lamb of molach 2nd draft

Lamb of Moloch

It had been raining for five days but the work went on, continually. Day and night. Two shifts 12 hours each. It was called a “shut down”. That’s when a big petroleum processing plant shuts down completely for maintenance. The longer the plant is off- line the more money is lost. Hundreds of thousands of dollars a day. So the bosses push to get it done. Everybody works 7 days a week, 12 hours a day.

A petroleum plant is a mass towers, made of gauges, pipes, heaters, coolers, valves, and dials. Towers are knots of metal twisting stories high, called stacks. In the rain the “stacks” were surrounded by giant sheets of plastic, hung from wires and tied off to the scaffolding that surrounded the stacks. The wind was so high the rain still blew in. The sheets caught the wind like sails, and ripped. They popped and whistled. Everything in the stack was dripping wet. Guys had to climb up the “racks” or scaffolding--into the great tangle of pipes to do the work. In the rain and dark this was a terrible and slow going. They were often nearly soaked before they even got to the place in the pipes they had to work, their heavy one piece fire resistant suit weighing up to 30 pounds when wet. Harsh florescent lights blazed from the ground on the outside, but in the middle it didn’t help. Inside the stack small lights were hung at various points, but it was still too dark. Shadows hid everything because everything was a tangle of pipe. Climbing inside the stack was squirming through the entrails of a robot monster.

The guys wore harnesses and lanyards. They hooked their lanyards to the racks and climbed up. They called it “tying off”. But it was hard maneuvering through the tangle, even without lines to get hooked on gauges and tied up in. So guys often “flew” up. They climbed without tying off because it was quicker and easier. There were safety guys who were supposed to watch everything, but they often looked the other way because the job had to get done for anyone—including them—to get paid.

Most of the guys were x-cons. They had shaved heads and tattoos. The tattoos that made it obvious where they had been to anyone with an eye to see. It was absolutely the best job any con could get. When they all showed up at starting time they were loaded into a bus at the gate and the buss drove back to the stacks. They called the buss the “Grey Bird”, same as they do in jail. They had a mean and often vulgarly violent sense of humor, much like that in jail. They cliqued up the same as they would in jail. The cliques followed roughly racial lines. There was some mixing, but not too much. Guys always jostled for position in the little hierarchies that were constantly being erected and challenged. Also, like in the joint one was either a shark or a fish. There was a constant threat of violence, it hung in the air and informed every action and word. Fights often broke out but were quickly stopped. Confrontation was usually over petty grievances, and tended to be settled just as quick. Mostly dude’s bark was worse than the bite, but the bite could sometimes be pretty bad too.

Adam considered the whole culture one borne of a wage slave mentality. He didn’t much talk to any of the guys. He kept to him-self. He had a plan. The plan was to make enough money to pay for a few semesters of school and quit as soon as he could. Most of the guys left him alone. He seemed to them not very sociable, or scared, or both. He was no threat and stayed out of the little rivalries so he was not given much mind one way or the other. When he did talk to the other workers he bitched about working conditions. Sometimes they seemed responsive, sometimes they just replied that they were glad to have a job, and to not let the foreman hear them talking that uppity shit.

One night the crew leader tried to get under his skin because Adam had told hin he was just a tool of the bosses. The lead kept sending him to get Benntol Karitine. BK was a solvent that the men used to melt the adhesive that was left on the pipe when the insulation was stripped off. It was one of the nastiest jobs, and the most dangerous because it involved a lot of climbing up and down the stacks. Plus you had to siphon by mouth the BK out of the tank when the pump was broke, which it currently was. There was a large tank of the stuff on the ground near the stack. Adam would have to climb down with a five gallon bucket, fill it up by siphoning the BK from the tank, and tie the bucket to a line. If the bucket got hung up, as it often did, it was his job climb up and un-lodge it.

At the bottom a guy they called “One Man” or “Just One Man” was standing watching Adam climb down from untying a tie-up. Also like in prision everyone got a nickname. They called him that because everytime he was asked to do do something chaellinging he would say something like, “I’ll try boss, but I’m just one man” or something. It was sort of a running joke.

“Why you let him do you like that Crash? Tell him to send someone else, no one person should have to do it every time.”

Adam took off his helmet and wiped his fore head on his sleeve, “Fuck em, I’m gonna quit at the end of the week anyhow, I made enough to go back to school. This job is easy because every time I come down I rest, and I take my sweet time, they don’t say much if I take my time”.

Listen here young buck, listen, it’s all about respect, you got to let guys know they can’t fuck with you like that. You shouldn’t have to come down every time. Its considered bitch work, you should be patin by now. Yous a painter by trade ant you”. Adam noticed the small beads of beard starting to form on One Man’s chin and neck. His skin was shinny black and beautiful in the harsh light. Adam thought that 10,000 years ago hed would be a proud hunter or warrior, witgh many children and a strong totem. Adam thougt he’d rather be a medicine man, but a hunter would be cool too. He thought, “we’d be frineds, me and One Man, we’d sleep by the fire to keep warm and track large game like two free men”.
“CRASH, wake up space coybow, you fuckin listen to me homeboy!

Adam blinked, “Respect”?!
Adam looked at him with amusement. “I get paid the same weather I’m haulin BK or paintin. I don’t care what that chicken shit crew leader thinks of me. He gets paid as much as we do, they choose another one every few weeks anyhow, he won’t be there long. You know why they do that? They do that to make some guys think they are better than the rest. But truth is they ant no better than dog shit, just like the rest of us is treated like dog shit. If you guys were smarter you’d demand to lay out while its ranin. Nobody should have to work in the damn pouring rain, but instead you’re too busy knocking dicks and grab assin like you was in the joint. Ya’ll should get it together and stop givein each other such a hard time. You should learn how to give the bosses a hard time instead”.

One Man looked off across the yard, far off, “I’m gonna be a boss sometime soon. That’s why you gotta get the good jobs not the shit jobs. It shows you can move up, take on more responsibility. One day I'll be management, I gotta rase my seed to have a little somthin”.

Adam laughed. “It’s all the same. All jobs are the same out here if you are working in the stacks. You get paid the same and the conditions are the same and the hours are the same and the risks are the same. IF you’re not sittin your fat ass in the office then you’re out here with the rest of us dogs, and if you’re out here its all the same.

Adam tied off the bucket and frowned as it got tied up on a gauge. He stated up. Half way up he got tangled up in his line. He could barely move enough to un-hook him-self. It was hard to see. The easiest thing to do was just un-hook, free himself from the tangle of lanyard, and tie off again. It was hard to move but much easier not being tied up to a scaffold. He went to unhook himself. Just as he did his foot slipped. Everything was so wet.

There was a large open spot just behind him. He fell into the hole backwards. His hard hat came off as he fell and he hit his head on a pipe, hard, then fell the rest of the way dead. The lanyard lines trailed up as he fell like impotent wings.

One Man watched blankly as he fell, it happened so quick he did not really register what he had just witnessed until Adam crashed on the concrete, his head cracked aginst it and some brain spilled out. No matter, his soul had already flown.

His broken body stretched across the concrete, pelted by rain, head pouring blood and brains. The blood fell washed in lines, on the concrete. The wind groaned through the guts of the stack.
The lights smoked as the rain pelted them. The blood was absorbed into the concrete, or washed into the drain.