’m the safety man here and I’m the one who’s got to go in an get you if you go down.”

I would have preferred to go unnoticed so I could suffer through the long day ahead of me without having to make the exertion of social dialogue or even of thinking, but I reached down into my reserves and forced myself to make a response.  Putting my hand on Nick’s shoulder I feigned sincerity.  “It reassures me to know that I’m in such good hands, Nick.”

“Hey, watch it.  You’d better be nice to me or I won’t go in there to save you.”  The laborers all laughed.

Earl came in and we started changing into our PPE.  I stripped down and put on a swim suit and tee shirt.  Then I put my steel-toed boots back on and pulled a pair of yellow plastic booties on over them.  Next, I found a box of double extra-large impermeable saranax coveralls and put one on, leaving the front zipper open so I would not roast while I finished dressing.  I pulled on another pair of yellow booties and sealed them with duct tape to the legs of the saranax.  Next came the three layers of gloves.  First, I pulled on the flimsy cotton gloves, followed by thin Latex lab gloves and then thick neoprene gloves which were duct taped to the saranax at the wrists.  I then had to zip up my suit and put on a belt that went around my waist and over one shoulder and supported the air line connections.  I checked the breathing diaphragms in my mask, screwed in the air line hose attachment and put the mask on, pulling the straps just tight enough to give me an air-tight seal without giving myself too much of a headache.

Earl was pulling his quadruple extra-large saranax on over his blue jeans as I walked out to the corridor.  Tommy was sitting on a folding chair next to the air bottles and Nick was standing ready, dressed in a saranax suit and hard hat and safety glasses.  If there was a problem inside the work area Nick would don a respirator and SCBA air tank and enter the containment to give assistance.

Nick grabbed a saranax hood and put it over my head, fitting it around the edges of my respirator.  Then, using some of the dozens of six-inch long strips of duct tape he had stuck on the cinderblock wall, he taped my hood carefully to my mask, arranging the tabbed ends in order so I could peel all the tape off with one pull when I deconned.

“You see, Toxqueen.  I take good care of you.  I bet nobody ever taped you up so good.”  Nick pressed his fingers against my skull, pressing the tape down against the hood.  I looked straight ahead at his chin.  I was so tired I felt like I was in a trance and could not move my eyes from the spot where they were focussed.  However, I made the supreme effort and ripped my eyes away from his chin.

“Yeah.  I heard you won the award for best masktaper in the Tri-State Area.”

“Wise guy!  Turn around.”  I about faced and Nick taped the bottom of my hood to the suit. “O.K., you’re all set,” he said, patting my back.  “Here’s your radio.  Stay on channel two.  You’re coming out at 8:45.”  I took the radio and Tommy plugged a hundred-foot long air line into the hose attachment at my waist. I heard the familiar hiss and whoosh of the air passing through the valves as if I was listening through headphones, and I smelled the unpleasant stale odor of the plastic air hoses that always accompanied the first few breaths.  Nick began taping up Earl and I passed through the poly flaps of the decon entrance.

When I passed through the last flap I found some rubber yellow booties on the floor and I jerked on a pair.  Then I stood up and looked around.  All the electric power had been cut to the plate shop, so all the light came from several portable lights plugged into the temporary power panels, creating a twilight effect.  The plate shop was long and narrow and had a ceiling about 30 feet high.  Straight ahead of me was a corridor about five feet wide leading to the roll-up garage door at the rear of the shop.  Storage cabinets, work benches and 55-gallon drums lined each side of the corridor and all kinds of boxes, cans, materials and tools cluttered all the surfaces and the floor.  A thick layer of dust covered everything.

To my right, four steps led up to a steel grated platform which ran down the right side of the shop and supported the solution bath vats.  There were about 15 vats running along either side of the platform, and a large system of ventilation duct-work joined together above the vats.  The vats stood about waist high and were four to six feet square.  Even from where I was I could see whitish, chalky and granular solids leaving a smeared trail down the sides of several of the vats and collecting on the grating.  Below the grating on the floor the white chalky dust had collected in a thick layer, sometimes up to six inches deep.

Behind the platform was a series of six-foot high plastic tubing standing upright and connected with valves to a motor.  From what Earl had told me I deduced that this was the demineralization system, or the demin system as he and Johhny A. called it.  The demineralization system was a set of baffled filters in which the used water was passed through ionized resin beads to remove heavy metal contaminants before the water was released to the municipal drainage system.  Next to the demin system was a filthy fume hood with a pile of white power on the floor in front of it.  Pipes and valves of water and compressed air seemed to connect and criss-cross all over the plate shop.

There was a hiss of static and Tommy’s voice came over the radio.  “Safety to plate shop.”

I put the radio to the bottom of my face mask and pressed the transmission button.

“This is the plate shop.  Go ahead.”

“Radio check.”

“You’re loud and clear.”  I answered.

“10-4.”

There was a rustling of the poly flaps and Earl emerged at my side.  We both stood there looking around and taking in the chaotic scene.

I took a step forward and Earl grabbed my arm.  Slightly alarmed, I looked around to see what was the matter.  I felt Earl peel something off my back and he showed me a piece of paper which had been stuck on my suit with duct tape.  On the paper was written, “I LIKE YOUNG BOYS.”

Earl was laughing.  I looked behind him and saw a piece of paper stuck to his suit also.  I pulled it off and showed it to him.  It read, “I SUCK YANKEE COCK.”

“Those mother fuckers,” chuckled Earl.

I held up the radio.  “Plate shop to Safety.”

“Go ahead plate shop,” Tommy’s voice came back with grave sincerity.

I looked at Earl and held the radio up between us.  We both leaned forward and yelled into it at the same time, “Fuck you!”

Loud laughter in the background drowned out the response on the radio, but we could imagine the scene.  All the laborers had been hanging around waiting to hear our reaction.

“What a cluster fuck!” Earl grunted.

Earl and I started walking slowly down the corridor, stopping and looking into cabinets and drawers and making a brief mental inventory.  After about 20 feet my air line curled around the corner of a bench behind me and brought me to an abrupt halt in midstep.  I tried flicking the hose to loosen it from the corner but it was too stiff and remained stuck.  I walked back and kicked it loose with my foot.  Earl’s line had got caught on a cabinet edge and he was vigorously flicking his hose to no avail.  I grabbed his hose to set it free and we both continued down the corridor.  Every 10 steps or so we would have to either shake loose our hoses or walk back and disengage them from some obstacle.  Containers of all sizes were stacked and strewn about everywhere: 1 pint and 1 gallon plastic, glass and metal jars and cans, 5 and 10 gallon buckets, 30 and 55 gallon drums.  Dust covered tools, rags, boxes, papers, glass beakers, nails, screws, filthy rubber aprons, smudged face splash guards, and odds and ends lay piled everywhere.

We walked back to the front of the shop and I followed Earl up the steps to the vat platform.  Our hoses became tangled and I went back down the steps to straighten them out.  As I raised my leg to come back up the steps, the inseam in the crotch of my saranax split open, leaving a gap about six inches long.  I cursed to myself and then called outside on the radio.

“Plate shop to safety.”

There was a crackle on the radio and then, “Go ahead plate shop.”

“I need a roll of duct tape.  Can you throw one in.”

“Come again plate shop.  I couldn’t read you.”

I carefully placed the radio near the exhale diaphragm of my respirator and repeated loudly and slowly.  “I need a roll of duct tape.  Can you throw one in.”

“A roll of duct tape?”

“Ten-four.”

“It’s on its way.

Twenty seconds later the plate shop door opened and somebody threw a roll of tape through the series of poly flaps.  I patched my suit with four or five strips of tape and went back up the steps to join Earl between the vats.  Earl half turned to me and said something that I couldn’t make out through the respirator.

“What?” I said and tapped him on the shoulder.  He repeated something inaudible and I gave up, hoping it was not too important.  Earl pointed at the white chalky substance dripping down the side of a vat and piled on the grating next to our feet.

“Those there are cyanide salts,” he rumbled.  We both looked down at the six-inch deep layer of whitish dust on the floor under us.  Earl shook his head.  “Look at all that shit.”

We walked a few steps further down the platform and our hoses got hung up.  I walked back down the stairs and untangled them.  When I rejoined Earl he was looking down into a vat of hard, crusty green chunks.  He reached in and pulled out one of the green rocks to show me.  “This was the nickel bath,” he told me and flipped the stone back into the vat.

The heat had built up inside my suit and I could feel the sweat soaking through my shirt and swim suit.  Our airlines got crossed and I lifted my hose over Earl’s head.  As I raised my arm, all the sweat that had collected in the fingertips of my latex gloves ran in streams down my arm and on down my body to squelch in my boots.

We moved on and came to a vat which was about half full of a thick brown liquid with a texture like molasses.  The top part of the vat was covered with deep brown splatter and next to the vat stood a 55-gallon poly drum which was also thoroughly stained with the syrupy brown liquid.  “This here’s chromic acid.  Nasty shit,” Earl grunted.  He picked up a metal rod and stirred it around in the viscous muck.  It had a soft crust on top but got so thick a few inches below the surface that Earl could barely move the rod through it.

There were some valves and handles near the back of the vat and Earl reached out to grab them.  As he did the seam of his suit ripped loudly in the armpit.  Earl looked down and decided to just continue what he was doing.  I leaned against the brown-smeared drum and found that it was full.  We looked around for a few more minutes and then the radio spluttered.

“Safety to plate shop.”

I raised the radio to my mask.  “Go ahead.”

“Your time’s up.  Wrap it up and come on out.”

“10-4.”

Earl looked at me and nodded.  We walked back to the decon entrance and pulled off the rubber booties and left them in a pile on the floor.  Then we quickly wiped off the first 10 feet of our airlines with some paper towels and entered the first chamber of the decon.  A large yellow plastic bag marked “radioactive” was lying on the floor and we began unwinding the tape from our wrists and ankles and throwing it in the bag.  Earl grabbed the tab on the tape around my respirator and tugged it all off.  I pulled his tape off and we ripped off our hoods.  Next we ripped through the outer plastic booties with our fingers and threw the shreds in the bag.  I unbuckled my belt, pulled it over my head and laid it and the five-minute escape bottle on the poly covered floor.  The hose connection between the air bottle and my mask was only about four feet long so I couldn’t stand up straight.  Still bending over I ripped open the saranax suit down the front zipper and continued ripping down the seams of the legs.  The hot air that had been trapped inside the suit wafted away from our bodies and my soaking wet tee shirt felt suddenly cold and a chill went through me.  We stuffed our suits and outer gloves in the bag and pushed through the decon flaps carrying our escape bottles.  The plate shop door opened and Nick held out another yellow plastic bag for us.

“You guys all right?” he asked gruffly.

I nodded my head and the sweat dripped off my hair onto the floor.  I put the escape bottle in the bag and took a deep breath while Tommy disconnected the airline.  I quickly loosened my respirator straps, and ripped the mask off my head.  The cool air on my face was a relief as I put the mask in the bag.  I pulled off the last pair of plastic booties and stepped out of the decon throwing the booties into another plastic yellow bag just inside the decon.  Finally, I peeled off the latex lab gloves and cotton gloves and threw them also in the bag inside the decon.  A tablespoon of sweat poured out of each latex glove and splashed on the floor.

Buck, the HP, was waiting for us. “Go on down through the PCM and then you can come back and change,” he instructed.

I went through the PCM, stepping in first with my right leg and arm and then the left.  After 30 seconds it sounded “Ping” and flashed a green “O.K.”.  I walked back to the changing room and heard Reggie Moon asking Earl what it was like in there.

Early was dripping sweat and was looking down at his soaked blue jeans. “I tell you what,” he answered loudly, “I’ve been to four county fairs and three pig fuckings and ain’t never seen nothing like this!”

CHAPTER 32

I heard about it first on the radio on my way to work in the morning.  There was a buzz about it in the cafeteria and Mark and Earl were discussing it when I came in the trailer.  Nobody seemed to know how or why it had happened, but speculation was rampant.  A worker for a rival company had gone down while cleaning out a railroad tanker which had transported trichloroethylene.  He had been overcome by the oxygen-depleted atmosphere in the confined space of the tanker and the efforts to rescue and revive him had been unsuccessful.

I called the home office in New Jersey to see if anyone knew the details, but they had not heard the news yet.  It was not until I watched the news on Jozef’s T.V. that night that I found out what had happened.

The worker had made a confined space entry of the railroad tanker dressed in Level B with an airline and a five-minute air bottle as his emergency backup.  Supplied air was necessary because the oxygen in the atmosphere inside the tanker had been displaced by the trichloroethylene fumes.  Normal atmospheric oxygen levels range from 19.5% to 23.5% and supplied air is required by Federal regulations for workers when the oxygen level of the atmosphere they are working in falls below 19.5%.

The worker’s air line had had a faulty connection where it plugged in and it had suddenly blown off and flapped around in the trichloroethylene muck on the bottom of the tank.  The worker, suddenly finding himself with no air, opened the valve of his five minutes escape bottle on his hip.  Nothing happened.  The bottle was empty.  His horrified crew members watched from the entry hatch on the roof of the tanker, as he crumbled to the steel floor.  No rescue system for pulling the worker up through the hatch had been set up and so the worker basically had drowned in the trichloroethylene fumes.

Confined space entry procedure is strictly defined by Federal regulations and workers must go through special training and be certified before they can participate.  Earl was certified for confined space entry and had cleaned out tanks himself for several years.  The next day Earl delivered a non-stop litany of all the things the crew had done wrong.

“I tell you what, those boys didn’t have a clue.  First of all, they were using equipment that should have been shit canned. And where was their tripod and winch to pull the guy out through the hatch?  Did you ever try to pull a 200-pound man up in the air with a rope tied around him?  He was down there on his own.  There’s no way they could’ve hauled him up in time.  And his emergency escape bottle?  Now what kind of an idiot’s going to jump into a tank without checking to see if there’s any air in his emergency escape bottle!”

Mark summed up my thoughts succinctly. “A little bit of carelessness in this business can change a carefully managed routine job into a tragedy.”  Johnny A. had nodded his head in agreement and spit tobacco juice into his cup.

Later that afternoon I was still brooding over the event as I walked into the trailer.  There on the floor I saw the samples which had been returned again by the parcel delivery service.  Johhny A. looked up from his desk at me with a little smile.  “It’s kind of hard to get there if you don’t put the address on the label, Otto.”  I had forgotten to address the package.

CHAPTER 33

“Shit,” yelled Johnny A. and he scooted his chair sharply back from his desk.  I looked up and saw a scene I had been anticipating with dread for months.  Johnny A. had finally managed to knock over his spit cup, which had been almost full, and the gooey mess was spreading out over the papers and official project files on his desk.  Some of the brown frothy liquid was dripping into an open drawer and more was collecting in a puddle on the floor.  Johnny A. sat there staring at it, as if transfixed in horror.  I stifled a convulsive reflex in my abdomen.  Then I got up from my desk and patted Johnny A. on the back silently, and left the trailer.

CHAPTER 34

Earl and I began doing jumps in the plate shop on a regular basis.  We were limited to one hour each jump because of heat stress and we also had to schedule our jumps around our union safety support crew’s break and lunch schedule.  The union’s contract called for a coffee break at 9:00 o’clock, lunch at 11:30 and another coffee break at 2:00.  In addition, if the laborers had to dress up in protective suits, they were allocated one-half hour for cool down time.  Nick, as safety man, had to wear a saranax and was thus entitled to cool down time after every jump we took.  He observed this contract provision religiously.  We were therefore able to realistically schedule a maximum of three jumps in an eight-hour day.  Any kind of complication or distraction in our office would create a conflict with our inflexible schedule and cause us to lose a jump.  Furthermore, with all the time lost due to the uncoiling air lines, waiting for needed tools or materials to be found and handed into the containment, or just plain confusion, the actual productive work time was sometimes stripped down to minutes per day.

Earl and I were now engaged in the initial preparation task of finding and removing all the small containers of hazardous materials.  We combed through all the cabinets, closets, shelves and drawers and collected all the jars, cans, bottles and buckets in one place.  I quickly tested the materials for corrosivity and cyanides, and then they were wiped down and put into empty 55-gallon drums.

One day a consultant subcontracted by the Corps of Engineers came in with us to get a first-hand look.  Earl and I were both bent over investigating a mysterious, heavily corroded five-gallon drum.  I was just prodding the unknown, red-brown granules with a scoop when there as a sudden bright flash.  We both jumped up with a start and I smashed my head on a cabinet door.  I looked around wildly to see what had sparked or ignited and felt a searing pain in the back of my skull.  The consultant was standing a few feet away from us, rewinding his camera.  “Sorry about that guys,” he said apologetically.

Another day, I was fingerprinting when Earl came up to me and tapped me on the shoulder and beckoned me to follow him.  He took me over to a beat-up metal cabinet in the corner and reached into the top shelf.  Carefully he pulled out an artillery shell that was at least two feet long.

“Look at that beauty,” said Earl excitedly.  “I’m going to clean this up and take it home for a souvenir.  Listen.”  He shook the shell vigorously by my ear.  “It’s a dud.  I’m going to hide it back in here and get it later.  I love collecting military memorabilia.  I got a big collection at home.”

Earl stuck the shell way in the back of the cabinet and we went back to work.  Later, when we came out, Earl mentioned the discovery to the laborers and HP’s and then went on at length about his fondness for military souvenirs.  Reggie Moon and Duck had also served in Vietnam, with Reggie in the Military Police and Duck in the infantry.

“We were on the opposite sides of the fence,” Duck grinned. “I was always drinkin’ and getting’ into fights.”

“Not anymore, though, huh Duck?” said Reggie, with his straight back still showing military bearing.

“Seven years now since I stopped drinking,” Duck responded proudly.

“It’s time for coffee,” said Tommy and he and Nick walked out the door.

CHAPTER 35

I walked into the trailer late that afternoon and found Mark, Earl and Johnny A. in a somber mood.  “Here, read this.” Johnny A. said without a smile as he thrust a corporate memo into my hand.  I scanned the memo and picked out the highlights:  “Due to recent economic developments and an increasingly competitive market . . . two consecutive quarterly losses and revenues well below projected levels . . . Toxikleen will undergo a restructuring commensurate with our responsibility to our clients, our stockholders, and to you, the employees, to remain number one in the field of environmental remediation. . . . It is my unfortunate and painful duty to announce a 25% reduction of personnel on a nationwide level.”  The memo was signed by the corporate chairman himself.

“Get your resume ready,” said Johnny A. with an ironic smile.

“How about that company where the guy died in the tank last week?  What’s their name?  They ought to have an opening,” Mark laughed.

“Oh no.  You don’t want to work for those cluster fucks,” Earl chuckled.

The comedy died down and a heavy silence settled in the trailer.  “Twenty-five per cent!” I said, shaking my head incredulously.

“Yup.” Earl was looking me straight in the eye.  “They chew you up and spit you out when they don’t need you anymore.”

“When they land some big contracts they’re hiring and when they lose contracts they start laying off,” Mark added.

“That’s right,” said Earl emphatically, starting to get steamed up.  “There’s no job security what so ever.  No matter what they tell you when they want to hire you.  Oh they can be lying sons of bitches.

“Actually, we’re probably safer here out in the field than anyone else.  We’re the ones that are actually making the money,” put in Johnny A., matter of factly.

“That’s right,” laughed Mark. “They can’t afford to get rid of us.”

“You hope.” said Earl pulling out his Marlboros.

“There’s a lot of remediation work out there,” continued Johnny A., “but a lot of contracts are being held up in negotiations or by non-allocated government and corporate funding.  Also, environmental remediation was a boom business and a lot of companies sprang up in the 80’s to get a slice of the pie.  Now the industry is saturated with companies and the amount of new work has topped off, leaving all the companies to fight for the available contracts.  With the competition so tough, lean and mean has become the fashionable idea in the corporate world. Most of the people who will get the axe will be mid-level management.”

“Well, we’re probably O.K. at least as long as this job lasts.” I said.

“I think I’m going to send my resume out tomorrow.  I’ve been planning to do that anyway.”  Mark’s grin looked tense.

“I tell you what, buddy, so am I.”  Earl lit his cigarette and threw the match on the floor. “How about you, John?”

Johnny A.’s mouth creased in a sly smile.  “Mine’s already out there.”

As we laughed the door opened and Old Man Carson walked in with tight lips.  As usual, he did not waste any time on nonessential social pleasantries or introductions but, with his ice blue eyes holding Johnny A. firmly in his gaze, he came straight to the point.  “What’s the maximum permissible level for cadmium in waste water?”

“One part per million,” Johnny A. answered directly.  The door opened and Dan Thompson and Hal Smith came in and quietly took their positions next to their project manager.

Carson registered the information with no emotion.  “And for lead?”

Johnny A. knit his brow.  “What is it, 5 ppm., Mark?”

“One ppm.” I said and Mark nodded in agreement.

Carson stared at us coldly for a moment.  “Goddamn it!” he said with his veins suddenly protruding in his temples.  “Those samples of waste water came back with results of 1.03 to 1.08 ppm.  Are you trying to tell me I can’t discharge this water into the storm sewer system?”  Johnny A. raised his eyebrows and opened his arms to say there was nothing he could do about it.  “Do you know how much this is going to cost me?” demanded Carson angrily.

“Well, it’s over the limit,” suggested Daniel Thompson timidly.

“It’s not a perfect fucking world.”  Carson’s voice slashed through the tense atmosphere in the trailer and cut Dan off sharply.  “Do you really think that 1.03 ppm of cadmium is dangerous and 1.0 ppm is safe?  That three hundredths of one part per million is bullshit, but it’s going to cost me over $40,000 to process.  How do I know there wasn’t any sampling error that skewed these results and pushed them just over the permissible levels?”

Johnny A. blinked behind his thick glasses.  “We could resample.”

Carson had gotten the answer he wanted.  “Will you do that please,” was his cold and veiled command.  “Tomorrow!”

“We’ll take care of it,” Johnny A. assured him.  Carson nodded and turned on his heel.  The issue had been dealt with and no further discussion was necessary.  He left the trailer and Hal and Dan followed him, looking as dignified and important as they could manage in Carson’s shadow.

CHAPTER 36

I had gone by myself one night to a sports bar to watch a hockey game, and afterwards I stopped into a club where a folk singer was playing.  I sat at the bar and listened without much interest to the singer while I drank a beer.  The singer’s lyrics were a bit too syrupy and sentimental for my taste until he sang an old obscure song that I had always liked.  A woman in her late twenties was sitting alone next to me and in the spirit of friendly neighbors I asked her if she knew the song.  She didn’t, but she did prove to be bright and witty and we got into an interesting and easy going conversation.

Rachel, as her name turned out to be, was perhaps not beautiful, but attractive, with short brown hair and a slim figure encased in tight black jeans and a white cashmere sweater. She told me she had just finished an awkward and somewhat tedious blind date set up by what she described as “ex friends”.  She didn’t usually hang out in bars by herself, but she had wanted to unwind a little from the stress of forcing conversation for two and a half hours with someone she had nothing in common with.

Rachel asked me what I did for work and I described our project briefly.  She asked me if it was dangerous and I gave her a concise lecture about the educated way to handle hazardous materials in a controlled manner.  Rachel knit her brow as she listened and asked intelligent and thoughtful questions.  I went on to tell her a bit about life on the road and my personal life. Rachel told me she worked as a corporate sales rep and was preparing to go to graduate school in business administration in the fall.

Finally it was closing time and we were the last customers in the bar.  I wasn’t sure where our conversation was leading or even where I wanted it to lead, but I felt like I hadn’t had a conversation with a woman in a long time and I was enjoying myself tremendously.  Rachel looked around at the empty bar and sighed.  “I guess we’d better leave.”  Not wanting the conversation to end, I offered her a lift home.  “Sure.”  she replied without pausing.  “I ordinarily don’t let strange men give me rides, but you seem nice.”

“I try.”  I said.

As Rachel got up from the bar stool, I noticed that her figure was more curvaceous than I had thought.  I had until now just been enjoying chatting with her, but now another possibility strongly presented itself.  Our conversation had not been in the slightest way flirtatious, but here I was driving her home.  This could either be a friendly and chivalrous gesture which would cap off a very pleasant chance acquaintance, or possibly the beginning of a wild and hedonistic romp.  I decided that in any case I was feeling good and having fun even if the evening didn’t take an erotic turn.

We arrived at Rachel’s house in a few minutes and she turned to me.  “I don’t work tomorrow.  Do you want to come in for a drink?”

I did have to work in the morning, but I didn’t hesitate.  Rachel and I sat on opposite ends of her sofa, drinking first one beer, then another, then another.  I felt relaxed and completely unpressured.  I was having such a good time just talking that I didn’t care if we had sex or not.  I could tell that Rachel was feeling at ease as well.

As I was finishing my third beer Rachel’s expression became suddenly serious.  “Listen, I don’t want to mislead you in any way, so I want to tell you clearly now that I’m not going to sleep with you.  Just in case you were waiting for that to happen, I wanted you to know.”

I grinned.  “That’s O.K., I’ve been having a good time.”

Rachel smiled.  “So do you want another beer?”

We talked for another half hour and then during a slight pause, Rachel giggled.  “Those bartenders who were hanging around waiting for us to leave, probably think we’re scooting around the floor having uninhibited sex right now.”

I laughed and my stomach tightened slightly at the idea.  I rolled up my sleeve as if to look at a watch.  “Well there’s still time I suppose.”  Rachel sat back and looked at me archly. I went on with mock sincerity.  “It would be a shame to disappoint those bartenders.  They seemed very nice.  We ought to be considerate of their feelings.”

“Yeah right.”  Rachel laughed.  “Their feelings.”

We both laughed and looked at each other.  There was a new tension in the air that had been missing all evening.

“Well don’t forget.”  Rachel said sobering up quickly.  “I told you I’m not going to sleep with you.”  I still hadn’t figured out a coherent response when she added,  “I would like to kiss you though.”

“Shall I meet you halfway?”  I asked.

“I’ll come to you.”  Rachel crawled across the couch on her hands and knees and suddenly pounced on me.  The ice had been broken and we commenced to grapple each other freely.  For the next hour we built towards the crescendo in a lustful and rather drunken frenzy.

Success was finally achieved with my trousers still stuck around my ankles.  Just before the moment of climax I got a cramp in my leg and I couldn’t stretch it out because my foot was caught under the coffee table.  I had to decide whether to interrupt the proceedings to pull my foot out to relax my leg or just grit my teeth and continue on, enjoying the pleasure of the moment in spite of the agony of the cramp.  The decision was made in a moment.  I had been alone too long and couldn’t have stopped even if my leg was being amputated.

Finally we both fell back panting and contented and I was able to extract my leg from under the coffee table.  Bits of clothing and sofa cushions were scattered about the floor where we had tossed them.  Rachel lit a cigarette and I limped out to the kitchen for another beer.  At a quarter to six Rachel said she was going to bed and I decided the best thing to do was to go straight to work.

I drove past the guard shack with exhaustion setting in.  Toxikleen was going to have to get on without me today.  My main saving grace was that Johnny A. was in Pittsburgh at a job interview and I could quietly hide out while Mark and Earl covered for me.  I would owe them one.  At 6:15 I staggered into our trailer and melted into a chair.  Leaning the chair back, I rested my head against the wall and closed my eyes.  I already had a hangover.

In what seemed to be a moment later, I woke up with a start. Earl’s big, grinning face was bent over next to mine.  He let out a loud laugh.  “So how is Sleeping Beauty today?”  I looked at him feeling confused and bleary eyed.  “Lord Otto, your eyes look like roadmaps.”

“Fifty miles of bad road and hung up wet to dry, huh Earl.” I heard Mark quoting one of Earl’s juicier lines.

“That’s right.”  laughed Earl.  “I’ve seen road kill that looked better’n you do Otto.  What the hell did you do last night?”

Even as tired as I was, the hazy memory of my nocturnal activities brought a weak smile to my face.  “I was taking care of some very important business last night.  I’m going to be completely useless today so you guys are going to have to do without me.”

Earl and Mark erupted into loud whoops which made me cringe. Earl slapped my shoulder with his enormous paw and rattled my entire skeleton inside my skin.  “Hey Mark.  Otto went out and got himself some pussy last night.  Well you just sit there and take it easy today Otto.  We’ll cover your ass.”

Mark gave me a clipboard with some drum lists.  “Here.  You can make it look like you’re doing something if anyone comes in.”

I bent over the clipboard on the desk and put my head in my hand.  I closed my eyes and settled in as comfortably as possible.

CHAPTER 37

The next morning I was feeling more or less myself again after having spent almost the entire previous day catnapping at my desk.  Johnny A. was back and he had a pleased expression on his face.  When Earl asked him how his interview had gone he just smiled and replied simply, “Pretty good.”  Johnny A. thumbed through a file folder and then looked up.  “Anything special happen while I was gone?”

“No John.  Everything was business as usual.”

“Good.”  Johnny A. nodded and shuffled off peering through his thick glasses at the file folder.

Earl winked at me and I grinned back at him.  “Come on Buddy.” his deep voice rumbled.  “It’s time to do a jump in the plate shop.”

Over at the plate shop the laborers were building a temporary addition to the rear roll-up door entrance.  The addition was a room large enough to drive a forklift into so that the HP’s could have a covered place to frisk large items out of the plate shop.  The addition, which was dubbed the chapel, had a frame made out of two by fours and plywood walls.  The inside surfaces, including the floor, were covered with poly sheets which could later be disposed of as contaminated waste.

The union laborers, always ready for an assignment which would lengthen the duration of their jobs, were enthusiastically building a structure that looked more solid and elaborate than the Taj Mahal.  The electricians also came in and hooked up lights, heaters and power panels.  The chapel sparkled and glowed and certainly looked more comfortable than my New York apartment.

I remembered back to the time I had spent working around Houston, Texas before I dropped out and went to teach English in Paris.  I had been working as an asbestos technician, mostly involved in the removal of the asbestos steam line insulation in the petrochemical plants and refineries.  Texas was a Right-To-Work state, which meant that there were no unions.  In New York the asbestos workers had been earning the union rate of about $22/hour.  In Texas, where a severe depression had set in after the collapse of the oil price in 1983, The mostly Mexican work force was earning $6 or $7 per hour.

One time the workers had needed to build a shed so they could get out of the sweltering sun on breaks.  The Mexicans were hard workers, but not particularly skilled as carpenters.  They spent two days nailing together a 10′ by 10′ shack out of plywood and 2 by 4’s, and on the third day the wind knocked the whole thing over and they had to start again.

Nowadays as we approach the end of the twentieth century, unions are often thought to have outlived their usefulness and to be too greedy.  On the other hand they are probably instrumental in guaranteeing a skilled labor force.  Like most aspects of life, you get what you pay for.  Decisions in American business are too often made by people who are considering only the numbers and not the qualitative factors that affect the final product of work.  With the international business climate becoming more competitive, management is making the claim that there is not enough fat and some belt tightening is necessary to remain viable.  The chairman of the board at Toxikleen, Inc. of course has a modest salary of several million dollars per year.

With these thoughts in mind I walked into the changing room and found Nick the Greek, Tommy, Duck and another laborer betting each other twenty dollars on the toss of a coin.  Nick the Greek was holding a stack of twenties in his hand.  Earl was eager to participate and with great fanfare, produced a twenty from his pocket. Earl called “tails”.  A moment later Nick the Greek’s stack was a little thicker and Earl was grumbling about needing to arrange some overtime to recoup his loss.

As we suited up the conversation turned to sports.  Nick the Greek was running betting pools on football and basketball games. Nick was about twenty five and had come to this country when he was a kid.  I thought he might be a soccer fan from his childhood back in the old country so I asked him if he was.  He looked at me bug-eyed with his mouth open for a moment and then snarled with his face twisted in a sneer.  “Fuck that foreign shit!  We only talk about American sports here!”  With that he turned to Tommy and joined in the conversation about the Michigan State game.

Our jump was fairly routine.  The first thing we did upon entering the containment was read the signs that Nick the Greek or Tommy always managed to stick on our backs or write on our hoods without our noticing.  Then after trading a few brief insults with Nick and Tommy on our radio check, we got down to business.  We still had a few cabinets and chests to clean out in one corner of the shop.  The area was so cluttered and the space was so confined that we had a hard time maneuvering and keeping our airlines free from all the obstacles that seemed to reach out and clutch them.  I would frequently get to within arm’s length of an object and run out of airline.  Then I would have to go back and pick my way around and through to reach it from a different path.  Old Man Carson had expressed a strong interest to Johnny A. that this preliminary preparation be completed quickly so that the laborers could start jumping with us to demo the cabinets.  It had been agreed upon that the laborers could be in the plate shop at the same time we were as long as they stayed away from the platform where we would be cleaning out the vats.

At 8:50 I heard Nick’s gravelly voice on the radio telling us our time was up.  I had set the radio down on top of a drum of sodium hydroxide and it was out of reach from where I was working.  I needed a couple more minutes to finish looking through the boxes in the last cabinet so I continued on without responding.  A minute later Nick’s voice came back again, this time louder and more urgent.  I rushed to finish up so I could clamber over to the radio.  Two minutes later I had squeezed between the tubing of the demin system and a stack of dusty boxes and was just about to grab the radio.  Nick’s voice was now sounding alarmed as he yelled over the radio.  “Safety to plate shop!  Safety to plate shop!  Can you read me? Are you guys alright?  I’m coming in after you!  I repeat.  I’m coming in!”

The radio was six inches from my finger tips when I got pulled up with a jerk.  My airline was caught.  Earl was down at the other end of the shop with his back to me and I couldn’t get his attention.  I squeezed back past the demin system and savagely yanked at the airline which I could see curled under a drain pipe.  The hose didn’t budge and I cursed loudly with sweat rolling down my forehead into my eyes.  I finally managed to kick the kinked hose out from under the pipe and hurried back to grab the radio.

“Plate shop to safety.”

“Go ahead plate shop.”  Tommy’s voice came back calmly.

“We’re coming out.  Everything’s O.K.”

“All right.  Come on out.  You don’t have much air left.”

I worked my way out of the corner into the corridor.  Earl’s back was still turned to me so I just picked his airline off the floor and gave it a vigorous shake.  Earl turned around and I beckoned him to come out.

As I took off my respirator and emerged from the decon, Nick the Greek was glaring at me.  “Where the fuck were you Otto?  I was all ready to go in after you, ya useless bastard!”

Tommy was howling with laughter and ribbing Nick.  “You had Nick all worried.  He thought he had to go in and rescue you guys.”

I wiped the beads of sweat off my brow with my damp forearm. “Sorry guys.  I set the radio down and I couldn’t get back to it.”

“No!  No!  No!  No!  No!”  Nick rasped.  “That shit don’t flush!  You got to maintain radio contact at all times.  How do I know what the fuck is going on in there?  You could be dead for all I know.”

“Sorry Nick.”  I grinned sheepishly and stepped out of the way of Earl’s sweating hulk.

“Sorry.”  Repeated Nick sourly.  “You’re a sorry son of a bitch all right Otto.  We’ll see if I go in and rescue you next time.”

“What’s the matter?  You don’t want to do your job?”  Tommy razzed him.  “It’s about time you fuckin’ did something to earn your pay.”

“What about you?”  Nick retorted.  “You don’t do a god damn thing except sit around on your ass all day.”

“I’m doin’ my job.”  Tommy protested.  “I’m watchin’ the bottles.  I can’t do anything else ’cause I need to be vigilant every moment.”

Reggie Moon stuck his head out of the changing room with a severe expression on his face.  “What the fuck are you two losers making so much noise about?  You’re both fucking useless!  If you didn’t have family connections in the union I’d shit can the pair of you.”

“You tell ’em Reggie.  Fuckin’ kids!”  Duck chuckled and snorted some phlegm and spit it into a bag of clean waste.

“That’s right.  Y’all are a bunch of cluster fucks.”  Earl bubbled jovially as he dripped sweat.  “Y’all remind me of those hollers up in Appalachia where brothers have been fucking their sisters for generation after generation.”

Nick stared back at Earl and I could see his mental gears grinding as he looked for a good come back.  “Yeah, fuck you!  It’s time for coffee.”  He and Tommy stomped out.

Reggie looked at me.  “He’s got a good point, Otto.  I know you just wanted to get your work done, but you need to stay in radio contact.  Don’t go and turn cowboy on us.”

I nodded my head.  “I hear you loud and clear Reggie.”

“Come on, buddy.”  Earl stretched his back and squinted at his watch.  “Let’s go get some coffee.”

Twenty minutes later I walked into our trailer with a styrofoam cup of coffee in my hand.  Johnny A. and Mark looked up from their desks.  Johnny A. smiled faintly and pointed with his finger.  The samples had been returned again.

Mark was gurgling with hilarity.  “The idiots said there was a leak so they brought them back.”  I looked down at the perfectly intact buckets.  Mark came over and gave them a rough shove with his boot.  “There’s no leak.  These things are packed so tight they couldn’t possibly break.”

“They’re stoned.”  pronounced Johnny A. flatly from his desk and he spit tobacco juice into a Diet Pepsi bottle.”

I noticed a brown smudge on the lid of one of the buckets.  I wiped at it with a paper towel.  It was sticky and had a familiar caramel color.

“It looks like somebody spilled Coca Cola on this lid.”  I observed.

“There’s your hazardous spill.”  Chortled Mark.

CHAPTER 38

Last night I had come back to the apartment and found Randall and Jozef in a festive mood over a bottle of wine in the kitchen.  Randall had a big happy smile which was a marked contrast to the morose and somber mood that had been overwhelming him lately.  “I’ve got good news Otto.  I just got a new job and I’ll be earning more than at the last one.  I’ll even have medical insurance for the first time in ten years.”

Jozef poured me a glass of wine and we toasted Randall’s good news.

“Who are you going to work for?”  I asked.

“Oh it’s another tree company.”  Randall answered contentedly.

Jozef raised his glass and cut in abruptly with good humour. “I propose a toast to the best roommate we ever had.”

Randall laughed.  “That’s not saying much.  We’ve had some real loonies in here over the past five years.  Remember Peter Fung?  He was a Chinese physics whiz from San Francisco.  He was a real alkie.  He used to sit in his room and guzzle gin by the half gallon bottle.  One night I woke up and found him pissing on the floor next to my bed.  He was sound asleep.”

I laughed and Jozef refilled our glasses.  “Tell him about Shelley.”  Jozef prodded Randall.

Randall tittered at the memory.  “Shelley was a real winner. She tried to commit suicide when her boyfriend dumped her.  I came home one day and found a big ass sticking out of the oven.  I turned off the gas and opened all the windows.  I could tell by the size of the ass that it wasn’t Jozef so I said, ‘I think you’re done now Shelley.’  She woke up with a start and banged her head on the roof of the stove.  Then when she crawled out she had red stripes on her face from leaning on the grill.”

I was still chuckling over this story as I stepped into the administration trailer this morning.  Earl was making his rounds flirting with the secretaries and they were all giggling, with of course the exception of Louise, who was efficiently performing her tasks as usual.  As I made some xerox copies Earl ambled over to Louise’s desk with a serious look on his face.

“I know you don’t like me, but I hope you don’t mind if I pay my respects to these lovely ladies over here.”

“I never said I don’t like you Earl.”  Louise said coolly without looking up from her work.  “I said you don’t know a damn thing about opera.”

Earl looked down for a moment.  “Well ma’am, I guess you’re right.  I don’t know my tail from my elbow about opera.”  he confessed openly.  “But she was so pretty I just had to talk to her about something.  I couldn’t very well talk to her about football now could I?”

Louise began to smile as she paper clipped some papers together.  She looked up at Earl and clucked with amusement.  “Earl when are you going to grow up?  You’re like a teenage boy sometimes.”

Earl straightened up and hitched his jeans with an expression of surprise.  “Well ma’am, I beg your pardon.”

Louise got up and whisked the stack of papers off her desk in a crisp, business like maneuver.  “Oh Earl.”  She laughed lightly.  “Go on and flirt.  I’ve got filing to do.”

She exited elegantly into the rear office with her back erect.  Earl stared after her gently swaying hips with a combination of admiration and astonishment.

I left the trailer and walked out to the drum storage pad.  Lenny shuffled over to me wearing some oil smeared coveralls and a skull cap with ear flaps under his hard hat.

“Hey Otto.” he grinned perversely.  “I just saw a couple of drums float past in the river.”  Lenny gave a wheezing laugh.

“Good.”  I said with a straight face.  “Just keep track of them.  Use some binoculars to read the drum numbers as they go by.  I have to keep a list of the drums in the river as well as the drums in the storage yard.”

Lenny emitted another wheezing laugh.  “You’re all right Otto.”  Then his expression turned serious and he put his arm around my shoulder as we walked between the rows of stacked drums.  “Hey Otto.”  Lenny’s voice became low and conspiratorial. “How long do you think this job’s going to last?  Two more months?”

“I don’t know.  Three or four more months I’d say.  Do you have another job to go to when this is done?”

“Naw.  Things are pretty rough out there right now.  I was laid off for fifteen months.  I can’t afford to get laid off again.  Can you put in a word for me?  You know I’ll take care of you out here.  Right Otto?”

“Yeah Lenny.  You’re my main man.  I don’t know if anybody gives a damn about my opinion, but I’ll see what I can do to keep you working.”

“All right Otto.  Thanks a lot.  You’re a buddy.  Hey, what can I do for you?”

My power to keep union laborers off the layoff lists was of course rather limited, but Lenny appeared to be greatly relieved none the less.

CHAPTER 39

We left the base at 9:30 after working over fourteen hours. I was following Mark and Earl in their cars to a bar nearby to have a beer and unwind after the long, draining day.  We had each done four or five jumps in the plate shop and we had finished combing through the cabinets and collecting all the hazardous materials by the roll up door heading to the newly built chapel.

During the afternoon I was standing behind Earl and Duck in the line to go through the PCM and dripping sweat in my tee shirt, swim suit and boots after coming out from a jump.  A union foreman was next to us with a radio and it suddenly blared “Health and safety to Carson.”

Old Man Carson’s voice came back tersely.  “Go ahead Dan.”

“What’s your 20?”

There was an ever so slight pause and then Carson’s crisp, clear tones.  “Men’s room.”  This was directly followed by the distinct sound of a toilet flushing and then a crackling hiss as the transmission was snapped off.

Dan Thompson’s voice came back in a businesslike manner.  “Call me on extension 311 when you get the chance.”  The response on the radio was drowned out by the sound of the toilet flushing.

The union laborers were all guffawing.  Duck turned to me and chuckled.  “I didn’t think the old buzzard ever stopped to take a shit, the way he stares you down with that evil eye of his.”  He snorted and spat on the floor.

Earl hitched his sweat soaked jeans and leaned in.  “You know I worked with this guy out in Wichita, what was his name, uhh… Doug Miller, that’s right.  We were doing a dirt job and he had to take a shit real bad.  But he was a real company man and he didn’t want to slow up production to go all the way back to the decon and change out so he just took a dump right in his suit.  And he was proud of it too.  He thought he was helping the company make more profits.”

The union laborers exploded in derisive laughter.

“What a fuckin’ asshole!”

“Yeah, what a fuckin’ loser!”

The laborers had gathered around Earl as he went on.  “Yeah he got shit canned anyway.  Even the bonehead bean counters back at corporate headquarters finally figured out that this guy was a zero.”

Mark and Earl pulled into the parking lot of the Grog and Grill, a suburban beer and burger chain.  We went inside and Mark and I sat at our booth, staring weakly in front of us.  Earl lit up a Marlboro and looked around quite contentedly.  He blithely blew smoke in our faces and fixed his eye on me.

“When I fly home to Georgia over Christmas I’m going to go out to my property and try to get my truck running.  I got a ’85, ¾ ton, four by four with a 454 cubic inch engine, four barrel carburetor, heavy duty leaf spring suspension, stretch cab, dual exhaust, eight foot box in the back so I can carry plywood, chrome roller bars, and a towing ball to hitch my boat.”  I stared at him blankly.  Mark had his eyes closed and his face wore a dull expression of pain and exhaustion.  Earl took a drag and went on, looking me keenly in the eye.  He was describing some minutia involving the spring suspension system when his monologue was interrupted by the arrival of our waitress who was a cute brunette in pigtails.  Earl looked up at her and livened up immediately.

“Well now, ain’t you the purtyest thing I’ve seen since…” he leaned back and squinted at his watch, “Let me see.  What day is it today.  Ah shucks.  You’re just plain beautiful.”  The waitress gave an empty-headed giggle as Earl put his southern country boy charm into high gear.  He radiated a smooth easy going confidence.

The waitress flushed and smiled.  “Where are you from?”

“I’m from Georgia.  And you know my daddy used to tell me that Yankee women were all homely, but if I showed him a picture of you I bet he’d change his mind.”

Mark still had his eyes closed, but now his teeth were showing in an amused grin.  Earl continued smooth talking and the waitress bubbled receptively.  Finally she asked us “What can I get you boys?”

Mark answered mechanically without opening his eyes.  “Beer, burger, medium rare, fries.”

“What kind of beer would you like?” she enquired sprightly.

“Generic beer.” Mark groaned.

The waitress looked puzzled so I added “Just bring him a draft and I’ll have the same thing.”

She turned to Earl and beamed.  “And what will you be having sir?”

Earl knit his brow and ordered suavely.  “I’ll have your steak special with a baked potato and sour cream and uh, darlin’…” his voice dropped down to a velvety purr and he winked at her. “Bring me a nice cup of coffee with some Bailey’s in it.”

“Hmm! Bailey’s and coffee.  Sounds delicious.  Okey dokey.  Be right back.”  She put her hand on Earl’s shoulder and spun off to the kitchen.  Earl stared after her and turned to us with a big grin and a sparkle in his eyes.  Before he could open his mouth, Mark cut in with a wry laugh.

“A nice rack huh Earl?”

Earl looked over at him.  “Now how’d you know?  You had your eyes closed.”  Mark and I both chuckled.  Earl stared at us through the cigarette smoke for a moment and then shifted back in his seat and fixed me with a steady eye again.  “Anyway like I was saying, I put in this new suspension system about six months back…”

“Hey Earl, where is your property anyway?”  Mark sat up and joined the conversation.

“It’s right outside Gainesville, about three miles past the court house when you’re coming up Johnson Road.”

“How much land do you have?”

“I got 130 acres. I bought it about eight years ago.  I got the garage built and that’s where my truck is.”

“130 acres!  Damn!  How big is your house?”

Earl stubbed his cigarette into the ashtray and left it partly lit so the acrid smoke from the burning filter kept drifting into our faces.  “Oh I haven’t built the house yet.  But I got all the designs.  When I get some time off work I’ll start laying the foundation.”

Mark looked a bit incredulous.  “You mean you built the garage before you built the house?”

Earl eyed Mark as if he were a bit slow to grasp the point. “Mark I built the garage first so I could have a place to store my tools.  I can’t just leave my tools laying around outside now can I?”

The waitress came back with beer and coffee and she and Earl renewed their acquaintance.  Mark and I ate and drank semi catatonically while Earl continued his monologue enthusiastically, drinking two coffees and smoking three more cigarettes through dinner.

CHAPTER 40

C&C decided to cut down on overtime by using two shifts in the plate shop, the day shift from 7 to 3:30 and the evening shift from 2:30 to 11.  Earl was outraged.

“Hell, you can’t make any money just working 40 hours a week!  It’s not worth my while coming all the way up here just to freeze my ass and not get any overtime!  The last two years we averaged 70 hours a week cleaning out tanks.  And I tell you what, we made beaucoup bucks!  This is bullshit!”

We drew lots and Earl won the evening shift while Mark and I continued working during the day.  In the plate shop Mark and I had to begin sampling the vats and drums while Earl would be supervising the laborers doing the demolition.  The sampling and fingerprinting showed, as expected, that we had several strong acids – probably chromic and nitric – some caustic solution (sodium hydroxide), and a number of liquids and solids that tested positive for cyanides.

I was glad to stay on the day shift.  I have worked evening and night shifts often, and never enjoyed it.  Many people like the night shift because the big bosses are not around and the atmosphere is more relaxed, but I’d rather deal with the bullshit and keep my evenings free for basketball and music.

In Texas I had worked several times at a coal fired power plant about 60 miles northeast of Austin.  Whenever a steam line or valve needed to be repaired we had to first remove the asbestos insulation.  To keep down time for the power plant to a minimum, we would build the plastic sheeting containment, remove the insulation, run the final air tests, and break down the containment, all in one shift.  These shifts generally lasted 16 to 22 hours and could start at any time of the day.  When the shift was over I’d go back to the motel and pass out for a couple of hours until a knock on the door would signal the beginning of a new shift.

The power plant supplied electricity to an aluminum smelter across the road and the coal was brought on a conveyor belt system from a mine about a mile away.  The coal was soft lignite and the black dust coated every surface in the plant.  For my job as air monitor I didn’t have to do much, but I had to be there.  I would spend the whole night walking the steel grating cat walks 100 feet off the ground as we removed the insulation from a steam line near the top of one of the four huge boiler units.  I would listen to the constant din of industrial noises: Steam hissing shrilly out of a valve, water gushing out of a pipe and gurgling down a drain in the cement floor, warning buzzers rasping harshly, sirens wailing and beeping whenever an overhead crane was in motion, and the interminable clanking of large machinery and the roar of the boilers.  The Texas nights were warm and humid and my shirt stuck to my back.  The black coal soot coated my face in a greasy layer and rubbed off on my clothes every time I leaned against a railing or wall.  My shirt was damp and smudged black by the end of the shift.  Over all the dirt, noise, high voltage power lines, boiler units and steam lines snaking all through the plant, I could watch the rose colored dawn slowly and quietly spread over the Texas prairie.

That contrast of natural beauty and tranquility living next to man-made horror reminded me also of the petrochemical plants around Houston, Baytown, Pasadena, Texas City and Port Arthur.  Flocks of white egrets would peck with their long slender necks darting through the tall grass just yards away from areas where the petrochemical stench was so overpowering that I held my breath when I walked through it.

Night shift during the Madison Square Garden renovation in New York had a different atmosphere.  I would arrive at 11 o’clock and a Polish asbestos foreman would come in bringing me coffee and doughnuts.  He didn’t speak any English so he would just leave them on my desk with a smile to put me in a good mood so I wouldn’t bother his crew for the rest of the night.  The asbestos contractor’s supervisor, Muzi, from Bosnia-Herzegovina, would come in shortly afterwards and keep a distracting flow of friendly chatter going for the next several hours.  If I made a move to get up and go in the containment for an inspection, Muzi was sure to begin relating a lengthy story or offer me a cigarette.

“Relax.” he would say, knitting his brow.  “Everything’s O.K.  You don’t want to go in there.  Just have a seat and take a rest.  You must be tired.”  He would look concerned momentarily. “Besides,” he would break out laughing.  “You don’t really want to see what a mess my boys are making in there.  Just let them work.”

As soon as I made it clear that I had to go in and do my job, Muzi would be all help and support.

“Stanislaw.” he would call on the radio to the Polish foreman inside the containment.  “Give the inspector everything he needs.  He’s coming in for an inspection now.”  I could imagine the flurry of activity inside the containment as all the work procedures were modified as required to comply with state and federal regulations.

“Wojcek!”  Muzi would yell to the outside man who had probably been discreetly napping in a broom closet down the hall. Wojcek’s sleepy head would appear and Muzi would direct some orders to him.  “Is there any hot water for the inspector’s shower?  He’s going into the containment.”

“The hot water in the mop room has been disconnected and the auxiliary hot water heater has shorted out.”  Wojcek reported dutifully.

Muzi looked personally wounded.  “Wojcek see what you can do.  We must have hot water for the inspector.”  Muzi would turn to me with an expression of apologetic innocence as Wojcek returned to the broom closet.  “I’m sorry Otto.  No hot water.  What can we do?”  Muzi held his hands out in a gesture of nothing to be done.  “You know we do our best to take care of you Otto.  Here, have a cigarette.”  Then he would brighten up.  “I just heard this joke about these two French girls…”

One night we were sitting outside the containment chewing the fat into the early hours of the morning and Muzi began telling me about a nice restaurant he’d taken his wife to.  “Otto if you’re going out on a date with a nice girl, you should take her there.  It’s out on the shore past Jones Beach.  It’s a beautiful restaurant and it’s very romantic.  You look out the windows and you can see the boats and the fucking water and all that kind of shit.”  He finished the sentence quickly and waved off the boats and the water as if dismissing them.  “Hey Wojcek.” He yelled, taking a twenty dollar bill out of his wallet.  “Go down to the deli and get some coffee and doughnuts.  Otto, what do you want?  A nice jelly doughnut?”

