By Lucy

Friday. The first official day of shutdown.

The beating heart of the mill is silent. No steam rises from the stack towering over town. The mill is still pretty loud, especially with all the pipefitters cutting pipers, welders grinding, and the vacuum trucks sucking everything up, but there’s no longer steam rushing through its veins.

It’s also frackin’ cold. The cement and steel breaths cold back into the building. We wrap ourselves up in hoodies and jackets at lunchtime and complain about it constantly. Even if we had a heater, the palatial ceilings would prevent the heat from reaching us.

We’ve reached the point where we work so hard you don’t really feel hungry anyway. The fridges are empty. Guys pick at their food or forget to eat at all. Half of my Factor meals go in the garbage, although I try to eat all the meat for the protein. We’re all tired, even though it’s only tens. This job is draining on the regular, and we’ve got no days off to rest and recover.

Everything is going on schedule, though, and they’re playing it smarter this year. Two years ago, when I first did this shutdown, they had separate crews for the boiler and the digester. It only takes about 2 days to put the scaffolding in the digester, depending on how much goes wrong. That year, it took 5 days – they were 2 days behind winding it down, draining it and acid-washing it. So I got about a week out of it, and then they decided to lay most of us off and have the boiler crew do the dismantle. This year, they had one crew doing both. About halfway up the digester is what we call the protection platform, where we run beams across it and put down 2 layers of plywood and one layer of checkerplate, so its basically a solid floor. But it also keeps in the smoke and fumes from the welding and grinding, so they decided to just build up to it, then go do the boiler while the welders work, then come back and do the rest.

Some of the guys come over to compliment my boots. Oh, right, from the meeting! It also occurred to me to send the picture of Ethan on the ladder in the bucket of the front-loader to Bruce. He replied that he printed it off to share it around his next class. Hah hah! Gary is legendary in Canada now and he’s never even been there.

I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I know Duff has been complaining all week about his lack of control over the crews cuz Leif gets final say, but I wasn’t sure how much weight to put in it. I’m also unsure who else might have a say in it.

Leif came in to the room and split us roughly in half. I was on a crew with Duff, Eli and the Vagabond, among others. We were going to the top of the digester, the chip box, which is a small and short job to be honest, but work was thin on the ground.

We grabbed our locks and stomped up the stairs to the fourth floor of the digester. I ended up at the front of the line, right behind Leif. Leif told us to wait by the lockboxes while he talked to the operator.

No dice. It wasn’t even open yet, nevermind ready for us.

All the way back down the stairs!

They didn’t have work for us for almost 4 hours! Some people might be glad to get paid to do nothing but sit around the lunchroom and play on their phones, but it’s nerve-wracking. The mill might order them to send some of us home, and between working and being paid, or home for free, I’d rather be earning some dough.

They finally sent the lot of us to do some tube-and-clamp step-ups under the digester. Everything was coated in thick, vinegary black liquor, like it had been dipped in a vat of fishy molasses. It made every surface both slick and sticky, and soon all of us were as black as pitch and smelled just as bad.

Since there were two in roughly the same area, we somehow ended up diving into 2 crews. I ended up going to the yard for Dennis and Eli, which was really where I didn’t want to be. But then, the other crew had the Vagabond on it, so I had to pick my poison there. I like working with Dennis; he’s quiet, not prone to gossip or shenanigans, and patient, but he can be engaging in a conversation. He just asks you for what he wants without any of the theatrics.

Eli? Well, Eli is Eli.

It occurred to me I hadn’t actually worked with Eli yet. The man is a halfway decent builder. He still refuses to wear a toolbelt, so he has to keep picking up and putting his hammer back down on the floor. He’s also horrible at hand signals, and with his teeth missing it’s hard for me to read his lips. If he cared even a little bit, he could probably get a lot of work done very quickly. Maybe even faster than Duff.

At lunch, I noticed Mr. Dangerous Newf has been sitting next to the Vagabond. Although the Vagabond doesn’t look happy about it, the two of them sit there with their heads together like mafias, scheming.

After the job was over, we all went out to the yard, which was sunny and warm, to unpack and tidy up. Eli wandered off to smoke and after a moment I followed him. There was no one around and no one likely to appear.

