The Calming Hand
(HANK)
Log Entry. 2003-06-28 Day 1,295.
My three-day scheduled shift break is ending today. Next 12-hour shift begins tomorrow. The barometer started dropping this morning. Storm coming. May inquire with previous shift as preparations begin to secure the deck.
A sick, swift fall in the pressure. You don't need the instruments, though. You can taste it in the air. A metallic sharpness. The sea went from grey to a bruised, angry purple.
By midday, the first real wave hit. A monster. It didn't break over the rig; it slammed into it. A shudder ran through the Pioneer's steel bones, a deep, groaning vibration that felt like the world ending. The wind began to scream, a high, thin wail in the superstructure.
I called it. Helped secured the deck. Everyone on shift dismissed to interior duties or their bunks.
I was helping make final rounds, even though I wasn’t on shift, checking tie-downs, when I saw him. Evans. He was in the rec area alone, a book open on his lap, but he wasn't reading. He was rigid, his knuckles white where he gripped the pages. His eyes were fixed on a porthole, watching a wall of black water lash the glass.
Another wave hit. The rig tilted, a long, slow, nauseating roll. The lights flickered. Evans flinched. A full-body jolt he tried to mask by clearing his throat. He looked down at his book, but I saw the rapid rise and fall of his chest. He was breathing too fast.
Panic. Not fear. Panic. It's a different animal. It's quiet and it's cold and it eats you from the inside.
I should've kept walking. It wasn't my job to hold his hand. I had kept to myself these past three days off. Maybe on purpose. Maybe to avoid his eyes at all he shared with me. I wasn’t ready to face his problems when I had my own still to deal with. But my feet carried me across the room for some reason.
Well, to be honest, I knew the reason. He needed me.
I stopped in front of him, blocking his view of the storm. “You okay Evans?”
He looked up and I could see how wide his eyes were. Not their usual confident self. The storm-grey in them was churning. He tried to paste on a calm expression and let go of the book and gripped the edges of the chair. It was a bad performance. "Richardson." He barely said in a whisper.
I gave a nod and just looked at him. I saw the pulse hammering in his throat. I saw the slight tremor in his hands as the book lay open on his lap, dangerously close to sliding off those muscular legs of his. He was terrified, and probably having a panic attack by the look of him. And he was ashamed of being terrified and scared, especially in front of me.
Another roll from the next blast of waves. I didn’t even notice it but he braced himself against the chair, his back straightening up so quickly, his jaw clenched so tight I thought it might crack.
Without a word, I sat down in the chair next to him, spreading my legs out wide, deliberately groaning as I did to take his mind off things. I didn't look at him. I just stared at the opposite wall, my own massive frame barely fitting into the chair beside him. He looked like a little kid next to me.
He seemed to go perfectly still.
The rig groaned around us as it usually did in a storm. To me it meant nothing, but after only a week here with rather calm waters, this was new to him. The little fella probably didn’t imagine it could be like this. A loose piece of equipment clattered somewhere down a corridor. I could feel the tension radiating off him as he tried to sit completely still, but he was like a live wire cackling under the surface ready to snap away. I looked down at the veins on top of his smooth hand as he gripped the arm of the chair like his life depended on it.
"First big one's always the worst," I said, my voice low, barely louder than the storm outside. I flicked my gaze forward again, away from his perfect looking hands. "Your guts don't know the rules yet. They think you're dying."
He let out a shaky breath. It wasn't quite a laugh. "Feels like it."
"She's built for this," I rumbled. "This rig has seen worse than a tantrum from the sea. Steel's a mile thick in the legs. She's not going anywhere."
I chanced a look at him. He was watching me now, focused on my face and not the storm. The raw fear in his eyes was softening, replaced by a different kind of intensity. I couldn’t help but keep looking back at him, into those beautifully haunting green/grey eyes. They just seemed so warm, and held so much I could get lost just staring into them. Something about it made my own gut clench. I suddenly wished I had been braver these past three days, and spoke to him. Thanked him for sharing his vulnerability. Acknowledged his apology better. Told him I forgave him. Told him I was constantly thinking about him. Told him I couldn’t get him out of my head.
