The Power Plant

In the heart of his university, a young man begins a journey that will challenge everything he thinks he knows about himself. In The Power Plant, a nineteen-year-old college student finds himself working in the gritty confines of the campus boiler and chiller facility, handling routine tasks like typing reports and running errands. But the job places him in close contact with a group of men who live by their own rules-men who measure strength, weakness, and respect in ways he's never encountered before.
He wrestles with his uncertainty while feeling the pressure to live up to expectations. He's forced to confront questions about identity, manhood, and the life he's supposed to lead. What begins as a simple campus job becomes something far more personal. The Power Plant is a coming-of-age story about masculinity, desire, and the quiet moments that shape a young man long before he's ready. An Excerpt: Bells ring in my head.
It's my Mother phoning the Power Plant late into the night, to inquire why I haven't come home. I know what time the night Operator is supposed to make his rounds to read the meters. But he will sleep half the night under the narcotic hum of the big chillers and fudge the numbers on the meter sheets. He'll eat his lunch in the control room up front by the big gaping door of the plant. He'll piss through the grate rather than come toward the tool room to go to the toilet.
There's a side door that's always unlocked because the lock's broken. It's a good way for someone to get into the power plant unnoticed and into the tool room if they have a key, like Hawkins has a key. I know Hawkins knows these things, too. Because now he's looking at me and the ropes and pulleys hanging from the ceiling. He breathes hard, and his hand digs deeper between his legs. He moves the door back and forth.***