by Jan Smolders
Once inside, he let out a sigh.
“Tired, right?”
“I don’t feel well, Mary.”
“Oh?” She took his arm. “Sit down. You must be hungry. It’s late.”
“No. Not hungry.” He plopped down in a chair at the kitchen table and started coughing. “My throat. Burning. I need a shot of Jim Beam. Damn!”
“Jim Beam?”
“Best you can do for a sore throat.”
“Says who? I have your chili on the stove—”
“I said I’m not hungry,” he shot back.
Mary disregarded his tone. “Okay, sweetie. Okay. Bourbon. I’m so happy to have you home. Maybe you worked too late,” she said softly, hiding her skepticism while taking the bottle and a glass out of the wall cabinet. She poured his drink and reached across the table to put it in front of him.
He took it without saying a word and gulped it down. His trembling fingers dropped the empty glass on the table, where it landed with a slight bang. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to, Mary.”
“No problem, Joe,” she said tenderly. “Does it make you feel better? The drink?”
“Damn cough. So bad I had trouble driving. Couldn’t breathe.” He leaned his head back, mouth open.
The door swung open and Andy’s head popped in. “Ready, Daddy? Jimmy’s hands hurt. He doesn’t want to play goalie anymore. Are you having dinner?”
Joe showed a weak smile. “Just a minute. Tell him I’ll take over.” He turned to Mary and said, “One more, Mary. This stuff helps.”
She doubted the wisdom of his request but she complied.
He took his second drink and stood up, unsteady. “Jimmy needs me,” he said.
Mary wasn’t sure he was swaying because of the bourbon. He wasn’t a drinker. She embraced him and held him, resting her head against his sturdy chest. Heat radiated from his body. He might be running a low fever. “You’d better go to bed,” she whispered.
“No, the boys—”
“I’ll get them to bed, too. And I’ll join you soon. You need rest and water. And a little coddling.”
Joe rubbed his eyes. “Itching,” he said.
“Don’t rub. Not too hard,” Mary warned as she walked her linebacker to the bedroom.
Later, as she lay awake, Joe snoring and coughing, she told herself her long-held fear was coming true: his job was hurting him, and it might kill him.
On the memorable, cherished day of their love at first sight, their “flechazo,” as more than one Peruvian young man had taught her in Cajamarca, a spark had ignited her concerns when Joe proudly described his job. That night, when she got home, she dived into the books and jumped onto the web.
She recalled reading then about health issues, possibly but rarely fatal, with the kind of work Joe was doing: hauling dirty water from wells to special “injection wells.” Later, she often dropped subtle hints to him, suggesting he take precautions: ask Doornaert for installation of gas monitors; be religious and precise in following instructions. She had watched him unobtrusively, trying to detect signs of trouble. But sturdy Joe, appetite and sex drive unassailably robust, hadn’t faltered in any way. Not until now.
Today she couldn’t be certain he wasn’t suffering from the flu or another bug that might be making the rounds, but her intuition overrode her doubts. She knew her man carried a special virus: his job.
The “dirty water” Joe transported was a mixture of very salty water, up to ten times saltier than ocean water, and many special chemicals. It could not be treated adequately. It was either “flowback,” the waste water that came back up to the surface through the wellbore during fracking, or its cousin “production water,” the fluid that came up later, during the years of exploration.
Ohio had a good number of “sour” wells. They produced methane gas that carried, among other things, hydrogen sulfide, the “rotten egg” gas. That’s why the “dirty water” temporarily stored in stories high tanks or in pits near the wells often had the putrid odor. Hydrogen sulfide gas could be poisonous, even deadly if present in high concentrations. A shiver had run over Mary’s spine the day she discovered that it could deaden Joe’s sense of smell, even at rather low concentrations. His “do-good” job might hurt him even if he didn’t detect anything.
Maybe Joe had forgotten or neglected to put on that cumbersome gas mask? His detector might have failed a few times. Or was it just the flu?
She said her second good night to her man, but he didn’t hear it. She told herself he’d awaken in the morning alive and kicking. And that Jim Beam would get the credit.
