The Offshore Triumphs of Karla Jean

By Dorothy Hagan

After twenty-six years working on offshore oil rigs for Big Coast Drilling, forty-six-year-old Karla Slidell is coming home to Brinkfield, Texas, for good. As a lanky girl with a peculiar braid, she blazed a trail as a roustabout in 1980. On her final flight home, however, her helicopter crashes; now shes missing in the Gulf of Mexico. As her excited family awaits her return, they instead get word she might not be coming back. They hope Karla can cheat death once again, as she has done since her birth.

Among those waiting are Joe, her house-husband and biggest fan since the seventh grade. Then theres Dangling Dooley, the Vietnam War chopper pilot who is Karlas constant source of exasperation. Theres Karlas lifelong friend, Darlene, with whom she experienced every kind of escapade life has to offer. Finally, Karlas insanely religious dad, Orvin, and her vacant, mousy mom, Joy, add to the mix.

These people, who form the fabric of Karlas life, hold out hope that she can be found alive and returned home to fulfill a dream that would positively impact so many lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jan 11, 2012
• ISBN: 9781469700427

Dorothy Hagan

Dorothy Hagan earned a bachelor’s degree in the humanities from the University of Houston-Clear Lake and worked as a merchant mariner, for US congressional and senatorial campaigns, and as a schoolteacher. Hagan is also the author of The Edge of the Grace Period. She lives in suburban Houston.

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Copyright © 2012 Dorothy Hagan

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This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 978-1-4697-0041-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4697-0043-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4697-0042-7 (e)

Printed in the United States of America

iUniverse rev. date: 1/5/2012

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

EPILOGUE

Acknowledgements

Creating a book is a bit like drilling for oil. First you have to want to do it. Then you get an idea where to drill and about what you hope comes out when you’re done. But very shortly after the venture is considered, you start looking for helpers, investors, experts who know way more than you do about the process. I could not have drilled my oil well without the help of many people. I would like to acknowledge some of my roustabouts.

First of all, immeasurable thanks to Decie Autin, a very busy engineering executive and a real offshore pioneer. And inestimable thanks to Jodie Connor, another offshore pioneer and present-day industry consultant, for helping me nail some technical aspects that eluded me every time. And many thanks to George Mize and Lynn Walker for more personal interviews from back in the day. And thanks also to Paul Carter, British author of Don’t Tell Mom I Work on the Rigs: She Thinks I’m a Piano Player in a Whorehouse and also This Is Not a Drill: Just Another Glorious Day in the Oilfield. If I ever get to meet you Paul, I’d like to buy you dinner. Thanks to the current offshore workers who filled out my surveys and to every offshore person I ever had a word with.

Additional thanks to my many students who encouraged me and asked year after year How’s that book coming, Mrs. Hagan? And big thanks to my GED and ESL students who are the living definition of our favorite word…tenacity!

And vast, huge, colossal thanks to my real roustabouts, my fabulous critique partners. You all are the ones who got dirty reading all my muddy manuscripts; this could not have happened without you: Nita Arnott, Jack and Marcella Coleman, Kevin Hagan, Sherri Huggins, Mary Ann and Chris Keegan, Cindy Smith and Sue Anne Scruggs. Finally, my deepest thanks to my family who put up with a disorganized home and too many frozen pizzas: Kevin, Ross, Abigail and Olivia and my sweet Michael, who taught me the joy of loving a kid who wasn’t my own. Thanks to Joni Rodgers and Colleen Thompson, awesome authors and bloggers for sharing their experience and professionalism.

And finally, no acknowledgement would be complete without thanking the scores of people who work in the offshore oil industry. These folks make enormous sacrifices in risk and time; too many of them have given up their very lives. Tremendous thanks for your monumental contribution to this great big world, whose refined energy we consume every single day of our lives.

For the best, most precious mother,

Drusilla Fox Smith

I can’t have you anymore…so I snatched all your favorite poets!

Believe there is a great power silently working all things for good,

behave yourself and never mind the rest.

Beatrix Potter

Prologue

The fright was reflected in the eyes of the spooklets. Their eyes captured the nightmare of Karla missing. They revealed the horror of their father Joe falling apart. Their eyes begged for a different answer to a fate that was fast approaching. Karla was supposed to be coming home for good to start a whole new profession. Instead she was missing, gone, lost in the Gulf of Mexico. The eyes of the spooklets pleaded with their father do something. Anything. Fix this. But all Joe could do was gaze back in frozen bewilderment.

We all act as hinges—

fortuitous links between other people.

