By Lucy

Sunday morning we started at 9. I was in a good mood, loose from the mushrooms. I’m working with Stewie, which always makes me smile. Also Dan, who I could take or leave; Josh, Irene and Amanda, the scaffolding family from Saskatchewan; and Derrick, some redneck who also wasn’t local but I get a different answer every time I ask where he’s from.

“You change your name again?” Stewie says teasingly.

“Hah hah.”

“What did you do all winter?”

“I was in New Zealand.”

“Wow, really? I always wanted to go. What kind of fish did ya catch?”

Stewie is the last person I’d imagine going to New Zealand. I’m not sure he’s ever even left northern Ontario.

“I don’t know how to fish, Stew.” My dad made an effort to teach me and my brother, which was unsuccessful for whatever reason.

“Why didn’t you call us when you got back? We had work for you a month ago.”

I did, but someone on site doesn’t like me. I’m here on sufferance.

The job itself is pretty straightforward. They lowered the water inside the graver to expose some beams. They’re gonna crane some gear in. We just have to throw a ladder down to it and plank it out.

The problems start immediately. The crane operator didn’t even know he was going to be here today and it takes him 3 hours to set up. Dan and Derrick start butting head immediately and eventually have to be separated. The narrow catwalk is littered with thick hoses pumping water into the graver, and the operators. Me and Stewie get doused by one of the hoses at one point. At least the nice weather has finally showed up, hot and sunny all day, so we dry quickly.

I did a fair bit of building by myself and I was pretty pleased with it. Stewart commented that my technique with the hammer is much improved, which I was very glad to hear! I feel so much more like crap this year but I’m still making progress.

Ironically, with the progress comes increased capacity to hurt yourself. I smoked my thumb with a misplaced strike. It immediately turned a dusky purple and swelled up, and the blood blister took 2 weeks to heal.

Monday, back to 7:30 starts.

First injury of shutdown, some mill employee who can’t walk and chew gum at the same time. Tripped over a stationary forklift and broke his arm.

The job board said “attemptuator” but we keep calling it “amputator”. Apparently it’s in the penthouse of C boiler, so it can’t be that exciting.

The Gorilla sits and makes conversation with me for a bit, which is unlike him. He hands me a knife and asks me to help him with a task. I scoff at the knife; we’re not supposed to have them on site.

“Don’t cut yourself. I can’t lay you off for it, but….” He trails off.

But what? Finish the threat, cuz I have no idea what you think you have on me. I’m not afraid of you. I doubt I’ll be doing this shutdown for another 2 or 3 years and I’m not sure any of you will still be here by then. The blood’s in the water and we’re all just waiting for the sharks.

He instructs me to grab a walkie talkie before heading over to C boiler.

Something has changed. Nebulous, but there is some acknowledgment that I am a good worker and I’ve been around for a while. The previous two years I only had a walkie talkie because Stewie hates carrying one, but this year there’s some tacit sense that I’ve been given some responsibility. Both foremen have been chatting with me in a way that goes beyond just making conversation to pass the time.

I bought a chocolate bar on the weekend to bribe Yari. Not that Yari needs to be bribed, he’s always sweet to me, but I like to be sweet back. He ended up gifting me half the bar back anyway.

I get to C boiler so late, everyone else has left except the 2 guys who are probably my crew. I recognize them as the two Saskatchewan guys who are always smoking in the parking lot when I get there.

There’s a group of 5 Saskatchewan people here. I knew Irene, Josh and Amanda, the family who were here two years ago. The family that scaffolds together, stays together? Irene is a normal grandmotherly figure, Josh is a normal scaffolder AKA nuts, but Amanda is a whole ‘nother level. She partied too hard to Duff.

The other two include the asshole who cut me off on Friday, Dwight with his billy goat beard, and Garry. Garry reminds me of myself; still waters run deep. He’s a quiet older man, but you always get the feeling that he could easily make you disappear if he wanted to. I’ve seen him around a few jobs but never talked to him. He’s probably the shortest and slightest person on site.

