Movin' Dirt

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Sometimes there's no such thing as a secret
MOVIN' DIRT
By Joannebarbarella

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This story was inspired by conversations with Sheila and Dimelza.
Kristina L.S. did her usual superb job of editing and suggesting better ways to say things.

Thank you my friends.


 
We stood and looked across the gully at the steep ridge on the other side, Tom and Curly and me. Red rocky soil with clumps of spinifex and a few stunted gum trees didn’t give it any great beauty, just typical of parts of the outback, but it was where the road had to go.

8 a.m. and it was already bloody hot and the sweat was running down the back of my shirt and off my forehead. The flies liked this rare source of moisture too, so the three of us were waving our hands about in the great Australian salute, brushing them away from our faces. Sure made you keep your mouth shut when you had to speak, unless you were partial to fly sandwiches.

A few small lizards studiously ignored us as they sat soaking up the sun a little way away from our vehicles. I wished they’d eat the flies, but they ignored them too. Apparently they also had better taste.

Tom and I had discussed what to do with this section earlier but, as usual, he let me take the lead. Even though I reckoned he was the best earth-moving superintendent in Australia, if not the world, he always gave me the prerogative of outlining things. In a rough-diamond kind of way he was a real gentleman.

“Curly, what do you reckon? Can we get a machine up to the top of the ridge and cut down from there?”

Curly was our foreman for this stretch of the road, built like a brick shit-house, our best man, because this section through the ranges, 70 miles north of Mount Isa, was the hardest part of the job.

He pushed the Akubra to the back of his head as he surveyed the problem.

“Yeah, Mac. We can do it OK. I’ll put Ian up there on a six*, haveta dog-leg his way up, cut a bit of a track, then Col on the nine* before we put the scrapers in. Piece a piss. Might take a coupla days, though.”

“OK, Tom?

“Pretty much what I figured.”

He was as skinny as a whippet and tough as an old leather boot. He had been in Darwin when the Japs bombed the place, so, now, thirty years later, there was no-one I knew who could match his experience or expertise. He could have just figuratively shoved me, the Project Manager, to one side and done the job himself and yet he always deferred to me, at least in public. In private he had given me many a bollocking when he thought I was wrong. He was also the only man I ever knew whose moustache would actually bristle when he was angry, which was quite a sight. Yet we mostly got on like a house on fire and I was proud to think he might be my friend.

They didn’t make them like that any more. The last of a vanishing breed.

“Well,” he said, “what the fuck are ya still standin’ there for, Curly. Stop wastin’ time.”

There was no heat in the remark. Talkative bastard our Tom, a real people person. To know him is to love him though.

Curly, who didn’t have a hair on his head, just grinned at Tom before jumping in his ute and taking off with only a slight spray of gravel. Restraint, flash was dangerous out here.

We were contractors, and proud of it. Never mind that the consulting engineers, who designed the roads, let alone their clients, looked down their collective noses at us. Something stuck to the bottom of their spiffy city shoes was a fair comparison in their eyes. We just smiled, knowing they couldn’t do the jobs they wanted done without coming to us. I loved contracting. I often thought I only became a contractor because piracy was a hanging offence.

It was our job to do the hard yakka and make money out of it for our bosses, the Quinn Brothers. There were four brothers who owned and ran the company. There was a fifth who was useless but, being family, they employed him as a storeman at the head office in Brisbane. They had all come off a Queensland property before the war and made their fortune working for the Yanks and retrieving and "liberating" the gear they left behind when the war was over. They were legends in the Australian construction industry.

The eldest, Les, was a shrewd old bastard who ran the show with an iron fist and inspired more fear than love, but I found that he had a sense of humour. Mind you, you had better know what you were talking about. Stan ran the South, New South Wales and the Snowy Mountains. He was a really lovely bloke, as was Bert, who was king in this neck of the woods. It took a while to get to know Bert. I got through to him by having a cup of tea lined up for him when he would occasionally hit the office at 7 a.m. Brown-nosing? Maybe, but it never hurts to have your boss on side and it really wasn't much effort.

The fourth brother, Cec, was something else. As rough and tough and acerbic as you’d find anywhere. I don’t think anyone actually liked Cec, but he seemed to like me. He took me in the company plane one time to deal with a problem at a coal-mine they owned. As we flew in I was appalled. Huge conical mounds of bare rock and dirt and craters filled with greasy water. It looked like the surface of the moon, but with an atmosphere.

