September 27, 2018
Galveston, Texas
Louise looked at her watch. She had avoided calling Marnie but there was no putting it off any longer. Today was going to be busy and she had to tell her friend. Hopefully, Marnie would pick up the phone. It was an hour earlier in Colorado. Maybe just give her another hour to wake up.
Aurora, Colorado
Marnie Liccione looked at the maple tree outside her window, now golden in the autumn sun. Ever since she and Adam planted it together two years into their marriage, she had watched it grow. In springtime, its little red buds were the first sign that winter was ending. After living here for twenty years, the shade from the tree extended so far that Marnie had to change what she planted. To live in a place long enough to see its microclimate evolve still shocked her. But everything shocked her now. Ever since Adam left five months ago for a men’s rafting trip and never came home.
She stood and stared at the tree, its yellow foliage the color of hope. Marnie felt she was drifting in a place between this life and the next, paralyzed by her grief. She had taken a leave of absence from her pediatric practice as she struggled through the minimal activities of life.
She felt Jack and Harlee dancing around her feet. She’d lingered in her pajamas to fool the dogs that it was not time for their walk. They knew it was past time. Leaving the window, she changed her clothes and headed out.
The crisp autumn air revived her. They set off for the reservoir. She smiled at her neighbors and kept walking. The thought of another well-meaning question about how she was doing exhausted her. Her eyes followed a flock of geese as they headed south and west. Looking at the majestic mountains that gave the Front Range its name, she listened to their honking call that winter was coming.
When they returned from their four-mile walk, the dogs went into the sunny living room for their daytime nap. Marnie was both envious of and grateful for them. She would probably never get out of bed without their enthusiasm for life pushing her forward.
As she joined them, she thought about what she might actually try to get done today, but her thoughts were interrupted by her cell phone.
She looked at the caller ID. Louise. Louise had been great about calling and trying to keep Marnie functional. She had stayed for a week after the funeral—leaving her two children with their busy schedules in the care of her husband and their ever-helpful grandmother. Resisting pressure from her friend to return with her to Galveston, Marnie convinced Louise that she needed some time alone in the space she had shared with Adam.
Failing to muster the energy today to talk, even to her closest friend, Marnie let the call go to voicemail. Louise called again. That was unusual. Reluctantly, Marnie picked up.
“Marnie, something terrible has happened,” Louise said. “Gen is dead.”
Galveston, Texas
With the sunrise, Travis wondered if the events of the previous evening had been a bad dream. As the details returned, he knew the nightmare was real. He stood looking out his living room window. The view of the Gulf usually brought him peace. This morning, the blue sky with the fluffy white clouds reaching down to the water didn’t help. His mom had always talked about living someplace with a view of the water, and he guessed it had rubbed off on him. This condominium had been his first big purchase from his earnings on the oil rig.
He wasn’t sure if it was the view or the fact his mother was more financially secure with his help, but she seemed to enjoy spending time with him now. She made frequent visits to the condo, often staying to cook a meal for the two of them. With the payoff from this nightmare gig, he would have more money to help her. He hoped she would finally be able to quit her job. But to make sure it all worked out, he had to get off The Island and out of sight. That was part of the deal.
He finished packing his bag and then called his mother to say good-bye.
Hearing his voice crack, she asked, “What’s wrong?”
Clearing his throat, he replied, “Nothing, Mom. Just had a late night out with the guys before flying out. I’ll see you in three weeks.”
“You be careful out there, son. You know I worry until I see you back on solid ground.”
“Don’t worry, Ma. I always make it home in one piece. I’m tough.”
At thirty years of age, he was still what he, and the women he dated, considered a good specimen. His chest was broad and his arms well-muscled. He had to watch that beer gut, though. Even after his years in the navy, he kept his sandy hair cropped short. He thought it looked good atop his five feet, nine inches.
People, especially girls, said he had sad eyes. Travis tried to remember to smile more so people wouldn’t ask him if he was having a bad day.
He felt something on his neck. Closer inspection revealed a scratch on the left side, and he saw another on his left arm. He recalled his victim putting up a fight but didn’t know she’d left any marks. With everything that happened out in that squall, he wasn’t surprised he hadn’t noticed.
He still couldn’t believe he made it back to the marina in one piece. The marks weren’t concerning in themselves as they were hard to see superimposed on his tats, but it added to an uneasiness he couldn’t shake. He was sweating and thought he would jump out of his skin. Maybe it was the energy drink he just downed, or perhaps, the result of hitting the oxy and meth a little harder than usual this last stretch on shore.
Knowing he had to stop before going offshore, his last dose had been the day before. There was always the chance of a drug screen if someone on his team screwed up and had an accident. The safety officer hauled them all in to pee in a cup when that happened.
Since he didn’t think there was much chance of that in the first thirty-six hours, he decided to risk a little hit.
By the time he got to the heliport, Travis felt almost normal. There were sixteen of them heading out that morning. He joined the others in the stuffy waiting area.
He glanced around to see if he recognized anyone. He said “hey” to a few of the guys he had worked with before. With the tours being as long as they were, a lot of the crew lived out of state and would fly in and out for their work. It could be hit or miss when he might overlap with the same guys.
