Lamb
of Moloch (Third Dub)
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 and repair. Some years ago the plant had burned. It had sat inoperative for over a year. 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 of gauges, pipes, heaters, coolers, valves, and dials. They are arranged into distinct knots of metal twisting stories high, called stacks. Each stack performs a different task in the refining process. They are festooned in flood lights. The stacks are linked by pipes and tubes. Scaffolding surrounds the towers during a repair. The scaffolding is the only way for workers to climb into the mess. It formed an outer shell around a core of tangled pipes, like a skeleton around guts.
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 and repair. Some years ago the plant had burned. It had sat inoperative for over a year. 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 of gauges, pipes, heaters, coolers, valves, and dials. They are arranged into distinct knots of metal twisting stories high, called stacks. Each stack performs a different task in the refining process. They are festooned in flood lights. The stacks are linked by pipes and tubes. Scaffolding surrounds the towers during a repair. The scaffolding is the only way for workers to climb into the mess. It formed an outer shell around a core of tangled pipes, like a skeleton around guts.
In
the rain the stacks were surrounded by giant sheets of plastic, hung from wires
and tied off to the scaffolding. The wind was so high the rain still blew in.
The sheets caught the wind like sails, and ripped, blowing in moisture. 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 work. They were often nearly
soaked before they even got to the place in the pipes they had to work. Lights
shined harsh florescent light from the ground or scaffold into the metal
entrails, 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. It was squirming through the entrails
of a robot monster. Shadows and harsh florescent orange light bathed everything.
Some guy shad a light on their hard hat, but it just made the shadows thicker.
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, because the lines tended to get hooked on gauges and pipes. One could get tied up very easily. And dragging a lanyard behind you, unhooking and hooking it to the rack as you went, was slow going at any rate. So guys often “flew” up. They climbed up and into the rack 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 when guys flew because the job had to get done for anyone—including them—to get paid, and time was money.
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, because the lines tended to get hooked on gauges and pipes. One could get tied up very easily. And dragging a lanyard behind you, unhooking and hooking it to the rack as you went, was slow going at any rate. So guys often “flew” up. They climbed up and into the rack 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 when guys flew because the job had to get done for anyone—including them—to get paid, and time was money.
Most of the guys that worked on shut downs, especially the hard ones were x-cons. The nastier the work, and the longer the hours, the more ex-cons were on the job, this was an objective rule. This job was especially nasty. It consisted largely of removing smut and ash from the pipes. The refinery had burned a few years back. It had gotten so hot that the metal itself burnt. The pipes that were still usable had to be cleaned. To do this, the workers used a chemical they called “snake piss”, . It was a type of industrial solvent that melted the goo off the pipes, but also melted the thick rubber gloves guys wore to protect themselves from it. It burned like hell once it got on your hands. Each guy carried a bottle of a chemical that neutralized the burn. The foremen and bosses called it MK, which stood Bennotol Karitine. The bosses knew that rats exposed to the vapors tended to develop cancer. When the factory had been a closed shop, the union had tired to force the bosses to disclose this to the workers, and make it to where they could only work with it 3 hours out of an 8 hour shift. Now, there were no unions workers left at teh plant.
Most
of the workers had shaved heads and tattoos. The tattoos that made it obvious
where they had been, and who they cliqued with, to anyone with an eye to see.
It was absolutely the best job most ex-cons could get. It paid 18 an hour for
an apprentice, plus time and a half. 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 prison. They also cliqued
up about the same as they would in prison, mostly along racial lines. There was
some mixing, but not too much, and always with an eye to who was the dominant
man in the relationship. Guys always jostled for position in the little
hierarchies that were constantly being erected and challenged. The worst thing
to be called was a bitch, or a fag. Once a guy started calling you gay, you
knew you were being challenged.
As
in prison one was either a shark or a fish. Also, as in prison there was a
constant threat of violence. Fights often broke out but were quickly stopped.
Confrontation was usually over petty grievances, and tended to be settled just
as quick.
Adam considered it all 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.
the crew leader got word that Adam should be fired pretty soon. He kept sending him to get MK because it was one of the nastiest jobs, and the most dangerous because it involved a lot of climbing up and down the stacks, and handling the toxic solvent. 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 that was brought up to the top. If the bucket got hung up it was his job to un-lodge it.
At the bottom a guy was standing watching Adam climb down. He yelled up.
“Why you let him do you like that AD?. Tell him to send someone else”.
Adam took off his helmet and wiped his fore head on his sleeve.
Adam considered it all 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.
the crew leader got word that Adam should be fired pretty soon. He kept sending him to get MK because it was one of the nastiest jobs, and the most dangerous because it involved a lot of climbing up and down the stacks, and handling the toxic solvent. 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 that was brought up to the top. If the bucket got hung up it was his job to un-lodge it.
At the bottom a guy was standing watching Adam climb down. He yelled up.
“Why you let him do you like that AD?. Tell him to send someone else”.
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. They don’t say
much if I take my time.”
“AD 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 panting by now. You’re a painter by trade ant you.”?
“Respect!?” Adam looked at him with amusement. “I get paid the same weather I’m hauling piss or painting. 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 each night. 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. l If you guys were smarter you’d demand to lay out while its rain. Nobody should have to work in the damn pouring rain, but instead your too busy knocking dicks like you was in jail. 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”.
“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”.
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 sitting your fat ass in the office then you’re out here with the rest of us dogs, and if you’re out here it’s all the same. I can promise you that you won’t be sitting in an office any time soon.”
Adam tied off the bucket and started back up the stack. 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. 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. The lanyard lines trailed up as he fell bumping against the pipes, like impotent wings.
The guy below watched blankly as he fell, with eyes much like those of cattle.
Adam’s broken body stretched across a gauge near the bottom of the stack, head dripping blood. The blood fell on the pipes, writhed down the steel entrails, and dripped slowly down and puddle on the concrete.
The lights smoked as the rain pelted them. The blood was absorbed into the concrete. The only sound was that of the rain hitting the guts of the machine, that breathed a sigh of pleasure in the rain.
“AD 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 panting by now. You’re a painter by trade ant you.”?
“Respect!?” Adam looked at him with amusement. “I get paid the same weather I’m hauling piss or painting. 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 each night. 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. l If you guys were smarter you’d demand to lay out while its rain. Nobody should have to work in the damn pouring rain, but instead your too busy knocking dicks like you was in jail. 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”.
“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”.
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 sitting your fat ass in the office then you’re out here with the rest of us dogs, and if you’re out here it’s all the same. I can promise you that you won’t be sitting in an office any time soon.”
Adam tied off the bucket and started back up the stack. 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. 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. The lanyard lines trailed up as he fell bumping against the pipes, like impotent wings.
The guy below watched blankly as he fell, with eyes much like those of cattle.
Adam’s broken body stretched across a gauge near the bottom of the stack, head dripping blood. The blood fell on the pipes, writhed down the steel entrails, and dripped slowly down and puddle on the concrete.
The lights smoked as the rain pelted them. The blood was absorbed into the concrete. The only sound was that of the rain hitting the guts of the machine, that breathed a sigh of pleasure in the rain.
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