B Farmer - Descent

When I left Avery the first time to look for Titouan, he was at a loss as to how to deal with the unfolding situation. After the brow beating Titouan had given him that turmoil had evolved into unbridled anger. Knowing him as I did, I knew the next step in his evolutionary transformation would be rage with a chance of violence. Avery, even with his terrible temper, was generally non-confrontational. His many years of playground conditioning at the hands of bullies, jocks, and greater wimps had caused him to shy away from fighting. But there were limits, and Titouan was pushing all the wrong buttons.

“Enough of the bullshit already. I don’t care whose fault it is because at this point we’re all fucked.”

Titouan acted as if he were going to walk away, but instead of leaving he started pacing again, back and forth, all the while muttering under his breath and working his hands in frantic motions. High-stress positions weren’t in his wheelhouse.

The elephant in the room was evacuation. With the outfit I worked for, though, that would come with complications. Miley was not your typical business owner. He didn’t get rich by being a nice guy. If I were to tell you he crushed his competition, your natural proclivity might be to read that metaphorically. Don’t make that mistake. He had a mob mentality of running a business, especially in his later years.

Miley was making a hard push into the Arctic, and the word on the street was he was strapped for cash. Any downtime at the Patch, which by that time had become his biggest cash cow, would only exacerbate cash flows. With the potential long downtime because of the bad boards, which could be a month or longer, it was unclear how Miley would react. I feared reprisals.

I was well on my way to being out the door before the power went out. I had jobs lined up for Avery and me back in Indiana. The reprisals and blacklisting wouldn’t affect us, but they most certainly would my close friends. Tom and Sam had worked in the oil industry since Tom graduated high school. That’s all they knew. Jack worked in some construction, but with the economy like it was, he would be lucky to find a job.

As the thoughts of reprisals poured through my mind, something odd occurred to me. Avery had told me how one of the generators was down because of bad bearings. Why hadn’t he thought to check that generator’s control board? Surely it was good, and if it were, why couldn’t it be used in one of the ones with bad boards , I wondered. We wouldn’t be able to resume full operations with one operating generator, but we wouldn’t have to evacuate, either. It would save a massive headache for everyone.

“Avery, you said one of the generators was on maintenance because of a bad bearing, right?”

“Yes. Bearings Titouan had not yet ordered.”

Titouan stopped his pacing but didn’t respond to Avery’s barb.

As much as I was trying not to further stoke the dragon that was Avery, the pressure I felt finally let go in a torrent. “Well, take the damn board out of the one needing bearings, and put it in one of the two with bad boards. We should’ve already been doing this. Let’s get this done, bud.”

Titouan laughed, smacked himself in the face, and started rubbing his temples after the damage was done, talking to himself all the while.

“That is a bad call, William. The board is currently being held flat. There is a good chance that once the screws holding the board flat are removed, it might warp and become unusable. The safer choice would be to take the good bearings out of one of the generators with the bad board.”

“How long will that take?”

“Four to eight hours to take the bearings out.”

“Versus taking just the board out?” Titouan asked.

“An hour or a little more,” Avery said.

Titouan laughed again. “You make the fucking call, William. I’m not going to be responsible for his incompetence anymore. I refuse.”

“You can’t have it both ways, Titouan. Either you’re running this place or you’re not. If you are then I suggest you do your job and tell us what to do.”

“Fine. I’m telling you to make the call. You’re fucking maintenance, aren’t you?”

I exhaled deeply. “If I’m making the call, there’s no need for you to stay here. All you’re doing is making this harder.”

“I’m not going anywhere, and you’re going to make the damn call. This is your baby.”

“You’re something else, you…” I stopped myself from making things worse.

I counted to ten or a hundred before finally turning away from Titouan’s sour-puss stare. “Take out the bearings and put them in the one with the working controller. Tom and Jack should be here any moment to help.”

Titouan stood uncomfortably close to Avery as he worked. To Avery’s credit, he was doing an amazing job of controlling himself. Titouan, on the other hand, was fit to be tied. Every passing second infuriated him a little more. So when Avery stopped what he was doing with the bearings and moved to the control panel, Titouan had finally had enough.

“What the fuck are you doing? I know enough about these generators to know the bearings aren’t in the control box.”

“It is too cold out here to take the bearings out only to find the control board is bad. I need to check this board before I go any farther,” Avery said, continuing what he was doing, and not bothering to make eye contact with Titouan.

I asked one more time for Titouan to leave. Much like Avery, he refused to make eye contact. His scowl was focused solely on Avery.

“This board is bad, as well,” Avery said, looking at me with wide eyes and shaking his head. “We are… we are down for the foreseeable future.”

There was a quick blur of motion. So taken aback by what was happening, I was late to react to Titouan charging Avery. When I finally did get around to reacting, I slipped and fell to the ground, face planting into the quickly accumulating snow. Luckily Titouan slipped as well, allowing me time to regain my footing. I stretched out my left hand and got enough of his right ankle to make him fall to the ground.

“You’re sabotaging this shit, aren’t you?” Titouan yelled as he floundered in the snow, slipping and falling at least two times before finally finding his footing.

By this point, I was back on my feet. Titouan bared his teeth as he shot his hands towards Avery’s throat. I was able to grab hold of him just before he reached his throat. Enraged at being kept away from his target, Titouan kicked, bit, and finally spit in Avery’s direction. Apparently, it was an accurate shot as it hit Avery in the only uncovered part of his face besides his eyes: his mouth. Avery coughed and spat.

Avery wiped his mouth and with wide, angry eyes dashed towards us. I turned Titouan away from Avery just in time that the screwdriver meant for Titouan found another target. A pain shot through my shoulder, down my arm, and into my fingertips. He’d hit a nerve, but with my heavy parka it didn’t feel too deep or like it had done too much damage to my shoulder. Still, it stung like hell.

In one motion I slung the bastard Titouan as far as I could throw him, then grabbed Avery’s hand and slung him in the other direction. I then plucked the screwdriver from my shoulder and threw it in an angry arc towards the Arctic Ocean.

“Stop it, you fucking idiots! Jesus!” I screamed. I was getting ready to tell Titouan exactly what I thought of him when I heard someone yell, “What the hell is going on over there?”

“I’ll tell you what’s going on. Avery’s crazy. He’s sabotaging our equipment… trying to ruin my life,” Titouan yelled angrily, his labored breaths forming ice clouds that obscured his crazed features.