“Well, whaddaya think, boy?” he asked me.

Trying not to be too rude I said, “Is it SUPPOSED to look like that?”

“Of course it’s not supposed to look like that, ya fuckin’ young idiot!”

I couldn’t help myself. I started laughing, and the old bloke actually cracked a small grin.

“That’s why I brung ya. We’re gunna try an’ make it look a bit better.”

“Shit, you don’t expect much do ya, Cec. Oh, well, I’ll try.”

“Ya fuckin’ better. That’s what yer ‘ere for, ya dopey prick.”

And I did. It took me six months, and he was at me the whole time. When I finished I was about ready to snatch it if he said one critical word.

He came in on the company plane again and I met him at the landing strip.

“Go an get yer gear. Yer comin’ with me.”

I did what he told me and was back at the plane half an hour later. Jack, the pilot, winked at me, so I realized I wasn’t totally in the shit. The plane took off and I finally asked where we were going, expecting it to be another shithole in the bush.

“Brisbane. Yer booked in The Hilton fer two weeks. Drink, eat ‘n’ fuck as much as yer want ‘n’ then come ‘n’ see me at the office.”

They used to tell this story about him. I can’t swear it’s true, but it easily could be. His son, Glen, who was a total dickhead, parked his car in the middle of a quarry they were working one day. A truck driver didn’t see him come in and reversed the truck over the car, flattening it. Cec fired the driver, not for totalling the car, but because he hadn’t made sure Glen was in it at the time!

They had a reputation for bastardry and treating young engineers like me as shit. They only employed us because the modern contract documents demanded it, a necessary evil. But somehow I managed to get on with them and I had been working with them for four years, which was almost a record. My only gripe was that they gave me all the shit jobs, the ones that were losing money or were months behind programme.

The bloke before me on this job wiped himself out big time on the grog and was doing a stretch in a detox establishment. I wasn’t averse to a drink myself, but apparently he had really crawled into the bottle.

So here I was, 29 years old, in charge of building a road from Mt. Isa to the Gulf of Carpentaria. The job had been going nowhere. Tom could handle the physical progress, no problem, but he was not trained to do the paperwork or extract the money from the client.

I was good at that. At first Tom had expected me to just sit in the office, but that wasn’t the way I worked. I had to walk or drive the site every morning, for my own satisfaction, and so that I knew what was going on. After I had pointed out a few areas where we should have been hitting the client up for more money, Tom would come and pick me up from the site-office at seven every morning after getting the dozers and scrapers going and we would drive the length of the job, climbing out of the four-wheel-drive every now and again to survey progress at particular points. Sometimes I would make a suggestion to try and improve production.

Of course I got a bit of flak from the operators when I arrived on the job. There was a sort of reverse snobbery from them. Engineers were considered to be a bit namby-pamby, limp-wristed, and my being a Pom didn’t help.

The sneering stopped when I moved a D9 one day, which was in the way of the excavation. I had done a course on dozers and knew enough to be able to start one, put it into gear, lift the blade and trundle it along for a hundred yards or so. I just about stopped the job when I did that. Nobody had ever seen an engineer drive a dozer before. A few jaws dropped and all of a sudden I was accorded a degree of respect when I made suggestions. I couldn’t have done much more with the machine but never told them that.

Because it was a remote job I lived with these guys, of course, in the construction camp. As we were in managerial positions, Tom and the Office Manager and I each had 40’x10’ cabins to ourselves, while all the others had 10’x8’ rooms in blocks of five with a couple of communal shower and loo blocks, a dining hall, and a wet canteen.

Apart from drinking, the after-work entertainment consisted of a couple of pool tables, a dart board and movies twice a week, for which I was quickly elected projectionist, since nobody else had a clue how to do it.

This was the first camp to have air-conditioning to each room. The Brothers reckoned the world was getting too bloody soft but personally I cheered. It was damn hot and dusty out there and a good night’s sleep improved productivity no end.

I told Bert, the Brother who was the man in overall charge of the Mt.Isa operations, this and he said something like “the whole industry is goin’ down the tubes. Everybody’s gettin’ soft” but he soon realized I was right. We got more out of the men because they could eat and drink and sleep in comfort. Simple economics won the day.

