| General Fiction posted December 9, 2021 | Chapters: |
...4 5 -6- 7... 
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Lee tries to grind his life into focus.
A chapter in the book Concertina
Rust Never Sleeps.
by Yardier
The author has placed a warning on this post for language.
| Background Lee Morason is a Vietnam veteran with the aftereffects of combat clouding his view of life. He avoids the symptoms and denies he is heading to a psychological and spiritual break down. |
Baisey Nebenkern Helle was a traveling nut-and-bolt salesman from Hoboken, New Jersey, who migrated west, ripping off ranchers, farmers, and hardware store owners during WWII when steel and iron were scarce. During the early 1950s, his travels ended when he opened his Oilfield Pipe Products Company in Derby Acres, located between the Midway-Sunset oilfield, the largest oilfield in California, and the U.S. Navy Petroleum Reserve #1 in Elk Hills just down the road. He finally found his gold mine by buying used sucker rods and well-casings pulled from commercial oil fields then selling them to the U.S. Navy Petroleum Reserve as new. The money was easy, and his patriotic conscience non-existent.
However, one day after ten years of false billings, he sold one too many loads of sucker rods and casings to a Texas oilman whose eyesight was keener than the U.S. Navy's and discovered the fraud.
After a two-year trial, Mr. Baisey N. Helle was sentenced to ten years at the Federal Penitentiary in Lompoc, leaving the management of the renamed B.N. Helle Oil Field Products Company to his nephew, Claude Aikens, a meth-head wonder boy.
Claude was as devious as his uncle but with more energy to fulfill his desires. He devised a method of steam cleaning used sucker rods and casings. Then common laborers, using powerful grinders equipped with eight-inch wire wheels, scrubbed and burnished the pipe to look new.
His proudest moment came when he developed a mechanical method to stamp each rod and casing with a fake serial number and an official-looking statement that boldly claimed: 'CERTIFIED INSPECTED BY US.' He gloated inwardly with the thought that if authorities ever questioned him, he'd claim with Christian sincerity there was no intent to defraud anybody because the 'US' meant the B.N. Helle employees and not the U.S. Government. And, while he benefited financially from people's ignorance, he truly believed he was under no obligation to determine if buyers could comprehend what they read.
Feeling emboldened, Claude asked exorbitant prices for the rods and casing as if they had been newly manufactured. He figured if they looked new and buyers thought they were new or as good as new, then so be it. He was making a ton of money. Besides modernizing his own office with air conditioning, the so-called manufacturing building remained as constructed in 1946. The creosoted beams, salvaged from old wood derricks and skinned and roofed with surplus corrugated tin sheets, leaned a bit to the west, always hinting of collapse. Not many people wandered down to the end of Furlong Road to visit Claude, but those that did agreed the building looked like a giant rusted metal lunch box abandoned in the middle of nowhere. Some said working for Claude was like working in hell's kitchen.
And that's what Lee saw looming before him as he drove away from Brother Archer's Free Will Methodist Church.
He wasn't happy with how his meeting with Brother Archer turned out. He hadn't expected Vietnamese voices, and he shuddered at the thought that he had heard them audibly, as if someone whispered into his ear. Adding to his unsettledness was the temperature. Frustrated with the temperature rising as fast as the sun, he wished he hadn't drunk his last breakfast beer before arriving at Brother Archer's church, and he considered turning around to head to the nearest Quickie Mart. This meant quitting without giving notice just for a beer. He had done that before on other jobs, and it just caused more unpleasant friction with his wife, and besides, he'd soon run out of beer money. Plus, the voices in his head had become silent. All he had to do was make it through the day, knowing tomorrow was a holiday, a holiday without pay but one less day in the grinders pit. It was just a matter of hours, and then he could go home, vege-out with an ice-cold beer, and hopefully leave 'Nam and the voices behind.
We'll see about that, soldier boy.
Lee winced at the mocking voice in his head as he turned off Furlong Road onto the B.N. Helle dirt parking area designated by the dead seventy-foot tall eucalyptus tree. The tree trunk, silvered by time, looked as if it had been dead a hundred years and was now a roost for turkey vultures scanning the landscape for dead cats, dogs, and the occasional careless jackrabbit. New laborers found out the hard way not to park their hoopty beneath the tree; their paint job might have been faded and peeling, but nobody, not even an O-eighter, wanted to drive back into Bayko with vulture dung splattered all over it.
