Rig Justice (Original Fiction)

in #fiction6 years ago (edited)

The PA crackled with the latest garbled delay, “Panther Helicopter's Galactic Flight has been delayed two more hours; next scheduled departure is 1430 hours. Galactic crew members are reminded to remain in the heliport or the smoking area outside.” The announcement ended with a loud clunk of a phone handset being dropped into its cradle.

“Fuck!” said Mike MacDonald, a novice roustabout, but seasoned ex-soldier and pledge-biker, who had been waiting in the heliport's departure lounge since going through security at 0530 hours, and who already had endured three weather delays, and it was only noon. “Fuck-Fuck-Fuck!” he said again, as he kicked at his small carry on bag at his feet. Mike wasn't alone—there were 17 other Galactic crew members waiting to make the 280-kilometer flight to their rig for the bi-weekly crew change. In addition to Mike's obvious displeasure, there was a general hub-bub of muted profanity-laced discontent at the delay, but it quickly subsided. They had all been through this a number of times, but they knew that offshore fog can sock in a rig for days, or it could also lift in a matter of minutes. It was dragging on interminably today.

The drilling rigs had been offshore Nova Scotia exploring the Scotian Shelf for the past few years, and they had well-established crews and crew change schedules. Things were not all smooth going for the drilling companies at the start. Most of the rigs came from the North Sea with a British and Scottish management team, and senior drilling positions. Part of the drilling agreement required most of the other crew positions to be held by Canadians, and onshore drilling schools had been churning out trained workers for the past few years. Primarily Maritimers, the rig's overlords soon learned that they could not treat the East Coast crews the same as they had treated the crews in the North Sea.

In the early years, it often would only take a condescending observation from a Brit manager (there is no distinction between Brits and Scots for Maritmers—they are all collectively Brits) towards a Maritimer to result in a swift and often brutal beating for the manager. The Brits eventually got it—these Easterners just did not care about being arrested and fired. There was a noticeable increase in general civility and deference from management towards their crew after a few beatings were sustained in the early years. Maritime rig-justice was brutally swift.

The crews were a broad societal cross-section with many joining the rigs from the military, trades schools, and motorcycle clubs. Regardless of their individual backgrounds, once ensconced on the rig they became a cohesive unit whose individuals watched each other's backs, especially around the Brit Ex-Pats. The Ex-Pats held all the key positions, and overseeing the whole operation was the Offshore Installation Manager (OIM), and Mike MacDonald's rig had two who switched out every four weeks. Unfortunately for Mike and his crew, the OIMs were diametrically opposed: one played good-cop and seemed to care about crew morale and welfare, and the other seemed to delight in playing bad-cop and lording over them.

Anthony Hedges (the good cop) was a physically fit, 6-foot, lithe, forty-something, who spoke with a refined English accent, and who took great care to exercise while onboard, and to eat sensibly. The latter was a temptation challenge given the 4-star quality dishes the chef (not cook) prepared. Anthony also went out of his way to pleasantly engage the individual crew members, even though he had significant pressure on him from corporate to meet deadlines and push pipe. After Anthony's four week hitch, he would rotate back to England, when his replacement Phil McPherson arrived from Scotland.

McPherson, a rotund, Phil Collins look alike (if Phil Collins carried an extra doughy 80 pounds, and had a pasty, impending heart attack colour) had nothing in common with Anthony except for the OIM title and responsibility. Not only was he a slovenly disheveled site to behold, but he also seemed to not give a shit about the crew's welfare, and did not engage them, apart from barking out orders. As grating as he may have been with his sarcastic and sometimes condescending comments to the Maritimers, he never crossed the line where he would face a beating that had been visited upon some of his predecessors. He was an asshole, but not stupid.

Thinking about Phil-the-asshole, and that Anthony was rotating out with this flight, Mike realized he'd have two weeks with the bad-cop. “Fuck,” Mike spat out in frustration. “Fuck this, I'm going back to the truck to lay down,” said Mike, to nobody in particular in the departure lounge as he picked up his small carryon and started heading for the parking lot door.

