The Scourge

by R. Tilden Smith

  “Two-seven, this is dispatch. Over,” Rose replied.

  Rose is still in corporate mode, Jack thought. Probably for the best. Never know who’s listening. “Dispatch, I have a visual on the trouble. Looks like we got power out at the public works service feed for Hermann Park Drive and Cambridge. Is the line hot? Over.”

  “That’s affirmative two-seven. The storm blew a tree into a primary line at Braeswood and Fannin. Second shift repaired it but a surge may have blown a few fuses downline.”

  “Yeah, sounds like we got a few popped fuses at the kettle. I’ll have them back online in a jiffy.”

  “10-4 two-seven. Thanks Skip.”

  “It’s a job. Somebody’s gotta do it. Two-seven out.”

  The strobes were doing their job, motorists were moving out of his lane, allowing Jack to weave through the awkwardly parted sea of cars and make his way through the congestion. When he arrived at the intersection, he identified the utility pole where the electricity services were located and positioned the bucket truck so he could use the cherry picker to access the power equipment. He parked the truck as close to the curb as he could get it, but realized he wasn’t going to be able to avoid blocking one lane of traffic. Ok, here we go. Everybody’s gonna go apeshit, he thought.

  He set the truck’s brake then got out and placed his safety cones in the company mandated locations. Horns blared as drivers became aware the truck was blocking their progress and they would have to merge into the already congested adjacent lane. Jack heard several obscenities hurled his way as irate motorists drove past his truck a little too close, their bumpers brushing the safety cones back a few inches.

  “Hey!” Jack managed to yell as a large diesel powered pickup raced by, nearly crushing his toes. He felt the urge to chase down the driver and rip him a new one, but his better sense prevailed. Too many gun-toting hotheads out here. I’ll be damned if I’m gonna end up on a cold metal slab just because some dipshit is mad I made him fifteen minutes late for dinner.

  He fished his flood lamp from the truck’s toolbox and shined it up the forty foot utility pole set in a grass covered patch about eight feet back from the curb. Three distribution transformers, each the size and shape of a small trash can, were lashed to the pole, perched on a metal platform about thirty feet up. He passed the flood lamp’s light over the wires above the transformers, looking for the telltale signs of a circuit break. Sure enough, one of three expulsion fuses lay open, the gate holding the melted fuse hanging down and swaying gently in the breeze. Yep, she’s popped wider than a hooker’s cherry, Jack thought. He grabbed a new fuse from the truck’s parts inventory. It felt substantial in his hands but looked cheaply made. Jack spun it around to read the manufacturer’s tag. Near the bottom, stamped in small bold capital letters were the words MADE IN CHINA. “Figures,” jack grumbled, “goddamn wing tips don’t even buy American no more. Bastards.”

  He strapped on his utility belt, clipped the flood lamp and new fuse to it, and plucked his lineman’s hot-stick and assorted attachments from the equipment bin. He was about to climb up into the cherry picker’s bucket when he realized he wasn’t wearing his hard hat. He went back to the truck’s cab and grabbed it off the passenger seat. Don’t need the wing tips writin’ me up again, he thought as he adjusted the hat on his head. Bastards always looking for a way to suck the dignity from a man’s soul. They feed on it like leeches.

  He went through a quick mental checklist. Satisfied that he had everything he needed, he climbed into the bucket. His hands moved across the bucket’s controls like a pianist playing a familiar concerto, thirty years of muscle memory swinging the bucket smoothly into position while he kept his eyes locked on the mass of wire and equipment assembled on the pole. He rose smoothly toward the three transformers, slowly ascending until he was looking down on them, with a clear view of the bushings protruding from each one like a spout out of a tea kettle. Those things are old, Jack thought, noting the rust staining the gray transformer casings.

  He shined his lamp on the single bushing at the top of the nearest transformer. There was a wet sheen around the bushing gasket where it penetrated the casing and entered the transformer’s interior. Damn thing is leaking oil. Bet these babies haven’t been serviced in a long time. Jack thought about calling in a service request to dispatch, but dismissed it. Why create more work for myself? In a couple of months I’ll be retired and this shit will be someone else’s problem.