Air con or not I couldn’t have taken living out there if not for the fact that I had my own retreat to get away at night. I didn’t have a problem eating with the men. In fact, that was good, because it let me cut off any complaints about the quality of the food. If I could eat it so could they, but I made damn sure that it was edible, if only because there was no way I wanted to cook for myself after a day’s work.

Tom and I also used to have a drink with them in the wet canteen after work, ostensibly to cut the dust accumulated outside. In reality it was more of a PR exercise. Tom was OK but I had to be careful. It wouldn’t have been smart to get pissed, as my predecessor had done too many times, but it gave them a safety-valve to have a bit of a whinge in an informal way about things that were bugging them and gave me a chance to correct the ones that really mattered before they festered and became major problems. It was like having fifty big kids.

When I had done what I regarded as my social duties I would retire to my donga and relax for the rest of the evening. I now know, and I knew then, I guess, that I played a dangerous game.

My “hobby” for want of a better word, was dressing as a woman. I would make sure that all the blinds were down and I would treat myself to some personal time. After showering I would get into my underwear, panties, bra, falsies, suspender belt and nylons and choose one of my favourite dresses, put it on and make up my face and don a wig, finishing with a pair of heels to match whatever dress I was wearing that night. I couldn’t go out, of course, and had to make do with admiring myself in the mirror, remembering and dreaming of the time, ten years earlier, when I had actually lived as a girl for over a year. That had been in England, ten thousand miles and another lifetime away. I sat and remembered and regretted, but we make our beds, don’t we?

Foolish it may have been, but I couldn’t stop myself. I thought the guys would have probably killed me if they knew, and any respect would have been out the window. Getting out of the camp in one piece would have been the top priority, but anyone like me will know that you cannot just stop.

I mentioned the movies. We used to get the “new” ones from the Isa once a fortnight, not exactly straight out of Hollywood. Most were probably a couple of years old, but we built up a sort of library and the boys would request favourites like Bruce Lee, “The Magnificent Seven”, the Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns and “Barbarella” which I would screen time and again. They loved “Barbarella” and so did I, although I’m sure, for different reasons.

“Barbarella” was really a silly movie, but very sexy and raunchy for those days. The audience used to whistle and yahoo all the sexy bits and I used to reckon they went back to their rooms and wanked themselves silly afterwards.

Me, I admired Jane Fonda and wished I could be her. She really was magnificently beautiful in that movie, and I still get a laugh out of the scene where she broke the Orgasmatron.

Daily life went on as normal. Our Office Manager was a young Irishman, who insisted on being called J.M. and I didn’t know why until his birthday came round and he produced a bottle of Tullamore Dew. He was adamant that Tom and I share it with him. Now, I’m no whiskey drinker but nor was he. Tom could have drunk paint-stripper all night and shown no ill effects. We found out the secret of his initials when the bottle was two-thirds empty.

He confided to us that his name was John-Mary, which he found tremendously embarrassing. He was terrified the workers would find out and start calling him Mary (which they probably would have) and he swore us to silence. I remember looking at Tom and strangling a laugh. If that was all he had to worry about, compared to my dark secret! I told him that Jean-Marie was a very common name in France and meant exactly the same, which cheered him up no end, but we still called him J.M.

As usual in all-male camps there was the occasional fight, and either Tom or I would be called down to break it up or adjudicate in some way or another. For me it was a further reason why I had to be careful when I dressed. I made a rule not to do it until the wet-canteen closed at 10 p.m. because one of us often had to go down to make sure they actually closed the place and didn’t just keep drinking. It was a chore that I hated.

Every now-and-again one of us would have to go over to the wet-canteen and clear out the drunken or half-drunken remnants of the lads who were having too much fun to go back to their rooms and get some sleep. Some would get surly about being deprived of even more beer and would go with ill-grace, pulled out by their more sensible mates. I was always half-expecting one of them to take a swing at me, something they would never dare to do with Tom, but somehow I managed to chivvy them out without any violence and would go back to my cabin breathing a sigh of relief.

