The Good Hand: A Memoir of Work, Brotherhood, and Transformation in an American Boomtown by Michael Patrick F. Smith

Author:Michael Patrick F. Smith [Smith, Michael Patrick F.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780008399450
Google: hE71DwAAQBAJ
Published: 2021-02-16T03:39:49+00:00

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it’s supposed to be an assisted lift. The mud pump is so heavy that both the haul truck and the gin truck should be tied onto it before it is lowered off the truck’s trailer. But the haul truck’s bridle—the inch-thick steel cable lowering the tank—slips before the gin truck is attached, and the full weight of the mud pump drops onto the bridle, 140,000 pounds of steel, nearly the same weight as the space shuttle. There’s a dull sound like a thwack! And the cable strains visibly.

“Get back, dummies!” hollers the Wildebeest. I’m standing at the connection point with another hand, a muscular kid with braces. I catch the Beest’s expression and I back away quickly, but the other hand climbs onto the trailer and moves to adjust the bridle, his legs straddling the steel line. “Get the fuck off there, dumb fuck! Get outta there, dummy!” The Beest leans out his truck’s window screaming red-faced at the kid. The kid looks at him, then looks at the bridle. He seems frozen, his expression blank. “Get the fuck off there, goddammit!” Finally, it clicks for the hand, he shakes his head as if waking from a dream, and he hops down from the trailer, backing far away from it. We watch the taut cable strain from the pressure of the mud tank as it is lowered to the dirt.

“You ever seen a bridle snap back on a guy?” the Wildebeest, still sitting in the driver’s seat, a thick arm resting on the window, asks the kid.

The kid shakes his head. He’s in the dirt, looking up at the man. “No,” he says.

“Well, I have. You get to a point where you get sick of cleaning dead bodies off this motherfucker.”

The kid’s expression doesn’t change. It’s a benefit of the hard hat and safety glasses. Nobody reveals nothing. He moves off and the day grinds on.

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