  He guided the bucket up a little further until he was level with the three fuse assemblies positioned halfway between the transformers and the primary transmission lines. Jack looked up to gauge how much clearance there was between himself and the lines attached to crossarms above his head. His thirty years of experience told him that he was perfectly safe, but he always felt uneasy around hot lines. That’s the devil’s blood running through those high voltage transmission lines, he thought, and few men survive a taste of the devil’s blood.

  He swung the bucket away from the fuse assemblies so that he was a safe distance from any electrical arcing that may occur when he re-closed the connection. He put the gripper tool on the end of the hot-stick then extended the eight foot fiberglass rod toward the gate holding the burned out fuse. As he manipulated the hot-stick, trying to grab the dangling fuse in the gripper teeth, Jack’s mind wandered back to Rose. She’s a sweet girl, he thought, a few years younger than Denise and just as talkative and brash as she was, and Karen likes her, so I guess that’s a plus.

  His daughter had been nagging him in her own sweet way that he needed to get out and start meeting people again. And by meeting people, she means taking strange women out to dinner and then trying to get them to sleep with me. Jack smiled at the thought of his timid and shy little girl attempting to have the ‘sex talk’ with her dad. She sucks at being subtle, he thought. Although, he did have to give her kudos for coming up with the plan to give him a cell phone for Christmas under the guise of being in better communication with her and then giving the number to Rose. That sort of subtle manipulation was pure genius and so unlike Karen, but definitely right up his wife’s alley. She would have definitely approved of the plan. He paused and looked skyward, Denise, I wish you were here but I know you are in a better place now. Again, his emotional response to the thought of his wife caught Jack off guard. He wiped a tear from his eye with the sleeve of his shirt. Enough of that, Jack! he scolded himself. Lack of focus can get a man killed up here, time to get back to work. He finally was able to get the burnt fuse locked into the gripper. He gently lifted it from the holder and, using a hand-over-hand motion, pulled the hot-stick toward him until he had the old fuse in his hand. He removed the old fuse from the gripper and inserted the new one in its place. Now for the hard part, he thought.

  Again, using the hand-over-hand maneuver, he extended the hot-stick back out to the fuse assembly. He held the hot-stick outstretched with both hands, trying to get the new fuse inserted into the holder on the gate. He was having difficulty due to the gate’s constant swinging. It also didn’t help that the base of the new fuse did not fit easily into the holder. “Damn foreign parts,” Jack said as he struggled to get the fuse seated. The muscles in his shoulders burned and the sweat on his palms were making his hold on the fiberglass rod slippery. Anyone who had anything to do with making this piece of shit fuse can go straight to hell, he thought. Jack gave up and pulled the fuse back into the bucket. The effort took a toll on Jack’s old body. His heart was beating fast in his chest, his wrists ached, and he could feel his sweat-soaked undershirt sticking to his back. Damn foreign parts, he thought.

  Though he hated to do it and it was against regulations, Jack figured he was going to have to get closer to the fuse assembly if he had any hope of getting this job finished before the end of his shift. He lowered the bucket until he was parallel to the transformer bank and no more than four feet from the fuse assembly. He could just about lean over and touch it. Definitely a safety violation, he thought, would be just m
y luck that a supervisor would roll up right about now. He hurried and secured the fuse in the gripper and leaned the hot-stick out over the bucket. It was much easier to do now that he only had to play out about half the rod’s length before it reached the fuse gate. Getting the fuse seated in the holder was still difficult, as it was a tight fit, but he was able to use both hands on the hot-stick as leverage to force it into place. I’d hate to be the one who has to get that fuse outta there if it ever blows again. He pulled back the hot-stick and switched out the gripper for a hook tool which would allow him to trap the gate portion of the fuse assembly and push it upward, so that the spring loaded mechanism at the top of the fuse assembly would close and lock the fuse into place. The thought occurred to him that he should reposition himself to the minimum safe distance before attempting to close the gate. Screw it, he thought, the worst that could happen is that I get a few burn spots on my nice company shirt from the contact sparks.

