He nodded. I started to walk away when he called out to me.
“William,” he said. “Generator number one has a new board. Generator number three’s board is a week and six days old. As prone to failure as these boards have been, the current failure rate is outside the normal distribution by at least three deviations. I know what I am doing here.”
Avery had a very narrow band of emotions. The bookends of that spectrum were ferocious and cold: he was quick to anger and slow to empathize. This made it difficult for people to relate to him, much less like him. Titouan’s issues with Avery weren’t based on Avery’s lack of interpersonal communications and poor relationship building skills. Titouan needed a patsy.
Avery didn’t have the faculty of manipulation, dishonesty, and underhandedness to understand Titouan’s real motives. He couldn’t understand how Titouan wasn’t so much impugning his ability to carry out his job as he was using Avery’s mostly minor lapses as a way to fix his own managerial misjudgments, while also staying in the good graces of Miley, who had already shared his displeasure about Avery. Win win for Titouan.
Titouan tried to hide the production reports from me, but I had access to the network drive at corporate headquarters. I saw the downtime reports. Beginning the day after Titouan had culled several workers due to what he claimed were productivity gains, there had been a marked increase in downtime at the Patch. In nearly every instance, the downtime was attributed to activities related directly to Avery and the maintenance department. Avery handled communications, networking, and mostly all the electrical work, including all the power generation. At that point, I was mostly running the maintenance department. Not only could Titouan knock off Avery, but I was also in his crosshairs. Again, win win.
“This simply is not possible. There has to be something else going on here.” The look on his face as he said that, for the first time since his father died, told me he was grappling with feelings he was ill-suited to deal with. That worried me greatly.
“Come on, bud. You got this.”
He nodded.
As I walked away, something Avery said struck me odd. Careful to control my tone, especially given his frail mental condition, I asked, “You only mentioned two of the three generators. What’s the matter with the third?”
He explained how we had three main generators, only two of which were needed at any given time. Generator number two wasn’t working due to something unrelated to the control board. I guess I should’ve known that, but I’d grown detached and disinterested. That and Titouan taking over my job as drill superintendent a few weeks into the rotation had further sullied an already bad attitude towards all things oil drilling – all things Miley.
There was too much bouncing around in my head in that moment to fully register what he had said. I left it at that.
“I’m not sure what’s going on, Avery, but I know whatever it is, you can handle it. Don’t beat yourself up.” I gave a quick scan of the area, making sure the wrong ears wouldn’t hear what I said. “Titouan’s an asshole. He’ll do everything in his power to put this on you. Don’t give him any ammunition to use against you.” I waited to make sure he was paying attention to me. “Remember what I just told you, okay?”
He nodded.
“I’ll leave you to it. I’ll make sure Titouan knows what’s going on.” I handed him my flashlight. “I’m pretty sure you’ll need this more than me.”
Occupied with his thoughts, he took the flashlight without looking at me and slowly walked back to the COM shack.
***
I heard before seeing someone approaching me. Before I could ask who it was, a harsh New England accent agitatedly asked, “What the hell is going on?”
“Glad to see you, too, Simon.”
“Well, William?”
“Damn generators, again. Avery’s working on them as we speak.”
“People are pissed, especially Harvey. He was watching porn on his tablet in the Commons again when the power went out. You should’ve heard him. He was cussing and pitching a damn fit about how Avery must’ve been doing an experiment or something that caused his tablet to stop working. Not that smart of a guy. Still, all kinds of strange things going on tonight, William.”
Choosing to ignore the minefield that was Harvey and his porn habit, I said, “Yeah, I’m not sure what the hell’s going on. Could be static electricity or something, you know?”
“Yeah…” He started to walk away but quickly turned back towards me and called out, “Hey, while I have you here--”
Simon was a bit of a talker. He was one of the better riggers, so I usually bit hard on a tough stick and took his long-winded conversations like a man, but I didn’t have time that night. “I hate to be rude, Simon, but have you seen Sam or Jack?”
Irritated, he said, “Yeah, they’re over at the dock drinking. Can’t blame them with this shitty leadership.”
“Thanks. I gotta run.”
He kept talking with each step I took, until I eventually shouted, “Sorry—can’t hear you over the wind.”
“Jackass,” he said.
By the time I got to the lean-to, it was snowing harder than I’d ever seen it snow at the Patch. It reminded me of my days staying with my aunt and uncle in Michigan. We would get these storms my uncle said were snow squalls. The snow would fall so thick and hard you couldn’t see more than an inch or two in front of you. That was awesome as a kid. It was a little different when you were older and had to work in it.
I banged on the door, but it was locked. “Come on in,” called a man with a long, Eastern Kentucky drawl.
“I’d come on in if the damn door was unlocked,” I said, as I kicked the hell
