Bittersweet Sands (5 page)

The oil company, in an uncommon display of common sense, allowed that it was better to allow their workers to enjoy a drink within staggering distance of their construction camp beds than to have a bunch of drunks rocketing up and down Highway 63. The solution was to build a bar adjacent to the construction camp right beside the refinery: the Tamarack.

Originally a double-wide trailer, the Tamarack has a small stage at one end, dartboards at the other, and a standup bar in the middle. But it's not how the Tamarack is set up on the inside that dictates every action that goes on within its walls; it's where the pub itself is located.

Drunk or sober, nobody ever forgets where they are when they're at the Tamarack. Even inside the bar, every once in a while, you can smell that refinery. Everyone knows you can drink at the Tamarack—just don't get slobbering drunk. You can drink at the Tamarack—just don't do it too often. You can drink at the Tamarack—you just better be a happy drunk.

My companion and I had been in the Tamarack for a couple of hours now, sipping beer and staying in that sweet spot between euphoric and drunk. Only the two of us talking, end of the shift quiet.

I'll call him Slim. He was dark and rough-complexioned. His coworkers said he carried moods around with him like an old toolbox. As I remember it, he was a sheet metal worker. We had been on the same job sites, met the same characters, worked for the same companies, but we had never met until now. Beers, loneliness, and meeting someone from home in a strange bar loosened our tongues.

We laughed about the sheet metal worker who we both knew, who once took a dump out on the frozen land without noticing that he'd shit into the hood of his parka—not until he stood and put his hood up.

We talked about jobs where we had both worked. Men had died on those jobs and we talked about the obscene lengths the authorities had gone to protect the companies and blame the victims.

We talked about our families, hopes, dreams. We talked and enjoyed each other like old friends.

The waitress gave us a meaningful glance. Slim and I nodded. She wore stripes. White and black, white and black, white and black, with yellow running shoes. She was short and blonde, chatty and efficient, but nobody's fool. Like the rubber mallets we use to beat metal without leaving dints. With her no-nonsense attitude and dressed in those stripes we instantly called her “The Ref.”

Slim and I began talking about divorces. I said that in Fort McMurray, unless you have a couple of divorces and at least one DUI, you haven't worked in Fort McMurray long. I laughed at my small joke but Slim looked away.

Finally he grimaced a smile and started telling a story. He began it in the middle. While he talked and drank, he idly peeled the label from each beer bottle and stacked the labels in front of him. Once he had the labels off, he scraped the glue from the bottle with his thumbnail. Then he would wipe the small wad of glue between his thumb and finger before finally flicking the wad to the rug. Every bottle got the same treatment. Every bottle ended up clean and warm.

I remember that my beer was halfway to my mouth, where it seemed to stay.

“While I was away working up north,” he said, “I heard... things. Friends told me that they had driven past my house and I had better get my ass home, if you know what I mean. At first I didn't believe them. Then my brother took me aside and told me the exact same story.

“I didn't tell anybody, but that night, right after work, I hopped in my truck and drove home. I made it look like I was just going fishing. After eleven hours on the road, I drove up and parked close to my house. There was that truck everybody was talking about in my driveway. Just sitting there, like it was making some fucking announcement.

“I walked around the back. Came through the back door and went straight to the bedroom, walked right past them in the bed and got my shotgun outta the closet. By the time the guy was really awake, the barrel of my shotgun chipped his front tooth. He didn't even try. He just lay there with that barrel in his mouth looking like a set of big white eyes along a long, black barrel.

“It was all I could do not pull that trigger.”

“I don't know what I'd do,” I said.

“I thought about it, and he knew I was thinking about it. I remember the sheets trembling. I let him mull it over for a minute then I said, ‘Get out.' He jumps out of bed and tried to get dressed but I jabbed his ass with the barrel when he's bent over, so he got moving, still trying to get his clothes on. I followed his naked ass to the front door, poking him a couple of times.

