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Chapter 5 Muddy Job in Colorado
(This story was inspired by Muddybootsnlevis' excellent "The Mud Business". My story and the characters in it are all 100% fiction with one exception - like my story's narrator Jason, I wished I could work at Muddybootsnlevis' fictional Drilling Mud Company)


I got in the Ram before sunrise and started the drive from Lake Tahoe to Colorado. As soon as I got a cell signal, I emailed Axel.

axel
what a day. here are some pix of me in the sierra all muddy helping guys get their truck out of mud. they are militia types practicing in wilderness. cool guys but scary. lots of guns. we got along ok. colorado next.
jason

I then sent the same email to Melinda. When I stopped for gas and double checked routes on my phone's map, Axel had already replied:

Jason
Be real careful. Guys like them love to beat people like you and me bloody. Stay away from them. They HATE us.
Axel

For the rest of the day, I wondered about his use of the word "us". Did he main gay? Of course he did. But what did that mean for me, a straight guy... a straight guy who'd slept with him?

I almost immediately got another email:

Jason
Love the pix. I'm a city guy. I'm not into mud. But you look FANTASTIC.
Axel

When I bought gas at my first stop in Nevada, there was a reply from Melinda:

Jason-
I'm in Jasper, Canada. Backpacking all week, then was delayed returning because someone got sick. It was pretty stressful. Just got into cell phone range. Will write after I get a hot shower and some sleep. I'm beat right now. Love that you're camping again.
Melinda

Axel also sent email

Jason
I just did something I never thought I'd do. I signed up at a gym. I keeping thinking about your beautiful body and what you said about lifting weights for years. I realize now that gyms aren't just for jocks who want huge, ugly muscles. You look strong and masculine, but not show offy. I love how you look.
Axel

I spent most of Monday driving from the Sierra to Colorado. I napped behind the wheel at rest stops and ate at fast food joints. I drove fast, much faster than I usually do, my eyes peeled for radar and highway patrol the entire way. Nevada and Utah looked like mostly desert, not likely places to find much mud. I knew there was mud in Colorado from Muddybootsnlevis' stories, so I was going straight there. I didn't know where in Colorado, I was just going.
I was in the Rifle area when I decided to stop for the night. I was exhausted from driving all day. I didn't know how much longer I'd get a cell signal, so when stopped for gas, I checked email. There was an email from Axel:

Melinda also sent email:

Jason-
Amazing pictures! I wish I could see you under the mud, but they're awesome. Looks like you're having fun. I've been leading a backpacking group in the Canadian Rockies. Heading home now.
Melinda

I registered at the nearest campground with a vacancy and settled down for the night. After a solid day of driving, I was too exhausted to look for mud. I cooked a fast dinner on my stove, then built a small fire and relaxed for a while. There was a cell signal, so I checked my phone. No new emails, so I decided to see what I could learn about Axel and that Melinda was doing these days. I'm not a big social media guy, so I was only now thinking to take a look at their Facebook posts.

Axel's a civil engineer, working for the city of San Francisco, plays a lot of basketball, runs, and is big on the environment. Belongs to several organizations and goes on Sierra Club day hikes. Lately he's been talking about this fantastic man he's met, a real man, who's started on a great adventure roaming around the country this week. That probably me. That was a shocker

Melinda's working part-time at REI. She was full time when we were together, but she says on facebook that she reduced her hours because of her other activities. She's still hyper active outdoors, leads backpacking tours for a company, writes articles for magazines, and actually has a YouTube channel where she tests equipment and does outdoor stuff. Tens of thousands of followers and a sponsor too. Amazing. No mention of a guy in her life.

The next morning, I set out early, not really knowing where I was going, fascinated by how the scenery was changing now that I was in Colorado. At about 10am, I was driving on a two lane road when I saw some strange heavy equipment and some guys working next to it. I stopped the truck and watched. The machinery was fascinating, but so were the two guys working near it. They were pretty muddy. I wondered what it would he to be them. That sort of work always intrigued me. I had a nice, clean job with great benefits, but I'd always wished I could be working with guys doing work like this.

