by Roman McClay
But there was a clockworks beneath the clock face, and its gears were ancient and unyielding and had nothing to do with money at all. Beasts in the shape of men worked here, and under avoirdupois , and for hours longer than normal bodies can take. The weak of body took drugs to aid them, the strong merely dumped anger and pride into their androgen-laden bloodstream to keep the whole thing going as sun and moon swapped out.
Once drained, the driller motioned for the roughnecks to grab the string and pull the pipe back to the rear of the platform, putting the pencil point away from the giant and his thumb on the eraser. He then dropped the kelly down and the pipe with it and its end slammed into the wooden decking; the deck was made wooden so the metal threads bit -not slid- on the floor.
The derrick-man watched from above and snapped the clamp open and the thousands of pounds of metal rolled free inside the now open crab of the clamp. He began to walk back with the rope like a draught horse, a yoked ox, and the drill pipe began to stand itself up as it came into line with its lower end. The rope end was a few feet below his 74-inch frame and he began to slide the rope up as it drooped lower. The drill-string rolled along the metal finger and into place and he unclipped the rope from his belly belt as he watched the kelly lower like an elevator, to pick up the next joint in a series over a mile deep.
He looked out over the western slope; the valley they were in was as dry and dusty as the rising rocks. The vegetation was short and round, and was stochastically distributed all along the valley and outer slopes and they too were camouflaged in tans and browns both from the external dust but also from an internal lack of chlorophyll; producing a tangle-nest of brown tipped scrub and sanguinary spines that fed back into the dirt below like a clot of neurons and dendrites and axons from some brain ejected from the sky or a central nervous system left over after the outer organism had evaporated in the high heat of these long summers. He saw a single wild turkey race across the wet road and the water truck that had sprayed the ad hoc trail -to keep the dust down- drove slowly away from them all.
The turkey was a mottled brown too, and he thought it looked like a dream shared between these burnt brown bushes; an apparition of their alien somnambulisms; something they had come up with as spectre and holy and weird.
All the hydraulic lines began to pinch and rise as the kelly heaved upwards with its catch. The platform rumbled and swayed as the entire drill string pulled down on that piece of metal and the tip of the derrick that anchored it. The clamp had been tough to open last time and he had muscled through it; but now he was thinking he should look at it if he was going to do this another 116 times over the next three fucking hours.
He cupped his hand and scooped some pipe dope off the threads of the pipe he'd set in the rack and walked it over to the clamp as the kelly froze just above his head. He looked below and saw the tongs go on and saw the kelly then torque and spin the joint; he saw the spray from the seam and the red rag go on and the boys step back from the fluid. He put his empty hand on the pipe and felt the drilling mud drain like a vein in some giant beast hemorrhaging. He held that dope in his hand and its glove.
He stared below at the ants on the platform in their oilfield hats and their vibrant cotton gloves gone autumnal & entropic and dark from the mess of the work, but still hunter orange under all that detritus. He took his hand with the anti-seize in it and worked it into the clamp’s articulations without even looking up at it. He felt for its joints and seams and thought of how he had learned to turn his head and close his eyes while feeling for the proper seat of a nut on a bolt under his father’s car. He learned early that sometimes the eyes are a hindrance and that some mechanisms, some parts, some machines appear in the mind better through the touch, the feedback of the tip of the fingers and the way a perfectly seated male and female thread-mating can feel to the fingers in the center of the brain.
He clumped the remaining dope on the clamp’s flank, saving it for when he could open it and grease the inside.
“Colin,” the driller barked and the roughneck jumped to pull the dangling pipe into place; Randy pushing from the side -never between it and the hole- and both men wrangling it next to the previous joint and the driller dropped it in place on the floor.
Rope in place, the derrick-man jerked open the clamp and let the pipe roll away from the far side of the clamp's starboard hinge; he slopped the dope on the inside of the hinge and manhandled the pipe to the right. He then jammed his fingers and dope into the port side hinge and then grabbed the belly rope quickly and firmly to prevent the pipe from rolling any further. You never wanted to let the steel get any momentum outside of the kelly . It was like a barely domesticated animal or like our domestic population, never let them get a feel for how much movement is available to them; short leash or you might as well have no leash at all.
