A Life Redefined

By John T. Peters

A Life Redefined

            Fate is unpredictable and shamelessly fickle.  Jack Thorns was prematurely aging after years of working in harsh conditions, many times,surrounded by pollution in the oilfields of Northern Alberta and British Columbia, Canada.  Without question, his physical health was noticeably failing.  After several failed relationships, his mental and emotional state was stressed close to or sitting on the breaking point, ready to go over the edge.

            Was fate going to doom him to the graveyard of broken spirits and unrealized dreams or would providence show some kindness and allow him to redefine himself, let him find an alternate reality that sanctions at least illusions of human dignity?

• Language: English
• Publisher: John T. Peters
• Release date: Sep 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215811634

Book preview

A Life Redefined

A Novel

First Edition

Published by John T. Peters

Author’s email; [e-mail]

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Copyright 2019 John T. Peters

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Discover other titles by author John T. Peters

Pink Is for Disappointment

Disguised Treasure

Tortured Beginnings

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By

John T. Peters

A Life Redefined

Started writing October 22, 2015

No portion of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval systems, without the express written permission of the author.

A Life Redefined is a fictional story.  Use of or mention of historical events, places, or names of anyone or any similarity of the storyline to actual persons, places, or events is purely coincidental except where specifically authorized by said individuals.

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Special Thanks to;

- Thomas Benton, Author & Mentor

- My Wife - Liu Xinlin

A Life Redefined

Table of Contents

Page  of 294

Chapter 1, Page 04

Chapter 2, Page 17

Chapter3, Page 31

Chapter 4, Page 45

Chapter 5, Page 58

Chapter 6, Page 71

Chapter 7, Page 84

Chapter 8, Page 97

Chapter 9, Page 110

Chapter 10, Page 123

Chapter 11, Page 136

Chapter12, Page 150

Chapter 13, Page 163

Chapter 14, Page 177

Chapter 15, Page 190

Chapter 16, Page 204

Chapter 17, Page 217

Chapter 18, Page 230

Chapter 19, Page 243

Chapter 20, Page 253

Chapter 21, Page 266

Chapter 22, Page 282

Chapter1

Fate can be a vacillating, mysterious, mercenary witch that will kick a man right in the crotch without apparent provocation.  Jack felt he’d suffered more than his fair share of misbegotten flukes of chance targeting him with ordinary misfortunes.  For unknown reasons, gruesome calamities that he’d seen afflict other people had bypassed him.  Still, the bitterness in his soul was difficult to disguise.

Jack Thorns was sitting in an undersized seat on a Trans-Pacific flight heading for Asia.  A seat constructed for airline efficiency meaning profitability, not passenger comfort.  The seating design concept was to force the maximum amount of human bodies into an airplane without stacking them on top of each other.  The overall plan had trim, slim young passengers in mind, not intended for an extra-large, overweight senior male.  He was sixteen hours into a trip that would take about thirty-three hours if there weren’t additional unscheduled delays.  Still, he had an undeniable internal dilemma about his choice of destinations at that late hour.

~

During a recent coffee session in Alberta, Canada, the individuals attending insisted he consider traveling to Mexico or Las Vegas.  In Jack's mind, other destinations they’d suggested were for boring people that didn’t have a life, like Hawaii, the Caribbean, etc., which were reputed to be expensive tourist traps rather than something new or a little off the beaten path.

For the coffee meet, he’d sat in a nondescript small town roadside diner within a building that should’ve been condemned, then subsequently demolished years ago, relegating it to the annals of history, if remembered at all.  The kitchen occupied a small space that could’ve been a bathroom at one time. In comparison, previous owners or renters had wallpapered the dining area many times, attempting to hide the crumbling walls and ceilings.  Dim lighting and missing light bulbs hid more minor fractures and grossly outdated décor.  The structure’s most outstanding claim-to-fame was that it hadn’t already collapsed on its own accord.

Similar to numerous other small town wayside eateries, the serving staff was way past their ‘best before date’ only secondary to the food they served, which was only surpassed, in age, by the clientele that frequented the place.

As soon as the men mentioned Mexico or Las Vegas, a couple of haggard-looking waitresses, with forced plasticized smiles hiding their ordinarily scowling features, crawled out of their respective hiding places.  On most days, theirs was a life of being served a double helping of misery.  Their boss was a miserable old cheapskate that’d crossed the line between frugal and cheap decades before that present-day situation.