About 4 or 5 in the morning it would always get very quiet and Muzi and everyone else would have quietly slipped away on some pretext or other.  I would wander all over the arena, partially looking for somebody in the asbestos crew, and partially just trying to stay awake.  Once I found the Polish foreman in the blue seats in Section 18.  He was in the fetal position wrapped around the arm rests of the seats.  He was sound asleep.

One of my fellow inspector’s got mugged one night at a pay phone on 7th Avenue around midnight.  A guy had come up to him with a gun and robbed him of forty dollars.  He wasn’t very popular in the company and a good many jokes were made at his expense.

I did sometimes feel however that the most dangerous part of my job was taking the subway home.  One night I left work about 5 AM and decided to take a cab home for safety.  I was dead tired and half sleeping as the cab sped up Amsterdam Avenue to my Upper West Side apartment.  As I got out at the corner of 104th Street and Broadway, a pigeon took a big wet shit right on my head and it dripped down my ear onto my shoulder.

Earl didn’t mind working the night shift and even used it to his advantage by coming in at noon and putting in for several hours of overtime every day.  He always claimed that his presence was vitally needed to help out Stanley or tell Flynn what to do before he fucked everything up.

A week before Christmas there was a general hullaballoo being raised one morning by the HP’s in Building 95.  They had been inspecting some B-25 boxes of compactible radioactive waste and had found several oil cans and bottles of solvents mixed in with the other debris.  A major NRC stipulation for rad waste is that it has to be completely dry and the HP’s were angry as hornets.  A big meeting was called by C&C in the auditorium and Hal Smith sternly chastised the union laborers for not following proper procedure.  He directed them to be sure to check with Earl of Toxikleen before they threw anything else in the B-25’s.  After the meeting was over, one of the laborers told Mark that it had been Earl who had instructed them to put the cans and bottles in the B-25’s during the night shift.  That afternoon when Earl rolled in after lunch, we told him about the incident. Earl shook his head with disgust.  “Those dumb ass cluster fucks. How many times do I have to tell them.  They never get anything right.  It’s like a whole pack of monkeys all trying to fuck the same football.”

CHAPTER 41

That night I drank two beers in a tavern near the university and walked home in a somewhat melancholy mood.  I had gone to the movies by myself three times this week and I was starting to feel a bit empty inside.  Last night I had gone out with Rachel again and we had drunk several beers and then gone back to her place for some hard driving, rollicking sex.  Rachel was sweet and bright and very eager to please, but our interests were quite different.  I enjoyed her company, but I didn’t feel that special intimate connection.

As I walked by myself I began looking in the windows where soft yellow lights showed families all together at home in house after house.  I started imagining myself as a lost ghost roaming the Earth restlessly without a home.  Then suddenly I imagined Tania also as a ghost wandering through the world.  I saw her sad and frightened and I knew that she was alone in this dangerous world and she was searching for me because she could be safe and happy with me.  I felt wretched and sick because we had broken something beautiful and now we were like two little children who are unhappy because they can’t be together anymore.

Engulfed in a wave of loneliness and panic, I rushed home and called Tania.  I just wanted to talk to her and make sure she was all right.  My stomach was tight and my heart was pounding as the phone rang.  Two rings… Three rings… The line clicked as the phone was answered.

“Hello.”  It was a man’s voice.  This was a possibility I hadn’t anticipated or prepared myself for.  I hung up feeling flustered and confused.  I stared at the wall reflecting upon my recent fantasy.  The wall stared back at me with its dull, grainy complexion.  Fair enough.  Tania certainly had the right to start a new life for herself.  And I had no trouble believing that there were plenty of men who would find her attractive.  I stalked into the living room and turned on Jozef’s T.V.  The sports report was giving the hockey scores.  The Rangers had lost 7-2 to Hartford.  “Fuck it!”  I cursed to myself.  “What a shit day.”  I turned off the T.V. and went to bed.

CHAPTER 42

Christmas week had arrived.  Earl and Johnny A. had gone home for a week’s vacation along with a large part of the personnel on site.  Both C&C and RSA were maintaining only a skeleton staff and work had mostly ground to a halt.  The union laborers would have loved to work on Christmas day itself at triple overtime, but Old Man Carson was having none of that.  I had decided to stay on site through Christmas week because I knew nothing would be happening and I wanted to save my vacation till January.  I was planning on spending a week cross country skiing in the White Mountains, assuming of course, that I would be allowed to leave the project for a week.  This was never a guarantee, no matter what the corporate office told you.  I had already learned the hard way not to buy airplane tickets in advance.

Mark and I were hanging out in our trailer with drum lists ready in case anybody walked in.  I was busily writing Christmas cards and hoping to mail them out by Wednesday, the 23rd.  Mark had brought in The Brothers Karamazov and that was his ambition for the week.

The phone rang and Mark chatted with one of his friends from the Baltimore office for 45 minutes.  After he hung up he spun around in his chair and addressed me.  “Do you know Jeff Post?”

“Yeah, he’s a good guy.  I worked with him on a PCB job last year.”

“Yeah, well he just gave his notice.  He got a new job near his home town.  He’ll be home every night.  He’s taking a small cut in salary, but his girlfriend gave him an ultimatum.  I guess he wanted to hang on to her.”

“Yeah, I heard she’s really hot looking.”

“I wouldn’t know.”  Mark laughed.  “It’s been so long for me that even the parking meters are starting to look good.”

A boot crunched the gravel outside and the door was flung open.  I shot the Christmas cards into a drawer and we both grabbed our drum lists.

“That was R-419, wasn’t it?” asked Mark soberly.

I was about to answer when Mike Randazzo stepped in with his gold chain flashing.  He looked at us and sneered. “What is this bullshit, pretending you’re working.  Come on, what are you guys really doing?  You got any good porno in here?”  He opened my desk drawer and peered in.  “Christmas cards!  On company time?  Shame on you Otto.  You know you’re supposed to be reading porno mags.”

“Sorry to disappoint you Mike.”  I tried to evince genuine regret.

“Now you’ve seen the weakness of our moral fiber.  Christmas cards instead of porno.” laughed Mark.

“Hey you guys should have seen this new chick I went out with last night.  She had really big titties.”

“It’s nice to see you getting into the yuletide spirit Mike.” I chided him.

Mike picked up Mark’s book and examined it with distaste.  “Give me a break.  What the fuck is this?”

“It’s a book Mike.”

Lenny shuffled in.  “Hey, you guys got any coffee?”

“Yeah.  Help yourself.” said Mark.  “It was fresh brewed yesterday.”

“Sounds good.” said Lenny appreciatively as he busied himself with the pot.  “It sure is cold out there.”

The door opened and Jack walked in accompanied by a gust of cold air.  He spotted Lenny and exclaimed “So there you are Quasimodo.  I was looking all over for you.”

“Have some coffee.” Mark offered.

“Thanks.” said Jack grabbing a styrofoam cup.  “You know the first thing they taught me when I joined the union was how to pour coffee without spilling any.”

The door opened and everyone looked around to see who else would be joining our party.  Old Man Carson walked in and surveyed the group with his ice blue eyes.  It was too late to pretend to be doing otherwise so everyone remained frozen in position.

“Good afternoon gentlemen.” Old Man Carson addressed the group formally.  “I just stopped in here to get out of the cold.”

Everybody grinned and the tension in the room was relieved. “Have some coffee.”  I offered.

“Don’t mind if I do.” said Carson with a thin crease of a smile.  “Actually I don’t know if I was cold or just plain bored shitless.  This place is dead.”  He tasted the coffee and grimaced.  “God this stuff belongs in a 55 gallon drum.”  Everybody laughed.

I hazarded a bit of conversation.  “When are you going home for Christmas?”

Old Man Carson’s expression abruptly changed.  “I’m getting divorced.  There’s not much home to go to this year.”

The tension returned and everyone was nervous and at a loss about what to say.  “Sorry to hear that.” I offered.

“Yeah, well this is not the business to be in if you want to watch your kids grow up.”  Carson drained his cup and tossed it into the trash.  “Thanks for the coffee gentleman.”

A general chorus of “See you later Mr. Carson.” sounded as he put his hard hat on and strode out.

CHAPTER 43

The Flanagan family got together for a brief reunion over the Christmas holiday at my parents’ house in Vermont.  My sister flew in from Portland, Oregon, with her husband and two kids, while my brother drove his van from Lake Placid with his wife and daughter and Siberian husky.  We did what the Flanagans have always done.  There was eight inches of new snow and the whole tribe turned out after a big, noisy breakfast for a day of cross country skiing with a picnic lunch of sandwiches and a thermos of hot tea.

Christmas dinner was a jolly and boisterous affair with a big ham, asparagus, mashed potatoes, salad, home made cherry pie, and several bottles of red Spanish wine.  My father, as always, was sarcastic and outrageous and hammered away mercilessly at his two favorite enemies: Republicans and New York City landlords.  My mother organized everybody with good humour and bantered with my father in her thick German accent that had never diminished in her forty years in America.  My sister asked me the same questions she had a year ago.  When was I going to take my two week vacation and come to Oregon to see her art gallery and go skiing or camping?  And also when was I going to get a real apartment and move all my furniture and belongings out of storage?  My brother, as soon as the meal was over, started rolling around the floor with the dog and all three kids.  His wife protested that he was a lunatic and loved the dog more than he loved her.  When he laughed and answered that this was true of course, she jumped giggling into the tumbling pile.

Christmas was followed by a relaxing week on the job site catching up with paperwork, inventorying drums, and shooting the bull with Mike Randazzo.  I also caught up with Rachel for our weekly rendezvous.  Rachel had started asking me awkward questions about the definition of our relationship.  I had squirmed and tried to give answers as honestly  as I could without thoroughly destroying the possibility of continuing to receive the great sex that Rachel was giving me.  I liked Rachel a lot and was determined to always treat her fairly.  However I knew quite clearly that there was not even a remote chance of romance from my side, while it was becoming apparent that Rachel was beginning to desire more of a commitment.  Still so far the status quo was functioning smoothly and I decided to wait and see how things would develop.

For New Year’s Eve I went to New York for a party.  Massoud and I tried to rouse as many of our old friends as still remained in town.  In the late 1980’s a massive exodus had begun and many of our old circle of friends had moved to Washington D.C., Seattle, Montana and West Virginia.  Life in New York, which had always been difficult, had become almost unbearable.  In addition to the dirt, the noise, the crowds, the aggression, the high cost of tiny, cockroach infested apartments, and the near impossibility of finding a parking place, street crime, fueled by a wave of crack addicts, seemed to be reaching unprecedented high levels.  When my parents finally decided they could continue their careers of journalism and teaching from a permanent base in Vermont and leave New York, my father had condemned our nation’s domestic social policy which had abandoned our inner cities by saying, “If you don’t want to pay taxes for social programs, they’re going to take the money when they mug you on the street. I’d rather spend the money to build a swimming pool for the kids in every neighborhood, than give it to a crack addict with a Saturday night special.”

CHAPTER 44

Earl stomped into our trailer at a quarter to twelve and between sips of his coffee, proclaimed himself to be officially on site.  Mark, Johnny A. and I were getting ready to head out to the diner across the street for lunch so Earl decided he might just as well tag along.  “Hell, it’s better’n sitting around here with my thumbs up my butt.”  He observed.  So we went off to the diner and got a table in the smoking section.

“Remember that cute little waitress from the Grog ‘n’ Grill?” Earl asked with a twinkle in his eye.  “Well I had a nice little session with her last night.”

I had my mouth full of salad.  Mark congratulated him.  “All right Earl!  She have a nice rack?”

Earl raised his eyebrows and blew out cigarette smoke.  “Oh she’s got a real pretty little rack.” He yucked.  Johnny A., Mark and I grinned.  Earl went on.  “We went out for a steak dinner with Flynn and this creature that Flynn had dug up somewhere.  I swear I don’t know where Flynn finds ’em.  This one looked like a stump some logger left behind.  Anyway after dinner and a few drinks I took the little darlin’ back to the motel and we got into some good belly poppin’ blues.”  Earl grinned and looked around at us as we munched our salads.

“What are belly poppin’ blues Earl?” asked Mark with his mouth full.

“Hell, belly poppin’ blues is good old fashioned fucking!” chortled Earl triumphantly.

Mark laughed so hard he nearly choked.  “Is that anything like New Age fucking?” he asked with hilarity.

Earl gave Mark a severe look.  Then he brightened up again. “I went out with this girl once.  She was from…where was it?…Hell, I don’t remember.  Peru or Brazil or one of those countries down there near Mexico.  Well she was a foreigner, but she really liked good old fashioned, red blooded American fucking, I tell you what.”  I nearly spit my lettuce back into the salad bowl.  Mark was holding his stomach and even Johnny A. was laughing.

The waitress came by and asked if everything was all right. Earl turned to her with a puckish smile.  “I’d like to make a recommendation.”

“You would?”  The plump waitress responded suspiciously.

“You really ought to have grits on the menu.” said Earl containing a laugh.

“Grits?” repeated the waitress, waiting for the punchline.

“Yeah grits.  Whatever you don’t eat, you can wait two hours and patch the sidewalks with.”  Earl laughed loudly and the waitress smiled and moved off.

CHAPTER 45

The first thing any of us heard about IPS, or the Improved Performance System, was the memo from corporate headquarters.  Johnny A. handed it to me as I came into the trailer after coffee. “Here Otto.  Take a look at the latest bit of nonsense from corporate,” he said ruefully while he felt on his desk with his other hand for the Diet Pepsi tobacco spit bottle.

The memo was directed to the entire staff of Toxikleen Nationwide.  Each of the 5,000 or so employees from top brass down to janitors, from all the 25 or 30 offices around the country was to go through a two-day training seminar to be indoctrinated in the ideals and revolutionary new management techniques embodied in the IPS, or Improved Performance System philosophy.  “To reinforce and enhance our commitment and dedication to our customers, to the environment, to our stockholders, and especially to YOU, the employees!” the memo gushed enthusiastically.  I looked up at Johnny A. who was dribbling brown, bubbly spit into the Diet Pepsi bottle.

“The seminar for everybody in this region is tomorrow.  We have to be there at 8:00 o’clock and it’s an hour’s drive from here.  We’ll have to clear the schedule for the next two days,” Johnny A. stated with a wry smile.

“Nice of them to give us some notice,” I rejoined with some amusement.

“They forgot about us.  We were supposed to have gotten this a month ago.”

“I was supposed to go with Earl tomorrow to see about renting that steam jenny for power spraying the vats.”

“You’ll have to reschedule,” Johnny A. said flatly.  I hunched my shoulders in acquiescence.

The next morning we arrived at the motel off the interstate exit where the seminar was being held.  In Conference Room One at least 100 Toxikleen employees, from various projects in the region, were milling around, drinking coffee and eating doughnuts.  We didn’t recognize many people but there were a couple of familiar faces in the crowd.  I spotted Phil Hemming, a very good project manager I had worked for in Dayton, Ohio, and waved to him.  He came over and greeted us all warmly.  After I introduced him, he looked thoughtfully at Johnny A. and asked,  “I’ve heard a bit about your project.  It sounds quite complicated.  How’s it going?”

Johnny A. looked back at him through his thick glasses.  “It’s complete chaos.  And working for the Army doesn’t help.  But it’s going O.K.  What do you think of all this?”

Phil shook his head with a grimace.  “I don’t know whose brainchild this is, but it’s a ridiculous waste of time.”

Two men and a woman wearing business suits came in and everybody started sitting down.  We found four seats together and began looking through the thick packets of literature placed at each setting.  I glanced through the first section entitled “What Is IPS?”  There were statements of goals to be achieved by the seminar, definitions of crucial terms, charts with statistics demonstrating the increased production and revenues created by the happy face logo of IPS, and a drawing showing four support columns, named The Customer, The Environment, The Stockholder, and The Employee, holding up the peaked roof of the Toxikleen structure.  I noticed that the text was punctuated liberally with exclamation marks.

The three suits introduced themselves and began their presentations with game show host smiles.  They radiated enthusiasm, energy and a sincere conviction in their message.  I heard Earl mutter beside me, “Like a pack of baboons drunk on moonshine that just found a red rubber ball to play with.”

The trio of suits joyously explained that the upper management of Toxikleen had decided it could improve its revenues and its total corporate health by instituting this program to overhaul the old, tired, worn out attitudes towards business management and replace them with sparkling new, innovative ideas. “It’s the new American Revolution!” exclaimed the woman, flashing her white teeth.

The woman put on a video which showed taped clips of a presentation made by the creator of the IPS concept.  The tape showed a large theater full to capacity with middle management types in business suits.  The speaker prowled the stage and aggressively plied his audience with the rhetorical zeal of a T.V. evangelical preacher.  His message was of outraged incredulity at the amount of revenue American business was losing every year by not having the vision to adopt exciting new management techniques as outlined clearly by his program.  He confidently and brashly challenged American business to upgrade and modernize itself, and his audience hung attentively on every word as he used examples to demonstrate the absurdity of corporate myopia.

I looked around the room and noticed that quite a few participants were taking advantage of the darkness by catching up on their sleep.  Several even had their heads down on the table in front of them.  I glanced at Earl.  He was sitting up, but his eyes were closed and his head was nodding slightly.  On my other side, Mark caught my glance and rolled his eyes.  Johnny A. was staring stoically at the screen.

When the video was over the suits trio began explaining the profundity of the four columns concept.  “Our intention is to strengthen and bolster our corporate structure by shoring up the foundation with the four power columns of our Customers, our Environment, our Stockholders, and our most special people of all, our Employees.  That brings us to you.  This is a major fulcrum point of our presentation.  What can you do to improve the performance of the corporation and what can we, the corporation, do to help you, the employee, so you will be able to do your job more happily and, we hope, better?”

“How about giving us a raise!” someone guffawed and a ripple of laughter spread through the audience.  A couple of people turned around and looked severely at the author of the witticism. Then they turned back and listened attentively to the speakers.

“Looks like we got us a couple of company men in attendance,” snorted Earl.

After a desperately needed coffee break the trio started in with a gung-ho depiction of the word paradigm and how the inability to break out of long-established patterns was crippling American business.  The presentation seemed to be geared to the lowest common denominator of audience intelligence and this, itself, was apparently deemed quite low.  To illustrate this concept the trio initiated a game of audience participation.  Whenever anyone in the audience heard someone else say something that could be construed as a paradigm, they could sing out “Paradigm!”  All hell broke loose for the next 15 minutes as the heavy equipment operators, laborers, secretaries, truck drivers and other various personnel of Toxikleen, Inc. amused themselves with the volume of their voices.  This was followed by some overhead projections that had the somnolent effect of Demarol.  There were packets of mints on our tables and I started munching them out of sheer agonized boredom.

Finally, we received an hour of reprieve with lunch.  Unfortunately, a couple of techs that Mark had worked with somewhere came over and regaled us with stories of remediation prowess.

“We kicked butt up in Flint, Michigan!” exclaimed one in very self-congratulatory tones.  “We loaded 36 roll-offs in 3 days!”  He turned to his partner and they high-fived each other. Mark smiled politely.

CHAPTER 46

Mark and I were taking the long walk back from the lab building for lunch.  Before the drain pipes from the lab sinks could be demolished, the sludge caught in the traps had to be scooped out and sampled.  We would be checking them specifically for mercury and radioactive particle contamination.  In the old days, before the advent of hazardous waste regulatory legislation in the early 1970’s, and all too frequently even afterwards, waste solutions in a laboratory like this were simply dumped down the sinks where they passed through the plumbing and sewage lines, straight into a river.  Some materials, such as metallic mercury and depleted uranium particles, were very heavy and would get caught in all the traps since they would flow along the bottom of a pipe rather than float on the upper levels of the waste water current.  Metallic mercury is commonly used as a catalyst in reactions and would often be a constituent in the waste solutions, while depleted uranium could be found due to the specific nature of the experiments being performed.  Our job today was to trace the drain pipes through the building and locate the bung screws in the traps which we could open to clean out the traps.  The sewer lines themselves were another project that would be dealt with later.

We had walked through all five floors of the building with the union foreman, spray painting the pipes and marking on diagrams where we wanted to sample.  After lunch we had to go back and start the work in level C with polytyvek suits and filter respirators.  The pipe traps had been full of brown muck, but occasionally we would find one that had small, but distinguishable silver beads of metallic mercury sitting on top of the muck.  The mercury would not mix with the muck but you could run the different beads into each other and see them combine.  The unique behavior of the mercury made it quite easy to identify.

The samples from the pipes were then taken to RSA’s radiochemistry lab trailer to have their radioactivity levels measured.  After being counted the samples would be shipped off to Claremont Labs for full TCLP analysis to determine any and all hazardous constituents.  Since we could actually see beads of mercury, there was not any real doubt that the samples would come back positive for mercury.  If this was the only hazard then disposal would not be too complicated.   However, if they were determined to be radioactive or if they also had other hazardous constituents, the treatment and disposal would be a real headache, because no other treatment method besides recycling was currently permissible for metallic mercury.  This obviously was only possible if mercury was the sole contaminant.

On our way back to our trailer we passed Mike Randazzo at one of the roped-off radioactive material storage areas.  Mike had day glow green frames on his safety glasses which flashed almost as brightly as the gold chains around his neck.  Grady, the old fork lift operator, was sitting impassively on his machine while Mike gave him instructions about which boxes to move, in his rapid-fire speaking style.

“All the boxes in this group except the ones with the red chalk marks.”

Grady nodded his head solemnly.  “I got you Mike.  I’ll take care of this before I go to lunch, but then I’m going to be needed at Building 95 all afternoon so we’ll have to finish tomorrow.”  Grady was, as always, dignified and professional.

Mike sputtered with vexation.  “Building 95!   Who needs you over there, Buck?”   Grady nodded.  “Fuck him!  Tell him to get somebody else.  I need you over here.”

Grady serenely spread his hands in a helpless gesture.  “There is no one else, Mike.  All the forklift operators are busy.”

Mike was almost vibrating with annoyance.  “Grady, I’ve got to get these boxes ready for shipment.  There’s a truck already  scheduled to come in here and the 90-day limit is going to expire on some of these boxes in three weeks.  I have to get them out to Utah ASAP!  If they get rejected by the disposal facility I’m screwed!”

Grady sat motionless on his forklift and replied calmly.  “I hear you Mike, and you know I’m always ready to help you out, but I can’t be in two places at once.  You HP’s decide where you want me to go and I’ll be glad to take care of you.”

Mike sighed.  “For fuck’s sake.  O.K.  Let’s start this and I’ll go talk to Buck.”

“Sounds good Mike.”  Grady backed up with the reverse warning horn tooting.

Mark and I grinned at Mike as he turned to us.  “And you guys are killing me too!” he exclaimed.  “Look at this.”  He thumbed through some drum lists  “Drum R-349.  No weight!  I need you to find the weight on this drum.”

Mark jotted down the drum number.  “First thing after lunch Mike.  If we don’t have it in our records we’ll have to go out in the storage yard and check the drum.”

Back in our trailer Johnny A. was settling down to a lunch from Burger King and Earl was slouched at his desk with a cigarette and a styrofoam cup of coffee.  We greeted Earl and he grunted back.  Mark took out a plastic container of homemade pasta and put it in the microwave.  I opened my cooler and pulled out a turkey sandwich, a container of cottage cheese and a banana.

“How’s your cute waitress Earl?” Marked asked him.

Earl shifted in his chair and flicked ash in the general direction of the waste paper basket.  “Ah, I had to dump her.  She was getting too clingy.  I can’t handle that.  What the hell is that shit you’re eating Otto?”

“Cottage cheese.”

“Oh.  I can’t eat that.  It’s so sour it makes my butt turn inside out.”  Earl stubbed out his cigarette on the floor.  “You know, over in Building 47 the Army’s testing out those bullets that pierce the skin and explode inside your body.  You know what I mean.  It goes through the skin and then explodes on impact with a bone and the fragments go flying in all directions and tear your guts to shreds.  Well I was down in Georgia a few years back with my friend Jesse.   We were out in the woods behind his house shootin’ at cans when this dog came by.  Jesse had got a hold of a few of these bullets somewhere and we wanted to try ’em out.  So we shot the dog.  And when we went over to take a look at it, all you could see was this little tiny hole.  You almost couldn’t notice it.   But when we picked it up, I tell you what, the belly split open and all the guts just poured out like oatmeal.”

We had all stopped eating and were staring at Earl incredulously, hoping that this wasn’t a true story.  Mark gulped.  “You shot the dog?”

“Yeah.  And it just made this little tiny hole.”  Earl enthusiastically held up his thumb and index finger to show the diameter of the hole.

“Wait a minute,” I interrupted in disbelief.   “You just shot and killed this dog?”

“Yeah,” said Earl, starting to show some irritation at us  for missing the point, but still enthusiastic about the prowess of the ammunition.   “And it just made this neat and tidy little hole like you’d just drilled it out, ever so pretty, with a Black ‘n’ Decker.”

“Whose dog was it?” Mark asked in astonishment.

“Now how the hell do I know whose dog it was?” Earl replied, getting flustered.  “It was just some damn dog wanderin’ around back there in the pines.”

There was an uncomfortable silence in the trailer.  Earl fidgeted and pulled out another cigarette.  We resumed our lunches.  Earl put on his hard hat and stood up.  “I got to go talk to Stanley in Building 34.”  He stomped out the door.

Mark shook his head and laughed ruefully.   “I can’t believe he just shot a dog.”

After lunch I walked out to the storage yard to check the weight of the drum for Mike Randazzo.  Johnny A. had gone to a meeting and Mark was on the phone with Claremont Labs.  Out in the yard Jack and Lenny were shovelling snow.  Last night it had snowed three inches and production had been interrupted all  morning as crews of laborers were detailed to plow and shovel the snow.

“How’s it going guys?” I said as I came up to Jack and Lenny.

“This fuckin’ snow sucks!” Jack growled as he wiped a drop of sweat off his nose.  Lenny gave a wheezing laugh and leaned on his shovel.

“I need to pull some pallets out of Row 12.  I need to check the weight of a drum.  It ought to be marked on the lid.  Unfortunately the pallet’s on the bottom layer so I need the lull to pull out the pallet on top of it.  Does the lull operator have a radio?”

Jack looked at me and then looked over at the stacked drums covered with tarps.  The fresh snow lay several inches thick on the tarps.  “Jesus Otto.  Look at all that snow on the top of the drums.”  Jack looked very unmotivated about the new task I was assigning him.  When he saw that I wasn’t going to offer to cancel the project he called the lull operator on the radio and then began clearing the snow off the tarp with Lenny.

Ten minutes later the lull chugged into the yard.  The lull was a forklift with telescoping arms that could extend the forks out thirty feet.  Since our storage areas were surrounded by a four-inch high berm, we needed to use the lull to bring pallets of drums in and out.  There was one lull on site and only one lull operator.  The contract with the forklift operators’ union specified that one operator could not be substituted for another on any machine.  This meant that this lull operator was needed any time an object was to be lifted which a regular forklift could not reach.  The lull operator was not unaware of his position.

Sal, the lull operator, sat on his machine in the middle of the yard watching us clear snow off the tarp.  “What the fuck do you want?” he demanded.

“We need you to move a couple of pallets,” I answered evenly.  “Just give us a couple of minutes to finish clearing the tarps.”

“Why the fuck didn’t you call me when you were ready!” he returned crossly.  “I’ve got work to do!  They need me over in Building 34 and in the reactor yard.”

“Hey, calm down!  Everybody’s got work to do!” Jack shouted at him.

“Don’t you fuckin’ tell me to calm down!  And don’t fuckin’ yell at me either!  Or I won’t do shit for you!” Sal erupted in anger.

“Just shut the fuck up and do what we tell you to do!” Jack threw down his shovel furiously.

“Yeah, fuck you!  Move the fucking pallets yourself!” Sal backed up sharply and roared out of the yard.

Jack kicked his shovel and it bounced with a clang off a drum.  “What an asshole!  He’s always like that.”

Lenny was giving his breathy laugh.  “What are we going to do now?”

“Just keep shovelling!” Jack yelled at him.

I left Jack and Lenny shovelling and went to find Sal.  I found him sitting quietly on the lull in the reactor yard.  He stared at me belligerently as I walked up to him.  I grinned as diplomatically as I could.

“Hey I’m not trying to bust your balls, but I do need some pallets moved.”

“Fuck that!” Sal broke in.  “I’m not fucking going back over there.”  I looked off towards the river trying to figure out which tactic would be the most productive.  “Nobody gives me orders see!” Sal resumed heatedly, gesturing excitedly with his arms.  “He’s not my fucking boss!  Only my shop steward can tell me what to do!  And he can go fuck himself too, the cocksucker!”

I tried to hide a grin behind my tinted safety glasses, but Sal noticed.  “You think it’s funny, but I don’t take shit from anybody!  I’m not in the fuckin’ army anymore!”

Sal’s anger was so extreme in its virulence that it struck me as comical.  “There are so many fuckin’ assholes in this place.  Everybody thinks he’s the fuckin’ boss.  Fuck ’em.  I ain’t doin’ shit!” he complained with asperity.

I looked out at the river again and Sal sat boiling on his seat.  After a pause I looked up at him and said as lightly as possible, “Well I’ve got to go back.  As soon as you can help us I’d greatly appreciate it.”

I walked back to the storage yard.  Jack and Lenny were folding back the tarp.  A minute later Sal chugged in and sat on the lull waiting for directions.  I located the drum I wanted by the drum number written on its side.  It was on the bottom row and three pallets deep.  This meant that Sal would have to pull out the three top pallets so that I could look at the lid of my drum and copy down the weight, which should be marked there.  Jack calmly guided Sal with hand signals as Sal slid his forks under the pallets, picked them up and set them down to one side. Sal stared intently through his tinted safety glasses as he concentrated his aim with his forks.  All signs of conflict between himself and Jack had evaporated as both men focused on their work.

Sal had just set the third pallet on the ground as I managed to decipher a badly worn out scrawl saying “470 lbs.”  I signalled to Jack who turned to Sal.

“O.K., you can put ’em back in now.”

Sal’s mouth dropped open in outraged amazement.  “What the fuck!  You just told me to take them out!” he yelled.

“Well now you can put them back in,” Jack answered testily.

“What the hell did we take them out for?”

“What do you care?  Otto’s doing his job.  All you have to do is pull them out and put them back in again.”

“Jesus Christ.”  Sal was almost foaming at the mouth.  “This is just like the fucking army!”  He continued yelling as he leaned forward and ran his forks gently under the first pallet.  “They used to make me dig a hole and then fill it back up again. The stupid assholes!”

“Shut the fuck up!” said Jack wearily.

“Yeah.  Fuck you too!” exclaimed Sal, without taking his eyes off his forks.  Lenny gave his wheezing laugh as he directed Sal with hand signals.

I headed back to our trailer.  Mark was on the phone again with Claremont Labs.  It was getting close to coffee break time. We would have to get back to the drain pipes in the lab building tomorrow.

CHAPTER 47

There was no work scheduled for Saturday, so the Toxikleen crew decided to go to New Hampshire for a ski weekend.  Mark and I were both avid skiers and had brought our skis with us after Christmas.  Johnny A. heard us making plans and had expressed an interest in joining us.  Then Earl decided he wanted to be included in the group.  Johnny A. claimed that he had skied a few times.  Earl had never been on skis, but he wanted to come and watch.

We drove up to the mountains in two cars on Friday night.  Earl and Johnny A. drove in Johnny A.’s rental car while Mark and I enjoyed a smoke-free ride in his battered Toyota.  The next morning Mark and I were out early on the slopes and had already skied for two hours when we saw Johnny A. standing tentatively outside the lodge with his rented skis.  We decided it was best to get Johnny A. warmed up on an easy slope, so we went up a short, triple chairlift.  Johnny A. stumbled as we were moving into position to board the chairlift and the operator had to stop the lift to let us on.  Mark and I kept up a chatter of pep talk, pointing out the view, the beautiful weather and the skiers who fell beneath us like bright splashes of color on the white slopes.  Johnny A. stoically looked straight ahead with tight lips.  Getting off at the top was almost another debacle, but Mark and I headed off disaster by each grabbing one of Johnny A.’s arms and steering him to safety.

The slope was densely populated with eight-year-old kids who whizzed past or belly flopped all around us.  Johnny A.’s face looked pale and his arms and knees were slightly shaking.  We waited patiently for a minute and then Johnny A. began his descent, crossing the slope diagonally.  As he ran out of space at the edge of the slope he made a panicky attempt at a turn and fell face first.  He raised his head and spluttered snow as he groped about blindly.  His thick glasses were caked with snow and more snow seemed to have gone down his neck into his shirt.  We pulled him upright and dusted him off.  Mark took Johnny A.’s glasses and dried them off on his own shirt.  Johnny A. stood quietly, looking very uncomfortable.  Mark and I encouraged him with jokes and advice.  Finally Johnny A. set off diagonally across the slope again with bloodless lips and clenched teeth.  Half way across a 10-year-old boy roared by in front of him and startled him so completely that he crumpled in a heap.  This same basic process was repeated for the next 45 minutes as Mark and I did our best to ease him down off the slope.  Finally, we reached the bottom and, without saying a word, Johnny A. took off his skis and marched off.  Mark and I got in line for the gondola which went to the top of the mountain.

At lunchtime we came into the lodge and found Earl seated on a sofa in the lounge, equipped with his standard issue Marlboro and styrofoam cup of coffee.  He was nattily attired in slacks, a turtleneck, brown leather jacket and western boots.  He was loudly telling a joke to a group of skiers who were lavishly dressed in the latest ski fashions.  They smiled wanly at Earl and drifted away.  Mark and I threw ourselves down next to him on some chairs.  Earl leaned over to us and observed out of the corner of his mouth, “These people up here sure are snooty.”

“Any sign of Johnny A.?” I asked.

“Oh, he’s up in his room doing paperwork.”

Mark laughed.  “I thought I saw him bringing his brief case.”

Earl squinted as he took a drag.  “Oh yeah.  He’s got to write one letter to the Corps of Engineers and another one to the EPA.”

A thirty-year-old cocktail waitress with a short skirt and blonde hair pulled back in a pony tail came over to us.

“Now you boys can have all those snow bunnies out there on the slopes.”  Earl declared loudly, “I’ve got the sweetest and most beautiful woman right here.”  He turned to the waitress.  “Hi Becky.  How are the skiers treatin’ you?”

The waitress gave an amiable answer and Earl gestured to us. “These are my friends from work that I was telling you about:  Mark and Otto.”

“Hi guys.  Earl’s been entertaining me all morning.”

“I’d like to entertain you this evening, too, but I bet your boyfriend wouldn’t be too thrilled with that,” Earl said with a sly grin.

The waitress laughed lightly.  “No, I don’t think he’d like that idea.”

“Well,” Earl replied gallantly, “he’s a lucky guy to have such a nice, pretty girlfriend.”

“Ah, that’s sweet.  I’ll tell him you said so,” she smiled.

“Oh Becky, can you get me a Bailey’s and coffee?  If you please.”  Earl looked at his watch.  “Yeah sure.  Why not?  It’s after twelve.  You guys gonna join me in something?”  Mark shook his head.  “Naw.  We just came in to see how you were doing, Earl.”

The waitress went off and we got up to go.

“Well it was mighty nice of you boys to stop in and visit me.”

I playfully punched Earl’s massive shoulder.  “Yeah Earl, you old entertainer, you.”

Earl broke out in a boisterous laugh.  He looked over at the bar to make sure the waitress was out of earshot and then said loudly enough to be heard at the Canadian border, “Ain’t she a baby doll?”  Mark and I grinned at him and headed back to the slopes.

That night all four of us assembled for burgers and beer.  Mark and I were enjoying the relaxed feeling of fatigue from a full day of outdoors exercise.  Johnny A. was feeling whatever he felt after a full day of writing letters to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in his room.  Earl was in quite a good mood after spending his afternoon drinking Bailey’s and coffee and shooting the bull with the patrons of the cocktail lounge.

“You know, John,” Earl addressed Johnny A. after the waitress took our order, “we’ve got to go into town Monday and check out the steam jenny.  It’s got to have a capacity of 500 PSI or we’ll never get that chromic acid vat cleaned out.  That stuff’s thicker’n molasses.  I cleaned out a plate shop in Lake Charles, Louisiana.  That was with … what was his name? … uh … Chambers, no Chalmers.  That was it.  Ron Chalmers.  He was the project manager.  He got a good job at Frey Engineering last year.  Now he’s in charge of a four year project down in Jacksonville.  They’re testing out some kind of new process. Bioremediation I think.  Anyway, we had this steam jenny that only had 250 PSI.  I tell you what, it was like a fucking taffy pull.”

Johnny A. swallowed a gulp of beer and nodded seriously.  “Yeah you and Otto go in Monday and take care of that.  In the meantime we’ve got to go in and start shovelling out the vats of solids and pumping out the vats of liquids.”

Earl exhaled some smoke and it hung like a fog in front of his eyes.  It didn’t seem to phase him as he concentrated on the conversation.  “John, we still haven’t gotten those 55-gallon poly drums for the corrosives.”

“They should be in Tuesday,” Johnny A. stated mater-of-factly.  “Mark, how about those electric pumps?  Have you followed through with that?”

“They’ll be here Monday.”  Mark was always accommodating and diligent in his work, but I was sure I could detect some reticence on his part to talk shop on our Saturday night out.  That, however, is what we did through the whole meal.

After dinner, we retired to the bar and continued drinking beer, with the exception of Earl who had stayed with Bailey’s and coffee.  The conversation mercifully drifted from job-related minutia to a fine analysis of the tits of a girl standing at the bar.  Several shots of whiskey were mixed into the rounds of drinks and we started getting a bit drunk.  Mark and I slowly began to sink into our chairs and Johnny A. had grown silent.  Earl, who had probably drunk 17 gallons of coffee during the course of the day, was alert and holding forth steadily while fixing us in his gaze.  Mark had asked him where he was born and he had worked his way through to adulthood from there.

Earl had grown up on a large farm in Georgia.  Among his childhood acquaintances he numbered the cows, chickens, horses and pigs that surrounded him every day.  By the time Earl was twelve years old he could drive the flatbed truck and operate a backhoe and before he was fourteen he could lay a nice smooth grade with a bulldozer.  In seventh grade he was sent to a military academy where discipline was tight and academic standards were high.  Earl’s only area of success was football.  He earned a full university scholarship as a tight end, but flunked out in his freshman year.

The Vietnam War was in full swing and Earl was eligible for the draft.  He enlisted in the Navy Seals and was trained as a diver, where he had his first experience using respirators and air tanks.  He served two tours of duty in Vietnam and then came home to a job in construction.  Within two years he was a supervisor for a multinational construction company, pulling in a large salary, building railroads and airports at various sites scattered around the globe.  At the age of 21, while still in the navy, Earl got married and soon had two little boys.

Earl paused in his story and shook his head.  “Hell, that didn’t work out.  I just wasn’t ready for that kind of thing.  Lord, I put that little gal through hell.  Anyway she remarried to a real nice guy.  He’s kind of boring, but he tries real hard to give my boys a good home.  I really appreciate him for that.  That’s one thing I never managed to do.  Oh, I worked real hard and made good money, but I was havin’ too good a time drinkin’ and chasin’ women.

“You know I do all this work and this life on the road for my boys.  I got trust funds for each one of them to help ’em through college and get a good start in life.  I know I ain’t the most perfect person in the world, but I’d do anything for my boys.”  Earl’s eyes looked a bit moist as he reached for his pack of Marlboros.

Earl’s emotional story combined with the alcohol gave me a mild craving for an old, bad habit.  “Let me have a cigarette Earl,” I said.  Earl looked surprised, but offered me the pack.

As I lit up a cigarette Johnny A. laughed.  “Otto, you’ve been hanging around Earl too long.”

“Yeah,” Mark chortled.  “Next you’ll start telling the moped joke.”  We all laughed, with Earl being the loudest.

CHAPTER 48

The 55 gallon poly drums had arrived.  Poly drums have to be used for acids and bases because steel drums will corrode.  Johnny A. scheduled us to go in the plate shop and shovel out the vats of solids.  The laborers were still working in two shifts, but it had been determined that, because of our limited staff size, Toxikleen would simply work as many hours as necessary.

Earl was delighted.  He came in this morning bubbling with jokes and good humour at the prospect of earning 20 hours of overtime every week.  Jack, Flynn and Mick the Prick came into our trailer to help themselves to some coffee.  While Mark was busy scraping the burnt sludge off the bottom of the pot, Earl entertained the crowd with “You know the problem with fucking a cow?  It’s having to step down off the bucket afterwards and walk around through the mud to kiss it on the lips.”

While everyone was laughing Jack pulled out a chocolate bar. Earl pointed at it and said.  “You know, if you eat enough Hershey’s it’ll put a sheen on your shit.”

Mick the Prick and Jack looked at each other perplexed and then burst out laughing.  “What the fuck does that mean?” growled Mick the Prick.  “If you weren’t so damn tall I’d slap some fuckin’ sense into you.”

Earl laughed loudly.  “It ain’t my fault you’re only knee high to a ten foot indian.”

Flynn broke in loudly.  “Hey did I tell you guys that I took Earl out to visit my uncle on his farm?  Two weeks later my uncle calls me and tells me four of his sheep are pregnant.”  Everybody laughed.  Even Johnny A. put down his file folder and laughed hard.  Earl slapped his knee with glee.

The union guys went off to work and Johnny A. briefly outlined our plan for the day.  He and I would go in first and Earl and Mark would follow us as soon as the support crew could be ready.  Johnny A. and I headed over to the plate shop and suited up.

Johnny A. wasn’t very coordinated or graceful, but he moved with confidence through the world of toxic chemicals.  There were four vats of solids that we had to shovel out.  Two vats contained sodium cyanide salts and the other two had residue and sludge from the nickel plating baths.  I brought a couple of 55 gallon poly drums up on the grating and placed them next to the vats.  First I started chopping up the cyanide salts with my shovel.  The grey-white granular mass filling the bottom two feet of the vats looked like it was going to be very hard, but my shovel cut through it easily.  After I chopped it loose I began shovelling it into the drum.

Johnny A. had started with the nickel vat.  He was several inches shorter than me and after several minutes of leaning into the vat trying to break up the hard, green blocks of nickel bath sludge, he just clambered into the vat.  He got right down on his hands and knees in the hard sludge, splitting it apart with a spike and a five pound hammer.  Under the hard blocks the sludge was wet and Johnny A.’s booties, gloves and legs were covered with green gook.  After he had split up a bunch of chunks he started throwing them into the drum next to the vat.

A few minutes later I looked over at Johnny A. again and noticed that he was struggling in an attempt to shovel out the sludge with a long-handled shovel.  He paused for a rest and beckoned to me.  I started moving towards him and my airline got caught on a corner of a vat.  I flicked the length of the hose and it freed itself.  When I got over to Johnny A. he was breathing heavily from the exertion.  He asked me to get him a short-handled shovel.  I walked back to where I’d laid down the radio and held it up to the bottom of my mask.

“Plate shop to safety.”

Tommy’s voice came back immediately.  “Go ahead plate shop.”

“Do you have any short-handled shovels out there?”

“Do we have any what?”

“A short-handled shovel,” I repeated slowly and clearly.

There was a brief pause and then Tommy responded.  “I’ll have one sent inside in two minutes.”

“O.K.  I’ll wait by the door.”

“Ten-four.”

I picked up a coil of my hose and walked back to the decon entrance.  After a minute the door opened and Nick the Greek yelled in.

“Otto!”

“Yeah.”

“Get out of the way.  I’m going to slide it in along the floor.”

“OK.”

Nick threw the shovel in and I brought it up to the vats.  Johnny A. took it without a word and renewed his vigorous attack on the sludge.  I want back to the cyanide vat and continued shovelling.  Five minutes later Nick called us on the radio and told us it was time to come out.  I beckoned to Johnny A.  As he climbed out of the vat he pulled off the rubber outer booties so he wouldn’t track sludge all through the plate shop.  Johnny A.’s suit was a mess.  His whole front was gobbed with green and brown sludge.

We stripped off all the duct tape and our suits and stepped out of the decon dripping sweat.  Johnny A.’s face was bright pink.  Mark and Earl were in the hallway, getting ready for their jump.  Earl took a look at Johnny A.’s flushed face and chuckled. “Looks like we pulled you out of there just in time, John. You look like a boiled crawfish.”

Nick the Greek added brusquely, in a voice that sounded like a pebble in a grinder, “Hey don’t stay in there too long!  If you’re getting overheated get the fuck out!  I don’t want anybody going down in there!”

Johnny A. grinned and we walked down the cold hallway to the PCM.

An hour and a half later I had come back over to pick up a sample of oil that the laborers had drained out of a machine in the Be room.  Over by the plate shop the HP’s were in an uproar. Earl was standing in the hall, drenched in sweat and arguing loudly with two HP’s.  The HP’s were furious because Earl had apparently stepped out of the decon in a sludge-smeared bootie and had left a smudge on the hallway floor.  The HP’s had immediately checked the smudge with a CM7 and the red light had flashed on with a reading slightly over 100 counts per minute, which was the cutoff point for permissible levels.

The smudge was quickly wiped up and the floor was pronounced clean by one HP while the other one angrily yelled at Earl and told him he was going to write him up.  Earl was heatedly protesting that something must have sliced through the bottom of the two outer layers of booties and he had not noticed that there was any sludge on his booties.  The HP yelled back that he was a goddamned idiot and he should not have stepped out of the decon before removing his last bootie in any case.  The second HP instructed Reggie Moon to send in a laborer to clean up the floor of the decon.  Reggie turned to Duck and told him to suit up.  Earl and the first HP continued to butt heads and were still arguing loudly when I finally left five minutes later to take the oil sample to the radiochemistry lab trailer.

That afternoon one of the supervisors for RSA came over to our trailer and had a quiet chat with Earl and Johnny A.  He explained that, while this was a fairly insignificant mishap that had been easy to clean up, Earl simply could not be that sloppy in his decon procedures.  Earl apologized politely and said he knew he was wrong.  He explained that he had just come out of the decon and was all hot and sweaty after working hard inside the plate shop, and when the HP, who never had to work up a sweat, started yelling at him he just lost his temper.  The RSA supervisor nodded and said he knew what it was like to work in Level B and he sympathized.  After a couple more minutes he said something about having been in the Navy and then they just bullshitted about old times in the Navy for the next twenty minutes.  Finally they went off to the cafeteria to get some coffee with Earl swearing on the Bible that he’d be more careful in the future.

CHAPTER 49

Earl and I were standing outside our trailer about 10:30 in the morning.  The temperature was fairly mild for January and my grimy down work vest was open under my denim jacket.  Earl was wearing his padded coveralls, black Toxikleen baseball jacket and hard hat.  We were both on our way off in different directions and I was relating the events of my date with Rachel last night. Earl was very interested and listened attentively.

Rachel and I had gone to a microbrewery to sample wheat beer and brown ale while gorging on a platter of nachos and guacamole. All at once Rachel had wiped her mouth, straightened her back and given me a serious look.

“You know Otto, I’m a bit confused about our relationship.  You’re always very nice and considerate and entertaining, but I get the feeling that all we’re really doing is having sex.  I mean I like you a lot and I really love the sex.  I really enjoy taking care of my man, especially if he takes care of me.  And that’s one thing you’re really good about.  You know how to read my body and you make the effort to give me what I want and make me feel good.  You don’t give me anything when you’ve got your clothes on, but you give me a lot when you’re naked.”

I winced.  “I wouldn’t say that.  I thought we had quite a friendly relationship.  I always enjoy your company.”

“Yeah.”  Rachel said with thick irony.  “So much that you never even call me to say hello during the week.”

I sighed.  It was true that I was noncommittal and even a bit aloof between our dates.  On the other hand I didn’t want to be obliged to feel something that I really wasn’t capable of feeling.

“Oh, it’s O.K.” said Rachel.  “We can get together for just casual sex if that’s what it is.  I certainly like to have good sex.  I just wanted to have some kind of definition of what it is that we’re doing together.  I don’t want to invest my emotional energy in a relationship that’s not going to go anywhere.  That’s fair isn’t it?  I don’t want you to think I’m suffocating you.  Although I do sometimes think you could drown in a tea cup.”

I paused in my narration to Earl.  “It’s funny.”  I said to him.  “But it makes me think of my wife.  It seems like such a damn shame we ever hurt each other at all for any reason.”

“Oh hell, don’t I know about that.  I can’t bear to see a woman cry.  That’s why I just get the hell out before I know it’s going to happen.”

We heard the steps of a woman’s shoes behind us and turned to see Louise coming towards us.  Louise was dressed in jeans, a red sweater and a denim jacket.  She was certainly looking good and my mind immediately began projecting images of what it would be like to touch her body.  Her denim jacket was open, revealing the contours of her disturbingly fine rack.

“Hi guys.” Louise said with a smile.

“Well good morning ma’am.  And how are you today?” Earl greeted her gallantly.

“I’m fine thanks.”

Earl straightened up to his full height, cocked his head back and gave her a theatrical once over.  “Yes you certainly are!” he declared emphatically.

Louise gave a musical laugh.  “Earl you’re just a big flirt.”

Earl beamed at her.  “Well I can’t help it.  You inspire me.”

I grinned as I watched Earl in action.  He seemed to be completely relaxed and enjoying himself, but I sensed that his flirtation was a bit more in earnest than usual.  Louise also seemed to appreciate Earl’s country charm a lot more when it was directed at herself than when it was aimed at her coworkers.

“Hey.” said Earl.  “How’d you like to go grab some lunch with me today?  We could toddle on over to the diner.”

Louise looked like she was taken by surprise.  “Oh no thanks.  I’ve got too much work to do.”

“Oh too bad.”  Earl masked his disappointment.  “Maybe some other time then.”

Louise smiled.  As she walked away Earl exclaimed admiringly.  “Gosh Louise, you sure are beautiful.”

Louise turned her head and laughed.  “Thank you Earl.”

Earl and I watched her blue jean clad hips sway seductively as she walked off.  Earl shook his head violently as if breaking out of a trance.  “Lord that woman’s beginning to interest me seriously.”

CHAPTER 50

The phone rang after lunch.  Earl answered it and burst out in a jovial greeting.

“Well Chuck, How’s everything going down in Georgia?”  Earl listened for a minute and then exclaimed with surprise.  “Matt Jones!  Really?  Did he get a big increase in pay?”  There was a pause.  “Uh huh.  Well good for him.  I sure hate to see him go, but I’m happy for him.  He’s a swell guy and a real good worker. Toxikleen wasn’t paying him what he’s worth anyway.”  There followed a lengthy pause and Earl’s expression turned serious.  “Well I don’t know.  You’d have to run that by John Anthony.  I’ll pass the phone over to him.”  He gave the phone to Johnny A. and explained briefly.  “They just got a big contract in the tanks division and Chuck Jervis wants me to go down there right away and pull some underground storage tanks.”

Johnny A. got on the phone and listened for quite a long while as Earl’s home office manager tried to convince him that Earl’s tank experience was needed on this new project more than he was needed here.  After several minutes Johnny A. spoke with no expression on his face.  “I understand your situation, but I’m already short staffed up here and it’s even more difficult to get personnel replacements who have rad experience.”

Mark and I looked at the clock and realized we had to hurry to get over to the plate shop for our jump.  This morning we had brought in an electric pump and some more 55 gallon poly drums and set them up on the grating by the vats.  We grabbed our respirators and hustled over to the plate shop.

“I wonder if we’re going to lose Earl.” said Mark looking concerned.

I nodded.  “We’re already stretched pretty thin.”

“Yeah.” said Mark with an ironic laugh.  “Every time we start to do something we get called away to do something else.  We spend half our time spinning around in circles.  And all because they bid the job too low to bring enough personnel on site.”

We arrived at the plate shop and Nick the Greek was standing at his post in his saranax.  He pointed at the clock and scowled.

“So the Toxiqueens decided to work this afternoon.  It’s about time you showed up.  I’m boiling in this fucking saranax.”

Mark and I suited up and entered the plate shop, wearing the usual sophisticated witticisms duct taped to our backs.  We started pumping out the liquid vats, beginning with the solutions that had a neutral PH.  Each vat was pumped into its own drum or set of drums which were labelled and numbered to distinguish their identities.  The pumping process was very simple.  The pump had a long shaft which we stuck into the vat solution and a hose that we fed into the bung hole of the drum.  When we were ready all we had to do was turn on the toggle switch and the pump would suck the solution out of the vat and spit it out into the drum.

