Chapter 4

The shit show came to town after the Sheriff’s Deputies arrived. Once they had Johan secured, John copied the files on the body cam over to his personal laptop in his rig. Johan tried one last time to stop him by telling the deputy the device John had in his hands was stolen company property.

John looked at the Deputy and said, “The company property he speaks of, you pulled out of his pockets a few minutes ago. This one belongs to me; would you like to see the receipt for it?” The Deputy nodded in reply, to which John said, “There is a file folder under the passenger side front seat. Can I pick it up, or would you like to?”

The Deputy walked over to his passenger door, opened it, then rummaged under his seat before pulling out an accordion style folder. He took a peek inside, then handed it to John. “I have receipts for everything in and on that rig in here, so if the asshat makes another false allegation, just ask me. I’ll be glad to pull out the receipt in question.” He’d been digging through the folder while talking then handed the receipt in question to the guy for inspection. “I need to see the device as well, to match up serial numbers.” John handed it over, while saying, “If you want to hear what started this ruckus, it’s on my laptop already.” Pointing at Dorothy and Pixy, he further said, “these two need to hear it anyway, so you may as well join in.” The man just nodded. At that, John waved the two women over, and hit play.

After it had played out, John stepped between the ambulance Johan was in and Dorothy saying, “It ain’t worth it Dot.” If looks could catch someone on fire, Johan would be ashes by now and John would be scorched for standing between them.

The Deputy finally realized how volatile the situation was, and told the ambulance driver and the Deputy riding with him, to get Johan out of there. As the ambulance was leaving, Jose pulled up, gawking at the scene. After John caught him up on events, he said “Now I need to call Carl and find out if we still have a job or not. Jose knew Carl Worthington was the company owner and CEO, so he just said, “If he tries to back Johans play, don’t even think about asking me to finish this clusterfuck.”

John looks at him at said “No problems there” as he dug out his phone again calling Carl.

When the line picked up, John said “Carl, it’s John. We have a class one goat rope going on here, and I’m guessing Johan has kept you in the dark” as he’s connecting the hotspot to his laptop. “I’m sending you a file, when you get done with listening to it, call me back” as he clicked the send button.

Carl said “John, we will work it out, whatever it is.”

“Maybe, but so you know, Johan pulled some shit to try to fire me, then assaulted me in the job trailer. He’s been arrested and is on his way to the hospital. You’ll understand after you review the file that just finished uploading. Gotta go Carl. Call me when you get done reviewing it.”

“Sure thing John, your email just popped up, bye for now” and at that the line went dead.

Pixy hugged him with tears in her eyes saying “I just want to weld, why do these bastards keep fucking with me?”

Dot gave John the hairy eyeball at the hug Pixy gave him, John just shrugged his shoulders as if to say ‘What can I do about?’

A random thought entered his mind at that time. “Pixy, what was that engine noise I heard from your tool bed just before captain asshat appeared?

There was a quizzical look on everyone’s face but Pixy’s at that. She replied “it’s a propane motor for my aircon unit” she replied as she led John over, motioning him to climb an access ladder to the top of her rig’s tool bed.

Climbing up, he saw an access panel on top and opened it. Looking inside he saw a small motor hooked to what looked like a car air conditioning compressor. Connected to the motor was a run of hoses leading to her torch gas bottles. Climbing back down, he walked around to her bottle rack looking at what was a custom gas manifold that split off to the reel of torch leads, with a small line leading back to the engine. Looking into her backseat area, he saw a cut down version of a car air conditioning unit sticking out from where the rear sliding glass would have been on a stock F250 crew cab.

He looked over at her with a question in his eyes.

In answer to the unasked question, “That fifth wheel you saw at the park belongs to Mary. I’ve had to live in this rig for a time. The propane is cheaper than running the truck engine. The unit can heat as well, which came in real handy working in the Dakotas last winter.”

John replies “That’s a damn good idea. I may just steal that design for my own rig.” She just smiled and nodded her head.

John looked over at Jose, “We’ll find out in a few minutes if I’m still working here.”

Turning to Pixy he said, “Don’t worry about work. I have enough leads that I can have you on a job tomorrow.”

Dot pops up saying “That won’t be necessary John. In fact, the local iron heads are looking for a crew for the new casino downtown. I know you still have your book. I can have you both on the job in the morning if Carl wants to be an asshat.”

“They already called me Dot. I turned them down after the asshole said they wanted me, but not that spic I ran with. They can practice self-fornication for all I care after that. Fuck-em.”

At that his phone rang. Seeing it was Carl he answered on speaker phone “You’re on speaker Carl, with me are Dot, Alex, and Jose.”

Carl replied “First thing, nobody is fired except Johan. Second, Dot, what do you want to do about any grievance.”

Dot replied “That’s up to Alex, though I think some compensation is in order after all the shit she’s taken over this. I can already tell you, she’ll be the only hand left after I recall all the others.”

Carl directs his reply to John, “What does that do to the project John?”

John answered “Once we get through the rock shelf, it will get back on schedule and stay there. We only lack 200 welds, and with Alex, myself, and Jose, we can get it done, as long as the IUOE operators don’t strike over this mess, we’ll make it on time. You’ll need to pony up a bit extra for Jose as I’ll be welding instead of pushing this cluster. Jose will have to take over my duties as a result. I understand Al has a new hand that puts us back into phased array inspection, so that won’t be holding us up anymore either.”

Carl replied “If you can pull that off, I’ll cut a bonus for each of you at double your current rates. How’s that sound?”

Looking around, John sees Pixy and Jose nodding, then replied “That being the case, consider it done. When will the blasters be through?”

“We are pulling the permits now as per our contingency agreement with the state. The engineers will be out there tomorrow to ‘correctly’ survey the rest of the route to the pumping station. Thank you, guys, for sticking with me on this. It’s a big deal for our company.”