Chapter 4
In early May Noredge experienced an invasion.
After Doornaert and the Chamber published a cryptic “Fracking comes to Noredge!” three paragraph press release, a torrent of opinions and comments engulfed the city. Bona fide journalists, pundits, preachers, schoolteachers, sedate as well as foxy TV anchors, talk radio barkers, and the occasional regular citizen calling in to a show or penning a few lines for the Noredge Sentinel, all scrambled for their share of the news bonanza. They dusted off old clichés and fought fiery opinion battles. Scenarios ranged from doomsday to utopia. Exhortations and predictions ran the gamut: “Utica gold for Noredge!” “We’ll never be the same!” “Jobs, Jobs, Jobs!” “Noredge into the Modern Age!” “Traffic Jams ahead!” “Test your Water! Get your Gas Masks!” The title of the Seniors’ Association’s one-page special edition said it all: “Change! Change! Noredge Will Never Be Good Old Noredge Again.”
The first physical agents of that change now descended upon the little city.
Around 9 a.m., Mary and her colleagues were alarmed by earsplitting sounds of engines and horns. “Doornaert!” one of her colleagues had yelled into her classroom. “Let’s get on the sidewalks! Control the kids!” The principal couldn’t curb the excitement.
Students and teachers all ran out onto Main Street. The ground was shaking under their feet, the exhaust fumes suffocating, the noise deafening. The teachers shouted their instructions to the kids as best they could over the rumblings of a giant metal snake, a massive convoy: two SUV’s flashing their lights; tanker trucks, some marked “flammable,” big letters on their bellies; huge oversize trucks carrying bulldozers; and more trucks carrying heavy equipment. The serpent crawled north on Main Street and then, about hundred feet past the school, crept left, northwest, onto Maple Road. Mary tried to hold on to Jimmy’s hand as he jumped up and down. “The ground makes me dance, Mommy!” The asphalt at the intersection of Main and Maple was being slowly ground to pieces by the reptile worming its way through the turn. Clouds of dust, noxious fumes, eardrum-busting decibels and excited, uncontrollable schoolchildren.
“They’re going to clear a big site near Rutgers Lake!” Sonya, a colleague, hollered at Mary. “My brother should already be up there! Frank!”
Rutgers Lake was about two miles from the center, northwest, about a mile from Mary’s house.
“Your brother?”
“I never told you? He’s been an engineer with Doornaert for five years.”
“Oh.”
“Let’s hope this kind of spectacle isn’t going to be daily fare,” a young teacher shouted.
“Don’t get your hopes up too high, Judy,” Mary responded. “They’ll drill many wells, and each of them will require massive amounts of water, sand and chemicals. I already can picture those trucks coming. Hundreds of them. Every day. And we haven’t even seen one of those huge rigs making its way through the city.”
“I don’t think it’ll be that bad,” Sonya said. “Maybe they’ll build a road that spares downtown. Half a loop. Frank mentioned that to me.”
“Oh. That’s interesting.” Mary was unable to keep the scorn out of her smile. She assumed that Frank Anderson had spoken as a loyal Doornaert soldier to his sister. “Okay,” she said, “I’ll get my kids and my cla
ss back inside.” She cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted, “Children! Children! We’re done! Just a few more trucks! Math time!”
Chapter 5
A few days later Mary felt a sudden urge she couldn’t resist: she had to set foot onto the Rutgers site—see the action near the lake with her own eyes. She took the bull by the horns and drove out there.
As she stepped out of her car she noticed that bulldozers had already flattened a fifth of the terrain and that the Doornaert folks sure knew how to erect threatening signs. The fine-print under the giant “no-access” letters left no doubt. Loud, awe-inspiring vehicles and machinery crawled over the site. She felt dwarfed. She hesitated. I’d better turn back. Being caught trespassing wasn’t the best idea for a person trying to talk sense into the heads of her fellow citizens. Disappointed, but still determined, she decided she would solicit Sonya’s help.
She called her colleague on the way home. “Would your brother mind if you and I would drop in at Rutgers for a brief visit? Just a few minutes?”
“Oh? The site? Well….”