Penelope Lively

CHAPTER ONE

1980

Grand Isle, Louisiana

5 a.m.

Dooley didn’t really want to make this flight, but the scheduler at Big Coast Drilling did her usual pleading and he gave in. He was slightly more than hung over, possibly still drunk, if you wanted to get official.

He was unconcerned.

After flying choppers all over Vietnam, Dooley could haul a crew member to an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico drunk, half drunk or simply fatigued. The Big Coast Drilling office, located near the waterfront along East Bay, tended to be nut-cracking cold this time of the morning, so Dooley decided to wait outside. He preferred the thick, Louisiana humidity to the chilled office air-conditioning that would smack him in the face like a flyswatter. His throbbing head implored him to skip that. Dooley lit a smoke while he waited for the new hire to arrive.

Karla hadn’t slept at all. She was notified about four o’clock the previous afternoon that after months of waiting, and calling, and pestering, she finally got a job offer to work offshore in the entry level position of a roustabout. For a change, all things worked together to get her foot in the door, or on the rig, as it were. Several men came down sick, the rig was miserably behind in the drilling schedule, and though Big Coast Drilling was loath to hire a female, the company executives were starting to get pressure to do just that. Karla’s recent experience going to sea as a merchant mariner convinced the HR people she might be tough enough to handle the job, and so decided to give her a shot. Karla Slidell was twenty years old, busting with enthusiasm and green as a pine needle.

In spite of her age, Karla already had two years of experience as a merchant mariner, having made several foreign voyages under U.S. flags. And also in spite of her age, she was two years married to her high school sweetheart Joe Slidell. It was this relationship that motivated her to leave the ships behind. She loved going to sea, however, being gone from two to four months at a stretch wasn’t the best thing for a marriage still in its infancy. Working offshore two weeks on and two weeks off wasn’t exactly marital bliss either, but it was a decided improvement.

Dooley Wade was about halfway through his second cigarette when the taxi containing Karla drove up. He was expecting just another wet-behind-the-ears recruit, another scraggly young guy seeking his fortune in a growing industry, an industry beckoning those with some pioneer spirit at best, or those seeking that good paying job at the least. As Karla got out of the car Dooley noticed this new guy already had on the blue company-issued coveralls, a company hardhat with the safety goggles stretched across the top, and carried a bulging duffle bag sporting the BCD logo.

This boy’s a brown-noser in the making, thought Dooley, all gussied up in the company duds, and he ain’t even on the rig yet.

The boy was tall, lanky and walked with an air of conviction Dooley didn’t usually see in a new hire.

Probably straight out of Candy Ass University, conjectured Dooley again. Another one of them college boys, them engineer types. The boy took off his sunglasses and asked a surprised Dooley if he could direct her to the Big Coast Drilling office?

Karla’s shape was long, lean and not very curvaceous. And unfortunately, this physique was often thought to be a mite on the manly side of feminine. However, Karla in fact had quite the ladylike face, a face almost pretty, and downright beautiful, if you asked her husband Joe. When this well-dressed boy addressed Dooley, he could not have been more surprised than if she’d hit him in the mouth with her hairbrush.

Now it is necessary to understand that in 1980, few people had much familiarity with such things as political correctness, sensitivity training, rules against sexual harassment, or seminars to help with anger management. In the transforming world of Dooley Wade, there was certainly no such thing as women on ships, or offshore oil rigs, or any damn where except the kitchen, the bedroom, and just perhaps, the secretarial pool.

Dooley rubbed his hung over eyes, still believing he was imagining this man-clad female before him. When the clarity of vision confirmed his worst, he went off in what Karla would soon learn was classic Dooley style.

Hold on here, Butch, said Dooley. There’s obviously some mistake. Go get back in that cab and I will go to the office, and get you some return cab-fare. Jesus Christ Almighty.

Dooley began to walk toward the office but Karla held her ground.

Excuse me. There’s no mistake. My name is Karla Slidell and I am here to be flown out to BCD Rig 64. I am the replacement roustabout, and actually, they want me on that rig PDQ so I’d better get a move on.

Well, that’s just not possible.

And why the hell not?

Because you’re a damned female, for crying out loud!

Yeah, that’s not really news there, mister. Karla considered asking him if he had prayed for awareness this morning, but decided against it. She sighed. It seemed like she had dealt with this most of her life. She slid into the semi-patronizing voice she always used on men like her dad who thought themselves in authority. Dooley kind of looked like his head might burst. She continued.

Now don’t worry yourself, sir. You appear to be having a rough morning. I will just go into the office there and figure it out. You look kinda green around the gills. You might want to take a powder or something.