Lee parked next to an old beat-up truck owned by Jesse Recks, the shop foreman who, moments before, had raced by Brother Archer's church honking the horn. Surrounded by other laborers, Jesse snorted a line of crank off the tailgate of his truck.
He looked up at Lee with a supercharged smile and fire in his eyes and asked, "Hey man, want some breakfast?"
Lee stepped from his truck. "Na, don't think so, Jesse."
Chris Lotts, the wash rack laborer, had just finished taking a hit off a fatty and offered it to Lee. "It'll take the edge off."
"I'll stick with my beer." Lee turned and began to walk to the shop along with Fritz, a grizzled old German immigrant and tool boss.
"What… you won't smoke dope with us?" Jesse raised his voice. "Tomorrow's the Fourth of July, man. I thought all you soldier dudes were patriotic."
Lee slowed down as Fritz muttered, "Argerlich Esel".
"Come on, Bro-ham, I know you Nam vets smoked dope…lots of it." Jesse chuckled.
Lee turned halfway to Jesse. "Not anymore, Jess… that was then."
Jesse feeling the full effects of his 'breakfast,' said to the group of laborers at the back of his truck, "Ya, that was then alright. They had to smoke all that dope to drown out images of all the babies they killed. Isn't that right, Lee, soldier man, Vee-et Nom vet-tran?"
Fritz stopped and put his lunch box down on the ground when Lee turned around and walked toward Jesse.
Chris took another hit from his fatty, held it deep in his lungs while eyeing Lee's determined stride toward Jesse.
Sensing big trouble, he exhaled the smoke skyward to the turkey vultures and said to Jesse, "Come on, man, leave it alone. Let's go to work. It's too damn hot out here."
Jesse smirked dismissively at Chris as he stepped decisively toward Lee, looking for an early morning dust-up to go with his breakfast. "Havin' nightmares 'bout all the babies you killed… can't get 'em out of your mind without stayin' drunk all the time?"
Lee stood toe to toe with Jesse. "You have your poison… I have mine. What are you running from, boyee? Need a boost just to get your mind right for the day?"
Jesse grinned and leaned forward. "How many babies did you kill… ten…twenty? How'd you kill 'em boo-zer, run 'em over with a jeep chasing a gook whore?"
A nuclear bomb went off in Lee's head and, for a brief photo-flash moment, saw his hand raised against a cloudy Vietnam sky clutching a blood-smeared K-bar. He, too, leaned forward with his nose barely a gnat's distance from Jesse's. He looked deep into Jesse's eyes and saw the empty cellar of a meth-head hardly worth the trouble of an early morning dust-up. He spoke firmly with a real-deal meat eater's voice that came from deep within and eight thousand miles away, "I've never killed a baby… but I have killed better men than you."
Lee's nuclear expression forced Jesse to take a half step back in a weak attempt to hide his fear.
"That's what I thought," Lee said with finality.
Suddenly, a shiny black four-wheel-drive truck brodied into the parking area, kicking up a cloud of alkaline dust spooking the turkey vultures from their roost. Chris called out, "Heads up… Boss's here."
Claude Aikens hopped out of his truck with an electric smile and an energetic spring in his step. He walked quickly over to Jesse and Lee as the laborers except, Fritz, begrudgingly headed into the shop. Failing to see the dwindling conflict between the two men, he tossed Jesse an eight-ball of crank and said, "Merry Christmas, Jess! Push these worms to kick out another fifty lengths of casing today, and I'll give them tomorrow off with pay."
Lee's face relaxed as he watched Jesse's trembling hand put the dope into his pocket.
Claude finally caught onto the standoff. "What… did I miss something here? He glanced at Lee, then Jesse. "You alright?"
"Ya… we're good," Jesse said while eyeing Lee.
Lee nodded his head, then turned and walked a few steps and picked up Fritz's lunch box, handed it to him, and said, "Danke."
Fritz smiled mischievously. "No problem."
Fidgety, Claude watched Lee and Fritz walk to the shop and asked, "What's with that dude?"
"I smelled alcohol on his breath."
