Quiet Please - The Thing on the Fourble Board

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Quiet, please.

The mutual broadcasting system presents Quiet, please, which is written and directed by Willis Cooper and which features Ernest Chapel.

Quiet, please, Fortnite is called the Thing on the Furble Board.

Maybe I'm a rough neck. Well, I was a rough neck. I mean, 20 years ago, a little too old, too slow now.

Besides, I've got a dollar now. I don't have to be a rough neck, you see.

Married, got a nice home. I have to meet my wife. Hey, Mike.

Her name is 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 rough neck. Well, no, that doesn't mean exactly what you think it means.

A rough neck is an oil field worker, specifically a guy in a drilling crew.

Calling rough neck's like you call a section hand on the railroad, a candy dancer, a garage, and a grease monkey.

Same time you work around a drilling crew for a while, you're going to be a rough neck in every sense of the word, boy.

A Derek Floor or a four-board board is no place for a guy with a bull tie.

Because now when you have to fool around with drilling holes that go farther down the ground,

that it isn't the top of pike's peak down the sea level, and sure they do.

The time I was a rough neck, we got this one well down to 70, 313 feet, that was a record.

But last May, pure oil brought one in out in the turn of valley in Wyoming at 14,309 feet.

That friend is almost three miles. Quite a hole that, huh?

Here, I don't think there's an oil man in the world that don't wander 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, it's maybe made out of the flesh and blood of men, maybe,

that beat each other to death, the stone axe, ate saber toothed tiger for lunch.

Hey, get to wondering.

You look at the cores that come up from way down there, and sometimes the little shells,

trailer bites mostly that was alive when Manhattan Island, where New York is,

was under half a mile ice.

We found some once me in Billy Grungwald 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 hadn't stopped drilling and sonnet off.

We see, when water begins to see from the hole, you put your drill pipe,

then you let down a cementing shoe inside the casing and you plug up the bottom of the hole,

casing it all with quick, hardening water proof cement.

Then when it's hard, you drill through the cement, go on down,

and the cement outside the casing at the bottom keeps the water out.

Well, we had the drill pipe all pulled and cracked.

The cement was setting sea, so we were shut down, waiting for it to harden.

We've been pouring just before.

You see a cord drill is hollow and as the bit digs down,

it stops the drilling up inside it, so when you pull it out,

you've got a sample of the kind of stuff you're going through.

And a geologist 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 forge for myself,

but I heard a carpool enough.

Look out, it's Billy Grungwald, a geologist, and I give him a hello.

Hi, Billy, how are you? I'm a pork chop.

Hi, porky.

Where's everybody?

Yeah, I went to town. I'm the whole crew.

I had three blowouts between here and Oxford.

Yeah, I wondered where you was, Ted said you'd been here about three.

Yeah, I would have been except for my tough luck.

Oh, I'm dead.

Yeah, hungry?

Stard.

Yeah, I got six.

Seven pork chops.

And bread.

And some coffee kind of.

Wow.

Yeah, I got a bottle in the car.

Actually, I'm 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.

Yeah.

Look out, that's a 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 do you finish cementing?

It's morning.

Last hour, only made about 10 feet of old,

so Ted shut down before we get flooded out of house and home.

Funny about that water.

Uh-huh.

Aren't there be any at that level according to my featuring?

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.

Well, last core I looked at at a swarm we were getting into shale.

Mm-hmm.

It seemed not yet.

From the cuttings.

That's funny.

Here, your pork chop's done.

Yeah, take some bread.

Yeah, thanks.

Oh, man.

Good time.

Mm-hmm.

And put on another eye at two already before you come.

Yeah, I'm much obliged.

Yeah.

You know, you never can tell what's down there.

It's all mapped and flooded out all the straighter.

And all you know is what comes out of the hole.

Yeah.

Yeah, I like to get down there sometimes.

I was little enough.

Never get you down a hole.

Yeah, you'd fit.

It's yummy.

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.

Why don't you wait and finish your supper?

I'm just going to look at it.

Now, put on another pork chop for me.