“Do you think he’d mind?”
“I’m sure he’d spare us a few minutes. Show us around. I know you’re concerned.”
Mary adopted her trademark sarcasm. “And he wouldn’t mind a wiseacre, a know-it-all like me?”
“Oh no. Let’s try for tomorrow.”
When she arrived at home Mary spoke with Joe about the planned site visit.
He warned her. “Bite your tongue. Please don’t do or say anything rash. We do have the mortgage.”
She put her hand up. “We’re a team, Joe. You and me. Good enough? You have the early shift tomorrow, right?”
After school the next day Mary and Sonya dropped Jimmy and Andy off at home with Joe and made their way to the drill site. Mary parked in the street.
Sonya pointed at a huge white and blue van. “Frank’s place. Sometimes I think he even sleeps in it—bachelor forever,” she joked.
In her low thirties, svelte and athletic, not an ounce over her perfect runner’s weight, Sonya was a petite blonde with a boyish haircut who taught math and physical education. No children yet, but she was married. Once they had saved the down payment for their dream house, she and her marathoner Jack would think about producing babies. “A boy and a girl,” she would confide in Mary, not a trace of doubt in her voice.
She phoned her brother, nodding slowly while she waited. Then she put up her index, winked and said, “Hi. It’s us, little dude. The two intruders ready to take over your place, remember? Tree-huggers. Barbarians at the gate. Got our machine guns!” She listened and laughed. “No! Not kidding! Not at all! Can you let us in? Yes, my friend Mary and me.” Another wink. “Yes, the one I told you about. Okay?” Slipping her phone into her purse, she explained, “I’d mentioned your concern to him after we talked. He’s a guy who wants to do good. Really.”
They neared a no-trespassing sign and stopped and waited.
Mary heard a whistle. From a distance, two young, bearded roughnecks shot big smiles from under their hard hats, thumbs up. She turned her head the other way.
Frank arrived, thin and tall, wearing loose coveralls free of grease spots, his clean boots too heavy for his ascetic appearance. Smiling down at the two women in running shoes, he shook hands. “Welcome!” He towered over his sister and Mary. He handed them hardhats and helped struggling Sonya adjust the strap. “Let’s go.”
He didn’t walk like an oilman. He didn’t look like one except for his attire. He hastened to apologize for the mess they would find at his “office” and for the limited time he would have to spend with them. “It’s a race against the clock,” he said as he motioned them up the four mud-covered aluminum steps and into the van.
Inside, an array of electronic equipment and monitors greeted them, hanging down from the ceiling. They covered the entire length of the vehicle on one side.
Frank started rattling off a list, pointing, “Geological stuff, chemical analysis tools, satellite communication. Computers and headphones. Soon we’ll start logging pressures, volumes, speeds, chemical analyses, temperatures—”
“Too much for me already, Frankie!” Sonya had her hand up. “Give us a minute. You’ll have to use simple words, slowly, to tell us ignoramuses what’s going on here and what’s going to happen.” She glanced at Mary, turned 180 degrees and asked, looking intrigued, “What about that piece of art, that labyrinth?” She was pointing at a huge chart taped to the wall.
He looked at his sister askance. “You’re asking me? Read the title. Flow Chart Alpha Ritgers.” He smiled down again; he had pronounced it as it was written.
A youngster on a swivel chair nearby snickered.
“Yes,” Frank said, sounding dismissive, “some secretary misspelled it but who cares? This isn’t Princeton.”
Mary chuckled. Princeton. She thought Frank might fit in there.
“Labyrinth! Yeah. It’s our plan for the next five months and two weeks. Alpha. Our first well in our Noredge alphabet. One hundred sixty-eight days from today we start producing. Not one day later, hopefully earlier.” He made the money gesture, both hands. “Every day costs me or makes me more.”
“You?” Sonya raised her eyebrows.
“Yes. Ditto for accidents. Safety first. Can make a big difference in my bank account.”
“Are you in charge of this? All of this?” Mary asked in awe.
“This? You ain’t seen nothing yet, Miss.”
“Mrs.”
