my road: the crucible

The deep horizon rig floated around 5,000 feet above the sea floor.  Far below was something called a blow out preventer.  It was predicted that if the well had functioned properly this blow out preventer would have stopped the spill.  The well itself stretched far underground,   The Macando well below the the deep horizon traveled more than 13,000 feet through the bedrock below the gulf of mexico.  The well was over budget by 60 million dollars and over a month behind schedule.  The deep horizon rig had other jobs, on the other side of the world, where it had to start drilling or more money would be lost.  The deep horizon was overbooked.  They were so far behind schedule, bp had decided to temporarily close the well and move on before finishing it at some time in the future.
BP, Transocean and Haliburton were all found liable for blow-out of the well, the spill itself, and the explosion of the deep horizon which rendered its schedule irrelevant.  The three were found 67, 30 and 3%  liable respectively.
The reasons for the well failure started with misinterpreting negative pressure tests and the failure to set up adequate safeguards or put them into effect when the incorrect test procedure created the dangerous conditions that resulted in explosions which might have had a limited effect had anyone been ready to react correctly.  They talk about how little time there was to react during different phases of the disaster, but the truth is that expediency had taken precedence over safety.  The parties were operating 18,000 feet above the bottom of the well without a safety net.  Only the accountants were surprised when disaster struck.
 Regardless of fault, however, the gulf coast economy was shut down and 5 years later many would say there were no shrimp to be found where the oil spill had the largest effect.  For at least 3 years, the real estate market was in shock and I was the result of that.
I found myself in New Orleans for a meeting associated with the clean up.  Oil was still gushing from the well head 5000 feet below the surface and had been for more than a month with no end in sight.  It was odd that it proved successful, but bp had actually started asking the general public for ideas on how to stop the well and in the meantime were planning on spraying pollutants, something called corexit 9500 over the spill area to hide the extent of the spill and for whatever beneficial or harmful effects it would ultimately have.
I checked into my air conditioned room.  I hoped to see the girl again although her relationship was on again from everything that I knew.  I planned nothing that was not casual, I had no expectations.
However, expectations are never a guarantee in this world.  One should always wake up with an expectation that things will be better than they expect.  It is better to regret than to lose optimism.  My wife never woke up with a happy thought.  I accept responsibility for that.
The stranger looked at Jane.  Her eyes were slightly glazed as if from surprise.  She was breathing heavily and her mouth formed a small "o".  The regular wondered if the broken old man had not put his had up her skirt.  It the darkness you could not tell what was going on and without looking under the table with a flash light it would have been impossible.
What brought us here was an oil company that was found to be guilty of negligence that killed several men, burned and maimed others and left a scar on the bottom of the gulf of mexico that they would never admit to, much of which was apparently the result of spraying corexit 9500 on the oil slick to prevent it from being visible, some would say multiplying the damage by adding pollution on top of pollution.

The girl agreed to meet that night.  Happily, for me at least, she was alone and also exhausted, she said, from the constant pressure of the work of bringing the city back from the dead.  The city had not completely recovered from Katrina and would not for another decade.  It still hemorrhaged from the storm  but now it was being poisoned from the same direction the storm had come, from the same direction where the city had gotten its wealth.

So we had a pizza delivered, opened a bottle of wine and she told me the marriage was on hold again.  This time, however, we didn't go for a drive.  Instead we talked long into the night.  She talked of her problems and I told her what I could of mine.  Eventually we were too exhausted to go on and we kissed, laid down together, fully clothed, wrapped in each others arms for whatever comfort we could give each other.
I remember something a lover of mine said many years before.  The same one that I had when I first saw, and therefore when I first fell in love with the girl.  The lover said, it wasn't sex that brought couples closer together, it was sleeping in the same bed.  We laid down together in the crucible.
I think she slept that night, comforted knowing that someone she could trust completely lay beside her.  Of course she was mistaken.  For I wanted her to be able to trust me completely, but I could not sleep at all.  It was, up until then, the best night of my life and I did not want to miss a minute of it. She had made it very clear we would not have sex, but my heart pounded in my chest as if I were running a marathon up a steep cliff, and my head exploded as I tried to savor and save every minute of the long night.  When the sun came up and I knew I would have to let her go, I knew it would be as if I had run off of the cliff I had spent the night climbing.