Knickers in a Twist

by Kim Hunt Harris

  “Good lord, you are boring,” Viv said. She ended that video and clicked the next one.

  The next story began with a map of the United States, with bubbles popping up all over the country, then individual pictures of structural failings. A shopping center, another school, several highway retaining walls, a bridge collapse. A stack of papers labeled “Engineering Report” dropped onto a desk, with a dramatic red stamp that read “SAFE.” On top of that, another stack, titled “Earthquake Risk” landed, stamped “HIGH RISK.”

  “Drama queen,” Viv pronounced, and clicked the next link. I sipped my coffee and didn't comment. It seemed bad form to be disrespectful of the guy just a week or so after he died, but I had to agree. He seemed to relish this all to an unseemly degree. I guess that kind of excitement was what made him good at his job, though.

  On Viv's phone screen, the drama queen was back.

  “Unless you're new to the area, you will probably recognize the Baucum name. Baucum Engineering has been involved in such jobs as the new Texas Tech football stadium, the four new elementary school campuses for Lubbock ISD, and a host of other high-profile projects. Not only that, but locally the Baucum name is synonymous with heroism. David Baucum's grandfather was one of the first soldiers on the beaches of Normandy, before D-Day. Interestingly enough, that mission also involved geotechnical engineering. Take a look at this Channel 11 footage from almost forty years ago.”

  The screen switched to a black and white film of hundreds of boats heading toward a beach. “Sword Beach in France, 1944. The D-Day invasion, when thousands of allied soldiers braved rough waters and enemy fire to liberate a nation under Nazi occupation. Among these thousands, however, two soldiers had the distinction of having been there before.”

  The scene cut again to a man in an office, wearing a red collared shirt and a bad ‘70s comb-over. He was talking and pointing to a certificate. “For valuable and honorable service to the cause of freedom,” he read proudly. He turned and smiled at the camera.

  “Before the powers that be could decide where to invade, they had to consider a lot of factors. One of the many things they had to consider was whether the beaches we landed on could hold us. Could it hold all that heavy equipment? Could we get our boats in there, get the men offloaded, without sinking into the sand and making everyone sitting ducks? They needed some volunteers to go in and take samples of the ground there, to determine whether it was a viable plan.

  “I mean, that's the level of thought that went into this mission. They did their best to leave no stone unturned. Would you have thought of that?” He laughed. “I sure wouldn't have. I mean, I would now,” he laughed. “I would after spending the last thirty-something years in the field. But back then, that's the first time I learned that digging around in the dirt could give you such important, practical information. When I got out of the service and came back home and knew I needed to pick a career, well...I remembered that, and I thought that sounded like a pretty good career. And here we are.” He laughed.

  “Here we are,” the reporter echoed. He looked around the office. “A pretty good career, as you say.”

  Switch to the narrator voice as the screen showed Baucum and the 70s reporter studying a map on the wall of the office.

  “Baucum's mission: to join other allied troops in a covert mission to obtain soil samples from the very beaches where they would land for the D-Day invasion. In the middle of the night, without the aid and protection of their fellow soldiers.”

  Back to the men talking, still at the map. The reporter points to a jagged line where the sea met the sand.

  “And so you snuck ashore and took soil samples from the beach?”

  “That's right. We had our wet suits on, we got off the boat a mile or so off shore, and swam in during the night.”

  “That must have been scary.”

  “Oh, it was terrifying, let me tell you. We knew there were jerrys all over that place, just itching for something to shoot at. But we got on the beach, and they had given us these little metal tubes to poke down.” He made a motion with his hand, of prodding something into the sand. “We had to push it down, then turn it so the thing would seal up around our sample, and then pull it out again. And of course, cover up the hole and our tracks as best we could.”

  “So how long was this tube?”

  “Oh...” He held his hands about a foot apart. “About yay big.”

  “So this entire mission hinged on something about—” The reporter held his hands apart. “About yay big.”

  “That's right. Well, that and a bunch of other things. Weather, of course, and whether it was in reach of allied fighter planes, how far away was the nearest port, and a bunch of other unanswerable questions. We were able to answer one of those unanswerables, though, and that made us happy. We made a contribution, and that contribution helped turn the tide of the war.”

  The screen switched to the reporter, this time standing on a sidewalk outside a stone building, a low, curving stone wall at his back. As he walked slowly down the sidewalk, the scene widened to reveal that the low wall was actually a circle, freshly laid and ready to commemorate a special occasion. He talked about his visit with Baucum, then said, “and that's why Dan Baucum is being honored this Saturday, November 11, as the nation pauses to remember our veterans.”

  “Is that Belle Court?” Viv asked, tapping pause. “It is, look! There's the bell tower. Wow. They've added on a lot since then.”

  “They have to,” I said. “They have to have enough room to house all those rich old widder women.”

  “Pensioners,” Viv said with a sigh, shaking her head. “This is brilliant, though! I can talk about this mission with Nigel.” She dragged the little dot at the bottom of the screen back to the left, and the thumbnails flipped past: the old Belle Court, the now-tranquil Sword Beach, the flashes of gunfire and pandemonium of D-Day.