"You... you're not worried?" he asked, his voice quieter.
I blinked away my thoughts of how cute he was sitting there next to me. And how much I missed this kind of connection. "Worrying doesn't stop the wave," I said. "Just wears you out before it gets here."
He nodded slowly, absorbing it. His breathing was starting to even out. The white-knuckle grip on the chair had loosened.
We sat in silence for a long time beside each other, both of us looking forward, our knees almost touching. The rig pitched and rolled. The wind screamed. But in our small corner, a strange calm settled over him, and to be honest, over me as well. Just sitting there beside him seemed to anchor us both. I was content. So content that when the rig pitched again and our knees touched, neither one of us thought it was strange. And neither one of us moved to separate them.
This warmth spread through me and I felt my own body relaxing. There was an electricity in me now. Our legs were touching. My mind was racing. My chest thumped with the beating of my heart.
I felt a pull to chance another look at his beautiful face. He was scared of the storm, that was still obvious by the way he sat. But the look he was giving me back now as our eyes met did not contain any hint of fear about the weather outside. It was something else entirely. I hardly saw him over the last few days, but I realized I had missed him. Sitting here, looking at his boyishly handsome face, I knew it. Despite his intrusion into my journal, he still made me smile, and lightened my step. I haven’t felt like this since Jim.
Haven’t you punished yourself enough?
I heard my own written words screaming inside my head. Jim was pushing me.
Look, I’ve sent him to you.
Truth is I’ve done nothing but think about him. His admissions to me and the details he blurted out. He had had a boyfriend, like me. His boyfriend was dead, like mine. He confessed he’d been abused, and it broke my heart. Here I was running from my own shame. After all he’d been through, how was this kid still standing?
Now sitting beside him, I felt guilty for not saying more over the last few days. He deserved better. I needed to be open and honest with him now. It was my turn.
He pushed his leg slightly harder against mine, and it felt more dangerous than any hundred-foot wave happening outside. I didn’t pull away. And I felt the warm wave inside wash through me.
And the most terrifying part to me was I didn't want to be anywhere else but sitting here beside him feeling his leg against mine.
I was going to have a lot to write about tonight in my journal.
-----------------------------------
(NOAH)
The world was a screaming, tilting madness outside. But in the chair next to mine, Hank the Tank Richardson was a solid mountain. A silent, unmovable object with his leg resting against mine, sending his calm directly through me.
My initial, clawing panic had receded thank God, not because the storm had lessened, but because he was here, beside me. The violent lurches became a rhythm I could almost anticipate after he spoke. My death-grip on the armrests relaxed, finger by finger as he sat down beside me. And the panic inside slipped away thanks to the feeling of his giant leg against my own, sending a different wave of emotion flowing through me. Feeling his touch, from his leg, calmed me completely.
The past three days felt like agony. Since our last shift, the one after my ramblings, whenever I felt his eyes on me, my skin prickled. I had kept my head down, my back to him as much as possible, focusing on the mind-numbing rhythm of shoveling cuttings. The hum was gone from my throat as I couldn’t seem to get the knot of anxiety out of my gut. I thought I had fixed it, with my confessions. His demeanor was the same as always: gruff, commanding, impersonal. But he was different. Then I hardly saw him as our crew was on our three day off rotation. He seemed to be avoiding me. I’d ruined it. Whatever fragile, unspoken respect he had for me disappeared after one stupid mistake in spite of my admissions and apology. He didn’t speak to me. He didn’t seek me out. He didn’t appear when I did in the mess hall, or the showers. It was like he disappeared for three days. There were no special orders. But the space between us felt like there was now a wall up.
I spent the past few days hiding out in my room, trying to shower during odd times to avoid Dex, and Sully. I wrote a lot. And worried about whether Hank the Tank had truly forgiven me or not.
