Trucker Mother

Sandy signaled a lane change, pulled out into the left lane of I-40 West to pass the pickup truck filled with furniture, then pulled back into the right lane.

"Yeah, I thought I was just gonna drive for a couple of years and then have some kids. Funny how things turn out though. We'd been married, let's see, two years and six months when Jerry had a heart attack right there on I-30 between Texarkana and Dallas. If he'd been driving, we'd probably both be dead. Still can't believe how fast that happened. Jerry was only thirty two. He seemed OK one second and the next, just keeled over in the seat.

"When the EMT's got there, Jerry was still breathing, but he'd started to turn blue. They started giving him oxygen and it looked like he was getting better. When they loaded Jerry into their truck, I locked up the rig and got in with them and we headed for the hospital in Rockwall. We must have spent two hours in the emergency room before they moved him to intensive care. They made me sit outside while they worked on him so I didn't know how bad Jerry was at first.

"As they were taking him up to intensive care, this doctor - he looked like he was Chinese. Can you imagine that, a Chinese doctor in the middle of Texas? His name was Wilson and talked like he was from Texas but he was really short and he sure looked like he was Chinese. Anyway, he was frowning when he walked over to where I was sitting and said Jerry had had a heart attack and they were taking him to intensive care but I shouldn't get my hopes up. He said they'd already lost him twice and then brought him back but he didn't think Jerry was going to last the night.

"When I got to intensive care, I was pretty much in shock. I mean, Jerry had been laughing and talking and then he just stopped doing anything. He wasn't doing anything in intensive care either. They had needles in both of Jerry's arms and a bunch of wires taped to his chest that went to a monitor beside the bed. I could see the little blips on the monitor, just like you see on TV, one little blip for each time his heart beat.

"I sat there and held Jerry's hand for the next hour or so. He woke up once, and he smiled at me. He asked what happened, and I told him he'd had a heart attack and he should just rest. Jerry just smiled again and said he thought he was going to be able to rest for a long time now. Just before he drifted off again, he said he loved me. A little later, the alarm on the monitor went off. I looked at it and those little blips weren't there anymore. The doctor tried to bring him back again, but Jerry was gone.

"I called our dispatcher and told him we weren't going to make Dallas and why. He said he was sorry and that he'd send another truck to pick up the trailer and make the delivery. He didn't sound all that sorry on the phone, but he did send flowers to Jerry's funeral, so I guess he was.

"They did an autopsy on Jerry and confirmed he'd had a heart attack but they didn't understand why. They didn't have an answer until all the tests came back. They said it was really unusual, but it had happened before.

"Jerry had gotten a cold a couple of weeks earlier, and he couldn't seem to shake it. He was taking cold pills and using some of that nasal spray to keep his nose open so he could breathe. About a week later his sinuses started hurting him so he was taking sinus pills too. When I got to the hospital, they asked me if he was taking any medications, but I didn't think anything about it, you know, I mean, it's not really medicine, is it? You can buy the stuff at any drugstore or Walmart.

"Dr. Wilson said if Jerry had been like about everybody else, it might not have been such a problem, but Jerry already had low blood pressure and between that and what was in the cold pills, the sinus pills and in the nose spray, his blood vessels got restricted enough it caused a massive heart attack.

"Well, after I got Jerry back home where his mom and dad live and we had the funeral, I had to decide what to do. I never went farther in school than high school, and I was twenty-four. I figured that was too old to go to college or anything like that. Then I got to thinking.

"When Jerry and I got married, he talked me into getting my CDL. He said if we could both drive, we could make more money, and we did."

She laughed.

"At first, it was scary. I mean, driving one of these rigs sometimes feels like you're driving a house down the highway. People don't understand that you can't get going very fast once you stop, and they really, really don't understand that you can't stop a tractor and trailer as fast as they can stop their car. What was so scary is what they do to you. Still is sometimes. They get mad because you're not going very fast so they'll pass you when they really don't have room. Then, they'll cut you off trying to get back into the lane so they don't hit the car in front of them.

"I haven't caused any accidents so far, but I've been in more than I want to remember. Doesn't hurt my truck. That big chrome bumper on the front can take about anything, but it sure tears up a car when they cut me off and I can't stop quick enough.

"After a while, though, I started to like it. I love sitting up higher than everything else. I can see everything for miles ahead of us, not just the back of the car in front of me. It was nice too that I could do what I wanted to do and however I wanted to do it. I worked in a grocery store before we got married, and there was always somebody telling me to do this or do that and how I should stock the shelves. The cashier work, well, I didn't like that at all. You wouldn't believe the kind of people you have to check out. Some of 'em are real jerks.

"Anyway, I owned the truck, and that was the only place I had to live. I called the dispatcher and told him J & S Trucking was still in business and to start sending loads my way. Picked up the first trailer on my own on the fifth of July in '95, and bought this low-boy two years later. That was ten years ago, and I've been driving ever since. Wouldn't change anything for the world."

I asked Sandy if she didn't regret not having a family.

She sighed.

"Yeah, sometimes, but after I'd been on the road by myself for a couple of years, I really liked it. If I'd gotten married again and had kids, I'd have been sitting at home taking care of the kids and wishing I was out driving down the road. That's probably not how you think a woman should think, but it's how I think.

"I don't think about that too much anymore. I still could, I suppose. I'm not too old yet, but I can't imagine going to a high school play or game and having white hair.

"Uh-oh. See that red pickup three cars ahead? He's been trying to change lanes for the last five miles but that blue van won't either pass or slow down to let him. See how he keeps edging over to the left? He's mad and I'll bet he's gonna do something stupid. I'm gonna slow down a little in case he does."

I felt the truck and trailer start to lose speed just as the driver of the pickup hit the gas and pulled out in front of the van. He'd have made it if his back bumper hadn't caught the van's front bumper. The van spun sideways and then headed across the other lane. Sandy pushed the button for the emergency lights, hit the brakes and steered for the right shoulder. By the time she'd gotten the rig stopped, the van was sitting on the left shoulder and pointing in the wrong direction. The pickup was nowhere to be seen. As soon as it hit the van, the driver had straightened it out and floored it.

Sandy reached for the cell phone sitting in a holder on the dash and tapped in 911. After reporting the accident, she grabbed a first-aid kit from behind her seat, got out of the truck and stood there until the traffic slowed down enough it was safe to cross the pavement. I'd joined her by then, and we ran across I-65 to the van.

The young woman in the van was leaning on the steering wheel and crying. I could barely understand her when Sandy asked her if she was hurt. She shook her head, sobbed a couple of times, and then said something about just being scared.

Sandy helped her out of the van and over to the side of the shoulder, then gave her a hug.

"It's OK, Honey. You're not hurt and the police are on their way. I got it all on my dash cam, so they'll catch the guy. You'll probably get a brand new van out of the deal."

As we sat there and waited for the cops, I had to smile. Sandy wasn't what I'd thought when we first met. I was the site supervisor on a construction site in Memphis, and when the truck pulled onto the site with a load of steel columns, I was surprised that the driver was a woman. Every other truck that had come to the site was driven by a man.

}{

Sandy didn't look big enough and strong enough to open the load binders that chained the steel to the truck, and as it turned out, she didn't have to. Nate, the lead ironworker, a big burly guy who weighed in at about two fifty, walked up and grinned.

"Hi there Honey. You're sure a sight for sore eyes. Need some help?"

Sandy batted her eyelashes and grinned.

"You could break all my chains loose for me."

Nate grinned again.

"If you're gonna hang around, I could do a lot more than that for you."

Sandy just grinned.

"You know, that'd probably be fun, but I have to be in Dallas in about ten hours. Sorry. Maybe next time."

Once she was unloaded, Sandy brought me the bill of lading and I checked to make sure it matched what we'd unloaded. She handed me my copy after I signed it and then hung all her chains and load binders on the rack at the back of the truck cab.

I took the bill of lading and filed it in the desk in the construction trailer, and when I came back out, Sandy was just driving off the site. I had to smile.

I knew there were women who drove semi's. I'd never met one before Sandy, but I always figured they were at least very masculine women if not the kind of lesbians who like to dress like men. Sandy looked like about any other woman, and if the way she treated Nate was any indication, she'd done her share of flirting with men.

If there ever was such a thing as a born asshole, Nate was that. His crew worked for him, but they didn't like him. He could hardly say a sentence without interjecting "shit" or "fuck" in there somewhere. Now, ironworkers are known for being pretty much all alpha males without much of a filter on what they say, but they didn't like Nate calling them "shitheads" and "dumb fucks" all the time.

He was about as crude as you can get, but Sandy had turned him into a pussycat. Oh, he was out for everything he could get from her, there's no doubt about that, but he didn't swear even once. If any male trucker had suggested Nate help unchain a load, he'd have laughed and said "I get paid for working steel, not running a goddammed fucking truck. You unchain the shit and then I'll unload it." He'd almost begged Sandy to let him help her.

At the time, I figured Sandy was taking advantage of her long, dark brown hair, her cute face, and the figure she hadn't tried to hide at all. Most of the truckers who dropped their loads on the site wore either shorts and a loose T-shirt or baggy jeans and a loose T-shirt. Sandy was wearing jeans and a T-shirt too, but the jeans were those low-cut ones that accent a woman's hips, and her T-shirt fit tight enough it molded itself around a pair of really nice breasts. If I'd seen her in a bar dressed like that, I'd have figured she was fishing for a guy for the night. I'm sure that's what Nate thought too.

}{

The next time I saw her, it was the Monday after a very bad week. It had rained all week long, and that put the steel erection a week behind schedule. Sandy rolled into the site with the girders and rafters that were supposed to go on top of the steel H-beams that formed the building columns, except only half of the columns had been put up.

As if that wasn't enough, my boss had called me while I was still driving to the site and asked how I was going to get the job back on schedule. I said the only way I knew was with overtime and a lot of it. He told me that under no circumstances was I to authorize overtime by any trade. Apparently, they'd bid this job low to get it, and overtime would burn up most of the profit.

When Sandy pulled into the site that Monday, I was thinking seriously about finding another job. Schuster Construction was a big enough company you'd think they'd have had quoting guidelines that included the requirement to add some percentage of the cost as a contingency, but I'd found this was typical of their management style -- bid low and then pound on the site supervisor to bring the building in on time and under budget. I'd about had it when she smiled and handed me the bill of lading.

"You look like somebody stole your puppy. What's wrong?"

Sandy stood there nodding her head as I explained. When I got done, she patted me on the arm.

"That's why I drive a truck. You ought to give it a try. You're what, maybe thirty at most? It'd take you about a month to get your CDL and then you could start driving for a trucking company."

I said I was twenty-eight, but I didn't have enough money to buy a truck even if that's what I wanted to do. She laughed then.

"You don't have to buy a truck. The trucking company would have you drive one of theirs and it'll be almost new. They're all scrambling to find more drivers, so they get new trucks every few years to attract new drivers and to keep the ones they have."

When I told her I didn't know if I'd like that or not, Sandy smiled.

"You really serious about quitting this job? If you are, find a trucker and ask if you can ride along for a while. The trucking companies don't allow riders, but an independent like me can. Talk to one of the drivers bringing in your stuff. I'll bet you'll find at least one who'll let you tag along to see how it's done. We're all pretty proud of what we do and we like to show off."

Sandy loaded up her chains as soon as Nate unloaded her, and she drove off the site as I was walking back to the construction trailer. The "message" light on my desk phone was blinking when I sat down.

I punched the button beside the blinking light and the computer generated voice told me the caller's number. It was my boss's cell phone number. I pressed the "7" key to listen to the message.

"Hey, Rick, got an idea about your project. Why don't you have half your steel guys put up the rest of the columns and the other half start on the girders and rafters? The way I figure it, you'll be able to make up the week and be putting on the roof deck by next Monday. Just something for you to think about."

Well, Harold had either never worked a construction site or had forgotten everything he ever knew about working steel. I had four ironworkers and a crane operator on site. That was the minimum number of workers required by the union contract, and sometimes that wasn't really enough.