We pumped out the various vats of neutral solutions and moved on to a couple of vats of acids which we suspected to be nitric acid.  We worked together with Mark operating the pump while I prepared the drums and held the hose in the bung hole so the pressure wouldn’t send it flopping out and spraying acid all over the place.  The process went very smoothly and we pumped out 6 or 7 vats until the platform grating became so congested with 450 pound drums of acid solution that we could barely squeeze through them to get by.  Nick the Greek called us on the radio and told us to come on out.  On the next jump we would have to start by moving the drums off the platform to give ourselves space to work.

We hadn’t yet touched the two vats of chromic acid.  We were leaving them for last because they were so viscous and thick.  We were anticipating that we would have to thin the molasses like solution with hot water from the steam jenny to loosen it up enough to pump.  I was sure it was going to be a mess and wasn’t looking forward to that little task.

When we got back to the trailer Johnny A. was on the phone to someone back at corporate.  Earl was sitting at his desk listening.  Johnny A. was looking a bit frustrated.  He was complaining about the nasty and underhanded tactics that Earl’s home office manager was employing to acquire Earl’s services.

“You wouldn’t think we all worked for the same company.” Johnny A. said bitterly.  “All these regional office managers care about are the quarterly profit numbers for their own offices.  They don’t care if their profits come at the expense of another office or division as long as they look good.  They’ll do anything to help out their own projects.  When they’re slow they’re looking around for places to send their idle personnel so they can bill for them, and as soon as a contract comes through they’re screaming to have their people back again.  First Chuck calls me up and just tells me Earl’s being pulled off this project and reassigned as of today.  When I didn’t fall for that he started wheedling and cajoling me to help him out, like he’s the only guy in the company in a tight squeeze.  Then finally when I won’t give him what he wants, he got real nasty and tried to throw his weight around.  I finally had to tell him I had too much work to do to waste time listening to any more of his bullshit.”

Johnny A. listened for a couple of minutes and then smiled. “Great.  Please do me a favor and tell that to Chuck.  I don’t want him calling up every half hour and breaking my balls.”  There followed a pause and then Johnny A. said thanks and hung up.

Earl looked relieved.  Johnny A. turned around in his swivel chair and gave him a thumbs up sign.

Earl laughed.  “Whoooee.  Thanks John.  I really appreciate that.”  He turned to Mark and me and explained.  “Chuck wanted me to go out to Fort Waldo for a two year contract with no overtime and no living expenses.  I was supposed to relocate.  You know where Fort Waldo is?  A hundred and fifty miles north of Minneapolis!  Can you imagine how cold it is up there?  That’s why he was getting so nasty.  He can’t get anybody to go up there.  Fuck that!  No way this Southern boy’s going to freeze his ass off for no money.  I’d quit first.”

CHAPTER 51

Earl was hung over.  He was sprawled at his cluttered desk like a gigantic mass of inertia, clutching his forehead and desperately trying to avoid doing a jump in the plate shop, or anything else for that matter.  He had divided his morning between lounging in the trailer, drinking coffee in the cafeteria, and shuffling off to Building 34 saying, “I got something I need to discuss with Stanley” or “Flynn wants me to help him out with some technicality.”

The big man really looked like he was in pain.  Even his narration of his escapades the night before with Flynn, lacked it’s usual luster of enthusiasm.  “Me and some of the union boys went to this tit bar on Route 293.” he related dryly.  “I got real friendly with this gorgeous dancer named Donna.  We did the bump and grind all night.  Oh Lord.  What an awesome body!  She looked kind of like my ex wife, but she had a nicer rack.”  That was all Mark and I could get out of him before he lapsed back into a semi coma.

Fortunately for Earl we were shut down in the plate shop for the moment.  Some problem had come up in one of the power panels and the electricians were going in on a couple of jumps to straighten things out.  We were on standby waiting to hear when we could go in.  Mark and I were planning on probably doing a jump after lunch.

Earl groaned. “You guys don’t need me in there do you? ‘Cause I tell you what, I feel like a three inch hose with a knot in it.”

“I don’t know if we can get by without you Earl.” I kidded him.  “I think we need your technical expertise to help us move all those drums down off the vat platform.”

This produced a ghostly grin on Earl’s face. “Otto, I’m going to stuff you into a 55 gallon drum and ship you off to a disposal facility as rad contaminated waste.” he drawled.

About 11:30 we got the word that the electrical problems had been fixed so we radioed Reggie Moon and informed him that we’d do a jump right after lunch.  At five minutes to one Mark and I were suited up and on our way into the plate shop. There was a rusty old hydraulic drum lifter in the shop which we were going to use to lower the drums off the three foot high vat platform down to the floor.  We had about a dozen 55 gallon drums cluttering up the aisle between the rows of vats and many of the drums were full.

A 55 gallon drum full of an aqueous solution such as an acid weighs approximately 450 pounds, while drums full of solid material can be quite a bit heavier.  One of the first skills you learn when you work in HAZMAT, or Hazardous Materials, is how to roll a drum.  Some of my earlier jobs had been just rolling accumulated drums of hazardous waste onto trucks all day long.  A drum weighing less than 600 pounds is easy to tilt up on one edge and roll.  Over 600 pounds I need help tipping it up on edge and over 800 pounds I don’t want to deal with, although I have rolled drums of lead paint chips that weighed 1000 pounds.

The first lesson in drum rolling is to never cross your hands as you turn the rim because you could lose control of the drum before you got your hands back in place again.  If you do lose control of a heavy drum and you know it’s going to fall, you have to jump out of the way quickly so it won’t crush your legs. When you’re setting a drum down you don’t lower it down gently with the strength of your back, you simply let go of it and let it plop into place.  A heavy drum can ruin your back. You also need to make sure that your fingers aren’t still holding the rim when it slams against another drum rim.  A 600 pound drum can shear your fingers right off.

Mark and I rolled the drums down the platform to the opening at the staircase.  Here we pumped up the hydraulic lifter to the level of the platform.  This was the tricky part. We couldn’t bring the lifter flush with the platform edge.  All we could do was get one corner against the platform and then roll the drum over carefully without any mistakes.  There was no margin for error, especially considering what was in the drums. When we got the drums down to the floor we used a drum dolly to carry them easily back to the roll up door to the chapel.

After 30 minutes we had the drums lined up by the door and we began wetting them with water from a spray bottle and wiping them down with rags to remove any smearable radioactive contamination.  Mark called out on the radio and asked to get an HP and some union support out in the chapel so we could send out the drums.  Five minutes later there was a banging on the metal roll up door and we pushed the button to open the door.  A drum had been resting on the bottom edge of the door and started tipping over.  Mark quickly stopped the door and pushed the down button while I hurried over to the drum and rolled it out of the way.

We opened the door and found Buck, Reggie Moon and Duck standing there in hard hats and safety glasses.  Reggie and Duck had on cotton work gloves and Buck was wearing a pair of latex lab gloves.  Buck began wiping the surface of a drum with a tissue and checking it with his frisker.  He told Mark to lean the drum back and quickly wiped the bottom of the drum.  When he had checked the entire surface he told Reggie to roll it out.  Mark pushed it to the edge of the chapel’s floor poly and Reggie took it from there.

The others could stand in the chapel in street clothes while we were two feet away from them inside the plate shop in Level B with airlines because the plate shop containment was under negative pressure. There was a strong ventilation system in the plate shop which filtered particle contaminants out of the air and vented it outside through an exhaust port.  This forced removal of air from inside the containment set up a negative pressure gradient which caused ambient air to flow into the containment through any opening that might exist.  Therefore if you were standing at the doorway, even if you were right next to a worker wearing a respirator, the air you would be breathing would be clean air being sucked in from outside.

Negative pressure for containment areas is routinely tested by smoke tests which clearly indicate the direction of the air flow.  Smoke tests are officially conducted using smoke which escapes from little glass tubes when you break off the tip.  More commonly someone is standing nearby with a cigarette which you can hold at the entrance to watch the direction the smoke goes.  Even more commonly you will look at the poly flaps at the containment entrance being sucked inwards and know the negative pressure system is functioning properly.

The next drum that Buck checked sent the frisker’s needle up above 100 CPM, or counts per minute.  Buck shook his head.  “Uh uh.  This one’s not clean enough.  Give it another wipe down.”

Mark sprayed it with water and began wiping it again.  Buck checked the next one and found it also too highly contaminated to be released.  I started recleaning that one while Buck moved on. The next drum was clean and Reggie rolled it out.  Duck had laid down a pallet and the drums were rolled up onto it.  However the next drum was dirty again and Buck said a bit impatiently “Come on guys.  You have to do better than this.”

We checked a couple more drums but before we could get them all out Nick called us on the radio and told us to come on out.  Earl had come to the chapel with Grady the forklift operator and he was supervising Duck as he banded the drums together on the pallet.  Earl and Grady would take the first pallet over to the drum storage pad and Sal would stick it into the proper row with the lull.  The remaining drums we would have to wipe down and bring out later.

Mark and I did two more jumps that day, leaving Earl outside to escort the forklift while he nursed his hangover.  As we headed back to the trailer about 7:00 the temperature had already dropped to 15 degrees fahrenheit and Earl was protesting violently about being out in the cold all afternoon.  Mark started telling us about the ice that had built up on the front steps of his house.

One of the special pieces of equipment that had been shipped to us from the corporate central warehouse during mobilization was a $200 beryllium coated, sparkless shovel.  Using sparkproof tools and motors is absolutely essential when work is being done in an atmosphere which could contain ignitable gases or vapors at levels above the LEL, or Lower Explosive Limit.  These requirements are standard in petrochemical plants, oil refineries, paint factories or any enclosed space where flammable vapors or air borne particles can build up either through production processes or an undetected leak.  A simple spark in these circumstances could cause a lethal explosion.

On this job site flammable materials were not prevalent and ignitable atmospheres were not a major concern.  Since the day I had arrived the beryllium shovel had been standing in the corner with a rain jacket thrown over it.  Mark took the shovel home that night to chip the ice off his front steps.

CHAPTER 52

Johnny A. had won the internal guerrilla war against Chuck Jervis, Earl’s regional office manager, and had secured Earl’s services on our site indefinitely.  Earl was quite relieved to not have to go any further into the frozen north, and besides, as he put it, he was getting plenty of tail every night from his topless dancer, who had moved into his motel room with him.

Yesterday we had spent the whole day setting up equipment in the plate shop so we could clean out the empty vats.  By now we had pumped out all the vats except the chromic acid vats for which we needed the steam jenny. The steam jenny would heat the water and shoot out a jet of steaming water from a power sprayer. The hot water would mix with the molasses-like chromic acid to dilute it and make it less viscous so we could pump it.

The steam jenny was placed outside the building and the hoses for the water were run into the plate shop through a window which was sealed around the hoses with plastic sheeting and duct tape.  Earl and I had gone in on one jump to begin power spraying the chromic acid vat.  A laborer was standing outside in the cold and we called him on the radio to tell him to turn on the ignition and start the steam jenny.  Earl was standing over the chromic acid vat holding the power sprayer ready.  I had the electric pump in place and was ready to pump the solution into several drums which I had lined up on the platform.  Earl waited a couple of minutes to give the steam jenny time to build up pressure and heat up the water.  We had one hose running from a water line inside the plate shop out to the steam jenny and then another one which brought the heated water back in to our power sprayer.

When Earl decided that enough time had elapsed, he pulled the trigger on the power sprayer.  A line of water shot out and splashed against the rear wall of the vat.  Earl aimed it down into the brown muck and it drilled a hole into the acid which filled up with water.  As he moved the power sprayer he indented the gooey mass with more holes and then the water collected in a layer on the surface.  Earl cursed and looked down at the muck and the water floating on top of it.

“Otto, go grab me that short handled shovel.” he grunted.

I squeezed through some drums and unsnagged my airline from a compressed air valve as I made my way over to the nickel vat and fetched the shovel.  Earl took it and plunged it into the muck and tried to stir it around.  The shovel wouldn’t budge.  Earl cursed again.  He tried power spraying again but got the same results.  He aimed the spray line at some brown splatter on the vat wall, but with no effect.

“Damn water’s only luke warm.” Earl rumbled angrily.  “Let’s wait a few minutes and give the steam jenny some more time to heat the water.”

We stood there quietly, looking down at the brown muck, waiting for the steam jenny to do its job.  After a minute Earl lost his patience and reached his glove into the muck to stir it by hand.  His attempt was unsuccessful and he straightened up again with his gloves gobbed with chromic acid.  I handed him some wipe cloths and he quickly rubbed his gloves without looking at them and threw down the wipe.  His gloves were smeared thickly with muck and the front of his suit was wet with brown drops of splash back rolling down.  I grabbed a wipe and towelled off the front of his suit.

Now that we had begun the power spraying phase of the operation, we were wearing two layers of impermeable saranax suits, one suit inside the other.  The suits were also special suits without sewn seams where penetration would be most likely to occur.  These suits were even more expensive than regular saranax and we would use and discard four of them on each jump just to have two men working for one hour.

Earl leaned on the vat with his shoulders hunched and waited for several minutes.  I leaned on a drum and tried to get as comfortable as possible.  Being encumbered with two suits, three pairs of gloves, three pairs of booties, my airline, and the five minute emergency escape air bottle constantly banging at my left hip, it was easier to just stop and remain wherever I was, rather than try to move to a more comfortable position.  My face mask also cut off a lot of peripheral view so I just looked straight ahead at a valve while I waited.

After several minutes had passed Earl tried the power sprayer again.  The sprayed water had almost no effect on the chromic acid.  Earl checked the temperature of the water through his gloves.

“Shit, the fucking water’s cold!” he fumed.  “Call that union boy out there and find out what’s wrong with the steam jenny.”

I picked up the radio.  “Plate shop to steam jenny.”  There was no response.  I tried again.  Finally I called out to the safety crew and asked them to find out what was going on with the steam jenny.  They had to find someone that wasn’t busy and send him outside, first passing through the PCM as he exited the RCA.

After almost five minutes Reggie Moon radioed to us from the steam jenny.  The laborer was nowhere in sight and the engine was off.  Earl was livid with rage.  Nick the Greek called us on the radio to tell us our time was up and Earl got even angrier.  He stomped over to the decon and ripped out of his suit.  When he emerged his body was steaming from sweat and he snorted like a bull that was about to charge.

“Where the fuckin’ hell is that idiot that’s supposed to be out by the steam jenny?” he roared.  There was mass confusion.  Voices yelled and tempers erupted.  When the laborer was found he claimed that he had understood that he was only supposed to turn the steam jenny on, not stay out there the whole time.  He had gone immediately inside the building to get out of the cold and had put down the radio, thinking nobody would call him until the jump was over and it was time to go back outside and turn off the steam jenny.  Earl shouted abuse at him with his face bright red and Reggie Moon informed him crisply that if he ever pulled a stunt like that again he’d be fired.  The steam jenny engine had apparently just stalled out after a couple of minutes and we had wasted a whole jump.

We had managed to accomplish one thing this morning at least.  Our Site Specific Health and Safety Plan had mandated that we have an emergency shower in place in the plate shop before we began handling any of the hazardous materials.  The emergency shower was to be used to rinse off if we ever had an accident and got acid or caustic solution on our skin or in our eyes and needed immediate attention.  C&C had brought a portable shower over to the site, but it had never been assembled and it was still taking up space in the hall next to the air bottles where Tommy perched on it comfortably while we did our jumps.  There were some problems with the shower and since fixing the shower was not production, it was low on the priority list.  Today we had simply brought in a four foot diameter plastic tub and run a garden hose over to it.  This was now our emergency shower.  Not exactly according to the job specs but it would be adequate.

Later Earl and I did another jump.  The union laborer stayed at his post by the steam jenny and we tried the power sprayer again.  The results were the same as before with the chromic acid refusing to loosen up.  I called on the radio out to the steam jenny.  I got no response.  I pulled my airline to get as much slack as possible and climbed over the railing and down off the far side of the vat platform.  I had just enough slack to step up on a 5 gallon bucket and peer out the window.  I saw the laborer bent over the steam jenny tinkering with something in the engine.  I banged on the window. The laborer looked up and walked over. I held the radio up to my mask and asked him what was wrong.  He walked back to the steam jenny and picked up his radio.  He told me the steam jenny kept shutting off.  I climbed back up to the vats and told Earl what was going on.  Earl grabbed the radio and called angrily to Reggie Moon, telling him to go out and find out what the problem was.  We hung around for another twenty minutes with Earl getting angrier and more frustrated.  Finally he said the hell with it and we went out.

Outside by the steam jenny there was a general conference.  Reggie Moon said it seemed that either the fuel had some water in it or someone had put in gasoline instead of diesel fuel.  We were going to take a break while some laborers drained out the fuel and refilled it with good diesel.

I came back from the cafeteria about 7:30 for our last jump. The night shift was on duty at the plate shop and I didn’t recognize any of the faces.  There was a stack of porno magazines on the table in the changing room and the foreman and an extremely fat laborer were thumbing through them.  Another laborer had his head down on the table and was gently snoring.  I picked up a particularly scholarly looking journal entitled “Dikes With Dildos” and flipped through the pictures of women assaulting each other with clubs and bats of various sizes.

“What are you doing here?” the foreman demanded, asserting his authority over the area.

“I’m with Toxikleen.” I replied, still looking at the magazine.

“Well I’m the foreman here.” he declared with self importance.

“Good enough.” I smiled at him and tossed the magazine back in the pile.  “Is the steam jenny running properly yet?”

“They went to get some more diesel.  They’ll be right back. Hey Archie, bring that box in here!” he yelled at one of the laborers and resumed his perusal of the magazine.

I had nothing to do except wait so I picked up a copy of the local tabloid, The Messenger, which was on a bench.  The front page headlines blared that another black teenager had been shot in gang related violence.  The first four pages carried abridged wire service articles about the various wars going on around the globe and page six had the usual drivel about the beautiful people, which is essential to any journalistic venture aspiring to legitimacy.  I turned the page and was about to pass over an article about a new mall being built when I noticed the reporter’s name under the headline.  I stared at the name in amazement.  Unless this was another person with the same name, I knew this reporter.

Her name was Christine.  She was several years younger than me which meant that she would be about thirty now.  She had been part of my brother’s circle of friends when we’d all still lived in New York.  I had met her a few times at parties, but I didn’t really know her well.  I remembered her being quite attractive with brown hair and lively brown eyes which seemed to increase her animation as she talked and laughed.  My brother had told me once, after she had left the room, about all the things he wanted to do to her body, starting with ripping off the tantalizing tank top that she had been wearing.

Christine had been going out with a law student whom my brother had obviously thought was not good enough for her.  However my brother was already going out with his future wife at the time so his opinions on the matter would have to be assumed to be merely academic.  Christine was not only attractive, but also rather bright and I remembered her parrying thrusts with sharp witticisms during conversation.  She had gone to journalism school so it seemed entirely plausible that she could now be working as a reporter for The Messenger.

Earl stomped into the changing room.  “Hey Otto, the steam jenny’s….” he began and then stopped abruptly as he noticed the stack of porno mags.  He turned one towards him and started turning the pages.  “Whoooeee!”

The fat laborer looked over to see which magazine Earl was looking at.  “That’s a good one.  Hey check out the hooters on this bimbo.”  He turned Earl’s magazine a few pages forward.  Earl’s eyes opened wider.

The steam jenny wasn’t ready for another forty five minutes so we all sat around the changing room passing the porno mags back and forth.  The laborers who were working on the steam jenny had to come in and warm up several times, but finally they announced that it was running smoothly.  Earl and I went in for a short jump to test the power sprayer and see if it would dissolve the chromic acid any better now.  The power sprayer was putting out a jet of steaming spray and it did seem to cut through the acid more easily than before, although it still seemed to me that cleaning out these vats was going to be an arduous task.

Earl had seen enough and we turned to go back to the decon. Suddenly my lungs felt like they had collapsed and I practically sucked my rubber mask inside out.  I thought I was going to pass out and a throb of panic flooded through me.  I couldn’t breathe! Through the terrified confusion in my brain flashed a message of rational thought.  “You’ve got no air!”  I thrashed my arms through the air violently.  It suddenly occurred to me to turn on my five minute emergency escape air bottle.  I looked down.  Before I could grab the valve at my waist, I received a whoosh of air in my mask and my grateful lungs sucked it in.  My heart was pounding in panic.  Out of the corner of my eye I noticed movement.  I turned and saw Earl leaning on a drum of acid and shaking with laughter.  He was holding my airline in both hands. He had kinked my airline as a joke.

CHAPTER 53

We didn’t get out of work until 10 o’clock Friday night so I decided to stay in town for the weekend.  Johnny A. had flown out at noon for his weekend home and Earl was going to entertain himself with his dancer.  On Saturday Mark and I got together for brunch at a coffee shop near the university and then went to play basketball.  Tommy had overheard us discussing basketball at the plate shop and expressed a desire to join us.  We met at the gym and played on the same team, holding the court against all comers for the whole afternoon.  Playing together, setting picks for each other, passing to the open man, helping each other out on defense, hustling, rebounding, sweating, and feeling grateful as one of us finally buried the winning basket when the rest of us where too tired to do it, all created a bond of mutual respect, cooperation and camaraderie between us.  There was no longer the barrier between us of union laborers and chemists.  We were all just men who belonged to the same tribe and who would stick up for one another.

The same type of bond can develop in the work site, particularly when the work is being done under pressure and potentially hazardous conditions.  This sense of camaraderie only occurs of course if everybody pulls their own weight and treats everyone else with respect.  A worker who shirks his tasks while his colleagues are working hard will suffer harsh derision at  minimum.  And in particular, any individual who is lacking respect towards his coworkers in a tense work environment is creating an explosive situation.

Tommy was teased frequently by the other laborers in the plate shop for being lazy and not doing anything more than his assigned job.  Tommy would sit comfortably on the portable shower with a big grin on his face and say “Fuck you!  I ain’t doin that.  It’s not my job.”  Then he would laugh as the other laborers all cursed him out.  I had noticed though, that when something important needed to be done, Tommy worked hard and soberly yelled out orders with the same energy and determination that he brought to the basketball court.  Then of course, when the moment of crisis passed, he would almost imperceptibly slack off, while still creating the impression that he was straining to the utmost.

After playing basketball the three of us went to an ice cream parlor and ordered milk shakes.  As we stood in the crowded shop sucking down our shakes, Tommy began an animated description of his date last night.  “She was really hot!  She had long blonde hair, and this is no bullshit, she had tits out to here!” Tommy put down his milkshake and cupped his hands about six inches in front of his chest.  “Man, she was wild!  She was even licking my balls!”  An expression of ecstasy spread over Tommy’s face at the memory.  Some of the people around us looked up disapprovingly.  Mark and I both began tittering and gestured to Tommy to keep his voice down.

Tommy shrugged his shoulders.  “Fuck it!  They can’t hear me.”

Later that evening, I went to a Mexican restaurant with Rachel.  After Chimichanga and several Margueritas, I was stuffed and tired, but feeling relaxed and ready to go back to Rachel’s apartment to enjoy the pleasures of her flesh.  Rachel was wearing a white blouse, a short black skirt, black suspenders framing her bosom, black stockings and high heels.  She was perhaps not quite beautiful, but most certainly eye catching.

Rachel was direct, honest and bright and I was thinking that, if we had more common interests, she would be a nice woman to have a relationship with.  However, her pastimes were watching T.V. sitcoms and drama series and taking vacations at luxury beach resorts in the Caribbean, preferably someplace where they spoke English.  These things bored me, while the idea that I would go cross country skiing in the cold, or go live in a place like Argentina, was absolutely inconceivable to her.

As I parked my car in front of her house and opened my door to get out, Rachel stopped me.  “Otto, we need to talk.  There’s something I need to tell you.”

I closed the door and turned to listen, wondering what was going to come next.

“Otto.”  Rachel began and then paused as if not knowing what to say.  She stared down at her hands for a moment, thinking tensely, then looked me in the eye and let it all out in a quick flow.  “Otto I really like you a lot, and if you had wanted to, I would have been willing to have a relationship with you.  I mean a serious relationship.  Not just having you come over and fuck me silly twice a week.  Although I really did like that.”  She smiled and put her hand out on mine and squeezed it affectionately.  “But I know you’re not going to be serious with me so our relationship isn’t going to go anywhere.”  Rachel paused and bit her lip, but continued with determination.  “What we had was fine for a while and of course I have no regrets what so ever.  I want you to know that I’m not blaming you in any way for not wanting a more serious relationship with me.  However I’ve got to tell you that I’ve met somebody who does.  He’s a nice guy and he’s already told me he loves me.  I think we have the potential for a long term relationship.  It could be very good for me and I want to give it a chance.”  She looked at me questioningly, as if concerned that I would be disappointed or hurt.

I took a deep breath and felt confused.  On one hand of course, I felt my arousal and anticipation of pleasure become completely deflated.  I knew I was losing the opportunity of regular sex, which had become especially satisfying since we’d gotten to know each other and learned what made our bodies react. I knew now how to touch Rachel and what to say to her that would erase anything else she may have been thinking and make her body and mind succumb to desire.  On the other hand I felt a wave of affection and happiness for her.  I knew she was a good person and deserved to be happy.  It seemed only fair that if I wasn’t going to give her what she was really looking for, that she should find it with someone else.  I even felt a mild relief, knowing that now I would never have to confront the awkward situation of breaking up with her.

I collected my thoughts and breathed deeply again.  Lifting my eyebrows and looking up at her, I smiled and took her hand gently.  Rachel looked relieved and beamed at me.  “Well Rachel. What can I say.  I’m really happy for you.  I know he’s getting a wonderful girlfriend.”  I said softly to her.

Rachel flung her arms around my neck.  “Oh Otto.  You’re so sweet!”  She gripped me in a tight hug.  I put my arm around her and held her for a minute.  Then she pulled her face away from my neck and gave me a quick kiss.  She looked at me with her face close to mine.  Her eyes were moist but her face radiated with a happy smile.  “Thanks Otto.” she said quietly.

“Although I am going to lose some real hot sex to this bum.” I said grinning.

Rachel bit her lip and blinked playfully. “Yeah, well it’s his turn to enjoy fucking me now.  Don’t be greedy.”

I laughed.  “How can I help myself with you looking so good?”  I slid my hand inside her jacket and placed the tip of my index finger on one of her nipples.

The rhythm of Rachel’s breathing suddenly changed.  “You’re such a shit, Otto.”  she whispered without pulling back.  I spread my fingers around her breast and squeezed it softly.  Rachel closed her eyes and I pushed my hand against her breast a little bit harder.  Rachel leaned forward and sucked my lower lip between hers.  We kissed for a minute and then she abruptly pulled back and laughed.

“Oh come on Otto.  Let’s go inside.  One last time.”

CHAPTER 54

On Sunday it had been bitterly cold with the temperature staying below 10 degrees Fahrenheit the whole day.  Mark and I met at the coffee shop again and traded sections of the New York Times over bagels and croissants.  The coffee shop was a university crowd hangout.  It had mural wall paintings, a variety of newspapers, and played tapes which alternated between jazz, blues and classical music.  In the afternoon we went to the science museum downtown and wandered through the exhibits of astronomy, geology, the history of technology, and ornithology.  Mark had grown up bird watching with his family and gave me an enthusiastic lesson in this last area.  It was refreshing and invigorating for me to receive an infusion of new ideas.  We both remarked on how spoiled we were becoming by being assigned to this job site for an extended period of time.  Usually our jobs took us to crumbling industrial centers or army bases where the cultural and entertainment possibilities were more limited.  Living on the road for fifty weeks out of the year we have to hunt out the lifestyle opportunities that each locale has to offer.  Some guys organize softball teams, others join health clubs, and many simply drink.

That evening Mark went back to his apartment to read Chekhov and I returned to my own place.  I was still in the mood for entertainment so I tried to interest Randall and Jozef in walking down to the university square and taking in a movie.  Randall was standing in the kitchen warming his backside in front of the oven and staring at the opposite wall.

“You’ve got to be kidding!” he burst out morosely.  “I’m going to be 80 feet up some tree tomorrow in this fucking cold, cutting limbs that were damaged in that storm last week.”

Jozef was huddled over an electric heater in his room with a cup of tea and a professional journal about cellular biology.  He just shook his head.  I bundled up and went to watch a French movie, feeling grateful again that I had more choices available than just Hollywood trash at the mall.

The next morning Earl and I showed up at the plate shop at 7:15 and started suiting up for our first jump.  Mark was back at the trailer discussing shipping manifests for mixed waste with Mike Randazzo and Jim Kulke, the army base officer in charge of environmental compliance.  Johnny A. had come in this morning with a smile on his face after a weekend of going to antique furniture auctions with his wife.  I had never even imagined him having any hobbies and I was surprised to hear him eagerly describe his free time spent doing furniture restoration.

I was sitting on the bench pulling on a pair of yellow plastic booties when I looked up and started with surprise.  The vision facing me was so disturbingly odd and grotesque that I couldn’t immediately recognize it.  Earl’s jaw dropped and he was leaning forward, staring intently.  Then we realized what it was and burst out laughing.  A laborer named Jerry had stretched a transparent latex lab glove down over his head and held it tight around his neck.  Then he had blown it up like a balloon so that his head looked like it was trapped inside a bubble.  The latex glove had distorted his facial features into something unearthly and the five fingers stuck up in a row on top of his head like the crest of a rooster.

Jerry pulled the glove off his head and breathed deeply with a goofy grin on his red face.  Reggie Moon was howling with laughter.  “Hey Jerry, come on.  You got to show that to Buck.”  Reggie hustled Jerry down the hall.

Earl and I were still sniggering a few minutes later when I noticed the article Duck was reading in The Messenger.  It had been written by Christine.  I pointed to her name and told him I used to know her.

“Is that right?” Duck said turning the page and snorting his sinuses.

“Who do you know Toxqueen?” Nick the Greek inquired brusquely.

“He knows this fuckin’ reporter, you nosy bastard.” Duck responded aggressively.

“Yeah, what the fuck do you care?  Mind your own fuckin’ business and do your job.” Tommy jumped in.

“Fuck you!  I just wanted to know who Otto was talking about.” protested Nick with a tone of injured innocence.

“I used to know this reporter back in New York.” I explained.

“What’s her name?” Nick demanded.

Duck turned back the page and showed it to him.  Tommy leaned in and exclaimed.  “Oh yeah.  I saw her on T.V.  She was doing some report on battered women.  She’s cute”

“Oh yeah?  You ever fuck her Otto?” asked Nick.

I shook my head.  “No, she was a friend of my brother’s.”

Nick pursued closely.  “What about your brother?  Did he ever fuck her?”

I laughed.  “No, he never did either, but he wanted to.”

“What a family of fuckin’ losers!” scoffed Nick. The other laborers nodded in agreement.

Fifteen minutes later Earl and I were in the plate shop ready to begin power spraying the chromic acid vats.  I called on the radio and told the laborer outside to start up the steam jenny.  Within a few minutes Earl was spraying a stream of steaming water into the brown muck and little by little dissolving it into a thin brown solution which I pumped into drum after drum.  We filled up two or three drums every jump and then had to move the drums down off the platform and over to the roll up door.  For every drum we filled up we seemed to be removing a small fraction of the original chromic acid.

Earl was doing most of the spraying and the powerful jet of water that he unleashed was splashing back brown splatter all over the front of him as he leaned over the vat.  The front of his suit and his respirator were drenched, but he took no notice until he could no longer see through the plexiglass face shield. Then I would stop pumping and mop him as clean as I could with some wipes before he lost his patience and started power spraying again.  The splatter flew all over me and the entire surrounding area as well.  I tried to keep up with housekeeping when I had time, but it was a dirty job.

Deconning now was taking us fifteen minutes so our effective jump time was decreased even further.  Not only did we have two suits to scramble out of, but we had to go to the shower tub and rinse off the worst part of the residue with the hose before we could attempt to remove anything.  Once a day the tub would fill up and we had to pump it into a drum as chromic acid waste.  We also had to wash off and wipe down our masks, belts, air bottles, and the last ten feet of airline since they would all be coming out of the containment with us.  They were such a mess and we were in such a hurry to get out after spending an hour in the heat of double suits, that we often didn’t get them clean enough to satisfy the HP.  After a couple of shouting matches between the HP and Earl, a laborer was detailed to get them clean enough to be sent over to the respirator wash room.

By the second afternoon of spraying the chromic acid vats, Earl and I had settled into a comfortable and efficient work routine.  Earl was hunched over the vat with the power sprayer and I was operating the pump.  The whole front of Earl’s suit and his mask were dripping with the brown liquid as he concentrated on his work, oblivious to the spray splattering over him.  Suddenly he began twitching, jerking and thrashing about.  I looked up alarmed.  Earl curled his shoulder blades and plucked at the front of his suit at his chest.  He hurriedly set down the sprayer and shook his torso violently.  The sprayer fell off the edge of the vat and crashed to the floor.  I turned off the pump. Earl turned around and pointed wildly towards the decon.  I grabbed the radio and my airline and moved as quickly as possible to get out of Earls’ way.

My heart had suddenly started pounding with apprehension and my brain was filled with confusion.  I breathlessly tried to decide what I should do.  I found myself first moving one way to do something and a split second later reversing my decision and jerking around in a different direction.  I hurried down the steps from the vat platform and moved towards the decon.  Earl bellowed something and I whirled around.  Earl bounded down the steps and pushed me aside, pointing at the shower tub.  He ran over and jumped in while I grabbed the hose.  I pulled the hose trigger and nothing happened.  Of course!  I had to go turn on the spigot on the water line.  Earl roared at me and hopped from one leg to another inside the tub.  I ran to the water line on the opposite wall and turned on the spigot.  As I rushed back to the tub Earl grabbed the hose and began awkwardly dousing himself.  I took the hose from him and sprayed his suit.

“Come on Otto!  Hurry up!  Stop fucking around!  This shit’s burning me!” Earl yelled.

My mind whirred frantically as I sprayed him.  Earl snatched the hose and started spraying himself again.  I looked around to see what I could do that would be most helpful.  I picked up some wipes and daubed at Earl’s suit.  Earl threw down the hose and gestured for me to get out of the way.  He hurried to the decon and started ripping out of his suit.  I grabbed the tab of duct tape that fastened his hood to his respirator and peeled it off in one strip.  Earl climbed out of his outer suit and I could see a brown smear on the chest of his inner suit.

“Are you O.K.?” I asked anxiously.

Earl was bent over ripping off his booties.  “Yeah, but I got to get the hell out of here!” he shouted back.

I tried to quickly wipe off his mask, air bottle and airline while staying out of the way at the same time.  I remembered the radio and picked it up.

“Plate shop to safety!  Plate shop to safety!” Several seconds passed. I tried again.  “Plate shop to safety!”  I released the microphone button and heard Tommy’s voice tailing off and then a crackle as his transmission ended.  He had been answering me while I was calling him the second time.

“Earl’s coming out ASAP!  He may have some acid burns!  I repeat!  He may have some acid burns!”

There was a note of animation in Tommy’s voice as he came back.  “We’ll take care of him.”

Earl was already on his way out through the flaps so I turned to the task of cleaning up.  I put Earl’s PPE in the yellow radioactive waste bag and wiped up the brown smudges of chromic acid that were everywhere on the floor, on the shower hose and on the decon flaps.

The radio blared.  “Safety to plate shop.”  I answered and then Nick’s hoarse voice demanded. “What the hell are you doing in there?”

“I’m cleaning up.”

“Don’t stay in there by yourself.  Come on out.” Nick rebuked me.

I deconned and exited, dumping a cup of sweat out of my gloves.  A knot of laborers and HP’s surrounded Earl who was standing bare chested in the changing room.  Everyone was talking and yelling at the same time.  I caught Earl’s eye and asked him if he was all right.  He parted the crowd and held up his tee shirt with a big grin.  On the front of his shirt were half a dozen brown blotches, some larger than a silver dollar.  I shook my head.  The chromic acid had seeped through two layers of impervious and seamless suits.  Earl leaned his grinning face over to mine and then burst out in a loud laugh.

“I tell you what Otto.  That’s some nasty shit!”

CHAPTER 55

The next day Earl came in wearing the same tee shirt.  Where the brown stains had been yesterday there were now holes.  Earl had taken it home and thrown it into the washing machine.  The chromic acid had eaten right through the material.  When I walked into the trailer this morning, Mark was leaning against a file cabinet and laughing.  Earl was standing in front of him sporting his new look and grinning from big ear to big ear.  Johnny A. was standing by his desk with his hands on his hips and a faint smile curled on his lips.  I walked up to Earl and poked a finger through one of the holes.

“So this is what the well dressed country gentleman is wearing these days.” I kidded Earl.

Earl laughed louder and longer than anyone else.  When we appeared at the plate shop the scene was replayed and his shirt was again the center of attention.  Earl was already quite a well known character on the job site, but this incident made his fame legendary.  At lunch time the cafeteria buzzed as the story was repeated amongst the union laborers.

Earl made sure he cashed in on the opportunities provided by paying a well timed visit to C&C’s administration trailer.  All the secretaries cooed and fussed at length over him.  All work came to a stop the moment he hoisted his big frame in the door.  From my vantage point at the fax machine I saw even Louise put down her papers with a concerned look on her face.  She came up behind Wendy and put her slender hand on Earl’s muscular arm.  Earl turned and they looked one another in the eye.

“Earl are you sure you’re OK?”  Louise’s voice sounded almost maternal.

“Oh yeah.” Earl shrugged it off with theatrical nonchalance.  “It just gave me a little tingle.  Kind of like the way you do.”  Earl grinned at her with a friendly twinkle.

Louise had been caught by surprise and she blushed.  Earl noticed her momentary loss of composure and pounced like a cat on a mouse with a broken leg.

“You sure do look purty with your cheeks all rosy like that.” he teased mischievously.

Louise straightened up and pulled herself together sharply. She batted him on the shoulder and said sternly “I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to have to fill out any extra paperwork on account of you, you big imbecile.  Why don’t you pay attention and do your job properly for a change.”  Earl chortled loudly and Louise was smiling quizzically.

I went back to our trailer and sat down at my desk.  An idea had occurred to me and I was intrigued by it.  I grabbed the phone book and looked up The Messenger.  A minute later I had dialed the number and a receptionist answered.

“Christine Duschene please.”  There was a click and I was put on hold.  The idea of calling Christine had come to me this morning.  At first I hadn’t considered it seriously. I had only been curious about what she was up to.  Then however it seemed the most natural thing in the world to phone up an old acquaintance.  My memory of her as being quite an interesting woman gave me a slight twinge of excitement as I waited.  There was a click on the line.

“Christine Duschene speaking.”  Her voice was sharp and businesslike, as if she were in the middle of a harried project which was absorbing all her attention.

“Hi Christine.  I don’t know if you’ll remember me, but I’m Otto Flanagan from New York.”

Her tone changed abruptly.  “Oh my god!  Otto!  Of course I remember you.  How are you?  Are you here in town?”

“Yes.  I’m here for work.  I’ve been here two months already and I’ll probably be here several more.”

“Oh.  What kind of work do you do again?”

“Well, toxic waste clean up, I guess you’d call it.  We’re working out at the army base.”

“Oh really.  That sounds interesting.”

“Yeah.  It has its moments.  How about you?  It seems like you’ve been doing pretty well since I last saw you.  I actually saw your name in the paper and decided to give you a call.”

“Yes, I’m not even a cub reporter any more.  I’m becoming an old hand on the city beat.”

“Oh yeah?  That’s great.  Actually I don’t usually read The Messenger, but one of the union laborers had it and I just happened to see your name.”

“I know.  It’s not the New York Times, but it’s a start.  Listen, I have a deadline to make so I need to get off the phone. Why don’t we go grab a beer sometime.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“I’ll be out of town for a few days on an assignment, why don’t you call me next Tuesday.”

“OK.”

“Great.  Hey how’s Frederick?”

“He’s doing terrific.  He and Shirley got married and have a kid.  They live up in Lake Placid now.  He’s a back country ski guide.”

“He must be happy.  It sounds like he’s doing what he always wanted to do.  Well I’m glad you called.”

When I hung up the phone I had a flutter in my stomach and a smile on my face. Having a date to go have a beer with Christine was something exciting to look forward to.  I knew nothing about her personal life and she could even be married for all I knew, but it would be nice just to have a beer and chit chat with her.

CHAPTER 56

Mark and I were doing a jump in the plate shop to continue cleaning out the chromic acid vats.  Mark was power-spraying and I had clambered down off the vat platform to get another 55 gallon poly drum.  While I was gone, Mark had stuck the pump hose into the bung hole of the last drum and started pumping at the same time that he was spraying.  I had just returned carrying the empty drum and was about to set it down when the hose suddenly popped out of the bung hole and a stream of brown chromic acid solution came gushing out.  I quickly tossed the drum on top of a vat and lunged for the hose.  I grabbed it, but it slipped out of my gloves and I grabbed it again.  Mark had turned around and seen what had happened and he reached over to the pump and turned it off.  I stuck the hose back in the bung hole as it went limp and dry.  Before we could collect our thoughts a puff of vapor passed in front of our face shields between us.  Almost before we could jump back, we watched the little cloud disperse slowly and swirl up towards the ventilation intake vent.  A moment later, it was gone.  We looked down.  The chromic acid had shot off the edge of the sheet of poly that we had laid on the grating, and had landed in the piled-up cyanide salts on the floor.  The little cloud had been hydrogen cyanide gas.

“I guess our respirators have good seals,” Mark said.  We both laughed nervously.  Hydrogen cyanide gas can be deadly at 50 parts per million.

“We’ll have to check outside for dead pigeons later,” I added, and we both laughed again, feeling our tension cracking and softening.

“I wonder how much acid spilled,” Mark said, looking down at the mess.

“Probably a pint.  Maybe a quart,” I answered.  Some acid had shot onto one of my booties so I cleaned it as well as I could with some wipes.  I continued wiping the acid up off the poly sheet and the side of the drum.  Mark made his way down off the vat platform and brought back a 50-pound bag of dried clay absorbent.  he ripped open the bag and dumped the contents through the grating on top of the acid spilled into the cyanide salts.

“That ought to be good enough,” he declared.  “Whatever reaction that’s going to take place has already happened.”

We resumed spraying and pumping out the vat until Nick the Greek called us out at the end of our jump.  The spill had occurred within a contained area and had not been released into the environment.  The amount of the spill was small enough that  it would not have been a reportable spill according to the regulations even if it had occurred outside.  The plate shop ventilation system was equipped with particle filters for the heavy metal dust which the gas would pass right through.  However, it was a small amount and would be dispersed harmlessly in the atmosphere after emerging from the exhaust vent on the roof.

Later Mark and I were headed back to the trailer at lunchtime.  We heard a loud laugh and then Earl came around the corner of the administration trailer escorting Wendy and Louise. Earl was in a good mood and looked ready to entertain.  Both women were radiating merry smiles and enjoying the attention that Earl was lavishing upon them.

Earl pointed down at a patch of ice in front of Wendy.  “Watch your step darlin’.  That ice’s slicker than snot on a stump.”  The women tittered.  I had never seen Louise look so carefree and relaxed.

“Where are you going with these gorgeous ladies, Earl?” I asked him.

“We’re going over to the diner for lunch.  Why don’t you boys come along?” Earl answered, opening the door of his rented car for the women.

“No thanks.  I’m brown bagging it today,” I said.

“Yeah, I’ve got some home-made pasta to throw in the microwave,” said Mark.

Earl nodded and lowered his big body into the car.

Mark chuckled as they drove off.  “Which one of those two do you think Earl’s after?”

CHAPTER 57

Mark and I walked into a tumultuous clamor in the plate shop changing room this morning. About a dozen laborers were clustered around Mick the Prick, the union shop steward, and they were all talking at once, whether anyone was listening or not.  Nobody paid any attention to us so we crowded into the room and tried to piece together what the hubbub was about.  Apparently the union supervisor on the evening shift had reported the discovery of ammunition in the plate shop.

Last night Earl had stayed late through the evening shift and supervised the laborers as they worked on dismantling the cabinets and work tables with sledge hammers, pry bars and rivet busters.  A couple of the laborers had found the artillery shell that Earl had stashed away in a cabinet and they had told the union foreman.  The union foreman had left a message for the day crew, informing them that half a dozen artillery shells had been uncovered inside the plate shop.  As I tried to get someone to pay attention to me long enough to tell me what had happened, I heard the number of shells increase to twenty.

“Jesus Christ!  They found a whole fuckin’ crate with at least 20 shells in it!” Duck hurriedly told me before joining the throng of laborers who were all noisily demanding information and authoritively declaring opinions at the same time.

Mark stood there dangling his respirator by its head straps and looking bemused.  I questioned anybody that would stop long enough to listen and tried to discover the origin of this fantastic tale.  Since Earl and I had combed through the entire plate shop, I was absolutely certain that there were no other shells besides the one that Earl had shown me.  Despite the fact that nobody knew the contents of the plate shop anywhere near as thoroughly as we did, I could not get anyone to listen to me.  I felt sure that Earl would have been successful in gaining an audience and clearing up the confusion, but Johnny A. had told him to come in at lunch time today since he worked late last night.  Finally I collared Reggie Moon and related what I knew to him.  He nodded seriously and I felt confident that now this farce would be unravelled.  A minute later Reggie turned to Buck and an RSA supervisor, who had just arrived, and told them that a box of artillery shells had been discovered in the plate shop. I shook my head in frustration.

Five minutes later Dan Thompson, the Site Safety Officer for C&C, and Hal Smith, C&C’s chief job superintendent, came in accompanied by three serious looking officials from RSA who usually never left their office trailer.  They were followed shortly thereafter by two representatives of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and a high level pow wow took place.  I was allowed to give a brief statement and afterwards we were sent back to our trailer to wait further instructions.  Meanwhile, all access to the plate shop containment was restricted.

Johnny A. rolled his eyes in disbelief when we told him the news and he bustled off to join the conference.  Dan Thompson had been trying to locate him on the radio for 15 minutes, but Johnny A. had turned it off as usual because the noise irritated him.  Half an hour later he came back and informed us that we were to do a jump after coffee break and carefully decon and remove any and all shells that we could find.  The ordinance people for the Army wanted to inspect the ammunition and a specialist was already on his way down from Fort Deerlick, an hour away.

After coffee break Mark and I returned to the plate shop and suited up.  I had insisted that Reggie Moon telephone and wake up the evening union foreman to have him relate exactly what had occurred.  The evening foreman had declared that a box of shells had been found on the floor in the corner behind the demineralization system.  As I had suspected, the foreman had never actually gone into the containment himself to verify the report.  I scoffed out loud at the exaggerated rumours, but the union laborers looked completely unconvinced of my story.  Mark was enjoying the comedy immensely.

Our assignment was to go in, wipe any contamination off the shells and bring them to the door, where an HP would frisk them out.  When we were certain that there was no longer any ammunition in the plate shop we were to immediately exit.  I resigned myself to play along with the absurd joke and nodded my head as we received our instructions from Hal Smith, who asked us repeatedly if we understood everything clearly.

Mark and I entered the containment and I went straight to the cabinet where Earl had left the shell.  I pulled it out and held it while Mark wiped it down with a damp rag.  A minute later I was back at the door and an HP was frisking out the shell.  Just to be absolutely thorough, Mark and I searched through every nook and cranny behind the demin system and, of course, found no more shells.  In ten minutes we were out and making our brief report.

As I walked down the corridor to the PCM I heard somebody ponder out loud, “I wonder what happened to all the rest of the shells?”  Mark and I looked at each other and shook our heads, laughing.

By the time we came back into the changing room, speculation was already rampant that somebody must have stolen the missing shells.  One of the laborers remembered that Earl was always talking about how much he really loved military souvenirs and someone else suggested that he must have snuck them out during the night.

Twenty minutes later we were back in our trailer bringing Johnny A. up to date on the developments.  Johnny A. was looking at us bug-eyed, torn between irritation at the useless interruption of production and thoroughly amused at this latest bit of unparalleled nonsense.  The phone rang and Johnny A. answered it.  As he listened the corners of his lips twisted with hilarity and his eyes glazed over with impatience.

When Johnny A. hung up he leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling for a moment.  We waited patiently.  Johnny A. sighed.  Then a slight grin spread across his face and he looked at us.

“The Army wants to know what happened to the missing shells.”  Mark and I stared at him incredulously and then we all burst out laughing.  Johnny A. regained his composure and went on.  “The Army’s beginning an investigation and Earl’s been implicated as the most probable culprit.  The theory is that he snuck the shells out the back door of the plate shop and stashed them in the chapel until he could come back and load them into his car.  Not only does the Army want to investigate him for theft of Federal property but RSA is all riled up about the possibility that he may have removed some potentially contaminated items from a radiologically controlled area without having them frisked.  An investigation crew of Army security people and RSA radiation technicians are heading over to Earl’s motel right now to search his room and his car.  You guys better get on over there too.  I’m going to see if I can straighten things up on this end.  If any newspaper reporters show up, don’t talk to them.  Just tell them you’re not authorized to make public statements.  Also there’s even talk of the FBI being brought in.  What a pack of nitwits!”

Earl was now staying at a cheap and squalid motel not far from the base.  Mark and I arrived there at the same time as the Army and RSA investigators.  The motel owner was from India and he padded in soft sandals ahead of us down the hallway to Earl’s room.  He looked quite alarmed as he showed us the door.  The two Army investigators knocked sharply and stood stiffly waiting for a reply.  One of the HP’s flicked on the switch of his frisker and it ticked sporadically.  The Indian motel owner looked at the frisker suspiciously and stepped back several paces with a worried expression.

The Army man knocked again and I heard the deep rumble of Earl’s voice inside the room.  A moment later he opened the door and looked out at his visitors with surprise.  His hair stuck out in several directions and his eyes blinked in the light of the hallway.  He was wearing a pair of jeans but was barechested and barefooted.  The Army investigators showed him their identification.  Then they informed him that they wanted to conduct an informal search of his premises for some missing ordinance and that his cooperation would be greatly appreciated.

Earl squinted his eyes even tighter and stared at the men in shock.  “What the . . . .” he muttered and then pushed the door open with an angry frown.  The Army investigators stepped past him and turned on the light.  The HP walked into the room holding his frisker out in front of him.  The rest of us, including the motel owner, crowded in behind.

The air was thick with cigarette smoke and there was a strong odour of whiskey, ash trays and human bodies.  The men in front had all stopped short and were staring about them uneasily. I heard a soft moaning and saw a porno film showing on the television.  Socks, underwear and tee shirts were strewn about the floor along with some worn and battered pornographic magazines.  One entitled “Bulbous Boobs” was poking out from under a sweater.  Over the arm of a chair was draped a bright red bra.  My eyes swivelled quickly to the bed and I saw what the others had been staring at.  A sleepy headed girl with long peroxide blonde hair was huddled with the sheet pulled up to her neck.  She was staring back at us with a frightened look on her ultraviolet light tanned face.  On the bedside table an ashtray was overflowing with butts and an empty bottle was lying in a sticky pool of whiskey.  A jar of vaseline was half tucked under a pillow.

One of the Army investigators turned to Earl and said brusquely, “Give this woman a robe.”

Earl looked around and tossed her the tee shirt with the acid burn holes.  She pulled it on under the sheet and hopped out of the bed.  One of her nipples was pushing out through one of the burn holes and she covered it with the palm of her hand as she slipped into the bathroom.  Earl scratched his back between his shoulder blades and picked up a pack of Marlboros.

“What the hell is this all about?” he grunted as he lit up a cigarette.  I was standing about four feet away from him and his breath was so powerful that I took an involuntary step backwards and tried to blow the foul smelling air back out of my nose and mouth.

The HP was still holding his frisker out in front of him as he turned slowly in the room.  One of the Army investigators was staring down at the floor with an expression of revulsion.  On the carpet at his foot lay a rumpled and crusty condom.  Earl saw what he was looking at and grimaced.  Then he walked over and kicked the condom under the bed with his barefoot.

The Army investigator grimly got down on his knees and daintily lifted the sheet to look under the bed.  He glanced back up at Earl.  “Any more nice surprises for me under here?”

Earl snorted and then laughed, with cigarette smoke billowing out of his mouth.  “No.  They cleaned up in here yesterday.  I think they got them all.”

