by This Is Not a Drill- Just Another Glorious Day in the Oilfield (retail) (epub)
Jake, my derrickman, walked over and pulled off his hard-hat and balaclava. ‘What the fuck’s wrong with it?’ He knew as well as I did that after fifteen minutes we had to pay for the rig’s time; if you can’t fix the problem in that time and you don’t have a spare unit then you get the bill for the down time. Time is money in drilling. If the rig stops, someone has to pay.
‘I’ve no idea, it’s the new system,’ I hissed through my teeth. Through the freezing wind and snow I felt my cheeks burning and could see lots of Japanese eyes checking watches. Your time starts now.
‘So can you fix it?’ asked Jake.
‘I know how to run the damn thing, but not how to troubleshoot it. Send two guys down, unpack the backup, you rig this one down, I’ll get on the phone.’ I could feel the panic rising in my throat like hot lava, but I knew that I had to keep on smiling and pretend like hell that I knew exactly how to get this thing going again.
Jake turned on his heel and waded through the crowd of snap-happy Japanese guys. The crane was already booming over our spares container. I checked my watch; I had ten minutes to fix this computer.
A big white phone sat in the middle of the tool pusher’s desk. I pulled off my hard-hat, balaclava, gloves, goggles and unzipped the front of my jacket, then sat down, thumbed through my tally book, found the ‘don’t panic’ number and dialled. Instantly someone answered. I had no idea what time it was in Houston, but it was like calling the White House situation room. I was asked my name and where I was calling from, what job I was on, what the problem was, and bang, I was transferred to some guy in R&D—reserve and development—in Louisiana.
With the manual in one hand and the phone in the other, I tried to stay calm as the R&D guy who invented the new computer suggested more and more unconventional solutions.
‘We’ve never tried this before, okay, but just take the cover off the back, strip out the main power supply wires and plum it straight into the rig’s power supply. Phone me back, let me know what happens, oh, and make sure you earth everything. Bye.’ Click.
I looked up to a room full of curious Japanese men with cameras. It didn’t take long but after a few minutes the computer was no longer an innovative, shiny thing symbolising all that is new in drill floor electronics. Instead, with all the cables and wires spilling out in every direction, it looked more like a scale model of the human intestinal tract.
I threw the switch and thank fuck it worked.
The Japanese consortium said ‘Ahhhh’ in unison, then it turned itself off again. ‘Ohhhh,’ they said.
I rigged up the backup unit, but it failed to start.
‘Time,’ said Jake as he followed me into the tool pusher’s office, kicking the snow off his boots. ‘You’re supposed to be able to fix all our tools,’ he added helpfully, lighting a cigarette.
‘Well, I can’t fix it this time,’ I said, then picked up the phone and started dialling.
‘Now we just look fucking stupid.’ He glared at me across the small portacabin and sucked on his smoke.
‘I’m going to sort this computer bullshit out,’ I said firmly. I even convinced myself.
‘So it didn’t work Mr Carter?’ the R&D guy asked, sounding as if he already knew it wouldn’t and was waiting for my call.
‘Oh hi, no it didn’t work.’ There was a pause, then he told me his last-ditch idea and said he hoped I would have ‘a nice day’.
I slammed the phone down and walked back outside. When I got to the drill floor the boys were standing with the Japanese guys, all taking photos of each other. I did what the R&D guy suggested, and thank whoever it was that decided to give me a break, it worked.
‘Ahhhh.’
I love working in Japan. Our clients didn’t charge us for the down time, they helped us rig down after the job and offered us sake while we waited for the car. They organised all seven of our heavy containers to be returned to Singapore. They were polite, organised, and not one person said fuck, not even in Japanese.
The day after the computer incident, I left the ‘bullet train’ and the crew in Tokyo, and passed the wait for my flight to Australia via Singapore alone. I wanted to take time out to see a bit of Tokyo. I really love it. Love the graciousness of the old folk, the well-mannered way they welcome you and make you feel like you’re all-important, and the complete wildness of the young kids with their crazy Americanese fads and fetishes. I went for a walk in the city’s largest park, Mizumoto. It’s huge, with long sprawling vistas making seamless transitions into boardwalks that hover over mirrored water from the Edo River. It was weirdly empty and completely peaceful. I spent the day covering as much of Tokyo as I could, unable to resist visiting my favourite places.