"Is he drunk?" Claude watched Lee walk into the shop.
"Na, just had a beer or two for breakfast."
"Well, go ahead and fire him if you want. I never liked that dude anyway. There's something not right about him."
"I'll keep a close eye on him and let you know. Thanks for the Christmas gift," Jesse said with a wicked smile.
Claude wiped the sweat off his chin. "No problemo Jess, kick those guys in the butt and get that extra casing pushed out."
However, one day after ten years of false billings, he sold one too many loads of sucker rods and casings to a Texas oilman whose eyesight was keener than the U.S. Navy's and discovered the fraud.
After a two-year trial, Mr. Baisey N. Helle was sentenced to ten years at the Federal Penitentiary in Lompoc, leaving the management of the renamed B.N. Helle Oil Field Products Company to his nephew, Claude Aikens, a meth-head wonder boy.
Claude was as devious as his uncle but with more energy to fulfill his desires. He devised a method of steam cleaning used sucker rods and casings. Then common laborers, using powerful grinders equipped with eight-inch wire wheels, scrubbed and burnished the pipe to look new.
His proudest moment came when he developed a mechanical method to stamp each rod and casing with a fake serial number and an official-looking statement that boldly claimed: 'CERTIFIED INSPECTED BY US.' He gloated inwardly with the thought that if authorities ever questioned him, he'd claim with Christian sincerity there was no intent to defraud anybody because the 'US' meant the B.N. Helle employees and not the U.S. Government. And, while he benefited financially from people's ignorance, he truly believed he was under no obligation to determine if buyers could comprehend what they read.
Feeling emboldened, Claude asked exorbitant prices for the rods and casing as if they had been newly manufactured. He figured if they looked new and buyers thought they were new or as good as new, then so be it. He was making a ton of money. Besides modernizing his own office with air conditioning, the so-called manufacturing building remained as constructed in 1946. The creosoted beams, salvaged from old wood derricks and skinned and roofed with surplus corrugated tin sheets, leaned a bit to the west, always hinting of collapse. Not many people wandered down to the end of Furlong Road to visit Claude, but those that did agreed the building looked like a giant rusted metal lunch box abandoned in the middle of nowhere. Some said working for Claude was like working in hell's kitchen.
And that's what Lee saw looming before him as he drove away from Brother Archer's Free Will Methodist Church.
He wasn't happy with how his meeting with Brother Archer turned out. He hadn't expected Vietnamese voices, and he shuddered at the thought that he had heard them audibly, as if someone whispered into his ear. Adding to his unsettledness was the temperature. Frustrated with the temperature rising as fast as the sun, he wished he hadn't drunk his last breakfast beer before arriving at Brother Archer's church, and he considered turning around to head to the nearest Quickie Mart. This meant quitting without giving notice just for a beer. He had done that before on other jobs, and it just caused more unpleasant friction with his wife, and besides, he'd soon run out of beer money. Plus, the voices in his head had become silent. All he had to do was make it through the day, knowing tomorrow was a holiday, a holiday without pay but one less day in the grinders pit. It was just a matter of hours, and then he could go home, vege-out with an ice-cold beer, and hopefully leave 'Nam and the voices behind.
We'll see about that, soldier boy.
Lee winced at the mocking voice in his head as he turned off Furlong Road onto the B.N. Helle dirt parking area designated by the dead seventy-foot tall eucalyptus tree. The tree trunk, silvered by time, looked as if it had been dead a hundred years and was now a roost for turkey vultures scanning the landscape for dead cats, dogs, and the occasional careless jackrabbit. New laborers found out the hard way not to park their hoopty beneath the tree; their paint job might have been faded and peeling, but nobody, not even an O-eighter, wanted to drive back into Bayko with vulture dung splattered all over it.
Lee parked next to an old beat-up truck owned by Jesse Recks, the shop foreman who, moments before, had raced by Brother Archer's church honking the horn. Surrounded by other laborers, Jesse snorted a line of crank off the tailgate of his truck.
He looked up at Lee with a supercharged smile and fire in his eyes and asked, "Hey man, want some breakfast?"
Lee stepped from his truck. "Na, don't think so, Jesse."
Chris Lotts, the wash rack laborer, had just finished taking a hit off a fatty and offered it to Lee. "It'll take the edge off."