  Viv paused the video again and pulled her little notebook and gold pen out of her handbag. As ‘70s Baucum talked again, I watched as she made notes. Sword Beach! 28-thousand soldiers! Secret mission authorized by Churchill himself!!

  The scene changed to the modern day sidewalk in the same spot where the ‘70s reporter had stood, but this time the stone facade of the building was replaced with red brick walls and white plantation shutters. There were four-story buildings looming on the other side of the bell tower, and the 70s reporter was replaced by Peter Browning. “For almost forty years, the Baucum name has been honored, along with the names of the other veterans from the South Plains, during the annual Veterans Day remembrance ceremony. For the first time since the first Baucum Local Hero was awarded in 1978, people are questioning whether it might be time to change that.”

  The stone circle was the same, with an upgrade of black lamp posts hung with flower pots flanking either side. Trees that had been sticks at the time of the ‘70s story were now solid and stately.

  As he talked, the camera panned around inside the stone circle, to the names inscribed on the stones along the wall. The Local Hero Award, sponsored by Baucum Engineering, the stone in the center read. Dan Baucum's name was first on the list. The camera panned to the side, taking in name after name around the circle.

  “It's a disgrace. A disgrace to the name of that great man.” The shaky voice of an old lady came on now. “I'm not saying we should not honor Dan Baucum. We should. His courage and sacrifice must always be remembered. But it's a shame that now the name is tarnished. From now on, when that name is spoken, what people are going to think of is tragedy. Not heroism.”

  Viv tapped the screen and the woman's face froze in mid-tirade. “Barbara Hale, you are a tragedy. I swear all that woman does is gripe.”

  “Were you there when Browning was filming this?”

  “No, I didn't see any of it. Too bad he didn't ask to interview me. I could have done better than that.”

  “That camera girl, Jessica, said they didn't issue the award this year because they didn't get it organized in tim
e. Do you think they just used that as an excuse, though—that people were really thinking about David Baucum and the school collapse and decided to skip the award this year because of that?”

  “Maybe, but I doubt it. I haven't heard any talk about changing the award. I find Jessica's story a lot more plausible.”

  She tapped play again, and the video continued through Barbara Hale's tirade, then moved once again to the pile of rubble at NorthStar, the red and blue ambulance lights flashing, the dad, reaching from one gurney to grab the hand of his daughter, lying still on the next gurney.

  “Ugh,” I said, hitting the pause button again. “I don't know how many more times I can watch that. Of course, everyone is going to think of tragedy now because every time the Baucum name is uttered, we see this same footage.”

  “We'll switch to something else. Patrice said there were some interviews with the oil company, right?” She scrolled through the list of links. “Here.”

  This video opened in the inside of a wood-paneled office. A middle-aged man with a white fringe of hair and a big mole on top of his head sat behind a large desk and smiled at Browning with exaggerated patience.

  “Everything we do is completely above board and in line with the regulations of the EPA. We are very careful to follow protocol. Believe me, we have to be. When something goes wrong, we're the first ones everyone looks at. That's okay, we're happy to do it. All the companies I know are doing the same thing. No one is interested in ruining our planet in the name of making a profit.”

  “Which is exactly what someone would say if they were ruining the planet in the name of making a profit,” Viv said. “And you ought to have that mole biopsied.”

  Peter Browning kept pushing. “You mentioned the EPA, but that's only one regulatory agency. We've talked to the United States Geological Survey—”

  “Oh, believe me, we're familiar with USGS,” the oilman said.

  Browning smiled. “Excellent. Then you know that they believe that the earthquakes could be caused by the use of injection wells, which are the wells used—”

  “I know what injection wells are, young man.”

  Peter gave an uncomfortable smile. “Yes, I'm sure—”

  “Listen. Here's the truth. Nobody knows for sure what causes the earthquakes. One scientist says one thing, another one says another. Unfortunately, nobody really knows, and nobody even thinks to ask until something has already happened. People want affordable fuel for their cars, they want the cost of living to stay low. This is what we do. We provide that.”

  “In the case of NorthStar Elementary—”

  “In the case of NorthStar Elementary, a natural disaster occurred and people did what they always do when something horrible happens—they looked for someone to blame.”

  “Nobody is blaming—”

  “No? Let's just get honest, shall we? You're here with your little pen and pad, your camera going, trying to get a good story for your viewers. Here's the story.” He lifted a folder from the top of his desk and held it up. “I tried to give it to you and you're more interested in creating a sound bite.” He slapped the folder down on top of the desk. “Dorsett Oil and all of our subsidiaries do everything by the book. When the EPA writes a new book, we follow that. We're not interested in being the bad guys, and you're not going to come in here and lay what happened at NorthStar on us. Period. I won't let it happen.”

  Browning opened his mouth, then shut it again. He shifted in his seat. The room grew completely silent. The camera shifted a little.

  “This is weird,” I said. “I don't remember this on the news.”

  “They must have edited it,” Viv said. “This story would have been news in itself.”

  Browning looked at his lap, then put his pen and paper on the desk. “We're on the wrong track here,” he said.