One night I got a knock on the door. Tom had gone to town, so I had no choice but to go and sort things out. The man who came to get me, a huge fellow called Peter Haivonen, was our electrician. He could change the light-bulbs in the ceiling without using a step-ladder, and could have ripped the fighters apart with his little fingers, so why did he come and get me? Anyway, it went with the territory and he told me there had been a fight. The guy who had lost was an aborigine called Clarrie, and he claimed his opponent had abused him racially, so he wasn’t going to let the matter drop.

Peter only told me Clarrie was pissed and causing trouble without giving me any details, thanks very much. He accompanied me to the wet-canteen and then let me go in first.

I walked into the bar and suddenly I was staring down the business end of a double-barrelled shotgun, held by said Clarrie. Needless to say I nearly shat myself on the spot. As he looked wildly at me, waving the gun, Curly stepped forward and knocked the gun-barrel upwards and it discharged, blowing a large hole in the ceiling and the corrugated iron roof above it.

In rage and shock I lunged forward and flattened Clarrie with a single blow that came from I-don’t-know-where. I was just so mad. When he hit the deck I took the gun off him and told a couple of the operators to take him to bed, ordering the Camp Manager to lock him in. Next morning I fired him.

But I was surrounded by members of our workforce all trying to shove drinks at me, as if I was some kind of hero. My knees were like jelly. What I had done was pure reaction. If anyone was a hero it was Curly, who may just have saved my life. I had to sit down and I accepted a beer, which I had trouble drinking because I was shaking so much I couldn’t get the can and my mouth to meet in the middle. I made my excuses as soon as possible and went to bed, where I dreamed of shotgun barrels with bores like a cannon. I didn’t dress that night.

The job went on and we got the worst parts over with. The progress improved and with a little dry weather we were back on programme. I got stuck into the Main Roads Department (our client) and threatened them with all sorts of trouble if they didn’t pay us for the variations and extra work we had done. I quoted all the right clauses in the Contract at them and they caved in and started to pay us at least for some of the extra work we had carried out, so we were soon back in the black, if not exactly making heaps of money.

Even Brother Bert grudgingly admitted that the job wasn’t too bad.

“Don’t know why we keep you on,” he said to me one day. “None of your jobs make any money to speak of.”

“At least I don’t lose you a fortune,” I retorted.”We’ve already got a fair bit from Main Roads, and I haven’t finished with them yet. You should be happy.”

“Fuck off and get back to work,” was his polite reply.

I complained to Tom one evening.

“Why don’t they ever give me a good job? I reckon I deserve it after putting up with all this shit. All I want is a nice, dull, boring, profitable job.”

He laughed fit to bust.

“Johnny boy, you’ve got no chance ya dozy bugger. Who do you think the Brothers come up with when the shit hits the fan? You, ya dickhead. As long as you stay with them that’s what you’re gonna get. The things other people have fucked up. They reckon you can fix ‘em. Like this one. Pat wasn’t a bad sorta bloke but he just couldn’t take the pressure.” Talking about my predecessor.

“OK, but what if I can’t? What then? Do I get the boot? That’s what they usually do with their engineers when things don’t work out.”

“Son, you really don’t get it, do ya? These old guys are not idiots. They’ve got you pegged. If you can’t fix it, nobody can, and they know you will have tried everything. Whatever result you come out with will be the best they could have done under the circumstances.”

“Oh,” I said. Smart answer and I opened another can.

Occasionally we even had a bit of fun. One day I asked Tom if I could have a go on a scraper. I’d never been on one before, so he turfed the operator off of a 651* and put me up in the seat, showed me how to raise and lower the scoop, did a round with me and hopped off.

“Away you go, Mac,” he said.

Now a 651 is a big powerful machine with a motor on one end and what they call a scoop on the other, with bloody great tyres on each corner. I’m not going to get too technical but their purpose is to take soil that you cut from A and fill it into B. Needless to say it takes practice.

For the next hour the boys pissed themselves laughing at my attempts to get a full load in the bowl and to discharge smoothly in the fill area.

“Useless Pommy bastard!”

“Ya couldn’t drive a fuckin’ nail.”

“Listen, sport, y’aint supposed ta leave fuckin’ big holes like that in the cut.”

Those were a few of the nicer comments they made about my (lack of) skill.

Eventually I threw my hands in the air, spat out the dust I had been chewing and gave it away. I tell you what. You really need a seat-belt when you’re driving one of those; they’ll bounce you right out of the machine otherwise.