“We’re from Saskatchewan, so we’re a little rough around the edges. I hope you can take a f*cking joke.” Dwight says off the bat.

God, I hate being asked that, “I’ve been scaffolding in Regina, you don’t need to worry about me.” I fire back.

“Oh, who with?”

I told him and he knew right away, which was good. See, a job’s not just a paycheck; it’s also social capital in this society.

We spent most of the day doing nothing at all. Clara wouldn’t let us in the hole. They had a single guy in a full face mask literally sweeping the inside of the penthouse with a snow brush like you’d use to clean off your car. We chained some gear around and tried to pretend to be busy while on hot standby, but it’s almost more tiring than actually working.

We finally hopped in at the end of the day. Dwight got impatient in the last quarter and went in, and I went in after him because why not. Garry stayed outside cuz he hurt his leg on Friday.

It was a pipe gallery; full of pipes as thick as my trunk, either running from front to back or top to bottom. It was hard to find a place to run a standard but we got a base hammered out before the end of the day so night shift could keep going. We stayed an extra two hours to make sure it was solid.

I don’t mind Dwight. He makes a lot of off-colour jokes, but they’re not aimed at me so it’s easier to ignore. He’s a lot like Duff, supportive but rough around the edges.

By the time we were done, Yari had left. As I stood outside the trailer debating my options for getting back to the main trailer, Al pulled into the lot with his crew. They all piled out, but he stopped and looked at me and sighed.

“I’ll be back, guys, I’ve gotta drive Lucy to her trailer.”

I ran over and jumped into the passenger seat. No need to be told twice.

He asked me about my winter, in a way that seemed too pointed to be casual interest. No such thing as a free ride.

Time to go home and pack. Emily’s step-mom was coming to stay for a week because of graduation, and I had foolishly agreed to let her have my room and go stay with Jeremy. I suppose it was entirely possible that I would have ended up being in Dryden still, or not working at all, but the timing was not great. Of course the week I’m working 12’s is the one where I have to vacate my room.

Tuesday. Yay.

We spent the whole day in the penthouse. The night shift had finished our build on the one side and started another on the opposite side. Their base out was not as good and we ended up dismantling part of it. Despite Clara spending more than 8 hours “cleaning” it, the place was still coated in a thick layer of some fine grey powder. Ash? Lime? It tasted slightly lemony whenever I got some on my lips. A little zingy. We kept getting doused in it whenever someone accidentally hit a wall of pipe.

I brought my lunch with me to the other trailer today. Dwight napped at every break. He was up all night coughing the dust out of his lungs.

Amanda flopped into the chair opposite us. “I need to be on another crew. I cannot take any more of Josh.”

“We could use an extra hand.” I offer, glancing at Dwight for confirmation.

“Sure!”

I picked up the radio, “Copy Jamie. Can we have Amanda?”

“Sure, if her crew doesn’t need her.”

“Copy that.”

Even with Amanda we still didn’t have enough guys. The build weaved 30 feet back through the pipes, which meant all the gear had to be walked down as well. Actually, walking is generous; there isn’t enough room to stand, so I have to crawl or walk bent double. I kept hitting my hard hat and catching my hips on protruding pipes. Soon I was covered in bruises again.

Finished the job, a 12 hour day. Went home, met Marie, grabbed my belongings and headed over to Jeremy’s. I hadn’t wanted to leave my food sweltering in the car in the midday sun.

Jeremy was not ready, despite the fact he knew I’d be coming for several weeks. My accommodations was a mattress laid down on the floor in his bedroom, mostly because he likes to stay up on the PC until the early morning, so there wasn’t a point in me being in the living room. The sheets were still in the wash!

I had Chinese food delivered before I got home, so we gorged on Chinese and watched Breaking Bad.

My failure to wear a mask came back to bite me that night. I didn’t think whatever was in the penthouse was dangerous, and technically it wasn’t, but just because it wouldn’t kill me didn’t mean it was pleasant. It was just salt boiled off the water, but inhaling several bucketful’s of salt meant my lungs had to purge it. I was coughing all night and my throat burned.

I grabbed some throat lozenges on the way to work.