  The oil man nodded. “Damn straight.”

  “How about this? How about if you just tell me what you'd like for the people to know? I know you must feel attacked—”

  The oil man laughed. “Son, I can handle your questions. I'm just not going to let you run me down a road I have no reason to be on.”

  Browning lifted his hands. “No, no, of course, I'm not saying—”

  “Wow,” I said. “He's backpedaling as hard as he can.”

  “Crikey. The lad folded like a house of cards, didn't he?”

  “Here is what I'll say,” the oil man said. “We get oil out of the ground. That's what we do. We use the best, most efficient methods we can, and we play by the rules. We respect the rules. The rules are there for a reason. We're playing the short game—getting the resources out for people to use, and staying on the right side of the law—and the long game. Namely, making sure our grandkids and their grandkids get to enjoy this planet like we have.” He sat back and spread his hands. “Now, from time to time the smart guys come along and say that we need to change the rules. We've learned something new. Now everything has to be done like this instead of like that.” He shrugged. “Okay. So we change how we do it. That's the way it's always been done, and that's the way it always will be done.”

  “Fair enough.” Browning chewed his bottom lip for just a moment. “Now. Okay. If you don't mind, I would like to ask a question about what you just said.” His head was ducked into his shoulders a bit, and the confident smile of five minutes ago was significantly subdued.

  Oil Man nodded sagely.

  “You said, from time to time the smart guys come along and say we need to change the rules. Do you believe, based on your years of experience in this industry, that a change in those rules is coming? That it's needed?”

  Oil Man shrugged. “I wouldn't be surprised. Maybe, though, it's not our rules that need to be changed. If that earthquake we had would have happened in California, it wouldn't even have made the news.”

  “My contact at the USGS said that we either need to eliminate the use of injection wells, or adapt to the effects.”

  “Well, we're back to assuming that the injection wells cause the earthquakes, and I think we've established that I'm not even going to slow down and wave to that.”

  Peter gave a sickly smile. “But if it's shown there's something to adapt to...”

  “If it's shown that there's something to adapt to, of course we will. But in my experience, the regulators don't wait until something's proven. If they decide we need to adapt, they'll let us know.” He grinned widely.

  Browning nodded, then turned toward the camera. “Okay, you can cut it now.”

  “Okay,” a disembodied voice said. The video ended.

  “Was that Jessica?” I asked Viv.

  “It sounded like her.”

  “Maybe we should talk to her. If she was there during Browning's interviews, she might have some inside information.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don't know—like, how the mood of the interview was, before it was all edited and put to music. See, I don't remember this interview on television very well, but it seemed like it was pretty straightforward. Two guys talking, congenial. If we could get a handle on how all the interviews actually were, it might point to something.”

  “The only thing this one points to is that Peter Browning was a chicken-weasel.” Viv downed the rest of her coffee and scrolled through the remaining links. “It looks like these are all interviews with Baucum. At least, his name is in the title.”

  “Here's one about a quake in North Texas.”

  The story was fairly short, less than two minutes. A family's newly built dream home was so badly damaged, they were in the process of deciding whether it would be better to repair it or tear it down and start over. Fracking had increased in that area around the same time they signed the contract to build. At the end of the story, Browning wrapped it up from the news desk by reminding everyone of the similar incident in Lubbock. Behind him, a still picture of the collapsed NorthStar Elementary and another one of David Baucum's smiling face sat in the background.

  In the next v
ideo, Browning went further afield, into Oklahoma and points north. On a map of the United States, red dots radiating pulsing, concentric circles popped up one by one. Pictures spun from off camera and landed on the map. A collapsed roof. A failed highway embankment. A gash in the earth that a crowd of people gathered around.

  David Baucum's face spun and landed in the center of all those disasters.

  Viv sighed. “It's no wonder the poor man drank himself to death. Watching all this kind of makes me want to jump off a tall building, and it's not even my fault.”

  I shook my head. “I'm still not convinced it's Baucum's fault that this happened. I mean, it was an earthquake. An act of God or, like the man said, a natural disaster.”

  I leaned back in my seat. “I can't watch anymore. This is exhausting.” I reached for my purse. “I'm going to go home and cuddle with my dog for a while.”

  “You sure you don't need to check in with the hubs first?” Viv asked, fishing my keys from her purse.

  “I'll text him that I've survived our first official day of investigation,” I said, taking the keys from her.

  She frowned. “I can drive.”

  “You have to sneak back in, right? Or else you’ll get grounded again?”

  She scowled, but didn’t argue.

  I patted her on the arm. “Careful, Viv. Your aura’s looking a bit brownish.”

  Back at Trailertopia, Frank and Stump were waiting patiently for me to get home and fix dinner. I stood in front of the fridge for so long that I forgot what I was doing.

  I kept thinking about the “gripey” Barbara Hale, who had proclaimed the Baucum name such a disgrace now. I wondered what it would be like to be David Baucum. Growing up in a town where everyone knew your name. Where everyone thinks the best of you and expects the best from you.

  It was a far cry from the way I'd grown up. As I'd reflected yesterday, my own personal bar was set pretty low.