Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 26 by Kelly Link Gavin J. Grant Page B

Lamar and Rastas. Lamar had a crush on Darlene, an artist who sculpted Foo Dogs from bronze; one Foo’s foot rested on the world, another’s foot on the belly of a baby Foo to stand for protection. But those sentinels slept on the job because fumes brought on welder’s flash, and the Alaska Pipeliners, their brain signals gone haywire, had zappers implanted by the Toxicologist’s team. Now they’re kaput. But where? “ECU,” Darlene says, “Eternal Care Unit.” After Lamar’s termination, she abandoned her fiery art, and I can’t sleep at night for fretting I’ll go to the shed and find no fume extractor.
    Today I go to the shed and there’s no fume extractor. In its place is a Post-it:

Don’t get your stout jeans in a wad . The fume extractor’s coming back. Keep your pants on.
    Here’s our predicament: how are we supposed to breathe while torching the innards of a Pinto—Up in Smoke—?
    Aida shuffles over from the women’s trailer, a welding rod stuttering in her hand.
    “Is the extractor missing?” she says.
    “It’s right in front of you,” I say.
    “My foot,” she says. “I’m calling the Reverend Francine.”
    I put on my gauntlet gloves and hand her a pair.
    “Why are you wearing those?” she says. “Is your helmet next? Is this some sort of ritual to appease the great Toxicologist? What would we do on a real job if there wasn’t a fume extractor? We’d strike. Where the hell’s that extractor?”
    I shuck my gloves and toss them on the floor beside a Vega, Snuff You Out. “Maybe they replaced it with personal respirators,” I say. I check. Nothing.
    “Son of a gun,” Aida says. “I’m going to see the Toxicologist and tell him no fume extractor, no welding.”
    Scratch that. We both know she won’t. Instead she calls the Reverend and leaves a message then hands over a skull cap to duct tape over my nose and mouth. We both flip down the viewers on our masks and light our torches.
    No study nurse stops in, no fume extractor shows up, and pretty soon manganese is punching us in the lungs, which starts Aida coughing till she can’t stop; I get chills and feel queasy. But we keep welding until our corpus callosums seize up.
    Aida peels off her ppg and heads for the women’s trailer, her shoulders jerking with each step. “No extractor tomorrow, I vamoose,” she chokes out. “They can’t stop me. You’ll see.”
    So many hot rods have to be welded each day so after I square-butt the front suspension on a Bonneville, Buzzard Bait, I finish off Aida’s chassis with a passel of horizontal lap-joints.
    In the men’s trailer I wrap myself in two blankets, boil some water for instant decaf then fill out my End-of-the-Workday Medical Report:
    While breathing in welding smoke today, did you notice any short-term physical effects? No.
    Are there any long-term effects you are beginning to observe in yourself or your co-worker? None.
    Is there anything you would like to report to the Toxicologist? Negative.
    I click submit and email the report.
    In the morning, the fume extractor has not been replaced and there are no individual respirators either. Yesterday’s Post-it is still stuck up. Aida leans against a Nova, Death Rattle, finishing her coffee, each swallow a major workout for her, then she shakes out her filthy skull cap so I beat my filthy cap, too. But we don’t tape them on; we wait.
    No study nurse anywhere so Aida phones the Angel Communicator and leaves a message.
    Que sera, sera.
    An hour goes by before we put on our ppg. Today, using the fusion-only double-butt on a Plymouth, Dirge, we set the current too low for penetration. When Aida turns the juice up, spatter burns our hair since our skullcaps are on our faces; in the moment before the spray lands, Aida strikes me as a wonder, like a bottle rocket, a Roman candle.
    She runs a hand through her singed locks and, as she hobbles back to the women’s trailer, I hear her leave another message for the Reverend. I adjust