Cloak and Dagger Broadcasts

Quiet Please - The Thing on the Fourble Board

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Duration:: 27m
Broadcast on:: 10 Dec 2024
Audio Format:: other

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[Music] The mutual broadcasting system presents Quiet, please, which is written and directed by Willis Cooper, and which features Ernest Chapel. Quiet, please, for tonight is called "The Thing on the Purple Board." [Music] May I'm a roughneck. Well, I was a roughneck. I mean, twenty years ago, a little too old. Slow now. Besides, I got a dollar now. I don't have to be a roughneck, you see. Mary, I've got a nice home. I have to meet my wife. Hey, Mike. Her name's Maxine, but she likes to be called Mike. Mike! I guess she's busy out in the kitchen someplace. Besides, she doesn't hear very well. Shame too. She's so pretty and everything. Well, you'll meet her. Sit down. I was saying I was a roughneck. Well, no, that doesn't mean exactly what you think it means. A roughneck is an oil field worker, specifically a guy on a drilling crew. Call them roughnecks like you call a section hand on the railroad, a gandy dancer, a garage hand, a grease monkey. At the same time, you work around a drilling crew for a while. You're going to be a roughneck in every sense of the word, boy. A derrick floor, or a four-ball board, is no place for a guy with a bow tie. Because when you have to fool around with drilling holes that go farther down the ground, that is on the top of pikes peak down the sea level, and sure they do. In the time I was a roughneck, we got this one well down to 7313 feet. That was a record. But last May Pure Oil brought one in out in the Toronto Valley in Wyoming at 14,309 feet. That friend is almost three miles. Quite a hole that, huh? Sure, I don't think there's an oil man in the world and don't wonder one time or another what's down there. Besides rock and oil and gas, oil is made out of trees that died 20 million years ago. Oil is made out of dinosaur bones, oil is maybe made out of the flesh and blood and men, maybe that beat each other to death of a stone axe, a saber tooth tiger for lunch. Hey, get to wondering. You look at the cores that come up from way down there and sometimes the little shells, trillobytes mostly, that was alive when Manhattan Island, where New York is, was under half a mile ice. We found something once me in Billy Grumwald and something found us. I'll tell you about it. We were down to around 5,400 feet, we'd set casing, we began to get water, so we had to stop drilling and cement off. We see, when water begins to see from the hole you put your drill pipe, then you're left down a cementing shoe inside the casing and you plug up the bottom of the hole casing in law with quick hardening waterproof cement. Then when it's hard you drill through the cement, go on down and the cement outside the casing of the bottom keeps the water out. Well, we had the drill pipe all pulled and racked, the cement was setting sea, so we was shut down waiting for it to harden. We'd been coring just before. You see, a core drill is hollow and as the bit digs down it stops the drilling's up inside it, so when you pull it out you got a sample of the kind of stuff you're going through, and geologists can tell a lot from that. So there's nobody around the rig except me that night the rest of the crew's going into town. I was toasting some pork chops over the porch from myself, I heard a car pulling up. Look out, it's building room wall, the geologist, and I give them a hello. Hi Billy, come and have a pork chop. Hi, porky. Where's everybody? Oh, went to town on the whole crew. I had three blowouts between here and Oxford. I wondered where you was, Ted said you'd been here about three. I would have been except for my tough luck. Oh, I'm dead. Hungry? Starved. Yeah, I got six, seven pork chops, bread, and some coffee kind of. Well, yeah, I got a bottle in the car. Actually going to have a banquet. Hey, where's that core? That's what I came up here to look at. Yeah, back there in the bench. Look at it like the supper. Hey. What? Didn't you say you were all alone here? Uh-huh. I thought I heard somebody talking. Mm-hmm. I don't see anybody. Keep an eye on that pork chop, you won't have any supper. Yeah, I'm watching it. Yeah, let me put the coffee on. Like so. When did you finish cementing? This morning. Last tower only made about ten feet of holes, so Ted shut down before we get flooded out of housing home. Funny about that water. How? It oughtn't to be any at that level, according to my figuring. Well, there is. Is it salt? Sure, right out of the bottom of the ocean. Mm, that's funny. Well, maybe I'll be able to tell something from the core. Yeah, I hope so. Now, last core I looked at was a swarm we were getting into shale. It ain't seen none yet from the cuttings. It's funny. Yeah, pork chop's done. Yeah, it takes some bread. Yeah, thanks. Oh, man. Good, huh? Yeah, put on another eye at two already before you come. Yeah, much of black. Yeah, you know, you never can tell what's done there. You