Good Guys

The Beautiful Plant

My brother Patrick and I speed down Route 9, a curvy, one-lane, luge track of a road, toward Buchanan, New York, where the Indian Point III Nuclear Generating Station rises from the east bank of the Hudson River, thirty-five miles north of Manhattan. Through a friend, Patrick and I have landed temporary jobs as painters for a refueling outage and “plant beautification” project.¹ To work here, Patrick and I must join the International Brotherhood of Painters and Allied Trades. For this, we need a Good Guy letter from a union member vouching for our character. I have no idea who has signed for us—our friend has arranged that—but someone is willing to say we are Good Guys. (Incidentally, the Good Guy letter is an actual form with the words “Good Guy Letter” printed across the top.)

We pass a baseball diamond along the Hudson, then turn into a sylvan glade enclosed in chain link. At the guard station, Patrick offers the name of our employer, NPS Energy Systems, then we cruise past hunks of rusting metal and neolithic concrete forms in wire-mesh pens to a four-story, L-shaped training building. From the parking lot, we see only a half-dozen modular buildings and two warehouses surrounded by woods. I’m amazed at how easy it is to hide a nuclear power plant.

Inside the training center, next to a mock control room that visitors peer into as if looking upon a nursery, is the windowless conference room where we will spend the next five days in Fitness for Duty training. Our group of trainees includes thirty construction workers—pipe fitters, electricians, insulators, carpenters, painters—and one executive who looks pink and priggish in his white shirt and tight tie. Patrick and I stand out too, with our uncallused hands, our fingernails evenly trimmed white quarter moons, and Patrick’s fleece pullover, evidently not a masculine fabric like denim or the brown Carhartt jackets everyone wears. Patrick’s hair is resolutely short, unlike the “mullet” that is popular here, clipped bangs and sideburns with long hair in back, a schizophrenic style that shouts, “I may look like a citizen, but I’m a rebel at heart.”²

Patrick would blend more easily if he weren’t with me. Of the nearly three hundred construction workers hired for the outage, only eight are female. “It’s nice that your brother brought you into the trade,” a sixtyish electrician says to me before class. Then adds, “I just don’t think women belong in construction.”

Our instructor, Jack, a thin, ruddy-faced retiree who trains part-time, begins by administering a psychological exam, a series of statements to which we must respond strongly agree, strongly disagree, or neutral. Jack hands out number two pencils and answer sheets with rows of tiny blank ovals and instructs us to select neutral as seldom as possible.³ The problem is that some statements I 4agree with slightly, but not strongly. For example: “Threats never bother me.” Well, idle threats don’t bother me. Serious threats do. The fact is threats sometimes bother me. I’m momentarily stymied, but finally choose strongly disagree. Now I worry they will interpret my answer as demonstrating paranoia. Haven’t I just implied that “Threats always bother me?” Perhaps I am being paranoid. I move on.

“The pomp and splendor of any big state ceremony are things which should be preserved.” I typically don’t go for ceremonies, but who doesn’t like a parade? I think I agree, but certainly not strongly. What choice do I have? “If plates are the least bit dirty, I feel too disgusted to eat.” I do have standards, but I don’t want to appear neurotic. I decide to strongly disagree. “I have disturbing thoughts that keep me awake at night.” I’ve been an insomniac most of my life, and yes, thoughts keep me awake. Are they disturbing? Sometimes, otherwise they wouldn’t keep me awake. I’m beginning to feel anxious. I can’t respond to any of the statements without...