The premises, food, as well as the serving staff were chosen because all were the cheapest that the owner could find within miles of that location.  Yet, he constantly berated the employees for not charging fees equal to or above the prices in quality establishments in newly renovated premises with pleasant surroundings.  In other words, the proprietor wanted maximum financial returns with minimal effort or investment on his part.

Due to the deplorable working conditions within that establishment, customers would not experience the youthful exuberance of teenage student summer workers or young ladies in that dump at any time soon or in the foreseeable future.  The owner also had a reputation for making unwanted advances on the female staff without additional monetary considerations.

The majority of the establishment’s clientele were old married rig/construction workers who made abusive verbal comments as well as infrequent physical advances on them.  The odd patron also attempted to grope the waitresses’ bodies without doing much else regardless of whether the attendants were interested, which, of course, they weren’t, especially with old married cheapskates.

The servers had heard enough false promises to last them three lifetimes, which was in stark contrast to the rare occasion when they’d received a decent tip regardless of how hard they’d worked to serve the patrons.  In retaliation, they exerted the least amount of effort with the regular coffee crowd to earn their deplorable salary, similar to their boss’s mindset.  Perhaps they were the female counterpart to the misogynistic Jack Thorns.  All were highly distrustful of most people, including their surroundings.

Still, when they’d heard travel away from their daily hell-hole mentioned, they’d cuddled up to Jack — using time-worn clichés, including exaggerated mock body movements.  They'd indicated that he would have a glorious holiday if only he’d take them with him.  If there was a chance, no matter how slim, they might be able to escape their dreary existence.  If only for a day — they had to try.  It was the only game available in the small hamlet.

They were the same attendants that had, on their best days up to that point in time, substituted growls or snarls for a ‘Hello’ if they made any sounds at all.  Instead of anything resembling a ‘Good Morning,’ in the past five or more years that Jack had patronized the coffee shop, a boring ‘yea’ was usually the best he’d been able to extract from them.

Other work-related acquaintances had shown him photos of their ideal Mexican vacations filled with the best of all worlds, drugs, alcohol, wild women for hire, with still more drugs, more alcohol available.  From experience, many of the rig/construction workers loved living on the edge.  In Jack’s prime, many workers had risked their lives on the job, working insanely long hours, fatigued beyond imagination.  In the early years, environments could be toxic of highly explosive fuel combined with deadly gases while operating machinery that could instantly maim or kill a man.  Then after work, instead of rest or sleep, they continued their off-hours in reckless indulgences with a mixture of more alcohol, drugs, fights with other bar patrons, or possibly drunken women with questionable intentions.

All the photos from the men assembled in the diner, except those taken explicitly in their fenced, heavily fortified hotel compounds in Mexico, showed the tourists surrounded by heavily armed police or military personnel carrying automatic weapons.  None had appeared friendly.  Mexican law enforcement personnel were dealing with a dangerous world of murderous drug cartels catering to stupid, drunken, drugged-up tourists in those locals.

In between the extremes were the drug pushers, the dealers fighting over territory.  Jack had quickly lost whatever interest he might’ve had in Mexico.  He also remembered reading news articles about the crime rates in Mexico.  On an average month, over two thousand murders were reported, at the time, not dwelling on other gun incidents or lesser crimes.  Remembering former coworkers' wild tales of debauchery in Mexico, he’d never seriously considered Mexico as an option.  He didn’t have any intention of going into a war zone to seek a few hours of immoral or illegal involvements.

In Jack’s tired mental/emotional state, he had to consider additional issues.  He’d been meeting those men in that establishment occasionally for coffee, for how long had become irrelevant, possibly five years.  Attending weekly or bi-weekly coffee sessions in that place already stressed his tolerance for bullshit to the maximum.

Regardless of the gravity of any conversation, if a female came into the men’s sightline, their minds instantly went to a cave man’s most basic depraved instincts.  Immediately the female’s body parts were appraised in detail, suggesting what they would inflict on her if given half a chance.  They verbalized their daydreams, what they would do if the situation presented itself, including how they would force themselves onto her, against her will if necessary.  Situations like that disgusted Jack.