“I know what he was thinking. He thought I didn't want to mess up my house so I'm going to blow his face all over the front lawn. He started to beg about not going outside. He really started whimpering. To shut him up, I threw his truck keys over his shoulder and they clinked on the sidewalk. He stood there, looking at the keys and back at me, deciding, so I prod him, again. It's January and he's down there naked on his hands and knees on that icy sidewalk gathering his clothes.

“He starts to say something and I raise the shotgun and take a deep breath like I'm getting myself ready to shoot. He started whimpering real loud and backing through the snow with those bare feet, holding his pants in front and the other hand trying to shield his face.”

Slim smiled a rare smile.

The Ref came and gave me a questioning look. I nodded, my eyes flickering from Slim for the first time. Slim's eyes never left his memories.

“Pathetic, he looked, really... you know, slimy. The guy skulked, you know? He really looked like a guy who'd fuck somebody else's wife. I couldn't believe, still can't, that this was her idea of trading up.”

“What did you do with your old lady?”

“She's got her dressing gown on by now, not that old ratty housecoat, but that new one. That made me mad. I gave her that for Valentine's Day and she's wearing it for him. Anyway she's bent over trying to get her panties up. I grabbed her by the hair and marched her on her toes to the front door. She's making pleading noises.

“She said something about never being home. I was home. Goddamn it! Every three months I was home for more than a week.

“I made sure his truck was gone and then I threw her out. I mean, I really threw her. She cleared the steps, hit the snowbank, and was off running. Her folks lived three blocks away. I went back into the bedroom. The room... stunk.”

Slim's eyes stared like he hated the table. His nose flared as he tried to crush the beer bottle with his dirty fingernails.

“I telephoned her parents. I told her father that I just caught their ‘pure as the driven snow' daughter fucking my ex-friend.

“He said, ‘My daughter is a good girl, she wouldn't do that kinda thing' bullshit. Then I heard their doorbell in the background. He puts the phone down and I hung up. I could just see their faces when she walked in dressed the way she was, smeared lipstick and all.”

There was a crash and laughter at the bar. I watched three welders I vaguely knew share a joke. They looked at me and I nodded in return. Slim stared at his beer.

“I had planned out the first part but now I'm shaking. The bed was still warm, for shit's sake. I think right then I had made a mistake and I really should have killed them. Right then I could have killed anybody.

“I ripped off all the sheets and threw them out to the backyard. I got some gas from the snowblower and burned everything. I just kept on going back into the house and getting more and more of her shit, building that fire. That fire was so high it burnt the tree I had planted a couple of years before.

“The neighbours must have wondered. But then again, they must have known what was going on. Nobody called the cops. I guess they wanted to watch. Bastards.

“I stopped throwing things in the fire when I tossed in a box of china. Everything was just a blur. I didn't realize that the china was my Grandma's until it was too late.”

“You burned her jewelry?”

“Yeah.” He smiled. “She really loved that jewelry.

“By this time, it's morning and I'd been up for twenty-four hours. I phone the Salvation Army and I tell them that if they can be here by noon I'm donating an entire houseful of furniture. They show up mid-morning and within an hour the place was empty. They were happy.”

“Didn't you try to sell the stuff? Try to get some money?”

“Too slow. Besides I wasn't thinking about that. I did get a nice tax receipt.”

“Nice.”

Slim snorted. “So while the Sally Ann is cleaning the house out, I phone the bank and find out how much is still owing on it. Then I phone a real estate guy I know and tell him that the house is for sale for what's owing on the mortgage plus a bit to cover costs. I'd been paying on the thing for years, so it was cheap. The salesman comes over and writes me a cheque. He bought it.”

“Isn't there laws about that?”

“Oh, she eventually got half of a discounted house, but she never got the furniture. Besides, the real estate guy made her beg some.

“By this time, it's late afternoon and everything is shimmering because I'm starting a huge migraine. But I got most of my shit in the truck and anything else I couldn't move the agent said he'd send me.

“I'm just about to leave and coming down the road I see my father-in-law. He walked all bent over like he was walking against the wind. When he saw me sitting in my truck, he even walked embarrassed. I wasn't going to make it easy.