Since I was a kid I’ve collected knives. My dad gave me a pocket knife when I was about eight, and the first thing I did was cut myself, then I whittled down the leg of our coffee table. Some people accumulate stamps, coins or porcelain figurines. I’m into bikes and knives—go figure. Anyway Japan is the home of some of the most remarkable edged weapons. The deputy head of ‘All Japan Swordsmiths Association’, Shoji Yoshihara, makes possibly the finest blades in the world. He has been designated an important living cultural property of the Katsushika ward, which is the suburb of Tokyo where he lives. He made his first Katana sword at age twelve, studying the art at his grandfather’s side. Making a sword the old-fashioned way, by hand, from scratch, from raw materials, takes time and supreme skill. Generations of craftsmen pass on their knowledge to the next generation, their entire lives devoted to the process. I find it fascinating. Yoshihara’s blades bear his family’s maker mark, ‘Kuniie III’. Slipping one out of its nebukuro (sleeping-bag) reveals six months of solid work. Its graceful lines suggest only art; however, in the hands of a trained man this blade could easily pass through a human body. This is no letter opener, and at forty thousand dollars I handle it with extreme care.
Bikes and knives provide me with distraction. When I’m at home I’ll spend hours tinkering on my bikes. It helps me think. And I’ve had a lot to think about. Putting the sword down I found myself retrieving the ring Dad gave me; I had been carrying it around for months inside the lining of my backpack. It was suddenly so clear to me what I needed to do. With that little velvet box in my hand, I was ready to go home and propose. No more custom bikes, or handmade knives. It was time to settle and make my move. I felt like the first prodigal monkey about to be shot into the grown-up space of kids, house payments and everything I’d tried to stay away from up until now.
Feeling euphoric, I wandered back towards the area where I had left the crew, down crowded streets, past tempura and grilled eel restaurants, until I found the boys. Ambu was sitting in front of the remains of one of his typical feeding frenzies—brown-sugar sweets, chilled cucumber skewers and inago no tsukudani (locusts preserved in soy sauce)—with sauce all over his chin.
Ambu is an Iban, a descendant of the headhunters who ran a major muck in their day, from possibly the darkest corner of the Malaysian jungle. Ambu is short, round and intensely funny. His frame disguises his power well. Ambu is strong and, given the right mindset, has no sense of fear. He wears the old-school bamboo tattoos of a ‘headhunter’ around his throat and speaks English like ‘Tonto’ from The Lone Ranger. ‘Come we go,’ he would say. I have known him for fifteen years, and he still surprises me. Sometimes I used to sit with Ambu and help him learn how to read and write English, and after a while he started reading everything aloud that he saw in English. ‘Half-price specials,’ he would suddenly stop and announce to the street. I told him I was going home to get married. ‘OOOH, I come to your party,’ he said, flashing me a huge grin and clapping.
Everyone had confirmed flights home except me, and the next day snow drifts and constant blizzard conditions made my exit difficult. I had made one of the most important decisions of my life while I was in Japan, only I couldn’t get out of the country to do anything about it. I spent two nights in the transit hotel attached to the depart
ure lounge at Narita International Airport waiting for a flight. Finally I was on my way to Singapore and then home, with no knives or bike parts this time, just a small box in my pocket that pressed against my thigh. It made me even more anxious to get home, back to Clare and the most life-changing exchange of words any couple can have. I kept checking the box in my pocket, just in case it had turned into a box of matches or a packet of mints—anything but an engagement ring. It was burning a hole through my leg. This is it, man, I’m going to get married. Christ, I hope she says yes. All kinds of elaborate plans for asking her the question were forming in my head, as romantic and surprising as I could muster without government backing and a helicopter.