I stood over him, arms crossed over my chest, as he lit up a smoke. He blanched a little.

“What. The. Hell.”

“I’m sorry man, I didn’t – “

“Didn’t what, Eli? Didn’t think? Sounds like you.” I stared down at him with cold eyes. “What’s he doing for you? Giving you rides?”

“No, no, I’ve got a car. I’ve been working all winter. All winter. Things have been really good, actually. Keeping my nose clean. You can keep the coveralls.” He added weakly.

“You got a car? They gave you your license back?” My icy resolve cracked a bit and he latched on to it.

“Yeah yeah, my niece sold it to me. Been paying it off. Gonna lose another toe too, they reckon, look!” He fishes his phone out of his pocket and shoes me his big toe is badly infected, red and swollen.

I can hear footsteps in the distance. I’m running out of time to interrogate him. “Is he angry with me?”

“I don’t effin’ know, man! Talk to him yourself.”

Not happening. “What’s up with Mr Dangerous?”

“Oh, him? He’s from Schreiber.”

Ah, got it.

It is kinda weird to watch the Vagabond and Duff chat or talk work like nothing ever happened. Duff called me when we broke up and listened to me cry on the phone for two hours, so he knows what’s up. And the Vagabond hates Duff; kept accusing him of trying to ‘steal’ me, nicknamed him ‘Farm Boy’. But that’s the mutually assured destruction that keeps my mouth shut as well; the minute one of them loses their mind at work, both will get turfed, so we all behave here.

They give us one last job; in recaust, under the clarifil tanks. It’s flagged off for a leak, but it’s more like a flood. The liquid has evaporated or run away, leaving behind stalactites of hardened lime and funny little soapstone formations. We decide to grab some gear and call it a day.

I have acquired the usual colourful array of bruises. I have matching ones on my funny bones, somehow, so they hurt every time I bend my arms. I also have a couple on my legs I’d call hematomas, because they have a pale spot in the middle where the fluid is collecting. Some cuts on my hands, somehow.

My feet also kill. You’re not supposed to buy new work boots during shutdown for 2 reasons. One is, your feet are swollen after work and makes it hard to asses how your boots might fit, although I planned for that and these boots fit splendidly. The second thing is all the usual pain of breaking in shoes, multiplied by them being on my feet for 12 hours straight. But I’ll live.

Kathy went out for the evening and left me to my own devices again. I had my last Cottage Springs.

I’d have to buy more tomorrow, cuz the liquor store will be closed Sunday.

Or not buy any.

I had a good long think to myself that night, and some vivid dreams. I had a particular dream of a town, built around a lagoon like Venice so there were no streets and cars, only canals and boats. It was made of cobblestone, and there was a beautiful beach of white sand curved around a bay.

You know, I tell people that I love it here, and I’m not even being sarcastic. I love the ‘devil may care’ attitude, the way nothing matters and nothing sticks. There are no dishes, beds to make, meetings to attend. You just work and eat take-out and blow off your obligations and drink yourself to sleep at night, and everyone else here is doing the same thing.

He who makes a beast of himself, gets rid of the pain of being a man.

How many times did I see that line growing up? My mother loved “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”.

It’s sort of cliche, isn’t it, the man caught between two worlds, the “two wolves” inside you, the mild-mannered family man who secretly wants to be an animal. Except I am not a man. Does that make it fresh and new?

Saturday morning, we went to finish the clarifil tanks. Eli was late, so me and Dennis and Robbie – a labourer – puttered away.

Before first break, Leif came over. “Did anyone come tell you about the water main break?”

“No? Where?”

“The lime kiln parking lot.” He pointed.

We all looked at each other. None of us were parked there, so no rush.

“Yeah, the water main for the fire system broke and the lake is pouring into the parking lot. Let’s go watch!” Leif says.

Not arguing with that. We wander out to the side of the building. Dennis and Leif smoke while we all watch everyone running out to rescue their cars as the parking lot disappears into the water. The cops have blocked off the public road that runs by the mill as it is also flooded.

When we go back for break, Duff is frantically throwing 10 foot steel decks into the back of a company truck. “Gotta go rescue a Hyundai.”

“With steel decks?”

“Well, we need something to lift it out of the sink hole.”

Alrighty then.