Sitting here with him now though, the silence between us was different. It wasn't empty but filled with a kind of understanding. I think he really did forgive me for finding his journal, or he was glad that I wasn’t like the others, or maybe he really did appreciate what I shared with him, about Liam, and the coach. Maybe he saw me as an equal with some intelligence to me because I too kept a journal, and came here to escape as well. There was something connecting us, beyond my own hope that he was drawn to me just as much as I was drawn to him. And when he didn’t pull his leg away like any other freaked out straight man would at the merest TOUCH from another guy, it confirmed my findings. We were connected.
And it felt so good. Too good in fact, that I didn’t want to move.
I had to break it thought, because if I didn’t, I’d do something stupid again, like reach for his hand, or worse, just lean over and start to unbuckle his pants. Like with Dex, or Sully. Like I did with the Coach. Like I did with all the other older men who saw me as something to be used.
But I didn’t. I just sat there, feeling his knee against mine, thinking this was the most wonderful feeling in the world.
Hank’s leg on mine wasn’t a threat. It felt like a subtle invitation. Like he was testing the waters. Just to be sure.
I looked over at that big, strong hand of his, with the thick veins running along the top. I had felt the warmth of those thick fingers, grabbing me by my coveralls, holding me tightly after I bumped into him, being so close against him. I kept thinking about it. In my room alone after a shift. And now my eyes looked at his big leg, the outline of his thigh, the thickness of his leg, how much larger it looked next to mine, and the way it pressed back against mine.
“Is it always like this?” My voice came out too loud in the relative quiet of the rec room. The men who had been in here had drifted off to their bunks, just before Richardson came in, leaving us completely alone.
He didn’t look at me. His gaze was fixed on the wall, as if he could see right through it to the sea. “No. Sometimes it’s worse.”
A startled laugh escaped me which felt good. “Comforting.”
The hint of a smile might have touched his lips as I tried to look at him. It was hard to tell in the dim, flickering light. “It’s the truth.” His deep baritone voice seeped into my brain.
I took a shaky breath, the knot in my chest loosening another inch. “How long have you been out here? On the rigs.”
He didn’t hesitate in his answer. “Fifteen years total. Usually a year at a time. But I don’t like the breaks away. So, I come back as fast as I’m allowed.”
Fifteen years. A lifetime of the screaming wind and the groaning steel. “How old are you anyway?”
I saw an eyebrow raise and he turned to look down on me with that hint of a grin again. “43 in a couple weeks. And handsome as ever.” He actually grinned and gave me a wink.
“So you were my age when you first started? 28?” I tried to imagine a younger Hank the Tank Richardson, without the scar or the gut or the weight of command in his eyes but couldn’t. “What made you stay?”
This time, he did glance at me fully with a quick, assessing look. But he gave me a sad smile. “Initially it was the money mostly.” He stopped suddenly, closing his lips tightly, as if he was holding something back. I heard him sigh heavily, and close his eyes as he inhaled deeply. When his eyes flicked open, they blinked a couple times before he gave me a soft smile. “The work is simple. You do your job, you get paid well, you go home.”
But he was still here, talking to me, with our legs still touching.
I pushed, just a little. “But you didn’t go home. You stayed.” I felt his leg drifting away from mine, and I resisted the urge to push mine back against his. “Is that how you get used to the quiet? Writing?”
His eyes met mine fully then, and I saw it—the flicker of surprise that I’d understood. He looked away again, a long, slow roll of the rig making him shift his weight and I felt his leg fully against mine once more. “I guess. It helps. Place to put the words. The thoughts. The memories.” he admitted, his voice so low I barely heard it over the storm.
We lapsed into silence again but he didn’t move his leg, kept it resting against mine tightly. The invitation was clear now. He put it back, almost pushing against mine, daring me to say something. He didn’t do anything else except cross his big arms over his chest in a soft exhalation of breath.