“You’re gunna have to buy us a beer tonight Mac, seeing you’ve fucked up our target for today,” was the chorus I got from the lads. Tom just grinned.

“Yeah, yeah, OK, OK.” It was no more than I expected.

So beer that night was on me. I didn’t mind. Of course, the lads who had been present watching my poor efforts had great fun describing the scene to those who had not witnessed me on a scraper. They even had me laughing as they hammed it up and mimicked me bouncing around in the driver's seat. I knew the boys always seemed to try a little harder when I fucked up, if only to prove they knew what they were doing, which I knew they did, of course. Tom had already got rid of any bludgers and deadheads long ago.

Another couple of months passed and we were getting close to finishing the earthworks, which meant the operators and fitters would be going off to some other job. We already had a passable road for the three hundred and odd kays between Mt. Isa and Normanton, just needed a bit of touching up before we called in the bitumen crews.

Tom came to my donga one evening and we sat and had a quiet beer. He seemed a little less relaxed than normal,unusual for him. He was always so laid back you'd think he was horizontal.

“The boys want to have a sort of goin’ away party to wrap this one up. They want to make it a costume affair.”

“Fine, I suppose they’ll want the company to put on the beer and the tucker. That’s not a problem. They’re a good crew and they’ve all worked bloody hard, no small thanks to you,” and I clinked cans with him.

He cleared his throat.

“They want to make it a cross-dressing night.”

He was looking straight at me when he said it.

As they say, I tried to dissimulate, but I guess I didn’t quite make it.

“What do you mean?” I think I may have been croaking or at least a bit hoarse.

“Everybody has to come as a girl.”

“Well, that’s all right. They can have their fun. You and I can’t go. How would you look with your moustache? And I’d look ridiculous.”

“I’m goin’,” he said, eyes boring in on me. “I won’t be the only woman in the world with a moustache. It’s just for a night and a bit of fun. And you’re goin’ too, if you want to stay mates with me.”

“Tom, I can’t. Really, I can’t. I’d just look stupid.”

His eyes continued to bore into me as if I was a moth or something, being inspected before being pinned to a board. It made me squirm.

“I thought you were a man. I’ve seen you on a dozer, and I’ve seen you on a scraper. I’ve seen you give those wankers from Main Roads the evil eye, and I’ve seen you tell the Brothers the truth when nobody else wanted to. You’re tellin’ me you won’t wear a dress for an evenin’ to let the boys have a bit of fun?”

I was sweating now, and it must have shown. I didn’t know what to say.

“I really enjoyed workin’ with you, ya know. When are you goin’ to learn to live with yourself? Do you think nobody knows that you put on dresses and get all dolled up when you’re alone at night? You’re livin’ in a fuckin’ construction camp fer Christ’s sake. There’re no secrets here. I know you pulled the blinds down, but people can still see shadows and some curious buggers sneak up for a peek between the gaps.”

Suddenly, he grinned. “Me included, you can still be curious when you get old.”

I thought I was going to die. “You mean everybody’s been laughing about me all this time? Maybe I should just leave tonight.”

“No way. If you try, I’ll stop you. Don’t think I can’t. Listen, the boys are doing this in your honour, not to humiliate you. Sure, they’re curious, but only to see how good you look. Word is, you scrub up pretty well. Come on. Do it for a night and at least you gotta tell ME what it’s all about. Now’s the time. And I guarantee nobody’s laughin’ at you.”

“How could they not? I’m a fucking pathetic freak.”

“Son, you’re the best boss most of them have ever had. You’ve looked after them; made sure the food was good. The rooms are kept clean. They admire you because you’ll get up on a dozer or scraper and give it a go, never mind that you’re not much good. You try. You share what they do. You drink with them. I wasn’t here, but you should hear them talk about the night that Clarrie lost it. They think you’re magic. There’s not a one of them wouldn’t work with you again.”

“I didn’t do anything but deck him. Curly probably saved my life. Clarrie was so drunk I could have blown him over.”

“Doesn’t matter. It’s what they remember. You faced a bloke with a gun and flattened him bare-handed. Now, are you going to talk to me or not?”

I was lost anyway. No way out; nowhere to go, and it was really important to me to have Tom as my friend. I didn’t want to tell anybody about my problems, but I knew that I had to and I wouldn’t even have a show if I didn’t tell him, so I started to talk.