Okay.

Well, I wish there was screech on it.

What's the matter?

Wait a minute, porky.

But what if...

Listen.

Mm-hmm.

What's eating you?

If you know how to sweren it, somebody up there in that horrible board.

Ah, you're crazy.

There's nobody up there.

You're going to get those stanzas real fine.

Come on back and eat your pork chop.

Yeah.

I guess so.

Only I...

What just so jittery about Billy.

Come on, eat your sandwich.

Here.

Yeah.

Thanks, porky.

I don't know.

I'm just naturally that way, I guess.

I'm always scared of the dark.

I'm scared.

I'm scared.

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.

Spider to scare the tarot or the me.

Black widows.

Oh.

I know how you feel, Billy.

There are another light over here.

Yeah.

Here.

Yeah.

Oh.

That's better.

Hey, listen, porky.

Go out to the car and look at the left-hand door park

and bring back that bottle.

Yeah.

That's what I need.

Okay, kid.

Okay.

So I picked up a flashlight.

I turned around and went outside.

I found the car.

Then I got the bottle.

And the floor of the Derek was all lit up.

And when I saw a beam of light suddenly flash up

toward the four-ball boarder.

My lap.

Billy grew involved in his ideas.

Sure, I looked up.

It wasn't a darn thing up there.

Except the drill pipe racked against the fingerboard.

Oh, this, uh, four-ball board.

Well, you've seen oiled Derek, sir.

Pictures of him.

You know that little platform that runs around the outside

of the Derek about halfway up?

Well, that's the four-ball board.

We see drill pipe comes in lengths and you handle them

with several lengths screwed together,

so to say, a time getting them in the hole.

Two lengths as a double, three as a triple, four as a formal.

When you pull a pipe, you heist it up inside the Derek

or the traveling block, which moves up and down

from the crown block at the top of the Derek.

Then when a four-baller pipe is pulled out,

it's held in the rotary table.

You break the joint with tongs like a great big stilts

and range of sea.

Snub a cable that's fastened to the handle

over the cat head and the draw works,

and that breaks the joint.

Then you have all the tongs on the pipe.

Give the rotary table a few turns, don't screw it.

You heist away with the traveling block

and swing it over against the finger board,

lean it against the Derek.

The guy up on the four-ball board takes off the traveling block.

You do it all over again.

You've got all the pipe out, you see?

Well, there wasn't anybody up on the four-ball board

except a screech howling.

It flew away.

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So, Billy turned his light off.

I come on 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?

Mike, where did you find that?

Now, listen, Porky, I give you my word.

That was embedded in the core.

Why, it couldn't be.

I think 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 filigued 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 spoke to the choir rock that looked like a kind of

petrified salami or something.

And then it was my turn to putting a 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, stone finger.

And as he rubbed it, he began to disappear.

No, he could be of still fear, but when the mud was gone,

neither one of us could see it.

He dropped it to the Derek Floor.

It went clunking.

We couldn't find it any place.

So you know what we're done?

We took that bottle and we took it and finished it.

Billy and me, we finished it in one slug of piezen.

It was a full pint of bathtub.

Janet tasted just like so much well water to me.

And then we sat down on the Derek 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 the scene was coming up from

a four ball board, 80 feet above us.

I shut my eyes a minute.

And I just wanted to see her.

And I had awful 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 floor of the board.

Billy Groenwald climbing up the ladder outside the Derek and the Moonlight.

Face is looking at me.

I couldn't figure out who they were.

Then I was waked up by a horrible scream.

The trash here inside me that shook the whole Derek.

I opened my eyes to see Billy Groenwald lying on the floor two feet away.

With a broken neck.

And his left hand.

And 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.

We're gone.

A friend I got out of there.

I ran down to where Billy left his car and I got in.

I stepped on the stairs.

I couldn't get it to go and then I remembered that friend.

Putting the air around the battery that Billy had taken a key.

There wasn't going up there and going through a dead man's clothes to get it.

So he sat there in the car and shivered all by myself till daylight.