I turned my head but still got a waft of his rank smelling breath.  The Army investigators and the HP’s busied themselves searching the room and the closets.  The girl came out of the bathroom wearing a robe and lit up a cigarette.  She balanced the cigarette on top of the pile of butts in the ashtray and sat on the bed brushing her hair.  The cigarette started burning a filter on one of the butts and the harsh smell mingled with the other odors in the room.

After a minute of searching, the investigators were satisfied that there was no missing ordinance present in the room and one of them addressed Earl.  “I’m going to have to ask you to come downstairs and let us check your car.  After that we’ll be finished.”

Earl grunted.  “OK.  Let me grab my keys.”

He stubbed his cigarette into the ashtray and knocked several butts onto the table.  One of them rolled off and fell on the carpet.  Suddenly we heard a loud cry and everyone looked at the T.V.  A man was tightly gripping a girl’s tattooed buttocks and violently thrusting into her as she was bent over a table in front of him.  She was panting heavily and her face was scrunched up.  She squealed and gasped with every thrust.  Everyone in the room had become momentarily transfixed by this spectacle and stared at the screen for several seconds.  Then the spell seemed to crack and the men looked around awkwardly and then at the girl on the bed.  She sat there brushing her hair staring back at us.

One of the Army investigators collected his faculties and said authoritatively, “OK.  Let’s go outside.”

The motel owner was so nervous he was trembling as he led us back out.  Earl opened his car and his trunk for the investigators.  After a quick glance they nodded their approval and told Earl flatly that they apologized for the intrusion.  With that they and the RSA personnel drove off.  Mark and I walked back into the lounge of the motel with Earl to get out of the cold.  We were all practically choking with hilarity.  I told Earl the whole story of how he had become implicated in the theft of radioactive munitions and he laughed heartily.

“What a bunch of hopeless cluster fucks!  I tell you what!  Hey why don’t you boys have a cup of coffee.”  Earl pointed out the coffee maker and we poured ourselves coffee.

“So that’s your dancer huh Earl?” asked Mark with a grin.

Earl raised his eyelids and his face brightened with excitement.  “Yeah.  Ain’t she a doll baby?”

CHAPTER 58

By the time lunch was over, the story about Earl and the missing shells had spread through all the project personnel on the base.  All the details of Earl’s dancer seemed to now be common knowledge.  In fact, quite a few tidbits of information, that probably had no basis in truth what so ever, were also being freely circulated.

“She still had cum on her chin when they walked in!” I heard a laborer tell another in the cafeteria.

“Oh yeah?  I heard he was spread eagled and hand cuffed to the bed when she opened the door!” declared another.

After lunch I was making a pile of xerox copies in the administration trailer when a couple of heavy thuds on the metal stairs outside announced Earl’s imminent arrival.  I caught Louise making a quick glance at the door as it opened and focus back down at the papers on her desk.

“Good afternoon ladies. How’re y’all?” Earl greeted the women warmly.

The four secretaries said hi to Earl but they all looked a bit awkward.  They appeared to be teetering between open amusement and embarrassment.  In the accountant’s corner there was a chilly silence.  Louise kept her head down in her paperwork.  Her face was flushed and taught.

Earl sauntered over to her desk with his big boots pounding the floor with each step.  He leaned over and rested his hands on the papers she was working on.  “Hey toots!  How are you today?”

Louise jerked her head up and her eyes shot electric bolts of outrage at him.  “Don’t you dare talk to me like that, you filthy creature!  What do you think I am?  One of your dancers?” she flashed angrily at him.  Then she got up and marched off into the rear office.

Earl had stiffened up and was staring at her retreating form with a look of shock.  The secretaries buried themselves in their work with embarrassment.  I industriously stapled xerox copies together.

“Well Jesus Christ Louise!” Earl began.  The rear office door slammed shut.  Earl shook his head in dismay.

“Oh Lord!” he muttered.  “It looks like I’m in the doghouse. Well you ladies have a nice afternoon.”  With that Earl stomped out of the trailer.

Sometime after the two o’clock coffee break, Johnny A. got the word that the army was satisfied that there were no missing shells and that we had been given the OK to go back into the plate shop.  Since it was already so late we decided to just wait until tomorrow morning.

Before leaving for the day I gave Christine a call at The Messenger.  When she answered the phone she again sounded harried and distracted.  She was still in the middle of a conversation with someone at her desk after she picked up the phone and I listened to her give some brief details about a utilities board meeting.

“Hello.  Christine Duschene speaking.  Sorry to keep you waiting.” she finally spoke into the phone.

“Hi Christine, it’s Otto.”

Christine’s manner and voice changed abruptly.  “Oh hi Otto.  I’m glad you called.  How are you?”

“I’m fine.  It sounds like you’re pretty busy.”

“Yes, things are really hectic.  I’m being sent out to Denver to cover the governors’ convention.  I’m leaving in an hour so unfortunately we can’t get together for a few more days.”

“Oh that’s OK.  It sounds exciting.”

“Yes, it’s a really good opportunity for me.  Also I’m bringing my skis along.  I’m determined to squeeze in one good day of skiing on Saturday after the convention is over.”

“Now you’re making me jealous Christine.”

“I know.  Life can be misery.  Listen Otto, I’d better run.  I’ll call you when I get back.”

I hung up the phone and was changing out of my steel toed boots when Mark came in.

“Guess what.” he said with a grin.  “The army ordinance specialist said that the shell which we were handling so casually because we thought it was a dud, was actually live ammunition and highly unstable.”

CHAPTER 59

Last night I played basketball with Mark and Tommy and got home about nine o’clock feeling tired but relaxed from the workout.  As soon as I opened the door I noticed a dramatic change in the appearance of the apartment.  Randall had apparently gone on one of his furious cleaning rampages and scoured the entire house.  Randall could sometimes spill coffee on the kitchen floor and not even bother to wipe it up and then sporadically spend a whole day charging around the apartment scrubbing, mopping and vacuuming.  The bathroom absolutely gleamed.  Randall had put in two 100 watt bulbs and the white surfaces shone brilliantly.  The bathtub and sink were both spotless and the toilet was a museum piece.  He had even bought a new shower curtain.

I walked into the room I usually used as a bedroom.  Since all I had was a futon mattress on the floor, a bag of clothes and a portable cassette player, I would sometimes switch rooms just for the sake of variety.  Otherwise my second room remained completely empty.  I made a point of at least sticking my head into it once a day since I was paying rent for both the rooms.  I started thinking about how much nicer the rooms would look if I sanded and varnished the floors and painted the walls.  The floorboards were made out of basically good hardwood and had a lot of potential.  If I knew I was going to live in this town for a while it would certainly be worth doing.

I went downstairs to the basement and found Randall in his shop, feverishly sanding the door of a cabinet he was making.  The shop was small and compact and Randall used his space as efficiently as possible.  He had built racks and shelves and cabinets, and his tools were all put away neatly.  All his clamps hung on a rack on one wall and he had a vast array of files and chisels hanging above his work bench.  A small radio was playing jazz over the rasping sound of his sanding.

Randall looked up and pulled off his dust mask.  “Hey, how was basketball?”

“Oh it was great.  Even at my age I can still run with those kids.  Hey the house looks great.  You must have put in a lot of work.”

“Yeah, I came home early today and sort of went berserk.  Actually I quit my job.  My boss was stressing out and giving me a lot of shit and I told him I’ve been climbing trees for ten years and I don’t need to listen to his crap.  So I picked up my chain saw and came home.  Later my boss called up and apologized and told me he wanted me to come back to work tomorrow, but I told him I wanted to take at least two weeks off.  I need to calm down.  Besides I’m sick of freezing my ass off in the cold everyday.  These damn yankee winters are killing me.  Hey look at these hinges I got for the door of this cabinet.  They’re going to line up like this.”  Randall held a hinge in position on the cabinet frame to show me how the door would close.

“What kind of wood is this?”

“Birch.  Look at this nice grain here.  This cabinet is going to go on that wall over there.  I need to finish this one and another cabinet.  My space is so tight in here that I have to organize everything really well or I’ll have all kinds of problems when I actually start making an instrument.  Besides I can’t work in a messy shop.  If I need a tool and I have to stop everything to hunt around for it, I’ll go stark raving mad.  And I figure I’m already half way there anyway so I don’t need any more help.”  Randall chuckled and I laughed.

We stood looking down at the cabinet for a moment and then I voiced the idea that had come to me.  “You know I was thinking the floors would look real nice if we redid them.”

“Oh yeah!” Randall replied with enthusiasm.  “That’s really beautiful wood.  It’s oak.  It’s a shame that the floors are in such a wretched condition.  They would definitely look gorgeous.”

“Yeah, if I knew I was going to be here for a while I wouldn’t mind spending a few bucks to make the place look nicer.”

“It sounds like you’re getting tired of living like a Bedouin in a tent.” Randall laughed.  “Actually I could do the work myself.  I’m certainly going to be here for quite sometime.”

“Well that brings an idea to mind.  I’ve got the money and you’ve got the time so maybe we can work something out.”

“Sure.” said Randall eagerly.  I’ll do it real cheap.  That way I’ll have an improved apartment and make a little money at the same time.”

We made the arrangements and I went back to my Spartan quarters feeling pleased.  It felt good to do something positive for the apartment.  Randall was right.  I have been living like a Bedouin in a tent.  But even a nomad has more of a center than I do these days.  A Bedouin has all his possessions with him in his tent while everything I own is in a storage locker that I haven’t even seen in two years.

CHAPTER 60

January had come to a close and we had cleaned out most of the vats in the plate shop.  There was still quite a lot of work to be done in there but most of the nasty stuff had been pumped out into drums and moved out to the drum storage yard.  We were still power spraying and pumping out the last bit of residue from the vats.  Mark had grabbed a rivet buster today and begun knocking apart the cleaned vats and the ventilation duct work.

A rivet buster is a lighter version of a jack hammer.  It has a handle at the top that can be grasped with one hand while pulling the trigger.  With the other hand it can be held steady by the shaft and aimed.  It can knock steel vats and tanks apart and it can also cut through steel plates and chop up concrete.

About a year ago on a project for Toxikleen, I spent a week using a rivet buster to break up a dozen radioactive concrete slabs.  Toxikleen had poured the slabs as the solidification treatment of some radioactive and cadmium contaminated soil.  However the samples of the concrete had been rejected by the disposal facility for being above the permissible level for burial for cadmium of one part per million.  So we had to break up all the slabs into small chunks and throw them back into the cement mixer.  The slabs were eight feet long, four feet wide and ten inches thick.  They weighed about two thousand pounds each.  After breaking up the slabs we had to shovel the chunks into 55 gallon drums which were picked up by a hydraulic arm and emptied into the mixer.  Shovelling several thousand pounds of material a day is hard work and my back needed several days of paperwork duty to recover from that week.

Mark was putting the rivet buster up against the seams and corners of the vats and ducts and blasting them apart.  After the metal work was cleaned it could either be thrown into B-25 boxes to be disposed of as noncompactible radioactive waste or, if it was clean enough, even as non DOT regulated construction waste.

While I was at work Randall was busy back at the apartment sanding and polyurethaning the floors.  I spent two nights on the floor of Mark’s apartment to give Randall room to work.  Randall worked on the floors with the same fastidious attention to detail and quality that he employed in his wood shop.  When he was finished the result even exceeded my optimistic expectations.  The new floors gave a completely different atmosphere to our formerly dingy and dilapidated apartment.  I spent Saturday evening and Sunday painting my rooms myself.

On Sunday evening I had just finished cleaning up when Christine called.  Her animated description of the powder snow conditions in Colorado reminded me ruefully of the vacation time I had accumulated since my last vacation almost two years ago.  We decided to meet for dinner tomorrow.  Christine knew a good Indian restaurant and so our plans were arranged.

I went down to Jozef’s room and joined him in a medicinal shot of Polish vodka before going to bed.  I told him about my impending date with a girl that I remembered as being quite good looking, when last seen and he related his growing fascination with an Irish girl who was a waitress in a coffee shop near the university.

I went back to my rooms and sniffed the air.  The fresh paint smell wasn’t too overpowering and I decided they were habitable.  I was quite pleased with my two renovated rooms.  They were empty of course, but they looked cozy with their shiny new floors and gleaming white walls.  I had even bought blue wall plates for the light switches and electrical outlets.  I took a last contented look around my new quarters and crawled into my futon to sleep.

CHAPTER 61

The next day I told the union laborers in the plate shop that I was going to have dinner with Christine.

“Get the fuck out of here.” growled Nick the Greek skeptically.

“You going to do her doggie style, Otto?” Duck snorted one nostril as he pushed a broom across the floor of the changing room.

“Actually I think we’re just going to have dinner.” I said.

Nick wrinkled his nose in a sneer.  “What a fuckin’ loser!”

“Where are you taking her for dinner?” asked Tommy.

“Well she’s taking me to an Indian restaurant.” I answered.  The laborers all guffawed disdainfully.

“How can you eat that shit?” Duck demanded sharply.

“Yeah, what is she, some kind of fuckin’ freak?” Tommy burst out.

“Otto, don’t you ever eat a good old American steak dinner?” Nick the Greek exploded.  “Every time I see you, you’re eating some kind of bullshit from South America with a sauce from fuckin’ Mars, for Christ’s sake!”

I started laughing and couldn’t make any kind of reply.  The laborers stood in a ring staring at me.  Nick shook his head and rasped.  “Hurry up and get the fuck in there where you belong.  You’ve been breathing too many chemicals.  We ought to lock you up in there.”

About 7 o’clock that evening I met Christine at the Indian restaurant in the neighborhood where she lived.  This was the same part of town where most of the restaurants and night spots were and the streets were lively even on a cold weekday night.  Christine was waiting inside the door, dressed in some old jeans, thick-soled black shoes, a black leather jacket, and a red scarf. It had been a few years since I had seen her, but she looked the same.  The only changes I noticed when I looked at her closely were some fine lines under her lively eyes.

I kissed her cheek and we smiled at each other.  A waiter rushed over to us and led us to a table.  I followed Christine and discreetly admired her as she walked in front of me.  She seemed, at first glance anyway, to not have lost any of her former appeal.  I apparently wasn’t alone in this opinion for as we passed the table of a couple of yuppie types in blue suits, they swivelled their heads and gaped at her with obvious enjoyment.  Out of the corner of my eye I noticed one of them give the other a surreptitious nod in Christine’s direction.

The waiter deposited us at our table with an obsequious flourish and we started taking our jackets off.  When Christine’s head was down and her body was turned advantageously towards me, I stole a glance at her figure and saw the reason for my brother’s lustful fantasies.

We sat down and smiled at each other.  We still hadn’t spoken and there was a slight awkward pause as if neither one of us knew where to begin.  I tried to remember the scanty details I knew about her.  A busboy came over and filled our water glasses. Christine and I both opened our menus and hid behind them, looking down the endless list of unfamiliar dishes.  The waiter  came back and asked if we wanted any drinks from the bar.  We ordered a pair of Indian beers and the waiter zoomed off, leaving us alone again.

Christine gave a nervous laugh.  “This menu’s making me dizzy.”  She put down her menu and looked across at me.

“Yeah.  They’ve got quite a selection.”  I put my menu down also.  We looked at each other for a moment and laughed at our own embarrassment.

“So, um…” Christine started and then paused, uncertain what to say next.  She tossed her head slightly and smiled.  “How are you?”  She laughed again at her mundane question, but it served the purpose of getting the ball rolling.

“Fine.  It’s been several years hasn’t it?  You look terrific.”

Christine looked down for a moment and blushed slightly.  A smile broadened across her face and showed her beautiful white teeth.  “Oh thanks.  I’ve been running around so much that I feel kind of ragged.”  She frowned pensively.  “I think the last time I saw you was at that party on the Lower East Side.”

A distant memory of Christine dancing Salsa while her boyfriend looked on uncomfortably came suddenly back to me.  “Oh that’s right.  I had forgotten all about that party.”

“I guess I didn’t make much of an impression on you.” said Christine brightly and with a hint of flirtation that nearly took my breath away.  Then her expression became serious and she said softly.  “You had other distractions then, didn’t you?”

Before I could respond the waiter pounced on us.  We picked up our menus and hurriedly ordered anything that we recognized.  The waiter bustled off and we were left alone again.  My mind raced, searching through the catalogue of conversation openers.  Christine touched her sharp front teeth with a delicate pink sliver of tongue.  We both started speaking at the same time and then stopped.

“Go ahead.” I said, smiling at her.

“Oh, I was just going to say that I was surprised when Frederick told me about your divorce.  You and Tania seemed like a really nice couple.”

“Yes, we slowly drifted apart when we were living in New York.  Our life goals and interests became really quite different.  I think we both still loved each other, but neither one of us were living the kind of life we wanted to live and we started secretly blaming each other for our frustrations.  Like a lot of situations in life, it wasn’t black and white, or something you could easily categorize and fit into a neat compartment.  It was more complex.  It was a blend of good times and bad times, positive and negative characteristics, times when we helped each other and loved each other and times when we made foolish, selfish mistakes, or got mad at and resented each other. Sometimes now, years later, I find myself suddenly understanding something that I did or felt when we were married.  In any case I don’t think we could live together any more, but I really wish her well and hope she’s happy.  I got used to taking care of her and that’s a hard habit to let go.”  I realized that I’d been going on at considerable length and suddenly felt slightly embarrassed.  Christine looked like she didn’t mind though and her forehead was even creased with thin lines of concern as she listened.  To divert attention from my own story and appear not too self absorbed, I asked her what had happened with her old boyfriend.

“Well…” Christine had just begun to collect her thoughts when the waiter came back with two bottles of beer.  We leaned back and waited while the waiter filled our glasses.  When he had withdrawn I picked up my glass and touched it to her’s.

“Ein prosit.” I said.

Christine smiled.  “Cin cin.” she answered and we both sipped our beers.  Christine looked thoughtful and asked.  “Where was I?”

“I was interrogating you about your love life.”

Christine laughed.  “That’s right, the epic drama of my love life.  Well, Alex finished law school a year before I finished journalism school and he got a job in Los Angeles.  I went out to visit him once, but he had changed a lot.  He had a fancy condo and an expensive sports car and he seemed to have gotten into a whole different life style.  Not that there’s anything wrong with sports cars and condos, but I guess I just didn’t feel much in common with him any more.  I had always been attracted to him because he was very bright and we had shared the same youthful political ideals about changing the world and all that kind of stuff.”  Christine flashed her white teeth in a smile as she said this.  “But in California when I saw him get all worked up about a smudge on the hood of his car, I sort of lost something.  It seemed a bit too superficial.  Anyway I didn’t want to live in Los Angeles and we became more distant as time went on.  When he finally told me he was seeing someone else, it didn’t even bother me.  We’re still friends and we talk once in a while, but it’s becoming more and more infrequent.”

The waiter brought a tray of vegetable fritters and condiments for appetizers.  Christine daintily picked up a fritter by one corner and dipped it into a green sauce.  “I’m not sure what this sauce is, but I think it’s coriander.  In any case it tastes good.”

“I always get the feeling that I’m doing the equivalent of putting ketchup on ice cream.” I said, dunking an unidentified fried tidbit into a red tamarind sauce.

Christine giggled.  “The waiters are probably all laughing out in the kitchen at the silly Americans who don’t know how to eat properly.”

Through the appetizers and into the main course of curried lamb and Tandoori chicken, Christine and I caught up with the principle events in each other’s lives over the last several years.  Christine had done a summer internship at a newspaper in Milwaukee and it was there that she made the contact that eventually landed her a job at The Messenger.  Her real interest was in the international arena, but for the time being she felt satisfied with her success as a regular reporter on the city beat.  She went occasionally back to New York, but with the number of friends still living there diminishing constantly, her visits were becoming less frequent.  She had missed the excitement of New York at first but as she put it, the close proximity of skiing in the winter and camping in the summer, more than made up for the absence of a high crime rate, the hordes of cockroaches, the astronomical rents for pocket size apartments, and all the other urban advantages that New York has to offer.

When I couldn’t eat any more I pushed away my plate and poured myself a fresh bottle of beer.  Christine asked me how my brother was doing and I described his life as a mountaineering and back country ski guide in Lake Placid and his evident enjoyment of fatherhood.  Christine seemed interested in all the small details of his work, his marriage, and his child, so I supplied her with as much information as I could think of.  Finally she smiled and started to say something and then stopped again.  I waited as she stared down at her plate.  Then she shook her head and smiled again, biting her lower lip.  She looked up at me and then across the room out of the corner of her eyes.

“You know, when I first met Frederick, I had an awful crush on him.  But he was already going out with his wife and then I met Alex.  Those first two months, my god, how I suffered for him.”

I was amazed.  “That’s funny.  He was always raving about you.”

“Really?”  An expression of delighted surprise lit up Christine’s face.  She shot forward across the table and propped herself up on her elbows.  “Tell me what he said about me.”  Christine was eager with curiosity.

I vacillated.  I didn’t know how much of what my brother had really said about Christine I either wanted or felt I should tell her.  Christine was staring at me impatiently.

“You’re putting me on the spot.” I said, laughing but remaining evasive.

“I know I am.”  Christine twisted her knuckles under her chin and gazed directly at me with a mischievous smile.

“Well he said you were a very attractive woman.”

Christine gave me a skeptical look.  “What exactly did he say?”

I squirmed.  “Well, you get the gist of it.”

“Tell me what he really said.” Christine pressed.

I looked around thinking the waiter should be due for a timely interruption, but he was nowhere in sight.

“Well you know how guys talk.”  I raised one hand in a helpless gesture, instantly regretting the remark. I knew she wouldn’t be satisfied with this lame explanation.

Christine didn’t move her penetrating eyes from me.  A knowing smile graced her elegant red lips.  “He must have said something really obscene and disgusting.”  she said evenly.

An uncontrollable nervous grin twitched the muscles in my cheeks.  She was pinning me down and cutting through to the titillating truth and we both knew it.  “You want to hear the dirt, don’t you?”

Christine nodded her head with her chin still propped up on her palm.  I took a deep breath.  I felt like a cornered prey that was turning to face its pursuer with teeth bared.  I leaned forward over the table.  My face was now only six inches from Christine’s.  I could smell her perfume and her shampooed hair.  The skin of her neck looked smooth and soft and I felt an urge to slowly rub the tip of my nose against it.  I looked her straight in the eye and said quietly but firmly.

“What my naughty little brother really said about you, was that you had an incredible body and he wanted to rip your clothes off and fuck your brains out.”

Christine’s eyes got wider with each syllable.  She covered her mouth with her hand but stayed leaning across the table, staring at me with surprise.  My cheek twitched with a nervous grin again and I could see Christine grinning also behind her hand and her bug eyes.  Before either of us could speak the waiter appeared and began removing the plates.  Christine and I snapped back into our chairs and looked away from each other.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw Christine looking at her hands in her lap and composing herself.  I noticed her chest rising and falling.  A wave of doubt came over me and I began worrying that I’d stepped over the line of propriety and offended her.  I didn’t think I had, but I didn’t want her to feel that her friend’s older brother was some kind of crass buffoon.

The waiter asked if we wanted anything else.  I looked at Christine and she just nodded her head.  I told the waiter to bring the check and dug into my jacket pocket for my wallet.

Christine sprang into activity.  “I’ll get this Otto.  You’re the visitor in town.”

We argued briefly, but Christine was firm so I finally gave up.  She paid the bill and we went out into the cold.  In the street we faced each other uncertainly.

“I ought to go home now.  I need to get up early tomorrow.” Christine said flatly.  “It was nice to see you Otto.”

I felt dejected.  Maybe I had offended her, or maybe she had just been hospitable and fulfilled a social obligation by taking me out to dinner.  Not expecting any response I threw out almost mechanically, “Can I walk you home?”

Christine smiled.  “Sure.”

She touched my arm with one hand and pointed our way down the street with the other.  I was pleasantly surprised and my arm almost tingled up to my shoulder from her touch.  We walked quietly down the street together while I racked my brains trying to think of something to say that wouldn’t sound too absolutely banal.

Christine was the one who spoke first.  “How long did you say you were going to be here Otto?”

“Several more months probably.  It depends on the job.  Also in this business you never know when they’re going to send you someplace else.”

Christine nodded.  There was a pause and then she added, “Maybe we could go skiing together over the weekend.”

A rush of happy excitement went through me.  “Yeah!  Why not?  I’d love to.  You know how the Flanagans love to ski.”

We continued down the street making plans for a cross country ski excursion next Saturday.  I decided with relief that I hadn’t offended her after all and was already looking forward with anticipation to our next encounter.  Christine stopped in front of a brick townhouse with a wrought iron railing on the front steps.

“This is where I live.”  She turned and looked at me.

I looked up at the polished brass door knocker.  “It looks nice.”

Christine and I stood in front of her steps staring at each other.  Christine had an expectant smile on her face and an uncontrollable idiotic grin spread over mine.  My stomach fluttered as I asked myself if she was waiting for me to kiss her.  Christine suddenly leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek.

“Good night Otto.”

Then she quickly turned and darted into her apartment.  The door clicked behind her and I was left standing alone, trying to grasp ahold of all the tantalizing sensations and thoughts that the evening had produced.

CHAPTER 62

The next morning I woke up feeling annoyed at myself for having gotten so excited by the previous evening with Christine. I told myself almost angrily that I’d seen her only once and that it was completely ridiculous to begin fantasizing about her or to extrapolate anything more than just a casual acquaintance.  After all I barely knew her.  She probably had plenty of attitudes and mannerisms that I would find repugnant.  I usually, by nature, maintain an even emotional balance, and the experience of divorce had dissipated the most extreme of the romantic notions that beforehand had possessed me so thoroughly.  Even so I had to admit that dinner with Christine had most definitely upset my equilibrium.

“To hell with it!” I thought as I drove to the army base.  “It’s time to go to work.”

That morning Mark and I did a jump in the plate shop to continue knocking the vats apart.  I was greeted in the changing room by Nick the Greek who stared at me malignantly through his safety glasses.

“Hey Toxqueen.  Did you get any?”

Mark started chuckling and I grinned at Nick, Duck and Tommy, who were all waiting for their briefing report on my romantic episodes.

“What’s the story Otto?  Did you get any or not?” Nick repeated impatiently.

I shook my head.  “Nothing to report guys.  We just had dinner.”

Nick grimaced.  “Jesus!  What a hopeless fuck you are!”

Tommy burst out laughing and settled down comfortably on the unused emergency shower with a porn mag. Duck spat in the trash can and went back to sweeping the floor.

After coffee break Johnny A. pulled me aside as I was getting ready to head back to the plate shop.  “I’ve got a job for you Otto.”

Johnny A. took off his thick glasses, dug a finger in his eye, and groped around blindly on top of the computer for his Diet Pepsi tobacco spit bottle.  The bottle was, as usual, almost full and, sensing danger, I automatically reached out to save it from getting knocked over.  Then I looked at the brown, frothy contents and decided to trust the computer’s fate to the gods.  After a couple of heart stopping near misses Johnny A.’s hand  closed on the bottle and brought it to his lips.  Some more brown liquid that resembled brackish pond water dribbled out of his mouth and then Johnny A. put the bottle back on the edge of the computer.  He put his glasses back on, blinked several times, and was finally ready to speak.

“We need to send composite samples of each waste profile to the lab so they can conduct a treatability study. You’ll need to take samples from all the drums in each profile and mix them in a 5 gallon bucket to get a representative sample of all the drums in the profile.  RSA won’t allow us to open any drums outside, but you can bring the drums into the plate shop through the chapel and the guys inside can quickly open them up and take a sample.  Then you can put back the drums and bring over a new batch.  It should be pretty straight forward and shouldn’t take too long.  Spend all day today and even tomorrow if necessary.”

I checked the files and started writing down the numbers of the drums I needed to move.  An hour later I walked out to the drum yard with a list of the first ten drums.  Jack and Lenny were bundled up in their padded coveralls and skull caps with the ear flaps pulled down under their hard hats.  They looked up from their snow shovelling as I approached.

“How’s it going guys?” I greeted them.

“Hey Otto.” said Lenny.  “Man my fingers are gettin’ numb.”

“Yeah, then they’ll be just like your brain.  Get back to work, ya useless pile of shit!” Jack growled at him.  “What’s up Otto.”

I briefly sketched out the details of the drum sampling plan.  The laborers looked at me blankly.  When I finished Jack remained motionless and stared me in the eye for several seconds.

“So.” he said.  “You’re going to take these drums into the plate shop, take a quick sample and then bring them right back out again, right?”

I nodded. “You’ve got the plan.”

Jack stared at me again.  “Even though the drums are frozen solid?”

I started.  This little detail threw a snag in the works.  I shook my head and laughed.  “There appears to be a slight oversight gentlemen.”

Jack roared with laughter and Lenny gave his breathy wheeze. “Oh yeah.” Jack guffawed.  “We’re in good hands with you scientists running the show.”

I went back to the trailer and reminded Johnny A. that the drums were frozen.  He rolled his eyes and shook his head in exasperation.

“Of course.  How stupid.  I’ll have to go back and talk to RSA again after lunch.”

The following morning Earl came into the trailer lugging a suitcase.  Mark looked up from the coffee maker where he was trying to chip the blackened crust off the heating pad with a screwdriver.

“Hey Earl.  You going on a trip?”

Earl set down the suitcase and straightened up.  “Well I tell you what, yesterday when I was back at the motel, that dancer I’ve been shacking up with was bitchin’ at me about everything and I suddenly realized it was time to be moving on.  Shoot, I’d rather listen to a fattening hog pass gas than listen to that bullshit.  So when she went off to work at the club, I just packed up and high tailed it.  I told the motel manager I got called for an emergency cleanup in Norfolk.  Then I spent the night in a different motel, but it’s too damn expensive.  I may have to bunk up with you, Mark while I’m finding another place.  By the way did you make any coffee yet?”

“Coffee’ll be ready in a minute.  Did you say anything to the girl?”

Earl pulled out his cigarettes and sighed.  “Hell I ain’t no good at sayin’ good bye.  I’d rather have a nice clean break.  Hey don’t make the coffee so strong the way Otto did the other day.  What the hell was that stuff you made the other day Otto?  Expresso?  Express to the men’s room you mean.”  Earl let out a loud laugh.  “Hell I’ve seen water in a cypress swamp that tasted better’n that!”

After coffee break that morning Johnny A. updated me on the developments in our drum sampling plan.  RSA was searching for an indoor location where we could bring the drums to thaw them out and sample them.  The problem was that most of the areas had already been surveyed for radioactive contamination and RSA didn’t want to risk recontaminating a clean area.  RSA was obliged by its contract to survey and release certain areas within given time frames so they weren’t very keen on handing a clean area over to Toxikleen.

Finally the next day a site was selected in a building several hundred yards from the drum storage yard.  A temporary radioactive materials storage area was constructed by laying two by fours around the edge as a berm and covering the floor with sheets of poly.  The area was appropriately marked off with yellow and magenta cord and warning signs.

After inspecting the area I went out to the storage yard to coordinate plans with Jack.  It was arranged that Sal and Grady would both be on hand after lunch to pull out the drum pallets we needed and bring them over to the indoor storage area.  I then went off to the RSA office trailer to ensure HP coverage.

At one o’clock I was back at the storage yard.  Jack was directing Sal as Sal lifted pallets out and set them down to the side.

“Hey Otto.” Jack greeted me.

Lenny shuffled up to me and put his arm around my shoulder. “We’re gonna take care of you, don’t worry Otto.”  Then he shuffled off again with the crumpled list of drum numbers in his hand.

I walked up to the lull and looked up at Sal who was sullenly staring at me through his tinted safety glasses.  “How’s it going?” I asked him cheerfully.  Sal nodded slightly and continued glowering at me.

“Don’t waste your time Otto.  It’s like talking to a baboon.”  Jack stared belligerently at Sal and rested his elbow on a drum.

“Hey fuck you!” Sal responded almost mechanically.

I grinned up at Sal again.  We’ve got a lot of pallets for you to pull in and out so we’ll probably keep you pissed off all day.”

“That won’t be hard.” Sal uttered tonelessly.

“In fact,” I pretended to look at my wrist watch.  “I expect to have you furious by two o’clock.”  Sal nodded his head slowly as Jack laughed loudly and Lenny bleated in appreciation.

Grady chugged into the yard and I showed him which pallets to pick up.  Sal had arranged them in a line and Grady picked the first one and was ready to move.  I looked at my watch.  It was twenty five minutes after one and there was no HP in sight.  I called RSA on the radio, but got no response.  Sal had run out of space to put pallets so he and Grady sat on their machines waiting while Jack and Lenny lounged against some drums.  At one thirty I told them all to wait and I headed off to the RSA trailer to find our HP.

In the RSA trailer I was informed that they had completely forgotten about me and now didn’t have anybody available.  I explained that I had a crew of laborers tied up with me and we were all waiting on HP support.  The RSA supervisor shook his head and said sorry, he’d see if he could spring someone free after coffee break.  I started getting frustrated and told him that RSA’s uncooperativeness was going to cost Toxikleen an afternoon of work.  The RSA supervisor became quite testy and was straining noticeably in his effort to remain even slightly civil. Finally he grabbed a radio and crisply instructed one of the HP’s to leave a surveying crew and join me in the storage yard.  Then he glared at me malevolently as I said thank you and walked out.

When I got back to the storage yard, Grady was gone.  Jack informed me that he had gone off to Building 95 where he was also needed.  I had Jack summon Grady on the radio and we stood in the cold waiting.  Sal shook his head in disgust and spat on the ground.  Ten minutes later Grady steamed back in on his forklift. He looked around and noticed that there was still no HP.  He stopped his machine in front of me and spread his hands out inquiringly.  I just hunched my shoulders.

Five minutes later an HP came ambling into the storage yard. I nodded to Grady who slid his forks under the first pallet.  As I was about to turn to give instructions to the HP, Jack set his tools down on top of a drum and he and Lenny started walking off. Grady looked over at him and Jack pointed to his watch.  Grady squinted at his own watch and promptly turned off his machine.  He and Sal climbed down and walked off after Jack and Lenny in the direction of the cafeteria.  Another window of opportunity had slammed shut.  It was coffee break.

I briefly described our operation to the HP who shivered and listened wordlessly.  I told him to meet us again in fifteen minutes and he took off for the warmth of the RSA trailer.

After coffee break I managed to assemble the entire crew again, having had the forethought to pass by the RSA trailer and prod out our HP.  We finally managed to move two pallets to the new area.  To cover the several hundred yard distance at walking speed with the forklift made each trip take about fifteen minutes.  On our third trip we had gone about a hundred yards when the forklift ran out of propane fuel.  Grady climbed down and unclipped the fuel tank from the back of the machine.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes.” he said and he trudged off.

After a while he came back with a full tank and buckled it into place.  The HP was shivering and had drawn himself so deep into the hood under his hard hat that all you could see was the cigarette hanging from his white lips.  Grady got up on his machine and looked at his watch.  He stared at it for five or ten seconds and shook his head skeptically.

“I don’t know Otto.  I don’t think we have enough time to do this now.”

I checked my watch.  It was getting close to quitting time and we weren’t given approval for overtime.

“We’re going to have to put this one back.” Grady added.

The HP saw an opportunity to escape.  “Yeah that’s it for me.”  He started wandering tentatively off in the direction of the RSA trailer and I let him go.

“OK.  Let’s put this back in the yard and pick up where we left off tomorrow.”

CHAPTER 63

The next day we continued moving the drums in a series of fits and starts.  I had to move 38 drums so I could tell it was going to take a lot longer than Johnny A. had hoped.  I told this to Johnny A. this morning and he had looked at me blankly and merely said “Whatever it takes”, before hurrying off to a conference with the Army Corps of Engineers and the EPA.  It was 12 degrees Fahrenheit when I arrived out at the drum yard at 7:15, but I had plenty to think about as I plodded alongside Grady’s forklift and the shivering HP.

Massoud had called up from New York last night and raved bitterly about our landlord, who had apparently decided that he could charge more rent if he evicted us and did some cosmetic renovations.  Then he had switched to soccer and ranted even more venomously about the officiating during the A.C. Milan-Juventus game in the Italian league last Sunday.  As disturbing as the news about our apartment was however, my mind was focused more on a different topic.  Last night I had also spoken with Christine and we had made plans to go cross country skiing Saturday in the mountains about two hours outside of town.  The HP walked along beside me chain smoking and complaining about how much he wanted to go back to Baton Rouge.  I ignored him.

When I walked into our trailer at the end of the day, I found Mark on the phone with the yellow pages open in front of him.

“How much was that?” he was saying.  “That’s fine.  You can make a reservation in the name of Earl Smith.  He’ll be over there tonight.”

Mark hung up.  “I have to get Earl out of my place.  I like the guy, but he smoked so many cigarettes I could barely breathe. So I found him a motel nearby that’s even cheaper than the one he was at before.”

We both started chuckling and then the radio hissed my name loudly.

“This is Otto.”

“Otto, this is Jack.  Can you come out to the drum storage yard please?”

I gulped the rest of my coffee and grabbed my hard hat and safety glasses.  Out in the drum storage yard I met Jack with Lenny and Mick the Prick.

Jack addressed me soberly.  “Otto, I didn’t want to tell you this on the radio and get everybody on the base all excited, but I really think you ought to take a look at this.”

Jack led me over to the acid section and we squeezed past several rows of pallets.  I saw at once why he was concerned.  Two 55 gallon poly drums had apparently been filled too high without leaving enough head space.  When the contents had frozen and expanded, the pressure had bulged the drums outward and forced a leak around the bung holes.  The snow on top of and around the drums was stained bright orange.  There was no doubt in my mind that this was chromic acid waste, but I decided to trudge back to our trailer and get some PH paper to make a quick test.

I was back in five minutes, accompanied by Mark and Earl, who had both been highly amused by my report of the yellow snow. Especially as the necessary clean up would all, by now, be on overtime, Earl was particularly willing to volunteer his assistance.  A general atmosphere of hilarity prevailed with Jack proclaiming loudly that he had finally found the place where Lenny sneaked off to take a leak.  Earl was adding boisterously that he was going to seal Lenny’s dick with a strip of duct tape, and Mick the Prick took a carpet knife out of his pocket and chased Lenny around several pallets, growling that he was going to take care of the problem once and for all.

I stuck a strip of PH paper in the yellow snow and it gave a reading of about one, showing it to be strongly acidic.  We sent Lenny off to get some five gallon pails and Mark went to the RSA trailer to bring back an HP.  Fifteen minutes later we were all wearing gloves and scooping the yellow snow into the pails.  When we were done the HP surveyed the ground and we all went merrily home with an extra hour of overtime pay to our credit.

CHAPTER 64

On Friday night I joined Mark, Earl, and several HP’s at a bar in a hotel near the base.  Mark and I had gone home to change and relax after work, but everyone else had headed straight to the bar at 4 o’clock.  I could hear their voices over the general hubbub of the bar as soon as I walked in.  I was greeted boisterously and given a glass of beer from the pitcher.

In the group was an HP that I knew slightly, but had never worked with.  His nickname was Diesel and I didn’t know his real name.  In fact I never did find out what his real name was.  He was in his late twenties and had a tall athletic build.  He wore mirror sun glasses even inside the bar and a shiny, black leather jacket over a tee shirt that proclaimed “Born To Be Wild!”

Diesel was leaving the job site and tonight was his last night.  He had a girl friend with him and she looked miserable that he was leaving, but Diesel was in quite jolly spirits and didn’t seem to want to be bothered with unhappy females.  He was chugging beer and laughing loudly while she sat disconsolately beside him.

Mark had told me Diesel’s story this afternoon.  Diesel was originally from some place in Ohio.  RSA gave its personnel a paid flight home once a month.  In November Diesel had told RSA that he had changed his place of residence to Hawaii and ever since then had been enjoying all expenses paid visits to Hawaii, courtesy of RSA.  Diesel apparently also had a girl friend who he stayed with in Hawaii, to go along with the one he had here.  The girl sitting next to him now, apparently had never found out why he had always put off taking her along with him.  Finally Diesel got a bit too greedy and RSA caught up with his scams.  He had rented a whole house with his expense money and had rented it out to a local family at a considerable profit.  Diesel was catching a plane back to Ohio tomorrow where he would be joining the ranks of the unemployed.

Earl was standing at the bar about ten feet away with a group of HP’s.  I heard his voice rise above the background noise.  “…like ridin’ a moped?”

A moment later there followed the sound of laughter with Earl’s voice distinguished above the rest.  I caught Mark’s eye across the table and we both split up laughing.

A couple more pitchers of beer arrived at our table along with Earl’s perennial Bailey’s and coffee.  I brought Earl’s Bailey’s and coffee over to him where he was now expounding on some technical concept like a professor lecturing some first year undergraduates.  “So if the filters get overclogged you’ll end up with particulation infiltration which can cause malfunctuation of the entire process procedure.”  I decided to join Mark at the table where we spent the next several hours fending off even the most oblique approaches to conversation about work.

Four or five beers later I was standing at the bar with Earl who was explaining to me how to find the best spots for bass fishing.  Not being a fisherman myself, I was doing my best to pay attention and learn something new, but my mind kept wandering.  Also I had one eye occupied with the serious task of checking the front door for the arrival of any attractive women. I had just decided that it was probably too late for any more women to come in and I was beginning a self critical chastisement for staying out and getting drunk when I should be getting a good night’s sleep for my early morning tryst to go skiing with Christine.  Suddenly, in mid sentence, Earl gulped and hiccoughed and a jet of white froth shot out of his mouth and landed on the toes of his boots.  Earl glanced around the bar and then nonchalantly lifted one foot and then the other and wiped them clean on the back of his pants’ leg.  Without missing a beat he resumed speaking and finished his sentence.  As he continued with his story I stared at him and then glanced down at his boots which now sported a dapper spit shine.  Earl followed the direction of my eyes and laughed so hard he had to lean on the bar.

“I was hoping I could get away with that without you noticing.  You looked like you were falling asleep on me.”

“Well that little white gob sure got my attention.”

Earl bent over double with laughter.

CHAPTER 65

The next morning my alarm went off and I immediately started cursing myself.  I had wanted to be well rested and capable of interesting and amusing conversation, but instead I felt dull witted and sluggish from the alcohol.  I had managed to get home before becoming thoroughly sloshed so I didn’t have a severe hangover, but I felt far less than 100% on a day when I would have like to have been razor sharp.  I pulled myself stiffly up off my futon and looked out the window.  The prospects for the weather were equally discouraging.  The sky was dark grey and the air felt damp.  I abused myself some more for not having been home to check the weather report last night.

After putting the kettle on for coffee and the radio on to catch a weather report, I padded out to the front steps in my down camping booties, sweat pants and sweat shirt.  The snow at the curb was wet and the pavement was damp.  Drops of water gleamed dully on the railing.  The temperature had risen well above freezing during the night and I was feeling pessimistic about our chances for skiing today.  Inside I heard the weather report and felt even more demoralized.  Forty degrees and 70% chance of rain.

I called Christine.  I didn’t want to postpone our date and miss an opportunity that may not arise again.  I also didn’t feel like doing anything else as a substitute activity.  I was too restless to go to a museum or sit around in a coffee shop all day, and I couldn’t think of anything else to do on a rainy day in February.  I started with a sinking feeling when I realized the answering machine was picking up.  I left a message and wondered if I could have so completely misjudged Christine as to think of her as a straight forward, level headed person, when perhaps here she was, standing me up without even a word of explanation.

I tried to allay my suspicions with logical reasons to explain her absence.  Perhaps she was in the shower and couldn’t answer the phone.  I drank my coffee and stared grimly out the window at the grey landscape.

After several minutes the phone rang.  It was Christine.  She had been out buying us bagels and cream cheese for breakfast. I felt relieved and quite guilty.

We discussed the weather and the probability of colder temperatures at higher elevations.  I felt hesitant about pushing to go in case Christine didn’t want to, but she seemed to be really inclined to give it a try.  We finally decided to meet in half an hour.

When I picked up Christine and saw how effortlessly pretty she looked, I felt a happy twinge of excitement.  She was dressed simply, without wearing any adornment, in ski pants and a waterproof jacket, and with her hair pulled back in a ponytail.  When she got in my car she flashed me a warm smile which put me at ease and stabilized my shaky confidence.

We drove up to the mountains engaged in animated conversation between mouthfuls of cream cheese and bagel.  Christine had a bright, merry laugh and we both rapidly regressed into silly humour.  I related to her the story about Earl spitting up on his shoes last night and she covered her mouth and giggled into her hand.  When she stopped laughing she gave me a questioning look and said with mock severity.

“So while I was home, going to bed to get ready for our big date, You were out in bars all night getting drunk with the boys.”

“Well I think that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but I was out having a few beers.” I protested.  “Besides,” I added, teasing her.  “I didn’t realize this was a big date.  I thought I was just being sociable with an old chum of my kid brother’s.”

“Well I guess that puts me in my place.” said Christine with a pout.

I grinned at her and she smiled back.  “Actually,” I said assuming a sincere demeanor.  “I’ve really been lusting after your voluptuous body for years and going skiing was just a ruse.” I began to embellish theatrically.  “In fact, I detest skiing!”

Christine gave a tinkling laugh.  “Yeah, right.” she said with sarcastic skepticism.

“OK.”  I lifted my hands off the steering wheel in an exaggerated gesture of resignation.  “I admit it.  I’m such a cad!  I lied to you.  I’ve never lusted for your body.  Not even once for an elbow or a toenail.”

Christine gave a surprised laugh.  “Hey!” she exclaimed with affected hauteur.  “You’re supposed to lust after my body.  I’m so divinely beautiful.”

Christine twisted and stretched with feline grace in her seat as she said this and looked at me demeurely from under from under arched eyebrows.  I glanced over and burst out laughing at her clowning.  Christine rippled into laughter also and settled back into her seat.  We continued on in silence for several minutes and when we resumed talking, the conversation changed back to less playful topics.

As we arrived at the trailhead and put on our skis, I checked the little key ring thermometer that hung from my jacket zipper.  It was a degree or two above freezing.  High enough to have to put soft wax on my skis, but certainly not so warm that we would have to abort our expedition.  The course that we intended to take was about 12 miles round trip and we calculated that it should take us five hours.  We had packed lunches and a thermos of tea for a rest we planned to take by a lake that was surrounded on three sides by steep rock walls and snowy peaks which today, would probably be hidden in the clouds.

We pushed off through a light freezing rain and glided smoothly over the damp snow.  We skied through the stillness, hearing only the swish of our skis and our skipants rubbing against each other with every step.  As we penetrated deeper into the woods the veil of mist became thicker and covered the tops of the trees in a grey shroud.  The trees seemed like phalanx after phalanx of ghostly warriors on parade, silently observing the strangers who were encroaching on their domain and sliding through their ranks.  The moist white bark of the birches glistened dully and the flat green needles of the hemlocks were decorated with tiny drops of rain.  Under my silk underwear and skijacket I was warm and dry and enjoying the damp winter scene.

Christine wasn’t as strong as I was but she was a better skier than me technically and we made good time.  The activity wasn’t conducive for much conversation, but with Christine skiing a few feet behind me all day, I still felt a kind of communication and a feeling of sharing a pleasant experience together.  The mist and light freezing rain continued all day, but since we were well protected from the elements, they only contributed to the peaceful and understated beauty.  Even though I had hoped for a perfect sunny day, our trip through the woods had been quite rewarding.

We drove through a small town on the way home and I had to stop at a red light.  I looked over at Christine and she looked back at me.  Several seconds ticked by, then I smiled and she smiled back.  The light changed to green and I turned back to my driving with a smile still on my face.  Christine looked out her window with a faint smile lingering on her lips also.  A warm feeling spread through me and the butterflies fluttered in my stomach.  We drove on in a tranquil silence.  I had become accustomed over the last few years to being alone, but now I felt a deep sensation of satisfaction for having this woman in the passenger seat of my car next to me.

Back in town we had a quiet dinner of cheeseburgers and fries.  We were both fatigued but happy.  It didn’t seem necessary to even talk.  We had spent a nice day together and now we could share a moment of quiet.

It was almost 10:30 when we finally unloaded Christine’s skis into her apartment.  Christine’s eyes looked sleepy.  I kissed her cheek good night and began to pull my head away.  Then I stopped and leaned forward slowly and kissed her lips gently.  I pulled my face away again and we looked at each other.  Christine smiled gently.  Then she reached up and kissed me on the lips again.

“Good night Otto.” she said softly.

CHAPTER 66

“Is your wife still in town John, or did she fly back home already?”  Earl was slouched at his littered desk sipping from a styrofoam coffee cup.  Johnny A. spit into his Diet Pepsi tobacco spit bottle and answered flatly.

“Yeah she’s still here.”

I looked up from my drum list.  I hadn’t even known Johnny A.’s wife was in town.  Mark apparently hadn’t either.

“Oh so your wife’s in town.  That’s great.  Did you show her all the sights?”

“No, not really.  We had a pretty quiet weekend.” Johnny A. answered tonelessly.

“Did you take her somewhere romantic for dinner?” Mark continued enthusiastically.

“We went to the Beer ‘n’ Burger Barn.”

“Oh.” said Mark, appearing slightly puzzled and disillusioned.  “What did you guys do all weekend?”

Johnny A. spit into his bottle again.  “We mostly hung out at the hotel.  We did a lot of reading and I finished writing up those Standard Operating Procedure reports.”

“Oh.” Mark was at a loss at what to say next.  Johnny A. clutched his spit bottle and stared at him blankly through his thick glasses.  Mark nodded his head a few times, gave a polite “Good enough”, and turned back to his desk.

I ran into Tommy, Duck, and Nick the Greek in the cafeteria at coffee break.  They interrogated me about my date with Christine and offered an unsolicited critique of my style in courting.

“What the fuck’s wrong with you Otto?” Nick the Greek’s face was all screwed up with outrage.  “Why the fuck did you take her out in the woods in the middle of fuckin’ winter?”

“You know what you should have done.” Tommy was tapping my biceps with his knuckles to get my attention.  “You should have taken her downhill skiing and stayed at a hotel.  That way you could have banged her all weekend.”

“Fuck that!” Duck snorted.  “That’s too much money.  You should’ve just taken her to the bar down the street, bought her a couple of shots, and humped her in the back seat of your car in the parking lot.”

“Hey thanks for the advice guys.” I said, edging away.  “You ought to get together and write a column for the lonely hearts in The Messenger.  You could call it ‘Dear Union Laborers’.  You’d probably increase the sexual activity around here by over 70%.”

“Get the hell out of here, ya fuckin’ loser.” Nick barked.

We continued our program of moving drums until we were interrupted the next day by an unfortunate incident involving managerial frustration and union politics.  Sal had nothing to do because we weren’t using him and nobody else on site needed the lull at that moment either.  So he had taken refuge from the cold and was waiting for orders in the union break area.  He had made himself comfortable with his feet up on a bench and the newspaper spread out in front of him.  Old Man Carson had been in a tense mood enough already after banging heads with C&C’s comptroller over cost control, and when he saw Sal, his tight lipped anger boiled over into whip lashes of fury.  Sal was laid off, effective immediately.

Our drum moving program screeched to a halt only half way through.  Without the lull we couldn’t get anything in or out of the drum storage yard because the regular forklifts couldn’t reach in over the protective berm that surrounded the area.  Since the union contract stipulated that an operator could not be replaced on a machine, the lull was now forced to remain idle.  Old Man Carson was even more furious when he was informed of this, but he was too mad to change his mind for the moment.

I was walking back to our trailer when I observed Earl’s double extra large structure lurching through the icy wind.  Clutched tight against his chest in one sirloin steak sized hand was a bouquet of flowers wrapped in bright red paper.  I noted the direction he was walking in and suddenly remembered a fax I was expecting from the lab.  I followed him up the steps into the C&C administration trailer.

While I scanned the communications in the Toxikleen “In” box, Earl clomped across the floor between the surprised secretaries with a determined expression on his face.  He stopped in front of Louise’s desk and looked down at her from under his battered, black Toxikleen hard hat.  Louise glanced with surprise at the flowers and then looked up at Earl without expression.  Earl shifted his weight from one steel toed boot to the other and laid the flowers on her desk.

“I know you think I’m a bum, but I don’t want you to think I’m all bad.” Earl said in a low rumble.

Louise stared at the flowers on her desk and said nothing.  Earl started to clear his throat and then stomped out of the trailer.  I rustled a page of a memo from corporate explaining why we hadn’t received Christmas bonuses, and the noise could be heard throughout the trailer.  Louise was still staring at the flowers on her desk.  The secretaries got up and cautiously clustered around her desk with curiosity.  Louise got up and walked into the rear office, quietly closing the door behind her.