And with that Karla pushed on past a stunned Dooley. She was in fact a little shocked at his reaction. Since joining the merchant marines, she was often met with surprise and sexism, but never treated like she was there by mistake. Geez, thought Karla, these Louziana dudes.

Karla was talking with the young woman at the reception desk when Dooley stormed in demanding to see Bruce Hill, the BCD drilling manager, who usually introduced him to the employees he would be ferrying across the Gulf of Mexico. Bruce heard the hollering from his office and knew it had to be Dooley. He had a reputation for being a hothead and Bruce anticipated he would blow a gasket at the thought of a woman on a rig, or even in his helicopter. Bruce came out to find Dooley having a perfect fit.

You can’t really mean Big Coast Drilling is falling in with them Women’s Libbers, started Dooley as Bruce emerged from his office. These bra-burning dykes are infiltrating every industry! Offshore rigs? With women? Christ, what’s next? The fucking aircraft carriers? The fucking Navy?

Bruce set out to calm things down and get Dooley under control. His bosses wanted this roustabout on the rig ASAP and it was up to him to get her there. He invited Dooley into his office, shut the door, and within seconds voices were raised loud but indistinguishable.

Karla was standing in front of the blonde receptionist whose name plate read Cookie McNickles. She despaired of getting any help out of this sexism from a young woman named Cookie. She looked to be in her early twenties, still sporting the feathered Farrah Fawcett hairdo, the big hair of the Eighties a ways off yet. But Karla’s despair soon became relief. Cookie set her straight regarding Dooley, and she did so with the best Southern, lilting, add-an-extra-syllable Louisiana drawl you would expect.

"Don’t you worry none, Miss Karla. Mr. Bruce will have Dooley back in his right head in no time. Mr. Dooley is a mite resistant to change, honey. My, oh my. Why you shoulda seen Dooley the first time BCD brought him a black man to take offshore. Like to have had a full body spasm, that he did. Dooley’s an old-fashioned kind of guy, born in that Long Ago time. But he comes around. Now he says ‘those black boys are just the hardest workers on them rigs!’ like it’s a surprise or something. So old Dooley will get the message. Main thing is to get you on that rig, girl. Do you know you will be the first female roustabout on a rig in the Gulf of Mexico? Absolute, Number One Lady Roustabout! There have been one or two engineers that’s girls, all college-educated, you know. But you will be the first girl, starting with nothing but a Hi, how do you do. Makes me proud of my sex, yes, it does."

Cookie looked shocked and popped her own hand over her own mouth, honest to Pete. Oh, my! she exclaimed. Hope I ain’t becoming one of them no-shaving feminists!

Thus proclaimed Cookie McNickles. In the years ahead, Cookie would be one of Karla’s rocks of stability between her onshore and offshore worlds.

The next moment Dooley came storming out of Bruce’s office, proclaiming just one word, over and over.

Shit.

Shit!

Shit!

He pointed at Karla. You. Get your gear and get over to the helicopter.

Karla didn’t argue. Cookie had her sign a few more hiring forms and off she went to fly over the Gulf of Mexico. When she reached the aircraft, Dooley had already started the engines and the noise was mighty. He motioned for her to climb aboard. In just a few years, Karla and her crewmates would board a 12-passenger Sikorsky helicopter, with flight suits, spare air canisters, personal beacons and every kind of safety aide imaginable. But in 1980 it was Karla, Dooley and a little Bell two-seater aircraft for the 30 mile ride out to the BCD jack up rig. Within minutes they were airborne.

Dooley was still noticeably angry. Karla had no idea what their altitude was, but it was high enough to get them there and for her to enjoy the amazing view. The Gulf of Mexico glistened with beauty. Karla saw schools of sharks just offshore and groups of dolphins jumping in the morning sun. Dooley flew somewhat erratically here and there, causing the helo to bounce a bit, probably hoping she’d feel sick. But she had full confidence in her iron-clad stomach. She figured they were about half way to the rig when Dooley finally began to speak. It was difficult to hear him over the engine noise.

"So, Butch, you think you can really make it working offshore? Bruce told me you’ve put in some time at sea on steamships. But Sweet Pea, offshore drilling rigs ain’t nothing like the baby boats you’ve been playing around on. Drilling an oil well is serious business. It’s dangerous, filthy, greasy, manly work, especially offshore, and there’s not a woman alive who is fit for the lifestyle. So, I am going to ask you this just one time. Are you ready for me to turn this baby around and take you ashore?"

Karla just shook her head. "Well, hell no. This guy was starting get annoying. And by the way, I believe I prefer Butch to Sweet Pea."