get it all mapped and plotted out all the strata. And all you know is what comes out of the hole. Yeah, I'd like to get down there sometime, if I was little enough. Never get you down a hole. Yeah, you'd fit. It's yay. I'll stay up here and look at the cores, bud. Where is that one? Behind you. Over there. Oh. Well, I'll have a look at it. I want you where you finish your supper. I'm just going to look at it. Put on another pork chop for me. Okay. Well, I wish there was screech on it. What's the matter? Wait a minute, Porky. Well, why do you listen? What's eating you? You know how to sworn there's somebody up there in that formal board. Ah, you're crazy. There's nobody up there. You're going to get those stands at real tight. Ah, they're just rack crooked. I'm going to slip. Come on back and eat your pork chop. Yeah. Yeah, I guess so. Only I... Ah, what's just so jittery about Billy? Come on, eat your sandwich. Here. Yeah, well, thanks, Porky. I don't know, I... I'm just naturally that way, I guess. I'm always scared of the dark. I'm just... Dark, aren't I? I hate to be a baby, but I can't help it. Scared of the dark? Honest? Stupid, ain't it? Oh, I don't know. Everybody's scared of something. Me? Spiders scare the tar out of me. Black widows. Oh. I know how you feel, Billy. There's another light over here? Yeah. Here. Yeah. Oh, that's better. Hey, listen, Porky. Go out to the car and look in the left-hand door, park and bring back that bottle, will ya? That's what I need. Okay, kid. Okay! So, I picked up a flashlight, I turned around, went outside, I found a car. Then I got the bottle. And the floor of the derrick was all lit up, and when I saw it beam a light suddenly flash up toward the 4-bit board, and I laughed. Billy Grumwald and his ideas. Sure, I looked up. There wasn't a darn thing up there, except the drill pipe racked against the fingerboard. Oh, this 4-bit board. Well, you've seen oil derricks or pictures of them. Do you know the little platform that runs around the outside of the derrick about halfway up? Well, that's the 4-bit board. When you see drill pipe comes in lengths, and you handle them with several lengths screwed together, so as to save time getting them in and out the hole. Two lengths is a double, three is a triple, four is a four-bit. When you pull a pipe, you're hyped it up inside the derrick of the traveling block, which moves up and down from the crown block at the top of the derrick. Then when a four-bit pipe is pulled out, it's held in the rotary table. You break the joint with tongs like a great big stilts and range you see. Snub a cable that's fastened to the handle over the cat head on the draw works, and that breaks the joint. Then you hold the tongs on the pipe, give the rotary table a few turns done, screw it. You heist away with the traveling block and swing it over against the fingerboard, lean it against the derrick. The guy up on the four-bit board takes off the traveling block, you do it all over again, you got all the pipe out, you see? Well, there wasn't anybody up on the four-bit board except a screech owl and it flew away. So Billy turned his light off and I come out inside. And just as I come up the steps, he let out a yell. What's the matter? What's the matter, Billy? Hey, come here, look here. But what's it? Look, Porky. Mine. Where did you find that? Now listen, Porky, I give you my word that was embedded in the core. Oh, it couldn't be. I tell you it was. Look where I dug it out. Do you know what? That rock there comes from a mile underground, and it's been a mile underground for a million years. And look at this. And I did look, and what he was holding was a gold ring. And it was all carved and filigree just like jewelry. And there wasn't any kidding about it. It was real. No, no, no, wait a minute. Hang on, I ain't done. I poked at the core of a rock that looked like a kind of petrified salami or something. And then it was my turn to pretty near jump out of my pants. Because right alongside the place where Billy dug out the ring, there was a mud covered, but very unmistakable finger. I picked it up, and it was cold. And it was heavy. And it was solid rock. At least it felt like solid rock. And I looked at Billy and Billy looked at me. He started to rub the mud off his ear, a stone finger. And as he rubbed it, he'd begun to disappear. No, he could be of still feel it, he said, but when the mud was gone, neither one of us could see it. He dropped it to the derrick floor, it went clonkin. We couldn't find it anyplace. So you know what we done? We took that bottle and we took and finished it, Billy and me. We finished it in one slug of peas, and it was a full pint of bathtub. Janet tasted just like so much well water to me. And then we said that. Your child's first step is a big step towards their future, which first step by college invest. Every Colorado child born or adopted on or after January 1st, 2020, will receive a free $115 contribution to their college invest college savings account. Plus, we'll match a percentage of your contributions in the coming years, helping you save