“He comes over to the truck and looks at me for a while then says... ‘You look like hell.'”

“‘What do you want?'

“‘She said you jumped to conclusions...'

“‘You saw her. They were in bed together, naked. That's my fucking conclusion.'

“He shriveled some more. I didn't think that was possible. He hung onto the door handle with two hands like he was pumping water, looking like he wanted to be anywhere else.”

“‘She sent me over to get some of her clothes.'

“‘In the backyard.'

“‘Where you going? West?'

“‘Going booming. Could be anywhere.'

“‘McMurray?' His eyes weren't looking at me when he said that. You know? When he said ‘McMurray,' it was like he saw freedoms just out of reach. He said ‘McMurray' a couple of times, like it was the answer to all his prayers.”

For the first time in several minutes Slim looked up.

“He thought of McMurray as a chance to start all over, to change his life. You could see it in his eyes. He quit holding onto my door handle and pointed to the house.”

“‘Door open?'

“I pointed to the backyard. When he turned, I drove away.”

The Ref came back. I shook my head, but Slim nodded. He wasn't finished, but I was.

“Got a young one now. Good girl, young. She does what she's told.”

“Still travelling? Gone all the time?” My eyes watched The Ref's receding backside, then I turned and our eyes locked. Slim gave me a long look. He reached over and gathered the beer bottle labels on the table then crushing them into a ball.

“She wouldn't dare.”

( First Email from Doug )

From: Doug
To: Dad
Subject: Fort McMurray

Hi from Fort McMurray, where it's so cold when you spit, it crackles. And don't even talk about peeing outside.

The camp I'm staying at has about a dozen computers in the lounge area, so if you wait until supper when everybody else is eating, you can usually get one.

Well, I'm here, working with about a thousand welders, pipefitters, ironworkers, and a dozen other trades on a shutdown. A thousand construction workers, ten thousand tattoos.

Here are some of the things I have picked up in the two days I've been here.

“You know, when I have a cough, I take a laxative.”

“Does it work?”
“Yeah, I'm afraid to cough.”

The guys I'm working with say that the time to leave Fort McMurray is when you have a favourite restaurant.

One of the crew, a sheet metal worker, told me this: “I was working for a company that maintained swimming pools in Toronto. One day I had a blocked tube I was trying to clear. So I blew into it, nothing. So next I sucked it, and got a mouthful of pure chlorine. Luckily, I didn't swallow any. My mouth blistered up right away. It really hurt. But boy, were my teeth ever white!”

I was talking to Pops, my journeyman. I said to him; “Jeez, Pops! I haven't heard back from the University for two months; my truck is making funny noises; and Stash, the other journeyman we work with, is more than a leeetle strange.”
Pops answered, “Never mind. Did you hear about Eric, the other apprentice?”
“No! What happened?”
“He got kicked in the leg by a cow.”

I'm having a ball, Dad.

Dougdoug (that's my nickname)

Day Four
( Secretary Scary )

The alarm clock buzzed at exactly 5:30 AM. Gwen Medea slammed the alarm button, knowing the buzzing would wake her neighbours. The walls between the camp dorm rooms were so thin that in the quiet of the night she could hear her neighbour flip the pages of a book. If privacy is what you want, live in a trapper's cabin. Other than that, this is life in a construction camp dorm.

She sat at the edge of her bunk and looked around the room. The room was little more than a cell. It consisted of a bed, a sink stand, a mirror, a closet for her winter clothes, and a small desk with an uncomfortable seat. This glorified closet was her home for as long as she stayed in this construction camp. Gwen Medea could hear distant footsteps—a woman wearing winter boots, she concluded.

Once, someone brought up to the Camp Committee that the size of the rooms in this construction camp did not meet Amnesty International's acceptable standards for jail cells. After a lot of puffing and huffing, the company sent a terse memo saying that the difference between a jail cell and a room in this camp was that here you could leave anytime you wanted. The veiled threat was not lost on the camp committee.