Don Javier wasn’t just a driver. He was a transportista for Grupo Transporte PEMEX, one of the contractors responsible for the most vital, unglamorous, yet dangerous job in the petroleum industry: moving the workers.
Don Javier raised his thermos of black coffee in salute. Then he turned the key. Rrrrrumble. Time to go pick up the night shift.
Outside the depot, the first employees began to arrive. They shuffled through the pre-dawn darkness, fluorescent vests glowing like ghostly fireflies. He watched them board: the welders with their thick gloves, the safety inspectors with their clipboards, the young chemical engineers smelling of soap and ambition, and the old perforadores (roughnecks) who smelled of coffee and yesterday’s fatigue. transporte de personal pemex
“Buenos días, Don Javi,” said Marta, a corrosion technician. She was the first on board, always sitting in the third row, by the emergency window. “Same seat, same life.”
“Relax, kid,” laughed a grizzled pipefitter named Chuy. “That’s just the halcón . We’re the ants. The ants get there first, and the ants build the nest.” Don Javier wasn’t just a driver
“Radio check, Base. Transporte de personal, Ruta 7-A, Cunduacán to the Dos Bocas complex,” he said into the microphone.
Don Javier killed the engine. He pulled out his logbook and wrote: 06:47. Arrived. All personnel accounted for. Then he turned the key
Halfway to the terminal, the radio squawked. “Javi, Base. Reports of a disabled tanker truck at the El Golpe junction. Traffic stopped. You’ll have to take the old brecha around the palm plantation.”