even more. Enroll today and start your child off on the right foot. ColoradoFirstStep.org to get started and claim your $115 now. Prior to the same old decorations, rediscover the magic of the holidays with the fresh new look from Family Dollar. Shop great deals on holiday must-have-like, pre-lit or unlit trees, or an immense decorations, or impress the neighbors with festive outdoor decor, inflatable, light, and so much more. Check out the Family Dollar app to see how you could save even more with smart coupons. Just download the app, browse the available offers, flip and redeem the checkout. Family Dollar helping you do more. On the direct floor and we looked at each other, we didn't say a word. My eyes got heavier and heavier. The last thing I remember was I heard some kind of noise that seemed to be coming up from, now I'm at a four-ball board, eighty feet above us. I shut my eyes a minute. I guess I want to see. I'm at a super. And I head off for dreams. Black widow, spiders crawling all over me with gold rings on their legs. Things I could hear that I couldn't see up on the four-ball board. The blue-green wall climbing up the ladder outside the derrick in the moonlight. The face is looking at me. I couldn't figure out who they were. When I was wake up by a horrible scream, the trash behind me that shook the whole derrick. I opened my eyes to see the blue-green wall, lying on the floor two feet away, with a broken neck. And his left hand, when he put the gold ring on the little finger of his left hand, and the way his arms were spread out, his left little finger and the ring were gone. A friend I got out of here, I run down to where Billy left his car, and I got in and stepped on the starter. And I couldn't get it to go. And then I remembered after I'm putting your run down the battery, the Billy had taken the key. I wasn't going up there and going through a dead man's clothes to get it. So I sat there in the car and shivered all by myself 'til daylight. And then Ted and the crew came, afterwards a steak cop, and everybody in the world was asking me questions. Did you and Billy have a fight, Porgie? I told you we didn't, Ted. If you had been drinking. We only had that little pipe, Ted. Well, what was he doing up in the football board? Did you threaten him, and did he run up there to get away from him? But I mean, cop, don't be a sharp, Billy grew old, and I were good friends. And why'd you push him off the football board? I didn't, I tell you. I was not there. Oh, what did he go there for? I don't know. I was asleep. How do you know he was up there? I didn't say. Why'd you say so? Besides, how would he break his neck if he didn't fall from way up there? Well, look, Officer. I think it was just another accident. I mean, we haven't got anything on Porgie, and personally, I don't believe he did it. Well, it's mighty mysterious. I saw this, but we got work to do. Now, how about it? That cement's hard down there. I want to stop drilling again, and I'm short-handed. Will you let Porgie stay here 'til I run him a pipe again, and all that you can take him and ask him questions 'til you're blue in the face? Well... Okay. Let's get rolling. They got Steve up happy. I'm all set. All right. Porgie, you go from the football board. What? Not me, Ted. Oh, it'll be such a boob. There's nobody up there to shove you overboard. Hey, you can put a safety line around you if you want to. And besides, you're getting paid to do what you're told. I'd like too much time already on that board. Me? Not that board. So, okay, I go up on the football board. And you can bet I took a good gander around before I did anything else. Oh, I couldn't see a thing. So I signaled to the driller to let down the traveling block, and he did. Came sailing down from up above. I was just reaching for it to pick up the first... ...fortable of drill pipe. Give a big jerk in the cable broke. And dropped and nearly pulled me off the football board. Handed landed. High on top of Ted. And if you have any idea what a guy looks like after two tons of metal land on him from 80 feet up. Yeah, you keep your ideas to yourself. Well, that was enough two accidents in a row. The whole crew quit. It wasn't going to wait for a third. And it was Ted's money that was paying off. There wasn't any more. As far as I know, the abandoned Derek is still there. And that was 20 years ago. Oh, I forgot to tell you something. That traveling block was right in front of my face when it broke loose. It was hanging by steel cable, three quarter inch steel cable. And I saw that cable break right before my eyes. But just like a piece of string when you snap it between your fingers. I could almost see the fingers. You know what? There was something up there on the football board with me. And so a couple of days later I came back. I don't know if there's anything in the world as desolate as dismal. As dead looking as an abandoned oilwell rig. There it stands like a skeleton off on a deserted side road in the bare yellow hills surrounding it. And it's the deadliest thing you ever saw. I sat in my car for a long