“C'mon Mike, don't be stupid,” said Roger, the crew's radio operator.

“No, fuck that, I've been hanging around here all fucking morning, my back is sore, and I want to lay down.”

Roger tried a different tack: “For fuck's-sake Mike, if you go back to your truck now, you're gonna be in big shit—you know we aren't allowed to do that after we're been screened.”

“It's only right there,” said Mike, pointing to the nearby parking lot immediately outside the door opposite the sanctioned smoking area. With that, Mike pushed open the door and walked the 50 feet to his truck, a crew-cab Dodge, and climbed into the back seat and quickly disappeared. Nothing happened, so the remaining crew went back to watching the news, reading, or tried to nap on the uncomfortable hard plastic chairs.

Around 1300 hours, the company had pizzas delivered for the crew, and Mike came back in from his nap. The crew tore the tops off the pizza boxes into quarters that they could use as plates to prevent the gooey cheese and toppings from sliding off. Eighteen crew devoured the ten pizzas in fifteen minutes. Boredom set in again for the crew, until 1350 hours when the PA once again crackled to life to direct the team to the dressing room. Well versed in this routine, the crew started gathering up their jackets and carry on bags, and made their way to the dressing room and the survival suits. It did not take long to feel overheated in the thickly padded suits, but mercifully, they were not required to don the hoods until landing on the rig.

“Single file by the door,” the departure lounge clerk shouted out as the crew started teasing one another now that they were waking up from the lounge lethargy, and anxious to get going. Once lined up, the clerk opened the door and the crew waddled to the blue and red Sikorsky S92 sitting quietly on the tarmac just outside the departure lounge.

Like unsteady 6-foot orange ducks in their heavily insulated suits, the crew stopped one-by-one at the air-stair door, to give each one of them enough time to walk up the stairs, so that the next person's weight was not on the door and hinges. Some of the crew were big boys and more than one on the door would not do anything for the helicopter's aerodynamics or water tightness.

CHC-Statoil-005-1024x566

Once onboard, Mike popped into a starboard window seat. There were two rows of two on each side of the aisle, and Mike always preferred to be by the window. He figured that if the helicopter was not smashed to bits on impact, and if he wasn't killed outright, that he'd sooner die while briefly bobbing around the surface of the North Atlantic, then drown on jet fuel and seawater after putting up a bit of a fight before hypothermia drained him of energy. He never kidded himself that the Search and Rescue Cormorant helicopter would ever make it the 500 kilometers from the Annapolis Valley to the offshore in time to make a difference. Cheery thoughts before a flight, thought Mike, as he settled into transit mode, where all tried to not show their unease with this means of transit and pretended to nap as they hurtled towards the rig, close to 300 kilometers offshore.

jackup-rig-01

“Close-up for landing,” the pilot's loud announcement on the aircraft's PA woke Mike from his pseudo-nap. With that, the crew started slipping their arms into their sleeves, gloves, and hoods in preparation for the landing. Mike always hated the landing, and today was not going be any different, or maybe worse. When Mike looked out his window all he could see was a thick layer of smooth fog where he should be seeing the ocean when they were this close. Mike really did not like this at all.

Probably sensing that his seasoned flyers would notice the landing aberration, the pilot came back on the PA. “Fog is down to the top of the drilling tower, but the rig can see the pad and the surface.” After a pause, he came back on. “There is visibility from the surface to 100 feet, so I'm doing down below the fog and will approach from the surface. I will be climbing up to the pad and not be coming down to it like usual. No big deal. Hang on.”

“Fuck, not this now,” Mike couldn't believe his luck. Fucked over all day with the wait, and now this bit of aviation daring-do. A collective loud murmur went up from the crew with various comments along the theme of “Is he fuckin' crazy,” before they immediately settled into a high-pucker silence as the plane descended through the bright white fog.