CHAPTER 67

I was sitting around the kitchen table in the evening with Jozef and Randall.  Jozef had filled our glasses with vodka and set the bottle back on the table.

“Here’s to you Molly.”  Jozef said reverently and knocked back his shot of vodka.

“Who’s Molly?” I asked, sipping a few drops and feeling them tingle on my tongue.

“She’s that Irish waitress I was telling you about.” Jozef refilled his glass.  “I go in there every day now for coffee.”

“Oh yeah, I remember now.  Weren’t you going to ask her out?”

“I did.  She just laughed.  I’ve asked her out five times already.  Now she starts laughing as soon as I come in the door.”

“Fucking winter!” Randall interrupted dully.  He was staring across the room at the wall with his cigarette ash falling on the linoleum floor.  Jozef and I looked at him and then resumed our conversation.

“She told me she doesn’t have a boyfriend.” Jozef continued. Randall got up and turned on the oven.  He stood in front of it with the door open and stared at the wall again.  Jozef threw back another shot.

“At least she talks to me.” he went on.  “The women I work with at the lab won’t even crack a smile.  I tell them jokes everyday just to get a reaction out of them and they look at me like I’m crazy.”

“Fucking women!” Randall interjected morosely.  “You can’t live with them and you can’t grind ’em into dog food.”

Jozef and I chuckled and Randall continued staring at the wall.

“I’m going to ask her out again tomorrow.” Jozef pointed his finger in determination.  “I’m going to ask her out everyday.  I think she’s just shy.  She’s only been here a month.”

CHAPTER 68

Earl came into the trailer this morning looking bleary eyed and cross.  He barely grunted in return when Mark and I said good morning to him.  He threw himself into his chair and sat there looking miserable.

“Any coffee yet Mark?” he snapped out grumpily.

“Coming up in minute.” said Mark, suppressing a smile.  “How are you feeling this morning?  You don’t look so hot.”

Earl stared moodily down at the coffee stained clutter on his desk.  “Hell, I feel like I’ve been lost at sea for a year and a half.  I quit smokin’ last night.”

I looked up with surprise.  “You’re kidding!”

“Good for you Earl.  That’s great!” Mark added excitedly.  Even Johnny A. looked up from his reports and peered at Earl with interest through his thick glasses.

“Yeah.” Earl drawled slowly.  “I know they ain’t no good for me so when I finished my pack last night I just decided it was time to quit.”

Flynn clattered into the trailer followed by Mick the Prick, Jack and Lenny.

“OK, where’s the coffee?” demanded Flynn.

“Yeah let’s go.  We haven’t got all day.” growled Mick the Prick.

“Yeah, we’ve got to be back in the cafeteria by coffee break.” said Jack and everybody laughed.

“Coffee’ll be ready in a moment gentlemen.”  Mark busied himself with the filter.  “Did you guys hear that Earl quit smoking?”

“No.” said Flynn in shocked disbelief.

“He’ll never make it.” rasped Mick the Prick.

“I say he’s back on ’em by coffee break.” said Jack, nodding his head sagely.

“How much?” challenged Mick the Prick.

“Twenty bucks.” Jack jutted out his chin.  Lenny wheezed appreciatively.

“I say lunch time.” piped in Flynn.  “What about you Lenny?”

“I say two o’clock.”

“Wait a minute.” barked out Mick the Prick with an authoritative tone.  “We’ve got to write this down.  Otto, give me some paper.”

Earl regarded the union laborers with a pained expression. “Fuck y’all.” he groaned.  The laborers exploded into laughter.

“We should get all the guys at Building 34 in on this.” said Flynn as Jack and Mick the Prick busied themselves with pen and paper.

“Twenty bucks to enter the pool.” said Jack.

“Right, and the guy that comes closest to the time that Earl has his first smoke wins the whole pot.” Flynn proclaimed the rules.

“And no offering him cigarettes when it’s near the time you picked.” snarled Mick the Prick, jabbing his gnarled index finger at Flynn’s chest.  Even Johnny A. was laughing and he suddenly got up and pulled a twenty dollar bill out of his pocket.

“Put me down.” he said to Jack.

Jack wrote down his name.  “What time do you want?”

Earl half growled and half guffawed.  “Fuck all of y’all!” he roared.

Mark and I entered ourselves into time slots and kicked in our twenty bucks.  The laborers went off to incorporate their colleagues in this latest gambling venture.  A minute later Jack stuck his head back in the door.

“Oh by the way Otto.  I forgot to tell you.  Sal’s back on site again.”

Old Man Carson must have calmed down and realized he had no option but to change his mind.  The way I heard the story from Jack, when Old Man Carson decided to recant, he did so immediately, wasting no time.  He had given the order to reinstate in a few efficient, crisp words.  When Sal had arrived on site he had gone straight to Old Man Carson’s trailer and assured him that he was an honorable, hard working man and never shirked his duty.  Carson had looked at him with his steely eyes and nodded.  “OK, let’s get back to work.”  With these words the incident had been closed.

As the day progressed the number of laborers and HP’s who had entered into the betting pool had swollen to well over a hundred.  A committee had been selected to oversee the rules and safeguard the cash.  Everywhere Earl went on site he was followed and watched.  Earl’s reaction fluctuated between disbelieving hilarity and bad tempered outrage.  As the time slots that various people had bet on passed by uneventfully, they signed up again for later time slots and the pot continued to grow.  By mid afternoon there was already well over three thousand dollars at stake.  As Earl stomped past, the laborers licked their lips wistfully.

CHAPTER 69

Earl had made it through the night without smoking, as verified by Jack and Flynn who had spent the evening with him at The Bunny Cage, a favorite topless bar of theirs out on Route 17. In fact, Flynn had even insisted on sleeping on the floor of Earl’s motel room, but when he saw what a mess it was he changed his mind and Earl was left alone on the honor system for the night.  Jack picked him up in the morning for breakfast.  By coffee break this morning the pot had grown to over $5000.  Earl’s every movement was watched closely by dozens of pairs of eyes.  He was even frisked unceremoniously before going into the Men’s room.

We were almost finished moving the frozen drums and I told Johnny A. that we should be through by the end of the day.  When I went out to the drum storage yard Sal was waiting quietly on his machine while Jack was leaning on a drum and giving gruff orders to Lenny who was shovelling snow.  I stopped next to the lull and grinned up at Sal.

“We’ve got lots of pallets for you to move today.  From point A to point B and back again.”

Sal almost smiled.  “Oh yeah?  Just like the fuckin’ army.”

“Yeah.” I went on.  “In fact, we won’t be satisfied until we see the steam percolating out of your ears.”

Sal gave a half snort and half laugh and threw his arms up in the air in exasperation.  “What the fuck!  You guys are going to give me high blood pressure!”

Jack snarled at Sal.  “What a fuckin’ beauty you are!  You’re so fuckin’ stubborn, you probably refused to come out when you were born.”

Sal jumped up and pointed his finger at Jack.  “That’s right!  Nobody fuckin’ tells me what to do!”

Jack turned away rolling his eyes.  “Ah, shut the fuck up!”

“Yeah, fuck you too!” Sal uttered his refrain and settled back down in his seat.

Sal began pulling out pallets with Jack and Lenny guiding him.  The lull engine roared as the hydraulic extending forks strained to lift the 2000 pound pallets from fifteen feet deep inside the berm.  Grady arrived with his forklift and the two engines groaned and the reverse warning signals blew in a shrill dissonance.  From behind Building 95 I could hear the noise from an electric drill and some laborers yelling at each other and the clattering of jack hammers could also be heard from over in the reactor building.  I looked down at drum number R-764 with its “poison” and “radioactive” stickers and saw Christine’s lively eyes and felt the softness of her lips.  The only parts of her body that I had touched so far had been her cheek when I kissed her, her hand when she had touched my arm to show me something, and her lips.  I thought about how sweet it would feel just to reach out and slowly touch the skin of her arm with the tip of my finger.  I remembered how she had smiled softly at me as she closed the door.  Christine was out of town for several days on an assignment and the blood was flowing quickly through my veins while I waited for her return.

“Hey Otto.  Are you coming?”  Grady was beeping his horn at me.

When I came back to our trailer at the end of the day, Earl was just finishing his story for Mark and Johnny A. and he started all over again for my benefit.  He paced back and forth in front of my desk and threw his arms out for emphasis as he related his tale.  Louise had come up to him outside the administration trailer and said thanks for the flowers.  Before Earl had gotten over the surprise, Louise had gone on to say she was sorry and that she didn’t have the right to judge him.  If he wanted to have dancers in his motel room that was his business.

“And then I said to her.”  Earl looked at me keenly.  “‘I would rather have had you, but you weren’t there, and a man’s got to have something.’”

“Well Louise straightens up and looks like she’s about to get all mad at me again and says ‘Don’t count on me being there with you.’”

“So I said to her ‘Well now, why not?  You’re one fine looking woman.’  Then she turned around and walked off, but I could’ve sworn I saw a smile on her face.”

Flynn and Stanley arrived to chaperon Earl for the evening.  The pot stood at $5480.

CHAPTER 70

I met Christine at nine in the evening at a snug and dim bar near her house.  Several couples and groups of patrons were conversing quietly and I recognized the voice of Brazilian singer Maria Bethania on the stereo system.  Christine looked wickedly beautiful.  She had black liner drawn around her dark eyes and her lips were painted red.  She was wearing a white blouse under a grey vest, and a tight black miniskirt with black stockings and boots.  I kissed her on the cheek and we smiled at each other.  Then I kissed her quickly on her deliciously beautiful lips.

When we pulled apart Christine laughed and wiped the lipstick off my mouth with her finger.  We chatted and laughed and felt comfortable together.  After a couple of drinks Christine said she needed to go home because she had an early day tomorrow.

As we stepped out of the bar into the street, I offered her my arm with a flourish and Christine laughed and put her hand elegantly through it.  We walked through the cold to Christine’s apartment arm in arm.  I wasn’t expecting to sleep with her that night, but I was beginning to believe that it was a natural certainty for the future.  I felt calm inside with her walking next to me.

We arrived at her door and Christine turned to me.  “Otto, I have a really hellish day tomorrow, but I want you to come in for a few minutes.”

We went into Christine’s living room and she took off her coat.  I looked around at the framed prints of impressionist painters and a blown up black and white photo of a desolate industrial landscape.  Next to her CD player stood a photograph of an ancient widow in a black dress standing next to a stone doorway.

“Where was this?” I asked, pointing at the photograph.

Christine had come up behind me.  “That was in a tiny village in the mountains of Northwestern Spain.  It had just received electricity a couple of years ago and over the last fifty years the population had dwindled from five hundred down to fourteen people, all of them over the age of sixty five.  I thought this woman’s face was incredible.  Can you imagine struggling your whole life to survive in some place and when your lifetime of toil is through, nobody even wants to live with you in that place any more?”

I unzipped my down vest under my denim jacket and scanned the books on her shelf as if I was unpeeling layers of her character.  Christine stood behind me and watched to see what I was looking at.  Authors like Gogol, Camus, Hemmingway and Stendahl gave way to academic treatises on economic theory, urban transportation and Third World development.

“Do you read a lot Otto?”

“Yes.” I said without turning around.  I continued scanning the shelves.  “It keeps me relatively sane while I’m living on the road.”

I turned around and faced Christine.  She had been waiting patiently for me, allowing me first to take a peek into her mind. I reached my hand up slowly and gently put my knuckle on her shoulder.  Then I lightly ran my finger down the length of her arm, staring with fascination at the folds in her soft cotton sleeve as they gave way under the soft pressure of my touch.  Christine kept her eyes on mine and remained motionless, allowing me to make my first exploratory probe.

My finger reached her hand and our fingers interlocked gently.  I looked up at her and we gazed at each other for a moment.  I leaned forward and she moved to meet me.  Her lips felt soft as we first stood toe to toe and touched our lips together lightly.  Then we pressed our lips tightly together.  Christine ran her hands under my down vest and held my back.  I put one arm around her shoulder and the other one around her waist and I slowly squeezed her into me.  Christine grasped me tighter and pressed her body against my belly and chest.  She stretched her fine pointed tongue into my mouth and I sucked it strongly between my lips.  My thigh was between her legs and pressed against her crotch.  I wedged it in harder and flexed my muscle against her in slow, rhythmic pulses.  I felt a wave of excited tension flow through her body, and heard the tempo of her breathing suddenly alter.  Christine’s bosom was rising and falling and her round breasts were pushing against my ribs.  Her eyes were squeezed tightly closed and her breathing got faster as I rubbed my thigh harder against her groin.  Christine shifted her weight and opened her legs even wider for me.  I gave her a hard, prolonged thrust with my thigh.  Christine sucked in her breath sharply and her whole body quivered.

Suddenly she pulled her mouth away from mine, and her pelvis from my leg.  She rested one hand on my chest and clutched her brow with the other.

“I’m sorry Otto.” she almost whispered.  “Please don’t be angry with me.”  She paused with her eyes buried in her hand.  I held her gently by the shoulders.  “Oh my god.  I was about to completely take leave of my senses.”  She looked up at me with a tender smile and placed her other hand on my chest.  “That was wonderful.  I hope you won’t think I’ve been leading you on.  But I’m not ready to make love with you yet.  Not tonight at least.  And it’s not just because of work.  I mean, it is true that I have a big day tomorrow and I can’t afford to stay up all night making love.  But it’s more than just that.  I also feel a little bit shy with you.”

Christine looked into my eyes searchingly to see if I was disappointed or angry.  “Don’t worry.” I reassured her.  “Of course I’m not angry with you.  I’m just happy to be here.”

The fine lines in the corner of Christine’s eyes crinkled as she smiled.  She softly rubbed my chest with the fingertips of one hand.  “You’re nice Otto.”

I grinned playfully at her.  “You’re not too repulsive yourself Pugsly.”

Christine’s mouth and eyes popped open wide.  “Pugsly!”  She laughed and batted me on the shoulder with one fist.  “And here I was having all these nice tender thoughts about you.”

I grasped her arms firmly with my fingers under her armpits and drew her close to me again.  “Hold on to those tender thoughts until tomorrow then.”

CHAPTER 71

At 7:22 PM Earl got up from the table in the diner near the army base and, without a word, walked over to the cigarette machine.  He picked up a pack of Marlboros and immediately took one out and lit it up.  He stood in front of the machine and inhaled deeply.  He blew out a cloud of smoke and coughed twice. Flynn and Jack watched from the table and checked their watches. The official time was duly noted and written down.  Jack got up and walked past Earl on his way to the pay phone to notify Mick the Prick and the other betting pool officials.  Earl leaned on the cigarette machine with one hand and sucked the smoke in with his back to the dining room.

Jack punctuated his story with hearty laughter as we sat in the Toxikleen trailer drinking coffee the next morning.  The final pot had stood at $6040.  When the betting pool committee checked the time slots list, it was discovered that Earl’s official light up time was half way between the two nearest picked times.  It was determined that the two winners, a laborer in the reactor building and an HP in the lab building, would share the prize equally.

The radio crackled and we heard C&C’s site safety officer, Dan Thompson, calling for anyone at Toxikleen.  Mark responded and Dan requested breathlessly.  “Can you guys come over to the the truck entrance to the supply warehouse ASAP!”

Mark and I grabbed our hard hats and safety glasses and quickly headed out in the lightly falling snow.  Outside the warehouse we recognized Dan’s pudgy form darting in and out of a small group of laborers who were watching him and looking confused.  Dan spied us and bustled over puffing nervously.

“We’ve got a leaker!  The drum was rusted out on the bottom and everything leaked out when they tried to move it.  It’s all over the floor.”

“What was in the drum?” Mark asked calmly.

“Ethylene glycol.  It was virgin product.” Dan informed us, waiting impatiently for a reply.  We walked over and looked at the pool of liquid on the asphalt.

Mark turned to the laborers and said, “Go get an 85 gallon overpack drum, a couple of shovels and ten bags of clay absorbent.”  Several laborers went off and Mark took another one by the arm.  “You see that piece of wood over there?”  The laborer nodded.  “Use that to steer away any of that stuff if it starts flowing down towards that drain over there.  You should be able to keep it under control until the guys come back with the clay absorbent.”

The laborer nodded again.  “What is that stuff?” he asked suspiciously.

“Ethylene glycol.” Mark answered.  “Good old antifreeze.”

“Oh.”  A look of relief came to the laborer’s face and he went and stood guard over the drain.

A few minutes later the laborers came back with the supplies and Mark gave instructions calmly.  First the clay absorbent was dumped liberally on the pool of liquid to soak it all up.  Then the empty rusted out drum was slid into the overpack drum.  Finally the saturated clay was shovelled up and thrown also into the overpack drum.  When they were done the asphalt was wiped clean with absorbent wipes and these too were thrown into the drum along with the rubber gloves that had been used in the clean up.  The drum was closed up and properly labelled.

“Well that’s that.” said Mark.

“Do I have to fill out a spill report?  Was that over the Reportable Quantity level?” Dan asked apprehensively.

“We’ll have to take a look in the regs and see what the RQ for ethylene glycol is.  We’ll call you on the radio in ten minutes.” Mark answered and we headed back to our trailer.

As we passed Building 95 we saw an ambulance and a large crowd gathered around it.  Reggie Moon was giving directions with his commanding military police bearing.  We asked him what was going on and he leaned sideways to give us a crisp explanation while keeping vigil on the general proceedings.

“We had an injury in the plate shop.  A crew of laborers was in there with Earl throwing pieces from the vats and ductwork into B-25 boxes.  Dennis tripped over something and fell down and then a section of ductwork fell on top of him.  His airline got pinched and he lost consciousness.  Earl had to lift up the ductwork while Duck tried to pull Dennis out.  Finally Nick got in there and they pulled Dennis out just before Earl lost his grip and dropped the ductwork again.  Dennis came to pretty quick but he was still wobbly.  He must have smacked his head and got a concussion.  They managed to get him to the decon and there they cut him out of his suit with a knife.  Then the emergency medics arrived and they took over.  It only took them eleven minutes to get here.  Here they come now with Dennis.  Hey you guys!  Make way over there!”  He barked at the throng next to the ambulance.

The crowd parted and the medics came hurrying through, wheeling a laborer on the stretcher.  Dennis had just moved over from the reactor building last week so I knew him only slightly. His face looked calm as he was whisked past.  The crowd closed back in and we couldn’t see any more.  A minute later the ambulance was gone and the crowd slowly dispersed with everyone telling their version of what they had heard about the incident.

We started walking back to our trailer again but before we got there Mike Randazzo stuck his head out his trailer door.  “OK.  I’ve got you culprits.  Don’t try to escape.”

Mark and I laughed.  “Hey Mike.  What’s up?”

“You guys are killing me!  Come in here and look at the description of these drums.”

Mark groaned.  “Oh no.  Not again.”

“Yeah no problem Mike.” I said.  “We’ve always got a few extra hours available to help bail you out.”

“Yeah we should have a full time staff just keeping an eye on you guys.” retorted Mike.  We followed him into his trailer and he flipped through some lists in a binder.

“Look here.  Drum R-1692, description: demolition rubble from third floor in building 95.  Drum R-417, description: sludge from Tank #6 in building 34.  OK?  We open these drums to verify the contents and what do we find?  The exact opposite!  The one that’s supposed to be sludge is really rubble and vice versa.  Can you explain that to me?  How did this happen?”  Mike tapped his pen on his desk and looked from one to the other of us.

Mark and I shrugged and nodded our heads.  “Gosh, I don’t know what to tell you Mike.”  Mark said.  “Somebody must have got them mixed up when he was doing the paperwork.”

“I don’t know.” Mike mimicked him.  “Lame Mark.  Real lame! You guys are real all stars.”

Mark and I finally managed to edge out of the trailer with Mike still proclaiming that we were causing the blood to clot in his brain.  As we came into the sanctity of our own trailer and shook off the snow, we saw the familiar sight of Earl slouched at his desk, flicking cigarette ash in the general direction of the waste paper basket.

“Did you boys hear about the injury in the plate shop this mornin’?” he drawled.

“Yeah.” Mark said enthusiastically.  “You had to hold up the ductwork so they could pull him out huh?”

“Yeah.” Earl squinted as he took a big draw on his cigarette.  He got up and hovered over us as we took off our damp jackets.  “I tell you what, I nearly finished the poor son of a bitch off too, ’cause the ductwork slipped out of my gloves the instant they pulled him out.” Earl yucked loudly.

“What did he trip over?” I asked.

“Oh hell, who knows?  You know what it’s like in there.  You can’t hardly see anything at your feet and nobody else really knew what happened.”

The door opened and Stanley zipped in and slammed the door shut behind him.  “Brrr.  It’s cold out there.” he drawled.  He looked over at Earl and shook his finger at him.  “I’ve got a bone to pick with you.”

The door opened again and Jack, Lenny, Flynn, and Mick the Prick all poured in.  Stanley moved over to make room and then shook his finger at Earl again.

“Like I was saying.  I’ve got a bone to pick with you.”  Everybody looked expectantly at Stanley.  Stanley’s face looked severe.  “Now why couldn’t you have had the spiritual and mental fortitude to hang on another 12 minutes last night?  I would’ve cleaned up and been able to get my ass out of this frozen yankee hell hole.”

There was an explosion of laughter.  Even Earl could barely stammer out “fuck you” from laughing so hard.

“Hey Earl!” Flynn shouted out.  “When are you going to quit smoking again?”  A general clamor went up.  It was universally agreed that Earl should quit again as soon as possible.  Mick the Prick and Jack were already calculating the betting odds.

CHAPTER 72

I had finished moving the drums over to our temporary storage area and we were ready to start sampling them.  I scheduled an HP to meet Mark and me after coffee break and then assembled all the protective equipment and sampling apparatus we would need.  After coffee break the HP came over to our trailer, but Mark was in phone conference with the lab and I had been called away to look at some drums that had been found in a storage room.  At 11 o’clock we tried again, but this time we couldn’t get an HP.  The supervisor at RSA complained petulantly that we had already wasted his time this morning and he had now reassigned all the HP’s to survey crews.  He was most certainly not going to juggle his staffing just to accommodate our fickle convenience.  We would have to reschedule for tomorrow.

Elsewhere around the site, projects were winding down and the demand for union labour was diminishing.  Rumours about the first big dreaded layoff were already flying and tension among the laborers was building.  The local economy was slowly picking up, but there still weren’t many big construction jobs going on and prospects for going straight over to another union wage scale job were dim.  C&C was playing its cards close to its chest fearing reprisal or early desertion from disgruntled laborers who had just been given their notice.

Late Friday afternoon the layoff notices were distributed along with the laborer’s paychecks.  About seventy five laborers received the news that this was their last check with a variety of reactions.  Some laughed and joked and said good bye to their friends.  Others simply picked up their lunch pails and left without a word.  Others cursed C&C roundly and proclaimed angrily to anyone who would listen that C&C was a chicken shit outfit that a man shouldn’t waste his time working for anyway.

I was concerned for Nick the Greek and Tommy.  Our constant raillery had developed into a sort of affectionate camaraderie.  I saw them outside heading towards the parking lot.  I shouted to them and they turned around and gave me the thumbs up sign.  They had survived the first round of layoffs.

About a hundred feet behind me a great commotion flared up and I turned to see what was going on.  A fist fight had erupted and the combatants were now being pulled away from each other.  A laborer with a cut above his eye and blood streaming down his face, was yelling at Mick the Prick that he was going to get him back for getting him laid off.  When I got a bit closer I saw blood trickling from the corner of Mick the Prick’s mouth and running down the channels of his wrinkled chin.  Mick the Prick was being held back by two laborers.  His jaw was jutting out and he was pointing in a rage with his finger as he hurled an angry challenge at the laborer.

“Come on back here and fight like a man!  You want to throw another sucker punch?  I’m sixty two years old, but I can still pound the fuck out of you, you stupid piece of shit!”

The laborer was finally escorted out to the parking lot and Mick the Prick stalked off, still boiling over about what he would do to that son of a bitch the next time he caught up with him.  One of the laborers pointed out the blood trickling out of his mouth and Mick wiped at it quickly with the back of his fist. Then he spat and growled again about how he was going to rip the guy’s fucking head off.

Outside our trailer Earl and Stanley were joking around with Louise who was standing stiffly with her legs together and her arms folded tight into her chest in an attempt to stay warm.  Louise was laughing merrily even though she was shivering slightly.  As I approached, Stanley was bitching about the cold.

“Oh god!  I hate winter too!” Louise threw in.  “I grew up in New Hampshire and I’ve hated winter all my life.”

“Oh you’d love it down south.” Earl assured her.  “In fact it’s so warm down there we’ve got mosquitoes you can carve steaks out of.  Ain’t that right Stanley?”

Louise tittered and Stanley nodded his head in agreement.  “Oh yeah.  In fact we even caught one once that was so big, we put half of it in the freezer, made a seven course feast out of the rest of it, and ate the leftovers all week.”

Louise giggled.  “Oh you guys.  I don’t think I’d ever want to go to a place with mosquitoes that big.”

“Ah you’d love it.” Earl assured her again.  “Y’all should come down and visit sometime.  I’ll take you cat fishin’.  At least you wouldn’t have to deal with all this snow.”

“Actually the only thing I like about winter is riding my snowmobile.” said Louise with enthusiasm.

“Snowmobiling?”  Earl cocked his head with interest.  “Now that’s something you might be able to talk me into trying.  Why don’t you show me how to snowmobile?”

“Hmmm.”  Louise thought for a moment.  “Yeah I suppose we could do that.” she offered cautiously.

“Hey that’ll be just fine.  Come on Stanley, why don’t you join us?”

Stanley stepped back and put his hands up as if warding off evil spirits.  “No, thank you very much.  I’m going to spend the weekend right in the bar of my hotel where it’s nice and warm.  I’ll have a couple of beers and some quiet conversation and I’ll be perfectly happy.  If you two want to go off and do something crazy like play in the snow, you can go right on ahead without me.”

Earl gave a shudder.  “Speaking of nice and warm, Let’s step into the trailer for a moment.  Louise, you look like you’re about to freeze to death.  Let me get a piece of paper and you can give me your phone number.

CHAPTER 73

I woke up from a short nap around six o’clock.  I had spoken to Christine before I left the army base and we had made plans to catch a movie at 7:30.  I made a cup of tea and staggered groggily down to Randall’s shop.

“Hey.” Randall greeted me warmly.  “Take a look at this.”  I walked over to where Randall was working with a variety of planes.  “I’m trying to make this workbench absolutely flat and level.  The measurements I have to make when I finally start working on an instrument are so precise that any imperfections in my work surface will throw everything off.  And over there are the new shelves I finished yesterday.”

I hung out with Randall for fifteen minutes, listening to him explain details of his woodworking craft.  When I went back upstairs Jozef was in his room, reading Scientific American.  I asked him how his day had gone and he grimaced with disgust.

“My damn cells aren’t growing.  A whole week’s work is wasted.  I have to start the experiment all over again.”  Jozef went on patiently describing his lab procedure.  My chemistry background was just sufficient to allow me to understand the general idea.  Jozef threw the magazine down on his coffee table.

“I have to go back to the lab for a couple of hours and I’d finally convinced Molly to go out for a beer with me tonight.” Jozef groaned.

“Hey, that’s great!” I congratulated him.

“I’m going to have to cancel out on Molly tonight.  I hope she can make it tomorrow instead.  Goddamn cells!” Jozef glowered.  “Have you seen Randall by the way?”

“He’s down in the shop, working hard.”

Jozef smiled.  “What’s he working on now?”

“He just finished some shelves and now he’s planing down his workbench.”

Jozef nodded his head still smiling.  “Shelves, cabinets, workbenches, toolracks, everything but a lute.  He’s been doing this for three years.  He’s got the most impressive woodworking shop on Earth, but he can’t start actually making a lute.”

“Yeah, I think he’s afraid that he might fail and then his dream would be destroyed.”

Jozef nodded.  “I don’t believe he’s ever going to make a lute.  I don’t think he’ll even start one.  I hope he does and I even wish I could help him somehow, but he’s on his own.  I’m just afraid he’ll never do it.  At least if he never starts he still has his dream.  I don’t think he could handle failing.”

I nodded in agreement.  “Yeah, I’m rooting for him too.”

CHAPTER 74

The movie was supposed to be a witty comedy and was quite popular with the university crowd.  I started yawning after twenty minutes and the insipid dialogue had me grinding my teeth with impatience shortly thereafter.  I glanced at Christine to see if she was enjoying the movie.  If she was, it probably would have been the kiss of death to our budding relationship.  Well, at least I would have been disappointed.  Furthermore, I would have to sit through the rest of this dog which, by now, I was itching to escape.

I glanced again at Christine and she looked back at me.  A character in the movie unleashed an allegedly droll quip which had the razor sharpness of an old butterknife.  Several people in front of us laughed appreciatively.  I could just imagine my father grumbling caustically, “What a waste of a $40,000 education.”

I looked at Christine again.  She looked at me and giggled.  I shook my head in amazement.

“What are they laughing at?” I whispered.

“I don’t know.” Christine giggled again.

I was tremendously relieved to hear that Christine seemed to share my cynical perspective.

“Are you enjoying the movie?” I asked her.

“Not particularly.” she whispered back.

“Let’s get out of here.” I pleaded more than suggested.

We burst out into the street laughing.

“Oh my god!” I exclaimed.  “What a piece of shit!  I’m glad you wanted to leave.”

Christine laughed merrily.  “I could tell you didn’t like it.  After five minutes you were fidgeting, sighing, and rolling your eyes at the obvious humour.  I thought you were going to blow up.”

The laughter gushed out of me.  “How did you know I was rolling my eyes?”

“I was watching you.”  Christine came closer to me.  “You were more entertaining than the movie.”

I put my arm around her and she slid against my chest.  She looked up at me and I kissed her.  We walked down the street towards a pizza shop with our arms around each other.  I laughed as an old memory came back to me.

“Did you know Steve Murphy and Cam Christopher?  They were friends back in New York.  Anyway we went to see this movie with another guy named Terence Cohen.  After a while I looked around and Steve was snoring on one side of me, Cam was asleep on the other side, and Terence had gone out to the street to make a phone call.”

“Sounds like an exciting movie.” Christine laughed.

We ordered a couple of slices of pizza and I looked down disapprovingly at what I had received.  The pathetic specimen in front of me had a hard crust and a thin smear of tomato sauce and cheese on top.

“They don’t know much about making pizza in this town do they.” I muttered.

“Boy Otto!  For a world traveller you can be a real New Yorker sometimes.” Christine chided me.

“When it comes to pizza I am a real New Yorker.” I said, pulling at a long strand of melted cheese and tucking it into my mouth with one finger.  “Pizza and hockey.  Vinnie’s on 74th Street and Amsterdam Avenue and the New York Rangers.  Even though they break my heart worse than my ex wife.”

I had meant this last bit to be a light hearted joke, but Christine looked serious.  “You still miss her, don’t you?”

I swallowed.  “Well I spent quite a few years with her.  Through good times and bad times.  Nothing will ever change that. But I think we’ve both moved on with our lives.”

Christine still looked serious.  “Do you think you’ll ever get back together again?”

Her question was one that I couldn’t help but ask myself sometimes.  In nostalgic moments I would think about it, but it didn’t seem realistically possible and I didn’t think that either of us would accept living within the other person’s limits again. We seemed to be just too far apart.  I tried to explain this to Christine between taking bites of pizza and wiping tomato sauce off my chin.  Christine listened and looked at me attentively.

Our mood had become somber and pensive and I was looking for a way to brighten us up again.  Christine bit slowly into a piece of crust with her sharp, white teeth and looked out the window thoughtfully.

“It makes me sad.” she said, still looking out the window.

“Hey.” I said, tapping her on the shoulder.  “There was enough sadness to go around just between me and my wife.  Don’t you start in and make it worse.”

“That’s right.” Christine laughed and snapped her body up straight.  “No dwelling on morbid thoughts.  The past is the past.  A gay and carefree appearance at all times.”

I chuckled and hooked my finger into her hand.  “Maybe we can create some new misery.”

“Yes.” said Christine with a teasing purr.  “That’s what I need a man for.  To make me weep and suffer.”  Then she squeezed my finger and giggled.  I laughed and shoved some more pizza in my mouth.

We wandered slowly back to Christine’s apartment.  There didn’t seem to be any doubt about what we were going to do next. We both wanted to be together and to touch each other.  It felt natural.

When we got to her place, I took off my down vest and denim jacket and settled in on the sofa.  Christine went out to the kitchen and brought us back a couple of Molson Ales.  Christine was wearing some tight fitting jeans, boots and a tee shirt.  Her lips were painted red and she was wearing black eye liner, but no other makeup apart from that.  We both took a sip, looked at each other and leaned forward to begin doing what we’d been thinking about doing for the last several days.

I kissed Christine and let my fingers begin to slowly explore her body.  I was so excited about touching her that I felt quite tense and nervous.  I kissed her neck under her ear and she dug her finger tips into my shoulder blades.  I ran my lips softly down the smooth skin of her neck and buried them just above her collar bone.  Christine quietly let me move my lips over her throat with her eyes closed and her fingers pressing rhythmically into my back.  Then she took my face in her hands and made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end with a series of quick, hot kisses along both sides of my neck.  We pressed our bodies together and panted lightly.  I could feel Christine’s warm breath against my cheek.

We pulled apart and I slowly and softly traced my finger around her breasts in a figure eight.  “You’re so beautiful Christine.” I said quietly.

A smile flushed her face and she allowed me to continue touching her.  “Thank you Otto.”

I crooked my finger into her tee shirt at her waist and began to lightly tug it out of her jeans.  She reached down and pulled it straight off over her head.  She tossed the tee shirt on the floor and sat in front of me in her jeans and a black, lacy bra.  I stared her up and down for a moment while she almost shyly allowed me to view her.

“Excuse me Christine.  I have to wipe the drool off my chin. Do you have a beach towel?”

Christine laughed and put her arms around my neck and kissed me.  I ran my hands over her back and sides, feeling the smoothness of her skin.

“Christine you devastate me.” I said into her ear.  She smiled happily and kissed me again.  “I want to look at your naked body.”  I continued.

Christine looked at me with her chest heaving gently.  Then she stood up in front of me, kicked off her boots, and slowly slid down her jeans while I watched.  She stood in front of me, looking vulnerable and thrilled at the same time, and watched me examine her body.  Then she slipped her fingers into her panties and pushed them down until they fell to the floor.  She stepped out of them and waited.  It was so quiet that it seemed as if both of us were holding our breaths.  I felt my heart pounding madly but I wanted more.

“Turn around.” I directed her softly.

Christine did as I requested and turned all the way around until she faced me again.  I reached my hand out and she moved into it.  I put both my hands on her hips and rubbed the tip of my nose against her belly.  Christine tenderly ran her fingers through my hair and pushed my face lightly against her body.  Then she reached down and took my hand and led me to the bedroom.

I was so excited about being with Christine, and touching her and feeling her, that my mind felt almost overwhelmed.  My body was still tense and I felt gripped by nervous anticipation. I couldn’t completely relax and allow myself to concentrate on pleasure and this was hampering my ability to make love.  There was too much emotional traffic jamming up my battered nervous system.

We spent quite some time fumbling with condoms and foreplay that didn’t seem to be producing the wanted results.  My desire to please and impress her was so strong that my initial frustrated annoyance turned gradually to concern and then to panic.  A complete intellectual comprehension of the situation did nothing to diminish my sudden terror.  Christine’s face was also drawn and tense with anxiety.  I could tell she wanted to please me and she was blaming herself for what she was sure to perceive, no matter what I said, as her own failure to attract and stimulate me.

We looked at each other with our wet hair sticking to our sweaty foreheads.  I knew I had to say something, but I felt awkward and I was procrastinating as long as possible.  I felt as if my voice was locked deep within my body.  Christine was giving me a questioning look.  She appeared devastated and confused and her self confidence had evaporated.  I shook my head.  “I guess it’s not going to happen right now.”  I spoke as calmly as I could.  “Don’t worry.  It’s not you.  It’s me.  I think I’m just not completely relaxed.”

Christine  didn’t look relieved in the slightest.  “Did I do something wrong?  Did I say something that bothered you?” she asked, almost trembling.

“No!  No!  Really!”  I grabbed her by her shoulders.  My feelings of frustration and inadequacy were so overpowering that my face turned red and a new line of sweat beads ran into my eyes.  “You’re great Christine.  As a matter of fact, I think I like being with you so much that my nervous system is just completely overwhelmed.”

Christine looked at me as if trying to guage the sincerity of my last sentence.  Then she looked down and said quietly.  “I like being with you too, Otto.”

I felt a sudden relief from the pressure of being obliged to perform.  Hope returned and I felt that I could start enjoying our evening together again.  I smiled softly at Christine and she smiled shyly back at me.  We moved towards each other on our knees and hugged each other.  As I held her in my arms I could feel the softness of her skin, the warmth of her body against my belly, and the firm, roundness of her breasts against my ribs.  Her cheek and neck were wet with sweat and the smell of her shampoo filled my nostrils as a lock of her damp hair lay against my upper lip.  Christine had her arms wrapped tenderly around my neck and her face was pressed into my throat.

Tranquillized by Christine’s gentleness and the warmth of her body, I began to flow along with my natural desire for her.  She nestled her nose into the crook of my neck and lightly pressed the fingers of one hand against the nape of my neck.  Christine’s affectionate behavior began arousing in me an almost ferocious craving to pin her back on the bed and ravish her like a marauding Cossack.  Christine felt my arousal pressing against her belly and she pulled back and looked at me with a happy and relieved smile.  We tumbled back onto the bed and began making love frantically.

CHAPTER 75

Christine had already made prior arrangements for Saturday evening.  She didn’t go into more detail than to say that she had to see a friend and I didn’t think to ask.  We spent the day together, taking a shower together, washing each other’s bodies, making love, taking another shower, making breakfast, sharing sections of the newspaper, going for a walk by the river, making love again, laughing about taking another shower, and then taking another shower.

At 5:00 I got up to go back to my apartment.  Christine held my hand at her door and kissed me tenderly with her other hand on my cheek.

“Have a good time tonight.” I said.  Christine squeezed my fingers.

Back at my apartment, Jozef had just come out of the shower and was standing in the kitchen with a towel around his waist, crooning “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling.”  Randall had balanced his cigarette on the edge of the table next to his coffee cup and was plugging his ears with his fingers.  Jozef almost pranced into his room.  Randall unplugged his ears.

“Scientific research and development are going to be set back ten years all because of one Irish waitress.” grumped Randall gloomily.  “Look at him.  He’s already half mad and they haven’t even gone out on their date yet.  That’s why I don’t go out with women any more.  I’m too close to the edge as it is.  If I start going out with a woman, I’ll be institutionalized.”

The next morning Jozef crawled out of bed groaning about Irish women.  He sat at the kitchen table looking completely stunned as Randall poured him a cup of coffee.  After five or ten minutes he emerged to a minimal level of coherency and described patches of his date with Molly.

“That adorable girl can drink me under the table.” he finally gasped, massaging his temples.  “There’s no way I’ll ever get her into bed by getting her drunk.  I’d go into a coma first. I’m going to have to rely on my old world charm.”

“In other words you’re choosing abstinence just like I am.” chuckled Randall.  Jozef just glared at him.

That night I was sitting quietly in my room with The New York Times when the phone rang.  It was Christine.  Her simple, direct, soft spoken words hung around me like smooth silk.

“I missed you.”

CHAPTER 76

Over the next several days Mark and I finally managed to sample the drums and ship the samples out to the lab.  Then we started with the process of moving the drums back out to the storage yard again.  Our operations were functioning more smoothly now but there were still the occasional unavoidable delays when there were no HP’s or forklift drivers available, or when Mark and I were called away on emergencies or higher priority matters.  Mark and I never became frustrated with the delays.  We accepted them stoically as part of the routine of operation and were even frequently amused by the turn of events that presented our obstacles.

Sal, the lull operator, had begun to relax and now frequently followed Jack and Lenny around the storage yard, telling them about his various girlfriends, when he didn’t have any pallets to move.

“Shut up and take your hands out of your pockets!” Jack would growl at him and then turn his back and stalk off.  Sal would leisurely shuffle after him with his hands deep in the pockets of his quilted overalls and a merry grin underneath his tinted safety glasses, continuing his story all the while.

“Did he tell you about the girl he takes out for pizza, Otto?” Lenny wheezed with a twisted grin.

“I take this girl out for pizza.” Sal ambled over to me and tapped my chest with his fingers.  “Then we go back to her place and fuck.”

“Just a slice of pizza?  What a big spender!” I teased him. The stubble on Sal’s cheeks was creased with a big smile.

Monday afternoon I had to bring some tools over to Earl and Flynn who were building a glove box in a huge hangar shaped warehouse.  We had several drums of depleted uranium powder on site that we had to treat.  Finely ground, dry, metal particles, just like fine grain dust, are frequently pyrophoric which means they have the property of combusting spontaneously when exposed to air.  Johnny A. had decided to stabilize the pyrophoric nature of the depleted uranium dust by pouring motor oil onto it.  However, in order to open the drum safely, without risking combustion, it was necessary to create an oxygen free atmosphere to work in.  Thus the glove box.

Our glove box was basically an airtight enclosure which would have several rubber or latex sleeves and gloves built in so that you could stick your hands inside and do your work.  The air inside the glove box would be pumped out and replaced by an inert gas which would not allow combustion when the drum was opened.

Johnny A. and Earl had designed an airtight enclosure to be constructed out of a 110 gallon overpack drum which could be slid over the 55 gallon drums of depleted uranium.  The bottom of the 110 gallon drum would be cut out and a plexiglass plate would be installed in the top of the drum so that you could look through it and see what you were doing inside the drum.  Several glove holes would be cut out of the top and side and positioned so that two men could work together and reach any point inside the enclosure.  Some handles would be attached to the sides so the glove box could be easily lifted and placed over a 55 gallon drum that you wanted to open.  The bottom of the glove box would then be attached to the floor with a loose seal made out of plastic sheeting and duct tape.  An intake valve with a spigot would be installed on the side of the glove box near the top, and the heavier inert gas would push the air, with its unwanted oxygen, out through the duct tape seal at the bottom.

Since the duct tape seal would not be completely airtight, it would be necessary to maintain enough inflow of inert gas to keep the oxygen level as low as possible.  We would be aiming at keeping it under 5%.  Normal oxygen levels in air range between 19.5% and 23.5%, and typically hover, at altitudes anywhere near sea level, around 21%.  There would be another small hole drilled through the glove box where a hose from an oxygen meter would be fed into the work atmosphere.

Earl and Flynn had another laborer with them who was busy welding when I came up to them.  Earl and Flynn were both leaning against a wall smoking cigarettes, and Earl was spinning yarns from the old days when he worked for big international construction firms.

“It must be exciting to travel all over the world like that.” said Flynn with a wistful note creeping into his gruff voice.  “I haven’t been anywhere since I got out of the army.”

The laborer turned off his welding torch, pushed up his face shield, joined the group, and lit up a cigarette.

“Oh hell.”  Earl allowed a puff of smoke to waft out of his mouth and hover momentarily under his nose.  “I tell you what, I’ve jerked off in hotel rooms in different cities all over the world.  That’s what international travel is.”  We all chuckled and Earl added. “Of course every now and then you’d get a couple of hookers and make up for lost time.  Speaking of ladies, how’s that sweet doll baby of yours Otto?  You get into that yet?”

A big grin swept quickly across my face and Earl laughed loudly.  “Oh yeah.  You must have.  You look happier ‘n a pig in shit.”

Flynn and the laborer laughed and I tried to give a brief sketch which I hoped would reflect some of the passion that I had shared with Christine.  Earl leaned forward and eyed me intently as he listened.  When I finished speaking he straightened up and pointed his finger for emphasis.

“It sounds to me like you really like that little gal, Otto. Make sure you don’t do something foolish and let her slip away.” Flynn nodded in agreement.

“Yeah she’s an interesting girl.” I admitted.  “Hey how was snowmobiling Earl?”

Earl and Flynn looked at each other and burst out laughing. “Hell, I don’t know.  The snowmobile broke down and I spent the whole morning out in the cold trying to fix it with Louise’s 16 year old boy, Jimmy.  He’s a real nice kid, I tell you what.”  Earl laughed and tapped me on the shoulder.  “I was tellin’ him dirty jokes and I had him laughin’ the whole time.  Every once in a while Louise would come outside and yell at me a bit.  You know.  Tellin’ me to behave myself.  I think she liked havin’ a man around the house though.  She’s been divorced five years now. She started yellin’ at me for leavin’ the toilet seat up like nobody’d done that in her house for a while.”

Flynn cackled loudly and the laborer and I chuckled.  Earl went on.  “I almost got the damn engine running, but she didn’t have the right tools.  So she made some lunch and then we drank coffee all afternoon.  The only bad thing was she wouldn’t let me smoke in the house.  I had to go outside in the cold every time I wanted a cigarette.”

We all laughed.  “Fuck that!” pronounced Flynn, and he spat on the floor.

Later that afternoon in our office trailer, Earl showed me a tool kit he was going to give as a present to Louise’s son.  When he went on over to the C&C administration trailer to hand it over to Louise, I tagged along.  I leaned against the xerox machine as Earl clunked the tool kit down in front of a very surprised Louise.  As he opened the tool box and explained who it was for, a delighted smile lit her features.  Earl picked up a tool with a clatter and showed it to her.

“Look.  This is slicker ‘n snot on a door knob.  This here goes like this.”

CHAPTER 77

By the end of the week we had reinstalled all the sampled drums back out in the storage yard.  Laboratory analysis had also come back indicating that some groups of drums were free of chemical and heavy metal contaminants, so we picked them out and turned them over to Mike Randazzo to be disposed of as radioactive only waste.  As February was shading into March, the temperature was rising above freezing and we spent our whole days slogging through mud, slush and puddles.

Late one afternoon we were finishing some paperwork in our trailer, when the RSA supervisor who had been uncooperative about giving me HP support, came barging in with a red face.  An RSA crew had just surveyed the floor where we had been sampling the drums and the floor had been screaming hot.

“What the hell were you guys doing in there?” his husky voice rasped.  “You must have been sloshing that stuff all over the place.  Don’t you guys even know how to sample drums?”

Earl had worked on the sampling only one afternoon, but he immediately took umbrage.

“Now wait just a minute!” he roared, jumping up out of his chair.  “Don’t you come over here and tell us we don’t know how to do our jobs!”

The battle was engaged.  Earl and the RSA supervisor shouted at each other almost nose to nose until Johnny A. stepped in and pushed Earl away.  The RSA supervisor complained bitterly that the floor was now going to have to be recleaned and resurveyed and then he stomped out with Earl hurling a last profanity at his retreating back.

I thought I could identify the incident which had caused the contamination.  The floor of our temporary sampling area had been a sheet of poly and every time the fork lift drove over it, the poly would tear in a few places.  We would then patch the rips with duct tape.  One day Mark and I had knocked over a quart bottle of sodium hydroxide.  We had been quick to mop it up but some of the duct tape had peeled off and the liquid had gone through to the floor.  We cut out the entire section of poly, cleaned the floor and put down a new section of poly.  However, I suspected that a detectable amount of residue must have remained.

Earl was still spluttering with indignation when the phone rang.  Johnny A. beckoned to Earl to keep quiet as he answered it.  We waited while Johnny A. listened.

“Right.  We understand.  Thank you.” Johnny A. said evenly into the phone and hung up.  Then he swivelled his chair around to us.  “That was another guy from RSA.  He basically said that now that it’s done, don’t worry about it.  Shit happens.”

Despite this bit of diplomacy, there seemed to remain some resentment on the part of a large segment of RSA personnel towards us.  I heard us referred to as “those idiots over at Toxikleen” and “those Toxikleen cluster fucks”, and Mark and I were addressed by a somewhat fatuous HP one day as “you Toxikleen slobs.”  Half of the HP’s of course, didn’t give a damn at all as long as the place didn’t actually blow up, and were always ready to chit chat about basketball, baseball, fishing, drinking, female anatomy or the old days back in the navy’s nuclear submarine program.

One day I announced my intention to go to the mall for lunch and Earl asked if I would drop some film off to be developed.  These were the photos that the consultant for the Army Corps of Engineers had taken of Earl and I working in the plate shop several months ago.  The idea of making a set of copies for myself as a souvenir thrilled me and I eagerly took the envelope of negatives.

At the photo shop a young woman courteously helped me arrange the negatives on the light table and turned on the light. I stared at the images with confusion.  I couldn’t seem to recognize plate shop activity in any of them.  I leaned over and inspected the negatives more closely.  Suddenly I started.  I had identified the form, not of a Toxikleen employee fully dressed out in respirator, airline and tyvek suit, but of a young woman with long hair sitting on a bed, entirely in the nude.  I quickly scanned all the negatives and now easily recognized the woman’s naked voluptuousness in every frame.  A small, colorful object on one buttock I was even able to identify as a tattoo.

I glanced quickly up at the photo shop attendant and saw that she was studying the images with no visible expression on her face.  I cleared my throat and gave an awkward explanation as I hastily gathered up the negatives.

Ten minutes later I entered our trailer and found Earl lounging at his desk, like a king on his throne, overlooking his domain of rumpled notepads and old styrofoam coffee cups.  He was smoking a cigarette and loudly telling Johnny A. about some welding problems he and Flynn had been having.  Johnny A. had his face buried in the 49 CFR for the Department of Transportation regulations, and Mark was comparing lab analysis results against EPA generated TCLP standards to see which sets of drums could be disposed of by burial as radioactive only waste without any further treatment.  I walked over in front of Earl and spread the negatives out on his desk in front of him.

“The girl at the photo shop thought these shots were particularly interesting.”

Earl squinted as some cigarette smoke drifted into his eye and then peered studiously at the negatives.  A moment later his mouth dropped open and his eyes bulged.  Then he gave a hearty roar of laughter and slapped his knee.  My pent up hilarity boiled over and I laughed so hard I had to lean on Earl’s shoulder as the big man bent over with spasms.  Mark and Johnny A. came over to see what had happened and soon they were staggering around the trailer, clutching at desks to keep from falling over.  Every time we almost managed to calm down, Earl and I would look at each other and explode mirthfully again.

When Jack, Mick the Prick, Flynn and Stanley heard the story, they all ribbed Earl mercilessly and one coffee break later the union network in the cafeteria had incorporated the episode into the annals of Earl’s legend.  Earl took it all good naturedly and I frequently saw him in the middle of a group of union laborers, telling the tale himself.

Through the week I also saw Christine several times and it was becoming quite clear that we had a strong attraction and a natural affinity for each other.  It was the first time I had felt any kind of serious interest in a woman since Tania and I had separated and I felt partially thrilled, partially cautious and slightly overwhelmed.  I was, so far, just enjoying the good times but I was also starting to see how completely unprepared my current lifestyle was for supporting any kind of relationship with a woman.  I also even experienced sharp twinges of regret and panic.  Despite the fact that Tania and I had become officially divorced two years ago, one part of me still didn’t want to let go and the possibility of an impending involvement with a new woman made me confront an even greater finality of my old relationship.  In any case, I figured I would be here with this project for several more months which should be ample time to allow whatever relationship I was going to have with Christine, to develop at a leisurely pace.

I got back to my apartment about 6:30 one night, full of contented memories of Earl’s clowning and Christine’s passion.  I was about to enter my bedroom when I noticed a movement in the darkness of Randall’s room.  I stepped back and peered in.  A red ember was glowing in the dark.  A moment later I recognized Randall’s form sitting in his chair as he smoked a cigarette.

“Hey, how’s it going Randall?” I asked him cheerfully.

“Well, not so good.” Randall answered in a voice full of despair.

I stepped into his room and my eyes slowly adjusted to the shadows.  “What’s the matter?  Are you OK?”

“Oh, I’m OK.  Although I don’t know why I should be.” Randall uttered dejectedly.  “My shop’s a different story though. I really flipped out today.  I fucked up this cabinet door I was working on all week and completely lost it.  I destroyed my whole shop!”  Randall’s voice quivered and he paused to smoke his cigarette and regain control.  “I’m no good as a wood worker anyway.  Who am I kidding?  I don’t even deserve a wood shop like that.”  Randall smoked and stared in front of him as if in a trance.  I searched for a positive way to respond to this tragedy.  Randall spoke first.

“I’m going to go to sleep for a while.”

