Joey the Oiler

People at sea tend to have their own special ways and characteristics. Some may be placed into pre-defined groups: for example those that drink their lives away and who seem to exist on a roller coaster ride through alcoholic stupor and brief moments of clarity (at maybe nine in the morning). Another all too common grouping is of the many at sea who exist in a permanent state of hatred against the whole world and who inflict their dour looks and grim faces onto all those around them. And one more could be that group of sailors, seafarers, crew (call them what you may), who have lost the plot completely.

They may be great people with an infectious sense of humor; they may have great ability in the job and excel in what they do. They may even be perfectly happy people who integrate themselves well into the life onboard and who are sorely missed when they return home. But the one common factor that brings them under the same umbrella is that they are all unfortunate enough to have been hit by a bolt of lightening, run over by a speeding Double Decker bus or smacked around the head with a frying pan by an angry wife.

Joey the Oiler fitted right smack bang into the middle of this last grouping. From the Philippines he has been at sea for about five years, is twenty five years old, unmarried but with one child and lives on a planet far away from human civilization.

Don't by any means mistake the above words: Joey is a great bloke with an infectious smile and a wicked sense of humor but despite this glowing report his brain never fully arrived on earth. His painting spree of two weeks under the floor plates never helped much and probably it was wrong for him to have been given this task. But faithfully and happily he would crawl into the bilges with his roller and pungent can of paint to re-appear at the end of the day giggling happily and without a care in the world.

At the beginning during my first few days on the vessel I did not appreciate to scope of Joey's happiness under the plates. I myself was getting used to the vessel and did not take note of the out-of-tune whistling that sometimes warbled upwards from beneath my feet. I did not during those first few days appreciate the fact that Joey always had a large smile on his face come rain, sun or storm.

I suppose the first real hint to me that Joey was extra-special was when one day I found that walking through the engine-room was like trying to get through the largest maze one could think of. In single moment of energy Joey had painted half the engine-room floor plates. Stretching from the bow to the stern, 80 meters of floor plates had been painted, some corners here, other stretches there, causing one to walk in a skip and a hop fashion around machinery only to find the way blocked by a further patch of wet paint. He had skillfully painted such that it was possible to walk with dry feet from one end to the other, but the plan and route of attack was in his head alone and having left no route markers most of us in the engine room ended up with sticky and grey-soled boots and a trail of footprints behind.

I explained to Joey that evening that it was best just to paint a little bit each day rather than in two large parts. But my talk was futile as the following morning he preceded to paint the other half leaving us for a second day lost in our own engine-room. And seeing as how it was now all painted I never followed this up, although maybe I should have for future occasions.

I had many conversation with Joey over the preceding weeks, albeit Joey did most of the talking whilst I listened in the hope that I might make sense of what was being said. Not that his English was bad, it was just that he never paused for breath and between laughing and talking sentences, paragraphs, commas and fool stops just never seemed to occur - it was just a stream of sounds interspersed with giggles.

Our ships control room had the best carpet in the world. It is not normal to find such a thing in a ships engine-room but this was Joey's pride and joy. One day our typical and normal plastic floor covering gained a section of bright orange carpet, a recent left-over from some cabin or other, and there it was to remain until I left. I talked to Joey on the first day about safety standards and fire-hazards and the following morning the carpet was gone. I in my stupidity presumed that Joey had taken onboard what I had said and had removed the offending carpet. Unfortunately I was wrong and by lunch-time the section of orange eye-offending carpet returned to position, suitably washed, scrubbed and dried. And this was the procedure every preceding morning; the carpet would be scrubbed clean of offending oily footprints and would return by lunch-time, bright, clean and orange to offend the eye for another day.

I certainly applaud any Oiler who shows enthusiasm for his job and for any Oiler who successfully and without fail keeps a tidy engine-room. But having said that I suppose it was partially my fault, for allowing him free reign as long as the engine-room remained free of rubbish, oily spots and basically remained brand spanking new at all times, that his skill for tidiness became a cause for concern. Mornings would find us bleary eyed and slow to start the new day, mornings would give us a new and tidy engine-room. It would also give us headaches as we searched for machinery parts that had been left the night previously on the workbench, for intricate and delicate screws that had been safely placed in some box or other and throughout Joey denying any knowledge of having seen or touched them.

Joey's memory span did not last a night of sleep. No amount of coaching or description would draw for him the whereabouts of these missing parts or what might have come of them. He scratched his head and looked at us as if to say "your problem, you put them somewhere not me", and left to retire under the plates with his can of paint. Invariably we would come across these spares or pieces in some cabinet or other, neatly placed and wrapped or marked in Joey's distinctive hand. Sometimes we might find these parts painted over in a thick undercoat, or if after a few days in a thick gloss totally ruined and unusable but looking good.

Joey's actual engineering skills left a lot to be desired but should one be standing in the vicinity of any project that Joey undertook then one might think he was the Chief Engineer imparting wisdom to those lesser than himself. He took pride over the other crew in his position as Oiler, and they looked up to him for some unfathomable or lost reason. I give him full credit though for living through his lack of experience in engineering matters and maintaining the respect of his peers. When his tightening of some bolts on the spray booms resulted in three of them sheering: he explained this off to his mates immediately as a faulty batch of bolts. On other occasions he could be heard explaining volubly why a machine had failed and invariably the Chief, Second or the Third Engineers would be the cause due to bad operating practices.

It was nearing my time to get off and I was suffering a case of having "been there before". I was working in the bow thruster room, having been I there for an hour or so, and was ready to go up for smoko. But looking aft and towards the stairs all I could see was endless pipes and no floor plates. I had asked Joey to start lifting plates and painting the pipe work underneath but I had presumed that this would be done on an ongoing basis, like one plate at a time, rather than the whole engine room in one fell sweep. Joey seeing my perplexed expression came and navigated me through a mile or two of complex maze that he had created and I resolved not to finish my job below incase I got lost on my way back down.

I can honesty say that at no-time during that trip did I see Joey without a smile on his face. I can also honestly say that he cleaned that orange piece of carpet faithfully every single morning and that he also painted every single item of machinery that I worked on well before I had even finished stripping it. Without fail he would have cleaned the lathe before I had even switched it on, he would paint a filter just before it was due for cleaning, and he would empty the bins just before you were ready to put something in them.

All very frustrating but the enthusiasm and the happiness with which he put himself into his work more than made up for the resulting work that he produced. The hours that I spent scraping paint off bolts that needed to be used, navigating paint patches and attempting to find parts that Joey had tucked away safely, often tried my patience to the limits but all gave way when placed my oily boots on the well-scrubbed and shiny orange carpet - guilt took over instead.

I can though without doubt say that he fooled me for the better part of the trip. It was during the last three days or so and I had given him a job of stenciling designations onto machines and equipment. Having told him that all machinery needed doing I left him to his duty and I retired to mine. On the day that I left I asked him casually why he had not done any markings, and he, never having not done a job before replied with, "I need somebody to show me where everything is". He had in total been on the vessel for five months, but knew only were the essential machinery sat, like the main engines, the generators and maybe the sewage tank because of the smell. Apart form that ..the loud bangs, whizzes and blue lumps that he painted and painted around had been just that - lumps of matter to be painted.

He told me just before I left that this was his last trip as an Oiler. He was going to college to study for an Engineering ticket but if he could not get in then he would come back as a cook!

Help!