Mike knew the ex-military pilot who descended the helicopter to finally break through the fog bank, with swirls of moisture from the downdraft clearing, to show a calm ocean about 80 feet below. But that did not make Mike any more comfortable with the acrobatics. Once below the fog, and just above the surface, the crew could clearly make out large strings of kelp floating on the surface as they made their way towards the rig just two kilometers away. Military pilots have something fuckin' wrong with them, thought Mike.

As the pilot put the helicopter into a clockwise turn around the rig so that he could get a good visual, Mike had the surreal experience of looking up at the rig's three large legs and the helipad's underbelly. He'd never seen the rig from this angle, and he did not like it. Involuntarily, his legs started to shake, he felt queasy and could feel an urgent shit percolating. He panted, just like his wife did in labour, trying to stave off shitting his pants. He'd never be able to tolerate two weeks with this crowd if he did that.

The crew was silent as the large helicopter ascended the short distance from the ocean surface to the platform's helipad. Finishing in a steady hover, there was a collective cheer as the rear wheels, then the nose wheel touched down on the firm deck. “Ladies and gentlemen [there were no women on the crew], welcome back to the Galaxtic II. . . told you there was nothing to it.”

Sikorsky-S-92-IMG-2_tcm50-40775

Deplaning was done the same way, single file at the air-stair door, but the only difference for Mike was that he still felt like he was going to concurrently puke and shit. He found the usual jet fuel fumes overpowering. He was still shaking as he descended the stairs and made his way into the rig's heli-lounge. Mike knew there was a head just one deck below, so he was going to make it.

Mike breezed past the rotating crew who were all suited up for the trip home and was heading for the stairwell when Phil-the-asshole stood in front of Mike.

“Just a minute there, laddie-buck,” said Phil-the-asshole.

“Not now Phil, I need to get to the head,” said Mike slowing slightly.

“In your fecken' dreams laddie,” said Phil in his thick brogue.

“Phil, I really need to. . .”

Phil cut him off, “You broke the fecken' rules one too many times m'boy. You're fecken' fir'd!”

That was the last thing Mike clearly remembered until two hours later when he started sensing his surroundings again while hand-cuffed, shackled, and accompanied by two Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers on the return flight to the Halifax.

Although Mike did not remember what happened next, the beating he visited on Phil-the-asshole is now rig-lore. Mike started without hesitating and delivered a sucker-punch to Phil's left jaw that was so hard, he neatly knocked out one of Phil's lower molars, that flew in front of a string of blood from his mouth before spinning across the heli-lounge floor.
Phil-the-asshole whimpered and staggered a bit—the crew looked on.

Mike, now on a mission, did not slow down after the surprise attack. He grabbed Phil-the-asshole by the shoulders and kneed him, hard, in the nuts. Phil-the-asshole folded like a dropped string puppet. There was an involuntary and sympathetic groan from the crew, but nobody budged, transfixed by Mike's savagery.

“FIRE ME YOU CUNT!” screamed Mike as he straddled Phil-the-asshole's chest, where Mike started the beating proper.

“MIKE, MIKE. . . STOP. . . FUCK. . .,” Phil managed to get out between Mike's heavy blows to Phil's face and head.

Phil-the-asshole at first tried to buck Mike off, but the years eschewing physical activity for sloth had taken its toll and Mike remained on Phil's chest, where Mike continued to methodologically pummel him with alternating fists. The boys were transfixed.

Phil's pleading devolved to incoherent whimpering that was getting weaker until he rallied and started a high pitched scream like a little girl. Sensing that Phil-the-asshole was likely on his last legs, or at least the last few seconds of consciousness, Roger the radio operator stepped forward and grabbed Mike's shoulders.

“Mike, Mike, it's Roger. . . that's enough Mike. . . Phil's had enough, you can go to the can now. . . get up.” It took a few tries for Roger to get through, but eventually, Mike let his arms drop, while Phil's girlish screams had once again settled into a pathetic gurgling whimper.

Some Brits, like Phil, had become complacent and had forgotten that rig-justice is often swift and brutal.


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