It still amazed him how diverse the crew was. He wasn’t thinking of diversity in terms of race, but the fact that they weren’t all young, husky, male bruisers like himself. Some of the women on the rig worked in support areas, such as cleaning and food service, but some of them worked right on deck along with the guys. And there was Jeff, the skinny chemist. A stiff breeze would blow him right off the deck. There was a chemist on duty 24/7 checking the purity of the oil they pumped out of the seabed. Technicians spent their entire twelve-hour shifts looking at computer screens, monitoring everything from the ballast of the rig, to the amount of oil being sucked out of the ocean floor. Some of the safety staff were in their sixties.
Travis preferred getting to the rig, which was located a hundred miles offshore, by helicopter instead of by boat. The helicopter could land on the pad above the rig. Getting lifted onto the rig from a boat by an open-air basket gave Travis the creeps. A crane was used to swing it over the open water onto the deck.
Everyone waiting with Travis had been through helicopter safety training, including a mock crash landing and the ditching-at-sea exercise. Man, woman, skinny, fat, old or young, they all had to suit up in survival gear for the ride.
As they waited an extra thirty minutes to let a squall pass by the rig, Travis glanced at the Bolivar Ferry. As a child, he had loved taking the ferry over to the Bolivar peninsula. It was one of his few happy memories. His dad probably liked the ferry because it was free. Together, they would scan the bay for the dolphins that famously followed the boat.
“Ready for another tour?” the guy next to Travis asked.
Travis nodded. “More than ready.”
Then, they were cleared for takeoff. Each of them filed into the chopper and buckled up. Travis did a quick survey to see if he recognized anyone he didn’t want to bunk with. He was on the day shift this tour and he hoped his roommate would be on nights.
Damn, is that Maples? He’d had a run-in with him a few tours back over using the washing machines. Things escalated, and Maples called Travis a redneck asshole and threatened to kick his ass if he disrespected him again. Travis kept clear of him for the rest of the tour.
The platform came into view as the chopper started its jerky descent. The Titan, a newer platform, rose an impressive forty stories above the water. No wonder this rig, like most others, was baptized with a name of a mythological giant. It had been constructed to withstand hurricanes and the impact of an ocean liner and was secured by a support structure that stretched 3,100 feet down to the seabed. Drilling and storage facilities were connected by catwalks that looked perilously insubstantial from above.
Travis remembered being freaked out by all the metal mesh walkways and stairs on his first tour. He could look right down, over 100 feet, to the water. Waves broke against the rig’s supports and sent currents swirling in all directions. At first, the view made him dizzy. More than most Americans, he came face to face with the reality of oil rig safety after the BP Deepwater Horizon explosion in 2010. For millions, the ongoing crisis was environmental. For Travis, it was the death and injury of twenty-eight guys that got to him. A federal moratorium on construction of new platforms went into effect.
When construction resumed, with ever increasing safety regulations, the price tag to complete a rig rose as well. As long as the price of oil stayed up though, offshore drilling could still turn a tidy profit and new rigs continued to sprout from the seabed.
After the chopper landed on the pad, the new arrivals gave high fives to the sixteen crew members who had just finished their tour and were swapping places in the helicopter. They were clearly relieved to be heading home for twenty-one days off.
Travis’s group was greeted by Tibo, short for Thierry Thibodaux, the sixty-five-year-old rig vet from Louisiana. He’d been working offshore for over forty years, doing just about every job that needed doing on a rig. He had the battle scars to prove it. As a roughneck, manually screwing the drill segments together, Tibo was lucky to have held on to all ten fingers. Now the sections were fit together by an automated pipe handler managed by a guy in the drill shack. Travis had even seen a woman working the controls.
Tibo was now a “camp boss,” overseeing the housekeeping and cooking staff. Today his job was to settle the new crew in and attend to their creature comforts. The first order of business was handing out room assignments.
Travis tried not to look too relieved when he learned his roommate’s name. It wasn’t Maples. But it was another guy on days. He hoped he didn’t snore.
They headed off to drop their gear in their rooms. The rooms had been cleaned and the beds made up by the housekeeping staff that morning in anticipation of their arrival. The company brochure described the rooms as “similar to college dorms.” Each room had a set of bunk beds, a desk attached to the wall and a couple of lockers, all within about eight by eight square feet. The ceiling was also eight feet high, and the room was windowless. Travis couldn’t imagine what college would have such shitty accommodations. To him, it was what he thought a prison cell would look like. Don’t go there.
The first item on the agenda was a safety meeting. On the way there, Tibo escorted the group through the employee lounge fitted out with recliners, desktop computers and TVs, then on to the gym, furnished with some worn out equipment. Next, came the mess hall—a contrast to the utilitarian appearance of the rest of the living quarters. There were no windows, but the ceilings were higher, tables set with attractive place mats, and a magnificent, all you can eat buffet. Were those flowers real?
The kitchen was headed by an actual chef to oversee the preparation of four meals a day for 130 souls. Food on the rig was unlimited and high quality to keep the captive troops satisfied. Without much to look forward to on any given day during their twelve-hour shifts, mealtimes were a welcome distraction. The company played this aspect of rig life up, even as waistlines and BMIs were on the rise within the workforce.
And so, it started, just like all his other tours. Safety meetings twice a day, work assignments, meals, a few hours of internet with access to adult entertainment, sleep, lather, rinse, repeat. The familiarity of the routine and the distance from the mainland helped Travis’s restless mind settle down.