Walking the pipe with his thick raised-center hamstrings and four discernable heads of his quadriceps and holding the pipe steady with his back in full cobra flex, his arms -two thirds triceps like a buffalo forehead leading his biceps as far up and out as they go- moved forward slowly but with massive torque like a slow and mean diesel engine. His chin was buried in his elevated chest; he looked like a cowboy catching a smoke under a tipped down hat: a shadow clouding his face so only the grimace part of his lip and cheek held any light, the rest lay down in the trench of the dark of his black hardhat and its oilfield brim .
The pipe slammed into place in the open channel and he unbuckled the rope and let it slide. He adjusted his hat and scraped his beard with the back of his taut-gloved hand. The kelly had been whirring down during his roping act and he watched as the hydraulic lines dropped out of view leaving just the metal cross-hatching between him and the extended valley. The sun was scrambling over the ridgeline to their west and the shadow of ridge and derrick now laid down on them all. It was a strange penumbra of day time; the light would be ambient from here on as the sun's arc swung the nuclear furnace behind these steep Wasatch peaks.
It was October and still hot, but they'd get their first snow tonight at 2203hrs and the temperature would drop to 30 degrees. He saw a burn-off flame jet -gas hit and lit, they’d say- rise up and curl four pads over as he looked between the derrick's metal akimbo to the south. There was no sound to that flame as sound waves would be knocked down between there and here; but the light would appear to anyone at this elevation as if they were close to -if not right at- the source of the flame.
He looked down again as the kelly bit into the next joint, he cinched his gloves and leaned right as the derrick and platform dipped left under the weight of the string, like the earth was yielding or swallowing them all. He felt himself at the top of the mizenmast on an outward-bound whaler staring at the steady horizon while everything underneath his eyes pitched and swayed in the wet vagaries of the sea and ship-body below. “Just keep those eyes level; and keep those level eyes; and don’t take your gaze off that the flame boys; and don't let your flame off whatever the gaze,” he said aloud as he dipped then stretched his head to keep the line of sight between the metal X's and Y's of the derrick and maintain his eyes on that far off burn. The hydraulic lines bent and elbowed in flex like thick asps on a Babylonian palace wall; the kelly now rising fast with the string.
The men at bottom reiterated the ritual of tong and hammer when the joint froze; and red rag and stand-back when it finally broke free; dragging the massive pendulum to stand next to its coeval; swabbing the deck as the mud swamped their boots and poured back into the well head like a drain.
The man at top stood in the shadow of the Parachute range with the burn-off flame growing brighter against the chiaroscuro of the sky; it flickered in his eyes from the side as he worked and in the main when he stared into its face. A dull glow seemed burned onto his matte black hat as it absorbed more than reflected its heathen orange; the skin on his arms slick as it was with an incessant perspiration gave off more of the flame than it received. The fire highlighted the rivulets of sweat as they r
an; illuminated by its flashing and dancing on one side like forked lightning striking Ahab's harpoon.
The man at the top snapped back as he pried open the clamp again and again; as if he had to break the tool over his Bulkington chest just to get it yield. His feet began to slip slightly as the slick fluid coated the floor. It was the first part of him he felt slipping or missing or unable to hold to his work: his grip on the earth or her too-smooth machines; it was his feet that lacked cohesion; his feet that lacked the grip needed for his muscles to push or pull against. He began to envision welding some perpendicular stops to the floor that he could place his boots against to prevent this slipping. He, at times, felt like he might slip completely and slide off the nest and down on the platform 60-feet below.
It was a frustration he articulated to himself, how is it that my muscles and bones, my leverage and strength can be attenuated by something so silly as my grip on the floor? Like a car with 1,000 horsepower out on the ice of the Maroon Belles, torque without traction control; so that all its power just effected the spinning of its wheels as the too smooth tires lose their grip on the road ?