Excuse me? I mean what I am saying, Sassy Ass! Females don’t belong on oil rigs and I ain’t gonna to be delivering any. You hear what I am saying?

Just take me to the rig, dude. Spare the drama.

Dooley just appeared angrier.

"You silly bitch! Do you understand that you are flying over the Gulf of Mexico in a rust bucket of a helicopter, with a semi-stable man who has flown three tours in Vietnam? Do you know that on any given day I consider running this aircraft at full speed into the BCD office building, my mother-in-law’s house or the fucking Gulf itself? Are you hearing me? I have my limits! I am not taking your feminine ass to an offshore oil rig. Period! We’ll go see Jesus first!"

Before Karla could even react, Dooley did start acting a bit crazy. He pulled back the joystick and increased the engines, and they began to lift higher into the sky.

What the hell? proclaimed Karla, who was now becoming more alarmed than annoyed.

They continued ascending. Up, up and higher.

"You ready to go see Jesus, Butch? You want to go today? Yeah, maybe today would be a good day to go meet Jesus."

Just when Karla thought their helicopter couldn’t possibly rise any higher, Dooley did the unthinkable. He took one finger, and with one flick turned the engines completely off. As in OFF.

Silence.

Pure, terrifying silence.

The next moments were surreal. The previously loud turbine noise was replaced by the eerie swish, swish, swish of the rotor blades. Karla’s breath was somewhere between her throat and her pelvis. They began their descent, ever so slowly. Dooley leaned back in his seat and feigned relaxed. Then he closed his eyes and babbled these insane words.

Yeah, Jesus. You ready for a couple more? Will you let me in? Oh, Lord, how I remember that little Viet Cong face, just before I started shooting, seeing her momma scream…

And down they continued to descend.

What kind of crazy crap was this guy blathering? Was he for real? Now, at the tender age of twenty, Karla Waddell Slidell was far from a wimp when it came to danger. She had faced it many times. At age six, she got left in a vacant house during a hurricane. As a teen, she and her friend Darlene got caught stealing the Sunday school offering to buy beer, and Karla’s dad Orvin threatened to beat both their heads in. He might have done it, too. And possibly the biggest danger she ever faced was when her drunk dad left her to drown in the shipping lane as the tide came up at Morgan’s Point, during a fishing trip gone sour. But this…the sheer insanity of Dooley’s actions was freaking her out.

Karla had been at the brink of death more times than she cared to remember. But there was just something in this which made her believe she wasn’t going to be checking out right now either. She continued to stare at this crazy pilot, wondering if he could possibly be serious. She weighed whether he really wanted to die, and since he survived three tours at war, she figured he probably really didn’t.

Our Father, who art in Heaven, began Karla, hallowed, be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done…

Dooley opened his eyes to find Karla with her hands in the steeple-prayer position, and evidently talking to God.

And still they descended.

Each blade sang its lonely whoop whoop whoop.

On earth, as it is…

"You’re just going to sit there and pray? You aren’t even going to scream or cry or beg or something?"

…on earth, as it is in Heaven. Give us this day…

Oh, for the love of Christ, said Dooley.

Well, actually… responded Karla.

And with that Dooley reached over and restarted the engines, pulled the helicopter up from its descent, and flew towards the drilling rig without saying another word.

Karla began breathing again and realized she was literally saturated with sweat. After this flight, she knew without doubt that her heart could take anything life aboard an offshore oil rig could offer up.

One day Dooley Wade would know who he was up against in Karla Slidell. But it wasn’t going to be today.

And one day Karla would learn that having the crap scared out of her was just another day at the office in this new line of work, but that wasn’t going to be today either.

My only sketch, profile, of heaven is a large, blue sky,

and larger than the biggest I have seen in June—

and in it are my friends—every one of them.

Emily Dickinson

CHAPTER TWO

August 1, 2006

Darlene’s house

Brinkfield, Texas

Darlene was just short of certain that this was the happiest day of her life. She began to review momentous days, days that included events such as births, marriages, assorted rites of passage, but concluded nothing seemed to approach this one. There was her marriage to Dillon Victor, with an amazing wedding at Disney World’s Polynesian Resort. Now that was pretty high up there. And probably near the top was the day her mother Lucille abruptly emerged from a twenty-year depression. Out of the blue Lucille had arrived with the mental health and shotgun necessary to extract her and her kids from her disastrous marriage to Lonnie Johnson. That, also, was indeed a memorable day.

But, nope. Today had to be the happiest day ever. Because on this day, it was all