After break Eli shows up. He’s cranky. We finished the clarifil tanks in time for lunch and he takes off again. Yeah, maybe shoving your swollen, infected toe into a steel trap was a bad idea!

After we finished under the clarifil tanks, we were stuck in the yard for most of the rest of the day. Unloading carts…. slowly.

“This is the slowest shutdown I have ever been on.” I commented.

“Yeah, me too.” Said Duff.

I looked around. No one was going to bother us.

“So, uh, did I ever tell you I was a cancer survivor?”

He pressed his lips together, tapped his leg for a minute. “Robert sent it to me. Your story.”

My jaw fell open. When? In July? “Why?” I exclaimed.

“Cuz he cares about you and he thought I should know.”

And neither of you informed me? A feeling of betrayal washes over me, but I quickly push it down. Ah, whatever. Cat’s out of the bag now. “The doctor’s think it’s back.”

“That’s shitty.”

“It makes it hard to put on muscle. Cachexia. Should be in physio, but stuff doesn’t always transfer.”

“You know that I’m still going to run you just as hard as I do now.” He says, in a mock-formal tone.

“Yeah, I know.” I smile. “I didn’t want to tell you cuz I didn’t want you thinking I was lookin’ for you to go easy on me. But it started to feel like a secret.”

“Understandable.”

Dennis comes over. Bored. “Yeah, so I’m thinking of joining the 1669 local.” Duff says to cover.

I snicker. “You can’t.”

“Why not?”

“You don’t live here. We even have a carve out in the collective agreement to stop southern Ontario guys from coming up here and taking our work.”

“Oh.”

Yeah, that was the reason for the rigamarole last year with transferring. They don’t mind someone joining, but they wanted to make sure I was staying, not just grabbing some live-out and then splitting.

“Cory’s here.” Dennis interjects. He turns to me, “Did you ever meet Cory?”

“I think so. He’s a beefy guy, isn’t he?”

Duff laughs and Dennis smiles. “Got your eye on him, eh, sis?”

“What? No!”

Dennis shakes his head, still smiling, “I’m pretty sure he’s married.”

My turn to laugh. “As if that means anything!”

Both of them scoff at this. “You a hussy or a homewrecker?” Duff asks, grinning ear to ear.

Hussy meaning a perpetual cheater? “More of the second one. Girlfriend’s don’t like me.” I say sweetly.

The alarm for the chem plant kept going off in the distance. It sounds somewhat like an ambulance, which is irritating. Other than that, it wasn’t the worst day to be trapped in the yard. Sun shinning, 18 degrees out.

A gas tanker crashed into the train tracks at one point, the track switcher. Which is a big deal; maybe damaged the switcher, but also, obviously there is the chance a tanker carrying oil could start a fire, and fire is anathema to a paper mill. There’s flammable stuff everywhere.

At the end of the day, Tracy did the weekly draw. She sells tickets for 20 bucks apiece. I usually don’t bother paying in because I never have cash on me, but this week the Vagabond won. At what I presume was the tail end of him chastising her for saying it too loudly, she stood up and yelled, “[he] won the draw! 700!”.

“Drinks on [the Vagabond]!” Reese shouted. Everyone chimed in, yelling their favourite alcoholic beverages at him, and for a minute it was absolutely bedlam, until he staggered out of the lunchroom, waving everyone down.

I decided against the liquor store. I slept fine, it took me a little longer to get to bed but I felt good in the morning. Some switch has flipped in my head. I feel better. At peace.

There’s another girl here, a carpenter as well. She’s as green as they come, the hall sent her here for work and that’s it. I go over to talk to her a couple of times a day so she’s not feeling abandoned and alone. Her name is Janessa.

Tracy comes over Sunday morning. “Did you get locked in the women’s bathroom this morning?”

“No, I think you would know cuz you’d be the first person I told.” I reply. “Was the door shut?” Probably because the bathroom was an afterthought, there is a stall inside that just contains a toilet, even though it’s basically a single contained bathroom. The door on the stall sticks, so we just lock the main door.

“Yeah, and one of the mill guys came over to Tyler and was complaining the stall door sticks.”

I laugh and roll my eyes. Even though it says ‘women’ on the door, I’ve caught guys coming out of our bathroom. I can’t be bother to argue though, as long as it’s left clean, the seat down and toilet paper on the roll, who cares.