“I used to hate the quiet,” I found myself saying, the words pulled out of me by the strange intimacy of the moment. “After a competition… the silence in the hotel room was worse than the roar of the crowd. I started to wonder what I was doing it for. And then I couldn’t handle it. Any of it. The quiet. The crowd. The media. The courtroom….” I caught myself and cleared my throat but the Tank didn’t bat an eye. “Now… I don’t know. It’s different out here. It’s not what I expected.”
He was listening and doing his best not to react. I could feel the intensity of his focus as he stared across the room. “You said you came here to escape.”
It didn’t come out as a question so I didn’t say anything at first. Nor did he. I glanced around the empty rec room, realizing that I was feeling much calmer now with the weight of his leg still against me.
“I did. Once the trial was thrown out because the coach…well, he was no longer available to be charged with anything…I didn’t know what to do. All the attention came back to me. I was the accuser, the little gay boy mad because he lost his lover….” I finally said, softly. “Is that…normal? Guys coming here to escape?”
A massive wave hit, and the rig leaned hard to port. My stomach lurched and I heard my own breath loud in the room. Instinctively, I straightened my body in the chair, my leg dug into the side of his as my legs spread wider out of instinct and my head spun, forcing me to grip the arm of the chair tighter than ever before.
And then a giant warm hand covered mine on the armrest, closing around it with a heat and comfort I had missed.
I froze, not expecting him to make such a move, waiting for him to pull away just as fast. But he didn’t, nor did his leg move from my pressing one. The heat radiated from his large hand, the callousness and roughness of it apparent on mine. I felt my breath release from me as my entire body relaxed.
“Just breathe through it.” He said, barely a whisper, the feel of his hand on mine sending sheer warmth through my body. “Yeah,” he said, after a long moment, his voice a rough whisper. “It’s normal.”
He took a slow breath, as if steeling himself, or teaching me how to do it. My eyes glanced over at his huge hand. The thick strong fingers, the width of it completely covering my own. Warm and soft and large, like someone put a baseball glove over top of my hand.
“I took this job to escape too. Grief sort of. Hurt mostly.” He said quietly.
I felt my heart thumping as I realized he was truly holding my hand, as our fingers seemed to find their way and laced together, the warmth now settling into me, telling me things that he probably never told anyone. I dared not move, or open my mouth and ask a stupid question.
“My partner Jim passed away, and I blamed myself. I came here to get away from it all, just like you. So…I understand.” He sat there for a moment, and I felt the slight movement of his big thumb rubbing my skin ever so softly and slowly. “What did you hope to find out here Noah?” He asked me, keeping his hand on mine.
I swallowed hard, hearing him use my first name which sounded so foreign from his lips, feeling the warmth of his heavy hand radiate up my arm to my chest. I took a shallow breath and looked down at my boots. “Silence.”
I heard him breathe in deeply and he shifted in his seat, but his hand never left mine. “Me too.”
I stared at his big thumb, the shape of his nail, the veins snaking along the top. “Did you find it?”
“No.” he said softly.
I couldn’t help but react, and gave sort of a hmph, before I found my voice. “I’m lonely.” I admitted quietly. His thumb stopped for a moment, and then I felt his hand squeeze mine.
“Me too.” He said just as quiet.
I swallowed again, wanting to turn my hand over so I could hold his hand properly. My eyes drifted to that strong hand of his covering mine, feeling a strange need to tell him more. “Does anyone know about you? I mean, that you had a boyfriend named Jim?”
I turned my head sideways to see him looking at me, down at me, his eyes smaller, almost squinting. “No one here, no.”
“Everyone knows about me. Back home I mean. I couldn’t deal with it anymore, so I basically ran away. To this. Where I think everyone took one look at me and figured it out here too.” I let out a long sigh. “I feel like I’m wearing a sign that says I like to suck dick.”
