Red

We were all peering down the concrete lined hole. It's dark down there, and a little unsettling. I kick a rock in.

“One thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand thr. . .”

Golly.

We are looking inside a nuclear missile silo. The cap has been removed (it’s lying off a little ways in the desert), and so was the missile. All that is left is this concrete slab and a deep hole. Around the upper edge is a huge spring, coiled just inside the lip. The wire must be 18 inches thick. There are huge clamps holding it in place.

My dad looks at Red.

“I dunno, Red. That spring is under a lot of pressure. I don’t think we can just cut it out with the torch.”

“Ah, you’re a pussy,” Red growls. “Just cut the damn thing.”

The spring was designed to throw the steel reinforced concrete cap clear of the silo in the event of a launch. And that cap is huge. It was designed to survive anything except a direct hit from a Russian ICBM. Our job is to remove everything within twenty feet of the surface, then fill it in. The first step is to remove this huge spring.

Dad looks around for support. No one says anything.

My brothers and I are just kids and we don’t know what to say. We’re just glad to be hanging with these tough grown ups who make their living removing anything. From orange groves to towering buildings, my dad and his friends can take it apart and haul it off.

Dad runs his hand over a clamp. It reaches down around the spring with a mighty grip. It is perhaps two feet wide and ten feet long. I guess the thickness to be about six inches.

“What do you think is going to happen when those clamps come off?” Dad asks Red.

“Nuthin’! Aw, it might pop up a bit, but it ain’t gonna hurt nuthin’. Stop bein’ such a pansy and cut the G*d damn thing.”

We all shuffle our feet. I’m only 13 and it makes me uncomfortable, this tough guy telling us that we are just scared. But I trust my dad. He knows what we should do.

After a little cursing and grumbling Red makes a decision.

“Get the hell out of the way you bunch of weenies. I’ll cut the damn thing.”

He grabs the handcart with the cutting torch and drags it over to the lip of the pit. He flicks the striker over the cutting tip and squats down beside a clamp.

It takes a while, but finally he shifts his body, stands up, and kicks the clamp. It goes spinning off into the dark. One thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand th. . .

"Clang”

He drags the torch to the next clamp.

“Bunch of G*d damn pussies, afraid of a little work. . .”

He kneels down and goes back to cutting. The smell of hot steel and burning dust floats in the air.

Soon the next clamps falls away, the giant wire quivers.

Red goes to work on the third clamp. The metal glows and drips into the pit designed to handle a greater inferno than these little red drops of steel. When there is just a couple of inches of the clamp left something amazing happens. That thick piece of steel twists. It lets out a groan and bends upward from the pressure of the giant spring. I see the wire quiver and jump a couple of inches.

The overweight grouch with the salt and paprika beard stretches and looks condescendingly at my dad.

“No big deal. If ya got balls.”

He moves to the next spring.

We watch as he begins cutting. We look at that huge coil running around that shaft in the desert. And as he gets about half way through that clamp my dad shifts uneasily. He glances at my brothers and me and jerks his head slightly toward the desert. We all step back a few feet.

Red is crouched over the clamp, puffs of smoke curling up from his work. And then everything changed.

There was some sort of grinding, twisting, metallic groaning and then a flash of movement. We look up and framed against the bright blue sky is Red. His arms and legs are spread out and he is slowly turning around and over. The tanks of gas for the cutting torch are up there too. And everywhere are huge pieces of concrete, streaking upward into the sky.

I stand there, my mouth open, watching the bits and pieces of the concrete slab recede.

I hear someone yell.

“RUN!”

Oh. Right. This stuff is going to be coming back!

We scatter, running as fast as we can into the desert.

“Whoomp!”

“Thud!”

Big pieces of concrete start landing here and there.

“Wham. Thump! Crash!”

Finally it is just a pitter patter sound, like hail, which quickly stops.

We go back, pick up Red and haul him to the hospital in the back of the truck where he spends the next few months.

Sometimes I don’t mind being a little bit of a wussy.