I told him the whole lot; how I first realised that I wanted to be a girl when I was 11 or 12, how I had kept it hidden in shame and guilt until I met this girl called Lucy who found me out but didn’t hate me for it.

I told him how Lucy had taken me in hand, encouraged and helped me and how I had actually lived as a girl for over a year; how I had chickened out for all sorts of reasons and ended up coming to Australia and how, as much as I tried, I still could not resist dressing as a girl when I got the opportunity. By the time I finished I was weeping, not just crying, really sobbing, convinced that I had blown everything. It was over.

When I finished I looked at Tom through blurry eyes, expecting to see disgust written all over his face.

That tough old man was crying too. I couldn’t understand it.

“Shit, son. I can’t figure out why you want to be a girl, but I do know it happens, and I can see it rips you apart. I don’t know how you can be as cool as you are and do your job when you’ve got all that going on inside. You’re a fuckin’ sight stronger than you think.

“Now, back to the party. You know now that the boys all know about it and they really want to see you as a girl. You’ve got lots of guts, and I’m goin’ in a dress. If I can do it, you can do it. Be proud. They won’t laugh. I’ll kill anyone who does. If I don’t Curly will, or Peter, or Ian or Col……well, you get the idea.”

The night of the party came and I got myself ready. I had reached a sort of plateau of numbness.

“We who are about to die salute you!” I whispered to the ceiling.

I took the greatest care with everything. I shaved myself all over. I had gone into the Isa and bought fresh supplies of body lotions and moisturizers, Chanel No. 5, a new burgundy lipstick, restocked my foundation, eyeliner, mascara, shadow, powder and blusher, new sheer stockings, even bought a new wig. Somehow, for once, I had overcome my usual fear of shopping for feminine things and being “sprung”. I had promised myself that tonight would be my moment of glory, and if things went sour, it would be my last night, the straight razor I had purchased would see to that.

So I bathed and anointed myself and put on my lovely underwear, bra, falsies, panties, suspender belt, nylons and then this favourite dress, which I had hidden away, satin in emerald green, form-fitting, halter neck, the skirt slit cheong-saam style, calf-length, no sleeves but matching opera gloves.

I did my make-up, remembering how it used to be from ten years ago, but wishing Lucy was there to do it for me, not only because she was a professional, but also to ease the heartache I still felt whenever I thought of her; love doesn’t die easily; chandelier-style gold earrings and a gold necklace, a gold watch on my left wrist over the opera glove. I laughed to myself; a real Aussie sportswoman in green and gold.

My wig was black, almost China-doll style, but longer, falling to my shoulders, fringe straight across, sandals also emerald green of course, 3 inch heels and I had done both my fingernails and toe nails in the same colour, even though you couldn’t see my fingers. It was so important for me to be all girl tonight, and then the spritz of Chanel. I know I was going into a crowd of men dressed as girls but I wanted to be the most beautiful of them all. Or die trying! Ah, black humour.

I stood for a while admiring myself in the mirror, remembering the joy of being Suzie, and the terror at making the change permanent. Altogether, I could still cut the mustard as a girl, I thought. If only I had the guts to do it.

There was a knock on the door of the donga and I went to open it. It was Tom, dressed in a little black cocktail frock, demure neckline, translucent sleeves, knee length skirt, black stockings and kitten heels, with a silver-grey wig. He must have taken some advice from his wife. The bugger had shaved off his moustache, and with his thin face and wiry build, actually looked like a very attractive older woman, if a bit leathery.

He looked me up and down.

“Fuck me dead!” he said. “Are you ready? You look like you are to me.”

I had to admit to myself that I would never be any readier.

“The moustache?” I asked, raising a newly plucked eyebrow.

“It’ll grow back,” he said gruffly. I swear he blushed.

He took my hand as if I were a real lady and helped me down the steps of the donga. When I reached the path I tucked my arm into his.

We walked around the end of the unit and across to the wet canteen where the party was to be held, and he ushered me up the couple of steps guiding me to the front.

I went in, and in front of me was a selection of girls, some obviously male, like giant Peter. I wondered where he found the heels he was wearing. They must have been size 18! Poor Curly just wasn't built to wear a dress either. He would've been the same height if you laid him on his side, but his wig and make-up made his face quite fetching.

