"Fuck it is hot" muttered Fletcher as she hoisted another section of scaffold. Lines of sweat trickled down her arms before disappearing into the cuff of her leather work gloves. As she began the long trudge to the opposite end of the oil derrick, she looked back across the Gulf in the general direction of Nawlins. Didn't seem like six weeks she left the lovely Hotdish and Sis in the Big Easy with a teary goodbye. "Yeah, I'll miss you too" she said, but she wasn't really sure. She just had to get away. "Maybe I'll be back. You know. Later like." They said they understood. Yeah, right.
For all they knew, she was in Albuquerque like she told them.
As she made her way across the platform, she felt the heat of the deck through her grease-stained Timberlands. The air was thick with bituminous unburnt natural gas and the heat radiating off the metal pipes. The horizon undulated as she looked up from the catwalk; it made her feel a beautiful kind of seasick. One thing was for sure: there was no turning back. The Guzzi dealer would surely be after her ass, as would the IRS.
Fletcher barely noticed the clanging of the bells as she rounded the corner. A breeze was blowing up from the south, where cumulus clouds were rapidly ascending "There might be good work in Cuba after this rig gets built."
"Fletcher!" called out one of the marblemouthed hardhats from
the opposite catwalk. "Sheila's looking for you, and she don't sound
happy!" Fletcher set down the section along the other, neatly stacked
aligned sections and looked down at the waves lapping the concrete piles
beneath her. "Mother fuck. What the hell does she want now?"