"I'll stick with my beer." Lee turned and began to walk to the shop along with Fritz, a grizzled old German immigrant and tool boss.
"What… you won't smoke dope with us?" Jesse raised his voice. "Tomorrow's the Fourth of July, man. I thought all you soldier dudes were patriotic."
Lee slowed down as Fritz muttered, "Argerlich Esel".
"Come on, Bro-ham, I know you Nam vets smoked dope…lots of it." Jesse chuckled.
Lee turned halfway to Jesse. "Not anymore, Jess… that was then."
Jesse feeling the full effects of his 'breakfast,' said to the group of laborers at the back of his truck, "Ya, that was then alright. They had to smoke all that dope to drown out images of all the babies they killed. Isn't that right, Lee, soldier man, Vee-et Nom vet-tran?"
Fritz stopped and put his lunch box down on the ground when Lee turned around and walked toward Jesse.
Chris took another hit from his fatty, held it deep in his lungs while eyeing Lee's determined stride toward Jesse.
Sensing big trouble, he exhaled the smoke skyward to the turkey vultures and said to Jesse, "Come on, man, leave it alone. Let's go to work. It's too damn hot out here."
Jesse smirked dismissively at Chris as he stepped decisively toward Lee, looking for an early morning dust-up to go with his breakfast. "Havin' nightmares 'bout all the babies you killed… can't get 'em out of your mind without stayin' drunk all the time?"
Lee stood toe to toe with Jesse. "You have your poison… I have mine. What are you running from, boyee? Need a boost just to get your mind right for the day?"
Jesse grinned and leaned forward. "How many babies did you kill… ten…twenty? How'd you kill 'em boo-zer, run 'em over with a jeep chasing a gook whore?"
A nuclear bomb went off in Lee's head and, for a brief photo-flash moment, saw his hand raised against a cloudy Vietnam sky clutching a blood-smeared K-bar. He, too, leaned forward with his nose barely a gnat's distance from Jesse's. He looked deep into Jesse's eyes and saw the empty cellar of a meth-head hardly worth the trouble of an early morning dust-up. He spoke firmly with a real-deal meat eater's voice that came from deep within and eight thousand miles away, "I've never killed a baby… but I have killed better men than you."
Lee's nuclear expression forced Jesse to take a half step back in a weak attempt to hide his fear.
"That's what I thought," Lee said with finality.
Suddenly, a shiny black four-wheel-drive truck brodied into the parking area, kicking up a cloud of alkaline dust spooking the turkey vultures from their roost. Chris called out, "Heads up… Boss's here."
Claude Aikens hopped out of his truck with an electric smile and an energetic spring in his step. He walked quickly over to Jesse and Lee as the laborers except, Fritz, begrudgingly headed into the shop. Failing to see the dwindling conflict between the two men, he tossed Jesse an eight-ball of crank and said, "Merry Christmas, Jess! Push these worms to kick out another fifty lengths of casing today, and I'll give them tomorrow off with pay."
Lee's face relaxed as he watched Jesse's trembling hand put the dope into his pocket.
Claude finally caught onto the standoff. "What… did I miss something here? He glanced at Lee, then Jesse. "You alright?"
"Ya… we're good," Jesse said while eyeing Lee.
Lee nodded his head, then turned and walked a few steps and picked up Fritz's lunch box, handed it to him, and said, "Danke."
Fritz smiled mischievously. "No problem."
Fidgety, Claude watched Lee and Fritz walk to the shop and asked, "What's with that dude?"
"I smelled alcohol on his breath."
"Is he drunk?" Claude watched Lee walk into the shop.
"Na, just had a beer or two for breakfast."
"Well, go ahead and fire him if you want. I never liked that dude anyway. There's something not right about him."
"I'll keep a close eye on him and let you know. Thanks for the Christmas gift," Jesse said with a wicked smile.
Claude wiped the sweat off his chin. "No problemo Jess, kick those guys in the butt and get that extra casing pushed out."