During our morning meeting, Leif says, “Alright, guys, remember to return the saws. We don’t need them laying around. No one could find one yesterday and [the Vagabond] had to use a handsaw.”

I roll my eyes. The Vagabond is probably the only person here who is competent with a hand saw, so that’s not a big grievance. He’s the one who likes to brag that he learned with the hand tools!

They’ve started up the question of the day again. It’s sort of a joke around here. The white hard hats go around and ask random people the question of the day, and if you get the answer right you get an entry into a draw. Except they always do the draw after shutdown is over and all the contractors have gone home, so we never win anything. Apparently last year, one of the mill guys stole the whole pallet of prizes as it sat unprotected in the yard.

“Any safety concerns on the site?”

“The site is a safety concern.”

Everyone chuckles at that.

“The theme of this shut down is ‘courage to care’. If you see something, say something.”

Courage to care.

It does take a lot of courage to care. Especially in an environment like this, where guys like ‘Tuckey sit alone because they have been branded as a rat.

Duff is off doing more foreman-y things now, so organically, I’ve ended up on a team with Dennis and Robbie the labourer. Dennis is becoming more chatty – I can’t tell if I’m wearing him down or if he’s just naturally opening up. I’m not entirely thrilled with it; I was looking forward to some peace, in some respects. Robbie is odd – prone to random singing, and he exclaims “bomba” every time one of us hits a wedge – but he’s a good worker and otherwise nice, so not arguing.

We spent the day modifying some of the builds I did with Duff on the first week. Did the customer change their minds, or did Duff screw up? It’s hard to say; this whole site is a game of broken telephone. The pipefitter needs a lifting beam, so he calls his boss, who calls the mill, who calls our boss – not on site – who calls Leif or Tyler and they relay it to us. No wonder details get lost in transit.

We get rid of the 14 foot Aluma beams, thank god. When Duff praises getting rid of them, I say, “Yeah, burn ’em to the ground.”

“Umm, I think Lucy is f*cked up.” Dennis comments.

“Oh, are you just learning this?” I say, with an angelic smile. “I could enlighten you further.”

“I don’t need to know!” He exclaims, and we all laugh.

Later on, at lunch, Duff starts a story with, “My buddy Goose Nipple – “

I had just taken a spoonful of yogurt, which immediately get stuck in my throat as I spit-take and I start coughing.

“Do I need to perform a high ankle rescue on you?” Duff asks, as I choke. Because obviously threatening to lift me off the ground by my ankles is the way to quell the fit of giggles that I am choking on!

Eli texts me and apologizes for being cranky. Sacre bleu, an unrequested apology. He must really be trying to get on my good side.

As we head out at the end of the day, I pass by Steve. “Hey man, how are you doing?”

“Living the dream.” Fist bump. “Hey, do you mind if I get your number? For work?”

“Sure, man.” I tell him my number and he punches it into his phone and calls me. The caller ID says “Late4Dinner”.

Second night with no alcohol. I fall asleep readily at bedtime. I’m doing good.

I rolled over in the morning and bought 100$ of Keto Chow on a whim. I’ve been debating going off keto for a bit, but then I realized all I was missing was the opportunity to buy some cakes. Keto will keep me away from the sugary snacks and greasy takeout during shutdown. So I decided to shelve my Soylent for now; it’s not keto friendly and probably throwing me off.

Steve texts me in the morning, wishing me a good shift. Steve is in love already? He moves fast. But then, you have to in this industry. Blink and she’s gone. Still, the broke divorcee who’s definitely on something? No thanks.

On Monday there’s a rainfall alert. The roof will be leaking for sure. The rain is louder inside than outside, as it streams down the walls and leaks from the ceiling.

We finally get a job at 8. Leif takes us up several sets of stairs; it’s in the back of RB3, basically abandoned, the elevator decommissioned. He hands me a gas monitor.

It had to be our crew because it had to be me doing it; I’m the only one small enough to fit inside the vessel, called the De-Aerator storage tank. The hole is only slightly wider than my hips and I have to take off all my gear to squeeze inside and then have them pass it after me. The vessel is about 3 meters tall and five long, and maybe 2 wide but its severely curved. We had to use the hinged swivel jacks so they can sit on the curved surface. Fortunately there was a side room with a laydown, probably cuz they do this build every shut down, judging by the graffiti on the walls.