Neither did he feel comfortable with the notion of going to Mexico to hire young women, possibly underage girls, for sex.  It presented him with an emotional quandary.  He, including many of his fellow acquaintances in that restaurant, were seniors, and many were already fathers or grandfathers of young girls.  Would those men in his company assault underage girls or young women if they were so inclined?

He also was aware that many people in Mexico lived in poverty.  It would trouble him to think of hiring a prostitute doing it for the sole reason to survive financially.  He had to question whether his philosophy was due to morals or was he slipping into insanity.

The group had invited him to go out drinking numerous times, which he’d declined with few exceptions.  Jack’s problem was; he couldn’t qualify spending his money on plane fare, hotel rooms, etc. to spend a week with a bunch of clowns that he already couldn’t tolerate for more than a couple hours per week.  He could see them there, in Alberta, any time he wanted without the extra costs.

Another consideration was his age.  Whatever he had for a body was best kept hidden under numerous layers of clothing.  Displaying his old, grossly out-of-shape body on the beach for the world to observe wasn’t an option at his age.  It hadn’t been for a long time.

~

While he’d sat in that questionable excuse for a café, without justification, Jack’s mind ventured back to when he’d been about thirty years old.  He’d taken a temporary job as a roughneck on an outlaw oil rig.  The rig had been second-rate displaying a resemblance to trash complete with drunken rebels for a crew who generally ignored all safety standards.

Most of the men that had worked there had outstanding arrest warrants against them.  They’d lost their driver’s licenses years before that time, which they appeared to be proud of, like a badge of honor.  They’d considered it as bragging rights for who was the most illegal, most wanted petty criminal.

After work, the crew went out drinking, as was their habit most nights during his short stint there.  The five-person crew ran out of money or perhaps hadn’t had any at the beginning of the evening.  They’d told Jack; they didn’t ask him, to pay for their meals plus additional drinks.  When he refused, two men jumped him from behind, with three men in front beating him until he was unconscious.  They’d stolen all his money before dumping Jack into a snowy ditch beside an unknown road, not concerned if he would live or die.

At some time during his ordeal, he’d had an unusual definitive image flash across his mind.  Jack had never understood that vivid microscopic dream, similar to a long camera flash in time.  His family had some aboriginal blood in them.  If anything, Jack would’ve expected the scream of an eagle, a shadowy figure of a wolf, a native elder with his lance, or some variations thereof.  He was familiar with those metaphors.  He could’ve understood them.

What he’d seen in that flash was an older man, possibly Asian, with long white hair, including a long beard.  His robe resembled a likeness to an Asian scholar.  During the minuscule vision, he heard a note or two of something similar to a high note in a Chinese opera.

When he’d regained consciousness, he’d been covered by an Asian patterned blanket protecting most of his body from the cold though his nose, right ear, as well as some fingertips, had been slightly frostbitten.  He’d never told anyone about the dream or comprehended how a vision of an Asian gentleman with the reality of an Oriental blanket could coexist in the largely unpopulated rugged northern Canadian wilderness.  It would’ve been inconceivable to credit the individuals who’d beaten him for placing a blanket on him if they’d had one.

~

The unexpected memory had startled Jack back to reality in the café at the time.  China, — uh — China, I’m going to China.  The words fell out of his mouth before his mind could adjust to a conscious thought or his surroundings.

As soon as he mentioned China, the insincere smiles along with the waitresses behind them vanished.  The men had argued with him, telling him that China was perhaps the worst place to go.  It was a communist country, and everything was bad there.  Things would get better in the Alberta oilfields soon.

They were talking to him as though he was having a mental stress-related breakdown bordering on insanity due to the slow economy combined with his limited job prospects at the time.  Their summation of the situation might’ve had some basis.  Jack was without a job or goal, lacking a reason for living at that stage of his life.

~

It’d been more than a decade since Jack had been at his finest.  One of his best memories was when he’d worked for a Canadian corporation partnered with a Chinese company.  He’d visited an oil well site, looking for an acquaintance, a senior drilling consultant hoping for some ideas on solving a problem Jack was having with a rig-from-hell that had been his project at the time.  Instead of information, Jack had inserted himself into an out-of-control situation,

It had reminded him of the outlaw rig he’d worked on for a short time in his first years in the oilfield.  It’d been readily apparent that whoever was supposed to be in charge was absent or didn’t have control of anything that day.  Half the crew had been openly consuming alcohol on-site, likely doing some drugs as well.  The rest of the crew had appeared to be in a permanent fog from the after-effects of excessive partying, perhaps in the previous night or hours.

