Second Time's the Charm

“Still well above boiling point,” Jon said. Two degrees down. He had a window of another six to eight. He had to work fast.

“Gas is off.” First things first. Sliding under the vat, Jon saw the problem at once. “There’s a hairline crack in the main line,” he said. Not good news. The line had been down for what was only supposed to be occasional cleaning the month before. It wasn’t due to be down again for quite a while.

Sliding out from under the vat, Jon wiped his hands on the brown cotton pants he’d bought from a surplus store and grabbed a roll of heavy-duty duct tape off his cart.

“Wait a minute, what are you doing with that?” Mark asked.

“Taping the line.”

“No way, man. There’ll be gas left in the line. Static electricity could cause a spark and then?”

“It’s a minor crack. Just enough to throw the safety valve. We cover the crack, get the vat back online for the few minutes it still has to boil. We can shut down the gas as soon as it tips for pouring into the cooler.” The juice would sit in another vat to cool before traveling through a series of pipes into a vat where it would be sugared.

“At least that way we save the product,” Jon said, already heading back under the vat.

Mark was right beside him with a gas detector in his hand. “If this shows no gas leak, then fine,” he said.

Jon pointed to the damage. Mark checked the damaged spot for leakage and then proceeded to make his way around the other cylinders.

“We’re wasting time, man.” Jon didn’t want lost product on his watch. He couldn’t afford the write-up on his file.

“Lives are more important than money.” While frustrating, Mark’s reply wasn’t completely unexpected. Or completely unwelcome, either.

A couple of hours later, as Jon was once again under the now-empty-and-cooled vat, cutting out the damaged piece of line to replace it with a new section, Mark was right under there with him.

“Aren’t there some other folks who could use your eagle eye?” Jon asked, only half teasing. “If you’re not careful, you’re going to make me think that you don’t trust my work.”

“Has nothing to do with your work,” Mark said. “This is a gas line. A fire hazard. You work, I monitor, and we both go home tonight.”

Remembering Mark’s past, Jon understood. Mark had lost a close friend to an explosion on a line under his supervision. Back East, in the little town where he’d grown up.

Bearing down on his cutters with enough force to make it through the piping with one thrust, Jon recognized the warning signs of trouble.

Internal trouble.

Emotional attachment, whether it be friendship with Mark or something different with Lillie, brought risk. Especially, it seemed, for him. Once he started to care about someone, he got careless, quit watching his back so much, did things to please that person, lost his good judgment.

Threading new pipe into the coupler joining it to the existing gas line, he checked his work.

And double-checked. Mark slid out from under the vat after him and waited while he turned the gas back on.

“Let’s give it five and check for leaks,” Mark said, which left them standing there with nothing to do while they waited.

“How much do you think we lost today?” he asked his superior. Work was about dollars and cents for the company. Losing too much would cost him his job.

“Not much,” Mark told him. “Cleaning was already completed on nine. The switchover only took a few minutes. In the long run, we’ll show profit,” he added. “With nine done early, both will be back up before projected.”

Jon nodded, more relieved than he’d ever admit. He needed this job if he was going to stay in school. His scholarship covered his living expenses, but only his. And if he dropped out he’d have to pay back what he’d already spent: a semester’s tuition, rent, books and other expenses.

“I didn’t get a chance to ask when you picked up Abe last night, but how was your evening?”

“I put the doors in, no problem.” Jon had mentioned Lillie to Mark, but so far, Mark hadn’t asked any questions.

Leaning against a metal column, his head covered in the safety helmet everyone in the plant wore anytime they were on the floor, Mark crossed his feet at the ankles and grinned at Jon. “I knew you’d have no problem getting the doors in,” Mark said. “I wasn’t sure you’d actually been able to meet up with Lillie and get it done. So how’d it go?” Mark asked again. “Did you have dinner with her again?”

He never should have told Mark about the trip to the pub the week before. “Yeah. She made a salad.”

“You stayed home?”