I must have been there longer than I realized. I was jarred out of my fantasies by someone pounding on my window. I figured he was going to tell me to get the hell off the property and started the engine. I'd been there long enough, but he signaled me to roll down my window. I did.

"Hey, you gonna just watch?"

"Sorry, I just"

"You want to watch or you want to work?"

"Work?"

"Yeah, one of my guys injured himself. Just got sent to a hospital. Really bad timing. We've got to finish this job. You look like a working guy. If you don't mind getting filthy, I can give you two, maybe three days' work."

For a moment I was frozen. It was what I always wanted, but these guys looked tough. Was I ready for this?"

"I don't have all day. You can start now or I call the office and have a new guy sent out. I need a guy right now."

Feeling really nervous and hoping I wasn't doing the dumbest thing in my life, I said "I'll do it" and got out of my truck. The guy's name was Jax. He was the foreman. For the next three days, I worked with Jax and the two other guys, Rob and Chris. It was harder than I'd ever worked in my life. I was wet and muddy all day. As the new guy, I got all the dirtiest jobs of course, which I loved. I was in great shape from lifting weights for years, but the work must have been using muscles I'd never used before. Those muscles were screaming. Some of the equipment was dangerous. I could see how a guy could get hurt badly, like the guy who was injured this morning. Yet these guys did it every day.

At the end of the day, I was wet and muddy, not head-to-toe muddy like I was in the Sierra or like a lot of folks on UMD, but just really muddy clothes and boots. I asked the guys if they knew a campground where I could stay, but one of them, Rob, a guy with muscles that looked like they were popping out of his muddy tee shirt, said "I've got land where you can set up your tent. It's in some trees behind my house. I'll charge less than the campground. You can eat with me and the wife."

We quickly agreed on a price, I followed him home, set up my tent, changed into some clean clothes, and had a filling meal with his wife. After dinner, he took me out to a bar. I don't normally hang out in bars, but this was my third one in a week. It was a lot like that California bar where I was so out of place. But here I was dressed like other guys, and already knew some of them. I was just another worker. It was a whole different experience. This time, I was one of them. I played some pool and bought some drinks for the guys. It was a great evening. For the first time in my life, I felt I belonged with guys like this.

After getting back to my tent after the bar, I was too tired and maybe had too much to drink to bother with checking email. I just crawled into my sleeping bag and slept.

The next day was another one of hard dangerous work, but I was loving it. It rained all day, but it was a warm rain, not like northern California's cold winter rains. I was soaking wet, covered in mud, doing physical work I was loving, and getting paid for it. How can life get better? I desperately hoped none of the guys noticed the huge bulge in my jeans. I had no idea it was possible to be so hard so long.

After work, Rob wanted to work on a truck he was rebuilding, a four wheel drive Chevy. He was going to start taking the engine apart this evening. Before joining him, I took off my shirt and got a selfie for Axel and Melinda. I couldn't help flexing my muscles a little. I was feeling happy, happier than in a long time and wanted to have a little fun.

I then went to help Rob. Working on cars was a new experience for me. I'd never gotten greasy. Rob couldn't believe how little I knew. I asked him to let me get some hands on experience, so after draining the oil, he showed me how to remove the oil pan. He got a good laugh when the remaining oil in the pan sloshed out and coated my white tee shirt with slimy black oil. We both laughed, him because the new guy didn't know what he was doing, and me because I was loving the new feeling of drain oil soaking through my tee shirt and coating my chest. What a feeling!

By the time I'd removed the pistons under his careful guidance, my hands and fingernails were caked with grease, my face was mottled with black oil, my tee shirt was soaked with it, and oil was coating my skin. I loved it. It's amazing no one noticed my bulge.

I still have that tee shirt. It's not something I can wear around Redwood City, but at home alone, I love how it feels. My first oil.

When Rob's wife saw us returning to the house, Rob more or less clean but me filthy, she immediately grabbed her phone and snapped some pictures of me, saying 'You'll love this." I did. It would take days for the grease to get cleaned from my hands and fingernails. But I was proud of it and wished it could stay there forever. After getting reasonably clean and going back to my tent, I emailed both the shirtless and the greasy photos to Axel and to Melinda.


The story continues in the next chapter, Chapter 6 - The Best Day of My Life Turns into the Worst.