On observing the disaster in progress and not locating his friend, Jack attempted to extract himself from the situation, ready to exit the site when a shiny tour bus had entered the approach, blocking his escape.  People in business suits had exited the bus demanding Jack give them an explanation for all the delays, including cost over-runs in rejuvenating several non-producing or locked-in wells in the area, assuming he was the boss there.

It’d taken Jack a few long minutes to convince the businessmen that he didn’t work there.  Neither would he consider working there under those circumstances unless he had the autonomy to fire the whole crew, bringing in a new group of dedicated workers that were experienced and sober.  Jack only hired skilled men with, at times a trainee, willing to do a professional job.  Jack had also stated that adequate, up-to-date equipment would also be a prerequisite before considering a position there.

In the discussion process, a middle-aged Chinese man had exited the bus, subsequently introduced as Lee Shau Woo, a significant partner in the oil company that owned those wells.  After a lengthy dialogue about the state of affairs on the site at the time, Mr. Woo, through an interpreter, asked Jack to take charge of the site.  Mr. Woo was tired of excuses and high costs without any demonstrable progress.

Jack’s task was to do whatever was necessary to restore oil production in that field.  He’d been allowed to hire a crew that met his expectations while being paid exceptionally well, plus bonuses for successfully restoring production.  He’d worked for the company for approximately two years.  It became one of the highlights in his somewhat ordinary career.  Perhaps he had another connection to China.  They’d treated him well on that contract.

~

Some pats on the shoulder brought him out of his musings, again.  When their coffee cups were empty, there hadn’t been any café staff around.  It had become a self-serve slop-joint without prior notice.  Jack had retrieved the half-empty pot from the coffee machine in the waitress’s cubicle, pouring another round of refills for the men around the table.  It was all as expected — normal.

He’d had three nuptials with adverse side effects.  Because of bad marriages, Jack had lost three houses with a combined value of more than one point six million Canadian dollars plus countless other money lost before, during then after divorces.  Child support payments plus huge lawyer fees had kept him working.

It was easy to calculate the financial losses.  Nevertheless, it was the emotional costs that had injured Jack the most.  He’d had the feeling of being mentally beaten, then emotionally raped for believing most of the lies the women had told him.  To have been played the fool was far more emotionally devastating in the long term than the financial losses.

~

In his hotel room in Edmonton, Alberta, he’d read a sexist article, of course, written by a young good looking woman, about all the ‘old, fat men’ that went to Asia to have sex with young, beautiful Asian ladies.  According to the article, sometimes they’d also married the young women, just for the sex.  Giving it some superficial thought, Jack figured if he was going to give a house to a woman for intermittent occasions of faked emotions with a side order of detached sex on her part, why not give it to a beautiful Asian lady instead of an ugly, foul-mouthed, fraudulent Alberta female.  It was a no-brainer once he made the comparisons.

Jack wasn’t interested in dating young girls at any time, or women of any age for that matter at that stage in his life.  Many women wanted the man’s house and bank account but definitely not the man.  Others used sex to control men, obtain money and exercise power over men.  None of those things had appealed to him for the past couple of decades; he was tired.

Once Jack’s mind slowed down, he admitted he had a substantial unresolved issue with women and relationships.  Someday, preferably before he dies, he should attempt to resolve his problems or seriously seek counseling.  It was impossible to enjoy whatever future he had without confronting his past, then somehow dealing with it.  It was easy to blame most, if not all, his problems directly on women in general though there were other considerations.

Chapter 2

After some reflection, he was well aware of countless people that’d married with few difficulties through many years of matrimony.  The major source for complications in relationships within the Canadian oilfield culture at the time could be attributed to the philosophy within oil companies.

When Jack started his career, oil companies were famous for keeping men in the field, away from family and friends and general society for weeks, sometimes months at a time, regardless of whether they were single or married, with or without families.  A day or two off once every two months or so, when the men were eight hundred miles from home, was most often spent in motels or bars.  Generally, the workers did their best to drink themselves into