All of the welders at Witherton Shipyard were a little crazy. It seemed to be part of their job description. Their faces were dirty, and the skin on their forearms was marked up with the tiny burns that came from fusing molten metal together. When the shipyard won a new contract to repair a cargo ship (or perhaps a tanker), all of the welders went to work, clambering into every corner of the boat while dodging gigantic cranes lifting several tons of steel at a time. From as far away as 51st street you could see them all working away on board some enormous vessel in the dry dock. They looked as busy as a bunch of ants feasting on some leftovers at a picnic, climbing up and down tree-house type ladders into random cubby holes with dense packs weighing up to fifty pounds. As if that wasn’t enough, they pulled heavy electrical cables for the welding equipment that weighed even more than the packs did. Only someone out of their mind would sign up for something like that.
The welders worked the hardest jobs. No other trade on the waterfront was forced to squeeze into as many tight places as they were, always being crammed into some of the most obscure areas on the boat. If any other tradesman in the shipyard was having a hard day he would just watch the welders for a few minutes and then say to himself, “Well, at least I’m not a welder.”
Mr. Tisdom, the welding instructor, said that welding was a calling. On the first day of training, he gave an inspiring speech worthy of Denzel Washington. “I didn’t choose welding as a profession,” he said, “It chose me.”
Jasmine Jacob wondered what he meant by that. She had gotten hired one month ago at Witherton after she completed the welding program at Fairfield Community College.
She put on her backpack of tools and climbed down a ladder to get to her job site. Her dark, brown eyes carefully watched each step as she descended into the inner hull of the ship.
Unlike most people, Jasmine had to take two trips to the job site in order to carry all of her tools because she was so small and petite.
But she was the perfect size for a welder. Being so tiny, she could get into the places that most other welders couldn’t.
She paused for a moment and tucked her braids under her still-shiny hardhat. At Witherton, a shiny hardhat meant that you were a rookie, and subject to rib-jabbing from the veterans. Some of the new hires even went so far as to purposely scrape the tops of theirs so they wouldn’t be made fun of by the old timers.
Jasmine thought that was silly. She knew that respect had to be earned, and she was willing to work for it.
When she climbed down to the bottom of the ladder she was confronted by a large, burly pipefitter. He took a big wad of mint flavored chewing tobacco and stuffed it into the corner of his mouth. Grinning from ear to ear, he spat with terrific force into a plastic coke bottle he was carrying. “Don’t that beat all,” he said, “I thought I’d never live to see the day the shipyard sent a girl to the waterfront.”
Jasmine rolled her eyes and shrugged off the comment, knowing that her sex had a long history in the welding business. But the pipefitter looked familiar to her. She saw the name “Little John” inscribed on his hard hat.
“Don’t mind Little John,” said an old, bearded electrician. He peeped out from behind a scaffold like a shy little gnome from the woods. “He’s just ignorant.”
“I know,” replied Jasmine, recalling that she and Little John had been at Fairfield together. “He’s probably still mad about getting washed out of welding school.”
The electrician snickered. “What?” He said with a toothless smile. The old man’s whole body shook as he laughed. He wiped the sweat off of his forehead and removed his hard hat. There were so many scratches on his that they all congealed into one mass at the top. He was a lifer.
“I didn’t wash out of welding school,” Little John said, “Besides, welding is a brainless trade anyways.”
“Brainless,” said the electrician. “Everything you do is brainless. You ain’t no fitter. You a fitter’s helper. Your boss reads the blueprint and you the one who holds it.”
Little John put his hands on his hips. “Well at least I don’t sleep on the job,” he said. A tiny vein began to stick out on the top of his forehead. He paused to spit in his bottle. Thick, brown liquid dribbled over his bottom lip. “I’m not gonna name any names,” he said, “But I know a certain someone who likes to take a little nap after lunch.”
Within a few seconds, the pipefitter and electrician were at each others’ throats, name-calling, yelling and pointing. The whole thing looked like a scene from The Three Stooges.