Sonya hushed her giggle.
Frank tapped his forehead. “I’m sorry. Mrs.”
“That’s okay.” Mary felt she had sounded both peevish and flattered.
Frank leaned his head in the direction of the site, pride in his gaze. “Right now you see just bulldozers doing their thing: digging, cleaning, flattening and packing the land for the well pad. Heavy trucks hauling earth, bushes, tree trunks; four tanker trucks, compressors and pumps and their backups. Everything here is backed up. And just a few people—for now.”
The two women had their noses inches from the window. It needed washing. Mary already knew, more or less, from literature and from her uncle in Youngstown what it was like when a drill crew arrived near your place. This was the real thing, but just the first stage of it.
“In a week, fifty-sixty workers, maybe more, will move in and so will the rig,” Frank went on. “The rig!” he exclaimed. “It’ll be treated like a queen bee: a tall, petulant, fickle girl eighty-ninety feet tall, an army of trucks and tankers dutifully swarming around her, unquestioning. Their buzz will be quasi-monotonous, nonstop day and night, but it will be mercilessly violated by the queen bee’s screams, her clanging sounds.”
He paused, his eyes radiating pride.
The women chuckled.
Mary wondered what made him more proud, his poetic detour or the power of the scene he had painted for them.
He suggested they take a seat. “Now, all those crazy queen bee-loving trucks, they’ll keep moving in and out twenty-four seven. They’ll carry tons of steel, pipes and all kinds of shapes and forms and parts; valves and pumps, fuel and chemicals, tons of them; and heavy lifting and drilling tools. When the queen finishes and leaves, a few weeks later, other vehicles and tankers will arrive and line up—just imagine a feeding line for a giant hog trough—and start spewing, feeding tons and tons of sand, water, cement, and chemicals, many chemicals, all of it into steel pipes lined up one next to another. Each pipe in the line will ultimately lead into the big pipe that’ll go down into the rock deep below. It’s a hell of a maze of pipes and valves. I’d like to use the word ‘amazing’ if you don’t mind.”
“Wow.” Mary was impressed.
“We’ll have to come back in a couple of weeks,” Sonya said.
“Yes. And you should write poems, Frank,” Mary the teacher suggested. “Or wri
te books for our kids. You have a talent.” The inveterate bachelor seemed so out of place.
He showed a friendly frown. “Thanks for the suggestion, Mary, and no, Sonya, in a few days visitors will be turned back. You understand we have to guarantee safety for our workers and of course for the community, as well as protect our technology.”
Mary hesitated but asked anyway, “Between us here, Frank, may I ask you how you feel about the impact all of this will have on our daily lives in Noredge? This is just Doornaert’s first well here—”
“Of course you may.” He paused briefly. “Let’s get you back to your car,” he said with a brief glance at the youngster glued to a computer screen.
Mary and Sonya waved a quick goodbye to the young man and the threesome left for the parking area. Once there, the women removed their hardhats and returned them to Frank. He took his off as well.
“Don’t tell anybody,” he half-joked.
Not one single hair was out of place. Rimless glasses with thin, gray temples and top bar complemented almost too perfectly his orderly hairdo, which was graying although he couldn’t be much older than forty-five.
As Mary unlocked the car, Frank said, “About the impact, I don’t mind discussing it here.” He seemed to take the question seriously, rubbing his forehead, pondering his answer as he surveyed the area. “Sonya knows I’m neither a ‘drill, baby, drill’ nor a ‘frac no’ guy. Fracking is saving our country from the whims of the Arabs and the Venezuelans and so on. I don’t have to explain that or throw figures at you. And soon you’ll know where your cheap gasoline and heating oil and gas comes from.” He pointed down at the ground.
“I love those low prices. I guess we all do.”
He smiled at Mary.
She felt her intervention might have sounded like a platitude.
He went on, “At Doornaert we do a lot of good but, I’ll be honest, we’re not yet able to do everything one hundred percent perfectly at all well sites one hundred percent of the time. Neither is anybody else. But we all get better at it every day. That’s it. Sh—er, stuff happens now and then. Will happen. Okay?”