I met Clare in a laundromat in Bondi. She was working there and I was going in with my offshore bag full of horrendously dirty rig gear every time I came home on crew change. This proved to be a little difficult when I realised that I only had that thirty-second window to ask her out. I mean, how do you do that? You’re intensely attracted to the woman who’s about to pull your manky, stained clothing out of an equally filthy rubber-lined giant grip bag that’s been sealed tightly shut since you left the rig over twenty-four hours ago. Given all that’s revolting about a working man’s undies having time to develop a life of their own, I did struggle with how to attempt to ask her if she’d like to have a drink. Perhaps I should have gone out and bought a washing machine and done my own bloody laundry, waited a month so she had time to forget how repulsive it all was, then come back to ask her out. All that raced through my mind as she filled out the little receipt, hammered me with that fantastic smile and told me to come back at four. This went on for months. I ended up bringing in clean clothes, and then I asked her out.
‘She’s perfect,’ I’d say to Erwin. We had been together for almost three years and I knew she was my future wife, but after years and years of listening to guys offshore talk about their upcoming divorces, and coming from an oilfield-broken home myself, I thought marriage was about as good an idea as Paris Hilton’s hair extensions.
In Singapore, as I waited in line to enter the departure lounge, I checked the ring again. Then it was my turn to walk through the metal detector. It beeped. A pretty Singaporean girl with what looked like a TV remote on steroids motioned me over and waved her remote in ever-decreasing circles as the beep near my crotch got louder. I produced the box and she opened it, then shut it smartly and smiled at me in that knowing way.
I found myself grinning at strangers sitting opposite me in the departure lounge. They were filling out their arrival cards for Australian immigration. Occasionally, one would glance up the way you do when trying to remember your passport number without looking, and would accidentally make eye contact with me. I could see them thinking, ‘Why is that man grinning? God, I hope he’s not sitting next to me’.
As we boarded the plane, I was still checking my pocket. Yes, the ring’s still there, not matches, ring. Every cliché ran through my head as I practised asking Clare to marry me. The flight was going to be a good one, it was only half full in economy and, being the ‘red eye’ departing at midnight, the aircraft was in darkness an hour after take-off, so I spread myself out over four seats and fell asleep easily under three blankets.
The main lights came on, burning through closed lids and waking everyone up. I sat up, the airline blanket crackling static electricity across my shoulders. They were serving breakfast, so I figured we must have been just a couple of hours from Sydney. My hand reached down looking for the box, but there was no box, no matches, no mints, just air.
FUCK! A jolt of panic shot through me. I frantically shook out the blankets, dived my hands between the four seats I had to myself, then I was on the floor. It’s on this aircraft, I’m going to find it, I thought, as I squashed my head under my seat and groped around under the life jacket. Nothing but empty blankets and headset bags. I crossed the aisle on all fours into the gap between the seats next to me. A little girl watched my progress as her parents slowly woke up and rubbed their eyes. A man asleep on his three seats woke up when I banged my head on his tray table, sending a glass of orange juice into his sleeping face. ‘Sorry.’ He looked back bemused at the sight of a stressed bald man four inches from his face who had somehow appeared from under his tray table.
I backed up into the aisle and into a waiting flight attendant. She handed me a paper towel. ‘Have you lost something, sir?’ she asked as I wiped orange juice off the back of my head.
‘Yes, a small jewellery box with a ring inside.’ I stood up to a dozen staring passengers, all stuffing their faces with omelette and coffee; I was obviously providing more entertainment than the TV in the seat in front of them.
‘As soon as we have finished the breakfast service, we will help you find your box, sir. Would you like some breakfast?’
I shook my head and sat down feeling shattered. She pushed the trolley past me and down the aisle. I felt like there was a black cloud forming over my head, the sense of loss growing in my gut like a chemical spill.
After a while I noticed the little girl was standing there next to me. She had a stuffed toy kangaroo dangling from one hand, and in the other was my box. She held out her hand, and I picked up the box and opened it—there was Clare’s ring. A wave of relief crashed over me.