I backed out of the room and Randall closed his door.

CHAPTER 78

Randall spent the weekend in his room with the door closed. The only communication from him was a periodic odour of marijuana seeping from under his door.  Jozef and I discussed Randall’s conditions in low tones in Jozef’s room late Saturday night after Jozef had come home from a long and frustrating day with his uncooperative cells in the lab.  My own weekend had been primarily occupied with playing basketball with Mark since Christine was otherwise engaged.

Monday morning Johnny A. gave me the assignment of acquiring a three quart sample of dust from the ventilation ductwork for the beryllium and depleted uranium workshops.  I went over to Building 95 and suited up.  Inside the Be and DU rooms the laborers were jackhammering the tiled floors and walls and using scabblers to chop out the surface of the concrete floors.  The noise was deafening, even through my styrofoam earplugs, and the dust was like a thick fog.  The dust, by this point in the clean up operation however, was basically nuisance cement dust rather than hazardous beryllium or uranium. The respiratory protection level had been accordingly down graded to respirators with filters so I could now move about relatively unimpeded without having to drag along an airline.

In the two workshops there were eight duct vents in the ceilings and the demolition had left the shafts open as gaping holes.  I climbed up on a step ladder and poked my head into the first vent hole.  The vent was about three feet square and my shoulders fit easily inside.  I shone the flashlight into the darkness of the shaft which went off sideways in two directions. I wiped the metal surface with one finger.  A thin layer of grey dust coated the duct.  I quickly brushed together all the dust within reach and accumulated less than a teaspoonful.  Briefly pondering the scenario that there would be no more dust left to dispose of after I finished collecting the sample, I hoisted myself up into the shaft and crawled about six feet until it turned straight up.  The light of my flashlight showed the same amount of dust throughout the shaft.  I crawled backwards and lowered myself down onto the ladder again.  A quick inspection of the rest of the vent shafts showed them to be all the same.

After an hour the safety man called me out and I went back to our trailer empty handed.  Back in the Be room I had left my sample jars with a total accumulation of a tablespoon of grey dust.  I joined Johnny A. and Earl who were on their way to Kentucky Fried Chicken for lunch and I described my difficulty with the sampling.  Johnny A. shook his head and said simply.

“I need three quarts to send to the lab.”

After lunch I suited up and entered the third floor containment in Building 95 where the ventilation filter system was being knocked apart.  I looked into all the shafts and found the same situation as on the first floor.  Several sections of dismantled ductwork were lying on the floor and I banged them with a hammer to dislodge the dust inside them.  This produced several tablespoons and I now had almost a pint collected.

I recognized Freddie, the third floor foreman, and I described my problem to him through the noise of the demolition and the muffling effect of the respirators.  Freddie listened patiently and when I finished, he beckoned for me to follow him. He took me over to a pile of plastic bags and pointed at them.  Leaning close to my head he yelled that these bags were full of dust and debris that had been cleaned out of the ventilation filter system.  When I finally understood what he was saying I was gratefully relieved.  He opened a bag for me and I plunged in my sample jars.

After the 2:00 coffee break I went out to the storage yard to change the labels on some drums that had been accidently mislabelled.  There seemed to be even more chatter on the radio than usual and I was half listening to the conversations.  Flynn was asking Jack to bring him a compressor and Jack was answering back that he was too busy at the moment, but he would send Lenny over with it as soon as he could.  Another voice made a request of Mick the Prick and Mick’s sand paper voice answered that he had too much work to do and he couldn’t break free till later.  Several other voices added more of the same dialogue and I began imagining the work site as a huge anthill with more tasks than ants.  I turned the corner of a stack of drums and threw my head back with laughter at what I saw.  Jack, Flynn, Mick the Prick and another union laborer were standing together talking to each other on their radios with big grins on their faces.

“Hey Otto.” Jack chortled.  “This project’s starting to wind down and big layoffs are right around the corner.  We’ve got to make Old Man Carson and Hal Smith believe they still need us.”

“Yeah.” growled Mick the Prick.  “We’ve got to keep hiding out here until the state get’s off its ass and starts work on that new bridge.  Then C&C can go fuck themselves!”

CHAPTER 79

The tanks of argon gas had been delivered this afternoon and we were scheduled to stabilize the drums of pyrophoric depleted uranium at four o’clock.  Earl was of course in a jolly mood since we would be drawing overtime pay.  The need to work overtime was justified not only by production rate demands, but also by the practical consideration of having fewer people in the way while we executed this delicate procedure.

I was gathering together the necessary materials in our trailer at 3:30 when Nick the Greek and Tommy walked in.

“Hey guys.  How’s it going?” I greeted them jovially.

“Hey Otto.  We came in to say good bye.” said Nick the Greek.

“Yeah, we just got our notice.  It’s AMF.  Adios Mother Fucker!” added Tommy.

“Oh no!”  I was disappointed by the news.  I had grown fond of these two characters and was hoping they would be among the ones who remained as the work force diminished.  “Well guys.”  I stuck out my hand.  “I’ll see you down the road someday.  It’s been nice working with you.”

“Yeah, you too Otto.  You’re a good man.”  Nick squeezed my hand.

“Yeah Otto, it was great working with you, even though you suck at basketball.”  Tommy grinned and shook my hand.

“Hey don’t disappear on me now.  I’ll be at the gym Thursday night, waiting to give you another lesson in humility.” I retorted.

Nick grabbed my shoulder.  “Listen Otto.  If you’re ever in South Willow, look me up.”

Tommy looked at Nick scornfully.  “What the the fuck’s he going to waste his time in that dump for?”

“You never know.” I said.  “Maybe Toxikleen will send me there on a big clean up job.”

“Hey fuck you guys.  Come on Tommy.  Let’s get out of here.  See ya Otto.”

“Yeah, see you Otto.”

“Take it easy guys.”  The door slammed behind them.

At 4:00 the pyrophoric drum crew assembled.  Earl, Mark, Johnny A. and I represented Toxikleen.  A supervisor and an HP were on hand from RSA, and even Old Man Carson and C&C’s health and safety officer Dan Thompson had come to watch the proceedings.  Flynn and Brendan, the laborer with his long hair braided down his back, rolled in two tanks of argon and set one of them up near the first depleted uranium drum.

I only half knew what was going on and I felt a slight fluttering of butterflies in my stomach as I watched and waited for Earl’s instructions.  The performance of an unfamiliar operation, especially if there was even a slight potential for mishap and danger, gave me a rush of adrenaline, and this was amplified further by the fact that our every movement was being observed by the sharp, critical eye of Old Man Carson.

A work space had been set up as a Radiologically Controlled Area with a sheet of poly lining the floor and magenta and yellow radioactive warning cords running around the perimeter.  Four 55 gallon drums were lined up in the RCA, spaced about six feet apart.  Earl and Brendan picked up the portable glove box and set it inside the RCA.  Then Earl, Mark, Brendan and I began suiting up in tyveks, plastic booties, latex gloves and filter respirators.  When we were dressed we signed the HP’s sign-in sheet and stepped over the perimeter cord into the RCA.  Johnny A., Flynn, Old Man Carson, Dan Thompson, the HP and the RSA supervisor all watched in street clothes and hard hats from their side of the cord.

First Earl placed a ratchet wrench, an open wrench and two quarts of oil on top of the first drum so that they would be inside the work space when the glove box was put in place.  Then Earl touched Brendan on the shoulder and pointed at the glove box.  They each grabbed one handle, hoisted it up and lowered it down gently over the first drum.  While Brendan taped the plastic skirt at the bottom to the poly floor sheeting, Earl connected the hose from the argon tank to the intake valve on the glove box.  Mark set the oxygen meter on the next drum and ran the hose from it to a small hole in the glove box.

We were all set for the first drum.  Earl turned the valve on the argon tank and the inert gas started to flow into the glove box.  I watched the oxygen meter.  It started at 20.9% and slowly began to drop towards 20%.  After a minute or so the pressure inside the glove box began to increase and the latex gloves and sleeves began to turn inside-out.  They pushed outward and slowly began to inflate and rise.  At first they drooped lazily, just barely extending out of their holes.  Gradually they puffed out farther and began to resemble a limp and grotesque scarecrow.  After another minute they were sticking out stiff and pulsating slightly, like weird, rubber erections.  The oxygen level dropped past 14%, 12%, 10%, and then 7%.

“Get ready boys.” Earl rumbled.

The oxygen dropped to 4% and Earl and Mark pushed their inflated sleeves back into the glove box.  Earl was standing on a cinder block and bent over the top of the glove box with both arms reaching down inside.  He had grabbed the ratchet wrench and was trying to unscrew the bolt that secured the ring at the top of the drum.  Mark had his arms in the side holes and was holding the bottles of oil.  Brendan stood ready at one handle and I was standing by at the other.

Earl swore loudly.  “You boys are going to have to raise the glove box about four inches.  I don’t have enough head space to turn the wrench.  Otto, you watch the oxygen level and regulate the argon flow.  OK, let’s go.”

Brendan and I grabbed our handles and lifted the glove box  several inches off the ground.

“A little more.” Earl called out.  We raised it again.  “That’s good.  Now try to keep it about there.”

Earl bent over again and resumed his task.  The glove box wasn’t extremely heavy, but Brendan and I still had to strain to keep it raised at the same constant level.  With the glove box lifted off the ground, the plastic skirt now hung down to where it was taped loosely to the floor.  The oxygen meter read 1% and I turned down the gas flow spigot with one hand while I tightly gripped the handle with the other.

Earl muttered curses as he worked.  “Higher!” he yelled without looking up.  I looked down and realized that we had allowed the glove box to settle almost back down to the floor again.  Finally he got the bolt loose, and then he pulled off the ring and just barely had room to slip it down one side.  Then he pried off the lid and pushed and shoved until it slid down the side also next to the ring.

“Otto!” Mark shouted.

I glanced at the oxygen meter and saw that it had risen suddenly back up to 8%.  I fumbled with the gas spigot and turned it completely off by mistake.  The oxygen level continued rising. 9%!  I turned the spigot the other way and opened it to the maximum.

“Hold it higher!” Earl roared, still bent over with his respirator pressed against the plexiglass plate of the glove box. I strained my muscles to hold the glove box in place and watched the oxygen meter.  8%, 6%, 5%.  I breathed easier again.  Below 5% we could be pretty sure that we were safe from ignition.

“Hell.  This ain’t nothin’ but PPE and debris.” Earl exclaimed.  “And one Dunkin Donuts coffee cup.”

Earl reached for the lid and pulled it back up on top of the drum.  “You can turn the argon off now.”  he said.  Then he grabbed the ring and fit it around the edge of the drum while I shut off the gas.  When the ring was in place Earl slipped the bolt through its holes and straightened up stiffly.

“We can tighten that up later.” he grunted.

Brendan and I lowered the glove box down to the floor and stood up straight with relief.  Earl went over to the RCA perimeter and conferred with Johnny A.  Old Man Carson and the RSA supervisor gathered around also to hear the report on the contents of the first drum.

Mark detached the argon hose from the intake valve and I removed the hose from the oxygen meter.  We moved everything over and prepared for the next drum.  Mark and Brendan lifted the glove box from the first drum and placed it down around the second.  Then they turned around and realized that the tools and oil that should be inside the glove box, were still sitting on top of the first drum.  So the glove box was quickly lifted again while I transferred the wrenches and oil.  The bottom was taped, the hose attachments were made, and the argon was turned on.

The process was repeated and I was able to regulate the argon flow more steadily, without such wild fluctuations in the oxygen levels.  This time however, when Earl popped the lid off he found another drum inside.

“Shit!  It’s an overpack!  There’s a 30 gallon drum inside.” he spluttered with frustration and then bent back over again to reach down and wrestle with the ring bolt of the interior drum.  It took Earl several minutes and an extensive repertoire of curses to get the second ring off.  I just kept straining to hold the glove box up and watched the oxygen meter.  Finally he pushed the lid off and rummaged through a large plastic bag inside the drum.

“That’s DU all right.” he pronounced.  “Give me that oil Mark.”

Mark passed him the oil inside the glove box and Earl poured both quarts over the dry, grey powder.  In another thirty minutes we had completed all four drums and were wiping down the drum exteriors and the floor around them.  We gave the HP some swipe samples with clean cloths from different locations on the floor and sides of the drums and they had all been well above the maximum permissible level.  Some of the fine DU powder had wafted up out of the drums when they were opened and had settled on the floor and drum surfaces.  Therefore when the glove box was lifted off the drum, the dust contamination was left behind.  After cleaning the surfaces for five minutes, we gave a new set of swipe samples to the HP and this time some of them were clean.  We continued cleaning and sampling in this manner until the HP was satisfied and we could undress and exit the RCA.

Back at our trailer I changed out of my steel toed boots and grabbed my lunch cooler.  Johnny A., Mark and I headed for the door.  Earl was hunched over a notepad on his desk and squinting at it with a furrowed brow.

“Aren’t you coming Earl?” asked Mark.

“Naw, I got to pull a few hours of O.T. and write up a report about the glove box.” Earl drawled.

“You can do that tomorrow Earl.” said Johnny A. with a slight smile.

Earl stared blankly for a moment and then shrugged his shoulders.  “OK.” he grunted disappointedly.

CHAPTER 80

A couple of nights later I came home looking forward to a date I had arranged with Christine.  She was going to cook me dinner at her place.  She had said something about fresh mozzarella and basil with olive oil, and pesto made with sun dried tomatoes.  I had been instructed to arrive punctually at 7:00 complete with wine, hearty appetite, and my usual charm.

As I came to the front steps of our house I had to step around several large plastic garbage bags.  At the door I had to stand back and make room for Randall who was charging down the hall carrying two more fully loaded bags to add to the pile.

“Hey man, how’s it going?” Randall greeted me cheerfully.  Randall’s teeshirt was wet with sweat and his damp hair was sticking to his perspiring forehead.  He dumped his burden and bounded energetically back up the stairs.

“I cleaned up my shop today.” he bubbled.  “Look at that.  Five bags of broken cabinets and debris from my rampage last week!  Someone just ought to put me out of my misery.”  Randall released a peal of merry laughter.  “This afternoon I went over to the lumber yard and picked up some real fine oak.  I just made myself a cup of Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee and I’m ready to start rebuilding my cabinets.”

I felt an enormous, uplifting relief flood through me upon witnessing Randall’s sudden transition of mood.  “Hey, that’s great man!”

“Yeah.  I can’t spend the rest of my life locked up in my room.” Randall laughed and zoomed off towards the basement.

About 7:00 I was on my way out the door when I met Jozef coming in.  Right behind Jozef was an attractive woman in her mid twenties.

“Hello Otto.  I want you to meet Molly.”  Molly and I introduced ourselves while Jozef watched beaming.

“I’m going to cook Molly dinner tonight.  Polish specialties.  Kielbasa, sauerkraut and pirogi.  I’ve only made pirogi once before so who knows how they’ll turn out.”

“Well if you poison Molly you can toss her out on top of Randall’s garbage bags.” I winked at Molly and she tittered.

Jozef chuckled.  “I’ll just have to get her drunk so she won’t know the difference.”

Molly laughed again and swatted Jozef on the arm.  “That’s not why you want to get me drunk, you beast.”  Jozef and Molly beamed at each other for a moment and then Jozef put his arm around her neck and kissed her.

I no longer felt like a necessary part of the proceedings and besides, I had my own romance to attend.  “Oh by the way.” I said as I turned down the stairs.  “Randall has emerged from his room as a volcano of action.”

“I’m really glad to hear that.” Jozef said with an expression of genuine concern.

Ten minutes later I was kissing Christine’s soft lips and handing over the bottle of red, Bulgarian wine that had looked like an interesting experiment.  I sat at the kitchen table next to the open wine bottle (which turned out to be serviceable more than fine) and chatted with Christine as she bustled about chopping and boiling.  I watched Christine as she cooked and talked and felt a happy satisfaction with the belief that this attractive and interesting woman was now somehow connected to me. I finished describing our pyrophoric drum operation and took a sip of wine.

Christine’s face brightened up and she chuckled in remembrance of something.  “Oh Otto.  I have to tell you about this really neat guy I interviewed yesterday.  His name is Charlie Wiggins and he lives over in the predominantly black slum on the East side of town.”  She came over and leaned her leg against my knee as she told me her story.  “He’s a detoxed crack addict and now he goes around his neighborhood every day, cleaning up the streets and sidewalks.  He’s been doing this for six months now and he’s starting to become a bit famous in his neighborhood.  The local citizen’s activist group complained to city hall that it wasn’t fair that black people should have to clean up their own neighborhoods when there is a municipal sanitation department that’s supposed to do the job.  The sanitation department said they’re doing the best they can.  They all organized a press conference and Charlie Wiggins was supposed to be the star attraction.  But when the time for the conference came, Charlie Wiggins was nowhere to be found.  Finally somebody telephoned in that he was picking up garbage on Shaver Pond Avenue.  That’s when they sent me out to interview him.”

Christine put her hand on my shoulder and slid her shin up on my thigh as she continued.  “When I got there Charlie was shovelling a fetid pile of rotting garbage into some plastic garbage bags at an abandoned, burnt out building.  Oh, it was really disgusting!  There were maggots crawling all through the pile!  Anyway there was this group of teenage kids hanging around drinking and smoking cigarettes.  Charlie was kind of half joking around with them, trying to convince them that they should get some shovels and start cleaning.  He didn’t want them to help him, he wanted them to care about the place they lived in.  The kids were laughing and bantering with him and seemed generally quite amused.”

“I asked him about the press conference and he shrugged and said he preferred to leave the talking to the people that liked to do it.  Then I asked him why he had begun cleaning the streets.  ‘Hell.’ he told me.  ‘I live here.  It may be poor, but it doesn’t have to be a horrible place to live in.  So I decided that every day I’d clean at least one street before I open my first beer.’  Then he started laughing.”

After dinner we settled cozily together on the living room sofa.  I had one arm around Christine’s shoulders and my free hand was gently stroking her blue jean clad knee.  Christine looked at me intently for a moment and then spoke.  “There’s something I need to tell you Otto.”

I looked up with sudden curiosity.  Christine’s face looked tense and serious.  Her lips were tight and her eyes were watching me for any reaction.  Two thin lines creased the smooth skin of her forehead.  A sharp twinge of alarm struck me.

Christine hesitated and then began uncertainly.  “I should have told you this before.  I’ve been feeling guilty, but I just didn’t know what to do.”  She paused and looked down, biting her lip.  Then she frowned and looked back at me again.  “The fact is, I’m seeing someone else Otto.” she blurted out.  “I’ve been going out with him for a year.  I didn’t mean to deceive you in any way.  You have to believe me.  You never directly asked me if I was seeing anyone else and I never went out of my way to tell you.  I don’t even know if you’re seeing anybody else or want to stay free to do so.  I never really thought this was going to happen and I didn’t think it was going to last.”  Christine had been talking almost breathlessly and now paused for a moment.  Her words had had a sobering effect on me.  I didn’t want to lose this treasure I had just found, but I also felt Christine’s passion too strongly to believe there was much danger of this.

“I didn’t even know why I was making love with you.  I only knew that I was really attracted to you.”  Christine gave an ironic laugh.  “I must have a thing for Flanagan boys.”  We both laughed and the tension eased slightly.  Christine smiled coyly. “Do you have any more brothers for me to get into trouble with?”

“No there’s just my father.”

“Hmm.”  Christine looked mischievous.  “A married man.  That could be a real heartache.  How old is he?”

We both laughed again.  Then we looked at each other in a smiling, but meaning manner.  The main issue remained unresolved. I found myself formulating the script of a conversation that I had comfortably assumed would still be off in the indefinite future.  I softly took her hand in her lap and she squeezed my fingers tightly as she waited for my reaction.

I cleared my throat.  “Christine.”  I paused, uncertain of exactly what I meant to say.  What was I doing in fact with Christine?  I hadn’t really sorted all this out concretely yet.  “What are you telling me Christine?  That you don’t want to see me any more?”  I couldn’t believe she’d really say no, but the slight uncertainty tightened up my insides.

“No, that’s not what I mean Otto.”  Christine squeezed my fingers and looked at me with unblinking sincerity.  “I guess I’m just trying to get a sense of where we’re going.  I haven’t told him about you yet and I’m finding the situation stressful.  I feel caught in the middle.  I don’t know how serious I am with him, but I don’t see any point in telling him and getting him upset for nothing if this is just a fling that you and I are having.”

I felt the pressure throbbing at my temples.  I wasn’t ready for this kind of discussion and probing of my interior depths.  The seemingly endless analysis of relationship and emotion with Tania was suddenly as fresh in my mind as if it were still going on today.  I tried to remain logical and objective in my viewpoint as a trained scientist.

“Well we’re obviously still getting to know each other.” I began cautiously.  “And I don’t want to build up any expectations which may not be realized, if we decide, after becoming a bit more acquainted, that we’re really not compatible.  But I really do like you and I think we have the potential for something more than just a fling.”

Christine continued looking at me for a moment as if trying to decide how satisfied she was with the response she had received.  Then she smiled a little ruefully and said, “I guess you have the right to remain noncommittal.  In any case it wasn’t my point to pin you down in any kind of commitment.  I just needed to tell you how I felt.  The stress was becoming a burden. When I see him I feel kind of two faced, but then I remind myself that in a month or two, your project will be finished and you’ll be sent off to someplace in Ohio where you’ll find some nice, blonde, corn-fed girl to keep you company after a day of sticking your head into 55 gallon drums.”  Her tone had begun as analytical and breezy, but an almost acrid flavor had singed her last words.

Christine looked away across the room and appeared to be recomposing herself.  I reached up and turned her chin towards me.  She looked at me with eyes that were moist and hard at the same time.  I sensed that Christine was in need of a little more reassurance than I had so far been able to give her.  I leaned forward and kissed her.  Christine kissed me back warmly and energetically.  I pulled back slightly and looked at her.  Christine remained with her eyes closed as if she was waiting.  A strong desire to touch her lips pulled me and I kissed her again. Christine responded with a burst of passion, sucking my lips hard and shooting her delicate tongue into my mouth.  It was as if she was taking all the commitment that I hadn’t given her verbally, in the physical act of kissing me.  Finally I felt a river of drool about to escape from the corner of my mouth and I pulled back to get a breath of air and to wipe my chin.

Christine and I looked at each other and broke out into a spasm of giggles.  I took a deep breath and felt my heart pounding.  I stroked her arm with one hand and ran my fingers through her hair with the other.  Christine traced the outlines of my chest with her fingers.  “I think I’m falling in love with you Otto.” she said quietly with her eyes on my chest.  Then she raised her head and looked me in the eye.

I was surprised by the suddenness of Christine’s emotion.  I didn’t seem capable of visualizing my own emotions with such clarity yet.  It has always taken me a much longer time to digest the facts and generate an appropriate response.  Christine seemed to notice my tension and put her arms around me and held me tight.  I squeezed her body into mine also and nuzzled my nose into her fragrant hair.  Christine turned her head and kissed my neck tenderly.  We lay back on the sofa and remained locked together, breathing softly, for several minutes.  The smell of her hair and the thought that I might smell it every day, exhilarated me quietly.

Christine finally fell asleep with her body partially on top of mine.  My arms were around her and her head was tucked under my chin.  Several strands of her hair were tickling my nose.  My arm fell asleep under her head and my back was getting stiff, but I didn’t want to move and disturb her.  Despite the discomfort,

I felt a happiness that I realized had been absent from my life for the past several years.  When my back began to twitch spasmodically, I gently woke Christine and we undressed and went off to bed to sleep.  Christine touched me with at least one hand all through the night.

CHAPTER 81

The majority of our tasks, as per the job specs, had been completed.  We had sampled and profiled all the drums on site and the plate shop was basically finished as far as Toxikleen’s responsibility was concerned.  C&C was jackhammering the concrete slab floor in the plate shop and had sampled the soil beneath a long crack that had been discovered in the cement.  The samples showed levels of cadmium that were a hair above permissible levels and Old Man Carson, even though nearly in an apoplectic fit of rage, had given the command in crisp and tightly disciplined words, to dig up two feet of soil and resample.

I was preoccupied with checking the inventory lists and searching for errors in the data.  Mark was involved with various C&C superintendents as problems were encountered in different work areas, and Earl was inspecting and sampling an excavation pit where cadmium and lead contaminated radioactive sludge had been dumped.  The bidding hadn’t yet been opened on the remediation of the excavation pit and Toxikleen was hoping to have the inside track since we were already on site.  There were a large number of additional projects to be done on this site that would last for years to come, so it was foreseeable that we could possibly settle in here in a cozy and stable long term situation.

This morning I had to go over to Old Man Carson’s office trailer to tell him the results that the lab had just phoned in about the levels of heavy metals in a profile of ten drums of oil.  They were slightly over TCLP limits for arsenic, cadmium, lead and silver, so C&C wouldn’t be able to dispose of it as rad only waste.  I knocked on Old Man Carson’s trailer door and stuck my head in.  A pile of architectural blueprints covered the desk and a coffee mug, with the C&C logo printed on it, steamed in one corner.  Carson looked up with a face that betrayed absolutely no emotion whatever, just an inquisitive stare that demanded that information be dispensed as rapidly as possible without any unnecessary delay.

“Good morning, sir.” I began with a polite and respectful smile.  Carson’s face remained as impassive as tempered steel.  I could feel him waiting impatiently for information.  “That oil profile came back high in arsenic, cadmium, lead and silver.”

Old Man Carson squinted his piercing grey eyes even tighter and a thin crease of tension ran across his already taut brow.  “It even has silver?”

“Yes sir.”

“Christ!”  Old Man Carson flickered his eyes for a moment, but his jaw remained firmly set.  He looked keenly at me again.  “What’s your name again?”

I was taken by surprise.  “Uhh, Otto Flanagan.”

“Well Otto, you did a fine job with those pyrophoric drums the other day.  I was impressed with all of you.”  Carson said with a tightly strung smile.

I was caught by surprise again, but this time in a pleasant way.  “Oh, thank you, sir.”

“Hell, stop calling me sir!” Carson snapped with affected gruffness.  “I’m not in the fucking marines any more.  Call me Rick.  I’m not going to bite your head off.”  Carson grinned.  “Unless of course you fuck up.”

I grinned back at him, but I still didn’t feel that I should take up more of his time than was necessary.  “Sure thing Rick.” I said and ducked out of the trailer.

I went out to the drum storage yard to change the profile number on a drum that had been reclassified.  Jack was guiding Grady’s forklift as he picked up a pallet of drums that were destined for the water treatment center.  Sal was sprawled leisurely on the lull, waiting for an assignment.  I walked up to him and we regarded each other through our tinted safety glasses.

Suddenly I shouted at him.  “I thought I told you to lounge at attention when you’re goofing off!”

Sal snapped up in his seat and saluted me with his back rigid.  “Yes sir!  Mr. Toxikleen Otto, sir!” he rattled off.

I grinned up at him.  “Hey Sal, how’s the pizza girl?”

“Oh the pizza girl.” Sal smiled broadly and rubbed his hands with relish.  “She wanted it up the poop shoot last night Otto.”

I laughed and walked over to talk with Jack.  Sal clambered down and stood next to me.

“What about tonight?” I asked him.  “Another slice of pizza?”

Sal shook his head with a frown.  “No Otto.  You can’t tie yourself down to just one broad.”

Jack had turned and was staring sullenly at Sal from under his tinted safety glasses and backwards hard hat.  I turned to him and gestured at Sal.  “He’s the philosopher of love.”  Jack shook his head slowly while Sal grinned like a Cheshire Cat.  While I was looking at them I was struck with the impression that the opaque safety glasses made everybody look like they had the eyes of a fly.

I started walking off back to my trailer and Lenny ran up and put his arm around my shoulder.  “Hey Otto.” he said, walking along beside me.  “Have you heard anything about layoffs?”

“No Lenny.  I don’t know anything.”

Lenny looked pensive for a moment.  “You know Otto, my court case comes up next week.”

This was the first time I’d heard of this.  “What court case?”

“My wife had a restraining order against me and I went around there drunk one night.  She called the cops and I slugged one of the fuckin’ cops.”  Lenny recited his story as calmly as if it had been a shopping list.  Then suddenly he added with vehemence.  “She’s a fuckin’ bitch!  She lied to the judge.”

“Hey Lenny!  It’s not coffee break yet!” Jack interrupted the story.  Lenny grinned back at Jack and then squeezed my shoulder.

“Let me know if you hear anything about layoffs.”

Five minutes later I returned to the trailer after stopping to trade jocular insults with Mike Randazzo.  I spied Mark wheeling up a five gallon can on a hand truck.

“Hey check it out.” he said with a big grin.  “Virgin toluene.  It was going out as nonrad flammable liquid.  I hate to see it going to waste.  That just doesn’t seem to be good environmental policy.”  Mark chuckled as he went by.

I followed him as he walked out to the parking lot.  When he arrived at his Toyota, he unloaded the can from the hand truck and looked around.  “I mix some straight toluene in with my gasoline.” Mark said.  “It really gives it some pep.”  He unscrewed the gas cap.  “On one job I was in charge of for Toxikleen, I ran all the company vehicles for six months on a mix of waste Toluene.”

As we turned to go back to the trailer, I tapped Mark on the arm and pointed.  Earl was heading to his car for lunch, accompanied by Louise.  Earl was bent over, waving his arms between his knees like an ape, and with his hard hat on sideways and his tongue sticking out the corner of his mouth.  Louise was laughing.

Before I went to lunch, I had to visit the Men’s room, so I passed through the union laborers’ break area looking for today’s newspaper.  Even The Messenger was now interesting since I could look for an article written by Christine after I had digested all the hockey news.  As usual I found a copy of The Messenger lying on one of the tables, ripped in half.

Last week I had finally discovered who it was that ripped the newspaper in half every day.  It was Brendan.  At 6:45 one morning I had been drinking a cup of coffee in the laborers’ break area, when Brendan had stretched, yawned, and announced loudly and abrasively.  “That’s it.  Fuck you guys!”  He then picked up his newspaper and ripped it in half.  As he tossed it back on the table he turned and caught me eyeing him.  He looked at me challengingly.  “That’s so these other cheap fucks can’t read my paper.”  He looked around at the other laborers with belligerent disdain.  “There are a lot of guys here who have summer houses and boats, but there still too fuckin’ cheap to spend thirty five cents on a fuckin’ newspaper.  So I say ‘Fuck them!’  They ain’t readin’ mine!”

Under the theory that half the news that’s fit to print is better than none, every morning I digested either the top half or the bottom half of The Messenger, while seated on the throne.

CHAPTER 82

After hurriedly taking turns in the bathroom and groggily bumping into each other in the kitchen in a desperate search for coffee, Randall, Molly and I all left together to go to work.  Molly was opening the coffee shop and Randall had decided to go back to tree climbing now that the temperatures had risen above freezing.  I gave them both a ride down to the university square.

Molly had spent three nights at our apartment this week, but I had either come in late or stayed at Christine’s and therefore had never really talked to her.  Between yawns she answered my questions and told me that she was a nurse and was studying for the foreign nurses exam.  Randall was still in a positive and effervescent mood and sat in the back seat with his chain saw on his lap and a smile on his face.  I dropped them both off and continued on to the army base.

Later that morning I ran into Brendan and a crew of laborers at the cafeteria.  I greeted him amiably.  “Hey Brendan.  I heard they stuck you down in the sewers.”

Brendan curled his lip with a menacing stoicism.  “Yeah, that’s right.  Sewers and storm drains.  Any job that’s too tough or too fuckin’ gross for anyone else, they give to me.  You should come down and visit me Otto.”

“I think I’ll just wait until you come up for air.”

“Ah you fuckin’ pussy.  Come on.  It’s nice down there.  And good perks too.  All the shit you can eat, free of charge.”

There was some sludge that had been classified as Bio Hazard as it was removed, but the organic content was actually a rather small per cent.  Radioactive solutions containing particles of depleted uranium had been dumped routinely down drains over the years and the heavy uranium had settled out of solution and collected in all the low points throughout the drainage system.  C&C had assigned Brendan the chore of tracing through the entire system and scooping out the accumulated sludge.  Brendan took obvious pride in never being daunted by any task or physical feat, no matter how arduous or revolting.  When I was first becoming acquainted with him, he would test me by telling me disgusting sexual anecdotes, to see how far he could push my limits.  When I seemed amused and responded with more of the same, he bestowed a contentious acceptance upon me.

A laborer with a broken nose and a scar on his chin ambled up and stopped in front of Brendan.  He regarded Brendan with bellicose malice and Brendan returned his gaze.  “You fuckin’ long haired creep!” the laborer pronounced slowly with a sneer. “It’s people like you that are fuckin’ up this whole country!”

Brendan thrust out his chin pugnaciously.  “Oh yeah!  Look who’s been in the fuckin’ government for the last hundred years. The fuckin’ short hairs!  They’re the ones who’ve made all this fuckin’ mess!  It’s time to put the long hairs back in the White House again.  Just like back in the days of Washington and Jefferson.”

The laborer broke into a raucous guffaw and a smile twitched Brendan’s jutting jaw.  Brendan turned to me.  “Ain’t that right Otto?”

“Right on, brother!”

During one of my many trips out to the drum storage yard to verify the accuracy of my inventory data, I stopped to joke around with Sal.  He was standing next to his machine with his hands in the pockets of his quilted overalls.

“What are you doing with your hands in your pockets?” I snapped at him.

“I’m counting my money.” Sal responded with an amused grin. “Or at least what’s left of it after my daughter got through with me this morning.  ‘Daddy, I’ve got to go shopping.’” he mimicked in a high, whiny voice.  “Christ, I’ve got one nice pair of pants and one decent pair of shoes for going out on Saturday night, and she’s got half a warehouse of The Gap stored in her closets!”

I chuckled.  “How old’s your daughter?”

“One’s nineteen and the other’s sixteen.”

“I hope they’re not as ugly as you.”

“No.” Sal responded enthusiastically and pulled out his wallet.  “They’re both really beautiful.  Let me show you their picture.”

In the photo I recognized a younger version of Sal, elegantly attired in suit and tie, accompanied by two teenage girls and a woman in her thirties.  The girls were indeed quite beautiful and I said as much.

“Is that your wife?”

“Yeah.  She passed away four years ago.  She died of breast cancer.” He replied matter of factly.

My forehead puckered in surprised concern.  “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”  I tried to sound as sincere and sympathetic as possible.

Sal put his wallet away.  “Yeah, she was a good woman.  What are you going to do Otto?”  he expressed his acceptance of his condition.  “I still gotta drive the lull every day for Old Man Carson, right?” he grinned and I grinned back.  “Speaking of Old Man Carson, here he comes now.”

I looked up and saw Carson striding purposefully across the drum yard with a clip board tucked under one arm.  His lips were drawn tight and his steel grey eyes took in the landscape with the unblinking sharpness of an eagle.

“Good morning Rick.” I greeted him as he had requested in my last interview.

Old Man Carson brushed aside the friendly greeting with a direct inquiry.  “How many drums do we still have for water treatment?”

“That whole section over there.” I pointed to a group of pallets, endeavoring to be as informative as possible.  “There are ten pallets and I think about 35 drums.  Do you want me to count them quickly?”

Carson gestured with his hand and walked quickly past.  “No. That’s good enough.  Thank you.”  He turned and gave a thin, taut smile.

CHAPTER 83

Lenny was no longer with us.  He would also not be worrying about layoffs for a while.  The judge had given him ninety days. With more and more projects grinding toward completion, big layoffs were looming and Lenny was not replaced in the drum storage yard.

“He’s a fuckin’ loser.”  Jack shook his head with a blend of ruefulness and disdain as he delivered his commentary.

Jack was walking with me over to the water treatment area where Reggie Moon had been in charge since the plate shop was finished.  There were dozens of drums on site which contained some combination of sludge and water.  The sludge in some of the drums was contaminated with cadmium and in the rest with depleted uranium.  Since both contaminants were heavy metal particles they could both be treated in the same manner.

First, all the cadmium drums were pumped out and the water flushed through a filter system which would remove the solid particles.  The water was then collected in clean drums and retested for cadmium.  If the results came back clean, the water could be released into the storm drain system.  All the cadmium contaminated sludge from the drums and filters would be  concentrated into a reduced number of drums and disposed of as cadmium bearing waste.  When all the cadmium drums were processed, clean filters would be installed and the procedure repeated for the depleted uranium contaminated water.

We saw Reggie Moon standing with his erect military bearing next to the chugging pump.  He had ear phone hearing protectors attached to his hard hat and they were now were sticking straight out like a small set of antlers.

“Hello Otto, Jack.” he greeted us swinging his arms and popping a fist into the palm of his other hand.

“Did ya hear about Lenny?” Jack asked him.

Reggie pursed his lips in an expression of disapproval.  “You can’t fuck up like that.”

Jack shook his head.  “That kid can’t do anything right.”  Reggie nodded in agreement.

I checked the accuracy of my drum data and returned to our trailer.  With the level of activity on the job site decreasing, we were left with more free time than we’d seen for months.  Earl wasn’t too pleased of course, but Mark and I were quite content to leave at 3:30 every day.  Phase one of our operation, the collection and sampling of all the waste on site, had been more or less completed, and we were now waiting to begin phase two, which comprised stabilizing and solidifying the mixed waste.  The waste which was radioactive only or chemically contaminated only could be sent off to disposal facilities in the routine manner, but the mixed waste needed to be treated on site prior to shipment.  Samples of all the mixed waste profiles had been sent weeks ago to a lab for a treatablity study.  This study would basically produce a set of formulas which we would use in stabilizing and solidifying the different profiles during phase two.  Our contract with the lab had guaranteed results within four weeks, but this time was going to expire in three days and the lab was apparently no where near ready.

Mark and Earl and I chatted in the trailer for the rest of the morning and finally drove over to the diner for lunch.

“You don’t have a date today?” the waitress greeted Earl.

“No, I’m out with my buddies today.” Earl drawled with a friendly laugh.

“So how are things going with Louise, Earl?” I asked as we sat at a table in the smoking section.

Earl bent his cigarette butt in the ashtray and left it burning.  Mark and I both eyed the smoldering butt and Earl scratched his neck pensively.

“Whew!  I tell you what.  I ain’t met a woman like her in years.”  He leaned forward with his elbows on the table and looked me dead in the eye.  Mark reached over and quietly stubbed out the butt.  “She’s what I call a lady.  And she ain’t one of those porcelain dolls that look real good but you can’t do nothin’ with.  She ain’t afraid to get her hands dirty.  When I came up to her place last weekend she was outside chopping firewood.”

The waitress brought coffee for Earl, iced tea for me, and water for Mark.

“But she’s playing things real cool like, you know.”  Earl dumped four spoonfuls of sugar into his coffee as he went on.  “She says she doesn’t want to get involved with some guy who’s going to disappear in a couple of weeks.”  His voice dropped to a low interior rumble.  “Hell.  I can understand that.”  Earl leaned back and dug his big pinkie into his ear.  “I don’t like it, but I can understand it!”  He shot forward and gripped the table edge in his oversized paws as he unloosed a booming laugh. Earl’s mirth was contagious and Mark and I laughed along with him.

“Anyway.” he continued.  “I was going to take her boy out on a motor boat ride.  There’s a marina that rents boats on that lake on Route 11 about 45 minutes out of town.  We drove all the way out there and the place was closed.  Louise didn’t want to come ’cause it’s still too cold, but I’m gonna take her out fishin’ in a couple of weeks when it gets a bit warmer.  Her boy’s a real good kid though.  Real good natured and polite.  The way kids ought to be.  You know, respectful and not sassin’ off all the time like kids up here do.  I’ll say one thing for Louise, she’s bringing that boy up right.”

Earl leaned back and surveyed me intently.  “How about you, Otto?  What’s happening with that sweet thing of yours?”

I had already related the details of recent events to Mark, but he listened again with interest as I updated Earl.  Earl nodded sagely when I told him about Christine’s other boyfriend and he punctuated my story with a series of grunts as I recounted her inquiries about the nature of our relationship and our future together.  When I explained how things had been left basically unresolved, Earl shook his head meaningfully.  He leaned across the table again for emphasis.

“You know Otto.  If you really like her you’re gonna have to stop bullshitting around and do what you gotta do.”

I nodded my head seriously.  Mark suddenly laughed.  “That’s one problem I sure don’t have.  It’s been so long for me I’m going to have to reread the manual to remember what goes where.”

We all guffawed.  Earl sputtered between spasms of laughter. “You poor guy.  You ain’t even had a sex life lately.”

Mark chortled.  “It’s not a lack of a sex life.  It’s just a lack of a woman to share it with.”  As we laughed he held up his right hand.  “Check out those calluses Earl.”  Mark started wiping his hand all over Earl’s shoulder.  Earl pulled away laughing heartily.

“Get that dirty thing away from me.”

CHAPTER 84

I was planning to go down to New York this weekend for the first time in months.  Massoud had called and, after raving for fifteen minutes about a twenty year old Nigerian midfielder who was now playing for Milan in the Italian soccer league, finally remembered to mention that our landlord had served us with an eviction notice.

It was Thursday night and Christine and I were going to spend a romantic evening together before I left.  This time however, Christine would be making her first visit to my apartment.  She had some work to finish and would be over for candlelight and champagne at 8:30.  After work I had run five miles in a chilly March breeze along the river with Mark and on my way home I stopped off at a supermarket and bought the only candles that were in stock.  I got back at 8:15 and set the two plain looking Kosher candles on the floor next to my futon mattress.  Then after a quick shower I dashed out to the liquor store for a bottle of Freixenet.  I returned to find Christine shivering on my doorstep.

“Keeping a lady waiting out in the cold isn’t the most charming introduction to a romantic evening Otto.” she chided me as she kissed me with frosty lips.

I hustled her inside and showed her around our apartment.  Christine kept her black leather jacket zipped all the way up as I pointed out our freshly vacuumed and mopped kitchen.  Not even one of Jozef’s habitual dinner plates graced the sink.  Christine pivoted elegantly on the heel of her black boots and sniffled her nose.

“You still look cold.” I said with concern.  “Do you want me to make you a hot cup of tea?”

Christine gazed at me and shook her head deliberately.  “No.  I want your hot body.”

She took a step towards me and I reached up and slowly unzipped her jacket.  When I had removed this insulating barrier, I slipped my hands around her waist and pulled her slender body against my warmth.  She melted against my chest and tucked her cold nose into my collar.  Christine was where she wanted to be and we stayed like that for several minutes.

Eventually I took her to my room and stopped at the door to let her admire the dazzling sparseness.  The four white walls greeted her.  Christine’s eyes swept across the scant details of my room while an amused smile lingered on her red lips.  On the opposite wall between the windows hung an enlarged photograph of a snow-capped peak in the Andes that I had taken when I lived in Argentina with Tania.  My futon was neatly covered by a blue, hand-woven woolen blanket that a friend of mine had brought back from an indian village in Guatemala.  On the floor next to the portable cassette player sat a 14 gallon cardboard drum of the type we used at work for shipping small bottles of chemicals to incinerators.  In my case it served both as a table, a chair and a storage unit for teeshirts, socks, and underwear.  I noticed Christine focus momentarily on my down camping booties which were patched by strips of red duct tape.  A black gym bag bearing the Toxikleen logo, several books, a stack of cassettes, and the German weekly magazine Der Spiegel, were the only other objects decorating my newly refinished floors.

Christine laughed.  “Well at least it’s clean.  I was braced to see the typical bachelor’s pigsty.”

I showed her my other empty room and she laughed again.  Other than a National Geographic map of Canada and a poster of Dutch soccer star Ruud Gullit, I kept absolutely nothing in this room.  Except of course the socks I had worn while running which were now draped over the radiator to dry.

We went back in the bed room and Christine stood uncertainly with her jacket still on, while I popped in a cassette of Astor Piazzolla tangos.  I noticed the candles and realized I didn’t have any matches.  I would have to light them on the kitchen stove.  Christine was staring at the 14 gallon drum.  I explained to her what it was normally used for.  Her amused smile broadened, but she remained silent.

“Have a seat.  I’ll be right back.” I said, scooping up the candles.  Christine looked from the 14 gallon drum to the futon and elected the futon.

I came back a minute later with the two Kosher candles lit.  Christine was sitting on the futon wearing her jacket and listening to the melancholy notes of the violin, piano and accordion.  I set down the candles and turned off the glaring overhead light.  The dim yellow light of the candles flickered softly off Christine’s smiling face.  She looked like she was trying to repress a laugh.

“Now we need a bucket of ice for the champagne.” I told her and went off again to the kitchen.

A real ice bucket, I assumed, would be an unlikely expectation for our meagerly furnished bachelor pad, but I was sure I could rummage up a suitable replacement.  I spied the plastic mop bucket in the corner and compared its aesthetic appeal against the large pot I used for cooking pasta.  I chose the pot, deciding that it was marginally more charming than the bucket.  Then I confidently opened the freezer to extract the ice.  At first I couldn’t believe my eyes.  These idiots didn’t even have ice cube trays!  I searched all the cabinets and discovered to my great frustration that such an object did not exist in the entire house.  I opened the freezer again and inventoried the contents in dismay.

A minute later I was back in my room with the champagne.  As I set it down in front of Christine the mirth bubbled out of her. She reached into the pot with the champagne bottle wedged into the middle, and picked up one of my “ice cubes”.  It was a packet of frozen string beans.

CHAPTER 85

My trip back to New York proved entertaining but nonconclusive.  We weren’t sure if our landlord was really capable of evicting us even though we had a somewhat less than legal sublet.  Massoud had settled into a wait-and-see attitude. For my part, if worse came to worse I could easily pick up my two bags of clothes that I kept there and transfer them to a new roosting spot.  Aside from our domestic worries, Massoud and I spent a large part of the weekend in the park with a group of Latin Americans who gathered there every day to play soccer to the accompaniment of beer, marijuana and salsa music blasting from a portable radio.

On Tuesday morning I was back on the job site, verifying data in our drum inventory while we continued our waiting game with the lab that was supposed to be producing our treatability study.  Yesterday the lab had called us and requested still more material from the cyanide profiles, so Mark had spent the day moving a couple of drums to a makeshift sampling area and shipping off another two liters which he had collected.  RSA of course had watched his every move like a hawk since the area being used had already been surveyed.  Johnny A. this morning had given us a brief admonishment that Old Man Carson was showing signs of dissatisfaction about paying for Toxikleen personnel who were no longer performing a needed function, and that we should give the impression that we were busy at all times.

“Unless of course you want to enjoy the pleasures of April in some crumbling steel plant town in western Pennsylvania.  I believe we have a new project starting up there.”

The last thing Toxikleen, Inc. wanted to have to do, with its corporate philosophy of saving the environment, was to have to demobilize us and find a new project where we could be billable to a client, when we were already conveniently billable to C&C right here.  I firmly shared the conviction that a company has a legitimate right and obligation to its shareholders to make a profit.  I also was unenthusiastic about the sublime attractions of crumbling western Pennsylvania steel towns at this particular juncture.  I printed out a revised drum list and made copies for Mike Randazzo and Old Man Carson.

Earl clomped in and dropped his cigarette butt with a hiss into Johnny A.’s Diet Pepsi tobacco spit bottle.  He peered absently over my shoulder at my paperwork and shivered.

“When the hell are we going to get some decent weather up here?  Why back home I’d be out fishin’ already.”  He installed himself leisurely in his desk chair.  “You ever go fishin’ Otto?”

I shook my head.  “No.  I’m not much of a fisherman Earl.”

“Well I tell you what.  I’m going to get Stanley and some of the union boys together for a fishin’ trip in a couple of weeks. You could bring that little gal of yours.  Louise is gonna come. We could all make a day of it.”

Fishing has never been my favorite activity, but this idea sounded like a nice change of pace.  I thought it would also be fun to introduce Christine to Earl and the union boys.  “Sure Earl.  That sounds great.”

The door opened and Old Man Carson walked in to find Earl and me looking up from the paperwork which had us so thoroughly preoccupied.

CHAPTER 86

It was official!  As our interim of waiting for the treatability study continued, I came into the trailer one morning and began busying myself with the necessities of the day.  Mark was bent over a newspaper and a bowl of Cheerios at his desk while Earl was scratching his neck and blinking sleepily with the usual styrofoam cup of coffee attached to his hand.  Johnny A. swivelled around in his chair and addressed us calmly.

“OK, listen up.  I need to tell you guys something.”

Mark looked up with milk on his chin and Earl paused his activity in mid scratch to squint earnestly at our project manager.  Johnny A. looked flatly at all of us from behind the thick lenses of his glasses.

“I have to inform you that I’m leaving the company.” he announced drily.  There followed a stunned silence.  “You’re going to have a new project manager who will be arriving tomorrow.  I tried to convince them to let Mark take over in my place since he’s already here and is familiar with the project, but corporate wanted to send this guy.  The original plan was that I was going to spend a week here with the new guy to get him up to speed.  Unfortunately I just have too much to do back at the home office and besides, Old Man Carson said he didn’t want to pay for any extra Toxikleen personnel hanging around here if there’s no work being done.  So you guys are just going to have to take care of him.”

We were all surprised and disappointed.  It was no secret to us that Johnny A. had his resume floating around out there, but he was so discrete in his business dealings that none of us had suspected that he was actually about to make a move.  And since we all felt comfortable and relaxed with Johnny A. and respected his professional abilities, we shared an uneasy uncertainty about the unknown quantity which would be his successor.  Earl was the first to respond.

“Why are you leaving the company John?  Did you get a new job?”

“Yes.  I’m taking over as manager of a fuel recycling plant near Raleigh.  They need me to start in two weeks.  That’s why there’s such a rush for me to get out of here.  I have to write up a lot of project reports as well as do all my exit medical testing.”  Johnny A. paused and then smiled ever so slightly.  “I’ll be able to commute to work in twenty five minutes.”

Earl slapped his beefy hand down on his desk and jumped up. “Hot damn!  Good for you John!”  He went over and pumped Johnny A.’s hand vigorously.  Mark and I joined in the congratulatory celebration.  Johnny A. smiled happily as he shook our hands.

That night was Johnny A.’s last night so it was decided that a good bye dinner was in order.  Since we didn’t have a hell of a lot of work to do, we spent the greater part of the afternoon discussing possible restaurants.  Mark suggested at one point that they try out a Peruvian restaurant that he’d noticed.  He was expostulating his case by describing the merits of escabeche, when Earl started in peevishly with a story from his Viet Nam days and he was just getting to the part about gook food giving him real bad gas when Mark cut him off and informed him that Peru was in South America and therefore a considerable distance from Viet Nam.  Finally we agreed to meet at the bar in Johnny A.’s hotel and discuss the matter further over aperitifs.

We met at the bar at 6:30, all showered and dressed in our regular street clothes, and continued the debate between toasts to Johnny A.’s good luck in his new career.  After several rounds of beer and Earl’s Bailey’s and coffee, we still hadn’t arrived at a decision.  With liberal doses of alcohol passing through our empty stomachs and continuing straight into our blood streams, suggestions began to be advanced with great hilarity on all parts that we discard this bothersome notion of eating dinner all together and just hit a few more bars and continue drinking.  We had a few more rounds and then the waitresses, that I had apparently misidentified as being somewhat plain-looking when I walked in, now began to absorb a substantial portion of our attention.  Our effusively friendly demeanor elicited polite smiles which we astutely interpreted as coy symptoms of carnal desire.  Earl began glorifying the virtues of the rack adorning the redhead’s torso and we all agreed unanimously that she was too far away to overhear his comments.

Johnny A. pushed his stool back onto the floor with a crash that merely disappeared into the general background noise of the bar, and proposed a toast in a voice that seemed to rise into a squeak.  “Gentleman!”  His solemnity was undercut by a big open-mouthed grin.  “Here’s to Toxikleen sucking my dick!”

The sentiment was a hugely popular one and we were all immediately on our feet, delightedly smashing beer mug into beer mug, and gleefully roaring out the refrain “Here’s to Toxikleen sucking all our dicks!”

The maître d’ proved to be quite amiable.  Our last round had been on the house, he explained to us in a very comradely manner, as he escorted us to the door.  Once outside, the discussion about restaurants resumed as we stood, rather uncertainly at times, in the parking lot.  Mark was suggesting an Italian restaurant downtown, when Earl butted in and declared enthusiastically that we should all go to this tit bar he knew over on Route 43.

Mark laughed, half amused and half in frustration.  “Earl, just once I’d like to meet a woman that I don’t have to pay in cash!”