And then Ted and the crew came.

Afterwards a steak cop.

And everybody in the world looked at me.

I was like, what's up?

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, Poggy?

I told you we didn't, Ted.

But you had been drinking.

We only had that little pike, Ted.

Well, what was he doing up in the football board?

Did you threaten him and did you run up there to get away from him?

I mean, cop, don't be a sharp Billy Groenwald 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 you said 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 porky.

And personally, I don't believe he did it.

Well, it's mighty mysterious.

I'm not sure it is.

But we got work to do.

Now, how about it?

That cement's hard down there.

I want to start drilling again and I'm sure it's handed.

Would you like Poggy stay here till I run him a pipe again?

Well, then you can take him and ask him questions until you're blowing the face.

Well, okay.

Let's get rolling.

They got steam of Harvey.

I know, sir.

All right.

Poggy, you go from the formal ward.

What?

Not me, sir.

Boy, don't be such a boob.

There's nobody up there to show you all the board.

And you can put a safety line around you if you want to.

And besides, you'll get him paid to do what you're told.

I'm not too much time already.

I'll be fine.

So, okay, I go up on the formal board.

And you can bet I took a good gander around before I did anything else.

Now, 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 formal drill pipe.

To give a big jerk on the cable broke,

then dropped and nearly pulled me off the formal 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 to accidents in the road.

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 dark 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 I broke loose.

It was hanging by steel cable, three quarter and steel cable.

I saw that cable break right before my eyes,

but just like a piece of string when you snap at putting your fingers.

I could almost see the fingers.

You know what?

There was something up there on the formal 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 oil well rig.

There it stands like a skeleton off on a deserted side road

and the very yellow hills surrounding it.

And it's the deadest thing you ever saw.

I sat in my car for a long time looking at it.

Everything was just the way we'd left it.

I looked into the floor of the smash traveling block

was there alongside the rotary table.

It was a little mud or a steam from the boiler.

That was all.

And then I heard a tinkel of something

as it hit the ground alongside me.

I looked around there wasn't a shawl in sight.

But at my feet was the gold ring

that the legroom world 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.

A sound of a kid crying.

And there wasn't any kid up there.

And 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 forebord.

Now I wasn't anything up there and nothing I could see.

There was a voice crying.

The voice of the little kid.

And then there was a movement behind the rack of drill pipes.

And I saw the pipe moving.

I yelled, come out of there, whoever you are.

Come out of there, I'll start shooting.

And the standard pipe shivered.

And I thought, what can it be that can handle that heavy pipe?

Like Jack's claws.

And then there was a crash.

The whole standard pipe fell over and I just got out of the way in time.

And I was alone on the forebord board with a thing.

And I couldn't see it.

I felt a platform temple 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 mowing like a cat.

My feet tripped over something.

I thought it was a big can of red lead that somebody had 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...

I wish I could see it without girl fighting.

I'm lying without your untair.

Hands like a human being in a finger, missing from the left hand.

And a body.

I'll tell you about that.

I told you I'm scared of spiders.

But I knew where it came from.

It had come from the poles of the earth,

coming 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 in my eyes and viewed like a lost kitten.

20 years ago I discovered many things about it,

what it used for food, that it was deaf,

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 its 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 its well made up its,

but making it up rubbing grease paint on a stone face that looks etch and smiles

and it makes sounds like a lost kitten yet.

I can disguise the body in long dresses.

If you can't hear very well, then when she's hungry,

I have to sail her away.

I found out what she likes to eat, remember?

No, no, shit's still.

Shit's still do.

Shit's 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 Quiet Please Story is The Thing on the Forble Board.

It was written and directed by Willis Cooper and featured Ernest Chappell.

And Dan Sutter played Billy Greenwald.

Adam Alley was Ted.

And Cecil Roy was also a member of the cast.

As usual, music for Quiet Please is played by Albert Berman.

Sound.

Sound by our good friend, Albert April.

Now after a word 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, least I have 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 Chappell.

This program is heard in Canada through the facilities of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

This is the mutual broadcasting system.

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