The instant he hit the ground Stockley reached back and threw a full-force right fist to the guy’s heart and the driver went down hard. He looked shocked and suddenly out of breath. The driver jumped back up and threw a punch. Stockley ducked and ran a haymaker into the driver’s belly and he doubled over and went down again. Looking stunned and breathing hard, the driver crawled over to his rig and pulled himself up next to one of the tires. The other drivers were idling their rigs to watch the scene. This was the first time they had seen a job boss deck one of the drivers. One of the other drivers jumped down and hurried over to the scene.
“Son,” Stockley said, narrowing his dark eyes and face into a grin, “you don’t have to get hurt if you turn around where you stand and get back on that cat. If you decide to participate in this discussion, I will break your nose. Then you’ll have to take the rest of the day off trying to get it reassembled. I’d hate to lose you for the day.”
The second driver decided to help the first man back up into his rig. Then he returned to his vehicle and led the scrapers to the equipment holding field where they took a break for lunch. It was 10:15 in the morning.
This surprising capability for violence only enhanced the boss’ mysterious presence on the job. Just 24 and fresh out of college, I was anxious to put my civil engineering degree to work. He appeared to be in his late 50s and bent on employing a management style of humiliation and intimidation. James Stockley was a certified playground tough who didn’t play well with others. Over the course of the project I would learn to survive Stockley and, in some ways, appreciate his intentions if not his methods. Little by little I would also discover the path that led him to his seemingly unusual station in life.
A few weeks into the job, Brian Hilliard, one of the other superintendents and I were having a beer at the Yorktown Bar after work when Stockley walked in and sat down on the stool next to Brian.
“How you doing, Boss?” Brian asked.
“Not bad considering I hear from Washington every day,” Stockley said in his usual abrupt manner of speaking.
“What’s the problem? Are they checking up on us?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Stockley said, ordering a beer. “I think they have to move a ton of paper a week and 30 pounds has been allotted to me.” The boss looked straight ahead and took a drink of his beer. He was quiet for a while and we tried to think of something to say. Conversations on the job had always been one-sided, coming straight at us.
“Have you dealt with the Army Corp of Engineers before?” I asked. It was admittedly a question all of us had wanted to ask for several months. He was like a man with no past to those of us who worked for him. The boss didn’t answer, continuing to stare straight ahead as if studying himself and his beer in the mirror behind the bar.
The three of us worked our way through one beer with only a few words said and those were directed at the bartender. After the beer we all left and walked to the parking lot.
“How often do you guys stop here?” Stockley asked.
“Only a couple of times a week, usually on Tuesdays and Fridays,” I said, wondering if he would think that was excessive.
“Okay,” he said, getting in his car. “I’ll see you then.”
“What was that all about?” Brian asked, after the boss pulled away.
“I don’t know. Who knows anything about this guy?” I asked.
Brian and I continued to stop for a beer or two at the Yorktown Bar twice a week after work and about half the time Stockley joined us one beer later. He didn’t have an agenda and he certainly didn’t have much to say other than the occasional remark about the job.
“I assume you’re from England?” I asked one night, not knowing what else to say or whether the boss would favor us with a continuing stare at the bottles and the mirror across the bar, or a response. He paused and attempted a smile, looking at me in the mirror he responded.
“Yes, I was,” he said flatly, “but that was a long time ago. I haven’t been back in many years.”
“What was it like growing up in England?” I asked, too curious now to stop.
My innocent questions seemed to catch the boss off guard and he turned to me.
“It was pretty bad,” he said, in a quiet voice we’d never heard at the job site.
“You were poor?” I asked.
“Yes, I guess we were but there were bigger problems than not having enough money. It was so bad that I ran away and joined the circus at age six.” He turned back to the mirror, having said all he was going to say that night.
Over the course of many nights and weeks that summer at the Yorktown Bar, however, Stockley filled us in little by little on the wild ride that had brought him to us. Some nights he had a lot to say and some he didn’t move the story forward an inch. By spacing our questions carefully, we eventually learned about his journey from his early days in London to his days in a British caravan circus, to his boxing career and appointment as the U.S. Army’s Chief Engineer in charge of the Indian Rock Dam Project.
Through it all, we got the picture of a troubled man carrying some heavy burdens and some self-inflicted stab wounds that refused to heal.
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