My mind was still on dinner and I mentioned Mexican food.  Johnny A. pounced on the idea.  “That’s it!  Mexican food!”

A brief conference ensued and an accord was reached.  Five minutes later we stood bleary-eyed on line in the bright lights of Taco Bell.

CHAPTER 87

The following day we were introduced to Kurt Stillman, our new project manager.  Kurt gave us friendly smiles and radiated a quiet confidence as Johnny A. quickly spun through the project details and lists of important names to be remembered.  As Johnny A. rattled on though, I occasionally glimpsed what appeared to be stark bewilderment in Kurt’s eyes.  At other times he seemed glazed over entirely and was following Johnny A. around mechanically like a faithful dog that you’re always tripping over.

Earl, Mark, Johnny A. and I were all feeling a bit sluggish from our activities on the previous evening and I could detect Johnny A. forcibly trying to maintain mental cohesion during his rambling presentation.  Sometimes he even seemed to glaze over with greater fervor than Kurt and the two of them would sidle about together, completely devoid of dialogue, like two lost ducks waddling through the woods.

At 10:30 Johnny A. glanced nervously at his watch and said. “Gee.  I’ve got to head out to the airport.”  He handed Kurt a set of keys and two thick file folders and wished him luck.  We all said our hasty good byes and Johnny A. was gone.

Kurt sat at his desk looking confused.  Mark, Earl and I sat at ours and looked at Kurt expectantly.  Kurt stared absently at the desk blotter and began opening and shutting his desk drawer. We watched as the drawer clicked shut and slid open, over and over again.  After several minutes of this Mark picked up a newspaper and Earl muttered something about a cup of coffee.  I opened my desk drawer and resumed a valiant struggle with “The Collected Verse of William Wordsworth” that I had kept there all week.  I had found the book on Christine’s shelves and I could tell by the rigid spine that it had never been opened.  Under the postulate that anything is less boring than sitting around with thumb inserted into rectum, I was attempting to pass the empty hours by filling in the Grand Canyon sized gaps in my knowledge of poetry.

After a while Kurt disappeared and returned 15 minutes later with a bag of cheeseburgers, french fries and coke from Burger King.  When Mark saw the bag he started giving Kurt some helpful information on local eating places and was describing the salads at the diner when Kurt gave him a wan smile and said.  “That’s OK.  Burger King will do me fine.”  Kurt had found his culinary niche and after that, as far as any of us were ever able to tell, ate exclusively at Burger King, three meals a day.

After lunch Old Man Carson dropped by to make the acquaintance of Toxikleen’s new project manager.  With the apparent desire to size up the new man, he asked Kurt probingly if he was familiar with the solidification process required in phase two of our operation.

“Oh yeah.”  Kurt seemed to be gratefully feeling himself back on familiar turf again.  “It’s a piece of cake.  We’re just going to rock it all up.”

Old Man Carson’s eyes gleamed appreciatively behind his safety glasses.  “Good.  I just want you to make it all go away.” He gave Kurt a taut smile.

Kurt grinned back with can-do self assurance.  “No problem. Once we get the paper work out of the way and the mixer on site, all your worries will be processed into ten inch slabs of concrete.  What ever you’ve got, we’ll rock it up.  Right guys?”

This last sentence was directed with a friendly grin at Mark and me, so we grinned back and nodded our assent supportively.

Mark, Earl and I were too hung over to offer to show Kurt the sights so he was left on his own his first evening.  The prospect didn’t seem to phase him however.  “I’m just going to watch TV at the motel.” he informed us complacently.

The next morning we came into the trailer to find that Kurt had turned his desk around in the corner to make a private alcove.  A shelf and a line of reference books on top of his desk blocked the view so that his head was no longer visible without walking around the corner.  Over the next couple of weeks, whenever I had occasion to poke my head around into Kurt’s sanctum, I found him concentrating diligently on a computer golf game.

Earl seemed to flummox Kurt completely.  Promptly on Kurt’s second day Earl hit him with his favorite moped/fat girl gag, and Kurt had stared at him with a puzzled look on his face.  Half an hour later “fifty miles of bad road and hung up wet to dry” met with the same response.  Later that afternoon, Kurt went surreptitiously up to Mark and inquired if everything was all right with Earl.  Mark assured him that it was, but Kurt still appeared dubious.

Kurt was another product of the navy’s nuclear submarine program where he had apparently been an officer.  He had been in the nuclear division of Toxikleen for the last several years since leaving the navy, and his experience with hazardous materials had been principally confined to radioactivity.  I asked him where he was from one time and he had shook his hand and said “all over.”  He was a military brat.  His wife and six month old son were out in San Diego, but he didn’t know if he wanted to stay there or buy a house somewhere else.  A lot would depend on whether he could get a job in which he wouldn’t have to travel so much.  That was about as much as any of us ever learned about Kurt because he tended to remain fairly aloof.  He didn’t socialize with anyone after work, but seemed to divide his evenings between hanging out late in the office to play his computer golf game, and going back to his motel to watch TV.  He never became sufficiently tempted to visit any of the local sights.

CHAPTER 88

Several fairly uneventful weeks went by and the first warm days of April arrived.  At work we continued trying to keep busy while waiting on the treatability study.  We all got along well with Kurt, but he remained quiet and solitary and even seemed quite bored except when we talked about work.  Jozef came home early from the lab one sunny afternoon and introduced me to a group a Italians, Greeks and Brazilians who played soccer every day near the university.  Otherwise I spent the greater part of my free time with Christine.

Christine had by now phased out her previous suitor and she and I had developed a close but slightly uneasy intimacy.  I was perhaps still being overly cautious and reluctant to admit to either Christine or myself, how much I enjoyed every aspect of her company, while she, for her part, suspected that she was in danger of investing herself emotionally in a situation that might suddenly evaporate when I was transferred out of town.  Our spoken plans never extended very far into the future.  For the time being, Christine seemed to sense that I valued her presence and she was pragmatically making do with that.  She was visibly avoiding putting any pressure on me and I felt grateful to her.  In any event she was always a cheerful and understanding companion and I never tired of having her around.

One night while Christine was out of town for several days on an assignment, I came home from the movies to find Jozef and Molly huddled on the front steps.  At first I thought they were dancing, but as I got closer, I saw that the only one who was dancing was Jozef.  A couple more steps closer and it became evident that he was not dancing but weaving back and forth in a tentative endeavor to mount the steps to the door.  Molly was propping him up with her arm around his waist.  For a moment I was alarmed, thinking that something had happened to him, but then he turned his radiantly smiling face to me and I realized that Jozef was sloshed.

“Otto.” Jozef beamed with delight when he saw me.  He lurched forward and clutched my arm.  “Good, old Otto.”  Jozef began pounding my shoulder.  “He must be good because he’s part Irish.  Right, My Emerald Isle sweetheart?”

Jozef cackled with glee and leaned on Molly.  Molly appeared stone sober and she looked at me and rolled her eyes with a half smile.

“Good, old Otto.” Jozef repeated again and then suddenly his grin disappeared and he groaned dully, clutching his stomach.  He staggered and grabbed onto the railing.  Molly supported him looking concerned.  “Molly.” Jozef began with a brilliant glint returning to his eyes.  “You are truly a wonderful woman!”  He was staring off happily into space.  Molly’s mouth twitched in a little laugh as she reguarded him tenderly.  Jozef opened his mouth and looked determined to continue speaking, but then he abruptly leaned over the railing and wretched violently into a shrub.

Molly wrinkled her face in disgust, but held him up maternally.  “Oh my god.  Now what have you done!  I thought you Poles could hold your liquor.”  She wiped off his chin with her handkerchief.

Jozef looked up almost cross-eyed with one arm leaning on Molly’s shoulder, while he pointed his finger in front of him for emphasis.  “It’s not the liquor we have a problem with.  It’s the vomit.”

Molly laughed.  “Come on you silly pratt.  Let’s get you to bed.”

Jozef’s eyes lit up with a twinkle.  “Good (hiccough) id..(hic!).. idea, Molly darling.  I want to (Hiccough) .. ma..make..(hiccough).. make love with you all night.”  He tried to turn and grapple the object of his affection.  Molly pushed him up the stairs.

“Yeah right.  You’re not in any condition to make love, even in your dreams.”

Jozef teetered on a step and managed to turn and face her.  He reached up and put a hand on her cheek softly.  “I love you Molly.”

Molly gave a patient sigh.  “You drunken twit.  No more of your nonsense.  Inside you go.”  I opened the door and she navigated her cargo into the apartment.

CHAPTER 89

We got demobed!  With typical suddenness we were informed at coffee break this morning that Toxikleen was demobilizing from the project site.  Kurt was sensitive to the fact that Mark, Earl and I were comfortably settled in and was shyly apologetic as he explained the details to us.  The lab was still frustrated in its efforts to establish a formula for the chlorination process which would deactivate our cyanides, and the state environmental regulatory agency had expressed some new reservations about public safety during phase two of the project.  The inevitable result was a foreseeable continued delay of an indefinite duration, and C&C had calculated that it was probably cheaper to demobilize and then recall us again, than to continue paying for us to be on site when we weren’t rendering any needed services.  Toxikleen would have been more than happy to have its four employees remain on site for the rest of their careers since this was a time and materials contract and Toxikleen made a guaranteed profit for every day that we spent here.  However Old Man Carson had been in this business too long to allow himself to incur any wasted expense, and he didn’t hesitate in making the decision to cut Toxikleen off as soon as he determined that it wasn’t cost effective to have us around any more.

Earl was being sent to New Jersey to fill a manpower need where an excavator operator had just walked off the job.  He could either drive or fly and easily report for duty tomorrow at 6 AM.  Mark had to wait for a phone call to find out if he was going to return to his Baltimore office or be sent elsewhere.  I was to report to a site in western Ohio in two days time.  Kurt had arranged to give me an extra day to resolve my affairs here and then I had one day as a travel day.

Mark, Earl and I looked at Kurt in a slightly stunned but resigned silence.  We had known that our cozy situation here wasn’t going to last for ever, but now that we were confronted once again with the reality of our transient existence, we felt disappointed.  Earl raised his eyebrows and sighed.  Then he gave a short, loud laugh.  “Well I’ll have to tell Stanley that fishin’s off.”

Mark shook his head with a rueful smile.  “You guys aren’t going to believe this, but I met a real cute girl last night when I was jogging and we were going to have dinner together tomorrow.”

Earl and I laughed at Mark’s ironic misfortune.  Even Kurt joined in tentatively.  Earl put his arm around Mark’s shoulders. “I tell you what buddy.  You just got no sense of timing.”  Then he laughed again.

I went over to the C&C trailer to fax my certifications to the job site in Ohio.  Earl stomped in a minute later and went straight over to Louise’s desk.  He leaned over with his knuckles on her paperwork and Louise looked up with a bright smile.  Earl cleared his throat with a serious frown.

“Well it looks like I’ll be movin’ on.” he drawled casually. Louise inhaled sharply with unguarded surprise and then quickly composed herself to hide the disappointment that I’d glimpsed fleetingly.  “Yeah we just got the word.” Earl resumed, absently fingering a memo.  “I’m off to New Jersey as soon as I take care of all the paperwork and pack up my motel room.”

Louise answered lightly as if she was saying good night to one of the secretaries.  Earl put down the memo and hitched up his jeans.  “Well.” he began slowly and looked up at Louise.  “I guess I’d better mosey.”  He winked at her and abruptly turned and clomped toward the door.  “Good bye ladies.”  He bid farewell to the secretaries with a grin.  “Y’all take care now.”

The door closed behind Earl and Louise looked down at her papers.  She appeared to be concentrating intently on her work but her face had flushed red and and her pen trembled slightly in her hand.

Mark, Earl and I all had to get our full body count before we left the project.  RSA had a full body count machine on site and we each had to lie in it for about a minute to allow it to detect any radiation that would be emitted by radioactive particles which we had inhaled or ingested during the course of the project.  The result was expected of course to be zero and would be mailed to us in a week.  This test, like all the medical exams we were regularly required to undergo, was as much for the company’s sake as for the employee’s.  All companies involved in environmental remediation keep documentation on file to determine responsibility if an employee someday becomes ill as well as to shield them from illegitimate law suits.

Back at our trailer we packed up our equipment while Jack helped himself to some of our coffee and harangued us gleefully about our need to organize into a strong union.  By lunch time I was ready to go and said good bye briefly to Earl, Mark and Jack. Six months of companionship came to an anticlimactic close with a hurried handshake as we all rushed about on our business.  I had also called Christine’s office and learned that she would still be out of town for two more days.

With a feeling of general dissatisfaction I headed to the parking lot.  The sun was shining outside in stark contrast to my own dim and gloomy disposition.  Brendan was standing in the parking lot passing his lunch time flying a kite high above the rows of parked cars.  Brendan glanced at me and resumed his concentration.

“I heard you’re out of here Otto.” he said, following the flight of his kite.

“Yeah.”  I nodded.  “Adios mother fucker.”

“It was good working with you Otto.”

“Yeah, you too Brendan.”

Brendan stuck out his hand while still keeping his eye on the kite.  We shook hands and I turned away to my car.

CHAPTER 90

I crossed the railroad tracks in an old industrial part of town and arrived at the job site at 6 o’clock in the morning.  I parked my car by the gate in the perimeter fence with about twenty other vehicles, almost all of them pickup trucks.  Last night I had stayed in a nearby motel after driving for fourteen hours, during which I brooded over not having even talked to Christine before I left.  The general plan was that Mark, Earl and I were supposed to return to finish up our project in several weeks as soon as it was ready to start up again, but I knew from experience that nothing in this business was certain.  Furthermore, project managers tended to grasp firmly on to anyone who was reliable once you were on their job site and under their control.  At any rate I had decided to risk a month’s rent and had told Randall I would keep my rooms at least through May.

I signed in at the guard shack and walked over to a trailer marked “Administration”.  It was empty.  I gazed around at the half dozen trailers, the chain link fence which separated the hot zone from the support zone, and the usual heavy machinery used in an excavation project.  From where I stood I counted 2 excavators, 2 front end loaders, 3 bulldozers of various sizes, and at least 5 end dump trucks.  The early morning sunlight shone coldly and reflected dully off the beads of dew which covered the metal surfaces.  A honking flock of geese passing overhead was practically the only sound in the peaceful scene.

I noticed cigarette smoke wafting steadily out of a trailer window.  When I got closer I saw the sign identifying this as the Break trailer and realized that everyone was already inside at the daily health and safety meeting.  I was late.

I opened the door and edged into the crowded room where about 20 men were sitting or standing.  Almost every man was wearing a baseball cap and quite a few had black Toxikleen caps and warm up jackets.  On the tables were several boxes of Dunkin Donuts and various sections of USA Today.  The cigarette smoke was so thick it stung my eyes.  A man in his mid forties, wearing a Toxikleen cap and jacket, was standing at one end of the trailer and addressing the group in an authoritative voice.

“Nobody’s to go down in that excavation pit in anything less than Level B.  Is that clear to everyone?  Yesterday we had an incident where we hit a pocket of shit when we were digging and the excavator operator, who was in Level C, had a break through on his filters.  He threw up right in his mask and felt dizzy so we had to take him to the hospital.  He’s OK.  As you can see, Tommy’s sitting over there stuffing his face with doughnuts so it didn’t cause any serious damage, but we don’t want to take any chances.”

“Maybe it was eatin’ all them doughnuts what got ‘im sick.” someone drawled.  Everyone in the trailer guffawed.  I myself wondered cynically how much whiskey Tommy had drunk the night before.  The Health and Safety Officer was one of the boys and he enjoyed the joke too.  Then he resumed his serious demeanor and went on.

“So everyone working around the excavation pit’s going to be on supplied air, including the excavator operator.  If I see anybody over there in just a filter respirator, he’ll be packing his bags to go home, and that’s a promise.”  He looked around the room to make sure his point had struck home.  Most of the men were staring at the floor or off into space as if they were half asleep.  Cigarette smoke drifted out of nostrils and up past bleary eyes.

The Health and Safety Officer looked satisfied and stepped back against the wall.  Another man about 40, wearing clean blue jeans, a dress shirt, and wire rim glasses, stepped forward and read calmly from a notepad.  “Tommy, you’ll be back on the excavator with the excavation crew.  Steve’s going back on the Komatsu to feed the screener and Will can go on a front end loader.  That’ll free up Donnie to drive the other end dump.”  The speaker, who was evidently John Lewis, the project manager, looked up and noticed me.  “Oh yeah.  We have a new man on site. Otto Flanagan.  He’s going to be doing health and safety with Robert.  Welcome aboard Otto.”

Some of the men looked at me with a dull curiosity.  Most of them continued staring at the floor.  Robert, The Health and Safety Officer, nodded officiously in my direction.  “Otto’s going to be out with the excavation crew.”

“By the way Otto.” John Lewis addressed me with a quiet smile.  “Safety meeting starts at 6 o’clock sharp and if you’re late you have to bring doughnuts the next day.  We’ll let you slide today though.”

CHAPTER 91

After a brief orientation with John Lewis and Robert, I was ready to suit up and join the excavation crew.  I had been on dirt jobs like this before and a quick explanation of site history and our remediation procedure told me what I needed to know.  A chemical company had existed on this site for 50 years and endemic leaking from tanks and spills over the years had saturated the ground with enough volatile organics and PCB’s to get the place declared a Superfund site.  The soil and ground water in the entire area, particularly down gradient, had been extensively mapped out according to contaminant levels.  The excavation crew was now working in grid patterns, digging as deep in each ten foot square grid as the map said to go.

The contaminated soil was dug up by an excavator and dumped straight into a waiting end dump truck.  When the truck was full it transferred its load to a huge storage pile where another excavator steadily fed the pile into a screener to remove the rocks.  The screener had an iron grid on top which separated the rocks above a certain diameter off to one side, while the remaining dirt and smaller stones were carried out of the screener on a conveyor belt to be piled up again below the conveyor. Either a front end loader caught the dirt coming off the belt or a small bulldozer would hurry over and push the new pile to one side.  The excavator operator feeding the screener couldn’t see how high the pile was building up so if nobody was able to keep up with him or give him a signal to stop, he would keep feeding the screener until the pile backed up the conveyor belt and jammed up the whole screener.  When this happened there was always a good deal of bad tempered yelling over radios and through respirators.   Then several operators would have to climb down from their climate controlled machines and clamber awkwardly about on the conveyor, wielding enormous wrenches and shoveling out a few hundred pounds of dirt.  The screened dirt was next stored in long, open bins and finally fed by another front end loader into the hopper of the thermal vaporizer itself.

The thermal vaporizer was the technological star of this show.  It had been transported to the site on ten flat bed trucks and now resembled a 60 foot long and 6 foot diameter steel cylinder which slowly rotated.  Contaminated dirt was fed into one end and theoretically clean dirt poured out a conveyor belt on the other.  The decontamination process was achieved by heating the dirt several hundred degrees which was enough to vaporize any organic compounds.  The air in the cylinder, with all its vapor contaminants, was passed through a series of filters and scrubbers until it was finally exhausted as air which met all the EPA’s clean air standards.  To ensure clean air quality, this exhaust was monitored continually.  The organic and PCB contaminants were therefore concentrated in the filters and they were periodically removed and put through filter presses which left a final end product of contaminant saturated filter cake.  The dirt, if it tested clean after exiting the thermal vaporizer, could be reused as backfill to refill the excavation pits.

Robert had given me a quick run down of the contaminants and their hazards.  “The main bad boy out there is methylene chloride.  We hit some pockets of that stuff that are so concentrated that the soil must be just saturated.  The OSHA PEL is 500 parts per million with a ceiling limit of 1000 ppm.  However the TLV is only 50 ppm.  Also it’s a suspected carcinogen so exposure levels are to be kept to a minimum.  You’re coming here from a rad job so you’re familiar with ALARA.  As Low As Reasonably Achievable!”

I nodded.  Pretty standard stuff and not difficult to deal with from a health and safety point of view.  The OSHA mandated PEL, or permissible exposure level, of 500 ppm was in the middle of the range that was common for solvents, but the TLV, or threshold limit values as recommended by the advisory organization the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH), was much more conservative at 50 ppm.  The ceiling limit was the maximum level of exposure allowed.  Symptoms of acute exposure included dizziness, fatigue, nausea and headaches.  In addition exposure has been linked to cancer with no maximum safe levels yet established.

“Tape up well!”  Robert continued.  “Keep your eye on those guys out there.  Don’t let them get sloppy.  I used to write them up the first two times I caught them not wearing the right kind of PPE, but now I’m tired of all the bullshit and I’ve warned them that if I catch them just once, I’ll kick them the hell out of here!”

Robert had looked at me skeptically as if he doubted my grasp of the situation’s gravity.  I personally believed there existed more productive means to ensure a safe and cooperative work site other than threatening to fire people, but I nodded my head again.

Robert went on to issue me the air monitoring equipment I would be using.  The air monitoring was on a continual basis and I had to record the results every fifteen minutes in a notebook with weatherproof pages.  There was a PID, or photo ionization detector, which detected organic vapors and gave instantaneous readings of their concentrations in parts per million.  An oxygen meter gave readings of the percentage of oxygen in the air as well the percentage of organic fumes and the concentration of hydrogen sulfide.  The last unit was a dust meter that counted tiny, airborne particles.  Finally he gave me a radio and told me to keep it on channel three.

I entered the decon trailer carrying my radio, the air monitoring equipment, and an SCBA case.  Inside the trailer the walls were lined with lockers and the floor was littered with work boots and gym bags.  In the middle of the trailer were several showers and in the far end a washing machine chugged with yesterday’s towels.  On the wall above the washing machine and dryer about twenty respirator masks hung on pegs where they could stay warm and dry.  In the past I had often had to put on a respirator and work outside in temperatures well below freezing. I could remember the cold, clammy rubber of the mask pressing against my face and the condensation of my warm breath fogging up the plexiglass face shield every time I exhaled and then clearing up again when I sucked in fresh, dry air through the pressure demand valve.

The excavation crew had already gone into the Hot Zone so I suited up by myself in the trailer.  I took off my work boots and put on a double extra-large impermeable saranax suit, styrofoam ear plugs, two pairs of plastic booties, and two pairs of gloves with cotton liners fitting snugly inside latex lab gloves.  Next I opened the SCBA case and slid the air bottle into the back frame.  The SCBA was my emergency air supply.  Out at the excavation pit, a six pack of air tanks with 100 foot long air lines was already set up.  I would use the tank on my back only if I had to wander further than my air line would reach, or in case of emergency.

After checking the warning bell, I hoisted the bottle frame onto my back and strapped on the face mask, leaving the hose hanging down from the mask like an elephant’s trunk so that I could breath without using the bottled air until necessary.  I plopped my hard hat on my head and tightened it as well as I could over the bulky face mask.  Picking up my equipment, I exited the trailer and went into the next area which was the tarpaulin covered Contamination Reduction Zone, or as it was usually called, the CRZ.  There were two long racks with steel toed rubber boots hanging upside-down to dry.  I managed to find a matching pair two sizes larger than I usually wore, and wedged my plastic bootie clad feet into them.  As soon as I bent over of course, my hard hat fell off and I just left it on the floor while I duct taped the boots to my suit and my gloves to my sleeves.  I was finally ready to enter the Hot Zone, so I jammed the hard hat back on my head again and screwed in the face mask air hose.  Hearing the familiar whoosh of air passing through the pressure demand valve, I parted the tarpaulin flap and stepped into the muddy Hot Zone.

Hazmat, or hazardous materials, remediation sites are segmented into three clearly demarcated zones.  The Support Zone is the clean area which is separated by a fence or barrier tape from the contaminated area being cleaned up.  The CRZ is the entrance and exit to the contaminated area and the place where boots are rinsed off and PPE is removed.  The quarantined area of contamination is called the Hot Zone.

The Hot Zone was five acres of mud.  My rubber boots squelched two inches deep with each step.  A front end loader chugged past me with its bucket full of wet dirt.  The plywood walls of the bins storing the screened soil were on my right and on my left was the hopper with the massive steel cylinder of the thermal vaporizer rising behind it.  Grey metal pipes and tubes radiated upwards and around the cylinder like tentacles of a medusa.  Facing me lay a huge dirt pile 60 feet long and a good 15 feet high.  The big Komatsu excavator was swinging into action, biting its bucket into the pile, rotating, snapping its bucket upwards to drop its load onto the screener, and turning back to the pile.  I slogged through the churned mud around the left corner of the pile.  A loaded end dump truck was backing up a graded driveway that had been bulldozed to the top of the pile and the bulldozer waited to one side with its engine idling.  The reverse warning whistle of the end dump blended shrilly with the noise of the heavy machinery.  A new roar began suddenly and I turned my head and saw that the thermal vaporizer had cranked up. The big cylinder spun and emitted a steady rumble.

About 100 feet past the pile I saw two end dump trucks parked.  Behind the furthest truck hulked the crane and cab of an excavator.  I walked past the trucks and stood at the plastic barrier tape which surrounded the excavation.  Before me was a muddy pit 50 feet across and 15 feet deep in the middle.  An oily sheen glistened blue and purple on top of the pool of water which had collected at the bottom of the pit.

Nobody was around and the pit was still.  I was confused.  I had expected them to be waiting for me.  I put my air monitoring equipment down on the waist high tread of the excavator and checked the readings.  With no digging activity disturbing the soil the readings were all zeroes and the oxygen level was at a normal 20.8%.  By the left corner of the pit was a six pack of air tanks and I walked over to it.  Three air lines were connected to the valve and to my annoyance I saw that the ends of all three were lying in the mud where they had been thrown after the last time they had been used.

This was an unnecessary bit of slovenliness that was quite common and which vexed me a good deal.  I was always amazed that my colleagues who were working on a decontamination project, could be so lazy as to just drop their airlines into the mess they were cleaning up instead of hanging them up.  I was particularly concerned if I was the one who had to use the airline next.  I picked up one of the hoses and banged the end against the metal frame of the six pack to clean off the mud.  I poked my pen tip into the end and blew out a hiss of air which I hoped would blow out any undesirable residue which may have gotten into the hose.  Then I grumpily plugged the hose into my valve to override the SCBA and save its limited quantity of air.

A moment later the excavation crew arrived.  Tommy, the excavator operator, climbed into his machine and plugged into an airline that was connected to an air tank mounted behind the cab. Two other men wearing SCBA’s came over and picked hoses out of the mud.  They plugged them in without any hesitation.  One of them turned to me and muttered almost inaudibly through his face mask.  “We had to go talk to the excavation engineer about the grid coordinates.”

He held up a wrinkled piece of paper and stared at it for a minute.  “What’s your name?” I asked.

“Rob.” he answered, still peering at the paper.

Tommy started up the excavator and Rob looked around as if getting his bearings.  The grids were laid out with surveyor’s stakes and these had coordinate numbers written on them.  Rob picked up a surveying rod and clambered down into the pit.  I grabbed my equipment and radio and followed him down.

At the bottom of the pit the mud was so deep and soft that we sank in up to our ankles at every step.  The mud clutched tightly at our boots and in some spots it took us a full thirty seconds to slowly wrench one foot out.  We sloshed through the six inch deep pool of oily water and stopped on the far bank.  Our airlines snaked through the mud and water behind us.

I checked the PID at waist height.  It read zero.  Then I dug my boot heel into the mud and lowered the instrument down to the impression.  The numbers changed quickly and rose up to 125 parts per million.  Some oily water oozed out of the impression and flowed in a little rivulet down into the pool.

Rob checked his paper again and drew a line in the mud with his toe.  Then he looked up at the excavator and gave a hand gesture which was scarcely more than a twist of his wrist.  The long arm of the excavator reached out towards us until the teeth of the bucket hovered over the ground less than a foot from our toes.  Rob had been watching the position of the bucket intently and now pointed down with one finger.  The bucket bit into the mud and pulled up a dripping load.  Then the excavator swung around and dumped its load into the end dump truck that was sitting behind it.  I stuck the PID down into the scooped out hole and watched the readings rise up to 240 ppm.  Several seconds later, back up at chest height the readings were less than 5 ppm.

We continued to dig for two hours.  When one truck was full it would drive off to the pile by the screener, and another one would take its place.  Rob would consult his crumpled paper and tell Tommy where to dig.  When we got near the depth that we were supposed to reach, either Rob or I would stick the surveyor’s rod into the oily water and aim it at a laser which was mounted on a tripod at the edge of the pit.  The laser had been set to provide a reference point for altitude and when it beeped we were at the right depth.  When we finished one grid, Rob checked his figures and we started on the next.

After twenty minutes the sky had turned grey and it began to drizzle.  When the pages of my weatherproof notebook became damp, I could barely write on them to record my log notes and the readings.  The rain dripped off my hard hat and rolled down my face mask and the slick surface of my saranax suit.  I passed the time by rocking back and forth on my feet, sinking my boots into the oily water and mud above my ankles and then slowly extracting them with a squelch.

CHAPTER 92

Our workday ended at six o’clock.  Robert had given me some friendly tips on local motels, but again I had a different idea. The last time I visited New York, I had picked up my camping gear, envisioning a trip with Christine.  The Ohio state road map showed a state park not far from town.  I drove for 45 minutes through a rolling landscape that alternated between farmlands and woods.  The park had several thousand acres of meadows and forest and two lakes.  It was clean and quiet.  I was the only occupant of the 100 camp sites.

I set up my tent in four minutes and then cooked a simple meal on my gas stove while enjoying the sunset.  A robin hopped along the ground, a chipmunk skittered over a log and a blue jay squawked.  I sipped a cup of tea and felt relaxed.  The excavation pit seemed like it belonged in somebody else’s life.

After dinner I heated some dishwashing water and cleaned up. There was a bathroom with hot showers, but I had showered and changed into clean clothes already at the decon trailer.  When I had taken care of all my housekeeping chores, I turned my attention to something that had been occupying my mind.

There was a phone by the park entrance.  I dialed longing to hear the comforting sound of Christine’s voice and regretting that I probably wouldn’t be able to see her for some time to come.  She answered the phone and I felt a pulse of excitement surge through my stomach and up my back.  When Christine heard me saying her name she exclaimed, partly anxious and partly relieved.  After I told her where I was she sounded amused that I was camping, but then her voice sobered.

“Otto, what are we going to do?”

That was what I’d been thinking about for the last couple of days, but I still didn’t have an answer.  “Well, I’m not sure.”

“When are you coming back.”

“Uhhmm.  I’m not sure.”  I winced as I heard myself answering in such an unreassuring manner.

“Otto.”  Christine sighed fatalistically.  “I knew this was going to happen, but I wasn’t expecting it so soon.”

“I know.  I wasn’t either.”

There was a brief silent pause.  I wasn’t sure what to say. I wanted to tell her something that would make our situation better, but I couldn’t think of anything.  Christine spoke first.

“Otto, I miss you.”  Her voice sounded thin and fragile.

“I miss you too.”

“I was looking forward to seeing you when I got home and then I got this stupid message saying ‘Hi.  This is Otto.  I’m going to Ohio.  I’ll see you as soon as I can.’  Real romantic stuff Otto.  That poetry you’ve been reading must be rubbing off on you.  I could have sworn that was a quote from Byron.”

I started to laugh.  I saw the comedy through the melancholy bitterness in Christine’s words.  “I was just too devastated at the idea of leaving you to leave a more poignant message.” I retorted glibly.

“Yeah right.  You probably volunteered cheerfully the moment I left town.”

I felt comfortable now that I was back on the familiar grounds of teasing someone I cared for.  It seemed to work for me better than blunt statements.  Tania had once said that I cared more about the way I told her I loved her than I did about her herself.  That was an exaggeration of course, but she would have been happy with a few simple and direct words while I preferred the more humorous yet oblique approach.

“Well I was desperate.”  I said.  “I had to escape.”  I grinned in the darkness and imagined the playful smile on Christine’s face at the other end of the line.

“I hate you Otto!” Christine quietly hissed.

“I love you tenderly, my dear.” I crooned, dripping sincerity.

“Liar.”

“No.  I really do.”

“Otto you’re just feeling lonely because you haven’t found any blonde farm girls to share your tent with yet.”

“Who says I haven’t?”

“Ahh!”  Christine sucked in her breath with outraged surprise.  “You’d better not!”

“I was just kidding.”

Christine’s voice became playful again.  “Getting back to that ‘I love you tenderly, my dear’ stuff.”

“I was just kidding about that too.”

“Oh what a relief!” Christine snapped.  “Now that I’ve finally gotten rid of you, I don’t want you crawling back again.”

“Ohio’s too far away.  I’d never make it.  I’ll take a Greyhound bus to Pittsburgh and just crawl the rest of the way.”

Christine laughed.  “Otto, I hope you come back soon.  I miss you.  But I don’t think this is going to work out.  My job keeps me busy, but at least I’m home sometimes.  I’m not telling you to quit your job though.” she hastily added.  “You know I would never do that to you.  My job’s important to me and I know your job’s important to you.  But what kind of a relationship can we have if we never even see each other?”

It was demoralizing to admit, but there was no avoiding the certainty couched in her words.  I told her I would try to get transferred back East again.  After we hung up I sat in my car reading for a while with the interior light on.  Finally I set my alarm clock for 4:30 and crawled into my sleeping bag.

CHAPTER 93

Several weeks passed and my days had little variation from the routine of standing in the excavation pit and then coming home to my tent site.  We worked from 6 AM to 6 PM during the week and then from 6 to 2:30 on Saturdays.  We had half an hour for lunch, but on Saturday we just worked straight through because everybody wanted to leave early.  Most of the crew worked out of the Toledo office and could drive home on Saturday.  I spent my free time reading or exploring the countryside, even taking a spin around Detroit one rainy Sunday afternoon.  I also took to jogging through the forest trails several times a week and found myself looking forward to it, even when I was tired from work.  With the sixty five hour plus work week, I was at least making plenty of overtime pay even if my social life had been seriously impacted.

From a health and safety standpoint the work was easy and quite safe as long as everybody stayed within their self contained breathing systems.  In fact, my greatest difficulty was in keeping my delicate air monitoring equipment functioning properly.  The PID’s were especially sensitive to moisture, dust and impact, and when we weren’t actually out in the excavation pit, I spent hours taking them apart to clean and recalibrate them.  I frequently had to stop the digging to call Robert on the radio and have him bring me a new PID.  One time I even had to interrupt the work three times in one hour and finally the excavation engineer called on the radio and petulantly demanded to know why the Health and Safety Department couldn’t get their shit together and fix their Mickey Mouse equipment.  Robert responded testily that he would talk to him later.

Excavation pits could be potentially dangerous places without proper respiratory protection however, because gases that are heavier than air could sink and collect in them and create a toxic or oxygen depleted atmosphere.  An invisible gas could be concentrated to toxic levels near the ground so that you could be unaware of any danger until you bent over and were overcome by the poisonous atmosphere at your waist level.  Even during normal construction activity, digging could release a pocket of methane which is produced naturally by the decomposition of organic matter in the soil.

One morning we had a surprise visitor at the 6 AM safety meeting.  Sherman Butterstone, the general manager at Toxikleen’s main corporate office, stood next to John Lewis and looked on keenly as Robert ran through a more detailed and lengthy safety briefing than usual.  Robert glared intensely around the room, demonstrating to the dullest observer that he was in charge and on top of the whole situation.  He also took advantage of every opportunity of illustrating his technical acumen by using all the scientific names he could remember.  Robert waxed sagely over a wide range of minutia for so long that John Lewis began stirring impatiently behind him.  The men sitting around the tables stared straight through the cigarette smoke at their coffee cups as if in a stupor.

Finally Robert stepped back and John Lewis introduced Sherman Butterstone.  Any of us that had ever bothered to look at the corporate newsletter, which was regularly sent to us even when our paychecks got lost, would probably have recognized Sherman from one of the frequent pictures of him.  He was often shown shaking some field personnel’s hand and was sometimes even dressed up in a sparkling clean tyvek suit.  Now he wore a shiny new hard hat with the Toxikleen logo on it, and beamed at us with positive energy.

“Good morning men!” he greeted us heartily.  “It looks like a nice day for digging!”

Sherman looked around the trailer with a bright, friendly smile.  The men continued gazing out the window or at various spots on the floor as they nursed their doughnuts and cigarettes. Having disposed of his congenial preamble, Sherman abruptly switched gears and zoomed off on a protracted discourse about corporate financial health and quarterly profits.  He rattled off statistics about amortization, appreciation of assets, and debt/equity ratio with earnest zeal for 20 minutes.  John Lewis was perceptibly squirming with impatience, but there was no way he could cut the proceedings short.  I could imagine him thinking about all the lost production time this was causing him.

For several minutes I stared out the window at the rain thinking that a motel might be in order for a day or two.  When I came back to the present, Sherman was still energetically preaching.

“The prognostication for the coming fiscal year is upbeat.  As you’ve all heard we just acquired Chemclean International which gives us a foothold in the booming European market and allows us to further our process of consolidation.  This of course enables us to function at a higher operating efficiency and will help us reach our goal of increased productivity.

“We can feel proud that we’ve fulfilled our obligation to our shareholders, who believe you me, are behind us all the way.” Sherman pounded his fist into his palm.  “And I want you men to know that I stand for all the shareholders and members of the board when I say thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for all the splendid work you’ve done.”

Sherman looked around the room benignly.  “Does anybody have any questions?” he asked.

There was a slight shuffling of feet as if the men realized that their reprieve was coming to an end and they would soon be going back out into the elements to work.  Sherman waited, looking a bit disappointed, but there was no other sound in the trailer.  All of a sudden one of the heavy equipment operators cleared his throat and asked huskily.  “Does all that mean that when this project is over we’re going to have another job to go to, or are we going to get laid off?”

CHAPTER 94

I was sitting next to Rob in the mud of the excavation pit waiting for the excavation engineer to radio us some new grid coordinates.  We had already been waiting there for over half an hour in the intermittent rain.  Tommy had his head back in the excavator cab and looked like he was asleep.  It wasn’t raining quite hard enough to halt the digging, because I could still protect the tip of the PID with a hood made out of poly and keep it functioning.

Neither Rob nor I had spoken in twenty minutes.  The last conversation between us had been over the radio even though we had been standing only ten feet away from each other.  It had been too much of a bother to free our boots from the clinging mud and slog closer to each other.  Even over the radio we couldn’t understand what we were saying to each other through our face masks.  Finally Rob had shrugged in frustration and we had lapsed into silence.

The damp grey sky hung close to the ground.  Rain drops landed in the oily water of the pit and sent out little ripples in concentric circles. In one corner of the puddle blueish green swirls ebbed back and forth like a gelatinous paint palette.  My mind had been drifting.  The familiar smell of Christine’s skin filled my brain.

Rob lifted his foot up and balanced a dripping gob of mud on his toe.  Then he flicked his boot and the mud plopped down across my boots.  I looked at Rob and could just barely detect a grin through the rain drops on his face shield.  I scooped up a handful of mud in my glove and smeared it on his knee.  Rob gazed down at it for a few seconds and looked back at me.  He seemed to be still grinning.  Then he stared off into space again and we resumed our silent wait.  A few minutes later it occurred to me to ask Rob what he had thought about Sherman Butterstone’s visit.

Rob continued staring into the puddle for about ten seconds. Then he turned his head and mumbled something unintelligible.  I leaned my head towards him and he shouted into my ear.  “I don’t know.  I was too hung over to listen.”  We both sat up straight again.  Several seconds later he turned to me and I leaned sideways again.  “All I know is the CEO of Toxikleen makes $2 million a year just in salary and he doesn’t have to worry about making mortgage payments when he gets laid off.”

Five minutes later the radio crackled and someone meowed like a cat.  Rob’s head rocked forward as if he was laughing and then he sat still again.  After a minute he picked up my radio and responded with another meow.  I had heard this on the radio before and didn’t know what to make of it.  I asked Rob and he laboriously yelled the story into my ear.

There was a young health and safety technician on site named James who was just out of college.  I knew him slightly and got along very well with him.  He was one of the rare people you find on a construction site who are willing to talk about a range of topics other than the standard sports and sex.  I also knew that there was some friction between him and several of the workers on site because he had a tendency to go rigidly by the book and write people up for what a more experienced person would have probably considered to be insignificant infractions of health and safety rules.

Apparently James had kept a personal diary and made the colossal blunder one day of leaving it on a bench in the decon trailer.  Naturally when it was found it was read and passed around with great general hilarity.  Of particular amusement to his colleagues was a letter James had written to his girl friend in Denver, in which he described himself as imagining her to be waiting in bed for him, wearing her Catwoman suit.  Someone had made a xerox copy of the letter and hung it on the OSHA “Right To Know” section of the bulletin board in the break trailer.  For the next several days workers all around the site began making meows over the radio until the excavation engineer got on the radio and asked if that was a cat he had heard.  One of the operators answered back that a cat had crawled through the perimeter fence and was running around in the Hot Zone.  The excavation engineer had then recommended that the perimeter fence be tightened up.

CHAPTER 95

Another week went past and there was still no sign that our project on the army base was ready to resume operation.  I frequently called Kurt for an update on progress.  The lab was still stymied in its search for a formula for the cyanides and the EPA hadn’t yet given the green light on the procedures involved in the stabilization phase.  Various people from Toxikleen, RSA and C&C also sometimes called me with questions that only I knew the answer to.  Kurt thought they were still a couple of weeks away from start up.  Mark also called me from his home in Maryland.  Toxikleen didn’t have any open spots for him and had told him to take a couple weeks of vacation time.  With no opportunity to make plans in advance, he was just hanging out and visiting friends.

The work continued along the same routine.  The only major change was that, as we were now entering the month of May, we had already had some very warm days and our discomfort was now sweating in the sun inside our water proof suits.  During our digging we occasionally hit layers of soil that were more highly concentrated with contaminants than usual.  My PID readings at ground level right after the excavator bucket had scooped out a depression, would shoot up well over the 1000 ppm mark.

One morning as we came in from the Hot Zone for coffee break, I ripped my suit off as fast as I could in urgent need.  The two cups of coffee that I’d drunk during the safety meeting were stretching my bladder to the breaking point.  I hustled out to the Port O Pot by the decon trailer and, as was my custom, took a deep breath of fresh air before ducking in.

The only toilet facilities available on most construction sites are these plastic portable outhouses.  If the operation is run in a professional manner, the toilets are serviced regularly and are actually quite sanitary.  However it is never a gourmet experience and I generally try to make it through the long day with just the briefest of essential visits.  To me, being the connoisseur of biological functions that I am, a bowel movement isn’t quite satisfying unless it’s accompanied by a cup of coffee and a good book or at least the newspaper.

I was sighing with relief as the gushing torrent from my bladder expired, when there was a sudden loud bang on the wall in front of me and the whole Port O Pot rocked violently backwards. I was seized by alarm and as soon as the Port O Pot settled itself upright, I flung the door open and dove out.  I landed in a heap on the ground and found myself looking at a big pair of work boots.  I quickly glanced up and was met by a large grinning face, hovering just over mine.  It was Earl.

Earl was bent over me with his hands on his knees and he looked so amused he could burst.  “I know you’re glad to see me Otto,” he began serenely,  “but maybe you ought to tuck your dick back in your pants.  We don’t want to give people the wrong idea.”

Earl continued grinning down at me, waiting for my reaction.  I finally gurgled.  “Welcome to Ohio, Earl.”

CHAPTER 96

Earl had been sent to our site after the occurrence of what was officially termed a personality conflict.  In New Jersey, where Earl had been working on a project removing UST’s (Underground Storage Tanks), there had been a supervisor who had apparently had little experience with UST’s and also little patience with Earl’s advice.  Earl had specialized in UST’s for several years and had stepped right in and started giving orders as soon as he saw that the job wasn’t being done right.  The supervisor hadn’t appreciated someone else assuming command, even though he were more knowledgeable, and there had been a clash.

“I tell you what Otto.  That guy was so ignorant I don’t know how he got to be a supervisor.  He couldn’t even pick his own nose much less pull one of them tanks out of the ground!  I’ve seen cinderblocks with more sense!”  Earl was getting worked up in a passion just telling me the story.

“Like trying to teach monkeys how to fuck a football, right Earl?” I recited one of his own lines and grinned at him.

“Yeah.”  Earl gave me a quizzical glance.

“I studied under the great prophet.” I added, still grinning.

Earl looked a bit puzzled by this comment but laughed good naturedly.  “Anyway, where was I?” he resumed, his serious demeanor returning.  “We finally got into a shouting match out in the Hot Zone.  He started talking to me like I was some kind of peon and I wasn’t about to take that.  Who the hell does he think he is?  I’ve probably pulled more tanks than anybody in this whole chicken shit company!”  Earl’s face started getting red again.

Finally the supervisor had requested that Earl be relocated so he had been sent here, where the labour demand always seemed capable of absorbing the flow of personnel.  Earl could fill in wherever he was needed, since he could operate every piece of heavy machinery as well as act in a role of construction supervision.

As I expected, Earl gave a surprised chortle when I told him I was camping, but then he surprised me by suggesting that he join me on Saturday.

“Hell.  I’m just an ol’ country boy myself.  I’ll bring my blankets from the motel an’ we can pick up some steaks an’ have us a barbecue.”

And so we did.  Earl and I left the work site at 2 o’clock on Saturday and picked up some steaks, potatoes, corn on the cob, and beer, on our way out to the park.  The weather was sunny and breezy and the fly population was subdued.  Earl was in a jolly mood.  He bustled about starting the charcoal grill and kept up a constant flow of jokes and chatter.  Every once in a while he would stop and look around contentedly at the woods and meadows.

“Hell Otto.  You may be one crazy son of a bitch, but this was a damn good idea!”

I popped open a couple of beers and handed one to Earl.  We clinked our bottles together and gazed at the tranquil scene.  The rustling of the leaves in the trees was almost the only sound.  It was still early May and there were about a dozen RV’s in the park, but they seemed to be mostly retired people who made very little noise.

Earl gave a half sigh, half grunt.  “We’re only missing one thing and we’d be in paradise here.”

“Yeah.”  I nodded in agreement.  “It sure would be nice to have our women here.”

“Huh?” said Earl, looking puzzled for a moment.  “Oh yeah.  But I was talking about my fishing pole.  I should of brought it with me!”

Earl turned out to be quite a skilled barbecue chef and we feasted royally.  We washed our steaks down with a couple more beers and felt in high spirits.  After eating in silence for several minutes, Earl looked at me over the corn cob he was gnawing on and asked, “Have you kept in touch with that little lady of yours?”

I nodded and swallowed a bite of steak.  “I call her about three times a week.  I guess we’re sort of in limbo right now, since we don’t know what’s going to happen.  It would be great if Toxikleen could nail down some more contracts on that army base. That would give Christine and me plenty of time to work things out.”

“Yeah well, you may not get plenty of time and then you’ll just have to make up your mind quick before you lose a good opportunity.  Ain’t no reason why you can’t even get married again, you know Otto.”  Earl pointed his corn cob at me for emphasis.  “Your divorce is in the past and it’s over and done with.  Now I’ve been thinking about Louise a lot.  I mean a lot. I’ve been pretty happy on my own the last twenty years, but I must be gettin’ old.  I even miss her kid.  He reminds me of my boys.  And you know how I love my boys.”

After we finished stuffing ourselves we went for a leisurely stroll to one of the lakes.  We stood quietly for a few minutes looking at the smooth water surface and the late afternoon sun shining its golden light on the trees of the opposite shore.

Earl nodded his head happily.  “Lordy, that’s purty.” he said.  Then he flicked his cigarette butt nonchalantly into the water where it disappeared with a sharp hiss.  I winced as if the cigarette had landed on my own bare belly.

CHAPTER 97

Homeward bound!  Almost.  I had left the interstate near Buffalo and made my way past rows of massive but crumbling, 19th century brick factories and mills.  I found the job site with a chain link fence bordering overgrown fields.  A large sign with the Toxikleen logo hung on the entrance gate by the guard shack. Mark’s Toyota was parked outside a one story office building.

Yesterday Mark had called me in Ohio to tell me about an opening at the project where he was now working.  I would have to work nights, but the site was located in western New York state and at least I could manage to see Christine on weekends.  Robert had wanted to keep me in Ohio since I had filled a manpower gap for him, but John Lewis had said that a replacement for me was available and let me go.  I had hurriedly shook hands with Earl again and took to the road.

My instructions were to show up by 5 o’clock in the afternoon and report to the project manager, Steve Wesnousky.  When I walked into the small office building, the secretary informed me that Steve wasn’t around.  She pointed out a cubicle in the corner and told me the construction manager, David Kendal, should be in there.

I stuck my head into the cubicle and a thirty year old man with short hair, a La Coste alligator shirt, and penny loafers, looked up from a large set of architectural drawings.  I introduced myself and David greeted me warmly.

“Hi Otto.  I’ve heard good things about you from Mark.  You’re going to be working with Pat.  He should be here in a few minutes.  You’ll like Pat.  He’s easy going.  One of the few people around here that is.”  David added the last line cryptically and then smiled brightly again.

I asked him about the scope of the work and he gave me a detailed explanation of site history and current remediation procedures.  The site had an area of over two hundred acres of mostly vacant lots, which had gone back to shrubbery and grasses. The area had been used since the mid 1800’s by several tanneries and then in the 20th century, a plant which manufactured insecticide had occupied one sector.  The result was that the soil had a high chromium content from the tanning operations, and pockets of arsenic contamination from the insecticide manufacturing process.

David spoke in an erudite, yet unassuming manner.  He continued and described the remediation process that Toxikleen was employing.  “This is a Superfund site.  When the EPA negotiated a deal with the potentially responsible parties, they concluded a consent agreement that would mandate a certain amount of clean up work for a determined amount of money.”  I nodded.  It was common to arrange the extent of a Superfund clean up operation on the amount of money that was available.  The EPA would either sue or negotiate with whatever responsible parties that could be found, and a consent agreement would be reached, specifying the nature of the operation and the criteria of satisfaction for completion.

“What they eventually agreed on was to do a cap job.”  David went on.  “We’re excavating down to a certain depth to remove the majority of the gross contamination, and then we’re going to back fill with clean soil, put down a liner, and then cap it with an impermeable layer of clay.  We’re sort of encasing whatever residual pollutants that are left so that rain water can’t leach them down from the soil into the ground water.  That’s the only way they would do any harm.  As long as they’re locked up under our clay cap they’ll just sit there quietly and not hurt anybody. This whole area’s been zoned for industrial use so the guidelines are more flexible than they would be in a residentially zoned area.  Anyway for a couple of weeks we’re going to be stockpiling clean clay.  The trucks are delivering at night because there’s less traffic.  Your job will be to check each truck load of clay for volatile organics.”

There was a clamor outside David’s cubicle and we looked out.  Four men in hard hats were laughing and another man was standing in the middle of them with a big grin on his face and crinkles in the corners of his eyes.  The grinning man had a handlebar moustache and a medium sized pot belly.  He looked to be about 45 years old.  David addressed him with a wry smile.

“Pat this is Otto Flanagan.”

Pat’s face opened up in an even bigger smile.  “Oh an another Irishman!” he exclaimed.

I smiled.  Pat seemed to put everyone at ease.  “Actually I’m half Irish and half German.” I told him.

“Ah, so you mean you’re half fucked up and half fucked up!” Pat retorted quickly, drawing a laugh all around.  “Hey!” he said, picking up a PID off the desk next to him.  “Do you know how to operate one of these?”

I informed him that I did and Pat gave an expression of exaggerated admiration.  “Ho!  Ho!  We’ve got a professional with us now.  I had this fucking kid working with me for the first three weeks who was a real clown.  You should have seen him.  He seemed to spend an awful lot of time in his pick up.  Now I’m not saying that he was asleep on the job or anything, but last week after he was fired, one of the day shift guys was working with me, and he brings out the PID to check the soil of the first truck load.  The driver looks at the PID and asks ‘What the hell is that?’  This driver’s been making six deliveries a night, and this is the first time he’s even seen the damn thing.”  The men were laughing and I joined in.

David had his hands over his ears.  “Pat!  I don’t even want to hear about it!  I know you’re joking!  Even if you’re not, tell me you are!”

“Ahh don’t worry about it David.  I’m just kidding.  Nothing like that would ever happen at a Toxikleen job.”  Pat grinned at David and David looked tormented.  Then Pat turned quickly back to me.  “Hey we better get going.  The trucks are going to start arriving about six o’clock tonight.”

