Big Six, where are you?

When I started writing The Red Scarf, I needed an off-the-wall nickname for a rogue oil field roughneck. I reached back into my past--to Libya---of all places and decided to use the name of a real roughneck I worked with. "Big Six" was the roughneck's nickname. Yes, there is or was a real Big Six or "Six" as we called him, and I worked with him on a drilling rig deep in the Libyan Desert. Six was a driller on a Santa Fe Drilling Company rig and I was the geologist in charge of evaluating what the rig drilled. I was working for Esso Libya.

Well, Big Six in The Red Scarf is a fictitious character and only the name is the same as the Big Six that I worked with in the Libyan Desert. However, the real Big Six was certainly a colorful character. When Big Six was working on one of the rigs in the desert, he was a model employee. One of the best drillers I have every worked with. However, when Big Six went to town he changed. A few beers and look out. Stories floated back about the "I can whip anybody in the room." challenge which he made in the Loftland Brother's Staff House. Well, he did--but one giant that worked for Haliburton did gave him a tough time and they managed to destroy the bar. Then there was the night in Benghazi at the casino. His crew had been drinking at the bar all afternoon, and when they went into the casino to shoot dice, his crew helped him by grabbing his arms, pulling him back about ten feet, and then flinging him toward the crap's table. Well, Big Six would hit the end of the crap table and toss the dice---sometimes off the ceiling. Of course, after a while, it got really rowdy and the management called the police. Big Six staggered out of the casino to keep from being arrested, jumped into a car that pulled up in front of the casino--that he though was a cab. Well, it was a car full of police---after about 5 seconds the car seemed to explode as all four door popped open and police and Big Six when in all directions. And then there's the story about Big Six being baned from ever flying British Air after he ---Ah, well, I'd better skip that story. It was funny to everyone---except British Air.

Well, I lost track of Big Six in 1964. If any of my readers know of his whereabouts send me a comment with his address and I'll send him a copy of The Red Scarf. I think he was from Kansas.

The excerpt below is from The Red Scarf---Big Six is causing trouble.

It's the big fight in the City Cafe

.......Then Big Six threw his steel, hardhat at him and yelled, “Hit this big fellow! Ha! Ha! Ha! You’re all mouth, you big mumble- mouth, wobble-legged slob! Now, get your butt back in the kitchen and fix us some supper, or I’m gonna kick it back!” The hardhat sailed across the room and banged against the wall, right beside Bubba’s head.
According to one of the other customers sitting at the bar, when that hardhat hit the wall beside him, Bubba’s mouth dropped open, tobacco juice ran out of both sides of his mouth, and his eyes almost crossed. He bared his teeth and let out a roar.
“Ahhhhhhh, you worthless trash! Makin’ fun of me! I’ll teach you some manners!” Bubba walked over to where Big Six’s hardhat was lying and swung that skillet at the steel hardhat.
Whap!
Boy, Bubba crushed Big Six’s hard hat almost flat and then kicked it like you would a football and it hit Big Six right above the ankle.
Mrs. Martin squealed like a stuck pig cause she durn well knew all hell was about to break loose.
“Now, stop it, Bubba! And Big Six, you just calm down!”
Shoot, Mrs. Martin might as well just kept her mouth shut cause there weren’t nobody paying no attention to her.
“Ahaaaa! You worthless—” But before Big Six could get up, Bubba kicked the leg of the chair so hard it broke and sent Big Six sprawling out on the floor. Then Bubba drew back his skillet.
“Ahaaaaaaa! No! Bubba! Don’t!,” screamed Mrs. Martin.
But Bubba was already drawed back. His first swing cleared the table of all three beer bottles. Glass went everywhere, and them the other two roughnecks jumped back out of skillet range.
Big Six yelled, “Don’t!” just as the second skillet swing whacked him across his shoulder. The thud of the skillet could be heard all across the café. My gosh, people started a-yelling and a-hollering and everybody but them roughnecks started running for the door, as Bubba drew back and started to whop Big Six again.
Mrs. Martin let out a high-pitched scream that you could’ve heard a mile away and slapped old Bubba across the back to try and get him to stop. Heck, Bubba paid about as much attention to Mrs. Martin as he would of a mosquito.
“Now, I’m gonna teach you a thing or two!,” taunted Bubba, as he stood over Big Six, who was really hurting from the skillet swat on the shoulder He drawed back the skillet to swat him again. This time, Mrs. Martin said, Bubba was gonna whap Big Six right on the top of his head. Course if he had, old Big Six would be dead as a doorknob right now.
“Help! Help! Don’t hit me again!” Big Six was a-hollering as he tried to crawl away. About that time them other two roughnecks decided to get into the fight.
“Get ’em!” yelled one of the other men as they rushed Bubba, and before Bubba could swing, they tackled him.
“Ahhhhhhhhh!” screamed Bubba screamed and he slapped one of the men halfway across the room with his free hand and started after the other one with the skillet. Big Six finally got up off the floor and grabbed Bubba around the neck from the back and tried to choke him, but he didn’t even slow Bubba down.
It was one of the dangest fights you ever did see. Bubba trying to corner one of the other roughnecks while Big Six was riding his back, and the other roughneck, the one Bubba had knocked across the room, was trying to hit Bubba with a beer bottle, while old Mrs. Martin ran round the café waving her hands over her head and screaming like nothing you’ve ever heard.....

More in a later post.