The Stoker

The factory gate was behind him. He stood in the parking lot and looked at his hands. The right index finger was gone at the first knuckle—flat where the stamping die had come down, nineteen years ago, on a Tuesday. The left hand was whole. Both hands were calloused and stained with grease that no amount of scrubbing would remove.

He stood there ten minutes. Then he got into his Chevy and drove to the trailer park.

The radio was broken. It played static no matter what button he pressed. He didn't fix it. Static was something. Static was better than the silence.

He called Linda on Sunday. Every Sunday, same time. 7:00 PM his time. 9:00 PM her time in Boise.

"Hey," she said.

"Hey."

"How are you?"

"Fine."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

Silence.

"Boise okay?"

"It's okay. The air is dry. My lungs feel better."

"That's good."

"Yeah."

More silence. He looked at the cracked dashboard. The crack ran from the radio to the air vent. It had been there since before the factory closed.

"I'm starting a new treatment next week," she said.

"Okay."

"It's a clinical trial. The doctor says it might help."

"That's good."

"Frank."

"Yeah."

"Don't worry."

"I'm not worrying."

"You sound like you're worrying."

He looked at his hands. The grease stains were permanent. "I'm fine, Linda."

Another silence. Longer this time. He could hear breathing on the other end—her breathing, slow and shallow, like she was trying not to take up too much air.

"I love you," she said.

"I love you too."

The call ended. He sat in the trailer and listened to the dial tone for a while. Then he hung up.

His friend Ray had a cousin in Maine who needed help at a fishing operation. Port Lincoln. Small town. Population maybe eight hundred. Ray said: "You can sleep in the crew quarters. Food's included. Pay is cash." Frank said: "When do I leave?" Ray said: "Tomorrow."

The drive to Maine took four days. He drove through the night whenever he could. When he couldn't drive, he slept in the Chevy—sometimes at a rest stop, sometimes in a Walmart parking lot, sometimes on the side of a highway with no name and no streetlights and no signs for a hundred miles in any direction.

Port Lincoln was grey. The sky was grey. The water was grey. The buildings were grey wood that had been grey for fifty years and had turned more grey from salt air and sun and rain. The main street had three closed shops, a pawn store, and a gas station with a coffee machine that made coffee that tasted like burnt water.

The fishing operation was on the harbour. A crew of four guys, all older than him, all from somewhere else—Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, one from Boston who'd moved up twenty years ago and never left. They gave him a bunk in the crew quarters—a room six feet by eight with three metal bunks and a window that looked out at the water.

The boiler was in a separate building at the edge of the harbour. A small rectangular building with rusted corrugated iron walls and frosted glass windows. Inside was a boiler that looked like it had been built when Frank's father was a boy. It was tall—maybe eight feet—and cylindrical, covered in black and rust-red paint that was peeling in places. A pressure gauge on the front read numbers in a font that Frank didn't recognize. Pipes ran from the top and sides, connecting to other pipes that disappeared into the walls of the main building.

The old man who tended it introduced himself as Haggerty. But nobody called him Haggerty. Nobody called him anything. He was just "the old man" or "that guy" or, if you were being polite, "Mr. Haggerty." He was seventy-two, had been tending this boiler since 1989, and had never taken a day off.

"Three AM," he said on Frank's first day. "You get up at three. You check the pressure. You add coal. You refill the water tank. You check the pressure again. You wipe the sweat off your face. You wait twenty minutes. You check the pressure again. If it's at eighty-five, you're good. If it's not, you adjust the air intake and wait another twenty."

"Eighty-five what?"

"Pounds per square inch. PSI."

"Every night?"

"Every night. Three AM. No exceptions."

Frank nodded. He said okay. He did not ask why.

The first night, he set his alarm for 2:30. He woke up at 2:58. The crew quarters were cold—the heating system in Port Lincoln was unreliable, and the wind off the water made everything feel colder than it was. He put on two flannel shirts, pulled on a wool sweater, and walked to the boiler building.

The iron door was cold when he opened it. Inside, the boiler building was 70 degrees—warmer than the quarters, because of the boiler. He could see his breath for the first thirty seconds, and then it stopped.

He checked the pressure gauge. 82 PSI. Below the target. He picked up the coal shovel. The coal pile was against one wall—big pile, black and dusty, smelling like wet earth and something sharper. He scooped coal into the firing chamber. The metal was hot through the iron door. He added water from the fill valve. He checked the gauge. 84. He waited. He checked again. 85. He wiped his face. His hands were black with coal dust that would not come off. He sat on a crate and waited for 3:20, when he would check one more time and then go back to bed.

The second night was the same. The third night was the same. By the second week, Frank's body had adjusted. He woke at 2:55 without the alarm. He walked to the boiler building in the dark, his footsteps making no sound on the frozen gravel. He opened the door. He checked the pressure. He added coal. He refilled the water. He checked the pressure. He wiped his face. He sat on the crate. The coal dust had settled into the lines on his palms and would never come out. He didn't mind.

He called Linda on Sunday.

"How's the boiler?" she asked.

"It works."

"Does it keep you warm?"

"In there, yes."

"Are you eating?"

"I'm eating."

"You sound thin."

"I'm fine, Linda."

"Okay."

Sunday again. Two weeks later.

"The treatment starts next week," she said.

"Okay."

"I'm nervous."

"I know."

"Do you think it'll work?"

He thought about the boiler. Eighty-five PSI. That was the target. Sometimes it was 84. Sometimes 86. But mostly it was 85. You adjusted the air intake. You waited. You checked again.

"I think it'll work," he said.

That night, the boiler had a problem. The pressure gauge was bouncing between 80 and 90. Up and down. Up and down. Frank checked the coal feed—it was fine. He checked the water level—it was fine. He checked the air intake valve—it was loose. He tightened it with a wrench. The gauge dropped to 78. He loosened it a quarter turn. 83. Tightened. 80. Loosened. 86.

He stood in front of the boiler for forty minutes, adjusting, waiting, checking. The building was hot now—maybe 85 degrees. Sweat ran down his back. His flannel shirt was stuck to his skin. The coal dust mixed with the sweat and made grey streaks down his arms.

The gauge settled at 85.

He sat on the crate. He waited. He checked the gauge. 85. He went back to the quarters and slept.

Sunday. He called Linda.

"How's the treatment?"

"Starting Monday. The doctor said the first round might make me tired. Nausea. Maybe fever."

"That's normal."

"Frank."

"Yeah."

"I'm scared."

He looked at his hands. The coal dust was in the lines of his palms. The grease from the factory was in the lines of his left hand. His right index finger was missing at the first knuckle. He had hands that had done things for nineteen years and then had nowhere to go, and now they were black with coal dust in a building in a town that didn't appear on most maps.

"I'll be here," he said.

"Every night?"

"Every night."

"Three AM?"

"Three AM."

He hung up. He drove to the harbour and stood on the dock and looked at the water. It was grey. It was cold. It was moving. Nothing had changed. Nothing had not changed. He went back to the crew quarters and slept.

At 2:55, he woke up. He put on two flannel shirts. He walked to the boiler building. He opened the iron door. He checked the pressure.

85 PSI.

He added coal. He refilled the water. He checked the gauge. He wiped his face. He sat on the crate and waited for the next check. The building was hot. The boiler hummed. Outside, the harbour was dark and the wind was blowing and the water was grey and nothing had changed.

Author Note & Copyright: