Love Knows No Color Pt. 27

Next morning, I dropped the trailer and ran back to Leetsdale without it. The frigid wind hadn't let up, and it blew me all over the road all day. I was exhausted and irritable when I got home that night. Shavonda had made the kids dinner and saved me some. The chicken and rice I'd come to love never tasted better. Afterward, she ran me a hot bath, and I fell asleep in the tub.

By Monday, they'd repaired my trailer. I was back on the road, but with the clip on the rear of the curtain unusable, they'd cut it off and bolted the curtain to the door frame. I could no longer open the curtain from the rear. I'd have to pull it back from the front every time. Worse yet, the curtain now bunched up at the rear of the trailer when opened, making it difficult to access anything from the trailer tires on back. Anything that was loaded there either had to be taken off through the rear doors, while the trailer was backed into a dock. Or, more likely as most places on my runs didn't have docks, I'd have to wrestle with the heavy pole on the front of the curtain and use it to hold the curtain out of the way while the forklift removed whatever was loaded there. And that is what finally did me in.

That Thursday, my last stop in Lewistown had 20-foot rebar. The loaders, in their infinite wisdom, had loaded it as far back in the trailer as possible. I would have to hold the curtain out of the way for it to be removed.

The weather had remained unseasonable cold for the second week of December. Temps were down near zero but had risen enough on Wednesday for an ice storm to blow through, before plummeting again later the same day. It was too cold for road salt to be effective, but the view was spectacularly beautiful, as the ice was still coating the tree branches when the sun peeked out Thursday afternoon. It made for treacherous driving, though.

In Lewistown, the conditions in the lumberyard where I was unloading were especially bad. The yard was a sheet of ice, and I barely got in. I wondered how I was going to get the truck out of there. Little did I know I wouldn't. What happened next was a combination of bad weather, and bad judgement on many peoples' part. I pulled the curtain back as far as it would go, but it still didn't clear the rebar. So, when the forklift driver attempted to pick it up, I had to hold the pole out of the way. But with the heavy load, he was having a hard time removing the rebar from my trailer. The forklift couldn't get traction.

To make matters worse, the driver didn't pick the rebar up far enough for the ends to be clear of the trailer floor. When the forklift wheels finally spun through the ice and hit solid ground, it lurched sideways, and the rebar sprung out of the trailer. It hit me, throwing me about 5 feet. Luckily, the pole took the brunt of the pent-up force when the rebar snapped free.

But the damage was done. When I tried to get up off the ground, I was overcome by excruciating pain. I'd landed on my right arm with no warning, no time to brace myself. And it was obviously broken. Every breath I took was pure misery. The forklift driver ran over. "Are you ok?" he asked.

"No, I squeaked. "My arm is broken." He helped me into the office where they called an ambulance for me. While I was waiting, I had them fish my phone from my shirt pocket and called Nick to let him know, then rang Shavonda.

"Hey, boo," she answered. "Where are you?"

"Lewistown." I said faintly.

"What's wrong?" she asked, concern in her voice.