  He used the hook to grab the gate and slowly pushed it upward until the fuse was just below the spring lock. He hesitated for just a moment, then closed his eyes and lowered his head, before slamming the fuse gate as hard as he could into the spring lock. A shower of sparks flew from the point where the gate made contact with the lock. Jack heard the transformers hum as current again flowed through them. He opened his eyes just in time to see the street lights along Cambridge street flicker to life. He looked down and saw that the traffic signals had stopped flashing and were once again operating normally. Well, he thought, another job well done and no one around to thank me for doing it. Time to pack up, call it in, and head back to Whataburger.

  Jack had secured his tools and was leaning over the bucket’s edge to make sure the boom was clear for his descent, when a bright light suddenly appeared in the sky.

  “What the hell?” Jack said, as the object passed silently overhead, growing brighter as it plummeted toward the horizon. Jack tried to follow its trajectory, but the object grew so bright that he had to turn away and shade his eyes. Struck by momentary night blindness, Jack would not be privy to the spectacular display of night sky revealed to him in the last ten seconds of his life. Five seconds after the light faded, the meteor’s shock wave jolted Jack off his feet, nearly catapulting him out of the bucket. The entire bucket truck rocked forward, hurling him against the control console. The bucket swung forward, throwing Jack within two feet of the nearest transformer. Still blinded, he instinctively reached out to break his fall—and touched the transformer’s metal casing. A quarter mile from Jack’s location, the shock wave toppled an already storm and rain weakened oak tree. It crashed onto the primary transmission lines, initiating a massive power surge. Two microseconds later, the surge arrived at Hermann Park Drive and Cambridge Street. The surge flowed through the newly installed fuse assembly, vaporizing the fuse core and rupturing the fuse tube. Had the fuse continued to work as designed, Jack would have been bruised and a little shaken up, but he probably would have lived. Unfortunately for Jack, Tex-Can Energy’s management, as a cost saving move, had opted to purchase fuses from a discount supplier in China. The fuses, made to the not-so-exacting specifications of a Chinese government bent on monopolizing yet another commodity market, were not constructed to deal with a surge of this magnitude. At the instant Jack was thrown toward the transformer, the surge current, looking for a path to ground, found one through the cloud of ionized gas from the ruptured fuse, through the fillings of Jack’s teeth, down his arm, and into the canister of the transformer. 50,000 volts and over 900 amps of the devil’s blood filled Jack's veins. He stiffened from the shock, the current superheated the fluid in his body, causing his heart and eyeballs to boil and explode, his skin to blister, and his clothes and hair to catch fire. The surge seared Jack’s hand, fusing it to the transformer casing. Due to the small leak in the bushing gasket, the transformer was only about two thirds full with the mineral oil designed to keep its internal components cool. The electricity wound through the copper coils inside the transformer, causing the coils above the oil line to glow red hot. The heat rapidly pressurized the canister and it burst, spewing highly flammable mineral oil in all directions. The cloud of mineral oil surrounded Jack’s lifeless body, still being held upright by the powerful current. His burning clothes and hair ignited the oily mist, engulfing him and the entire pole assembly in a ball of smoky black and red fire. The surge finally ended in a burst of blue-green light, traveling down the service line and shorting out the electrical panel that controlled the streetlights and traffic signals within a quarter mile of Hermann Park Drive and Cambridge Street.

  The shock wave caused a cascade of destruction to the city’s electrical grid, damaging equipment and knocking out power for fifty square miles. Save for flashing traffic signals, the entire city went dark. The shock wave blasted the late evening commute into disarray as startled commuters lost control of their vehicles, causing pileups and fender benders on every major roadway. Plunged into a deep darkness that many of them had never experienced, motorists stumbled from their cars confused and terrified. Awaiting a first response that would likely never reach them, many of the injured and dying laid on the roadside, looking up at a sky ablaze with stars. But those at the intersection of Hermann Park and Cambridge bore witness to a different spectacle, as what was left of Jack Flanagan pooled into the bottom of the cherry picker bucket—a smelly pyre of plastic, cloth, and meat—dripping flaming clumps of oily debris and scorched bone onto the street below.

