The Kerr Construction Company by Larry Farmer

 
    I was surprised how much I liked New Mexico. Being from rural Texas, I didn’t have prejudice against hicks and hick places like I pictured were in New Mexico, back before I first traveled there in the summer of 1977. Still I expected to see a bunch of nothing and open spaces. The open spaces were there, but even the desert was beautiful. The land of enchantment. By God, it was true. At almost every turn, behind every hill, red cliff, or mountain, I somehow anticipated buffalo, with Indians on horseback chasing them through the patches of brush and shrubs.
    But I still had to get a job.
    Gallup was Navajo country. Located off Route 66. The Indian capital of America, they called it, though only a third of the town was Navajo. And it was one of the few places in America that had a sizable Japanese population during World War II that stood up to the Federal Government and didn’t allow internment.
    I’d heard all my life about Indians and firewater. It was depressing to see sidewalk after sidewalk with at least one drunken body passed out on it. So what was I doing here looking for work? My part of Texas was the poorest in America, the one part of Texas, not coincidentally, without oil. But that wasn’t why I was here. I wanted something different. This was different.
    ****
    “So you’re Mister Dalhart McIlhenny from Texas.” The man wearing a khaki shirt and pants, and a welding cap, sat behind a wooden desk, reading over my application. “Says you’re six foot three and two hundred pounds. And you got blond hair with blue eyes. Boy, you should be looking for a job as a Storm Trooper, if you ask me. We got us a long, tall Texan.” He laughed, exposing tobacco-tainted teeth. His appearance was gruff, with grease stains all over his clothes, and a slight pudge hanging over his leather belt. “You have a college degree,” he said, surprised.
    “Yes, sir. I just graduated.”
    “We don’t have any managerial jobs, you know. Old Man Kerr owns this outfit, and he’s got three mean sons to help him manage it, if that’s what they do. And we contract out our drilling to wildcatters. We have a field foreman, too. All we got is openings for laborers.”
    “That’s what I want.”
    He scoped me out. “All right,” he said, scowling. “Whatever suits you.”
    He read some more. “It says here you went to Texas A&M,” he commented in disbelief. “I worked the oilfields with Aggies. That’s what you call yourself, right? Aggies? I spent three years in Odessa in the Permian Basin. One of the most productive oilfields in the world. Seemed like Aggies ran that place. Son, I’m not trying to be condescending, but this doesn’t make a lick of sense.”
    I gave a slight shrug as my reply. He returned to my application.
    “Says you were in the Marines. His sons will like that. New meat. You’ll see what I mean.” He looked up from my application again, even more in disbelief. “You grew up on a farm?” He shook his head and snickered. “I thought people went to college to get away from this kind of life. When can you start?”
    “Right now.”
    “Those steel-toed boots you got on?” he asked.
    “No, sir.”
    “Stop with that ‘sir’ crap, will you? I work for a living. You’ll have to get work gloves, goggles, and steel-toed boots. We’ll supply the hard hat. Those are new jeans. You got any old ones? But that’s up to you. You can get this stuff at the hardware store downtown. You didn’t give an address.”
    “I just got in. I don’t have a place. I have an old van. I can stay in that.”
    “You mean that old panel truck outside, with ‘Desperado’ on the side? Is that a Buddha statue on your dashboard?”
    I had to laugh. It embarrassed even me. “I didn’t want to sleep in my car. I left it back home. It’s too small. So I bought the panel truck from a friend of mine just before I left.”
    “Son, do you have any money?”
    “Enough to buy these supplies. Enough to eat on.”
    “It’s