Some of the others were outrageous drag-queens, and some could have actually passed pretty well, and all of a sudden I really believed what Tom had told me, that they truly had done this for me. I looked around at these guys who worked with me and I almost broke down, but then they started to whistle and clap and cheer, grins and smiles splitting their faces, and they surged forward, surrounded me, and started to hug me.

I knew I would not need the razor.

The Beginning?

- Caterpillar earthmoving equipment
- D6 Bulldozer (a small one)
- D9 Bulldozer (a big one)
- 651 Motor Scraper- a machine for moving earth from one place to another; an off-road vehicle, not a truck.


 

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Comments

Nice story....

In a very unusual setting, Johnny thought he had kept his secret well hidden, But in a small community the chances of keeping his other self hidden, Were always going to be on the slim side of remote!!

So where does Johnny go from here? Where does his future lie? Will he accept his alter-ego? Or will the fear of ridicule overtake him once more? Lots of questions...But are we going to get the answers?....I do hope so!!!

Kirri

The things we do

to try and fit into others' expectations, or to try and deny our true natures.

A very well written story, which evokes the hard life of the construction worker and well illustrates the pressures which are imposed, or self-imposed.

Thank you.

Susie

It's funny

kristina l s's picture

The idea of a bunch of blokes, rough as guts with manners and language to match being accepting might seem impossible. I'll admit I've never been in a construction camp, but I have been in similar places. Weakness or difference is treated with suspicion... but if you win them, prove you can hold your own they will back you all the way. Crude and rude can be thoughtful and sensitive. It's surprising at times how your most macho guy can be gentle and kind. A fading ethos perhaps which is kinda sad, but... this could maybe happen. I like it Jo, red dust, flies an' all. Never did fancy opera gloves though, just a stylistic thing..wink.

Kristina

While I Slept

joannebarbarella's picture

A big thankyou to the kind fairy who vastly improved the title block of my story last night. It really increases the visual impact and I am very grateful.

Perhaps one of these days I may learn to do such magic myself, but don't hold your breath. I'll probably have to wait for a computer that I can talk to.

Thankyou too to the few people who have so far been kind enough to comment. Believe me, that also is very much appreciated,

Joanne

fun in the Dirt

We've all heard how basically a lot of our stories are all the same. What makes them different is the background and the characters. This one has that in spades. A construction site out in the middle of nowhere with a rough and ready bunch. You really made it all come alive, from the lizards sunning themselves to the rough jokes from the guys. A really great job!

Hugs!

Grover

Mud Pies

terrynaut's picture

This is a fun story. I like how all of "her" mates accepted her, even though they didn't show it right away. It all turned out well in the end. That's what matters. Right?

The road construction was an interesting choice for background. The story is a nice reminder that the transgender can be anywhere and do anything. We're people too!

Thanks very much for the story.

- Terry

I have a several friends from down under

about half of them are transgendered, and one of them tells me stories like this. Must be a bit of this going on down there :-)

I loved this one. The story feels complete. Please write more stories; a continuation would best be another stand-alone story using the same protagonist.

- Moni

I'm very glad

Angharad's picture

the straight razor wasn't needed, or this gem wouldn't have been shared with those of us who don't know what it's like on a construction site in Oz. I have however, driven along the sort of roads like this would have been, only in WA, and I was in skirts.

Angharad

Angharad

Fantastic Story, Joanne…

I really enjoyed it because it was so unusual. Tremendous.

Gabi.


“It is hard for a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs.” Thomas Hardy—Far from the Madding Crowd.

Gabi.


“It is hard for a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs.” Thomas Hardy—Far from the Madding Crowd.

What, no big orgy scene?

laika's picture

Jeez, Joanne... After some of the comments you've been leaving people, clamoring for more randy stuff in their stories, one woulda thought you'd follow your own advice. But no we get this hopelessly unprurient excercise in understanding. Not a jar of KY butt-lube in sight.
For shame!