Jasmine shook her head and laughed. “I just hope they don’t start arguing about football,” she said.
Arguing about football was forbidden at Witherton. Of course, this rule had a history. Five years ago a foreman had written up a machinist for taunting a rigger about his weekend loss. The machinist retaliated against the foreman by filing a grievance to the Union. This started a chain reaction and scores of craftsmen swamped the Union with grievances about the company. A civil war erupted, and the salaried foremen pitted themselves against the hourly craftsmen. The higher ups flew in specialized HR personnel and spent thousands of dollars to avoid a strike. When the smoke settled, the rule was made: no arguing, in fact, no talking about football. The other subjects you couldn’t talk about were politics, pay raises and religion. But this rule only applied when workers were on the clock. As soon as the whistle blew for lunch, these topics were all people ever discussed.
Jasmine continued her journey to the job site and began setting up her tools. Within a half hour she was busy working with her welding shield down. She gazed through the dark lens, seeing nothing but the end of her torch manipulating the white hot molten metal wherever her hands desired. She was welding a piece of steel to the ceiling and dodged hot sparks coming down from overhead.
Jasmine became interested in welding when she learned that Witherton was hiring entry-level positions. She had attended a job fair and found out that as long as you had a clean record you could enter a two month long program through Fairfield’s welding school for free. After you were able to pass some basic tests, the shipyard let you in.
Mr. Tisdom, the welding instructor, said that Jasmine was a natural. She had good hand-eye coordination, and advanced past her classmates.
By now she was welding in every position imaginable and had started to master overhead welding. It took a lot of endurance to hold the torch in the same position for long periods of time, but Jasmine did daily workouts to build up her stamina.
After a few hours, the morning passed and Jasmine finished welding the overhead angle iron on her job. She was ready to move on to the next. Glancing at her phone, she saw it was 1130. There was enough time for her to get set up on a new job site before lunch. She called her foreman.
The raspy voice of a chain smoker answered on the other line. “Yeah?” He said.
“Hello, Malcom?” Jasmine asked, “I finished the overhead fillet on third deck. Where do you want me now?”
There was a brief pause as Malcolm rifled through some blueprints. “Ok,” he said, “I need you to go down into the inner bottom of the ship. Do you remember where you were at yesterday?”
“Yes.”
“Go to the same spot. Someone on second shift was supposed to finish that job up, but it never got done.”
“Ok,” replied Jasmine, “Bye.”
Malcolm hung up without any reply.
The inner bottom of the ship was the lowest part of the vessel, full of holes any regular sized person couldn’t fit into. But Jasmine could slide in and through them with relative ease. Though she had been on the job for only a month, she had already been in the inner bottom five times. Her small size was a valuable asset to the company.
She made her way down the flights of stairs as low as she could possibly go. When she came to the final set of stairs, she saw that the machinists had sealed off the main entry hatch. Their impact wrenches were lying on the deck where they had bolted the hatch down.
I’m going to have to find a different way down to the job. Jasmine thought. She looked around and found a tiny hole with a ladder.
Sliding in, she got on her hands and knees, inching her way through hole after hole. It reminded her of her old elementary school’s pet hamster squeezing into the mazes of plastic tunnels the kids had set up. Jasmine wasn’t claustrophobic, and that was a good thing. This was one of the questions the doctors had asked her when she took the physical examination for entrance into the company.
“Fear of heights?”
“No.”
“Claustrophobic?”
“No.”
“Any difficulty stooping, bending or crawling?”
“No.”
The shipyard was a young person’s game.
Jasmine entered into a dark, cramped compartment and turned on her flashlight. I’m guessing that my job is on the other side of this bulkhead. She said to herself.
As she continued to crawl, she thought she heard something. It sounded like an engine running.
That’s strange. She peeked her head through the next porthole into a new compartment. This was the area that her job was supposed to be in. It opened up into a more spacious room.
Before her was the gigantic shaft that turned the ship’s propeller and moved the whole boat through the water when it was underway.