  10

  The steam from the hot tub condensed on Jill’s nearly empty wine glass. She absentmindedly stared through the miniature prisms formed by the water drops, peering at the Houston skyline in the distance, transfixed by the way the view of the city lights were distorted through the beads of water. She held the glass up to the night sky and slowly turned it in her hand.

  “Victoria honey,” Jill called out, without turning to verify whether her guest was within earshot, “could you bring me the bottle of wine off of the table? I need a refill.”

  “Yes Miss Jill,” a muffled voice replied from somewhere behind Jill.

  “Are you in the bathroom?”

  “Yes Miss Jill.”

  “My goodness honey! My expensive wine just ran right through you didn’t it?”

  “Yes Miss Jill.”

  “Well, hurry up and come on out here and keep me company. It’s no fun being in the hot tub all by myself.”

  “Yes Miss Jill.”

  “And please stop calling me Miss Jill! You make me sound like a grandmother.”

  “Yes Miss—I mean, yes ma’am.”

  After a few minutes Jill heard the toilet flush and a few seconds later the door open, then the patter of bare feet across the wood floor.

  “Here you are ma’am,” Victoria said, coming up behind Jill with the wine bottle extended down and at arm's length.

  “Fill my glass for me, would you dear?” Jill said, holding up her glass.

  “Yes ma’am,” Victoria said.

  Jill noticed a slight trembling of the bottle while Victoria poured. “Miss Victoria Cashman! Come around here so I can get a good look at you!”

  Victoria walked around the perimeter of the hot tub until she was standing in front of Jill. She stood awkwardly at the edge of the tub’s wood deck, cradling the bottle of wine at her chest like an infant. She looked down at the older woman basking comfortably amidst the tub’s churning water. Even though the rooftop terrace of Jill’s townhome was only illuminated by the dim glow of paper lanterns and the bubbling water obscured her view, Victoria could tell that Jill was naked.

  “My my my,” Jill said, “don’t you look divine in that bikini. Canary is definitely your color!”

  “Th-Th-Thank you,” Victoria said.

  “Oh, come now Victoria! You’re not about to get all emotional on me are you?”

  “N-N-No ma’am, I just stutter when I’m nervous.”

  “Well, climb on in here with me. The water’s warm and I know jus
t the thing to calm those jitters.”

  Victoria lowered herself into the hot tub. She put the wine bottle on the deck behind her head and positioned herself directly opposite Jill.

  “Now Victoria,” Jill said, flashing a thin, menacing smile, “you know that just won’t do. You just bring your pretty little self right on over here next to me.”

  “Y-Y-Yes ma’am,” Victoria waded over and sat next to Jill. She felt Jill’s arm slide around her waist.

  “Mmmm, that’s more like it,” Jill whispered into Victoria’s ear. “Are you still nervous?”

  Victoria could smell the wine on Jill’s breath. She felt a hand squeeze her thigh. She couldn’t bring herself to speak.

  “Cat got your tongue sweetheart?” Jill said, pressing her lips against the nape of Victoria’s neck, “Don’t forget how much you owe me my sweet Victoria. I took a big risk helping you get that restraining order against Oscar. He might be your boyfriend but he is one our best players and now because of the mess he’s gotten himself in with you, it looks as though the league is going to suspend him for the first couple of games of the season. Honey, Haywood is not going to be happy about that. So if I am to make all this go away, I'm going to need to have your full cooperation. Do you understand where I'm coming from sweetheart?

  “Y-Y-Yes.”

  “Very good. Then let's start again. Why don’t you put your hand on my thigh? I would like that.”

  “O-O-Okay.” Victoria searched the dark water until her left hand found Jill’s thigh. The skin felt wrinkled and loose, like a worn slip cover sliding over the bones of an old piece of furniture. Victoria’s stomach turned.

  “Mmmm, yes. That’s a good girl.” Jill found the waistband of Victoria’s bikini bottom and thrust her fingers underneath it until her palm came to rest against the curve of Victoria’s bare buttock. As she gently stroked, she reveled in the firmness of Victoria’s muscles and the softness of her skin. Her excitement grew as she felt Victoria’s pulse quicken beneath her lips.