Richardson gave a quick frown and then a small huff, and I saw him nodding. “You’re a sight for sore eyes Noah. I mean look at you: you’re a fine specimen of a man, mister Olympic gymnast. Even the straight guys here can’t deny the envy and appreciation. You’re a good-looking guy, Evans. Nothing wrong with that.” He shifted a bit, but kept his hand with mine, before he spoke again. “Before I came here, I was living life out and proud in New York City. After Jim died, I just…couldn’t face it either I guess. And have been hiding out here ever since.”
I watched him, frowning. We sounded suddenly similar, this mountain of a man and me, the scared gymnast, sitting here, with his hand on top of mine, sharing secrets in the middle of a storm.
“You’re a pretty impressive figure yourself you know.” I said quietly, staring at the size of his hand still over mine, the weight of it, the width of his fingers, wishing his thumb would start circling around again because it felt so good. “And I think you’re a very good-looking guy too.”
Richardson inhaled again, the big brute taking in more oxygen from the room and faced forward again. “Been a long time since anyone looked at me like that.”
I moved my hand for the first time, and he sensed it, going to pull away before I put my other hand on top, and he looked at me. I moved my hand under his, turning it so we were palm to palm, holding hands like two lovers now, with our fingers properly linked. He swallowed, letting me, closing his hand around mine tighter, sending a wave of electricity straight through my body.
My stomach tightened as I held his eyes. “I am truly sorry for reading your journal. I didn’t know what it was, and when I did, I stopped. But what I did was wrong. And I apologize. I just don’t want you to hate me.” He looked at me with those husky-like grey eyes and it stopped me in my tracks.
“I am far from hating you, Noah.” He said quietly, squeezing my hand again.
My heart was thumping. My eyes flicked back to his hand holding mine and knew that it felt normal to me. That this felt good.
“And you don’t have to be scared of me, like everyone else.” He added, letting his hand relax.
He turned to me directly, face to face, sitting beside me with his massive warm hand holding mine, his big thigh pressing against mine, and his eyes locked with mine.
“I’m not.” I said simply. And I’m pretty sure he believed me.
My heart kept beating in my chest, threatening to burst from my chest. If this was a movie, he’d lean over to me and kiss me, and tell me everything was going to be okay. Then he’d carry me to his cabin, and we’d get lost in each other, making love until our next shift.
But then we heard someone walking in the corridor and he pulled his hand off mine so fast it suddenly felt cold, and the wave of shame flushed my face.
“I’m sorry.” I found myself saying again to him.
“Don’t be.” He actually smiled at me, which transformed his hardened look into a very handsome one. He seemed to light up, those eyes suddenly wider and full of a quiet storm of his own that drew me in as he stood up in front of me and shoved his hands into his pants pockets. “Feel better?”
“I do.” I heard myself say as he stood there smiling at me, towering over me, back to being my boss.
“Well…you can trust me Evans. About everything. Just like I know I can trust you.” His eyes flicked over to the doorway at the passing figure, both of us waiting in the empty room for the footsteps to pass. “Maybe we can chat again soon.” He gave my shoulder a brief squeeze with that big strong mitt of his as he stood there, and that warmth flew through me again.
“I’d like that.” I said, smiling up at him, feeling my body responding to just looking at him.
“Me too.” He said with a bashful grin, his eyes now darting everywhere but at me.
This man was the first person I told about Liam, and the coach, and my escape. In fact, he was the first person that I admitted to that I had a boyfriend named Liam, without having to pretend or deny it like they made me before the trial. I had just come out to Hank the Tank Richardson, my boss. I felt the relief escape me. The storm on my insides subsided even though the storm outside raged on.
For a moment I thought he was going to invite me to his room. Or maybe he was waiting for me to ask him to walk me back to mine. I felt nervous, then giddy, then silly, then stupid as I looked up at him.
There was a new crisis inside me beginning. This big, scary driller, had just let me in. Even though he wasn’t admitting it to me, I knew he was. I understood it all: the escape, the writing, Jim, his attention to me. I knew.
And I knew, with a thrilling certainty, that I wanted to be let in. There was now something more between us, and I was already wondering if he felt it too.
We were just waiting for one of us to make the first move.
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