Welder’s Arc

Ralph leans against the silo’s metal surface and lowers his helmet. Flame flashes from the welding rod inches from his chest. Toby eyes his cousin from the pipe field below. Sparks sizzle and fall like rain, an arc of blue-gold fire glows like the halo of some invisible saint. 

Duty at Chevron Refinery overrides Sunday obligation at St. Michael’s Church.

Wary of heights, Toby grabs a rung in his right hand and starts to climb. The scaffolding sways with each lunge of his slight nineteen-year-old frame. His forearms tense, his calf muscles knot. shake. He stops his ascent to wipe sweat from his eyes. Thirty feet below, the maze of pipelines writhes like a den of snakes. 

***

“You need to relax, primo.”

It’s lunchtime and the two cousins lean against the fender of Ralph’s truck. “It took me months to get used to the height.” Ralph unscrews the lid on his thermos then pulls a laminated card from his shirt pocket. “Maybe this will help.” 

It’s an image of an engorged heart entwined by thorns.

“There’s a prayer on the back.”

Toby nods and slips it in the pocket beneath his name patch. “We patching silos tomorrow?” 

Ralph throws a glance at the silo. “See those smiling cracks?” He points toward the mid-section. “Today’s their last laugh.” Pillars of steam billow from the furnace stacks. “How’s ‘buelo?”

Toby shakes his head. The two men stare at immense clouds of vapor rising from rows of furnace chimneys. Ralph takes a swig of tea. “They remind me of angel wings.” He wipes his mouth with his sleeve. 

 “Hospice gives him a week.” Toby unwraps a tortilla. “Maybe two.” 

***

Toby collects eggs from a dilapidated coop next to the double-wide where he lives with his father and grandfather. He cleans and refills the water pan, then heads for the corral where he throws hay to the colt that he’s training for extra cash. 

His father sits slumped in a lawn chair near the back door, a can of Modelo in hand. 

“Your ’buelo’s asking for you.” 

“You feed him?”

“It’s your turn.” 

Toby brushes chaff from his sleeve, ignoring his father’s slurred speech. He grabs the basket with the eggs and steps inside the trailer.

“Tobo?” 

“Si.” 

Toby places the basket on the kitchen counter.

“Venga aquí.”

Toby walks down a narrow hall and enters a cluttered bedroom. His grandfather, blind, with his face angled toward the ceiling, gropes the air. Toby kneels and guides the old man’s hands to his face.

“Que flaco, mijo. Que flaco.” You’re thin. So thin. 

His father’s shadow darkens the wall. “Got a call from Xavier.”

The hands feel cool on his skin. Soon, they slide from Toby’s cheeks and down his neck.

“Claims he knows a bruja who can heal blindness.” 

Toby rolls his eyes. 

“She uses fish oil.”

’Buelo’s fingers move to Toby’s chest, skim his name tag then pause at the edge of the prayer card inside his pocket. Toby lifts the frail hand and kisses the cool skin.

After feeding his grandfather and tracing a cross on his forehead, Toby changes his diaper then heads back outside. 

The air is pungent with the scent of soil and manure. The colt has eaten the hay and nickers for more. The neighbor’s dog lopes across the drive toward the chicken coop. Toby whistles. The dog lowers its head and slinks toward him. 

The story of Tobit, his biblical namesake, flashes across his mind. He reaches down to scratch the dog’s ears. “Seen any angels, lately?” He crouches, looks the dog in the eye. “I’m fixin’ to leave someday. You comin’ along?” 

Through an open window, the sound of his father retching in the toilet. 

The dog wags his tail. 

***

 Toby called the priest at four AM. Relatives began arriving around five. By the time he left for work, the trailer was crowded with women crying and men mumbling. No sign of saints or angels. 

At the refinery, Ralph parks his truck next to Toby’s. Stepping out of the cabs, the two cousins embrace then don their safety gear.

Toby follows Ralph up a shaking ladder to the rim of a chimney. Stepping out on the scaffolding’s deck, Toby snaps a harness strap to an anchored pipe. A quick glance at the ground yields vertigo which he shoves aside by recollecting a mental picture of his grandfather’s narrow face, open mouth and rasped breathing. 

An hour into the job, Toby lifts his helmet and steps back to appraise his work. He trips on a chipping hammer, stumbles, then falls from the platform. 

“Primo!” 

Ralph swings around, flops belly down and reaches for the safety strap now taut with Toby’s weight. On the ground, fellow workers rush to the scene. “Loosen the lanyard!” shouts one to Toby.

Blood balloons Toby’s legs. Pain spikes his crotch. He twirls at the end of the cable like a snagged trout. 

Sirens. Yelling. Pointing. Shouting. Toby passes out. When he regains consciousness, he is still dangling in the air. Through blurred vision, he discerns two men. 

“We got you, pal!”

The men pull him inside a yellow bucket attached to a lift truck. The boom descends. His legs, numb. His heart pounds like a ball ping hammer. 

You need to relax, primo. 

The men pull him inside. The bucket descends, wobbling like a casket being lowered by ropes. The air feels cool, but heat radiates from the men attending him. Sweat beads their foreheads and Toby finds himself staring at the sheen of oil on ‘buelo’s forehead. In the whine of the engine below, he hears the priest’s incantation: Go forth! Go forth, faithful Christian. 

The bucket jolts, gravel screeches. A hand grabs his wrist and squeezes for a pulse. Another hand cups his chin.

“Thin. My son, you’re so thin.”

In the sky, vapor clouds dance and swirl, their billows soft and smooth as angel gowns.

Mike Boniface’s short stories have appeared in Flash Fiction Magazine, Dappled Things and Pilgrim: A Journal of Catholic Experience.
He received honorable mention in the JF Powers Short Fiction Contest, was a finalist in Ruminate’s Van Dyke Spiritual Essay Contest
and was long-listed in Craft’s Flash Fiction Contest. He lives in West Texas where he tends horses on a small ranch.