Bittersweet Sands (7 page)

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

Jason held up his four-fingered hand.

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

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

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

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

“Goggles fog up,” Scotch said.

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

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

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

“What did he do?” Dougdoug asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Acastus appraised the new kid.

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

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

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

“Okay. Okay, I'll try.”

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

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

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

“Not a chance.”

* * *

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

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

“What are you up to?” Acastus asked.

“What do you mean?”

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

Jason glared at the safety man.

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

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

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

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

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

Stash slowly looked up from his coffee.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Watch out!”

“Comin' down! Watch... HEADACHE!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Wow. It missed everybody,” Dougdoug said.

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

And they didn't.

Day Six
( Big Mistake )

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The sheet metal worker blinked.

“I'd blow this cheque.”

Then she released the envelope.

The brutal laughter from the crew made it very plain that they had grown tired of the simpleton's comments, and they immediately sided with the young woman. They were as relieved as she was when she fought back. Like a flock of pigeons, they pecked at him, never letting him forget his humiliation.

Primly, Gwen turned and left the men to their merciless laughter. When she was alone in the washroom, listening to her distant phone ringing, her emotions erupted. She held the scratchy toilet paper to her eyes and mouth as her body shook with fear and release. An hour later, she left the cubicle.

She next gathered the other secretaries and together they went not to the foreman, not to the general foreman, but all the way to the supervisor of the entire jobsite.

The supervisor was not a stupid man. Faced with his entire secretary staff standing over his desk and furiously describing Potty Mouth's antics, and knowing that these ladies could instantly shut his job down if they quit—and make his life miserable in a hundred different ways if they didn't—it was no contest.

Construction workers are usually laid off in groups of threes and fours as a project winds down. But when there's plenty of work left and only one man is let go, there's a reason.

Next morning before work, Potty Mouth's foreman walked up to him and said, “Get your gear, you're done.”

They say that his coffee was halfway to his lips and the mug stayed there for half a minute.

Nineteen men sat in that lunch trailer, and not one spoke on his behalf.

Every secretary on that project stamped DO NOT RE-HIRE in red capital letters on Potty Mouth's personnel file. The same rubber stamp was passed from delicate hand to delicate hand and used over and over to crucify the sheet metal worker. Every one of those files with DO NOT RE-HIRE stamped on the cover went to the Human Resources Departments of all the companies on that Fort McMurray site, and to every union hiring hall. His mouth, and those secretaries, destroyed his career.

Years later, a sheet metal worker told Gwen that Potty Mouth had lost his farm.

“I wonder what happened to his wife?” was Gwen's only comment.

That was then, this is now.

Gwen handed Acastus a coffee. “Two sugars, two creams, right?”

Acastus stared at her. He looked down at the coffee, then back to the secretary standing in front of him.

“I want some information,” she said.

Acastus opened his coffee-free hand, waiting.

“You're a knowledgeable guy, Barry. Take me step by step through the harassment policy.”

“Why? Were you harassed?”

“I spent my career working with men, and every one of them thought that the answer to all my problems was his penis. I've got good antennae and I have been called a lot of things, and I want to be prepared.”

“Why?”

“Because this man meant it.”

“What's his name?” Acastus said, setting aside the coffee.

“No.”

“Was he one of ours? What'd he say?”

Gwen stared at Acastus stonily. Finally she spoke. “No.”

“Well, I can't help you if you're not up-front with me....”

“No.”

“Well, I can't help you if—”

“Just answer my question, Barry.”

“What's the sexual harassment procedure?”

“Yes, Barry.”

“Well, at first, you have to tell the person that his, or her, advances are unacceptable.”

“That's not going to happen.”

“Why not? You should at least—”

“Barry, no.”

“Okay then, you should talk to your supervisor and me as your Human Resources Officer. And we'll either be there when you talk to this person or we'll speak for you.”

“That will be four people that know about this.”

“Gwen, I'd lose my job if I talk about this.”

“It's not your job I'm worried about.”

“Gwen, I think your mind is already made up. You're going to let this, this... Hell, I don't even know who we're talking about. But it sounds like you are going to let this asshole slide?”

“This man is dangerous, and I'm not... Barry, if I go ahead and lodge a formal complaint, what happens?”

“We immediately remove this guy from camp. I'm assuming he's in camp?”

Gwen nodded.

“He goes to another camp. Like right now.”

“Security? Security will take him?”

“They escort him.”

“How many people will know why he's being moved?”

“A couple. The main man will get the memo, and the escorts. Once a written formal complaint is made, an investigation will be started, and a formal report will be written. We'll have to ask a lot of questions. Do you have witnesses?”