Jasmine gazed at the magnificent piece of machinery. What’s that smell? She wondered.
Exhaust. Looking further in, she saw that the entire room was filled with it, and the sound of the engine was growing louder.
Jasmine fanned her face and coughed. What in the world is going on down here?
The compartment floor was covered with at least six inches of water. Leftover rain had come down and trapped itself in the bottom.
“Is anyone there?” Jasmine yelled. “Who left this engine running? They’ve sealed the entry hatch and there’s no ventilation.” She coughed some more and slid down into the compartment. Her feet became soaked as she splashed down into the freezing cold water. Jasmine hung her backpack on a piece of pipe and slogged over to the running engine. It was powering a pump that was shooting the rainwater out of a long black hose.
“Idiots,” Jasmine said. She looked all over for the kill switch on the engine. In a few seconds she found it and turned it off. “Don’t you people know anything about carbon monoxide?” She shook her head and coughed some more. “This is really dangerou . . .”
Jasmine stopped dead in her tracks and covered her mouth. A body was lying in the water. She scrambled over to get a glance at the face.
“Little John!” Jasmine screamed. She grabbed him by the shoulder.
He was out cold.
“Somebody help!” She called.
But there was no answer.
Jasmine checked the time. It was twelve o’clock and everyone was going to lunch. She ran over and checked John’s pulse. It was strong.
Good. Jasmine thought. She put her hand a few inches away from his mouth. He’s barely breathing. I don’t have much time. She tripped over a pipe and landed in the water. Her head felt dizzy. I’ve got to get out of here. She scrambled back up the wall to the porthole she had just entered through. Jasmine moved as fast as her tiny body would allow, slipping into one hole after the next until she was on the open deck directly overtop the compartment that Little John was in.
It was no use trying to open the main hatch. It was bolted down in twelve places. Jasmine paused for a moment to catch her breath and try to figure out what to do.
I should call Malcolm. She said to herself.
But she had no cell phone service down there.
I can’t just leave John down there. She thought. I don’t think there’s enough time. I’ve got to come up with something fast.
Jasmine’s eye caught a glimpse of a cutting torch located in the corner. She rushed over, turned on the gas and fired up the torch.
Putting on her welding shield, she adjusted the torch flame until its shape was sharp and blue. Pressing the torch trigger, she could hear the blast of pure oxygen coming through the nozzle.
She rushed over to the sealed hatch with torch in hand and started burning a hole through the thick steel–a hole big enough for Little John to fit through.
She was just starting to wonder how in the world she was going to drag Little John’s big body out from below when Malcolm showed up.
“What are you doing?” He hollered, “Everybody’s at lunch.”
“There’s a man down there!” Jasmine screamed. “He’s out cold and we have to get him topside—quick.”
Malcolm’s jaw dropped. He looked at the big hole Jasmine was burning into the deck, and then looked back at Jasmine. “Ok,” he said, “I got you.”
As Jasmine finished her cut, Malcolm grabbed a nearby hammer and knocked the remaining scrap metal away. From below came a big cloud of exhaust smoke which Malcolm fanned away.
Inside the hole Jasmine had just made was another set of stairs. Malcolm wasted no time in climbing down. “Call 911,” he ordered.
Jasmine punched the numbers into her phone, but the call wouldn’t go through. “Auuuggghhhhh!” She yelled in frustration. She could hear Malcolm dragging Little John’s body through the rain water down below.
She jumped down to help him. They both pushed and pulled Little John’s body up the stairs. Jasmine tried her phone one more time. She heard the phone start to dial and breathed a sigh of relief when she heard the dispatcher say “911, what’s your emergency?”
After explaining the situation to the dispatcher, an ambulance full of paramedics rushed to Witherton. The EMTs had a good relationship with the shipyard and were trained in assisting for emergencies related to the industry. Hooking up an oxygen mask to Little John’s face, they carried him out on a stretcher.