Which is just as well, cuz the wildfire smoke has arrived.

A pleasant surprise; I was back with Jordan, but we had Garry.

“Thought you and Dwight were attached at the hip.” I asked.

“Nah, I needed a break from him, so I asked to work with you guys.”

With us, or with me in particular? There was something curious about him that I couldn’t quit put my finger on. He wasn’t flirty and I hadn’t heard anything to suggest he knew about me and the Vagabond. I wanted to call his eyes steely-blue, even though they weren’t grey; they were a pretty shade of blue, but they give nothing away. He hid his mouth behind a bushy moustache, but I’d bet you couldn’t tell if he was smiling even if he was clean shaven. He keeps his cards close to his chest, but there was some connection between us that couldn’t be explained.

“Cool.” I grin and fist bump him. I love a good mystery.

We do a bunch of little builds. Here, there, everywhere. We’re a good team, me and Jordan building, Garry a competent ground guy. Our personalities mesh well; Jordan obviously thinks Garry is cool and asks him for his opinion.

One of the builds we had in the afternoon was a build inside a vessel. It wasn’t big or complicated, but the floor of the vessel was another thing entirely. It was a cone, slanted towards the centre, but in the middle was a giant dome, like a mushroom rising from the cone. I spent a fair bit of the build standing on the only flat surface, the single ladder rung under the hole, to pass gear to Jordan.

At some point it occurred to me that where I was standing gave Garry an eyeful of my butt, but it didn’t seem worth it to try and adjust.

Overtime galore, probably could have done 16 hours if we wanted, but we didn’t want to. I was drowning in my own lungs most of the day, and climbing around that one vessel had given me bruises across the back of my thighs like someone had laid into me with a horse whip.

Hans was shopping around for someone to go to Wacky’s with him and Sharaz, so I agreed cuz I knew Jeremy would love it. Wacky’s has all-you-can-eat wings on Wednesdays, so we all ordered a bunch of different flavours and swapped them around, trying them all. We ordered a few cocktails each and stayed way too late, but then being on shutdown is like being a sailor on shore leave. Get it while the getting is good.

Thursday was not a good day.

We were all tired from givin’er all week. They gave us a job to pull two 26 foot beams out of the graver, without the crane. And none of us are tall or super built, although Jordan and Gary have that wiry strength only scaffolding gives you, Gary in particular is shorter than both me and Jordan and still hurting.

I gestured to the three of us, “You do realize you’re giving the job to the three scrawniest guys you have on site, right?”

Jamie laughed.

By noon, we had managed to get one beam out of the graver. I felt useless, but I had little to contribute to this job. I was exhausted and I don’t have that core strength to freehand a long beam, especially when dropping it meant it falling at least 30 feet down and probably breaking something expensive.

After lunch they gave us a little mod to do for some pipefitters, thank goodness.

Something changed, subtle, imperceptible until acknowledged. Garry had been more outwardly flirty – so had Dwight, but with less finesse – and I came to the realization on Thursday that I kind of liked him. Scaffolders are all about body language, just like bikers; a build is a lot easier if you can see what someone else sees, and have the gear ready before they ask for it. The perfect crew doesn’t even bother using hand signals, just wordlessly chaining the correct gear. So you can see how someone is built under the clothes… how they would move…

“Hey, could I come for a ride with you? I’ve got all my own gear, I’m just between bikes.” I asked Garry.

“Yeah, I can give you my number.”

Neither of us had paper and I don’t have my phone on me. I rolled up my sleeve and popped out a marker and wrote it down on my arm. His eyes popped open wide but he said nothing.

I was done by 1:30. They wanted us back in the graver and I could barely walk straight. I was hacking up a lung and snot was constantly pouring out of my nose as my body tried desperately to clear the salt from its system.

I curled up in bed and slept for 3 hours. When I got up, I threw a freezer lasagna into the oven and got ready to go in for my ultrasound.

It went quickly and painlessly. I stared at the sign on the wall saying “technologists are not allowed to discuss results with you” as she ran the wand over the still swollen lymph nodes in my armpit.