‘Thank you, sweetheart,’ I blubbered. I could have kissed her, but instead I got her a stuffed airplane from the in-flight duty-free magazine. Losing your engagement ring en route to a proposal is as naff as telling the teacher that the dog ate your homework, and I think that little girl knew it. All she did was look down and see a velvet box followed by a grown man on all fours.
Clare is, without question, the best part of getting home after a job. The look on her face when my key hits the lock keeps me smiling for days. It wasn’t something I ever thought would be a permanent part of my life. Too often, the first victim of a life on the rigs is a relationship, but it was surprisingly easy to get used to the anticipation of seeing her after being away. This time I was bouncing off the walls with suppressed excitement and tension. I didn’t sleep for three nights. I was so wired that one night at two in the morning I even got around to trying to assemble the Ikea furniture we’d stuffed in a cupboard months earlier, though it didn’t take long before I realised that the multilingual instruction booklet alone would account for the entire Swedish suicide rate.
For me to ask Clare to be my wife involved getting into a mental state not unlike those karate guys before they headbutt a pile of bricks. Finally I abandoned my master plan and, just like everything else I’ve ever purposefully thought about in my life, I acted without the plan. I dumped the plan, fuck the plan, I can’t wait, end of story.
It was early on a Friday morning. She had just stepped out of the shower and rounded the corner into our bedroom. I was waiting like a cartoon rabbit. You could have pumped my heart full of jet fuel and it wouldn’t have beat any faster. You know those songs that stir up overwhelming feelings, there are one or two that without fail for a few seconds provoke your triggers to go off, and you’re emotionally there, in that place, at that time, seeing that person, nostalgia like a tsunami covers your world, blanking out everything. And if you’ve had too much to drink when you hear it, especially if it’s unplanned, you’ll have to look away or leave the room, or smile like you’re mental or cry. When Clare said ‘yes’ and I think about it, I get that feeling. Thank God she said yes.
When Clare said yes, in a sense it was like winning the spiritual and emotional lottery. It felt like it was a turning point in my future. For the first time in my life I had committed myself to something other than my own needs. I don’t know if I deserve her love, but as the years go by I know Clare will always be there. Blind faith and complete trust works for me, life is just too bloody short.
We went to my favourite café in Sydney, Latteria. It’s a great place, just a hole in the wall with wooden stools kerbside, and the best coffee and conversation of the day is had there. Our friends
meet there in the mornings on their way to work, but on that particular morning I must have looked like I was sitting on the winning lotto numbers, I was bursting to tell them.
We started planning the wedding over the next six weeks, and everything was perfect. Then one morning I rolled over in bed, opened my eyes and there was Clare standing by the door with the kind of look that wakes you up in a second. Her hand was trembling as she held it up, a small white strip of card danced about in front of my face. ‘Two stripes,’ she said, her eyes wide open in shock. It took a full five seconds for the dustbin lid-sized penny to drop with a CLANG in my brain box.
I had a flashback. I remembered Drew, one of the first and best base managers I worked with. Not a big man, but in possession of a massive personality, Drew was the hinge pin into all the hilarity that threw fuel on the fire of creative pastimes in the Bruneian jungle. He was just fun to be around, and when there was nothing to do in the middle of monsoon season, and you were sitting in the staff house waiting for the weather to blow itself out, Drew was always able to think of something you actually wanted to do.
One of the guys had a massive one-hundred-and-fifty-pound Rottweiler called Summer who was playful, strong and dumb as a bag of hammers. At the far edge of the lagoon stood a cliff face, stretching up some fifty feet into the trees. During the monsoon it turned into a waterfall, transforming the lagoon into a river. Drew would wait until everyone was swimming about having a great time, then he’d climb around the back shallow side of the cliff to the top of the waterfall and sit in the hollowed-out rock at its edge. Summer would follow him because she was fixated on tennis balls and, of course, Drew would have made sure she saw him pop one in his pocket. Once settled in the curved rock right at the tip with a cold beer in his hand, the water cascading over him, he would show the soggy ball to Summer, sending her into a frenzy of excitement, then casually toss it over the edge.