time looking at it. Everything was just the way we left it. I looked into the floor of the smashed traveling block was there alongside the rotary table loser. Little mutter esteem from the boiler. That was all. Then I heard a tinkle of something as I tipped the ground alongside me. I looked around and there wasn't a soul in sight. But at my feet was a gold ring that Billy Grunwald and I had found in the core of rock. That came from a mile underground and from a million years ago in time. And I heard a little sound. The sound of a kid crying. I wasn't a kid up there. I heard it again and it came from above my head and I took out my revolver. I loaded it carefully. I started up the ladder to the football board. Now there wasn't anything up there, anything I could see. There was a voice cry. The voice of a little kid. And then there was a movement behind the rack of drill pipes and I saw the pipe move and I yelled, "Come out of there, whoever you are. Come out or I'll stay shooting." And I stand a pipe shivered and I thought, "What can it be? They can handle it. Have you piped like Jack's flaws?" And then there was a crash. The whole stand the pipe fell over and I just got out of the way in time. And I was alone on the football board with a thing. But I couldn't see it. I felt a platform tremble under my feet again as something moved toward me. I fired two or three shots. And nothing happened. I started backwards. I knew it was following me because I could hear it meowing like a cap. My feet tripped over something I saw was a big can of red lead that somebody left up there. Without thinking I picked it up and I threw it at the sound and it splashed. And there it was. And I wish I... I wish... the face of a little girl frightened by a hunger and terror. Hands like a human being and a finger missing from the left hand. And a body. Now, I'll tell you about that. I told you how I'm scared of spiders. But I knew where it came from. It had come from the pearls of the earth. Come riding up on the drill pipe as we acted out of the well. Come to an alien world and was lost. It stood there dripping with red paint blood red from head to foot like some horrible dream. And it put its hand on my arm. Its hand was stone. Living, moving stone. And it looked into my eyes and knew it like a lost kitten. Twenty years ago, I discovered many things about it. What it used for food, that it was death. That it was invisible and couldn't see people when it was invisible. That if you sprayed it with mud or paint or grease paint, make up, then it could see people. And believe me, I didn't want to see its body. I can see that in my nightmares. But it's face. I can't help wanting to see that pathetic little girl face. I'm afraid maybe I've fallen, but it's very beautiful. And when it's well made up, it's making it up rubbing grease paint on a stone face that looks at you and smiles and it makes sounds like a lost kitten yet. I can disguise the body in long dresses. She can't hear very well. And when she's hungry, I have to say out of her way. I found out what she likes to eat, remember. No, no, shit's still. Said still do. Said still or I'll have to shoot you. I want you to meet my wife, or rather, my wife wants to meet you. Mike. Mike. There she is. Come on in, dear. The title of tonight's Quietly Story is The Thing on the Furbel Board. It was written and directed by Willis Cooper and featured Ernest Chapel and band-sutter played Billy Grillewald. Pat O'Malley was Ted, and Cecil Roy was also a member of the cast. As usual, music for Quietly's is played by Albert Berman. Sound? Sound by our good friend, Albert April. Now, if we're worried about next week, here is our writer, Director Willis Cooper. Well, I'm reasonably sure that all the characters in tonight's stories were completely fictional. At least I, for one, hope so. Next week, the story is called Presto Changel, I'm sure. And so until next week, at the same time, I am Quietly yours. Ernest Chapel. This program was heard in Canada through the facilities of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. This is the mutual broadcasting system. Your child's first step is a big step towards their future, which first step by college invest. Every Colorado child born or adopted on or after January 1, 2020 will receive a free $115 contribution for their college invest college savings account. Plus, we'll match a percentage of your contributions in the coming years, helping you save even more. Enroll today and start your child off on the right foot. Visit ColoradoFirstStep.org to get started and claim your $115 now. Prior to the same old decorations, we discovered the magic of the holidays with a fresh new look from Family Dollar. Shop great deals on holiday must-have like, pre-lit or unlit trees, or an immense decorations, or impress the neighbors with festive outdoor decor, inflatable, light, and so much more. Check out the Family Dollar Apps to see how you can save even more with smart coupons. Just download the app, browse available offers, flip and redeem the checkout. Family Dollar, helping you do more!