Went home and had some whiskey. I’m tired of dying.

The smoke was worse Friday. The view of Thunder Mount was visibly restricted by it.

Tragedy struck. In the afternoon, they took Garry away and gave us George instead. George is a nice guy but he’s decrepit. Age ain’t got nothing to do with it; he’s the same age as Garry but Garry could beat up most of the guys on site and George got confused when we asked him for a 6 foot plank and handed us a 4. I stayed later than I meant to; Jordan told me I could leave but I didn’t feel right basically leaving him by himself.

Dwight was nearby working on something else. We stopped to chat for a bit.

He put on a serious face. “I heard you asked Garry for a ride. Are you sure about that? He pulls this Evil Knievel shit.”

I chuckled at that. The jealousy couldn’t be more naked if it was written across his forehead with marker. “I’ll be fine, I’m sure.” Besides, he couldn’t be worse than the Vagabond, who was brake-checking even on our first ride.

“Like he’s wild on the bike.” Dwight insisted.

“He also says you’re jealous.” I said with an angelic smile.

Annoyance lit up his face. “I’m not jealous! Just trying to be nice!”

Sure, sure.

There was no weekend shift, which was nuts. Why even do shutdown if we weren’t getting weekend double bubble? I cornered Jamie before I left. “Am I working tomorrow?”

“Do you want to work tomorrow?”

No, I’m tired. Yes, I want money. He walked away before I could answer. I guess anything less than an immediate yes is probably a no.

Friday after work I had to get more donuts. I had brought home a box of 6 donuts and told Jeremy he could help himself, which he interpreted as eating 5 of the 6. I also went across to the bubble tea place in the mall and grabbed a bubble tea and something called tanghulu, sugar coated fruit skewers. They were good!

Garry texted me, what a twist. “Me and Dwight are going out today, want to come?”

Hmm… like Jamie asking me if I want work. Yes but no. I should rest cuz I have a feeling tomorrow is going to be a lot.

Overthinking time! I haven’t actually ridden with anyone besides the Vagabond, and I’m not sure how I measure up as a passenger. Should I say anything? “About tomorrow… I haven’t been pillion since I had my own bike. Might have picked up some bad habits.”

“No bad habits, only fun ones!”

Well, I tried.

Knocked myself out with Nyquil. Woke up too early, dosed myself with Nyquil again. We made plans to meet up for 1, but around noon I was still feeling woozy. I grabbed a coffee on the way over.

As I pulled up to the hotel, I saw Garry… and Josh standing next to him.

Shit. There’d be no hiding anything from him. Here come more rumors: Lucy always picks up the oldest biker on site.

We stood around chatting for half an hour. In theory, Dwight was going to join us, but he was sour and grumpy and never showed.

“Ouimet, eh?” I nodded at the bike, “The road there is gnarly.”

“Potholes or gravel?” Garry asked.

“Both.”

He shrugged. Quiet confidence, eh? The Vagabond would have said no way immediately.

Josh, Amanda and Irene jumped in their SUV and headed out. Guess we were all going on a day trip, unbeknownst to me.

Garry uncovered the bike as I put on my gear. I noticed, at the last minute, some white and red patches on his jacket.

shitshitshitshitshit. How do I keep doing this? Too late to back out now.

They weren’t proper rockers anyway. Either he’d retired, or he’d left his kutte at home. Not that it matters. A guy like him has the patches on his soul.

He fired up the bike, backed it out of its parking spot, and nodded at me. I went over and hopped on confidently, like I’d done it a hundred times, even though my stomach was twisting with butterflies.

His bike was the least comfortable I’ve been on, I have to say. The pillion seatback leans far back, but the seat itself stop before that, so you’re either sitting too far back and your butt is off the seat, or you’re curled awkwardly forward.

Once I was seated, he took off like a shot from a gun.