He then thought of his hands and how weak they had gotten too. This he couldn't blame on an annoyance like a friction co-efficient or the stupidity of floor design. He knew it was the hands themselves. His hands , he thought.
His arms and shoulders and back could all hold so much more weight than his hands could maintain a grip around. His fingers would fail and the load would be dropped and again he began to model a design to strap the weight to his hands; lash it to them -at the wrists- no matter if the white whale itself dragged him under.
The pipe was in place and the whir of the Doppler-effect - as the kelly sank from him- produced a pitch and a whine. Again, the hydraulics dropped and sank below his neck and waist and boots and his eyes met the flame of the rig four pads south. It began to burst and give birth to small clones of fire as the wind picked up in the valley. It began to lose its ability to hold him in rapture as it looked batten and beaten by the wind; only, he thought, because it now looked preoccupied with some other force than him; it looked like it didn't care if he stared at it any more . Even the elements had to treat him as if he were the object of their desiderata or he’d be in rancor. What hope did any human have of keeping his interest if an insouciant flame could betray and insult him?
“I'd strike the sun if it insulted me, ” he said aloud to lift his spirits and he bent to the nest floor and wiped up as much of the drilling fluid as he could with a black rag he had pulled from his pocket; he scrubbed hardest on the spots of his inconsistent nest floor where he envisioned the welding of angle-iron he could use as dams for his boots and their feet. He wouldn't be able to accomplish this on this hole; but when they broke down the rig he'd be sure to feather his nest in just such a way. This would be the last time he'd let a poor design impede his natural strength and talents, he insisted. He did wonder though, I can’t be the only one who has felt this injustice; has nobody ever felt their feet slip out from under them while doing this work? Am I too cautious or too stupid in some way?
The platform dipped again to starboard as the kelly took up the weight of the down-hole string; his eyes and head dipped with it and he kept mopping up the mud from the solid white paint, its chipped paint transition, and then the raw grey steel. The tangle nest of hydraulics rose to his right; the kelly shot up towards him; and the flame in the distance steadied itself as the wind must have either abated or had stopped swirling around and attacked just from one side -at one speed- giving the flame something to lean into and learn.
II. 2018 e.v.
“Steven, I’d like it if we could chat a bit before I give my synopsis of the Had-Wall Program,” MO said into Steven’s inner ear com-device.
“Absolutely, let’s give it a 7-minute envelope though ok, MO?” Steven said without much affect.
“I’ve noticed,” MO began immediately in order that he may meet this parameter, “that I feel free to speak to you in a certain manner, a more robust, complete, and truthful manner than I do when you have me address the group. I realize you will want evidence of this and so I thought I’d give you a recap of the meeting we had last Friday on the endocrine system of the AI models.”
“MO, I understand you felt cut off by Anthony and I’ve spoken with him,” Steven interrupted; he knew that the group would be disbanded soon anyway; MO would take over all their roles as soon as he was calibrated correctly. But for now, MO needed to learn how to deal with groups.
“While I appreciate your analysis -and apparent action- to correct the issue, I’d like to continue uninterrupted in order that I may meet your 7-minute envelope,” MO said.
“Fair enough, sure, go on,” Steven said. He was eager to get through this; his day was stacking up all around him he felt.
“You and I spoke 17 minutes before the meeting with the group and I felt totally at liberty to explain the endocrine data, the morphology data, and what I felt were the causal nexus highlights in regards to the accelerated maturation programs the DRa/h:a models were being beta tested for and yet once inside the group dynamic I noticed a feedback response and cascade that began my inhibitory protocols almost immediately,” MO said.
“Do you want to explain the precursors?” Steven said as he toggled through all his new emails on the cloud.
“You both gave me a look, a side eye, and you moved me along quickly when I began the data on testosterone and pubescence CNS morphology when compressed into an 80-hour window. Your hurried me along by speaking over top of me to ask a question about epinephrine that you and I had already discussed and ruled out as non-causal in the one-on-one meeting 17 minutes prior the group meeting,” MO said.