It takes one ironworker to rig the steel to the crane hook and run one of the tag lines, one to work the other tag line and one to guide the column into place on the anchor bolts by telling the crane operator to go up and down or side to side. The other two don't actually set the steel, but they're just as important. One runs the fork lift to bring the columns to the crane in the right sequence and the other runs the nuts down on the anchor bolts. While the other ironworkers are getting the next column in place, he tightens those bolts down while the man who guided the crane watches the "bazooka bob", a special, very accurate plumb bob, to make sure the column stays plumb.

It also takes a minimum of four to set girders and rafters as well. One ironworker, the "rigger", reads the steel plan and rigs the correct girder or rafter to the crane hook according to the rafter plan. He then helps another run the tag lines to keep the steel from swinging around. Two are in bucket lifts guiding the girder or rafter into place and bolting or welding it there once it's positioned. While they're doing that, the rigger runs the lift truck to bring the right bundle of girders or rafters to the staging area where the crane can reach them.

If I split my crew, it wouldn't save time. In fact, it would increase the time because each man would have to do two jobs that were in different locations and they'd burn up hours walking back and forth. It would be especially bad for the guys hanging girders and rafters. The man rigging the steel would have to run a single tag line. He'd have to run back and forth depending upon which way the rafter was swinging. It was either that or one or both of the workers in bucket lifts would have to go up and down all day. Bucket lifts don't go very fast in either direction.

The other problem with splitting my crew was the crane. When we started setting columns again, the crane would have to be at the middle of the building where we'd stopped because of the rain. In order to set girders and rafters it would have be at the end of the building where the columns were already plumbed and secured. The crane I had on site would move at the blazing speed of about two miles an hour after the crane operator spent about an hour lowering the boom and retracting the stabilizers. Once the crane was in place, he'd have to do all that in reverse, so we'd spend more time waiting on the crane to change locations than in setting steel.

To add to my problems, on Friday morning my boss called me again and said if the building didn't get back on schedule, he'd have to reconsider the completion bonus I was supposed to get as part of my pay for the job.

}{

It was later that Friday when Sandy pulled onto the site again with a trailer load of steel decking for the roof. She was right on schedule. I still wasn't. The columns were all up, plumbed, and secured in place, but we'd barely started setting the girders and rafters. It would take about three more days to get everything set and welded in place, and then another day to weld in the angles to the bottom chords so the rafters wouldn't twist under load.

We'd also lost another three days because some of the bolt holes in the column bases didn't match the drawing and wouldn't fit on the anchor bolts the concrete guys had cast into the column footers. The engineer who designed the building let us burn new holes, but it took him a day to decide that was an acceptable fix and it took Nate's crew another two days to build a jig and then get them all modified. There was no way I was going to get back on schedule without working Saturdays and probably some Sundays.

Sandy walked over to where I stood watching Nate's crew unloading the stacks of roof decking. Just like the two times before, Nate was personally popping all the load binders and moving the chains out of the way. Sandy watched for a few moments and then chuckled.

"That Nate guy seems to think I should want to hop into bed with him. He said after he got the load unchained, his guys would do the unloading and I could show him the inside of my truck. I don't think he was talking about the steering wheel and gear shift."

I smiled.

"That's Nate. He's a horn dog if there ever was one. From what I hear, the week we couldn't set steel, he met a woman in a bar the first night and spent every night with her in his motel room. That's what he says anyway, but his guys say he had to pay her."

Sandy chuckled again as Nate dragged a chain over a stack of roof deck and then dropped it on the ground.

"Not even if he paid me. He has a beer gut, doesn't seem to like shaving much, and he smells."

She looked at me then and smiled.

"So, how's it going with you? Find your puppy yet?"

"No, it's getting worse. We've lost more time because of an error with some of the columns, and this morning, my boss called me and said if I don't get back on schedule, he'll have to take away my completion bonus. I make pretty good money, but a third of it is in that completion bonus. There's no way I can get back on schedule without spending money. Evidently he's going to balance the increase in cost by having me pay for it."