Repairs Under Pressure

D. M. Kofer

It was hot, and we were parched. The sun seared the Idaho desert like an oven set to broil; baking my skin red, wringing sweat, dry-roasting grass and fragrant sagebrush. There was no water because my uncle and I had a water pump halfway out of a well. He was sufering too, his thinning red hair soaked under his hardhat. “I need a break,” I said, putting down a pair of two-foot pipe wrenches. The work order said: Low pressure. Air in water. My uncle had said, ‘Probably a hole in the pipe.’ We were working behind a service truck itted with a tower and winch, extracting 21-foot lengths – called joints - of steel pipe and checking them for holes. Hence the wrenches. Two men made for a quicker job; one ran the hoist while the other unscrewed and wrangled pipe. “It’s not breaktime yet,” by uncle said. “Bet you had plenty of breaks at that liberal college.” I swallowed a retort embittered by the heat, and went to the cab anyway to slosh some warm water into my mouth. I eyed my water bottle, mentally rationing it for the rest of the job. It’s honest work. Folks build a home in the country, but there’s rarely any public water outside of town. And groundwater in Idaho can be deep – hundreds of feet below ground, tapped by a well and pumped to the surface. I walked back. “You done yet?” My uncle again, dirty and sweating, glaring at me as if the worth of a man is how dirty and sweaty he gets. I swallowed another retort, adjusted my hardhat, and hefted my wrenches. “Bet you voted Democrat so you could get your free stuf,” he said. In my mind, I smack him with a pipe wrench. Instead, I channel the anger into my wrenches, breaking old pipe grease with mad and muscle. There’s no repairing a broken piece of pipe – it has to be replaced. Hoist, unscrew, set aside. We ind the leak. Rust ate a pinhole in the steel, and water pressure had blown it out. “Better pull it all and make sure there aren’t any more.” I agree. Silently, because I’m irritated. I am done working with my uncle,

but better another hour to get it right, than four to do it twice. Hoist, unscrew, set aside. Hoist, unscrew, set aside. The heat is sweltering, the truck exhaust sufocating. Each minute is an hour. My face and shirt are dripping, my arms trembling from the weight of the wrenches. We reach the end - a sleek metal pump and motor threaded onto the pipe. “Here it is, now you can go take your democrat union break.” “At least if I were union, I’d get more than ten bucks an hour. With no beneits.” The words spilled before I could catch them. “I’ll let you know when you’re worth more than ten bucks an hour.” I had it. I threw my wrenches down with a clank. “So turning a wrench is worth ten bucks, but you’re making thirty doing what – pulling levers?!” I swore at him, and stormed of, as much to hydrate as to get away. He said nothing, but I could tell my uncle was mad as he yanked the lever to hoist the pump up for a closer look. At that moment, a hydraulic hose – weakened, but unnoticed – burst in a spray of hot, brown hydraulic luid. It sprayed like a pressure washer, dousing my uncle, the tools, and the truck. My uncle swore and tried to duck, but he still caught a full frontal blast of brown oily goop. He raced to shut the engine of and stop the hemorrhage. He glared at me over my water bottle. I saw his eyes calculating, trying to ind a way to blame me. He said nothing - I was ten feet away when the hose blew. I said nothing back. He tore some blue shop towels from a bent, dirty roll and scrubbed the worst of it from his hands and face and coveralls. I left to stretch my legs, and heard him dial the oice on his cell phone. “Yeah, we blew a hose. Need a hydraulic repair shop. Nothing we can do, till we get it repaired. Pump’s out, on the ground. Yeah, if we have a spare hose and luid, I can patch it and get the job done. OK, we’ll do that and get it in the shop Monday.” I set down my water bottle and went to examine the pipe. The broken part was easy to ind: a hole the size of a quarter, pitted and laking. Enough to let pressure out and air in. I checked the rest of the pipe, scraping rust barnacles with a screwdriver, poking and testing the steel underneath. My uncle swooped over to ind something to criticize, saw I was working, then wandered of muttering.

I inished checking the pipe. No more holes. Then I swapped the holey one for a bright new length, still shiny from the factory. I tightened the connector, then lopped into the hot seat of the truck. No engine meant no air conditioning. My uncle was sitting there too, sweating in the heat. Neither of us spoke. It took an uncomfortable hour for the company truck to arrive with the parts. My uncle leaped at the sight, practically running to meet them. They exchanged some words, parts, and plastic jugs, then the truck drove of. My uncle climbed to the broken hose at the base of the tower with tools and parts. I hopped out. “Anything I can help with?” I said. “I got it.” I had just found a thin patch of shade to sit in when my uncle hollered, “Could you get me a three-eighths nut driver?” I stood, legs protesting, and dug into the tool bin. Quarter, ive-sixteenths, ah - three-eighths. I grabbed it with gloved hands and held it where he could reach. “Sure, here you go.” “Thanks.” Thoughts and feelings bounced around in my brain. I decided I didn’t want say any of them. He was already cranky, and I didn’t feel like enduring another tirade. I changed my mind. “We charge, what, a hundred bucks an hour for labor?” “Something like that.” “I know the truck needs gas and maintenance. You make, what, thirty?” A grunt. “I just igure, I’m the one sweating on these wrenches, and you’re just pulling levers. It’d take a lot longer if you were by yourself.” Another grunt. Which means I’m right, and he knows it, but he’s not going to admit it. “So I igure ifteen is probably fair. Maybe we can evaluate after a few months.” Silence. “Also. You don’t have to like my politics, but it’s a free country, and I’d appreciate if you’d ease up about it at work.”

Silence, but for the click of metal tools. After a few moments, “Probably better that way. Think I’ve got it. Start the engine?” “Sure,” I replied. I stepped to the driver’s side and turned the key. The engine coughed, then caught and growled a happy diesel growl. I listened from the cab and heard nothing, which was good, because he’d have been cussing if the hose blew again. I tore of a couple shop towels to wipe of my wrenches. My uncle was already testing the winch control levers. So far so good; not even a drip. Wordlessly, we lowered the pump back into the well, then hoisted and threaded the next section of pipe. Joint after joint descended into the cool depths. We got to the new section I had prepared, and my uncle picked up a wrench to help tighten it. We set our wrenches, then heaved to twist the pipe tight in its itting. “You got a good seal on that,” my uncle said. “Thanks,” I said, surprised. I tried to think of a compliment to return. “Looks like the hose is holding.” “Hope so,” he said. We got to the last joint of pipe, which had an angled itting for hooking into an underground pipeline. My uncle stopped the winch and went to turn the pump on. I stood there, waiting. Seconds turned to minutes. Minutes were stretching to uncertainty when I felt a hum through my feet. A few seconds later, water gurgled from the pipe. I rummaged to ind an old white gas-station soda cup, and collected some water. It was red and rusty from agitating the well water. I dumped it, waited a few seconds, and collected some more. Barely pink, which meant the well was cleaning up. A minute more, and my uncle approached. “It’s clearing up pretty good,” I said. “Any air? “Nope.” I dumped the pink water and took some more. Clear, and no air bubbles. My uncle looked. “Cool. Let’s hook everything up and head home.” I looked again at the cup, then drank deeply of the clean, cool water.