Pat handed me the PID and a weatherproof notebook and we went out to the parking lot.  We climbed into one of the company pickups and drove back down the road about half a mile until we came to another gate in the fence.  Pat gave me the key and I hopped out and unlocked the gate.  We drove in and followed an unpaved road that wound around piles of dirt 25 feet high and 60 feet long.  The dirt piles stretched about 100 yards like a sea of sand dunes.

“These piles are all the clean dirt we’ve brought in over the last few weeks.” Pat explained.  “We’re going to start tonight over there in that corner and build the piles out to the center.  We have to leave enough room for the trucks to turn around.”

Pat looked at his watch.  “They ought to start showing up any minute now.  I didn’t hear about any accidents or road construction work in the traffic report on the radio, so there shouldn’t be any delays.  This clay comes from a dredging operation about twenty five miles from here.  The dredging contractor is making out at both ends on this deal because he’s getting paid first to dig it up for one customer and then he’s selling the stuff to us.  It’s cheaper for Toxikleen since this guy can afford to sell it for less than the normal quarry price. It’s supposed to be guaranteed clean dirt, but Toxikleen wants to be on the safe side so that’s why they want you to check it as they dump it.”

We heard the groan of a diesel engine and a dump truck rumbled around the corner of the last pile.  Pat and I put on our hard hats and got out of the pick up.  Pat pointed to the corner of the grassy field where we were going to start the next pile.  “You back ’em in and keep track of how many loads each truck brings.” he said and then he walked off to one of the three small bulldozers parked to one side.

My assignment was boring, but quite easy.  Furthermore, since I didn’t have to suit up in anything more than a hard hat and safety glasses, it almost seemed like a vacation.  The dump trucks started trickling in two’s and three’s.  I guided the drivers to the spot where Pat wanted to build the next pile and then the truck engines would roar as the hydraulic arm lifted the front end of the bed up high until the load of dirt finally came crashing down out of the back gate.

Sometimes we’d get a mad rush with seven or eight trucks all dumping at the same time, while several more waited for space to open up so they could get in.  Then I would have to run from truck to truck, signing receipts and noting down the truck numbers in my book.  On all sides the raised truck beds would tower over me, while the engines screamed to drive the hydraulic systems with a deafening noise.

After each truck had dumped its load, I would walk around to the back and dig my boot heel into the dirt pile.  Then I would stick the sensory tip of the PID into the hole I had dug and record the reading.  It never varied from 0.0 parts per million.

After all the trucks had dumped their dirt they would go back for another load.  Since the round trip took over an hour, I would usually have twenty or thirty minutes to relax in the pickup while Pat hustled in the dozer to catch up with the last loads.  Pat had to push all the dirt into properly graded piles to maximize the efficiency of the storage space.  Even with the many acres of empty fields, we could run out of space quickly with this huge volume of dirt that we were stockpiling.  Also Pat had to hurry to push the dirt out of the way so that the trucks wouldn’t have to wait on us.  The drivers were paid by the load and would therefore be very upset if they couldn’t just come in and dump.

Finally Pat got a chance to take a breather and came over to the pickup with beads of sweat lining his eyebrows.

“It looks like one of us is working.” I said.  Pat wiped his forehead and we leaned against the hood of the pickup.  With the trucks gone and the dozer engine switched off, it was suddenly peaceful.  The sun was setting with a rosy glow over the top of one of the dirt piles.

“Have you met Steve Wesnousky yet?” Pat asked.

“No.” I said.  “What’s he like?”

“He’s a real snake!” Pat said quietly, looking off into the sunset.  “Everybody on this whole project’s a bastard of some kind or other, but he’s the meanest.  He’ll smile at you and next thing you know, you’re unemployed.  This place is a viper’s nest. Everybody’s constantly stabbing each other in the back and maneuvering for position.  It’s one big power struggle.”

Pat looked at me and laughed.  “That’s why we’re better off here on the night shift.  We can keep our distance from all the politics and the bullshit.”

I mulled over this information, while Pat gazed out over the dirt piles again.  “The only person I’ve met so far is David Kendal.” I said.

“David’s all right.”  Pat stood up in front of me and began rocking from side to side as he talked.  “At least he acts like a human being most of the time.  But you have to watch him too.  One minute he’s friendly and you think he’s cool and then he turns around and has a temper tantrum.  He’s like a little kid sometimes.”

Pat looked me in the eye and continued rocking from one foot to the other.  “You see, the main problem here is that they’re losing money on this job and nobody wants to take the rap for it. This is a thirty million dollar contract and they’re supposed to finish in three years.  But these bozos have already wasted over a year and they haven’t done a fuckin’ thing.  So everybody’s cutting everybody else’s throat and the bodies are flying in and out of here.  Steve Wesnousky just took over as project manager a few weeks ago.  He used to be just the construction manager.  But he pulled a power move on the old project manager and fucked him good.  Corporate sent him packing and Steve took over.”

I listened as Pat went on with his tale of corporate back room intrigues.  “Steve’s smart.  Don’t let him fool you.  He doesn’t look like much, but he’s real smart and real vindictive. If he decides he doesn’t like you for some reason, he’ll find a way to get rid of you.  I get along pretty good with him though. I just come in and do my job, and he knows he can rely on me to get things done.  That gives me a pretty good position to talk to him straight and tell him exactly what I think.  He likes to control everybody and he’s got these two jokers, Pete Strickland and George Ullman, who are his sidekicks.  They get drunk together every night and Steve treats them like shit.  I think the guy gets off on seeing how stupid he can make them look.  Anyway when Steve took over he made them his foremen, so now they think they’re hot shit and all the other operators are pissed off.  It’s a fuckin’ circus.”

The roar of a diesel engine announced another wave of trucks and Pat headed back to the dozer.  About half an hour later when it began to get dark, Pat started up a diesel generator and turned on a set of portable flood lights.  Then about nine o’clock he sent me off to a sub shop to pick up some sandwiches for dinner.  Outside of these two events, and the coffee and doughnuts that one of the drivers brought us around midnight, our routine continued uninterrupted until 3 or 4 in the morning when Pat finally pushed up the last pile of dirt.

CHAPTER 98

Pat and I worked through the weekend which disappointed me since I had been hoping to visit Christine.  By the time I got back to my motel room and fell asleep each night it was usually about 4 or 5 in the morning.  I’ve never been able to sleep very soundly during the day, so I would wake up after about five hours and feel fatigued most of the time.  I saw Mark briefly in passing when I came in to work and it was like a reunion of old comrades.  Over a week went by and I still hadn’t met the project manager, or anybody else for that matter.  Each night I kept vigil with Pat in our bleak desert of dirt piles, which sometimes roared with mechanized activity and then would quietly loom over us with long shadows cast by the flood lights.

The drivers always gave me a friendly greeting or at least a wave.  At times they would stop and chat with each other before making the return trip.  I would catch snippets of their conversations as I signed their receipts.

“You know that curve after Exit 33?”

“Yeah, just before you start up that long grade.”

“Well I come up from Binghamton one night…”

Pat would often climb down from the dozer and get in the middle of them.  He would plant himself with his legs apart and his pot belly jutting out, while he gestured with his stocky arms to illustrate his stories.  He had met a local DOT official named Kelly on an official visit to the agency, and had been moved to join his compatriot for lunch on several occasions.  The information yielded from these genial get-togethers provided an abundant source of conversation material.

One truck caught my attention by the words ‘Pussy Galore’ painted proudly on the hood.  The driver was rather taciturn and wore a bushy beard, a cowboy hat, and dirty blue jeans.  He usually only made three deliveries and always showed up on his last run with a female passenger.  One day I asked one of the drivers about the woman and was informed that the guy had a drinking problem and his wife always went with him on his last run to make sure he got home.

One night when I went off to pick up our dinner, Pat ordered a baloney sandwich.  I thought he was joking at first, but he had a very serious expression on his face.

“My old man used to always tell me to eat a baloney sandwich every week.  He said you don’t want to ever forget how to eat baloney, because some day you may not be able to afford to eat steak.  So I eat a baloney sandwich once a week.”

Later that night as we were leaning against the pickup during a calm interval, Pat had been telling me about his childhood in New Bedford.  His father had come over from the old country as a young man and Pat had been born here and grown up in a working class Irish neighborhood.

“Jesus Christ!  My old man was a mean son of a bitch!  Especially when he was drinking!  One day,”  Pat laughed at the recollection.  “I was laying in bed late one morning during Christmas vacation.  I must have been about fourteen.  I was still half asleep, but I could hear the steel garbage cans being dragged down the cement alley way beside the house.  I remember thinking that it was probably my mother who was out there dragging those heavy cans and I should go out there and help her. But it was so cold that I couldn’t force myself out of bed.  All of a sudden my bedroom door flies open and my father comes charging in with a really angry look on his face.  He grabbed my arm and pulled me out of bed and he was shouting ‘Come here!  I want you to see this!’

“I thought he was going to kick my ass!  I figured he was pissed off that I was still in bed while my mother was slaving outside in the cold.  I started telling him ‘I’m sorry dad!  I’ll go right out there and give Mom a hand!’  I felt really guilty.

“My old man had a tight grip on me and he was pulling me along into the other room and over to the window.  I kept telling him I’d go out and help Mom, but it seemed like he was so pissed off he couldn’t hear me.  I thought I was in for a beatin’.  He shoved me to the window and pointed at my mother who was bent double because she was straining so hard with the garbage can.  ‘You see that!’ he yelled.  ‘Yes Pop!  I’ll go right down and help her!’ I said.

“Finally he looked at me like I was fuckin’ crazy and said ‘Huh?  What the hell are you jabbering about?  I want you to look down there!  Do you see what your mother is doing?  That stupid woman’s out there in the freezing cold, and she doesn’t even have a hat on!  She’s going to catch her death!’  Then he throws up the window and yells at her.  ‘Mildred!  Get the hell back in here and put on a hat, for Christ’s sake!’”

When it rained we worked in a sea of mud.  The constant truck traffic churned the fine clay into a six inch deep goo which stuck in thick glops to my boots and added several pounds to each foot.  I tried to pick my way around the deepest parts of the expanse of mud as I moved from truck to truck, but my boots always seemed to get encrusted up to the ankles.

After a couple of days of sunshine however, the ground would dry up and clouds of fine clay dust would billow up from the wheels of every vehicle and from the treads of the bulldozer.  We were mandated by federal regulations as well as the consent agreement to maintain dust control.  On the far side of the bulldozers, a water wagon was parked and when the dust began to swirl, Pat would start it up and shoot jets of water out over the dry field.  When the sun had been hot, the parched clay would quickly suck up the moisture like a sponge.

One night, Pat was having a hard time on his bulldozer keeping up with the trucks, and he asked me to help him out by operating the water wagon.  I had never driven one, but with Pat’s instructions I thought I could easily manage it.  The water wagon was an open cab which pulled a tank on two axles like a trailer.  Taking advantage of a calm interval, I got it moving forward all right and started even feeling a bit cocky as I bounced across the bumpy surface where the trucks backed around.

My forward course finally led me to the road where the trucks entered between the dirt piles, and I had to begin thinking about either turning around or backing up in reverse.  I jauntily swerved to the right and immediately snapped the wheel back again when I imagined, in a mild spasm of panic, that I felt the wagon begin to buck into a jackknife.  I tried again, with a bit more gentility and again abandoned the project with a shaken confidence.

I slowed down the vehicle and stopped to think out my options in a rational manner.  By now I had run out of room to maneuver a turn and was partially blocking the entrance from the road.  I determined to back up the vehicle to a point where I could navigate a wide turn and properly complete my task.  After putting the gears in reverse and double checking to make sure everything was correct, I touched the gas.  I looked over my shoulder to watch my progress, but the cab was turning one way and the tank was turning the opposite direction.  Again I stopped and tried to go forward to straighten out.  I hadn’t turned the wheel around enough and it felt like the entire tank was starting to lean sideways.  I stopped again and began feeling a bit nervous as well as kind of sheepish.  Pat was busy pushing dirt at the far end of the clearing, about seventy yards away, but I thought by now, he must have looked over my way and wondered what the hell I was doing.

I resolved to back up again and forced myself to overcome my nervous apprehension.  Slowly, I chugged backwards a few yards until suddenly one of the big front tires went down a slight grade which made the cab tilt out to one side.  I slammed on the brakes and the huge vehicle shuddered to a stop.  Struggling to squelch a rising wave of panic, I concluded that I needed to go forward again.  This I did with the result that I merely edged the nose of the cab into the wall of the nearest dirt pile.  I cursed loudly.  It seemed that I couldn’t back up with any confidence and there was no more room in front.  Turning in my seat and looking back at Pat, I beeped the horn a few times to attract his attention.  This was of course an extremely ineffectual maneuver because the bulldozer by itself made such a deafening racket that Pat couldn’t hear anything else.

While I sat there fretting, The headlights of the first truck of the next wave came around the bend.  I straightened up and endeavored to appear as in control of the situation as possible.  There was a little bit of space on the other side of the water wagon and the truck passed right through without even slowing down.  The driver looked over and gave me a friendly wave as he went by.  I resigned myself to defeat and hopped down from the vehicle as if I had parked it in the middle of the entrance way by deliberate design.

Several more trucks came in and I signed their receipts as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.  None of the drivers asked why someone had decided to leave the water wagon sprawled across the entrance and I didn’t volunteer any information.  About fifteen minutes later, Pat came strolling up and I confessed my ineptitude.  I was expecting a standard construction industry sneer at my wimpy performance, but Pat merely shrugged and said mildly, “That’s OK.  I’ll get it later.”

In my defense I must add that I felt slightly exonerated about a week later when one of the day shift laborers was banned from driving the water wagon after putting it head first into a drainage ditch.  He himself had jumped from the cab to safety off to one side.  The water wagon had to be pulled out of the ditch by a bulldozer, but wasn’t seriously damaged.

On about my fifth night, I was busy checking the dirt piles dumped by some trucks, when I noticed a man walking somewhat unsteadily across the truck turn clearing towards the two parked bulldozers.  By the glare of the floodlights I could see that the man was dressed in a flower patterned short sleeve shirt, lime green swimming trunks, and sneakers.  I walked over to investigate this intruder on the excluded area of a construction site.  As I approached him, the man saw me and weaved over in my direction.  Just as I was about to ask him who he was, he put one hand on my shoulder and told me in a friendly manner.  “I’m going to take the D6 for a few minutes.” referring to one of the bulldozers.

The man was about thirty years old and had wavy blond hair and a wispy blond moustache.  A gold chain gleamed dully around his neck.  He was obviously stinking drunk.  “Uh, I don’t think that’s a good idea.” I said, trying to sound firm, but not hostile.

“Oh it’s OK.  I’m Peter Strickland.  I’m one of the foremen.  I ran my pickup into a ditch and I need the D6 to pull it out.”

Peter looked past me with bleary eyes.  He hadn’t been asking for permission to use the machine, he was just casually announcing the fact that he would be using it for a while, in case we noticed that it was gone and were wondering where it was.

“Hey man, I don’t think so.”  I shook my head.

Peter tottered to one side and then stabilized himself.  “Where’s Pat?” he slurred.

Peter focused on the bulldozer and started stumbling towards it between two trucks which were pulling out.  I followed him to make sure he didn’t fall beneath the wheels.  As we got near the spot where Pat had been pushing the dirt up, Pat noticed us and hopped out of the dozer.  He and Peter had a conference while I stood to one side.

“Where’s your pickup?” Pat asked.

“Out by the gate.”  Peter jerked his head and made a spastic gesture with his arm.  “I was coming in here to get the office keys from you.  I need to get something.”

Pat looked grimly out at the silhouetted dirt piles.  The trucks had all gone and the scene was relatively peaceful.  The generator for the flood lights was puttering constantly, but this was the only noise.  Pat took his wallet out of his pocket and pulled out a ten dollar bill.

“Here.” he said, handing me the money.  “Can you get me a tuna on whole wheat and an iced tea.”

“Hey, yeah.”  Peter’s face brightened up in a cheerful smile.  He put his hand on my shoulder again and gave it a friendly squeeze.  “Can you get me some potato chips too, buddy?”

Twenty minutes later I was back and Peter Strickland was gone.  A couple of trucks came and left and finally Pat came over for his sandwich.  He saw the package of potato chips and chuckled.

“That fucking kid!  He forgot his potato chips!”

CHAPTER 99

After a few more days of hearing savage rumours about corporate wrangling, I finally met the project manager, Steve Wesnousky.  It had been a hectic night.  The dirt contractor had hired 28 trucks and they seemed to come on in never ending waves. We frequently had trucks waiting to get in and Pat couldn’t push the dirt up fast enough.  Several times I had to hold trucks up for a couple of minutes because the heaps of dirt where the trucks had already dumped had extended half way out into the turn around area.

About 9 o’clock it had slackened enough momentarily that I could slip away to pick up our dinner.  When I got back, two trucks were leaving and a black pickup was parked under the flood lights.  Pat was standing next to the pickup with three other men, none of whom were wearing the required hard hats, safety glasses, and steel toed boots.  As I walked up behind them, I noticed that the three men were holding beer cans and reeked of alcohol and tobacco smoke.  Two six packs were lying on the ground at their feet.  One of the men was Peter Strickland and another was a tall, skinny man in his late thirties.  The third man was short and pudgy and seemed to have no neck at all.  He had made a comment just before I walked up and the other men were laughing.

When I was right behind them, the short man half turned to me and snapped brusquely in a tinny voice.  “Where the fuck have you been?”  Then, before I could answer, he turned his back on me again and resumed the former conversation.  I was a bit annoyed at being upbraided without proper cause, but I had also been prepared to expect abrasive behavior from our project manager.  There was no doubt in my mind that this was Steve Wesnousky, even though he never bothered to introduce himself to me.  I wasn’t very upset though, because I found it absurd and almost amusing that he should have the gall to be obnoxious, when he himself, was in the extremely vulnerable position of drinking on a work site.  This fact had apparently occurred to Steve as well, for he adopted a neutral attitude and refrained from addressing me again.  Peter and the other man ignored me completely.

The men were looking out over the heaps of dirt spread like moguls over the turn around area.  Pat was telling them how swamped he was because of the number of trucks that were running tonight.  The headlights of a truck came around the bend and I went off with my PID.

A couple of minutes later, there were some loud roars and all three bulldozers had cranked up and burst into action.  A half dozen more trucks came in and the dozers whirred and clanked around and between them.  The air was filled with diesel smoke and the sounds of grinding engines, clattering treads, and reverse warning whistles.  Peter had sprawled himself in the cab of the black pickup with his sneakers hanging out the window.  His beer can glinted as it reflected the glare of the flood lights.

CHAPTER 100

Next Saturday Christine came for a visit.  I hadn’t thought she would want to come so it hadn’t even occurred to me to ask her, but she had suggested it herself.  Since I had to work all night on Friday, we arranged that she would drive out on Saturday morning and meet me at the motel.

When Christine arrived her faced was creased and drawn with fatigue and she snapped crossly at me as I bounced happily around her and fumbled with her overnight bag.  I was a bit surprised at her crankiness, but I attributed that to having gotten up early and made a long, tedious drive on the interstate.  We went inside my motel room and I put her bag down on a chair.  Christine walked straight over to me without a word and pushed herself into my arms.  Her face still looked strained.

“Are you tired?” I asked.

Christine nodded and clutched me tightly.  “Hold me Otto.” she said.

I was already holding her, but I tried to wind my arms around her even more, wrapping her in a cocoon.  We stayed like that for a minute and then Christine sighed.  “It surprises me sometimes how much I miss you Otto.”

I felt a calm contentment.  For the last several days, I had been planning to tear off her clothes and ravish her as soon as she showed up, but now that the moment was here, a different kind of pleasure was pervading my senses.  We were both tired so we crawled into bed and cuddled.  I basked in the familiar soft touch of her smooth skin, and the comforting smell of her hair.  Christine’s lips were curved in a gentle smile.  She was asleep within minutes.

We woke up from our nap with ravenous appetites.  “Taco Bell or Burger King?”  I listed the options.  “There are no Thai restaurants at the mall.”

Christine laughed.  “I guess we’re going to dine on generic mall cuisine tonight.”

“Yes.  You can count on the same fast food places and the same twenty five stores, selling the same products in every mall in America.  And when the Third world countries develop their economies enough, we’ll wipe out all their silly, indigenous cultures and replace them with malls too.  The local populations will even thank us for it.  No more drudgery making handcrafts!  The colors of Benneton will be universal!”  I adopted a devilish gleam of delight at the prospect of a harmonious and homogenous world culture.

Christine laughed again.  “Oh god, Otto!  What a vision of hell!  Aren’t there any other places you can think of to take me?”

“There’s not much else for sight seeing in town.  All the businesses in the center of town have pretty much closed up.  We could drive into Rochester or Buffalo, or we could go to one of the local wineries.” I suggested.

“That’s OK.” Christine sighed.  “I didn’t come here to see the local sights.  I came to be with you.”

After stuffing ourselves at Kentucky Fried Chicken, we sat on a bench in the mall, quietly holding hands and watching the shoppers go by.  We had planned to take in a movie, but of the ten films being shown, none had promised to be more than bleakly mediocre and we had abandoned the project.  Christine rested her head on my shoulder.

“I must be in love with you Otto.  I just drove six hours to spend an evening with you in a mall, and I’m perfectly happy.”

I pretended to yawn.  “Yeah?  Well I’m bored out of my mind myself.  We should have gone to one of those movies.  That would’ve been better than just sitting here holding hands like a pair of cooing doves.”

Christine jabbed her finger hard into my ribs.  I jolted upright and Christine had to bite her lip to keep from laughing. “Come on now.  You’re just as happy as I am.  Admit it.  As a matter of fact, you’re probably even happier because you’ve got such a hot chick.  And what’s wrong with doves cooing?” she demanded.  “If you ever want anything from me again you’d better learn how to coo!”

Christine laughed mischievously.  I grabbed her and tried to give her a kiss, but she warded me off with a straight arm to the chest.  She raised her other hand and looked at her watch.  “If you want to go to the movies you can still catch the 7:15 show.”

I capitulated in a conditional surrender.  “OK, I admit I’m happy, but don’t make me coo.  I don’t think I could manage it.  That would put too much stress on our relationship.”

Christine turned to face me with a satisfied smile.  “Speaking of relationship,” she said coquettishly.  “That brings me to a topic that I wanted to discuss with you, Mr. Flanagan.”  Christine touched my lips with her finger tip and watched intently as she traced it around my mouth.  “That is, to wit: what is our relationship exactly?”

“Me for you and you for me?” I suggested playfully.

“Very articulate sweetheart!” Christine rejoined sarcastically and looked at me with a challenging smile.

“No seriously.”  I feigned utter sincerity.  “I figured I’d keep you around as a sex object that I’d use whenever I had the need.”  I sniffed one nostril innocently and gazed at her blithely.

Christine chewed her lip and regarded me with a half smile.  “Then you must not have too many needs because I haven’t even seen you in almost two months.”  She slipped the dagger in with obvious pleasure.

Her repartee made me chuckle.  “Speaking of pleasure…”  I assumed a serious tone and squinted my eyes as I focused them on my finger, which I now pressed against her solar plexus, just below the round bulges of her breasts.

Christine slapped my hand away and looked around with an embarrassed giggle.  Then she screwed a businesslike expression on her face.  “Not now, Otto.  We’re talking about our relationship.”

For a moment Christine enjoyed the attention she had extracted out of me and the power that came with it.  Then she exclaimed with chagrin.  “Oh god!  What a typically female thing to say!”

Christine put one hand behind my neck and looked at me meaningfully with her big eyes.  “Otto, I just don’t want to be in limbo anymore.  I either want to be involved in a relationship or not at all.  The main thing is I want it to be clear.  I don’t want to have to think about it anymore.  I want to know who and what I am when I wake up in the morning so I can concentrate on drinking my cup of coffee and going to work and meeting my deadlines.”

I twirled a strand of her brown hair between two fingers and then kissed her forehead.  “I know Christine.  I really do.”

CHAPTER 101

About a week later we finished with our dirt deliveries and Pat and I went back on the day shift.  The managers from the Environmental Compliance Department and the Health and Safety Department had recently come out from corporate headquarters and visited our site.  They had determined, among other things, that the area in which front end loaders were piling up contaminated dirt in storage bins, needed to have a spotter for the front end loaders and greater attention paid to dust control.  Steve Wesnousky reluctantly elected me to fulfill both of these, in his opinion, unnecessary obligations.

“That’s more money down the drain for some jackass to stand there doing nothing all day!” Steve growled.  “As if this project wasn’t in the hole enough already, these idiots have to come out and play the big manager.  They should stay in their offices and twiddle their pencils!  That’s all they know how to do!”

George Ullman, who had been standing next to him, yucked.  “Those fucking jerks!  They don’t know what the fuck they’re doing!”

As a spotter my responsibility would be ostensibly, to guide the front end loaders when they were backing up and generally direct traffic.  For dust control purposes there was a garden hose lying off to the side which I could use to spray the area when the ground got too dry.

Steve turned his short neck stiffly towards me and beckoned for me to follow.  We walked through the Support Zone along the perimeter fence of the Hot Zone.  I was wearing my hard hat, safety glasses, and steel toed boots, while Steve was bareheaded and wearing a pair of loafers.  We stopped and looked through the perimeter fence at the storage bin area.

“You see that wall over there?” he asked in his tinny voice. “You can stand behind it in the shade and keep out of the sun.  Just make sure you don’t get run over.”

It was the first week of June and the temperature was supposed to hit 90 degrees this afternoon.  The heavy equipment operators would be fairly comfortable in their air conditioned cabs, but with a poly tyvek suit and a respirator on, I would fry in the sun.  Steve turned without another word and stumped back to his office.

I saw Mark in the decon trailer and we chatted as we suited up in Level C: poly tyvek suit, filter respirators, cotton glove liners, latex lab gloves, hard hat, and two pairs of plastic booties over our steel toed boots.  There was a shortage of heavy equipment operators on the job site and Mark had started driving one of the end dump trucks.

“It’s kind of fun.” Mark laughed.  “It sure beats standing there with the PID doing nothing all day.  I can’t stand it when there’s nothing to do.  I’d rather drive the truck and stay busy. Yesterday one of the guys showed me how to operate the front end loader.  I think I’m going to do some of that next week.  I knew my college education would come in handy someday.”

Mark and I chuckled.  “Besides, you earn a much higher hourly wage as an operator than as a field chemist.” he went on. “Maybe I’ll just switch over entirely.”

“Hey, maybe if they need operators, we can have Earl sent over here.  He’s not really doing much out in Ohio.” I suggested.

“Yeah.” Mark responded enthusiastically.  “We can get old Earl here and then we’ll all be ready to go back to the army base job when they get everything sorted out.”

“If they ever sort things out.” I specified.  “I’m beginning to have my doubts.”

“Yeah, I bet you want to get back there and see this woman you keep saying you’re going to introduce me to.” Mark laughed.

“Hell, I’ll be lucky if I ever see her again myself, the way things are going.”  I chuckled and Mark laughed again.

That afternoon it did indeed get hot and I roasted in the sun.  I tried to move as little as possible which didn’t seem to bother the operators.  One of them had told me tersely to just stay out of the way.  When my arms hung down the sweat collected like little water balloons in the tips of my latex lab gloves, and when I raised my hands it would run in streams down my arms and then down the length of my body until collected in my soggy boots.  Every once in a while I would amuse myself by spraying the dust down with the hose.  When I did this I would frequently spray myself as well to cool off.  When we took water breaks back at the decon trailer, I would take some ice cubes from a Gatorade cooler and put them down my back or in my hard hat.

During one of these water breaks, I got into a conversation with the operator who had told me to stay out of the way earlier. His name was Mitch.  Mitch was from New Jersey and had been working for Toxikleen for about two years.  Before that he had been a contractor, owning a small demolition company.  Business had been pretty good until one day he had been given the wrong address for a job.  Mitch had gone out with his wrecker in the morning and demolished the house across the street from the one he was supposed to knock down.

“When the lady came home in the afternoon and saw what I’d done to her house, she wasn’t too pleased.” Mitch said with a surly grin.  “How the fuck was I supposed to know?  Her house was a fuckin’ dump!  It looked worse than the one I was supposed to knock down.  Anyway, that kind of put me out of business and here I am.”

CHAPTER 102

I did a double take when I got my paycheck to make sure I had read it correctly.  It appeared to be about half what I was expecting.  As usual when these kind of mix ups happened, I got on the phone and called the payroll department at corporate headquarters.  The girl there was always sweet on the phone and I had decided a long time ago that if I ever got sent to corporate headquarters for some reason, I would stop in and introduce myself.  This time was no exception.

“Oh hi Otto.  How are you?  How’s the weather back there?”

“Well it’s been pretty hot the last few days, up in the nineties.  But it’s supposed to cool down again and start raining.  How’s your kid?”

“Oh he had the flu for a couple of days, but he was out playing baseball again yesterday, so I guess he’s better.  What can I do for you Otto?”

“Well as usual I’m calling because there’s a problem with my paycheck.”

“Yes, I know.” the girl giggled.  “I didn’t think this was just a social call.”

“Someday I’ll surprise you and call up just to say hi.” I said.

“Well someday we’ll surprise you and make your check out properly.” she returned with a laugh.

“Hey, don’t do anything drastic.”

The girl laughed again.  “So what’s up?”

I explained the discrepancy in my paycheck with the amount that I had anticipated.  The girl looked it up in her computer.

“No, that’s right.  Everything seems to be in order.”

“But I worked 64 hours that week.” I explained patiently.

“Yes, but you’re on straight salary now so that doesn’t matter any more.” she answered in a matter of fact tone.

“What?!” I gasped in bewilderment.  I was never surprised when mistakes were made, but this seemed preposterous.

“Yes.  It says so right here.  You were reclassified as of the first of the month.  This came straight from the personnel office so if you have any questions about it you should call Tom Casey over there.”

I was flabbergasted.  I assumed there was some mistake.  Whatever opinion I had of Toxikleen as a corporation, I didn’t expect anyone to believe that I would suddenly agree to work sixty to seventy hours a week for half the money I used to earn.

Tom Casey answered the phone in an affable manner and I introduced myself and began explaining my situation.  Tom listened politely and with apparent concern and I felt with relief that it was just a matter of minutes before this innocent paperwork mistake would be cheerfully corrected.

“Well Otto,” Tom addressed me with a congenial tone.  “I can understand your concern in the matter, but I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do about it.  You’re a field chemist and all field chemists are being classified as salaried employees.”

Tom gave me his explanation in an understanding voice as if he were sympathizing with an earthquake victim.  I was stunned.

“Wait a minute!  I’m scheduled to work sixty eight hours a week!  You can’t expect me to work that without overtime!”

“Hmm.” Tom uttered.  “I think there’s something in corporate policy about not requiring employees to work more than 60 hours a week.  Our studies show that after a certain point efficiency diminishes and risk of accident increases.  Let me check on that and see what I can do for you.”

“That’s not the point.” I said, with my voice almost quavering in agitation.  I was controlling myself and maintaining a professional decorum with difficulty.  “I never signed a contract with Toxikleen that said I agreed to work even one hour of overtime without being compensated for it.  My agreement with Toxikleen, Incorporated is that I will be paid by the hour and receive time and a half for overtime.  I have always done my job and lived up to my side of the bargain and I expect Toxikleen to do the same.  You can’t just unilaterally lower my income like that.”

“Well you have to understand,” Tom began, as if making a patient explanation to a novice.  “I’m sorry, what’s your name again?”

“Otto Flanagan.”

“I’m sorry, Otto.  I get so busy here, sometimes I can’t remember my own name.”  Tom gave a little laugh to demonstrate in a friendly manner that we at Toxikleen were all in the same boat. I was ill disposed to share his humour.  “Anyway Otto, the ship is sailing on some turbulent seas and we need everybody to pitch in and be a real team player.”

“I am a team player!” I protested indignantly.  “I’ve worked for several years for Toxikleen, and I’ve always been in good standing.  I work hard and I produce results.  I just want to get paid for my time.”

“Well, I’m sure you don’t expect any special treatment do you?”  Tom’s velvet sneer had a thinly veiled nastiness.

“I agreed to come to work for Toxikleen for a certain wage and with the understanding that I get paid time and a half for overtime.  That’s all I want.”

“OK Otto.  I’ll have to check the corporate policy, but I’ll see what I can do for you.  I’ll get back to you in a day or two. Hey, did you get your memo about the company picnic yet?  They’re going to put people up in motels near each regional office so everybody should be able to attend.”

“No, I’m going to use the extra day off to visit my girlfriend.” I struggled to keep the anger out of my voice.

“Good enough.” Tom answered amiably.  “I’ll see what I can do for you.”

I hung up feeling no confidence in the sincerity of Tom’s efforts on my behalf.

CHAPTER 103

Last night I called Randall and as soon as he heard my voice he began an excited narration.  “Hey, the phantom roommate!  Guess what!  I fell out of a tree and nearly got killed a few days ago.  I was about 60 feet up in a planetree and I had just looped my safety harness over a limb.  I gave the harness a little tug to test it and the branch snapped!  It must have already been cracked by the wind.  I fell backwards off the limb I was standing on and crashed down through the branches!  I thought I was going to die!”

Randall talked breathlessly and I could imagine him pacing back and forth in the hall with the telephone.  “I fell about thirty feet breaking all the branches on my way down.”  Randall paused and I could hear him strike a match.  “I just tumbled through branch after branch, so fast that I didn’t even know what was happening.  All of a sudden I was sitting on the crotch of a thick limb where it forked!  It was stout enough so that it didn’t snap when I hit it.  I was sitting there in a state of shock.  The only thing I felt was that my ass was killing me.  Then I looked down and nearly fainted.  There was nothing between me and the ground!  I had landed on the last limb!  If I hadn’t stopped there I would have fallen another thirty feet and been splattered all over the sidewalk!”  Randall gave a nervous titter.

“Jesus Christ!” I exclaimed with concern.  “Did you get hurt?”

“Naw.  Just some cuts and bruises.  I guess I was lucky!  I should have at least gotten a few broken bones or an eye poked out!”  Randall laughed again.  “That was it for work for a couple of days though.  I started shaking on that limb and they got me down with the cherry picker.  But I went back to work today and felt fine.  I’ve been climbing trees so long, it’s almost second nature to be perched up there.”

Randall paused and I asked him how his lute making was progressing.  “Oh I haven’t even been down to my shop all week.  I’ve just been a bit too freaked out lately.  I guess my shop is just about ready, but I need to think about some of these designs some more.  You know Jozef and Molly split up last week!”  Randall abruptly changed gears and I raced to keep up with the flow of his mind.  “We were all in the kitchen one night cooking and they got into a fight about how much hot sauce to use.  Jozef got pissed off because Molly didn’t want to try something new, and Molly kept saying she didn’t like hot sauce.  Jozef said ‘How do you know you don’t like hot sauce if you’ve never tried it?’  Molly stamped her foot and shouted ‘I don’t like hot sauce, period!’  So Jozef dumped about half the bottle into the pot and when Molly saw that she just turned around and walked out of the apartment.  Jozef hasn’t spoken a word since.  Most days he stays really late at the lab and I don’t even see him.  He left that damn pot on the stove for four days and I ended up cleaning it myself.  The kitchen still stinks of cayenne pepper!  Man, it was enough to make me feel glad about being celibate!  I got the shivers just thinking that, but for the grace of god and my social ineptitude, that could’ve been me standing there, arguing with a woman about hot sauce!”

CHAPTER 104

Several of the heavy equipment operators showed up at work the next day with swollen lips and black eyes.  Pat filled us in on the background story when he came to chit chat with Mark and me in our Health and Safety alcove.

“A lot of the guys went to a bar last night.  After they got drunk some of them got into a big argument.  One guy said to another, ‘You can’t operate an excavator worth shit!’  Well that was all it took.  Those clowns went after each other and busted up the joint until the cops came and threw them all out.  Now you see them dragging into work today all hung over and bruised up and still stinking of alcohol.  What a crew they got here on this site!”

“Yeah.” Mark chuckled.  “The intellectual horizons of some of these characters don’t stretch further than tit bars and pushing dirt.”

After Pat left, Mark and I headed over to the decon trailer to suit up and go to work.  Mark’s paycheck had been much smaller than usual also and I told him of my conversation with Tom Casey.

“Who is this guy Tom Casey?” Mark asked with a look of disgust.  “And what’s this crap about having to check corporate policy?  That sounds like just a way to get you off the phone and out of his life.  You’re never going to hear from him again.”

I decided to call Tom Casey again.  I left messages for him at coffee break and again during lunch, but he didn’t return my calls.  Finally I got hold of him late that afternoon.  I was very skeptical of his intentions of helping me, but I gave him benefit of the doubt and spoke to him in a courteous and cordial manner.  Tom answered in a like style, but told me he didn’t have anything new to tell me.

“I’m pretty sure though there’s a clause in the corporate policy about not requiring employees to work more than 60 hours a week.” he added helpfully.  “Hang on.  I’ve got the company rules right here.  I saw that section just the other day.”  Tom made kind of a hyper whistling sound as he flipped through some pages. My blood began to boil.

“Here it is.” Tom said cheerfully and he started reading the section out loud to me.

“That’s not the point.” I said and then repeated myself when Tom didn’t even pause.

I made a tremendous effort and kept my voice still professional even though I was finding Tom to be extremely provoking.  When Tom saw that I wasn’t going to let him distract me by going off on a tangent, his manner changed abruptly.  He now began addressing me in an impatient and petulant tone as if I was some kind of irresponsible rabble rouser.

“Look Otto, you’re just going to have to do what’s required of you just like everybody else.  What do you want me to say?  I’m trying to do the best I can to help you, but you’ve got to play ball with me.  I can’t rewrite all the company rules just because one person is complaining.  If everybody did that there would be complete chaos.  I don’t like having to drive an hour to work every day, but if I want the job I’ve got to do it.”

I realized that this avenue was a dead end and we hung up shortly thereafter, with dissatisfaction and enmity evident on both sides.  Mark shook his head grimly when I related this last episode to him.  “I think it’s time to get out the old resume.”  Mark’s usual laugh was absent.

That evening I stayed until 10 o’clock with Pat and the crew he was in charge of.  Steve Wesnousky must have felt under pressure to show some results to the higher ups in corporate because he insisted that the excavation in this small sector had to be completed today to keep within his production schedule.  After it had gotten dark, Pat had continued digging with the backhoe by the generator powered floodlights.  Even though Steve had demanded that we stay late and finish the work, he was in a bad temper because he couldn’t go back to his motel until we were done.  Finally about 7 o’clock he had told us he would be in radio contact and then left.

After half an hour he called on the radio and inquired about our progress.  When Pat informed him that we still had a ways to go, he growled something about incompetence and signed off.  He continued to call in at thirty minute intervals, and Pat and I could plainly hear his words beginning to slur by about 8:30.  At 9:00 when he called, it was obvious from the background noises that he was sitting at a bar with the radio.  The tinkling sound of ice cubes in a glass were audible over the music and general bar hubbub.  Steve was laughing loudly with some other patrons at the bar and began berating Pat in a drunken and abusive manner.  At one point, after calling Pat a slow witted dunce, Steve went into a spasm of hysterics and we could hear him gasping for breath and sucking in his saliva from laughing so hard.

A moment later George Ullman’s voice yelled out. “Hey Pat, who have you got operating that backhoe, a chimpanzee?”

This was followed by more hysterical laughter from the radio.  Pat quietly held the radio out at arm’s length and rolled his eyes.  The crew stood in a semicircle around the radio and listened in outrage.  When Steve signed off after a few more sarcastic comments about Pat’s abilities, the crew exploded indignantly.

“Who the fuck does he think he is?”

“That fucking asshole!  We’re sweatin’ our balls off all night out here and he’s got nothing better to do than get drunk and make fun of us!”

“Hey Pat, he can’t talk to you like that!  You’re a good man.  Steve’s a fucking idiot!”

Pat shook his head calmly in agreement and then slowly put his hands up to get everyone’s attention.  When it was quiet he addressed the crew with a placid composure.  “OK men.  I know you’re all doing a good job and I’ll stick up for you if there’s any kind of problem.  This is just one of Steve’s ways of controlling everybody.  We all know what kind of a man Steve Wesnousky is.  There’s nothing we can do about that tonight so let’s not worry about it.  Don’t let it get you upset.  We’ve still got to finish this job, so let’s get back to work and just do the best we can.”

The crew returned to work and Pat stood quietly next to me. “That was well spoken Pat.” I said.  Pat nodded his head as he watched the digging, and then he moved over to the edge of the pit and gazed into it with his arms folded across his chest.

CHAPTER 105

Over the next week my verbal battle with Tom Casey continued by phone and we were on the verge of being openly hostile.  During every lunch or coffee break when I could get near a phone, I would try calling anybody I could think of back in my home office in Newark, New Jersey, or in corporate itself.  Several people had taken my side and the head operations manager at corporate had even discussed my case briefly with Tom Casey when they had chanced to meet each other in the corridor.

However nothing had changed so far.  Tom Casey remained evasive and never returned my calls.  When his secretary answered the phone she always put me on hold for a minute and then told me that Tom was out at a meeting.  When I did succeed in getting Tom in person, he would give me a litany of the problems that were filling his work days and then tell me that he was still checking corporate policy for me.  One time he even pretended he didn’t remember who I was and then apologized profusely and claimed that he was harried to the point of distraction.  I was not a sympathetic audience to his troubles.

Mark and I had both received another small paycheck and we were both feeling bitter and resentful.  Mark had mailed off his resume to a couple of companies and called Johnny A. to see if there were any openings in his new company.  I had stayed late in the office one night and printed out several copies of my own updated resume.  I sent several to our main business competitors and then called Phil Lee, an old friend from my days as an asbestos inspector in New York.  Phil now worked for the EPA and had a vast network of connections in government as well as the private sector.  I had followed Phil on two occasions when he jumped to a better job in another company and I had always been amused by his first action upon starting a new job.  He would immediately update his resume.

Even Steve Wesnousky expressed some concern.  Since it is a common belief of project managers that their Health and Safety personnel don’t make any contribution other than shutting down production over some trifle, Steve had begun to appreciate Mark and me because we were experienced enough to display some actual knowledge of the ultimate goal the project was trying to achieve. Steve had come up and stood beside me and gazed through the perimeter fence at some digging going on inside the Hot Zone.  Without looking at me he had asked me what was going on and I had explained our salary situation.  When I finished Steve continued watching the digging in silence for a minute.  Then he turned his neck stiffly towards me and said with a sly smile.

“I heard a rumor from corporate that you’re kind of a troublemaker.”

I could feel Steve searching for a controlling edge.  I was a bit outraged to hear that the results of my office politics was to be branded as a troublemaker, but I wasn’t really surprised.  My experience with Corporate America had taught me that success seemed to be based as much on your popularity with the power cliques directly above you as on your ability.

I frowned ruefully.  “If politely insisting on having your rights is making trouble, then I’m definitely a troublemaker.”

Steve gave a tinny cackle.  “Those people back at corporate are fucking useless!  All they do is obstruct the people in the field who are doing the real work.”

I could feel Steve lining me up on his side as an ally.  We stood watching the digging in silence for a couple of minutes.  Finally without looking at me, Steve said gruffly that he’d look into the matter and then stomped away.

At the end of the day I saw Mark in the office.  He was effervescing with excitement at some news he had for me.  Earl was being transferred here to operate a bulldozer and would be on site Monday morning.  In spite of our problems with corporate, I felt glad because I would be seeing Earl again.  The big man was starting to feel like family.

CHAPTER 106

My weekend to go home came up and since Christine was away on an assignment, I went back to New York.  I had been thinking about all my belongings that had been languishing in storage for several years and decided that it was time to do something about it.  Accordingly, on Saturday afternoon I found myself in my dimly lit storage cubicle, surrounded by articles from the past. I gazed with a combination of nostalgia and dismay at the furniture that I had once considered so vital.

Tania and I had battled fiercely over this furniture on many occasions.  She had wanted to completely refurnish our apartment with brand new things, while I had clung on desperately to the old ones.  I thought about all the other things we had argued about and wondered if they were all so ultimately meaningless as this.  With tenderness I imagined Tania polishing a glass table top that I had once refused to buy.  There had been something about that glass table that had seemed to represent a clash of lifestyles and I had been determined to not become a slave to my own furniture.

As I perused my inventory now, I had to admit that Tania was right.  It was mostly just battered junk.  It wasn’t desirable even by me any more.  I had been thinking of trucking it up to my rooms in Randall’s apartment, but now I decided to let most of it go.  I picked through my belongings and loaded a few boxes of books into my car.  Then I made arrangements with the storage facility about the disposal of the remains and closed the door on another chapter of my life.

CHAPTER 107

Earl flashed me a big grin and waved when I came in the office door for the health and safety meeting at six o’clock on Monday morning.  Mark was sitting next to Earl and as the meeting began, Earl turned and muttered something to him and Mark broke into a spasm of laughter.  As soon as the meeting had finished, Earl came over and gave me bear hug which nearly snapped my spine in half.  He was in a jolly mood and was cracking jokes about all the bouncing around to different job sites that he’d been doing lately.

“I told ’em back at the home office that I wanted to get paid by the mile instead of by the hour.” he guffawed.

Mark and I told him briefly about our salary argument with Tom Casey and Earl steamed with righteous indignation.

“That’s typical!  Those corporate bean counters fuck you over every time!  These people got no field experience and don’t give a god damn about anything except numbers and quarterly profits!  Hell, that ain’t no way to run a company!  I’ve seen a lot of good people leave this outfit ’cause they got tired of all the bullshit!  The problem is, all the other companies are just as bad!”  Earl’s face was turning red with anger.

We split up to go to our separate jobs, but got together again in the evening for dinner and a few beers.  Mark found an inexpensive motel room for Earl and the next few days passed uneventfully.

On Thursday morning Steve Wesnousky was absent from the safety meeting and the story was going around that he’d been called back to corporate for some kind of high level meeting.  After lunch on Friday, David Kendal called a meeting of all personnel on site and somberly announced that he had important news.  Toxikleen had lost the contract for this project and Steve Wesnousky had been fired!

We were all stunned.  Toxikleen had been thrown off the job! David Kendal’s forehead was creased with worry lines.  We listened in tense silence as he continued his explanation.

“Toxikleen’s going through some slow times and a period of readjustment.  We don’t have many projects going on out there to send people to, so I’m afraid some layoffs and some relocations will be forth coming.”

A skeleton staff would remain temporarily on site to conduct the demobilization, but the rest of us would be either transferred or laid off.  By the end of the day we all had our marching orders.  Our rad job on the army base was still bogged down with laboratory analysis difficulties and procedural disputes with the state regulatory agency, so a date to resume operations had not even been conjectured.  Therefore Mark had been sent to a project in Delaware to write shipping manifests for drums of waste, I had been told to relocate permanently to the Midwest region as a salaried field chemist, and Earl had been laid off.

CHAPTER 108

An hour later I called Randall.  I’d been sitting in my motel room for twenty minutes mulling over my prospects.  My salary situation remained unresolved and if I relocated out to the Midwest I wouldn’t be living where I wanted to.  Furthermore I would certainly end up losing Christine.

Randall answered the phone and when he heard my voice he launched into a breathless monologue.  “Hey, how’s it going?  I’ve been doing a lot of work in the kitchen.  I built four new shelves and installed them between the windows.  They look really nice and it gives us a lot more free counter space for chopping. You’ll like them if you ever show up again to see them.  Oh by the way, everything’s all patched up between Jozef and Molly.  They’re back to gooing all over each other again.  I swear, those two need to wear emotion diapers!  That lovey-dovey crap drips off them and leaves a slimy trail on the floor.  At least you and Christine aren’t that bad.  I told Jozef that the next time he has a fight with Molly he has to clean up after himself.  I’m not scrubbing out his pots again!  The only reason the last one wasn’t covered with mold and maggots was because he had dumped so much cayenne pepper sauce in there that the damn thing was sterile!”

I laughed and then asked him if he’d started work on building a lute.  “Yeah!” he gushed with excitement.  “I cut and glued together the first two ribs of the body!  I’ll have to show you how they came out.  It’s not good enough though.  If you hold it up to the light you can see the seam.  That means the ribs aren’t joined tight enough and there’s still a gap between them. I’m going to leave it for a while and think over my technique.  Maybe I’ll try again next week.  When are you coming back?”

“Probably tomorrow.  I’m going to resign from Toxikleen!”

“You’re kidding!”

“Yeah.  I just decided.”  It was true.  Even as I was listening to Randall, I had been thinking over my situation and had realized that I was just plain fed up.  Now that I had made my decision I felt relaxed and exuberant.  I told Randall about the recent events at Toxikleen and the apartment eviction notice in New York.

“Well, cool.” Randall said.  “We’ll be waiting for you.  I picked up some lumber yesterday and I was thinking about fixing the back porch.  If you’re going to be around, maybe you can give me a hand.”

CHAPTER 109

Earl had only been in town for five days, but he had already scoped out a tit bar.  He and Mark and I found ourselves seated around a table there later that night for a few farewell drinks. Mark’s salary situation also remained unresolved, but the project he was going to only required a forty hour work week, so a confrontation had been put off indefinitely.  He was actually quite content to be going someplace where he could get to his home in Baltimore and see his friends and family frequently.  Earl was going home to Georgia to collect unemployment.  For my part I had to go through an exit medical exam and fill out some paper work, but I could probably do everything by fax without having to return to my home office in Newark, New Jersey.  I had accrued over five weeks vacation time which I would now take, and in addition, I would probably receive some severance pay since Toxikleen had demanded my relocation as a condition of my continued employment.

We had a collection of several bottles of a “Lite” beverage, which didn’t deserve the appellation of “beer”, bunched together on our table.  Earl had watched the first two dancers with rapt attention, but now he had turned and was very intently engaging me in conversation.  His brow was knit in a frown and his tone was serious.  The smoke from his cigarette curled up past his ear.  The girl that was dancing was the best looking of the lot and my eyes kept veering past Earl’s face to look at her.  Mark was slouched in his chair with his Toxikleen baseball cap pushed back on his head, staring at the stage as if transfixed.

“I tell you what Otto.” Earl was saying.  “I’m starting to get real tight with Louise.  Last weekend when I went to visit her, she gave a real nice surprise.  That woman’s been holding out on some real heavenly pleasures!  She knows how to make a man feel good!  I invited her to come down to Georgia to visit me and she said she’d come in two weeks, but only if I don’t smoke inside.  Now that I’m going to have the time, I can finish building my house.  Louise is gonna help me design my bathrooms and kitchen.  Hey, look at this.  What do think of these, Otto?”

Earl reached inside his leather jacket and pulled out a battered catalogue of bathroom fixtures and hardware.  He slapped it down on the table in front of me in a small pool of alleged beer.  With a look of annoyance he picked up the catalogue and shook some drops off onto the floor.  Then he plopped it back onto the table again.

“Take a look at these faucets, Otto.” Earl said as he pointed his finger at a photo on a rumpled page.  “Those are gonna be in the bathroom for the master bedroom.”

The girl on the stage was bent over with her hands on her knees and her pert breasts pointed straight at Mark, who looked like he was about to melt into a pool of ooze.  The girl was staring at him and running the tip of her pointy tongue slowly around her bright red lips.  Her hips were weaving in slow rhythmic circles through the air.  Earl flipped through the pages and droned on about washers and sink counter tops.  Suddenly he straightened up and tapped my arm.

“Oh yeah, Otto.  I was going to tell you before.”  My eyes darted to Earl, who was peering sharply at me, and then back to the sorceress in the G string.  “I talked to my cousin Chester this afternoon, and we’re thinking of starting up a paving business back home.  Why don’t you come on down to Georgia and work with me?  I can teach you how to pave driveways.  Hell it’s as easy as steppin’ in cowshit!”

I glanced over at Earl and he looked enthusiastic about the idea.  “I don’t know, Earl.  Thanks, but my life, my skis, and my woman are all up here in the north.”

“So you gonna to go get that woman of yours before she finds someone else?”

I grinned.  “Yeah.  I guess there never could be any real doubt about that.”

Earl laughed.  “No, I guess not.  Well you don’t have a job now so what are you going to do?”

I grinned at Earl.  “Actually, I’ve been thinking about taking some time off and writing your biography.”

I waited for the big man’s reply. However Earl wasn’t listening.  He was staring at the dancer who was cupping her breasts in her hands and slowly squeezing them with her mouth open.  Earl had raised his hand to take a drag on his cigarette, but he stopped short half way up.

“I tell you what, she’s got a nice little…!”

-THE END-