“It sure was lucky you happened to be where you were.” Malcolm said to Jasmine, “Any longer and we might have been reading Little John’s obituary.”
“What was he doing down there?” Jasmine asked.
“Little John was sent down there to operate the pump to get rid of the rainwater,” Malcolm said, “He fell asleep on the job and the machinists accidentally sealed off the main hatch to the compartment he was in.”
“He slept through all that?” Asked Jasmine.
“You’d be surprised. With no ventilation down there, L.J. became a victim of carbon monoxide poisoning.”
“Will he be alright?”
“Yes, thanks to you. That was a very brave thing you did today.”
Jasmine shrugged her shoulders. She was ready to go home.
When the work day ended, all of the shipyard workers made their way out and into the parking lot. They looked like a herd of cattle being prodded through the turn stiles, one cow at a time. An ambulance flashed its red lights in the parking lot.
Parked nearby the ambulance, Jasmine saw a blue van with big yellow letters on the side. News Channel Six it said. As she made her way to her car, a slick looking man with a microphone approached her. He was followed by a TV camera. They had been chasing the ambulance in hopes of a story.
“Wow. You guys don’t miss a beat, do you?” Jasmine said.
“We’re always on the lookout for a good story,” the reporter replied. He extended his hand. “Dean Harvey,” he said, “News Channel Six. Could you spare a few minutes for an interview?”
Jasmine shook the reporter’s hand and gave a nervous laugh.
Mr. Harvey smiled, hoping to bolster what he thought was Jasmine’s lack of confidence. “Is anything the matter?” He asked.
“Well,” Jasmine said, “It’s just that I remember you from before. You’ve already interviewed me once.”
“What? Are you sure?” Mr. Harvey looked confused.
“Yes, Mr. Harvey. You have,” Jasmine replied.
“I’m sorry, do I know you?” Mr. Harvey studied Jasmine’s face for a brief second.
“I applied for a job at Channel Six four months ago,” Jasmine said. “You told me that you needed someone with a Master’s Degree. I’m still paying off student loans from my Bachelor’s.”
Mr. Harvey stepped back. “Oh, uh, sorry,” he said. He paused for a moment, made a quick signal to the cameraman to start rolling, and then shoved the microphone into Jasmine’s face. “What happened here today?” He asked.
Jasmine recounted the story for the evening news. Her composure while on camera was quite impressive for being so unprepared. She was a natural.
When they were all done, the cameraman packed up his equipment and headed back to the van.
But Mr. Harvey lingered a little and started to smile at Jasmine. “Hey,” he said, “You know, maybe we were a little too hasty before with our decision in that job interview. You seem like a sharp girl. I could put a good word in for you. Would you be interested in coming back?”
Jasmine hesitated. She had gotten a four-year degree in journalism with hopes of becoming a reporter one day, but in her mind she traveled back to the first day of welding school. She had never held a welding torch before, but Mr. Tisdom put his hands over hers and guided her every move until she could get the feel of it. “You’re going too fast,” Mr. Tisdom had said, “You need to slow down and get into a rhythm. Remember, welding is an art.” She recalled passing her first weld test in the flat position, and then working really hard to pass the vertical welding test. When she finally passed the hardest test of all, the overhead, Mr. Tisdom celebrated by buying pizza for the entire class. He was always inspiring his students to do better, and he never stopped giving them helpful tips. “Make sure your heat is set right on the welding machine,” he said, “That way you’ll get the perfect-looking weld bead.” Jasmine could see her instructor’s face the moment he told her that welding was a calling.
She now felt like she understood what he meant. It was something she couldn’t put it into words. Something only learned by experience.
The reporter stood there, waiting.
“I appreciate the offer,” Jasmine said, “But I’m going to pass.”
Mr. Harvey shook his head and looked at Jasmine’s dirty coveralls. “You’re crazy,” he said.
“I know,” Jasmine replied, “It comes with the job description.” She walked over to her Toyota Camry, turned the key into the ignition and drove home.