~~~~
It was going on noon and was already 115 degrees in the sun and 120 degrees in the shop. At that temperature, creosote oozed and sweated out of the ancient derrick timbers holding the massive, corrugated tin structure together. Silhouetted by a bright fan of orange and yellow sparks, Lee leaned forward, pressing a high powdered wire grinder against a rust-covered well-casing. He took a breath, adjusted his grip, and pressed the grinder hard against the well-casing until he could see the glint of high carbon steel reveal its shining self. Inwardly, Lee felt satisfied when the reflection of his goggled face came into view on the freshly burnished steel. That mirror image was a measure of quality he held himself to; if he couldn't see himself in the steel, then he hadn't done a good enough job. But more than that, the burnished steel was fast becoming the last small island of respite in a world that seemed to be closing in on him.
He liked it there. He wanted to be the reflection, but he wanted to see the world from a clear and firm foundation without goggles. Yet, as hard as he pushed the grinder against the rust to reveal the sweet, shiny steel, the more he realized there was always going to be more rust. There was no possible way to remove enough rust to reveal the man he wanted to be. Instead, he was fearful and in denial that he was becoming the very rust that threatened a vague sense of purpose. A purpose worth seeking, seemingly close at hand, but far enough away that his effort alone would be insufficient to realize.
Lee not only worried he was on the verge of losing himself, but he also feared he would not have a job in the future. He began to understand that even though there would always be rusty well-casing and sucker rods, Claude Aikens' charade would soon be discovered. It became evident that no matter what Claude did to present old steel as new, rust would prevail as a dirty type of justice.
Like the Tin Man, Lee and his world were rusting away.
Above and to the rear of the grinder pit, Claude stood elbow to elbow with Jesse in his over-watch air-conditioned office. It provided Claude with an emperor's view of the little men he lorded over. He gave them so little regard he didn't think they merited the title 'Laborer' and instead referred to them as grinders or worms. He asked Jesse, "What's that dude doing bent over like that?"
"I don't know, but he puts out some pretty clean casing."
"I don't care about pretty, Jesse. I want fifty more lengths out today, got it?" Claude leaned forward and looked more closely at Lee. "Is that the same dude from this morning?"
"Ya."
"Put some heat on him and see if you can bust his balls." Claude turned away from the window, stared at the calendar and production schedule on the wall. "Crap."
"What?" Jesse turned and walked to the door.
"I keep forgetting tomorrow is the 4th."
"Yep, Independence Day." Jesse hesitated. "You gave everyone the day off… with pay."
"What a stupid thing to do. I must have been stoned." Claude laughed, then quickly became serious. "It's your butt, Jesse. I said IF they push out another fifty lengths, they'll get tomorrow off with pay. I need that extra casing pushed out today, got it? Now, I gotta get going and catch a flight to Vegas. I've got a man to meet. Are you listening to me? Quit standing around here and grab a grinder if you have to. Go on, git."
Jesse didn't like being dismissed, but he wasn't too keen on the idea of standing in the sweltering heat with a grinder in his hands, eating rust for the rest of the day either. Besides, he liked his free crank, so he stepped quickly down the stairs to the hydraulic controls near the wash rack at the rear of the shop.
"What's up?" Chris called out from his forklift when Jesse approached the hydraulic valves that regulated the well casings release from the wash rack onto the grinder's table.
"We're gonna pick up the pace," Jesse said with finality.
Chris hopped down from the forklift. "What…?"
"I said…" Jesse reached for the main control valve. "We're gonna pick up the pace."
Chris stepped to Jesse's side. "We're already at eighty percent pressure Jess."
"Well, we're going to eighty-five."
Jesse cautiously opened the main control valve and watched the regulator needle quiver up to eighty-five percent as the diesel engine powering the hydraulic system stumbled under the new demand then steadied.
Chris stepped back and warned, "These old hoses and pipes can't take this kind of pressure, Jess."
"Bullshit!" Jesse barked at Chris loud enough for Claude to hear over the sound of the diesel engine as he strode by with briefcase in hand on his way to Vegas. Annoyed he had to put up with idiots, Claude turned and scowled at both Jesse and Chris as he got into his truck and drove off in a cloud of alkaline dust, kicking up a mini-dust devil.
~~~~
Concertina, in the context of this novella refers to psychological and spiritual entanglement. Specifically, it refers to a Vietnam combat veteran who is ensnared by the deepest and darkest fetters of torment and denial. Those fetters consist of alcohol abuse, guilt, and resentment.
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