But for WHAT IT WAS, and as I put my razzing aside here, it was really excellent. A bit of a departure from your romantic/erotic tales. Wonderful to think a bunch of construction guys would be this accepting of your hero. Part of what makes this oddly credible is that you set it up so that he had proven he was a man to these guys where it counted, operating heavy equipment, besting a drunken idiot with a gun (What if like me he ran screaming when a moth flew into the room {I can't help it, they're SCARY!}, would they have been as indulgent?). And maybe part of it might be that acceptance is a two way street. He's more educated & more refined and all that junk than them, but right from the start & throughout the story he speaks of they guys on the site with affection and respect, doesn't condescend to their values, what they think is important ......... and as far as them all crossdressing at the end, well I'm to believe a BBC documentary I once saw I know lumberjacks do it, between working all day and sleeping all night (or I think it was a documentary, but I seem seem to recall they were singing...); and at a CB radio jamboree at the county fairgrounds in Bakersfield California in the early mid-1970's they had an event called called THE TRUCKER'S FASHION SHOW, which was indeed a bunch of big burly truck drivers sashaying down the catwalk in women's clothes before an audience, most of them looking scary and capering ludicrously, but a few seeming surprisingly natural and comfortable en femme (And shucks, there goes the blog I was gonna write about that). Anyway it was a touching story, and well told, nice that you're writing about Australia after setting so many stories in Britian), the landscape where it took place was described really well, I could almost smell it, (I imagine it smelling much like Northern Nevada when it's hot out like this); and in truth actually glad it didn't end in a big sodomific orgy.

~~~hugs, Laika

Makes Me Wonder One Thing,

Since they knew, and accepted, were the others also crossdressers? Either that, or these guys were very open minded.

    Stanman
May Your Light Forever Shine
    Stanman
May Your Light Forever Shine

The loss of a love

I want to thank you for this story. I found myself in tears when the truth was revealed. I couldn't help it. There's always pain in a lost love. His love of Lucy and his regret fairly yanked at my heart strings.
Beth

Nice!

Great read! How I missed this when it was first posted I don't know. The description of the crew is spot-on. I've worked a few jobs like that, (not earthmoving/road construction but similiar) and the camraderie of the crew is very real. They might abuse you all day and you're not sure if they mean it or not; but when the shit hits the fan you suddenly find all of the crew lined up along side you.

Not really much about the circumstances with Lucy, but if only for some closure he (she?) needs to attempt to make contact with her. Hopefully after surviving this, he'll finally have the courage to try and see if that bridge truely burned after he crossed over it. That would be a fitting sequel.


I went outside once. The graphics weren' that great.

Great story!

I love the way you described it-I felt as though I was there! Very inte3resting, and told in a way that made you appreciate the rough and dirty aspects of the job, and the men.

Wren

acceptance come from some of the strangest places and folks

i think the story told us why these men accpted him. he was good and a professional and looked after them. this was their way of repaying all that and more. and yes, i've seen simular circumstances in my own life that i was astounded whom at least tolerated or accepted when discovering i was a bit different. some mild teasing occationly, but it was in fun, not hurtful. interesting story...to bad it coudlnt be followed up with more.

Ah, But It Is.....

joannebarbarella's picture

Firstly, always so nice to get a comment on an old story.....a double delight.

And my dear Housmous.....TaDa!....there is a sequel of sorts called "You Can't Go Back.....Can You?"

I hope you read and comment on that too,

Joanne

nice one

It just shows that you don't know till you try.Nice one mate.XXXX

A Comment Much Appreciated

joannebarbarella's picture

All comments are very welcome, but a late one on an old story is doubly welcome. Cough! Cough! Allow me to point you at the sequel "You Can't Go Back...Can You?"

I'm Surprised to See...

...that I never commented on this one. (At least I kudosed it the first time I re-read it after the system was added.) It's one of my favorites.

I guess I didn't comment because I don't really have anything to add to all the old comments. It's a well written story with an unusual, well-described setting, and a a very sympathetic narrator/protagonist who underestimates his own appeal to both those he works over and those he works for.

Belated thanks for writing and posting this and the related stories.

Best, Eric

Five Years!

joannebarbarella's picture

Since I got any comment on this eleven-year-old story and then I get two comments in one day!

I humbly kow-tow and kiss the ground. Thanks Eric and thanks Andrea. It's nice to not be forgotten. Some authors seem to garner continual comments, but not me.

This is still one of my personal favourites, probably because it has a large dose of auto-biography in it and maybe it has more of me in it too.