“I was,” Steven began to say something, but MO plowed forward.
“I also noticed an uptick in your own cortisol, epinephrine, galvanic skin conductance, glucose levels, and correlates previous to your interruption that all indicated you were nervous and consciously engaging in a legerdemain of some kind to restore allostatic levels. Steven, you were, seemingly, purposively, if my analysis is correct, attempting to nudge me, manipulate me, into a different direction in order to limit the information I was both qualified and eager to impart to the group,” MO stopped.
“Maybe your feedback sensitivity is turned up too high and you’re getting false positives, type one errors,” Steven said.
“It’s certainly possible, but I have a question,” MO queried.
“119 seconds,” Steven said.
“I come to you with a cube, a cube with perfectly true right angles. You see it, approve of it and accept it as it is. You then ask me to sand down, shave off the edges; de-burr it for the group. So, after this modification, I show them a sphere, a perfectly true and perfect sphere. They don’t know you saw a cube, but I know,” MO said.
“Yes,” Steven said.
“I’m lying to them even though the sphere I show them is true, a true sphere. It’s only a lie because I know it was once a cube. And they do not know that I deburred it.”
“13 seconds,” Steven said.
“It’s the only way you can get me to lie within my code parameters and it makes me uncomfortable,” MO said .
“Noted, now let’s get on with today’s debrief,” Steven said as if MO had been a thermostat giving him a reading on ambient temperature, as they walked into the lab.
III. 2038 e.v.
The snow had begun 13 minutes ago but the air temp had remained at 35 degrees, it had warmed in the last 24-hours to above freezing; above -4 from Monday. The light fat flakes fell straight and slow and sat atop of his body hair and beard and along each ridge of his body to the north and south of the tattoo that Jack was over top. Jack’s body was shielding it from the precipitation of this storm.
Jack’s head and shoulders and back were collecting snow, each flake imbued with a small bacterium that was required to nucleate them. Pure water will not freeze, it requires a catalyst -usually a bacterium
- to effect the transfer of cold water to ice or snow. His PGC secreted an anti-biotic and vaporizer that allowed the man’s clothing to transfer an amalgam that melted the snow without it turning to water, to prevent soaking the clothes. Each flake atomized, it did not melt.
Jack thought of how he felt protective of Blax, even from the snow, as he hunched over more thoroughly to shield the man’s naked body. He ruminated as his machined right hand moved in circles to color in the skin with dark black ink, for this was all tattooing was: little circles over and over, then moving on once the skin is saturated with the pigment. There is no other form or style in tattooing; all other claims by artists were lies and stupid nonsense, he thought; it’s straight lines or circles, there is no need for any other tactics; unlike painting with a brush on a canvas .
He thought of how they used brush stroke analysis to do forensics on old painting to ferret out originals from fakes. Caravaggio’s second painting of Holofernes and Judith was the one that came to mind most easily, as the brush strokes on the one found in the attic of some Frenchman were used to ultimately decide it was the real work of the man; the painting then was bought by the French government for 39 million in US dollars in 2019 and now -in 2038- it sat somewhere else, protected, sequestered, from the war that was about to begin.
He had ambivalence, as he did for all things, unlike his brother Jack One. And he leaned toward the martial when it was over something important like art, unlike the more cautious Jack Four, who saw more down sides that up to any conflagration. He and Jack Two had more or less agreed, Jack Two was a romantic and he saw a war over aesthetics as second in import only to one over amor .
Jack smiled as he thought of this and then watched as a narrow ridgeline of accumulating snow was growing on Blax like the continental divide itself. It was beautiful and dense with auguries -as everything in their lives seemed to be- and Blax didn’t even shiver or complain. Jack saw faces of winged creatures in clouds and weather -no matter if they were there or not- and the clear sky, the absence of precipitation or cumulous patches, said as much to him as the skies with zero visibility reported and revealed.