The moment I live for isn’t the explosion when the bike fires up, or even when you start rolling. What I love is that first acceleration through the gears when you hit the road. Hearing the click of the clutch as the engine roars, the centrifugal force throwing you back, the ground melting away…

Despite Dwight’s “warning”, he didn’t misbehave half as much on the bike as the Vagabond did on our first ride. He did quickly get comfortable with hooking his left arm over my knee and cuddling into my thigh, and I wondered if that was normal biker behavior or if I keep picking the handsy ones.

We got to Ouimet before the others did. He barely blinked at the start of the gravel road and just went forward with confidence. The Vagabond refused to go out here on the bike, hah! Garry paid for my ticket automatically, and then we parked the bike and waited inside the gate for the others to show up.

It’s kind of weird being picked up by a biker. You just become theirs; they pay for everything and drive you around without saying a word about it. No one commented on it, which was its own tacit acknowledgement. Like it was so assumed it wasn’t even noteworthy. Yeah, Garry and Lucy are an item… whatever. We gelled so well it was testing a lot of my assumptions, that the Vagabond was a one-off and we had a unique connection.

We spent 2 hours walking around Ouimet, which was funny when you consider what a short walk it was. I like talking to all of them, but there was no hiding that me and Garry kept getting drawn together.

“You used to have a different name, didn’t you?” He asked.

I sighed. No point in hiding it. “Yeah. I’ve been going by Lucy for more than a decade, I just didn’t bother correcting people at work.”

He nods. “Makes sense. I think this suits you better, too. You’re much more of a Lucy.”

“Aww, thanks!”

But also, why did he remember my old name…?

As we got to the end of Ouimet, he stopped to take a call that lasted more than half an hour. Amanda and Irene wandered off; Irene was video-calling their nephews or something, so I chatted with Josh.

“Probably has something to do with his company.” Josh commented.

“He owns a company?”

“Yeah, I think his daughter runs it for him or something.”

When he was done the call and we continued walking, I said, “So, you own a company?”

He smiled mischievously. “I own three.”

Holy cow, what kind of mafioso did I get myself involved with now?

Everyone was hungry, so I offered Beefcakes as an option.

Before we hopped on the bike again, Garry said, “I’ll tap your leg before I punch it, ok?”

My stomach twisted with butterflies again. “Ok.” I felt safe with him; at no point had it felt like he wasn’t capable of controlling the bike, but he felt a little more… wild, than the Vagabond. As much as I laughed at the Vagabond for not wanting to do gravel roads, at least it gave a sense that he had limits and respected them. I had no idea what Garry’s limits were.

He did punch it this time. I clung to him for dear life as we rocketed past at least five cars, then cackled like a fiend as they faded in the distance behind us.

This is bad, very bad. I’m enjoying this too much.

As we got to Beefcakes, Amanda decided now was a good time to admit that she’s gluten intolerant. Fantastic. I’m not playing this game, she can pick a venue this time. Her and Irene decided on Nook, an Italian pasta place that was too dressy for this crowd. No one enjoyed their meal and spent the whole time grumbling. Garry paid for my meal without saying anything.

We went back to the hotel, grabbed the truck and went to the liquor store, then me and Garry and Josh drank outside on the patio for a bit. Josh retired for the evening and I walked back to Garry’s unit to grab my stuff.

“Well, I’m should head out now.” I said.

He stepped in close, an invitation hanging in the air. His blue eyes sparkled and a smile played on his lips. “Are you sure?”

Butterflies danced in my stomach. Should I stay or should I go? No, no, I should go… “Yup, bye!”

I ran to my car and peeled out of the lot into the dying light.

As I stopped at a red light, my heart racing, the thought entered my head; maybe I should have stayed.

What? Why? Why him? Not Jan, not Peter…

I walked in. Jeremy asked me, “How are you?”

A text lit up my phone, “My door is still open.” He knows.

I burst into tears. What do I do? How do I decide?

I need therapy.

“I’m going back.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Jeremy indicates my tear-streaked face.

Who said it was? But I’ve got to face my fear.

I threw a couple of things in a bag and went back.

Knocked on the door.

“I’m glad you came back.” He answers the door, not smiling but I can feel the ‘cat-in-the-cream’ look in his heart, before drawing me down into a kiss that I didn’t even pretend to resist.