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- Story Listed as: True Life For Adults
- Theme: Action & Adventure
- Subject: Biography / Autobiography
- Published: 12/04/2012
DUMPTRUCK
M, from Baltimore, Maryland, United StatesDUMPTRUCK
St.Ours
I couldn't get the truck to stop
in spite of stamping the brakes with both feet
and wrestling the paralyzed steering column
in a struggle to drift it safely in a rumble
to a rolling stall...drifting dead
on the bottom of an unpaved road.
I climbed down from the cab.
Slammed the stiff hinged door,
and hiked in dismay and embarrassment to the job site.
"The damn brakes don't work!" I exclaimed.
The black laborers and white carpenters
ceased fire..looked up...and then they all laughed
when Jackie shot back "You fool those are air brakes!
The truck's got to be running for them to function!
Now get that frigging truck! Pull the choke and start the mother!"
I was seventeen, my second summer with Jackie's crew.
I knew nothing and had not a lick of experience
with diesels, oversized vehicles, and doubleclutching.
Jackie got tired wasting his money and time
on independent truckers driving their own lorries.
So he bought an old heap of a used dumptruck
with a stick shift the length of a cane
controlling ten gears through the floor
from a seat ripped asunder by its own springs.
When he asked for a volunteer to drive it,
I leaped out of that hot dirty ditch in a heartbeat.
And he let me drive it without any training or commercial grade license.
When the truck was top heavy with debris and soil,
I'd have the toughest time punching and grinding that stick into third gear.
So I had to muscle downshift straight from fourth to second and vice versa.
Suddenly a cop cuts me off and signals me to pull over.
He was livid that I had not noticed him "chasing" me
but I swore I couldn't hear his siren over the roaring hoarse engine
and I missed his lights because I was not yet accustomed
to depending on sideview mirrors to see what was on my tail.
Besides the last thing I expected was a traffic citation
piloting that lumbering behemoth. The badge told me
he'd tear up the ticket if I turned the truck around
and scraped up a few pancake spots of dirt
he claimed I spilled off of the bed upon hitting bumps.
I complied but the delay meant arriving late at the landfill
which meant Jackie would waste more money
on the hired bulldozer idling during my prolonged absence.
So I hurried back to the job site with a fresh load
and hastily maneuvered the truck onto a lot.
In reverse gear I sideview mirrored the vehicle into position,
braked, pulled the release knob and the hydraulic bed lifted.
The truck slowly rolled over. "OH SHIT!"
I inadvertently parked the left rear wheel
over a back filled sewer line and me and that truck sunk.
The vehicle laid on its side like a beached whale,
an ossification of old metal and rubber and petrol.
With diesel spilling and oil leaking I managed to push the door upwards
and crawled out like you would a submarine hatch.
It was only my second day to drive the truck
and the day before I had turned it over
as well just edging a gas line trench.
On foot I hunted down Jackie.
I found him near the idling bulldozer
sitting in his chrome fin Cadillac
and my news made him mad.
Towing out that truck again
would cost him as much as
I could earn in a full month of sweat and toil.
The next morning he put me back on the pick
grading footings, hammering stakes, and
by noon cutting, laying, and tying steel rods to wire mesh.
We finished in time for the cement trucks
and I busted my gut wheelbarrowing sloshing concrete
and raking it level...troweling it smooth
when a thunderstorm blew in
as lightening split the air.
I got so pounded with cold rain
the end of that horribly hot day
that the next morning I reported back to work
with my right shoulder so limp I couldn't raise my arm.
Jackie figured it was probably bursitis
and it was only after he told me to go home without pay
that I noticed he found a way to laugh again.
by L DOUGLAS ST OURS
June 2010
DUMPTRUCK(L DOUGLAS ST OURS)
DUMPTRUCK
St.Ours
I couldn't get the truck to stop
in spite of stamping the brakes with both feet
and wrestling the paralyzed steering column
in a struggle to drift it safely in a rumble
to a rolling stall...drifting dead
on the bottom of an unpaved road.
I climbed down from the cab.
Slammed the stiff hinged door,
and hiked in dismay and embarrassment to the job site.
"The damn brakes don't work!" I exclaimed.
The black laborers and white carpenters
ceased fire..looked up...and then they all laughed
when Jackie shot back "You fool those are air brakes!
The truck's got to be running for them to function!
Now get that frigging truck! Pull the choke and start the mother!"
I was seventeen, my second summer with Jackie's crew.
I knew nothing and had not a lick of experience
with diesels, oversized vehicles, and doubleclutching.
Jackie got tired wasting his money and time
on independent truckers driving their own lorries.
So he bought an old heap of a used dumptruck
with a stick shift the length of a cane
controlling ten gears through the floor
from a seat ripped asunder by its own springs.
When he asked for a volunteer to drive it,
I leaped out of that hot dirty ditch in a heartbeat.
And he let me drive it without any training or commercial grade license.
When the truck was top heavy with debris and soil,
I'd have the toughest time punching and grinding that stick into third gear.
So I had to muscle downshift straight from fourth to second and vice versa.
Suddenly a cop cuts me off and signals me to pull over.
He was livid that I had not noticed him "chasing" me
but I swore I couldn't hear his siren over the roaring hoarse engine
and I missed his lights because I was not yet accustomed
to depending on sideview mirrors to see what was on my tail.
Besides the last thing I expected was a traffic citation
piloting that lumbering behemoth. The badge told me
he'd tear up the ticket if I turned the truck around
and scraped up a few pancake spots of dirt
he claimed I spilled off of the bed upon hitting bumps.
I complied but the delay meant arriving late at the landfill
which meant Jackie would waste more money
on the hired bulldozer idling during my prolonged absence.
So I hurried back to the job site with a fresh load
and hastily maneuvered the truck onto a lot.
In reverse gear I sideview mirrored the vehicle into position,
braked, pulled the release knob and the hydraulic bed lifted.
The truck slowly rolled over. "OH SHIT!"
I inadvertently parked the left rear wheel
over a back filled sewer line and me and that truck sunk.
The vehicle laid on its side like a beached whale,
an ossification of old metal and rubber and petrol.
With diesel spilling and oil leaking I managed to push the door upwards
and crawled out like you would a submarine hatch.
It was only my second day to drive the truck
and the day before I had turned it over
as well just edging a gas line trench.
On foot I hunted down Jackie.
I found him near the idling bulldozer
sitting in his chrome fin Cadillac
and my news made him mad.
Towing out that truck again
would cost him as much as
I could earn in a full month of sweat and toil.
The next morning he put me back on the pick
grading footings, hammering stakes, and
by noon cutting, laying, and tying steel rods to wire mesh.
We finished in time for the cement trucks
and I busted my gut wheelbarrowing sloshing concrete
and raking it level...troweling it smooth
when a thunderstorm blew in
as lightening split the air.
I got so pounded with cold rain
the end of that horribly hot day
that the next morning I reported back to work
with my right shoulder so limp I couldn't raise my arm.
Jackie figured it was probably bursitis
and it was only after he told me to go home without pay
that I noticed he found a way to laugh again.
by L DOUGLAS ST OURS
June 2010
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