It wasn’t a complicated build, just a meter tall platform so they could reach something in the ceiling, but being in a vessel is always disorienting. Everything is super echoey and loud, and when you’re breathing hard from exertion it gets warm quick.

Done before coffee and back down to ops to sign out and drop off the gas monitor. Someone waved at me from inside the booth and I later confirmed it was Dylan, who was worried the guys would give me the gears if he came out to talk to me, which is a fair assessment.

We got an unenviable job up at the screenhouse. No one likes the screenhouse because there isn’t even an elevator, just 7 flights of stairs. They didn’t even need much from us, just to finish planking it out and bring up a rope ladder for access. The Vagabond’s crew was on it for the last two days. I guess one of them threw a fit about all those stairs.

The other reason no one likes it is that you have to drive to it, it’s all the way out back on the chip pad. As in, its literally forbidden to walk there by the mill.

We don’t have a truck, so we stole Bayko’s truck to go out there. He’s in the boiler anyway, he doesn’t need it.

Duff disappeared for most of the job. I think it’s a combination of him getting more into being foreman and also he can see that me, Dennis and Robbie are a good fit. The job itself was small, if terrible. There’s an actuator inside the chip conveyor that broke and won’t go, so they need us to plank out inside it. Like the ash pit, it’s a tiny crawl space, minus the 3 story drop below you. Dennis opted to go in and I was basically standing next to the opening so I could hear what he asked for and hand him his hammer, and trying to avoid being booted in the face as he moved around cuz his legs were sticking out the whole time.

At one point some of the mill bosses came around and complained the lifeline Dennis was attached to was scratching their precious machine. They did ask us to get a piece of rubber to fit over the edge to protect it, but when they first started complaining it sounded like they wanted him to remove the thing stopping him from pitching down three stories! It was also disruptive when you remember there was 7 flights of stairs and a car ride between us and getting a piece of rubber and poor Dennis already had a mouthful of sawdust from the dirty machine.

Duff slapped the “softener”, which is basically just a garden hose with the side split open, against his palm as he brought it up.

“That’s the beatin’ stick, eh?” I asked.

“Yeah, you want a taste?”

“No thanks!”

“Maybe I do!” He chuckled.

“You wouldn’t be the first.”

“Oh?”

“I’m not elaborating on that!”

It rained and rained and rained. Every time we went back to the lunchroom the road was more and more a mire. I did up my seatbelt because I was legitimately concerned someone was going to roll the truck eventually. Also, I hate those stairs. Someone helpfully wrote that it was 179 steps, which means I did almost 2000 stairs in a single day!

The Wabigoon river is the highest I have ever seen it, with the melting snow. It’s raging down through town. It makes me nervous.

After work I went shopping. I needed some treats. I decided to try Safeway for once and that was a blessing and a curse. They had lots of keto snacks and treats…. so I bought 150$.

Well, at least I won’t need to go shopping for a bit.

On a whim, I grabbed one of those pre-made slow-cooked roasts. Kathy can throw it in the oven tomorrow and I have contributed to the household. I also grabbed some of that “O’Keefe’s Working Hands”, because my hands are so cracked and dry I’m surprised they weren’t bleeding. Duff’s got a split on his lip from all the dryness and chemicals in the air, breaking us down.

I gave Kathy a bunch of my sugar-free treats to try as well. I know she finds my keto diet intensely interesting because she is trying to cut out sugar. We pulled out the bag of chocolates after dinner and tried them one at a time, assessing them. My favourite was the pecan delight. Kathy and Scott preferred the coconut one, which is just as well because I’m not big on coconut. After Kathy goes out for a walk, me and Scott discuss which Styx songs are our favourite.

Third night without alcohol. This week is starting off pretty good.

Listening to too much MCR lately. I’ve already liked them, but I always find it darkly amusing that they released an album about a man dying of cancer the same year I was diagnosed, 2006. I even listened to the album while I was in the hospital. It was the perfect anthem for an angsty teen.

The hardest part’s
The awful things that I’ve seen