Don't Tell Mom I Work on the Rigs She Thinks I'm a Piano Player in a Whorehouse

by Paul Carter

But most of all I wanted an adventure.

I was punctual and polite, but lost the job because I was caught having sex with a guest by a room service attendant.

Looking back now, it stands out clearly as the easiest time in my life.

So I just sat there and went to a happier place in my mind, which progressed into lurid thoughts of naked cheerleaders playing with a giant beach ball . . . Perhaps that had more to do with the way a chopper vibrates.

we rose up sharply and started popping in and out of the low clouds like a confused pigeon.

“I don’t know if you boys have noticed, but I’m having a little trouble eyeballing the rig. We have lost some instruments and need to do dis approach by line-of-sight, and I’ve got a master caution light on my fuel, so I would appreciate it if y’all could yell out if you see da rig, okay, fellas?”

don’t know if you boys have noticed, but I’m having a little trouble eyeballing the rig. We have lost some instruments and need to do dis approach by line-of-sight, and I’ve got a master caution light on my fuel, so I would appreciate it if y’all could yell out if you see da rig, okay, fellas?”

I’m having a little trouble eyeballing the rig. We have lost some instruments and need to do dis approach by line-of-sight, and I’ve got a master caution light on my fuel, so I would appreciate it if ...

Many of the chopper pilots who work in the oil business flew in the Vietnam War and possess a kind of dynamic lethargy that makes them very calming to fly with.

It was a standard trailer, twenty by twelve feet,

I loved being back in the jungle. I loved the smells and the sounds, and its intense green presence.

I always had time for Ambu. His ability to work in any condition made him invaluable on a job. He was not afraid of anything, because he had his power. His power was a thin leather belt decorated with teeth and charms made from lead fishing weights. As long as Ambu wore the belt, he could not die. Remember The Lone Ranger? Well, talking to Ambu was like having a conversation with Tonto. “Come . . . we go.” “Come . . . we eat.” “Ambu . . . cannot die.”

Born and raised in the jungle, Ambu possessed the intimate knowledge that only a lifetime of living there can give you.

“She’s Kuching . . . She my dog . . . The other one is Kuching’s dog . . . His name Arnap.” “Your dog has a dog?” I asked.

can make the mouse kill the scorpion.”

Ambu was known for his little statements, so I said, “Okay, Ambu, off you go.” “You wait . . . I bring to you.” “I’m coming with you,” I said. “Come . . . we go.”

Ambu took off like someone does in the supermarket when they can’t find the bread.

The gloves were taped to my sleeves, the rags were wrapped around my head and taped to the mask and goggles, my collar was taped to the rags around my head, and everything was taped to everything else.

I was hungover from my evening with Steve, and had the worst case of jitters since that chopper got lost in the jungle. I hadn’t seen my father for many years.

If I make it to old age, I’ll check out the way I checked in . . . fat, bald, and dressed badly, with a mild boob fixation.

Eighteenth-century London was a black pit of evil,

Some years earlier I became a Freemason. A great deal of older guys in the oil world practice Freemasonry.

It is a noble and studious organization, and I have learned a great deal in my time at meetings, not just history or Templar lore but about myself also. There are Masonic lodges in almost every city in the world, and, should I find myself in a strange place with no contacts, I can call the lodge and always meet the most interesting characters.Yes, it does have secrets and signs, handshakes and formalities; they are part of a history that goes back centuries and have been kept alive for tradition—something I respect in a world where moral values are traded for anything and everything every day.

Working in Brunei was a pleasure and three years went by too quickly.

There was plenty of oil work for me, hopping up and down the Persian Gulf from Oman to the UAE (United Arab Emirates) and on to Saudi Arabia. At the time, the world was in flux; working in oil gives you a finely tuned sense of change, and it was clear that there was something going on.

the walls whispered

I met a guy who was working on a land rig in Syria at the time. He was happy to work there because everyone got extra danger money. From the drill floor he could see the coalition forces light up the night sky. One day the crew saw an American F-16 fighter jet crash nearby, and a few hours later the downed pilot showed up asking to use the phone.

Saudi Arabia is the most prized ally of the United States, whose interest in Middle East politics goes well beneath the surface, and both countries protect their energy fiercely.

This relationship started in 1933 when the Saudi ruler Ibn Saud granted a massive oil exploration contract to the Standard Oil Company.

cultural maelstrom,

Men sit in think tanks for months, turning over all the scenarios, so we can maintain our suspension of disbelief that nothing’s going to happen again. I wonder what’s going to happen in fifty or eighty years when the oil starts to dry up . . .

MANILA IS A MOSH pit with an airport.

The trick is to treat the traffic like a bad dog—don’t show any fear, because like bees and dogs Manila traffic can smell fear.

Drive fast, don’t look both ways is a popular technique in Asia, along with if I don’t see you, you’re not there.

The air is around a million parts per million carbon monoxide and we’re all smoking. Needless to say I was exhausted, my trick neck had popped out of its socket, but that pain was a welcome distraction from my back pain. I felt like a bag of broken china. I was so tired that potholes, fumes, and noise aside, I slept regardless, my head rag-dolling from side to side.

At one point during my deep slumber, our driver hit a bottomless pothole sending my face into the dashboard.

at the rate of your average tectonic plate.

A boy appeared next to me with a wooden box suspended by a rope around his neck. I looked into the box and there, lined up neatly, were a dozen black three-foot-long rubber double-ended dildos.

He explained in high-speed pidgin English how he had been too high to sleep the night before so decided to clean his apartment at two in the morning but got caught up in finding out just exactly how much toilet paper you can suck off the roll with a new vacuum cleaner.

I asked him to show me the real Manila, he did.

But I ended up winning five hundred pesos on a particularly violent chicken who, with his huge puffed-out plumage, looked a bit like Tina Turner.

one of the few buildings in the area that wouldn’t fall down if you pissed against it.

chasing a midget wearing black Velcro overalls, a neck brace, and a kid’s crash helmet.

“You pick him up ’n’ throw him against that wall,” Ambu said with excitement as he ran past toward one corner of the bar, which was padded and covered with Velcro from floor to ceiling.

I interrupted him, “Mate,” and nodded at the poor midget; all the blood had rushed to his face. “Oh yeah,” said Paul and, in a kind of drunk hammer-throw maneuver, spun around and sent the midget flying end over end into the wrong wall.

This cost eventually finds its way to the oil companies who countermeasure by hiring third-party security specialists. They are tasked with providing close protection and defending the rig and its personnel. Depending on whom you’re working for and where, these people vary from thugs with guns to mercenaries to ultra-professional ex-elite-forces personnel who tend to be of medium build and height, quiet and organized, and for all intents and purposes look like my accountant. Except they can perform complex mental calculations while constructing a shaped charge to breach a hotel fire door that’s been welded shut, and drop someone at five hundred yards with open sights or a toothpick at three feet. And, of course, they can maintain control of half a dozen shit-scared rig pigs.

if Dave was any more laid back, he’d be dead.

After four consecutive tours in Vietnam, Dave just didn’t sweat the small stuff.

I always travel in jeans and an old T-shirt, trying not to look like anything but a backpacker fast approaching his use-by date.

shuffled along in the line, my aluminum tray in hand, playing Spot the Con with Erwin.